Adaptive marketing: Proven strategies for growing companies The best marketing isn't chiseled in stone. Apative marketing is alive, responding to new tools, shifting consumer preferences, trends, and real-time data. Changing with the trends gives brands a competitive edge, if marketing teams handle it correctly. Many traditional marketing tactics (like brochures, billboards, and magazine ads) aren't adaptable. Digital marketing can always be tweaked and improved based on performance. Tools like Marketing Hub use data-driven segments to help create adaptive, personalized offers. Adaptive marketing offers a greater competitive edge than ever before. An adaptive marketing approach gives brands the flexibility to respond to real-time data about trends, user behavior, and market shifts. Do this well, and the result is enhanced customer engagement with a direct impact on revenue. Here are the tools, frameworks, and strategies to leverage in your brand's strategy. Table of Contents Adaptive Marketing Examples and Use Cases What is adaptive marketing? Why Adaptive Marketing Works Adaptive Marketing Strategies Tools to Power Your Adaptive Marketing Strategy How to Measure and Iterate Adaptive Marketing Campaigns What's Next for Adaptive Marketing With AI Frequently Asked Questions About Adaptive Marketing Strategies What is adaptive marketing? Adaptive marketing is a flexible strategy where brands continuously adjust their marketing in response to real-time signals, such as trends, world events, customer behavior, and changes in technology. Some signals and responses include: Customer behavior, which can trigger personalized offers based on pages...

Intent-based marketing: How to target ready buyers In business, to waste time is to waste money so you need a strategy that is efficient and the best use of your resources. With that in mind, intent-based marketing is an optimal strategy for marketers who want to ensure they are reaching audiences who have a genuine interest in what their business has to offer. But what is intent-based marketing and how is it different from traditional or account-based marketing. Let's dive in. Table of Contents What is intent-based marketing, and how is it different from ABM? Why Intent-based Marketing Matters Now How to Start Intent-based Marketing Intent Signals to Gather and Track How to Activate Intent-based Targeting Across Channels AI in Intent-driven Marketing How to Measure and Optimize Intent-driven Marketing 3 Intent-based Marketing Playbooks You Can Copy Frequently Asked Questions About Intent-based Marketing What is intent-based marketing, and how is it different from ABM? Intent-based marketing (IBM) is a strategy that focuses on delivering targeted messages to consumers based on their online behavior and preferences. Intent-based marketing differs from account-based marketing (ABM) in that ABM targets specific high-value accounts while IBM targets accounts that are actively searching for solutions. For intent-based marketing, you'll want a Smart CRM like HubSpot that utilizes AI automation to identify prospects who are actively showing interest and exhibiting buying signals, allowing you to prioritize and engage at the perfect time. Furthermore, you‘ll...

Here’s how to prove marketing’s pipeline value & revenue impact to your CFO Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are wired to want proof, not promises. While we marketers light up at impressions, and engagement — excuse the stars in my eyes — CFOs focus on revenue, risk, and return. This clash of professional love languages can create friction in budget conversations, performance reviews, and board meetings. I’ve experienced this tension too many times to count, over the years. My teams knew that sales couldn’t have closed without our marketing, but with so many touchpoints and an evolving data climate, it became increasingly difficult to prove. Thankfully, we’ve found our ways. This guide will share exactly how to use automated attribution reporting to show finance the metrics they want, bridge the communication gap between departments, and ultimately win the budget you deserve. Table of Contents Why does pipeline influence reporting matter? What metrics do CFOs actually care about? Which attribution models do CFOs prefer? How to Show Marketing’s Impact to the CFO Step-by-Step How to Handle Long Sales Cycles and Multi-year Deals in Pipeline Value Reporting Addressing Dark Funnel and Offline Attribution Why does pipeline influence reporting matter? Simply put, pipeline value attribution matters because it shows why you’re worth the investment. I mean, if a business is spending more than it’s making with any effort, it isn’t financially wise, right? That’s why CFOs need to see the numbers. But why is...

How to prepare for, navigate, and thrive through summer slumps — according to marketing experts Every summer, a familiar shift hits marketing teams. Engagement cools, inboxes slow, and campaign results taper off just as internal pressure starts to heat up. Clients pause new projects. Content calendars fill with refreshes and lighter lifts. And whether you’re in-house or freelance, it can feel like you’re sprinting in place. As a content strategist for B2B SaaS companies, I’ve seen this cycle enough times to know it’s usually seasonal. Audiences pull back. Priorities change. And attention spans get stretched thin by travel, time off, and a general tilt toward rest. But this year’s slump may feel heavier. Between tariffs, new tax rules, rising platform costs, and persistent inflation, many companies are tightening budgets, and that makes every dip in performance feel more urgent than usual. Still, a summer slowdown isn’t a failure. It’s a signal. In this guide, I’ll show you how experienced marketers plan around it, adjust expectations, and use this time not just to stay afloat, but to get strategically ahead. Table of Contents Signs of Summer Slumps in Marketing Preventing Summer Slumps Preparing for Summer Slowdowns How I Use Summer to Strengthen My Client Work Signs of Summer Slumps in Marketing Summer slumps don’t always show up as dramatic drops in leads or revenue. More often, they start with smaller signals — subtle shifts in audience behavior that are easy to misread...

