Author: Franz Malten Buemann

When you’re first starting a business, branding is likely the last thing on your mind. After all, it’s hard to sit down and flip through fonts when you’re still trying to figure out who your customers are (and where to find them).
Plus, even if you made creating a brand identity a priority, in the beginning, a change in business plans might have made your initial branding strategy obsolete. Whether your branding design efforts started (and ended) with a logo jotted down on a napkin, or you whiteboarded your way through the complete branding process — from brand values to logo variations — somewhere along the way things stopped working.

However you got here, you’re not happy. Fortunately, rebranding is not uncommon — many major brands, ranging from Dunkin’ Donuts to Uber, have successfully rebranded in the past. If you’re considering a rebrand, keep reading to learn how to rebrand a company, plus examples of other brands who’ve successfully rebranded their website, name, logo, or entire company mission, and purpose.
Okay, now that we know what rebranding is, let’s make sure you have the right reasons to rebrand.
The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand
Rebrands are complicated and carry big risks.
Even big brands aren’t immune — just look at Uber. After redesigning its logo, 44% of people were unsure of what Uber’s logo represented. 
Ultimately, knowing the risks of rebranding can help you determine whether or not you’re going into a rebrand for the right reasons.
If you’re looking at rebranding your business because sales have been slow or brand awareness efforts don’t seem to be paying off, you might want to reconsider — these issues can potentially be solved by creating a new marketing strategy or conducting market research to identify the underlying cause.

But if you’re considering a rebrand because your company’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand, then a rebrand might be the right decision.

There are a few other major reasons you might consider a rebrand, including:
New locations
You might need to refresh your brand if you’re expanding to international markets that won’t identify with your current logo, messaging, etc.
Market repositioning
Brands are designed to connect companies with their customers, so if you reposition your business to target a completely new customer profile — whether through product, place, price, or promotion — your brand will need to follow suit.

New philosophy

Your business’s mission, vision, and values should govern every decision you make — including brand decisions. If your MVV are shifting and pivoting the direction of your business along with them, you’ll need to reevaluate your brand.
Mergers and acquisitions
When two companies come together, two brands come together, as well. If your company was acquired or joined with another company, you can’t just let both brands battle it out. Finding a new brand that reflects the new entity will prevent confusion and build trust.
Additionally, here are a few reasons not to rebrand: 
Boredom
Too often, people consider a rebrand because they’re sick of seeing the same logo and slogan every day. When you’re starting to feel restless with your brand, remember that your customers (who see it much less frequently) might love that signature color you’ve come to loathe.
Covering up a crisis
Whether you’re working against persistent internal issues or fending off bad press, a rebrand isn’t the answer. Most consumers and employees are smart enough to see right through your rebrand and recognize it for what it is — a cover-up.
Impact and ego
For new managers, a rebrand might seem like the fastest way to make your mark. But most new managers aren’t implementing the kind of institutional change that justifies a rebrand. More often than not, new leadership that insists on a rebrand is doing it more for themselves than the company.
Looking for attention
Maybe sales have been floundering, or perhaps brand awareness efforts aren’t picking up, but either way, jumping into a rebrand is the wrong move. At best, you’ll generate some short-term buzz, without the sales and marketing strategy to sustain it. At worst, you’ll lose whatever brand recognition you had and set back your sales and marketing efforts.
If you’ve determined a rebrand is still the right choice for you, keep reading to learn how to devise a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding Strategies
1. Change your logo.
One of the main strategies of rebranding is changing your logo. Using a new logo will let your customers know that your brand’s identity is different. You can make it sleeker, use different colors, etc. The main reason to change your logo is so it matches with the new identity that you’re marketing with the rebrand.
2. Shift brand positioning.
After changing your brand logo, it’s important to also shift your brand positioning. You can’t just change your colors and logo and call it a day. The content that you’re marketing needs to communicate a certain message, whether that’s your mission, values, or vision. Shifting your brand positioning will let your customers know what your new mission, values, or vision is.
3. Create new ads.
Once you know what your logo and messaging will sound like, it’s time to create new advertisements and content with this messaging in mind. These ads should clearly communicate the changes to your brand and what they mean for customers. This can help you draw in a new demographic and reach larger audiences.
4. Change your brand’s voice.
Finally, when it’s time to rebrand, you’ll want to change the brand’s voice. Your brand’s voice is the perspective that you write all your marketing content from. Your voice is either formal, causual, witty, etc. If you’re rebranding, it makes sense to change your brand’s voice and announce your rebrand in your new tone of voice.
Now, let’s remember that bot all rebrands are created equal, so let’s first consider whether a partial or total rebrand is the best option for your business.
Partial vs. Total Rebrand
The more established your business and brand are, the more you have to lose from a rebrand.
If your business is more mature, a partial rebrand can help you retain the brand loyalty you’ve built, while refreshing your image to keep up with changing times.

Think of a partial rebrand as an adjustment focused on your visual brand identity to suit new offerings or markets — as opposed to a complete identity crisis.

