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Polaris Software Adds New Role to Oversee Product Strategy Across Global SaaS Business ST LOUIS, Missouri, May 17, 2022 – Polaris Software, a leading provider of sales and marketing software, announced today that the company has hired Jeff Zimmerman as its first product leader to oversee product strategy across Polaris’ three global sales and marketing…
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Last Updated on May 16, 2022 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How to convert listview filters for use in SOQL?  Objectives: After reading this blog, you’ll be able to: Convert list view filters to equivalent SOQL Export records from list view to excel spreadsheet Understand the list views
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To understand the importance of resilience in the workplace, let’s start with an example.
Let’s say your company has just been acquired by a major corporation. This means your organization is about to undergo some major changes — including your workplace culture, leadership structure, and even your team’s goals and objectives.
When it comes time to deliver the message to your marketing team, however, you’re surprised by their reactions. While there is some trepidation, most of your employees are upbeat, positive, and excited about the new opportunities and challenges ahead of them.
Their reaction doesn’t mean they aren’t also hesitant, nervous, or unsure of the future. It simply means that your team feels secure, confident, and capable of taking on those new challenges, whatever they may be.
This is the power of workforce resiliency.
Here, we’ll dive into why workforce resiliency is one of the strongest predictors of long-term employee satisfaction and retention. Plus, how to build a more resilient workforce, according to leaders who’ve done it.

What is workforce resilience?
To understand workforce resiliency, we first need to define what resiliency is.
As Merriam-Webster defines it, resiliency is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change”.
Essentially, a resilient person is someone who can adapt well to life’s unexpected challenges, stresses, and uncertainties.

Birdeye’s Head of People & Culture Camille Boothe told me, “When I think about resilience, certain thoughts come to mind — like adaptability, the ability to recover quickly, inner strength, and the ability to navigate challenges with a positive state of mind.”

So … what does resiliency matter for the workplace?
Workforce resiliency is, simply put, a group of employees who feel stable, secure, and capable of handling a workplace’s challenges, daily stresses, and organizational changes without losing engagement or motivation.
As Boothe puts it, “Why is resiliency important in the workplace? Because many employees cite workplace stress as the #1 stressor in their lives. That is why building a strong culture of resilience is essential for the success and well-being of employees.”
To put workforce resiliency into context, consider the past two years: Most businesses have made large-scale changes as a result of the pandemic.
Many companies shifted to an entirely remote lifestyle, and then shifted again towards hybrid or in-person once restrictions had been lifted.
Some leaders quit; while others made drastic changes to their strategies, goals, and future vision.
And yet … some businesses saw much higher turnover rates than others. Why is that?
Ultimately, the more resilient your workforce is, the more adept they are at handling business changes and industry shifts without feeling too much frustration, distrust, or uncertainty over how those changes will impact their livelihood.
Essentially, resiliency builds the opportunity for flexibility.
On the flip side, a non-resilient workforce is one that feels vulnerable, mistrustful of leadership, or tired and de-motivated. These are the workers who are most likely to quit, or who feel incapable of handling workplace changes with any sense of confidence or security.
Workforce resiliency is a strong component of long-term employee retention, and can help you build and maintain an effective and engaging workplace culture even when difficult situations arise. It’s important to consider workforce resiliency as the necessary backbone of any effective, strong company culture. Without resiliency, all the beer-on-tap and ping pong tables in the world can’t deter your employees from leaving.

Benefits of Workforce Resilience
If you’re still unsure of the benefits of workforce resiliency, let’s consider the data:

BetterUp found highly-resilient people were 31% more productive during the pandemic than low-resilience workers.
BetterUp also found resilience led to higher innovation (+22%), higher cognitive flexibility (+20%), and more novelty of ideas (+20%).
ADP Research Institute found engagement and workplace resilience to be positively correlated — in fact, engagement explains 64% of resilience.
ADP also found workers who experienced at least five changes at work were 13.2X more likely to be highly resilient.

All of which is to say: Work can be hard, and it can be particularly difficult to remain productive at work when an employee’s life is shifting dramatically as a result of unforeseen circumstances (like, say, a pandemic).
Resiliency, then, can help mitigate these stresses by providing a ‘safety net’ around the employee and helping them remain focused, positive, and engaged even during stressful times.
So — that’s all well and good. But, as a leader, how do you build resiliency? And, perhaps even more importantly, how do you maintain it?

