Author: Franz Malten Buemann

The magic of email marketing and what it can do for your marketing strategy doesn’t happen all on its own. While we all know that it’s important to create drip campaigns that cater to your audiences’ needs and provide them with resources that will help them navigate toward a decision, content is only one piece…
The post How To Manage Your Email Campaigns for Ultimate Success appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Hey there! I’m working on my own project and I’d like to use IBM analytics but unfortunately I don’t have the budget at the time. Do you know any free or budget friendly tools that offer similar client behavior analysis? Thanks in advance
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LinkedIn is a highly valuable tool to network with like-minded professionals. But here’s something we don’t talk about as much as we should: LinkedIn is also a useful inbound marketing platform.

It might seem a little bit intimidating. You have enough on your plate … do you really need to figure out another way to create targeted content? Actually, yes. You have more power at your disposal with LinkedIn than you might realize.
That’s because LinkedIn has a powerful ads platform. If you’re already using pay-per-click (PPC) techniques to power your presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Google, consider yourself lucky — you can add LinkedIn to that list, too. This is especially easy to do if you’re using the HubSpot ads tool.

But if you’re new to LinkedIn Ads, fear not — we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to setting up your first LinkedIn ad campaign.

Before we dive in, let’s review the way in which LinkedIn Ads work:

In the above definition, we mentioned LinkedIn targeting options. Here’s some more information on how LinkedIn targeting actually works and what those targeting options are.

LinkedIn Targeting Options
Reviewing these options now will help you in step three below, where we review targeting on LinkedIn.
How does LinkedIn targeting work?

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Ad targeting in LinkedIn helps you run a successful advertising campaign — that’s because when you target the right people, it leads to greater engagement and more conversions.
With LinkedIn, the process of selecting the audience you’re going to target works the same way, no matter which type of ad you select.
When establishing who it is you’re going to target, LinkedIn provides over 20 different audience attributes and targeting categories that you can select from — examples include company name, company size, member groups, member interests, member schools, job title, job seniority, and skills.

Advertising on LinkedIn is a two-step process: 1) setting up your LinkedIn campaign, and 2) creating your LinkedIn ad(s).
In this section, we walk through how to set up a campaign and build your ad(s) — plus some best practices and tips for each.
1. Create your LinkedIn ad campaign.
Your LinkedIn advertising campaigns will live on a platform separate from the LinkedIn you see every day — the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions platform. Visit this page to get started with your campaign, and select Create Ad.
From there, you’ll be prompted to create a LinkedIn Campaign Manager account (if you haven’t yet). Make sure you enter your associated LinkedIn Company Page if you have one.
Next, you’ll be taken to your member dashboard. If you haven’t entered your billing information, you’ll need to do so to unlock your account. (Don’t worry, you won’t be charged until your campaign is live — from there, you’ll be charged periodically for ad clicks and other engagements.)
On your dashboard — or “Campaign Manager,” as it’s formally called — you’ll see a call-to-action (CTA) to Create Campaign.
Click that button, and you’ll be redirected to a page where you can start setting up your campaign.

Note: As of 2019, LinkedIn introduced a “new objective-based campaign creation experience”. We’ll be covering that new process in this article — to learn more, check out this page.

First, indicate a Campaign Group and name your campaign. Campaign Groups help you organize your campaign. You can leave the Default Campaign Group as-is or create a new Group.
As for the campaign name, these are only visible internally, so we recommend you choose a highly informative name — especially if you have a few different folks working on the campaign.
For example, if I was running a test to determine the best type of demographic targeting, I might use the title, “Unicorn Food Ad Test — North America, 18 to 24, Female.”
That name describes exactly who I’m targeting, without having to view its details. Compare this to something like “Unicorn Food Test 1,” which doesn’t indicate anything about who the ad is targeting.
Once you choose your Campaign Group and name, you can start setting up your LinkedIn campaign.
2. Set your LinkedIn ad campaign objective.
Next, choose your campaign objective.
Your objective is what you want people to do when they see your ads. According to LinkedIn, choosing an objective helps them, “customize your campaign creation, deliver the best ROI for your stated goal, and show you relevant reporting.”
There are three overarching campaign themes: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversions. Under those themes, some available campaign objectives are:

Website visits will drive traffic to your website and landing pages. According to LinkedIn, this type of campaign will also boost brand awareness (at least while that objective option remains unavailable).
Engagement will increase engagement on your content and boost followers on your LinkedIn Company Page.
Video views will increase the exposure of your videos to people who are likely to engage with them.
Lead generation will show a LinkedIn lead generation form with pre-filled LinkedIn profile data to those LinkedIn users most likely to engage with the form.