That’s not to say that a partial rebrand can’t be effective. Just look at Old Spice. The men’s deodorant company redefined its place in the market and has seen massive growth every year since repositioning the brand — all while retaining what made Old Spice cool in the first place.
However, if you’re undergoing a complete identity shift and your company’s mission, vision, and values are changing, a total rebrand might be in order. This option is typically suited to situations like mergers, product overhauls, and other similarly foundational shifts.
Here, everything is on the table — from your name to your purpose, your market, or your brand identity.
If a partial rebrand is a quick touch-up, the total rebrand is a complete makeover.
Once you’ve determined whether you need a partial or total rebrand, take a look at the following five steps you’ll want to implement to successfully rebrand.
1. Reestablish your brand’s audience and market.
After extensive market research, including focus groups and analyzing the data, you’ve noticed something startling — your customers (or competitors) aren’t who you thought they were.
Maybe it’s a demographic with which you never thought you’d engage. Alternatively, maybe there’s a new competitor on the market and its products or services are directly competing with yours.
And you have the data to prove it.
Take a look at who’s actually buying from you — and who they’re buying from, instead of you. Comparing this against your initial target market and audience might reveal some stark differences.
Once you’ve established your actual market and audience, you’re ready to start rebranding your company to connect with your customers (and outsmart your competitors).
2. Redefine your company’s vision, mission, and values.
What are you doing? How are you doing it? Why are you doing it?
When you’re re-evaluating your vision, mission, and values during a rebrand, these are the three questions you’ll need to ask yourself. While it’s easy to take your messaging foundations for granted, they can change as a company grows.

New products, priorities, services, or stakeholders can completely undo what once seemed like a given.

Here are a few major components of your company you’ll want to analyze to decide which part(s) of your company need a little TLC.
Vision
This is a big one. Vision acts as the North Star for every action your company undertakes, so it’s critical you have a firm understanding of your vision before moving forward — additionally, perhaps over time your vision has changed. That’s okay, but it’s vital you redefine your vision as quickly as possible to ensure all your employees are making decisions with that vision in mind.
When you’re rebranding, company vision will affect everything from your website redesign to your hiring process.
Mission
If vision is your what, mission is your how. Maybe you’re still going in the same direction, but the way you’re getting there has changed. Ultimately, your mission is your company’s roadmap.
When your mission changes, your messaging needs to change as well — making it just as crucial as vision during a rebrand.
For instance, Sweetgreen’s mission statement is “To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.” This motto will help define everything about Sweetgreen’s brand, from the images they use in advertisements to the language they use in press releases.
Values
Your values act as the why behind your brand. They’re why you’re working towards your vision, and why you’re dedicated to your mission.
But, as brands expand and change, some of their founding values might become unsustainable. If you can’t support your old values or you’ve come to prioritize new ones, you’ll need to update them to reflect what your company actually values today.
Brand Voice
As your vision, mission, and values change while rebranding, the way you convey these aspects of your company will also have to change. The vocabulary, tone, and voice you use for your brand have to match your message. So, if what you’re saying is changing, how you’re saying it will need to change, as well.
3. Rename your company during a rebrand.
Changing names is a big undertaking, one that can cost you brand recognition and organic search traffic in one fell swoop. So, if you’re renaming your company as part of your rebrand, make sure you have a plan for recovery as part of your post-rebrand strategy.
On the whole, if your name still fits, your best course of action is to keep it. But if your current name is a mismatch for your company identity, it might be time to go back to the drawing board. To help make that drawing board a little less daunting, here are some starter ideas for the renaming process:

Make a new word
Use an old word in new ways
Say what you do (literally)
Modify a word’s spelling
Add a prefix or suffix
Look to other languages
Bring two words together
Create an acronym
Use a location

If you’re revisiting your name while rebranding, focus on alignment with your brand’s vision, mission, and values — more than just what sounds good. That way, your new name has a better chance of supporting your long-term growth and goals.
4. Reconsider your brand’s slogan.
A good slogan is catchy and captures your company’s mission and vision. It’s your company’s purpose, condensed. Unlike changing names, changing slogans is a little easier for your marketing efforts. But like changing names, you should still consider it carefully.
First, it’s critical you ask yourself, why do you really want to change your slogan?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of hating your slogan because you’ve heard it so many times. But it’s that same repetition that builds brand recognition. Even though you might have gotten sick of your slogan after seeing it constantly, your customers might love it.
If you’re on the fence, you can hold focus groups to see if the slogan is really resonating. If it isn’t, you can get some new ideas for slogans with these starting points:

Make a claim
Get metaphorical
Use poetic language
Provide instructions
Leverage labels
Compliment customers