How do you build workforce resilience? 
1. Bake it into your employee initiatives. 
To start, I spoke with leaders across organizations at Birdeye, Plecto, Alyce, Casted, and HubSpot to uncover tactical methods for developing resiliency in your workforce.
Boothe told me, “At Birdeye, we value resiliency and seek to develop that skill within our teams every day. We coach patience, empathy, control, and seeing change as an opportunity rather than a setback.”
She adds, “We recognize the factors that lead to resilience include optimism, balancing difficult emotions, and a sense of safety in a strong support system,” Boothe told me, adding that they’ve focused on three key initiatives at Birdeye to strengthen resiliency.
These include: 

Focusing on physical and mental health. Birdeye provides unlimited PTO and mental health days companywide for employees to rest and rejuvenate as needed. This gives employees a mindset to stay relaxed, even in the face of stressful situations.
Flexible work schedules. Birdeye is in a primary work-from-home mode which allows employees to gain better work-life balance and stress management.
Employee Resource Groups (ERG)/Social Connections. Birdeye builds relationships and connections for employees to leverage for support, as well as participate in forums and discussions on Mindfulness and Meditation.

Boothe adds, “We see resiliency as a competitive advantage and feel that building resilience is just good business sense.”
Along with employee resource groups, you might consider looking into trainings specifically focused on building resilience.

Additionally, you might consider offering your employees the chance to choose which employee benefits matter most to them, and enabling them to invest in whichever perks would best suit their lifestyles. 
As Alyce’s VP of People, Tori Oellers, told me, “The ‘power of choice’ is a core tenant of our platform. and we see first-hand how successful campaigns can be when you put the choice in the hands of recipients. We take that same philosophy with many of our benefits.”
She adds, “Rather than carving out various specialized programs and partnerships, we have made it simple by allocating budget to various stipends that provide our team the power of choice to utilize the benefits in a way that is supportive for them as an individual.”

Oellers told me, “Recognizing and operationalizing ways to recognize your people as individuals ensures that each person is getting what they need to be successful and foster resiliency.”

Finally, providing educational resources for your leaders to train themselves on building agility in the face of adversity can help you effectively strengthen resiliency from the top-down. The Agility Factor, by Christopher G. Worley, Thomas Williams, Edward E. Lawler III is a good option for helping your leaders’ uncover how to build agility — and thus resilience — within an organization.
2. Emulate resiliency as a leader.
To build resilience in your workforce, you’ll want to emulate it as a leader. For instance, let’s say you’re delivering the difficult news that leadership has decided to cut budgeting for a marketing project that’s already in-the-works.

As Jordan DiPietro, VP of HubSpot Media, told me, “Your team is always looking to you as their leader for guidance, strategic direction, and advice — and they’re also looking to you as an emotional compass. If you get way too high, or way too low, they will ride those waves with you.”

He adds, “As someone leading a massive team, I’ve needed to figure out a way to stay more even-keeled. For some people that’s easy because they are naturally steady and composed. However, I tend to be less equable — so I have to work hard to not let that reflect in my leadership.”
To remain steady during stressful or tumultuous times, DiPietro recommends leaders aim to minimize meetings and outward communication on days when they’re feeling overly stressed. On the flip side, he suggests leaders also attempt to curtail too much excitement — while it’s important to celebrate your team’s successes, you don’t want to go overboard with your emotions in either direction. 
DiPietro adds, “The one thing you can count on is that business will ebb and flow, and there will always be peaks and valleys. The more you can smooth those out for your team, the more resilient they will act throughout those times.”
Additionally, as a leader you can emulate resiliency by modeling flexibility. As Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted, told me, “At Casted, we prioritize flexibility and allowing team members to choose what a flexible workday looks like to them — whether that’s working the conventional 9 a.m to 5 p.m., taking long lunches to attend a favorite workout class, logging off earlier some days to spend time with kids before they go to bed, or whatever suits each individual.”
Tjepkema adds, “If we want our teams to believe that we value flexibility, we have to model it. I share my own needs for flexibility openly with the team. They know if I have a hair appointment or a family event. When they see me or another leader communicating our availability and using that flexibility, it empowers them to do the same.”
Ultimately, your resilience as a leader is contagious. In fact, highly-resilient team leaders have direct reports who experience 52% less burnout, and have roughly 80% lower intention of leaving the organization.