3. Designate your LinkedIn ad audience.
Next, choose the parameters of your target audience. Targeting who sees your ad can help it fulfill its campaign objective — the more specific and relevant it is to your audience, the better it’ll perform.
LinkedIn allows you to target according to a few different categories — refer to our points on targeting options that we reviewed above.
You don’t have to use all of LinkedIn’s targeting options — but, the more specific the targeting criteria, the more relevant it’s likely to be to the audience you select. And, therefore, the more likely you are to have a better ROI.

4. Decide on your LinkedIn ad format.
Next, choose your ad format. In the next section, we unpack the different types of LinkedIn Ads you can create as part of your campaign.
When you toggle between the ad types, you’ll see that the Forecasted Results box on the right-hand side will change. This feature analyzes your campaign parameters (bid, budget, targeting, start/end dates, etc.) and takes into account similar campaigns and advertisers. It also stimulates the ad auction to generate the numbers displayed.
Keep an eye on this box as you choose your LinkedIn ad type. If you’re first starting out, deciding on which ad type you want to choose may come down to budget. Outline your priorities, and then you can decide which type works best for you.
Additionally, some ad types require you to link your LinkedIn Company Page and some tap into LinkedIn translation services.
5. Choose your LinkedIn ad placement.
Next, decide whether you want your ad to be displayed on the LinkedIn Audience Network, which gives your campaign more reach and exposure among LinkedIn’s third-party platforms and sites. Note: This option isn’t available for every ad type.
You can also choose to exclude or block certain categories, applications, and sites in the Network if you so choose.

6. Set your ad budget and schedule.
Next, set up the budget, scheduling, and bidding options that work best for you.
Budget
Set a daily budget for what works best for your company’s marketing spending. Before investing a lot into one campaign, test and measure the success of each campaign and ad variation. You don’t want to put thousands of dollars, for example, into an ad that doesn’t resonate with your target audience.
Let’s say you’re the VP of Marketing at a high-end floral company. You assume that most of your target market is made up of soon-to-be brides, so you direct your LinkedIn Ads to bridal groups. But after spending thousands of dollars, you only generate 10% of the leads you were hoping for.
Your subsequent research shows this was the wrong move, and you later learn that people near your store who are on LinkedIn are actually looking for flowers for corporate events. It would have been nice to know that before spending a large amount of your budget on LinkedIn Ads, right?
That said, because of its extensive targeting opportunities, LinkedIn Ads can successfully target niche markets. But the cautionary experimentation is crucial to do early on — if you observe a campaign performing well, then you can put a larger budget toward it.
Schedule
Choose a date for your campaign to start. You can indicate for your campaign to be shown continuously or ‘til an end date.
Bid Type
In this section, the three options you have are:

Automated bid, which allows LinkedIn to determine what amount will maximize your campaign objective and whatever option you choose (clicks, impressions, or conversions).
Maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid, where you’ll be charged each time someone clicks on your ad. LinkedIn will suggest a bid range depending on your budget and the competition for your ads — the more advertisers bidding on a similar campaign, the higher your bid will need to be. This bid is the maximum you will be charged. If the current rate is lower than your max bid, you will only be charged the current rate.
Maximum pay-per-1,000 Impressions (CPM) bid, where you’ll be charged a certain amount each time your ad is viewed by every 1,000 people on LinkedIn. This option is unavailable if you’re using the LinkedIn Audience Network option.

Deciding on the best maximum bid can be tricky. When deciding between CPC and CPM, think about your end goal. Are you trying to get as many people as possible to see your ad to help with something like a branding campaign? If so, CPM might be your best option.
On the other hand, if you want more people to click on your ads to drive traffic to your website or generate new leads, CPC might be better for you.
As for your optimal maximum bid, some trial and error might be necessary. LinkedIn will give you a suggested bid, which is a good place to start.
Then, think about when your audience is most likely online. You’ll want to bid higher during that particular time to be sure that your ads are the ones being seen. And make sure LinkedIn is actually the best place to reach them, too — play around with your bids and see when you get the most return for your dollars spent.
7. Don’t forget conversion tracking.
Lastly, you have the option to set up conversion tracking for your LinkedIn campaign, which will track and measure the actions people take after clicking on your ads.
Conversion tracking is an optional part of setting up your LinkedIn advertising campaign but is highly valuable for your business.
If you choose to set up conversion tracking, click + Add conversions.
A new window will pop up, where you’ll name your conversion, choose your conversion settings, and decide how you’ll track the conversions.
Note: The information on the right-hand side of the window is super helpful — it’ll answer any questions you have and walk you through the process. And for more help implementing and managing your LinkedIn Conversions, visit this help page.