5. Rebuild your brand identity.
The tangible elements you use to communicate your brand might have been in play for a few years by the time you start considering a rebrand. This means you’ve likely had plenty of time to reconsider their strengths and weaknesses before replacing them.
You might want to redesign your logo, use new colors in your brand material, or even create new brand guidelines. Here are a few common changes you might make as part of your rebranding strategy:
Your Logo
Maybe you loved your logo when you first started your company, but you’re finding your customers never really seemed to “get it”. Alternatively, perhaps your logo needs a refresh to reflect the other major changes you’ve made internally.
If you’re looking to do a logo redesign, going back to the basics of what makes a good logo will help you to get it right this time.
Stay simple. Jamming as much symbolism as possible into a logo generally doesn’t work out too well. But that’s a hard truth for young companies who are still trying to prove themselves. Now that you’re more established, show your confidence with a simple logo.
Make an impact. Maybe you went the opposite route in your original logo design and were too afraid to be bold, so you stuck with something safe. Your logo isn’t worth much if people can’t remember it, so when you’re redesigning your logo, don’t settle for something that won’t stand out.
Be adaptable. One thing you might have learned with your first logo is its limitations. Now that you know what shapes or styles might not be as versatile for the channels your business actually uses, bear those in mind during the redesign.
Aim for appropriate. As companies mature and get to know their customers better, a logo that might have made sense at launch could now be considered completely wrong for that company’s target market.
Look to the long term. As fun as rebrands might seem, you don’t want to do this every year, so really look at your vision, mission, values, and purpose and consider whether this new logo can support them in the long run.
Maintain through-lines. Like your name, your logo is one of your brand’s most memorable components. When you’re rebranding, avoid losing too much brand recognition by trying to maintain the parts of your old logo that worked. If you can maintain a sense of continuity, you’ll be able to carry over some of the brand recognition your old logo initially had.
If we look at a few logo redesigns from 2019, we can see this process in action. Take Zara and The Knot, for example, two companies that changed their logos in the last few years:

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In these brand updates, elements of the old brand carry through. Zara kept its bold, black lettering, but pushed the kerning tighter and switched one Serif font for another. The Knot, on the other hand, stayed in the same typography family with a Script font, but swapped blue for orange in their color scheme.
Choosing Your New Color Palette
Color can have a huge impact on your brand — in fact, some colors are now synonymous with the brands that use them, like McDonald’s yellow. But choosing the right color can be difficult, and as your company develops, your color might need a brush up.
Looking at your brand colors with fresh eyes using color psychology and competitor research can help you evaluate whether they’re working with (or against) the brand image you’re looking to project.
Additionally, now that you’ve been working with your color(s) for a while, you may have noticed that the way your colors show up on-screen vs. in-print isn’t consistent. When considering colors during your rebrand, check to ensure the color looks the same on a variety of brand materials.
Typography
Like your color, your original font may have shown up differently in practice than in theory. When you’re reevaluating fonts, pay close attention to what worked and what didn’t with your old font, along with any difficulties you had — like accessing the font for web design or PowerPoints.
You might also want to consider whether your font is consistent with any markets or messages uncovered while rebranding. If your customers are more mature than you initially expected, that super hip Sans Serif font might be better off as a more traditional Serif font. After all, the medium is the message.
And now that you know your marketing channels, you’ll be able to make more educated decisions on weight and cuts — like which fonts show up well, and which leave your words looking wonky.
Shapes and Imagery Revisited
Like your logo, color palette, and typography, your imagery and shapes play a vital role in your brand identity. If you’re changing any of your brand’s other visual elements, it’s worth reconsidering your imagery and shapes to keep everything cohesive after you’ve rebranded.
But it’s not enough for your rebrand to look cohesive — it needs to support the core messages of your brand, as well. At every step in the branding design process, make sure the what, how, and why behind your brand are also behind your new brand identity.
Building New Brand Guidelines
If you’re going to go through all the trouble of creating a new brand identity for your business, you better make sure you use it correctly. Having (and actually using) brand guidelines will help you keep your brand consistent after the transition.
Brand guidelines are especially critical for logos. Logo guidelines are designed to make it as easy as possible for customers to see, recognize, and remember your logo — making up for any lost familiarity that comes with a rebrand.
Here are a few elements to consider when writing your logo guidelines:

Logo elements. What visual elements make up your logo? When and how are each of them used?

Color variations. What does the colored version of your logo look like? What about black and white? When are each of these used?

Clear space. Also called padding, this is the space around your logo that prevents overlap or obscuring. Aim for at least 10% of width at all times.

Unacceptable uses. What can never be done to your logo? What color variations, rotations, scaling, etc. do you want to avoid?

You’ll want to have your guidelines on hand if you’re doing a website redesign, creating a rebrand campaign, or creating other marketing materials.
6. Track brand sentiment along the way.
When you’re designing all the new elements to your rebrand, it’s important to get feedback from customers. You can conduct focus groups and see if the new branding images and messages communicate your new mission, value, and vision. If you don’t get positive feedback, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
One of the most crucial steps in rebranding is tracking brand sentiment before, during, and after a rebrand launch. You can look at brand sentiment before a rebrand and see what customers feel negatively about. With this in mind, you can conduct your rebrand strategically, adding new messaging that aligns with your audience.
After you’ve evaluated the feedback before a rebrand, and tested your new rebranding elements in a focus group, it’s time to launch your rebrand.
7. Plan a successful launch.
Launching a rebrand isn’t as simple as changing the colors, fonts, or logo on your site. A rebrand is about communicating your new message: What is your new mission, values, and vision? To communicate this, it’s important to plan a successful rebranding launch.
This can include posting advertisements online, in print, on TV, on radio, etc. Then, you’ll want to announce the launch of your rebrand with a press release on your site and a post on your social media channels that says exactly why your company needed a rebrand and what this rebrand means for the future of your company.
At its best, a rebrand can act as an incentive to remain consistent and on-brand in all your marketing efforts moving forward — something that can slip in businesses over time.
Now that we’ve explored various aspects of rebranding, let’s take a look at examples for further inspiration.
1. Chobani rebrand