3. Focus on the physical and mental health aspects of resiliency.
Did you know people are 3.5X more likely to be resilient if they have good physical health?
Providing your employees with the resources necessary to remain strong phsyically — including fitness reimbursements, flexible work schedules to go on walks or runs during lunch, and even fun workplace fitness competitions — is vital for ensuring long-term resiliency.
For instance, as CEO and Co-founder of Plecto, Kristian Øllegaard, told me, “We’re an ambitious company and thrive on striving to be the best, so contests are a natural fit for the team. Most recently, we challenged the whole company to a push-up competition! The motivation to get involved and outperform colleagues was felt company-wide. This kind of fun-loving team spirit is what makes Plecto the place to be, where we build resilience and genuine relationships.”
If your workers are burnt out, exhausted, and depleted, they won’t have the energy to take care of their physical health, and it will ultimately take its toll on your employees, and your bottom-line.
Additionally, mental health is just as important as physical. Resiliency requires a healthy mindset where people are open to change and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes. This can only happen through practice.
Mindfulness and yoga are two effective opportunities to practice building resiliency, so consider how you might provide these options through a discounted mindfulness app subscription, or by bringing yoga to the office.
Additionally, therapy can be incredibly helpful for those who struggle to adjust to change, so perhaps you can try offering services such as Modern Health to your team for further mental health consultations.
Finally — encourage your team to take time off. As DiPietro puts it, “People are more resilient when they have had time to relax and reset! Nobody is meant to grind and not take breaks. The mind needs to untether from work and people need to feel like it’s okay to completely unplug without their team or performance suffering.”
He adds, “Leading by example isn’t enough here. Instead, every few months I ask each of my direct reports, ‘Hey, when is your next vacation?’ If they don’t have one planned, I follow up in each one-on-one until they make plans. I have found that the directness of my approach gives my reports the feeling of freedom to actually take time off — because if they don’t, I’m going to keep bothering them about it. Force your employees to take time off. You will be rewarded for it!”
4. Practice transparency within your organization as a whole.
No matter how resilient your workforce is, they won’t feel comfortable or optimistic about company-wide or team-wide changes if they don’t understand the why behind the change.
This is where transparency comes into play. While you don’t have to over-explain, divulge confidential information, or apologize for your decisions, your team does deserve to understand the background context of the change and how leadership hopes it will impact the future of the company.
Øllegaard adds, “Since the beginning, business transparency and celebrating success have been at the heart of the Plecto culture. It’s no secret when it’s a record-breaking (or slower) month at Plecto. It’s hard to ignore the TVs around the office with dashboards of each team’s key performance metrics, which are broadcasted for everyone to see. What’s important is being completely transparent about how the company is performing.”
For instance, let’s say your CMO has issued a re-org — and, as part of the change, your social media team will move from under the Content Team VP to under the Brand Strategy VP.
When you deliver this news to your team, you’ll want to explain the context behind the decision.
For instance, you might say, “We’ve decided it makes more sense to have the social team live under Brand Strategy, since the Brand Strategy teams share a common goal of brand awareness. By contrast, most other Content teams share the goal of lead generation, which doesn’t make as much sense for our team’s purpose.”
Ultimately, transparency can build trust, which goes a long way towards making your employees comfortable, and even excited, about upcoming workplace events.
Workforce Resilience Examples
Finally, let’s dive into a few examples of workplace resilience to see how this looks in practice.
1. Staying calm with last-minute requests.
Your SEO team is getting ready for the holiday season when your VP tasks you with a major request: Please put together a memo of your 2023 vision, including areas of opportunity and pre-existing at-risk content, within one week.
When you tell your team, they immediately jump into action. They decide to stay after work, order takeout, and prep the doc together. Your employees are energized and confident that they can meet the deadline, and they’re excited about the challenge. By the end of the week they’ve created a flashy, engaging, compelling 2023 vision, and they can’t wait to hear the VP’s thoughts.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
Even though the request is last-minute, your team feels comfortable handling the shift in priorities. A low-resilience team would’ve felt discouraged, frustrated, or uninterested in working on the task so close to the holidays, but this high-resilience team was able to shift their mindset quickly and look at the task from a more positive perspective: as a chance to impress leadership and get excited about the year ahead.
2. Taking risks and seeking out new challenges.
On Tuesday, your direct report comes to you with a pitch deck she’s put together in which she’s outlined why it’s a good idea to embed YouTube videos into existing blog posts.
It’s risky — your blog team hasn’t tried incorporating videos before, so there’s no prior evidence that it will be successful. However, your direct report has data from other brands to showcase how videos can increase blog traffic and time-on-page.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
Risk-taking is all about willingly venturing into unknown territory … something a low-resilience person is unlikely to do. In this case, your employee is demonstrating resilience by showcasing her open-mindedness to test out new ideas and innovate, as well as her engagement and commitment to your team’s success. A low-resilient employee would likely feel less engaged and less willing to take risks.
3. Remaining positive and upbeat.
When you tell your employees your director is leaving your company for another role, they are saddened by the news. She has been an effective leader for the team for a number of years.
However, they are not fearful, mistrustful, or anxious. Instead, they understand this is the best next step for the director, and suggest ideas for a goodbye party. The vibe is ultimately positive and optimistic.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
When a beloved leader leaves the company, it’s always a sad experience, but high-resilience employees can see the bright side of the situation and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes they could experience in their own roles as a result of the director’s departure. Instead, they trust your leadership and the organization at-large will continue to meet their expectations.
4. Handling constructive feedback well.
In a recent performance review, you tell your employee that he’s been underperforming. He’s missed a few deadlines, and recently arrived unprepared to a meeting with a client.
Your employee is unsurprised by this information, and responds calmly: “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this with me. I will give what you’ve said serious consideration, and reach out next week to plan a follow-up where we can discuss how I can improve my performance.”
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
A highly-resilient employee is likely effective at positive self-talk and harnessing optimism in the face of adversity. Additionally, resiliency enables people to handle rejection more smoothly by seeing it as an opportunity to grow.
Ultimately, you can’t always control the situations that arise in your workplace. But what you can control, if you’ve laid a foundation of resilience, is how your team reacts to those changes. The more resilient your employees are, the more likely they are to be happy, engaged, and motivated at work.
Taking the time to teach and foster resilience in your workforce isn’t easy, but in the long run, it will enable your team to more efficiently and willingly handle all the challenges thrown their way.