Bravo! You’ll officially set up your LinkedIn advertising campaign … but you’re not done yet. When you’re ready to move on, click “Save.” Beware: Your objective and ad format cannot be changed once you save, so be sure about your choices before moving forward.
8. Build your LinkedIn ad.
This section corresponds to what type of LinkedIn ad you chose for your campaign.
Once you establish the basic parameters for your ad in step one, you’ll be prompted to start building it and choose how LinkedIn will display and rotate your ad variations — if you create more than one.
To get started, click Create new ad.

A screen will pop up with the title “Create a new [Your chosen ad type] for this campaign,” on which you’ll create the copy for your ad, pair it with an image, and preview the different layout options.
Of course, there are a few guidelines around the copy that we suggest:

Ad image, which is the artwork or graphic that your audience will see for your ad. It must be 100×100 pixels and uploaded as a .jpg or .png file that is 2MB or smaller.
Ad headline, which is the main message your audience will see. It cannot be more than 25 characters.
Ad description, which is the body of your ad. It can be up to 75 characters long and should be relevant both to the person viewing the ad and the offer or page to which you’re sending them.
Destination URL, which is where your audience will go when they click your ad. Double check that the URL is accurate.

Once you input this information, you’ll see it reflected in the Preview box to the right.

Once you click Create, you’ll be directed back to the previous Campaign Manager screen. From there, you can create more ads and, eventually, review and submit your order.
Note: LinkedIn does review every submitted campaign order, so don’t expect to see your ads published right away.
To see the best results for your ads, consider creating a different ad for each of your buyer personas and tweak the copy accordingly.
For example, when promoting a book to college professors, leading the title with the words “College Professor’s Guide to …” may generate a higher CTR than generic, un-targeted headlines and copy.
Here are a few of our best copywriting tips for LinkedIn Ads.
CTA
Including an actionable CTA within your ad copy will also help you improve your ad’s click-through rate (CTR). Consider asking people to “Download your e-book now,” or “Click now for free samples” instead of writing copy that’s devoid of actionable next steps.
Value
Incorporate your value proposition into your ad copy — this can make people more likely to click on your ad. By boasting something like “20% off your first purchase” or “Clearance sale ends today — Shop now,” you’re sending a clear signal of what someone will specifically gain when he or she clicks your ad.
Testing
Don’t be afraid to test your ad copy. You can create multiple variations of your ad in each campaign, which allow you to test different images and copy within ads to find what works best for your audience.

As we said above, deciding on what type of LinkedIn ad is best for your campaign can come down to many factors: budget, audience, campaign objective — just to name a few.
When building your LinkedIn Ads, you have four main types from which to choose. Within those formats, you can choose different formats based on your ad content and purpose.
1. Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content shows up in your audience’s news feed among organic LinkedIn content.

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These ads are similar to promoted posts that blend into social media feeds. Sponsored Content is available in three formats:

Single image ads, which feature one image.
Carousel ads, which feature two or more images.
Video ads, which feature one video.

This type of LinkedIn ad typically has the highest average cost-per-click (CPC).
(Learn more about the advertising specifications for Sponsored Content according to LinkedIn.)
2. Message Ads

Message ads are delivered to your target audience’s LinkedIn inbox.

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With this type of LinkedIn ad, you can send your content directly to your audience from a personal account and better measure engagement based on recipient response and action.
(Learn more about the advertising specifications for Message Ads according to LinkedIn.)
3. Dynamic Ads

Dynamic Ads are personalized ads that change content based on which audience member is viewing them. This type of LinkedIn ad uses member personal data to tailor its creative content.

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(Each LinkedIn member sees his or her own personal data; data isn’t shared with other members.)
Dynamic Ads are available in three formats which are only available on the LinkedIn desktop platform:

Follower ads, which promote your LinkedIn Company Page.
Spotlight ads, which promote a special offering.
Job ads, which promote open jobs.

(Learn more about advertising specifications for Dynamic Ads according to LinkedIn.)
4. Text Ads
Text Ads show up on the right column or top of the page on LinkedIn.

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They’re the simplest type of LinkedIn ad but are still effective for boosting awareness and reaching your audience. Pay per click or per impression for Text Ads.
(Learn more about advertising specifications for Text Ads according to LinkedIn.)
Social ad campaigns can always be improved. Remember, your audience and content are always changing — as well as the platform itself. Here are some best practices to optimize your LinkedIn ad campaign.