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In 2017, Chobani made a few major changes to their brand in an effort to stand out in the crowded, oftentimes homogeneous-looking yogurt industry.
First, they shifted their identity from a yogurt company to a “food-focused wellness company” with a new mission — “Fighting for happily ever after.” Under their Impact page on their website, you’ll see the statement, “The most important thing we make is a difference. It’s always been about more than yogurt.” You’ll see this focus on health and nutrition in their advertisements and their new products, including Less Sugar Greek Yogurt and Chobani Flip Yogurt.
Additionally, as shown above, Chobani changed its packaging — instead of using plain white cups with fruit photos, they redesigned their product packaging using 19th century American folk art with a variety of colors. Their rebrand helps their products stand out from the other plain white yogurt packages on the shelves.
2. Candid rebrand

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Rebranding is often a good decision after two companies merge.
For instance, Foundation Center was the largest source of information about philanthropy globally, and GuideStar was the largest source of information on U.S. nonprofit organizations. In 2019, the two organizations joined forces to become Candid, enabling both foundations to enhance the services they offer to millions of people who rely on them to help make the world a better place.
If you visit Foundation Center’s website, you’ll see a message that reads: “Foundation Center and GuideStar are now Candid. You were redirected to candid.org from foundationcenter.org.” The old GuideStar website is still visible and usable, but there is an explanation of the new corporate entity and a link to Candid’s page.
Candid, the new merged foundation, now boasts a sleek website with a mission statement, guiding principles, and a vision that combines the best of both Foundation Center and GuideStar.

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3. Dropbox rebrand

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In 2007, Dropbox launched as a file-storage and file-sharing web service — but in 2017, the company now wants you to think of them as ” the connective tissue for teams and businesses of all sizes”. Instead of just a file-sharing service, Dropbox is now a full suite with APIs, tools, and integrations.
Along with the internal mission shift, Dropbox refreshed its logo to reflect its new products. In a statement regarding the new logo, the Dropbox design team said, “Our old logo was a blue box that implied, ‘Dropbox is a great place to store stuff.’ The new one is cleaner and simpler. And we’ve evolved it from a literal box, to a collection of surfaces to show that Dropbox is an open platform, and a place for creation.”
4. Pet Food Experts rebrand

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Pet Food Experts has a full timeline on their website that reflects all company changes since 1936, when the company first opened.
Among the most notable are the company’s name change from “Rumford Pet Center” to “Pet Food Experts” (in an “effort to establish itself separately from the Rumford Aquarium”), and the logo redesign in 2008. The 80-year-old company has grown significantly over the years, and is now a major distributor of pet products from coast-to-coast.
To reflect their change and growth over the years, the company has taken numerous successful steps to consistently refresh their brand to reflect their products and values as they change over time.
5. Dunkin’ Donuts rebrand

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Beginning in January 2019, Dunkin’ Donuts, first introduced in 1973, adopted a new logo that dropped the “Donuts” on their name — now, signs, logos, and marketing materials simply read, “Dunkin’”.
The new name signifies the companies focus on coffee — Tony Weisman, Chief Marketing Officer, Dunkin’ U.S., said in a statement, “By simplifying and modernizing our name, while still paying homage to our heritage, we have an opportunity to create an incredible new energy for Dunkin’, both in and outside our stores.”
Despite the change in name, Dunkin’ continues to use the same pink and organic colors and iconic font to ensure long-time customers continue to recognize the brand.
6. IHOP rebrand

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As you’ve likely gathered from this post, a rebrand is a fantastic opportunity to refresh your public perception and get consumers’ attention.
Which is exactly why IHOP used a rebrand as a marketing ploy to get people to pay attention to their new product — burgers. In 2018, IHOP announced that it was rebranding as IHOb, the International House of Burgers. It began using IHOb on social media, its website, and in-store promotions.
Eventually, IHOP admitted its rebranding was a joke to get people to pay attention to their new line of ground Angus ground beef burgers. Their “joke rebrand” was a smart play — it incentivized people to either vehemently fight for the importance of IHOP’s most important product (pancakes), while also calling attention to their other offerings.
IHOP has since switched back to its original name and logo.
Bad Rebranding Examples
1. Comcast
Comcast has been known to have the most hated customer services in the United States. So the company decided to change their name and rebrand their logo to xfinity.
However, the company didn’t change its history of bad practices. Superficial updates like a name change and logo change won’t help your company if brand identity and brand reputation doesn’t follow.
While the company could have worked on improving customer support, they spent money on a cosmetic upgrade, which didn’t help them earn the trust back from their customers. To earn your customers trust, you have to listen to them. You can’t just rebrand your visual identity while making no substantitve changes.

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2. Gap
Remember that list of reasons to rebrand and reasons not to rebrand above? Gap made the mistake of rebranding for seemingly no reason. The company changed their logo and caused outrage among its customers. Only 6 days later, the company went back to the old design.
The new logo didn’t communicate anything about the brand, and in fact took the personality out of the brand’s logo. Additionally, customers had an emotional bond with their logo, and changing it for no reason caused upset customers.

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3. Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers changed its name and logo a few years ago to shift its focus from weight-loss to wellness. However, with their new name “Wellness that Works,” customers weren’t sure if the product offerings were going to change.
The shift from weight-loss company to wellness company left customers confused. And this wasn’t a bad idea for a rebrand, however it’s important that your product offerings either change with your new identity or don’t rebrand at all.
Changing the name of your company shouldn’t confuse customers — it should make your offerings more clear.
Additionally, if you’re going to shift your name and product offerings, it’s important to communicate that message clearly. This rebrand failed because the message wasn’t clearly communicated and customers were confused.