Streaming is ubiquitous. From from services like Netflix to user-generated content on YouTube, we’re all streaming video online. As customers are consuming more video content, video marketing has become an integral part of marketing strategies. All of this is made possible by codecs.

We’ll explain what codecs are, why you need them, and how they make streaming high quality content possible.
What is a codec?
A codec is a term used to describe a computer program that can encode and decode data. Their main purpose is to compress data, particularly media. Without them, audio and video files would be too large to transfer over the internet.
A combination of “encoder” and “decoder,” a codec is used to encode data into a format that can be stored or transmitted and viewed later with its corresponding decoder. Essentially you won’t be able to play audio or video files unless they are paired with their corresponding decoder.
What is a video codec?
A video codec compresses and decompresses digital video files. The software takes large video files and compresses them so they take up less space on your computer or device. A popular video codec is MPEG, which was established by the Moving Picture Experts Group. The MPEG suite of codecs is a popular choice due to its high quality video display with relatively low data rates.
Other Common Types of Codecs
1. MP3
Most of us are familiar with MP3s. This popular audio codec changed the music industry, allowing people to listen to and share music online, store it on their phones, and computers. 
2. WAV
Created by IBM and Microsoft, Waveform (WAV) is an uncompressed audio format. Unlike MP3s it’s not meant for sharing audio files online since it takes up too much space. Instead WAV is best used in areas that need higher quality audio like radio, television, and editing music.
3. HEVC
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a popular compressed video format. In fact, many phones and smart TVs already have built-in hardware to support HEVC playback. Since it doesn’t require much bandwidth, HEVC has become the go-to format for streaming. The H.264 codec is used by Vimeo and YouTube.
Lossy vs. Lossless Compression
An important distinction between codecs is whether they use lossless or lossy compression. With lossy compression, some of the visual data is left out in order to reduce the size of the video or audio data. This loss is typically minor and worth the tradeoff for the smaller size.
Media files using lossy compression are very common; an MP3 is a great example of lossy compression as they can be compressed at a number of different bitrates depending on your desired file size.
Lossless compression reduces file size by identifying redundant patterns in video or audio, which ensures no data is lost. Lossless files maintain the bit rate of the original data stream creating a large, high quality file. A WAV file is an example of a lossless audio file. Use lossless video when quality matters above all else, like a final copy of a video piece you’ve created for broadcast purposes.
Why do marketers need codecs?
Working with video is becoming a must-have skill rather than nice-to-have for marketers. While you won’t necessarily have to shoot the video content, you’ll most certainly need to share and store it.
When getting started with online video you might consider using an inexpensive camera, doing some minor edits, and posting the video on your blog or social media. As quality and production value have become more important, it is critical to understand codecs.
You’ll need to ensure you’re using the proper format to compress and share video marketing content. However, the amount of codec options can be overwhelming if you’re just getting familiar. Luckily there are codec packs, which come with a variety of codecs, that allow you to simply download the pack and go.
Image Source

K-Lite: K-Lite comes in either Basic, Standard, Full, or Mega versions. This bundle is a good choice for newbies since the Basic tier covers most video and audio formats.
Media Player: This pack supports most video and audio formats, plus offers installation options for both novices and those who need more advanced options. It supports standard definition up to 4K.
Wonderfox HD Video Converter Factory Pro: While this isn’t a codec pack, it’s an excellent option for most of your audio and video needs. This tool can be used for video editing in addition to converting video formats.