Before we dive in, here’s a quick tip: Set a reminder for yourself to analyze and optimize your campaigns each month.
1. Know your audience and the customer journey.
As your business grows, your audience also evolves and so does the customer journey. It’s crucial that you know and update your buyer personas and the customer journey map regularly — this will allow you to effectively target your personas at the right point in time (a.k.a. when they’re most likely to convert). You may do this on a quarterly basis.
To help with the process, check out your buyer persona guide, free buyer personas templates, free Make My Persona tool, customer journey map guide, and free customer journey map template.
You should also consider your customer journey when deciding on which type of ads (more on this best practice in step four, below) you’ll create and share — not every type of ad is ideal for every part of the customer journey.
For instance, you may use a sponsored ad for audience members who have already engaged with your brand/content before rather than that being their first touchpoint with you. 
2. Segment your customers.
On a similar token, segmenting your customers is a great way to prepare for effective and tailored ad targeting, whether on LinkedIn or any other platform. 
You can segment your customers so that you know exactly how you’re going to target specific audiences on LinkedIn in order to increase engagement and chances of conversion.
For instance, you might know that specific audience segments are going to need a certain type of LinkedIn Ad at a certain point in the buyer’s journey – having your customers ready in segments makes this part of the ad targeting process easy and efficient. 
3. Refer to your social ads on other platforms as well as your competitors’ LinkedIn Ads.
Getting some inspiration and gleaning information from your other social ads as well as the LinkedIn Ads of your competitors is a great way to help you navigate the process of creating and sharing your ads on LinkedIn.
Although LinkedIn is a unique platform and your audience may not be the same across social platforms, it’s still good to take some inspiration from and, at the very least, identify which ads perform best on other social platforms like Google and Facebook.
Not only can this be a good starting point when planning your LinkedIn Ads, but it can also help you save time — maybe you want to repurpose content that’s on a Google Ad already for LinkedIn. 
Additionally, you may not have the analytics to prove which of your competitors’ LinkedIn Ads are performing best, but you can at least identify which types of ads are getting a lot of engagement by looking at metrics like comments and reactions.
This is a helpful reference point when planning and creating your LinkedIn Ads since you’re likely going to have a similar audience on the platform as your competitors do. 

4. Carefully select the content you share based on the type of ad you’re creating.
As mentioned earlier, you’ll want to determine what content you’re sharing with audience members based on the type of ad you’re creating. Refer to your customer segments here to help you effectively tailor content to those audience members and where they are in the customer journey when working through this step. 
As a recap, here are the types of LinkedIn Ads you can create along with examples of the content you may include: 

Sponsored content: Single image ads, video ads, carousel ads, and event ads; ideal for highly-engaged audiences in the LinkedIn Newsfeed. 

Sponsored messaging: Conversation Ads, Message Ads; ideal for engaging audience members in LinkedIn Messaging. 

Lead generation forms: Lead generation forms; ideal for creating pre-filled forms for LinkedIn ads.

Text and dynamic ads: Text ads, spotlight ads, follower ads; ideal for running ads in the LinkedIn right rail.

5. Use eye-catching and attention-grabbing visuals and language.
This content you’re sharing should just be selected by ensuring it works with the type of ad you’re creating though — it also needs to bring your audience members in and make them want to engage with it (e.g. read/ watch more, click on it, open your gated offer, etc.).
Think about ad elements like: 

Colors
Font
Language and text
CTA placement and style 
Images
Videos
GIFs
For more inspiration, take a look at
these great LinkedIn Ad examples. 
6. A/B test your LinkedIn Ads (and tweak one variable at a time).
Don’t be afraid to test different visuals, language, and text to determine what your unique audience on LinkedIn finds eye-catching and attention-grabbing. You can test different versions of the same ad to see what factor is contributing to or hindering its success.
For instance, change the copy in your headline, change your featured image, tweak the target audience attributes, or update your bids — just don’t do these all at the same time or you won’t know which one is the fix. A/B testing makes this process easy and ensures you’re just changing one factor at a time.
7. Create gated offers using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.
Gated offers are those that require some sort of information in return for that offer — for instance, an audience member gets a free template or an ebook in return for sharing their email address. To do this with your LinkedIn Ads, you’ll have to use their Lead Gen Forms. 
LinkedIn allows you to create Lead Gen Forms for both Sponsored Content and Message Ads. They come pre-filled with LinkedIn profile data so members are able to share their information with you in seconds.
Additionally, the forms allow you to track important metrics such as campaign cost per lead, lead form fill rate, and how many leads you get certain audience segments.
8. Keep your budget in mind when creating LinkedIn Ads. 
Like anything in business, you’re going to want to keep your budget in mind. LinkedIn uses objective-based pricing when it comes to advertising — meaning, you only pay to achieve the specific marketing goals you have. In other words, you’re charged based on your campaign objective. 
You’ll select the activity you want to pay for and then the campaign objective you picked will determine which ad formats, bidding strategies, and optimization goals you can focus on. 
9. Determine each campaign’s click-through rate (CTR).
Is one campaign outperforming the other(s)? If so, you may want to pause the less successful campaign(s).
LinkedIn will automatically display less successful campaigns with lower frequency, so it makes sense to minimize any resources spent on them. Instead, putting more resources into successful ad variations and campaigns is more likely to accomplish your marketing goals.
10. Measure and analyze your LinkedIn Ad campaign’s success.
LinkedIn makes it easy to track your progress in the Campaign Manager dashboard (under “Campaign Performance”), where you’ll see various charts that measure performance like clicks, expenditures, and CTR.
You can also keep track of conversions in the graphs toward the bottom of the dashboard.