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Are You Ready to Rebrand?
Now that you know everything a rebrand entails, it’s time to consider if and how you want to rebrand your own business. Whether you end up going with a logo redesign, a website redesign, some refreshed messaging or a complete brand overhaul, these steps can help you to consider your best strategy for building a brand that gets it right this time.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Google ranking factors are constantly changing, but links remain one of the most critical factors used by search engines.
If you want your website’s pages to rank in search and attract tons of organic traffic, you will undoubtedly need links.
Good links are like “votes”, which help search engines identify the best content to show for specific search queries.
There’re tons of link building strategies you can try depending on your goals and needs. With some strategies, you can get those important “votes” and increase referral traffic and gain more visibility for your company.
At Hunter, we’re constantly improving our link profile and getting more visibility for our brand. We’ve tested tons of link-building strategies, and there’s one that showed us the best results — link building via “best” listicles.
In less than three months, we got 96 new links from 54 domains, were mentioned in 33 new product listings, and upgraded our positions in 17 listings.
How did we do it? Read this guide, and I’ll show you how we implemented this strategy step-by-step.

First things first: What are “listicles”?
A “listicle” is an article made of a list — typically with some kind of extra detail below each item. This is a popular format to review products or services as it’s easy to skim to find important information.
Titles tell you what to expect (e.g., each title could be the name of the product or service), and each paragraph/chapter has a similar format, making it easy to compare many items quickly.
Here is an excellent example of a listicle created by HubSpot: Sales Prospecting: 26 Tips, Techniques & Tools to Succeed.
This is a review of the best techniques and tools for prospecting, which has a similar structure and approach to each product.
Why is it essential for you to get featured in listicles?
Listicles are powerful tools for product comparison and independent views on specific products or services.
Just imagine: You’re new to sales prospecting. You barely know anything about the popular tools on the market, and you need to find the best one for your team. To get some information about the topic you don’t know much about, you typically go to Google and type in something like “best prospecting tools” or “best sales prospecting tools review.”
You click “search” and stumble upon a similar search result page which consists mainly of listicles:

At Hunter, our key product is related to sales prospecting, and we wanted to be present in many listicles (especially those that generate high organic traffic).
By appearing in those listicles, you can get:

More visibility for your brand: Just imagine someone searching for “best [your product/service].” You appear number one on Google in the first independent listicle and are mentioned in all top positions in the listicles below.

New backlinks: By appearing in those listicles in 95% of cases, you’ll get one or a couple of backlinks to your website (only in rare instances do editors not include external links).

There are also cases when you can be already featured in the listicle of “10 Best [Tools/Products] for XYZ” as the #10 item that gets minimum visibility. So, your goal might also be to improve your position in that listicle.
Now, let’s jump right into the exact steps and strategies that will help you to get dozens of mentions in the listicles in no time.
Step 1: Collect prospects for outreach.
The first step for this strategy would be to find all prospects relevant to outreach for the mention in the listicle.
There are two approaches to do it: manual and automated.
Using a manual approach, you Google all searches related to your product or service with modifiers.
For example: “best + [your product category]” or “top tools for [your product category].”
The most popular modifiers to find listicles would be:

Best
List
Tools
Top
Software
Review
Free
Toolkit
Services

You can use these modifiers in combination with your product or service category.
At Hunter, we created a simple spreadsheet that listed everything relevant to our product terms and a list of modifiers that can be used with those terms. Then, the most successful combinations like “best tools for email lookup” or “best free software to verify email” generate.

You might prefer using an automated approach, which allows you to find more prospects in less time (compared to Googling it all manually).
You need an Ahrefs account for it. If you don’t have a subscription, there is a $7/week trial, so that might be enough for you to find all of the prospects you need.
In Ahrefs, enter your keywords into the Keywords Explorer and export the results in CSV.
Repeat it for all of the keyword ideas you generate with your spreadsheet. Then, merge all CSVs you collected with Ahrefs in one.
In the merged CSV, make sure to remove duplicates (from this point, I suggest using Google Sheets). Here, you can find a quick guide on how to remove them.
After that, it’s time to do some manual work, which is a bit time-consuming but very rewarding in the end.
Open each URL you exported. Remove the irrelevant ones or those that are not listicles. Add a sequence tag for each email. You’ll use it to personalize outreach.
In our case, we used four key tags:

Hunter not mentioned (our product is not mentioned in the listicle)
Hunter mentioned below (our product’s position is below #1 in the listicle)
Hunter mentioned #1 with no link (no need to pitch the product, only ask to add a backlink)
Hunter mentioned #1 with a link (no need to contact this website)

Besides adding a sequence tag for each relevant listicle, you’ll want to add a sentence of personalization to your spreadsheet that you’ll be using in your automated outreach sequence as an icebreaker.
This is what it looked like in our spreadsheet:

I recommend exporting from Ahrefs monthly traffic and domain authority of the URLs you collected. That helps to set your team’s priorities better. You should focus on the pages with the highest traffic and highest domain authority.
Once you complete this step, it’s time to find decision-makers in those companies and their emails.
As we noticed, the highest response rate for the listicle outreach was from the blog editors and content managers, so I recommend focusing on these positions. In small companies, it could be marketers and business owners.
You can easily find the full name of the decision-maker from a specific company just by checking the company’s LinkedIn profile.
Once you know the full name of your prospect, enter it in Email Finder along with a company domain. You’ll get a verified email address in seconds. With Email Finder, you can search 25 emails/mo for free.
Another quick way to find the email addresses of the listicle authors is to use Author Finder. If you install a free Chrome extension, you can simplify the email lookup process even more.
Just open the listicle URL and click on the extension icon. You’ll get the email address of the listicle author.
Add columns to your spreadsheet, such as the prospect’s name, company, and email address. You’ll use it later to personalize outreach.
Note: If you find emails with other providers, verify them. Using unverified emails may cause bounces, which can hurt your deliverability rates.
Step 2: Prepare email copy.
Now, it’s time to prepare an email copy for your cold outreach.
It’s essential to segment your outreach sequences, personalize your emails on a high level, and provide maximum value to your prospects.
For our outreach, we created three sequences:

Those who didn’t mention our product
Those who mentioned our product but below other products
And for those who mentioned but didn’t link back to us

Here is an example of the email we sent for those listicles that mentioned other products from our niche but didn’t mention us.

There’re a few critical things to include in your email copy when reaching out to listicles:

Short and catchy subject line. No one will ever respond to you if no one opens your email in the first place. Thus, the first thing to do while working on a new cold email campaign is to create the perfect subject line. Keep it short and catchy so your reader isn’t overwhelmed or lost. Instead, make them intrigued and engaged.

Quick intro and catchy opening line. After the subject line, the opening line is the second most crucial sentence in your cold email. Because you wrote a successful subject line and made prospects open your email, the next step would be to make them read your message. If you start with something blurry, dull, and generic, chances are you’ll never get a response from your prospect. At this step, it’s essential to add a personalized icebreaker. (This is the reason we added this personalized line about each article to our Google Sheet earlier.)

Personalize at scale with custom attributes. When you send dozens of emails simultaneously, it might be time-consuming to do it all manually. Here is where cold outreach automation tools come in handy. Create a spreadsheet with all data to personalize your emails and then add custom attributes to email copy. Your emails will be personalized on a high level automatically, and you don’t need to do tons of manual work.

Provide value in return. You can’t ask a stranger for an offer and not give anything in return. Offer them the option to participate in your affiliate program, or help with the content update or promotion. Think of anything that can bring them value.

End your email with a powerful CTA. It’s essential how you end your emails since it directly impacts the response rate. Ask an open-ended question that requires no time to get an answer. Make it clear and straightforward.

Step 3: Set-up outreach campaign.
Cold outreach is a time-consuming process, but when you find the right approach to automate it, you won’t need to spend that much time on your campaigns.
For our listicle outreach campaign, we knew two things we planned to do:

We would need to send highly-personalized emails to our prospects.
We would need to send follow-ups as they significantly increase the response rate (typically).

When you have hundreds or even thousands of prospects to outreach, the thing that you don’t want to do is to write every single email from scratch.
Also, you might find it overwhelming to remember when you need to follow up with every prospect. When you have more than one follow-up for each, doing it manually may sound like a nightmare.
So, this is the point where you need to use intelligent automation.
For the listicle outreach, we used Campaigns, a free tool that helps to automate cold emailing directly from your Gmail account.
As I mentioned above, we used custom attributes to automate personalization at scale. You need to spend time collecting all data for personalization before the outreach. Then, you just import it from your spreadsheet and have highly-personalized emails in a single click.
Here is how the final email we sent looked: personal and relevant to the prospect.

We also added two automated follow-ups to the sequence that used the personalization from the spreadsheet. The rule was to send the 1st follow-up in three days to all those who didn’t respond, and a 2nd in six days after the initial email.

When scheduling cold follow-ups, it’s essential to:

Not schedule too many follow-ups. Our crucial rule is to focus on writing irresistible emails instead of adding too many follow-ups. So we recommend limiting it to three follow-ups for your cold email campaigns. If you are sending too many follow-ups to someone who’s never heard about you, you may seem like an annoying person and damage your brand reputation.

Use the same thread for all emails. This way, prospects quickly get reminded about the offer from the previous email. Moreover, you can use follow-ups to continue telling the story or offering additional benefits, in this case.

Keep in mind a sending schedule. According to many studies, when you automate outreach, you’ll want to make sure you exclude from your sending window weekends and public holidays.

Step 4: Be proactive in negotiations.
Your cold outreach campaign doesn’t end when you hit “send.” Your negotiation skills and proactivity determine how successful your outreach campaign will be.
In the perfect world, each answer you receive to the listicle outreach campaign looks like this:

The thing is that we don’t live in a perfect world, and most of the prospects will try to get more benefits for you in exchange for a link, product mention, or position upgrade. So, be ready to negotiate!
Here are a few tips that helped us to get the most mentions after receiving answers from our prospects:

Be fast and provide what you offered right away. It doesn’t mean you have to skip sleep and update your inbox regularly. Just answer as soon as you see an email.

Be flexible. If you contacted a DR 90 website and the traffic to the desired listicle is 1K sessions, be flexible in negotiations. You don’t want to lose a “big fish.”