Why Codecs Matter
While online video is fun to watch and an important part of your inbound marketing content strategy, it does require some technical knowledge to execute well. Codecs are involved in many stages of video production and distribution, working behind the scenes to provide a better visual experience for your audience.
This article was originallypublished in February 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you work in tech, media, or even marketing, you’ve likely heard a lot of buzz around Web 3.
And, when filtering through all the noise about future versions of the internet, you might find it hard to differentiate all of the predictions from myths and reality. And, more importantly, if you’re likely asking questions like, “How could Web 3 impact my business?”, “Will I fall behind if I don’t get in on Web 3 now?”, and “Is Web 3 just built on hype?”
“When you’re listening to the news, or you’re on Twitter, and people are talking about NFTs and Web 3, it seems really abstract and futuristic and stupid. It’s really easy to naysay all of it. I get that,” says Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot CMO. “A lot of it is going to be crap. And a lot of it’s going to fall away.”
But, Bodnar adds, “In the last version of the internet, your whole job was to make a product or value proposition 10 times better than it was before. In the next generation, the internet, it’s making something somebody thought was impossible possible.”
“And if you can’t pull that magic trick out as a business over the next 10, 20, or 30 years, you’re not going to exist. Because that is the game that’s going to change. Don’t think about the technology, think about the changing customer experience and that move from impossible to possible,” Bodnar says.
In this post, we’ll dive into the questions businesses are starting to ask about Web 3 and how it could impact the changing landscape.
To hear more about Web 3 from our very own CMO Kipp Bodnar, and our SVP of Marketing, Kieran Flanagan, you can also check out this episode of their podcast, Marketing Against the Grain (plus other episodes and interviews coming soon).

Editor’s Note: This post will discuss the wider business-wide impacts of Web 3, and while we will mention marketing a bit, you can find a piece specifically about how Web 3 will impact marketers and its core characteristics here.

What’s Web 3 (And How Did We Get Here)?
When explaining the possible impacts of Web 3, it’s helpful to go back and look at how the previous evolutions of the internet impacted consumers and businesses. The graph below highlights just a few high-level characteristics of Web1, Web2, and Web 3 without getting overly technical.

Web 1 (1983 to Early 2000s)
Web 2 (Early 2000s to Today)
Web 3 (The Next Internet Evolution)

Low-Speed Enabled basic messaging, email, search queries, and PC-based web surfing.
High-Speed Offers advanced messaging/communication, video calling, streaming, social media, and early AR/VR.
Highest Speed Decentralized on the blockchain. Could Enable extended reality, user-built platforms, coin/token incentives, and other experiences.

When the internet launched, it was essentially decentralized and many companies that focused on internet services had a slight leg up as many tech firms began to invest in it and learn what it could do. Today, the internet has become drastically centralized with companies like Google and Meta owning many of the platforms we visit each day.
Because consumers want growing control over their experience and are more hyper-connected to technology than ever, some describe Web 3 as “giving the internet back to the people”, as blockchain-built web experiences are often decentralized.
The image below shows how Web 3 infrastructure could compare to that of our current internet. While business owners and marketers that aren’t goaled around Web 3 investments don’t necessarily need to know all the technical lingo in the images below, this graphic essentially shows a more streamlined, centralized path from user to internet access while Web 3 will host a more complex, decentralized path that leverages blockchain technology.

Source: Coinbase
While we won’t go too deep into the technology behind Web 3, you can find some great resources on the technical side of things with online courses – like this one from Coursera or this content from Reforge.
At this point, it’s still a bit too early to know how many of the predictions we’re seeing will come to light. And, if they do become a reality, they’ll likely require a learning curve and a long adoption lifecycle. Because of this, the move from Web 2 to Web 3 might be much slower and more gradual than some would expect.
But, even though we likely won’t see the entire internet change in one day, week, or year, we’ll still watch some Web 3 concepts, companies, and technology grow in the coming years — which could enable us to adopt it at a quicker pace.
Ultimately, you don’t need to ditch your current business plan to focus on major Web 3 investments just yet. But, there are concepts, consumer behaviors, and tech you might want to keep on your radar so your company can adapt if and when a wide-scale evolution happens.
Web 3 Concepts & Business Shifts You Could See Soon
Full Web 3 implementation is far off, and we know a lot of SMB marketers don’t have any interest, technical bandwidth, or budget to dive into Web 3 complexities yet. And, that’s okay.
But, if you put overwhelming technical lingo and wild predictions aside, the way consumers have optimistically buzzed-about Web 3’s potential shows just how much they’re ready to see the internet, businesses, and society evolve. And, even if your business plans to stay in the Web 2 world for the foreseeable future, you should still make note of how these shifts and growing web technology could impact your business.
Here are a few business shifts we’ll see soon, in part because of Web 3 development.
1. Consumers will want more say in the online products and platforms they use.
Right now, the platforms we use daily, like Google and Facebook are centralized. When you log on to a platform like Facebook, you’re exchanging web data with its Meta servers.
This means that Meta and its biggest stakeholders ultimately determine how Facebook works, user rules, how it uses your data, and how the UX changes over time. And, if Meta were to pull the plug on Facebook servers, it would disable usage for everyone.
Because of this, just a few key tech companies and big-name investment firms have a solid hold over many of the things we do and see online. And, in certain areas – as with data usage, social media feeds, search engines, or web experience – many users wish they had more say.
But, what if users were treated more like shareholders and could give input on how a platform worked, used their data, or built experiences for them? In a decentralized Web 3 world, some believe this could be possible.
For example, some platforms, like metaverses will allow you to trade crypto, NFTs, non-crypto currency, or other items of value for a plot of land (or a stake in the platform). While large brands and investment firms would still likely own a majority stake in their platforms and serve as decision-makers for terms of use, users could at least personalize their experiences a bit more, or have more control over how the platform works for them.
While not all businesses will lean into decentralized platforms, those who do could put some key developments of their online products into the hands of loyal users or customers.
Giving users the ability to play a role in the evolution of platforms they use not only allows them to feel linked to a brand through a sense of ownership and trust, but it also allows you as a business owner to benefit from the ROI of user experience improvements the users themselves are making.
How Businesses Can Respond
Even if you aren’t ready for Web 3 investments, or never plan to invest in it at all, you can still take steps to make your audiences or customers feel like they have an impact on your business’s evolution. Here are a few smaller-scale ideas.

