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What Help Scout’s VP of Brand Considers When Promoting Individual Contributors & People Managers [+ How These Promotions Differ]

Career Development
October 18, 2022/by
What Help Scout's VP of Brand Considers When Promoting Individual Contributors & People Managers There are plenty of perks to getting promoted. Beyond a salary increase, a promotion typically means more influence on your team, more autonomy, and more control over your day-to-day tasks. But to get promoted, you need to do more than just perform well in your current role. You also need to demonstrate new skills that will help you succeed in the next role. Whether you're an individual contributor (IC) or people manager looking to get promoted, you're in luck. Here, I spoke with Help Scout's VP of Brand, Kristen Bryant Smith, to learn what she looks for when promoting both ICs and people managers. In this post, you'll learn: What skills all marketers should focus on when it comes to career growth What factors you need to demonstrate to get promoted as an individual contributor  What factors you need to demonstrate to get promoted as a people manager Let's dive in. Coming Soon: Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader How to Get Promoted as an Individual Contributor or People Manager in 2023  Skills All Marketers Should Focus on for Career Growth, According to Help Scout's VP of Brand To start, I asked Smith about the skills all marketers should develop to stand out in their roles. I'd expected the standard list — strong communication skills, expertise with analytics, or creativity and problem-solving — but Smith started with something...
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6+ Tips for Reducing Job Search Anxiety

Job Search
October 15, 2022/by
6+ Tips for Reducing Job Search Anxiety Are you feeling anxious about your job search? You're not alone. The competition for jobs is fierce and the search can be grueling. In this article, we’ll cover the warning signs that you may be experiencing job search anxiety and the ways to reduce it. What is job search anxiety? Job Search Anxiety Warning Signs How to Deal with Job Search Anxiety Job Search Anxiety Warning Signs It’s important to know the difference between the frustration and nerves that happen during any job search and the anxiety that can impact your mental health. Here are some warning signs that you may be experiencing job search anxiety: Difficulty getting out of bed and/or focusing Increased irritability Disinterest in usual hobbies Feelings of helplessness and/or worthlessness Cluttered and/or dirty space Procrastination It’s important to note that these feelings can arise for anyone during the job search process. It becomes a more important issue once it persists and impacts your ability to live your daily life, as you used to. In the next section, we’ll cover ways to reduce your anxiety and regain control over your job search. How to Deal with Job Search Anxiety Follow a routine. When you have a full-time (or even part-time) job, you’re expected to stick to a schedule. That can be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,...
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Should Marketers Use Pop-Up Forms? A Comprehensive Analysis

Forms
October 15, 2022/by
Should Marketers Use Pop-Up Forms? A Comprehensive Analysis As inbound marketers, we care about creating frictionless experiences for our website visitors that will also generate leads. Most of the time we can do both but in the case of pop-up forms, conflict does emerge. Over the past few years, pop-up forms have re-emerged as a popular marketing tactic for promoting content, driving blog subscriptions, growing email lists, and fueling lead generation. The question is, do pop-up form work? We’ll cover that and more below. What is a pop-up form? Pop-Up Triggers Do pop-up forms work? Tips for Crafting High-Converting Pop-Ups What is a pop-up form? A pop-up form is a window that appears while a user browses a website. It can be triggered by a number of actions, including interactions with an element on the page, scrolling, and inactivity. Pop-ups have become so prevalent that back in 2016, Google weighed in to announce it would start penalizing websites using, what they call, "intrusive interstitials.” But here's the thing: not all pop-ups are bad. When executed well, they can be part of a healthy inbound strategy. However, because of the intrusive and disruptive nature of pop-ups, marketers should be careful of when and how they appear as well as the type of content they present. In other words, context. When they’re appropriate context mixed in with added value, pop-up forms can enhance website visitors’ experience and boost conversion rates. Pop-ups...
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21 Brand Style Guide Examples for Visual Inspiration

Branding
October 14, 2022/by
21 Brand Style Guide Examples for Visual Inspiration Developing a consistent brand starts with creating a brand style guide. These branding rule books help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, community managers, and even product packaging departments all stay on the same page, and present a unified vision of the brand to the public. The best brands stick in our brains because their presence is defined by the repetition of the same logo, fonts, colors, and images. Once we see them enough, they become instantly recognizable, bringing us a clear sense of reliability and security. All of this is possible when each member of your team adheres to a cohesive brand style guide. In this article, we'll go over what brand guidelines are, the elements of a style guide, and some amazing examples of them in action to use as inspiration for your next branding project or website redesign. Picture the most recognizable brands you can think of. Chances are, you've learned to recognize them because of the consistency across the messaging — written or visual — these brands broadcast. The same brand colors are reflected across them. The language sounds familiar. It's all very organized and, while not rigid, it's cohesive. Here are a few types of guidelines you'd find in a brand style guide and which parts of a brand they can influence. Download our free resource on how to create your own style guide with brand guidelines templates to follow. Creating a consistent style...
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The Top Traffic, Conversion, & Lead Trends in Q3: Data & Takeaways from 120,000+ Businesses

Marketing Trends
October 13, 2022/by
The Top Traffic, Conversion, & Lead Trends in Q3: Data & Takeaways from 120,000+ Businesses When it comes to Q4, Halloween isn't the only spooky thing haunting marketers. In fact, the most intimidating part of Q4 is the pressure to end the year with great results, while also taking on immense annual planning to start the new year off right. And, on top of the normal stressors of Q4, businesses are also dealing with concerns about inflation, uncertain economies, and how a potential recession could impact their bottom line. As you enter an uncertain Q4, it will be helpful to gather all the hard data you need to make decisions, including research on how industries like your own have performed in the past few months. This data not only gives you insights into how you're performing against the competition today, but it can also help you create actionable strategies that could enable you to transition from one successful year to another. In this post, we'll highlight how more than 120,000 businesses are performing when it comes to traffic, leads, conversion rates, and email engagement. With this data in mind, we'll also highlight which takeaways you should bring with you during Q4 planning. About this Data: These insights are based on data aggregated from 130,000+ HubSpot customers globally between July 2021 and September 2022. Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that the performance of individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, might differ based on their own markets, customer...
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10 Best Mobile Friendliness Tests [+ What Does it Mean to be Mobile Friendly?]

Mobile Optimization
October 13, 2022/by
10 Best Mobile Friendliness Tests Nobody wants to sit there pinching, poking, and squinting at their phone just to view your website. So it should come as no shock that 50% of people will use a business less often if their site isn’t mobile friendly, according to Google. But how can you be sure that your website is mobile friendly? Sure, you could check it on your own smartphone. But what about the hundreds of other kinds of phones and tablets that your visitors are using? Today we’ll cover a selection of mobile friendliness tests that will give you clear answers and actionable tips. For each test, we’ll put our own site through the wringer, so you can make an apples-to-apples comparison of the results. Then we’ll take a look at what it means to be mobile friendly and how it can impact your SEO. But first… what even is a mobile friendliness test? What is a mobile friendly test? 10 Best Mobile-Friendliness Tests What does it mean to be mobile friendly? Does mobile friendliness affect SEO? Is responsive the same thing as mobile friendly? A good mobile friendliness test will look at a wide range of factors. These include technical factors such as: Site speed CSS and Javascript use Plugins like Flash or Java They’ll also include usability factors like: Is the text readable without zooming? Does the content fit...
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