The state of inclusive marketing in 2025 Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. The Unstereotype Alliance studied 300+ global brands and found that those who create inclusive advertisements brought in 5% higher short-term sales and 16% higher long-term sales, as well as a 62% higher likelihood of a brand being a customer's first choice. The study results tell me that inclusive marketing resonates with consumers. It shows them that marketers understand their needs, how to meet them and care about their experiences. It's also clearly good for business. Despite this, inclusive marketing isn't a commonplace practice. So, for this piece, I surveyed 100+ marketing and advertising professionals about whether they practice inclusive marketing and how they implement it and got tips from inclusivity experts on how businesses can create an effective inclusive marketing strategy. Table of Contents State of Inclusive Marketing in 2025 Goals, Benefits, & Impact of Inclusive Marketing How Companies Are Practicing Inclusive Marketing Challenges and Barriers of Inclusive Marketing Inclusive Marketing Best Practices The Future of Inclusive Marketing What inspired me to conduct this research? Inclusive marketing recognizes consumers' different identities (like race or disability status) and...

What's a Marketing Audit? Being a marketer in today’s landscape is equal parts exciting and terrifying, am I right? But a marketing audit has never been more crucial. The competition is fierce, and with AI on the horizon, it’s difficult to tell what the future will bring in the next five years or so. If you haven’t revisited your marketing strategy for a few years, or you’re seeing some key metrics drop, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to the bottom of it. That’s what a marketing audit will help you with. In this piece, we'll take a closer look at marketing audits, the best time to conduct one, and a few best practices to pull one off. Table of Contents What is a marketing audit? Elements of a Marketing Audit Who does a marketing audit? When should I do a marketing audit? How to Do a Marketing Audit Marketing Audit Example To get the best results, your marketing audit should be objective, systematic, and recurring. The objective is to ensure it's free of bias. A systematic approach ensures your audit is structured, organized, and measurable. A recurring audit helps you discover and address problems early on. Keep in mind that a marketing audit can encompass your entire operation or a subset of it — such as a...

The Rise of Free SaaS Tools as Lead Magnets (& How Marketers Can Take Advantage) As Wiz’s Head of Marketing Tom Orbach says, “Mini tools are 10x more powerful than free trials.” For the last 20 years, tech marketers have been giving away e-books and PDFs. I think Orbach would agree that this era is coming to an end. Thanks to AI, no-code, and outsourcing, the smartest tech marketers are now giving away mini software tools … entirely for free. This is something I like to call ‘free tool marketing.’ Here’s how it works. What is free tool marketing? In MBA speak, free tools are referred to as ‘loss leaders.’ A loss leader is a free-ish mini product that gets customers to buy a bigger product. For a perfume company, it might be a free sample of perfume at the mall. For my hometown gas station, Wawa, it was free coffee every Tuesday in 2024. Now, in tech, the norm is to give away free tools to get you in the door for paid ones. But how do you figure out which mini tool(s) to build? There are two main ways: 1. Look for low-difficulty, high-volume keywords. The goal here is to snag a little bit of traffic that may be interested in your paid software. You’re not gonna rank for your niche’s main keyword overnight, but mini tools are like mini bets. Each mini tool gives you a better shot at ranking higher for your most important...

What is a Mind Map? Exploring a Powerful Tool for Creative Problem Solving Do you ever struggle to visualize your ideas or consolidate your thoughts in one place? I certainly have. As a marketer, generating numerous ideas for campaigns, collateral, and messaging is essential — yet managing them can be challenging without proper documentation. Without a clear, organized visual for others to follow, communicating said ideas becomes even more difficult. That's why creating a mind map is my go-to solution to address these challenges. In this article, I’ll explain what a mind map is, how you can use it to articulate ideas more effectively, and provide you with a free template to use on your own. Let's dive in. Table of Contents What is a mind map? How to Make a Mind Map What is mind mapping? Mind Map Uses Mind Map Examples Marketers typically use mind maps as a strategic tool to explore and structure marketing concepts like identifying target audiences and campaign themes and facilitating creative thinking and planning. Oftentimes, marketers refer to this type of planning as “mind mapping” itself. What is mind mapping? Mind mapping is the process of creating a mind map to visually organize information, ideas, or concepts. Now that I‘ve explained the basics, let’s discuss different reasons why you might want to make one of your own. Mind Map Uses 1....

Implementing AI in Your Marketing Tech Stack — Tips and Tricks You Need to Know Long before ChatGPT, I worked with clients who used AI and machine learning to speed up data analysis at scale. Their enthusiasm about AI's ability to improve everything from business operations to AI marketing funnels piqued my interest. So when ChatGPT took over the news cycle, after my initial skepticism, I haven’t looked back. While it’s always important to take AI with a grain of salt, it provides companies of all sizes opportunities to personalize marketing, deepen customer intimacy, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing programs. More importantly, it lowers the barrier to entry for sophisticated marketing efforts, improving the way we can interact with and build on customer relationships. So let’s get into how you can incorporate AI into your marketing funnel. Table of Contents AI and the Marketing Funnel Understanding The Buyer Journey How to Build a Marketing Funnel With AI Tips for Making the Most of AI in Your Marketing Funnel and MarTech Operations AI and the Marketing Funnel Before you and I have any conversation about how AI can improve the marketing funnel, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what marketing funnels are and how they work. Why? I strongly feel that before you can automate something, you need a solid understanding of how it works so you know...