Introducing Product Developers to Customers: Oftentimes, sales and service are the only ones who talk to customers. But, product developers can learn a lot from meeting with a few loyal customers, listening to feedback, and learning about their pain points. In turn, the customer feels like their actionable and constructive feedback has been heard.
Customer Feedback Research: If your product development team prefers to look at more quantitative data, consider running a survey about your product and returning that feedback to marketing, sales, service, and product teams.
Report on Your Progress: After customers or prospects give you feedback, create a marketing plan highlighting the improvements you’ve made around your product after receiving feedback. This will show customers and prospects that you are acting on their needs and that they have a voice when they’d like to request changing something.
Customizable Features: Customization might not make your customers feel like stakeholders, but it does have similar benefits. When users can customize how online products look, feel, and work around their preferences and goals, they might feel more attachment to your product than one that allows no customization. Ask yourself, “Are there ways I can better help my customers make their own great experience with my offerings?”

More Companies Will Invest in Incentivization
While incentivization has been around for quite some time, blockchain technology will make it easier for brands to track and incentivize usership and community engagement in Web 3.
Imagine going on a website and being paid to spend time there, or logging into an app and receiving points that you can trade for something of value later – like cryptocurrency or even NFTs. These are the types of tactics that brands could potentially leverage to gain solid growth.
“When you think about the difference between the last generation, the internet and the next generation the internet – understand that it is a massive change in incentives and the ability to incentivize,” says Bodnar.
Kieran Flanagan, HubSpot SVP of Marketing also explains, “In Web 2, for [gaining] leads and things like that, we had a cost per acquisition and freemium. You make the product free, so your cost per acquisition goes down.”
“In Web 3, I think your incentives drastically change that, again, because you have a flywheel effect through your incentives. I don’t know how it changes. … But I do think how you think about acquiring customers and the cost to doing that is greatly changed when you’re using these different incentives or tokens to build your business,” Flanagan adds.
Meanwhile, Bodnar added that incentivization will become more of an economic proposition in Web 3.
“While the cost of the old way of doing [acquisitions] is getting so high that you can take more risks to do the new way (because the old way is becoming untenable). And then, can I take that same amount of money, incentivize my community to drive referrals, and be advocates to spread word of mouth to drive the brand? And can I factor in customer acquisition cost on top of that?” Bodnar says.  
“We’re not going to give up customer acquisition cost,” Bodnar explains. “What we’re saying is, community acquisition cost is going to be the precursor. We’re going to figure out the economics of acquiring people through communities, and that customer acquisition cost is going to be basically an output metric of how effective our community strategy is.”
One example of a startup that’s already using digital incentivization (and is currently used by Flanagan) is STEPN, an app that rewards you in NFTs as you make running accomplishments with the app turned on.
“STEPN is a Web 3 lifestyle app with Social-Fi and Game-Fi elements. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers – walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers,” notes the website, adding that players can “choose to lease or sell their NFT Sneakers on the in-app Marketplace; users’ GST earnings are stored in the in-app Wallet, which has a built-in Swap function.”
While people are earning NFTs by running with the app on, STEPN benefits from data collection agreed upon when first using the app, transaction fees from buying and selling NFT products, and fees consumers pay to lease NFT sneakers.
To learn more about STEPN, check out this demo which STEPN features on its official website.