Do something for them. You get more chances of being featured if you provide even more value in return. Offer to share content after the update or give free consultation on something you’re good at.

Don’t forget to follow up. Make sure to schedule manual follow-ups for those who showed interest. Sometimes, people are just busy at the moment you send an email or can forget about the conversation. It’s OK. Just make sure to follow up regarding your conversation gently. You can use Gmail functionality to snooze conversations and get a reminder to follow up on a specific date.

Track all negotiations. Update your spreadsheet regularly and keep track of all negotiations. If you have too many prospects to handle, use a CRM.

Link building via “best” listicles is an effective strategy that can help to get tons of mentions and links for your business — if you do it right.
Make sure to spend enough time researching your potential prospects and collecting in-depth information on them.
Prepare email sequences that are unique and relevant to each segment, and add ice breakers and information pertinent to bring value to your prospects.
Automate routine work by using tools for cold outreach, and at the same time, spend as much time as needed on negotiations.
Hopefully, you’ll begin to see powerful results from your listicle outreach almost immediately.

Zingerman’s is a community of over 10 businesses spawned from a single deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Since 1982, the company has grown rapidly, but co-founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw rejected traditional growth paths in the food industry like franchising or vertical integration. Instead, the company found its scaling path through a combination of deeply knowing their “why” and leveraging the power of open book management.
Featuring insights from Buffer’s Small Business, Big Lessons podcast episode six and the accompanying unpublished interview, Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig shared the company’s founding story and how open book management unlocked new scaling opportunities for the company.
Ari Weinzweig, Co-Founder, Zingerman’sRejecting growth for growth’s sake
Just before Zingerman’s Deli opened in March 1982, everyone told them they were going to fail because so many others had failed before them and they opened in a “bad” neighborhood.
The business was a hit.
By 1986 the deli expanded its restaurant space and in 1991 the business purchased the house next door to turn it into a cafe. But with success came imitators and competition from other restaurants who wanted a piece of the market Zingerman’s had built.
Ten years into the business, Paul sat Ari down and asked him a serious question: what are we doing?
“In our current language, what he was asking me is, ‘what’s your vision,’ and I really didn’t have one,” said Ari.
After a year of deep conversations about the company’s “why” – some friendly and some tense – the duo realized they wanted growth, but didn’t want to franchise out the Zingerman’s model like other massive restaurant chains were doing in the 80s and 90s. This led to the idea of a group of businesses, each one unique. That way the business could grow but it would not require a franchise model.
Describing their strategic approach in retrospect, Ari said it was about the heart.
“Instead of trying to solve problems and instead of trying to figure out “intellectually” where you want to go, it’s about coming at it from the heart and describing the future of your dreams,” said Ari.
Teaching business skills to everyone
While thinking about what business to build next and how to build what Ari started calling a “community business,” he stumbled upon the concept of open book management, which states every employee should be able to see and know as much as possible about how the business operates.
Using a sports metaphor to explain how open book management works, Ari explained that the “players” (staff) often aren’t told how the business works, which leads to misaligned incentives. For example, a staff that doesn’t understand business numbers are happy on a slow day because it means their work is a bit easier. However, too many slow days will kill a business.
“They don’t know the score, and then if the team wins or loses, they don’t really get anything,” said Ari. If they do get something, it’s generally in a very paternalistic sort of ‘nice job honey, here’s fifty bucks.’”
Ari and Paul wanted to build their business differently, with employees understanding the business and rooting for its success. That’s where open book management came in. The pair shared the business’ numbers and educated people on how the business actually operates, showing top line revenue all the way down to bottom line profits.
“We teach people how business works, we teach them the difference between cashflow and sales, we teach them the difference between cashflow and profit,” said Ari.
A broken plate and a fry for your thoughts
Detractors of open book management say that giving away too much financial information about the business will drive employees away or risk your competitive position. Ari and Paul say they’ve experienced the opposite: people have become more innovative and aligned to business goals now that they have all the information.
“Performance is better when people understand – this is a huge one – the cost of what it means to drop something and break it,” said Ari. “The average frontline employee in most organizations is like, ‘Whatever man, they got so much money, who cares if I dropped 10 plates.’ Whereas here, they see how small the margins really are.”
Being honest about a broken plate is not about punishment – Ari is the first to admit he’s dropped many in his time with Zingerman’s – but instead, it’s about being conscious. For example, if the company has to replace hundreds of broken plates throughout the year, that creates an additional expense that reduces the ability to donate to charity or deliver a profit share to employees.
Beyond clear costs like a broken plate, open book management also helped Zingerman’s Roadhouse, a classic American diner, come up with an innovative solution when it was facing skyrocketing food costs.
Everyone could see rising food costs in the books, so the team huddled together to think about possible solutions.
There were lots of great ideas, but the winning idea came from a Dishwasher at the restaurant. He noticed that he often had to throw out significant amounts of french fries before washing dishes. After taste testing and verifying the fries tasted good, the team realized it was likely because portions were too big for some people. In response, the team brainstormed a solution: cut the regular fry portion in half, but offer free refills to anyone who enjoyed the previous, larger portion.
“This is a great example because it’s win-win-win; you’re spending less money [and] everybody gets excited that they could get a free refill,” said Ari. “… It actually enhances their experience culinarily and emotionally. It saved money for the business, it made the guest experience better, and it raised the bar on quality.”
A Zingerman’s for everyone
Thinking back to that conversation in 1993 where he pushed back on franchising, Ari is still happy he made that choice. Now, Zingerman’s community of brands has its original deli, a roadhouse, multiple other restaurants, a catering business, and even a training company that works with other businesses that want to embrace open book management.
While he might have made more money if he franchised out the Zingerman’s deli brand, focusing on a broader vision and a deeper “why” powered by open book management, the company was able to sustainably grow and run multiple profitable food services businesses, an extraordinary feat in the small business world.
And regardless of money, Ari is focused on quality and uniqueness, which is something he just doesn’t see as possible with a massive franchise model.
“My experience of that everywhere in the world is the first one’s awesome, the second one’s not bad, the fourth one is fine, and the eighth one, it’s like stopping at Starbucks,” said Ari. “I’m not cutting on Starbucks, that’s their vision and they’re entitled to go after what they want to do, but it just wasn’t work I wanted to be part of.”

