The Ultimate Guide to Using WhatsApp for Business in 2020

April 16, 2020/by admin

The Ultimate Guide to Using WhatsApp for Business in 2020 Does your business offer international services, but you've found it hard to connect with global customers in a personalized, cost-effective way? Do you, as a marketer, struggle with offering one-on-one experiences with customers when you're not online? Marketing messages are hard, right? But they don't have to be. Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite app for customer relationships: WhatsApp. Now, if you've just read that and thought, "WhatsApp? What's that? And how is an app going to help?" That's understandable. Allow HubSpot's Head of Conversational Marketing, Connor Cirillo, to break it down: "WhatsApp has become the center of gravity for billions of users around the world. It's where we message the people we care about most — like our friends and family," he says. He continues by noting that, "Businesses always want to build relationships and meet customers where they are. WhatsApp can become one of the most important marketing channels." Even though the app is the most popular global mobile messaging service, WhatsApp commonly isn't known as a tool for businesses. For instance, just over 7% of marketers use WhatsApp for business. However, while on the surface it may seem like WhatsApp is just another messaging service, there are tools built in the app that are great for maintaining strong customer relationships and cultivating lead generation. But, what exactly is WhatsApp, and what does it do? To use WhatsApp, you have to download the...

Read Full Story

34 Millennial Stats That Marketers Need to Know

Marketing Trends

April 15, 2020/by admin

34 Millennial Stats That Marketers Need to Know As a millennial, I grew up in a constantly changing era. While I'm young enough to understand the latest technology, I grew up in a time where you needed a real encyclopedia to do your homework -- rather than Wikipedia. Millennials are wedged between two very different generations. Before us, we have Gen Xers who didn't own computers until they were in college, and after us, we have Gen Zers, who've been basically playing iPad games since birth. If you're a marketer in almost any industry, you'll need to reach someone at the millennial audience at some point. After all, we're already more than one-quarter of the world population and spend a whopping $600 billion in the U.S. each year. Now and in the future, it will be absolutely vital to learn about this generation, debunk the biggest misconceptions around them, and develop strategies that will truly engage this unique but prominent age group. To keep you informed about crucial aspects of my generation, I've collected more than 30 helpful stats and facts related to population, our digital habits, common motivations, work and home life habits, and cultural views. General Stats and Market Opportunities There are 831 million millennials, representing one-quarter of the world population. (U.S. Census) The millennial generation spends roughly $600 billion in the U.S. per year. (Accenture) Globally, millennials are projected to spend $1.4 trillion on shopping in 2020. (Accenture) Millennials make up half...

Read Full Story

How to Pivot Your Content Plan in a Rush

Content Planning

April 15, 2020/by admin

How to Pivot Your Content Plan in a Rush Imagine this: as a content marketer, things are going pretty well for you — you're confident about your upcoming campaign, the ROI from your last couple were stellar, and projections for the new one looked just as good, if not better, than ever before. And then something happened. Maybe it's a sudden trend or global event that diverts your audience's attention. Or, perhaps a competitor's campaign launch has everyone talking, and you're unsure if your current content strategy is good enough to outshine theirs. Regardless, this shift has impacted your company directly, which means, your entire campaign is impacted directly. With that being said, now you have to decide if you need to pivot your content plan — and quickly. But how do you respond to an event like this? We asked HubSpot managers to give their insights about how to navigate major changes that alter your content planning. In this post, we'll learn what they have to say. We'll go over how to identify when you need to pivot quickly, and strategies you can take in order to make that transition as smooth as possible. How to Pivot Your Content Plan When something major happens to alter your content strategy, think about how it will affect your business goals. After all, the content you're creating reflects the goals of your business. "The content HubSpot creates is intended to help businesses around the world grow better by addressing their...

Read Full Story

How to Conduct Successful Remote Interviews, According to HubSpot’s Recruitment Coordinator

Remote Working

April 15, 2020/by admin

How to Conduct Successful Remote Interviews, According to HubSpot's Recruitment Coordinator For your business to thrive, it's undeniably critical you set up a process for conducting effective interviews — and, in 2020, it's equally vital you create a comprehensive virtual interview strategy, as well. As a Program Coordinator on HubSpot's Recruiting Operations Team, I'm familiar with the struggles of creating a cohesive remote interview experience. But, as HubSpot continues to grow globally, I also know how important it is to create a scalable remote candidate interviewing process. Plus, at HubSpot, we have a strong commitment to global-first and remote inclusion — so further developing our remote interview practices only makes sense. While there's no "secret sauce" to remote interviewing, we've iterated on a process that helps both candidates and interviewers have strong, purposeful conversations virtually. Here, I'm going to tell you about the best practices we've learned as a result of listening to both candidate and interviewer feedback, so you can learn how to create your own powerful virtual recruitment process in 2020. 1. Be human, and keep the personal touch. While it’s a bit harder to make a personal connection when interviewing remotely, putting in the extra effort can be the difference between an average and remarkable candidate experience. There are many ways to do this, but some efforts our candidates are loving are: Providing 15-minute prep calls with recruiters if candidates are nervous about interviewing remotely. We want to set up candidates for success, so having...