Ultimately, the business model is simple: Users pay to buy a product to join the app, they are treated to coinage or NFTs for spending time on the app, and the business makes money from the trades, transactions, and purchases made in the app once the user loyalty model has brought them in.
Embracing Incentivization Ahead of Web 3
Want to leverage incentivization without building a Web 3 experience? There are plenty of ways to do this.
One example of a Web2 incentivization is our HubFans platform. With the platform, HubSpot customers and partners can assist HubSpot in some way by completing “Challenges” for rewards and digital badges.
HubFans challenges that help HubSpot, could include a mix of small and larger asks, like promoting our brand, filling our feedback surveys, or meeting with teams looking to chat with customers. As you complete more challenges, you move into higher tiers of HubFans status and can start to access rewards like event invitations, networking sessions, and potentially an invite to join the HubFans council.

While HubFans doesn’t involve Web 3, it is a great example of a digital incentive-based opportunity that can both help a brand gain insights from its partners and customers on various initiatives, build a strong fan-based community, and – most importantly – reward great customers and partners for their loyalty to the brand.
Crypto, NFT, and Blockchain Tech Will Gain Wider Use
While you shouldn’t just change your whole business model or payment features to accommodate crypto, the growing interest in this currency is worth keeping on your radar if your business appeals to audiences that have invested in digital coinage.
As interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based transactions grows, many brands – including B2B companies have embraced crypto-based payment features on their websites or platforms for quite some time – and not just for NFT purchases. Among them are Overstock.com, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Whole Foods. Additionally, payment platforms – such as PayPal – have adapted to accept crypto-based payments.
If you think it makes sense for your brand to start accepting cryptocurrency pay, it couldn’t hurt to start looking at credible companies that offer website plugins for this, as well as platforms that can help you manage and monitor your company’s cryptocurrency. You’ll also need to read up on any laws and regulations your company or state might have about crypto usage and taxation for businesses.
If you live in the United States, you can find a list of state-based legislation for the United States here. However, you should also keep in mind that regulations might vary when doing transactions with customers in countries outside of the U.S.
Branded Content and Services Will Get More Experiential
Over the past five years or so, experiential marketing and product experiences have gained steam. And when the COVID-19 pandemic kept any of us on lockdown, millions turned to remote experiential content with VR and AR platforms.
In the marketing and sales realm, brands like Walmart and BestBuy are already identifying ways that they can sell products through VR stores (complete with sales reps who are also logged in to a VR metaverse.
Meanwhile, companies like Mercedes already leverage AR with virtual assistant platforms. Through platforms like these, customers can scan an element of their vehicle or product and have its functionality explained to them. They can also ask questions about any problems or faults in its operation. Combined with an AI chatbot, the AR element of the assistant makes it much more user-friendly.

Source: PTC
With the connectivity, speed, and advancements of Web 3, interest, and engagement in virtual experiential content could only grow.
How to Prepare for a More Experiential Internet
While most businesses can’t affordably build VR or AR experiences or even physical experiential events just yet, there might be more accessible opportunities to advertise, build communities, talk to your customers, or even offer services in a more experiential environment that arise for you as technology develops.
For example, brands can already work with businesses like Snap, tech agencies, or software companies to have AR/VR experiences created for them.
To learn more about experiential or VR marketing specifically, check out this post and this post, respectively.
Community will be Key for Business Growth
With Web 1, we still focused on building communities through word of mouth within the limits of the internet. In Web 2, we discovered the impact of community building on major social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter.
Now, many community managers and company leaders are just waiting with bated breath to see how they’ll be able to invest in community building in Web 3.
“The convergence of brand and community is going to be one of the biggest trends in marketing over the next decade,” says Bodnar.
“The reason communities are becoming more important is because going through intermediaries to reach people directly like Google and Facebook is getting way more expensive,” Bodnar explains.
Additionally, with Web 3’s blockchain-based incentivization opportunities, “you can now properly incentivize your community members to share in the success of your business with you in a way that you couldn’t before – through the use of tokens, NFTs, and a whole host of things.”
Building Communities (Even in Web 2)
While you don’t necessarily have to be a Web 3 expert, coder, or developer to win over audiences in the new era, building out an active and effective web community could be a key priority for your brand in the coming years.
If you have a base following and even a few channels now, you can already get started in using tactics like these to build an engaged online community and network that you could carry over into the Web 3 era.
Here are a few quick ways to start developing a sense of community.

Meet your targets where they are: Are your audiences, customers, or targets spending time on one social media channel or platform over another? Focus on growing your community and building engagement there first.
Create great content: “The core object of most communities is content. It’s some type of story, some type of exchange of ideas. If you’re going to build a remarkable brand through community, you first have to have remarkable content and remarkable stories.  In your community,” says Bodnar.  
Don’t be afraid of long-term bets: Communities don’t just appear overnight and take time and energy to build out. “I think these bets are long term. They’re not for the next six months. They’re for the next 12, 24, 36 months,” Bodnar advises.