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It’s the most wonderful time of year! Christmas is one of the biggest shopping seasons for retailers in-store and online. And while competition in the eCommerce space is pretty tight throughout the year, this is even more true during high-volume shopping periods. Brands need to stand out from the crowd in order to win sales…
The post 7 Important Ways to Get Your Online Business Ready for the Holidays appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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When you hear that social media can be valuable for hiring, you may think, “Sure, I’ve browsed LinkedIn for potential employees before.”
But I’m talking so much bigger than that. In fact, if you aren’t considering all of your social media channels as possible candidate pools, then you’re probably missing out on some incredible hires.
Look at it this way: Even if your social channels are customer-facing, a good percentage of your audience is likely made up of working professionals. If their skills align with your needs, and they already like what your company is doing enough to give you a follow, then it could be the perfect match.
Read on to learn how both small businesses and growing ones can create a strategy for hiring the best talent via social media.
1. Think About Where Your Ideal Candidates Hang Out
Smart social recruiting isn’t about blasting all of your social channels with your job openings until you fill them. Instead, get as targeted as you can when thinking about where you might find your ideal candidate for any given role.
Start by paying attention to the demographics and makeup of particular social media networks and how that aligns with the types of candidates you’re looking for. At Buffer, we’ve found more marketers on Twitter than on LinkedIn, because that’s where they tend to hang out. If you’re on the hunt for a social media pro or content creator, Instagram or TikTok might be a better place to look.
It can also be valuable to find ways to connect with niche communities within broader social networks. For instance, we’ve found a lot of traction in promoting job openings to Facebook groups that target people in specific industries (like DevelopHer, Tech Inclusion, or Techqueria). On Twitter or Instagram, you might look to see if there are hashtags you can include or accounts you can tag to get in front of the types of people you’re looking to hire (such as @WritersofColor).
2. Go Beyond Posting the Role
To get the most out of recruiting using social media, you want to do more than just post the job opening and hope for the best. Instead, use all the capabilities these platforms offer to show off your culture, answer questions about your company, and generally engage potential candidates—all of which can help push them toward clicking “apply.”
In one of the most fun tactics I’ve seen recently, a hiring manager at Buffer offered 15-minute “coffee chats” to his network on Twitter, where potentially interested candidates could learn more about the role and company. You could use the questions feature on Instagram stories for a similar AMA-style strategy.
Thanks to its conversational feel and culture of authenticity, social media also gives you a platform for showing off your company culture. According to a study by CareerArc, Facebook is the number one site candidates use to research employer brand and reputation, even more so than review sites like Glassdoor.
Get creative with content that shows what it’s like to work at your company, such as behind-the-scenes videos or interviews with current employees, to continue giving candidates who are the right fit reasons to be excited about working for you.

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A post shared by E A S T F O R K (@eastforkpottery)
Asheville, NC-based East Fork Pottery doesn’t just post a job description, it shares its values with potential hires.

3. Make It Easy to Learn More & Share
Social media has trained us to expect a seamless and easy user experience, so candidates who come across your job opportunities on these platforms are going to expect as much of you. If you make it hard for them to learn more about the job, they’ll likely give up fast.
And yet, I can’t tell you how many companies I see share roles on social media and then link to a clunky job page (or worse, not share a link at all).
Make sure it’s easy for people to find more details about the role, whether with a link in bio (perhaps on your brand’s Start Page) or a link directly on the post or story. Make sure those details are easy to browse on mobile since as much as 83% of social media browsing happens on our phones.
As a bonus, creating a seamless experience makes it easy for your followers to share these roles with their network, thereby extending your reach. At Buffer, we’ve also seen success from encouraging our hiring managers and teammates to share our open roles on their own channels.

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A post shared by Buffer (@buffer)
We’re hiring at Buffer, and we made it easy to apply and share with fun posts like these.
4. Build Relationships for the Future
Finally, remember that social media is, at its core, a relationship-building tool. Even your social channels don’t help you find the right candidate for a role immediately, keep up the work of sharing information about your culture and mission, connecting with new people, and staying top of mind so you can build a network of followers who not only love your products or services but who love your business, too.
After all, the next person who follows your company could be the perfect fit for the next role you’re hiring for—you just need to show them why.