Read Full Story

How Slack’s VP Aligns His Remote Teams and Encourages Cross-department Collaboration

Remote Working

April 14, 2020/by admin

How Slack’s VP Aligns His Remote Teams and Encourages Cross-department Collaboration In 2020, working remotely is now more popular than ever. In fact, over 60% of U.S. employees between the ages of 22 and 65 say they work remotely at least occasionally — and 99% of people would choose to work remotely, at least part-time, if they could. As a fellow part-time remote employee (I typically work from home two days a week), I can understand the benefits. For instance, I find I get the most 'heads down' work done during those two days. Without the opportunity for kitchen chats, friendly debates with my desk-mates on the recent Cats movie, and hour-long team lunches, I'm incredibly productive. Of course, there are plenty of challenges that come with remote work, as well. To name a few: awkward pauses during meetings when my computer freezes, an inability to have off-the-cuff brainstorming conversations with colleagues, and the lack of random check-ins from people around the office. These challenges, while legitimate, become easier to manage with online communication tools like Zoom and Slack. Which brings me to my point: if there's anyone I'd imagine could handle remote challenges with ease, it's Brad Armstrong, the Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Slack, one of the world's most popular workplace messaging platforms (the tool is already widely used at HubSpot, as well as major brands like IBM, Target, and Cole Haan). At Slack, Armstrong is responsible for partnerships, alliances, the Slack Fund, and...

Read Full Story

How to Do A/B Testing: A Checklist You’ll Want to Bookmark

A/B Testing

April 14, 2020/by admin

How to Do A/B Testing: A Checklist You'll Want to Bookmark When marketers like us create landing pages, write email copy, or design call-to-action buttons, it can be tempting to use our intuition to predict what will make people click and convert. But basing marketing decisions off of a "feeling" can be pretty detrimental to results. Rather than relying on guesses or assumptions to make these decisions, you're much better off running an A/B test — sometimes called a split test. A/B testing can be valuable because different audiences behave, well, differently. Something that works for one company may not necessarily work for another. In fact, conversion rate optimization (CRO) experts hate the term "best practices" because it may not actually be the best practice for you. But A/B tests can also be complex. If you're not careful, you could make incorrect assumptions about what people like and what makes them click — decisions that could easily misinform other parts of your strategy. Keep reading to learn how to do A/B testing before, during, and after data collection so you can make the best decisions from your results. To run an A/B test, you need to create two different versions of one piece of content, with changes to a single variable. Then, you'll show these two versions to two similarly sized audiences and analyze which one performed better over a specific period of time (long enough to make accurate conclusions about your results). Source...

Read Full Story

How Much You Should Actually Spend on Digital Advertising in 2020

Advertising

April 14, 2020/by admin

How Much You Should Actually Spend on Digital Advertising in 2020 If you clicked on this post hoping to read something like "If you spend $1,000 dollars on digital advertising a month, you'll hit your marketing goals easily!" I'm sorry to disappoint. When it comes to ad spend, there just isn't a perfect answer for every business. I know, it sounds like a cop-out, but I promise you it's true. Now, you might be thinking, So, why am I even reading this post, anyways? While I can't tell you how much money you should spend on digital ads this year, I can walk you through a framework to help you decide on your own optimal ad spend. Ultimately, here's what you should think about when deciding how much you should spend on digital advertising: How much investment is needed in order to hit my revenue goals? What percentage of my marketing budget can I realistically afford to spend? What is the lifetime value (LTV) of my average customer? How well am I converting website visitors into leads, and leads into customers? How much money am I spending on each bid? At the end of this post, you'll know how to use historical data to determine how much money you need to spend to hit your business goals and how to optimize your efforts to get the most out of each advertising dollar. Sound good? Let's jump in. How Much Investment is Needed to Hit...

Read Full Story

How 8 Brands Use Instagram Story Swipe Ups

Marketing Trends

April 13, 2020/by admin

How 8 Brands Use Instagram Story Swipe Ups As a marketer, you know you've got what it takes to build and manage an incredible Instagram page. For instance, you've made your business' account branded so it aligns with your company, filled it with eye-catching posts, and turned the page into a great outlet to encourage audience engagement. Everything … well … almost everything, is going smoothly. The tiny snag: How in the world are you supposed to make Instagram Stories Swipe Ups worthwhile, for your audience and your ROI? Instagram is one of the most widely-used platforms for marketing efforts, but only 21% of marketers are seeing a return on investment from their Instagram strategy. You might be experiencing the same snafu — you're putting a lot of effort into your Instagram, like adding Stories, but they're not earning the traffic you need. The problem may not be in your content, though. It could be your delivery. But don't worry — in this post, we're going to cover some strategies you can do to give your Story viewership a 180, as well as take a look at what other brands are doing to make their Stories a worthwhile tool in their content strategies. Let's go over some best practices for driving traffic to your Instagram Stories before we get into how to leverage the Swipe Up tool. Best Practices for Driving Instagram Story Traffic Are you keeping these practices in mind when you go to upload your Story?...

Read Full Story

Unstructured Data Vs. Structured Data: A 3-Minute Rundown

Structured Data

April 10, 2020/by admin

Unstructured Data Vs. Structured Data: A 3-Minute Rundown Most marketers think being data-driven means using web metrics to inform every decision they make. But that's not actually being data-driven. That's being Google Analytics-driven. To truly be data-driven, we must remind ourselves of the actual definition of data -- all types of information. One of the most insightful types of information is qualitative data or unstructured data. It can reveal your customers' true opinions and feelings toward your brand, which is challenging to extract from quantitative data or structured data. Even Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, is a passionate proponent of using qualitative data to drive strategy. "The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. And there's something wrong with the way you are measuring (your data)," he explained during an onstage interview at George Bush Presidential Center. Bezos' love for customer feedback shouldn't compel you to supplant quantitative data with qualitative data when strategizing your next marketing campaign, though. It should compel you to inform your strategy with both sources of data. By combining the insights pulled from web metrics and customer feedback, you can get a full understanding of your marketing program's effectiveness. If you want a deeper explanation of what qualitative or unstructured data and quantitative or structured data is, check out this quick rundown of what both data sources exactly are and which tools you can use to store and analyze them. It's also...

Read Full Story