Want to learn more about community marketing or building a community that can boost business? Check out this guide.
When to Start Thinking About Web 3
Many tech lovers will often tell you, “the Web 3 era is coming, whether we’re ready or not.”
And while a new iteration of the internet is coming, evolutions take years or even decades before a new era is clear.
Like any new technology, this rollout will be fast for some businesses, but happen over a longer time for others.
Do you have incredibly tech-savvy customers that are interested in crypto and blockchain tech? Or, do your offerings already include user-built platforms, token incentivization, blockchain services, metaverse offerings, tech security, or something that’s strongly associated with Web 3? if not, you don’t necessarily need to transform your whole business plan or take other big bets on future predictions
In any era, the best thing you can do is think about your customer or target buyer and their experience and identify what you need to do to meet them where they are.
Ultimately, when you’re responding to your customer and creating experiences for them that competitors can’t – you’ll still be ahead of the curve.
To learn more about all the latest emerging trends and how they’ll impact marketing as well as the bigger business, check out Marketing Against the Grain, HubSpot’s newest podcast hosted by Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan.

Every resume has a skills section. It’s an opportunity to highlight your top professional attributes to attract employers. Core competencies serve the same purpose for brands and their customers.

Let’s dive into what exactly a core competency is, why you need it, and how to find it in your brand.

You might be wondering, “Isn’t this a value proposition? ” Not exactly. While both are used to differentiate you from your competitors, competencies are what you leverage to support your value proposition.
For instance, at Uber, their value proposition is “Always on, always available.” What’s their core competency? An easy-to-use app and reliable access to its services at any time of the day.
Establishing your core competencies early on is incredibly valuable, as it can inform your marketing strategy moving forward. You can use them in your messaging to attract your target audience and stand out among your competitors.
If you’re a trailblazing company with a fresh product in an underserved market, then finding your core competency will be easy to spell out.
However, if you’re in a saturated market and struggling to distinguish your brand, working on your core competencies will be key to your success.
The sooner you discover what they are, the quicker you can implement them in your marketing and sales strategies.
From an individual standpoint, everyone has core competencies that they leverage in their professional lives. When you want to land a new job, you list those competencies as skills in your resume, embed them in your LinkedIn bio, and mention them during interviews.
If you don’t know what makes you a valuable asset, you’ll be hard-pressed to convince an organization of that. With this in mind, competencies are valuable both from a personal and broader perspective.

Core Competencies Examples
Clever Marketing from Oatly
There are hundreds of vegan milk options out there. What makes Oatly stand out is its marketing.

Image Source
The brand specializes in self-referential marketing campaigns that make its target audience laugh. Their ads rarely focus on the products and instead poke fun at the ads themselves.
In contrast, one of Oatly’s competitors, Planet Oat, launched a #WeSolvedMilk campaign back in 2021 and released this ad.

Unlike Oatly, they focused on product features – specifically their oat milk’s superior creaminess, then centered the commercial around that.
In a world where most ads take a product-focused approach, companies like Oatly stand out.
Incredible Value from Canva
For many years, those of us who wanted to build brand assets had to rely on products like Adobe InDesign and Sketch.
Not only did they come at a cost but they were also notoriously complex, as they were made with advanced professionals in mind. Then came Canva, a graphic design platform with thousands of free templates made for the everyday user.
Offering high-quality designs at little to no cost became one of their core competencies, stemming from their mission to make graphic design accessible to everyone.
An Innovative User-First Approach from Google
Google might have started as a search engine but it’s evolved into a one-stop-shop to meet all your digital needs – for individuals and businesses alike. From cloud storage and password management to email service and advertising, this is only a sliver of what Google has to offer.
Google’s value proposition is innovation, as evidenced by its wealth of services. Some of their core competencies include inventive products and a dedication to a user-first approach.
How can you determine a core competency?
1. Start with what you already know.
The first place to look when establishing your core competencies is your value proposition. As we mentioned before, that’s the overarching idea from which your competencies will emerge.
It’s also worth reviewing your mission statement. What does your company care about? What are its core values? From there, you can ask yourself, “How does that translate into what we offer our customers?”
2. Look at your competition.
When you’re struggling to figure something out within your brand, it’s always helpful to look across the aisle and see what your competitors are doing.
They’re a great source of information and inspiration. In this case, the question you want to ask is “What do they lack that we offer?”
It can be anything from a personalized customer experience to one-of-a-kind product features. Once you make a list of the differentiators, you’ll get a clearer picture of what
3. Reach out to your customers.
Who better to learn from than your customers?
If you’re unsure what sets you apart from your competitors, ask your customers. You can create a survey and ask questions that get to the bottom of why they chose you.
Questions like “What comes to mind when you think of our brand?” and “What do you love about our brand?” will help you get the answers you’re looking for.
Core competencies are brand differentiators that will help you create a marketing strategy that caters to your target audience and separates you from the rest.