When you finish setting up your first campaign, you’ll see a lot of “0”s at first. Don’t worry, that’s only because your campaign is new (and don’t forget that LinkedIn usually has to approve your ads before they go live).
LinkedIn Ads is available within all HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise accounts! Track visitor and contact engagement, run reports on closed-loop marketing, sync leads from LinkedIn lead generation forms, and MORE — all within your HubSpot account.
Ready to try a LinkedIn Ad strategy?
With the right amount of patience and strategy, LinkedIn ad campaigns can be a huge factor in your company’s marketing success. LinkedIn has a very powerful advertising platform; don’t leave this off your social campaign marketing list. A well-researched, optimized campaign has the potential to bring in thousands of new leads — and sales.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Work events are really hit or miss. Let’s be honest: How many times have you found yourself anxiously fidgeting with a paper napkin in the corner of a stuffy networking happy hour?
Here’s the thing: It’s not the event itself that prevents you from coming back the following year. It’s the experience you remember having. In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the best experiences brands have ever offered their customers.
I have a big problem with generic trade shows and industry conferences. That’s why I was not only relieved, but surprised and delighted, when I attended a holiday party that featured a live, interactive version of an arcade game.
An entire room had been curated to look like a video game setting, and people were dressed up as characters from it. There was a giant, real-life scoreboard, boppy electronic music, and best of all, there was no tedious small talk.
It wasn’t just another tired work event … it was an experience. And in our line of work, that sort of thing has a name: experiential marketing.
While a surprising number of people haven’t heard of the concept, it’s kind of a big deal — there’s an entire three-day summit dedicated to it, and 65% of brands that use it say that it positively correlates with sales.
But what is it, exactly? And how has it been used effectively? We found 14 of the coolest experiential marketing campaigns that really break down how it works, and how you can apply those lessons to grow your business.

Experiential marketing (also known as xm marketing, engagement marketing, event marketing, on the ground marketing, live marketing, or participation marketing), might sound a bit like event marketing, which makes sense — experiential campaigns do tend to be event-centric. But there are also times when they have nothing to do with a specific event, as you’ll see from the examples we picked.
When an engagement marketing campaign is event-centric, it’s dedicated less to the type of event — like a concert, festival, conference, etc. — and more to interactions between the brand and the customer. (If you already have an event in the works, check out this guide to adding experiential elements to it.)
What do experiential marketers do?
An experiential marketer is in charge of creating and executing on the strategy for a client’s live, interactive marketing campaigns or in-person events.
An experiential marketer’s role is similar to a brand ambassador, event planner, or brand manager, and typically involves the following duties: 

Brainstorm innovative experiential marketing campaigns to increase brand awareness, interact with the public, and create positive brand perception 
Perform market research to understand what types of experiential marketing campaigns would perform best with a specific audience 
Create events or live, interactive campaigns to help businesses effectively connect with its target audiences
Lead events and take charge of logistics as it relates to event management 
Track, analyze, and report on all experiential marketing campaign performance
Work with cross-functional teams including brand, creative, digital, social, and public relations
Travel to events as necessary to ensure vendor compliance and execution, sales support, and overall event success

Why Experiential Marketing Matters Today
According to Forbes, experiential marketing can bolster a lasting connection between customers and a brand. It can also allows you to collect vital data about participating consumers which can then help you improve your strategy. 
These campaigns can take an integrated approach. The primary purpose is to experience a brand in a tangible, offline way, but you’ll still want an online dialogue around it.
When you consider that 49% of folks create mobile video at branded events — 39% of which is shared on Twitter — it makes sense to incorporate a digital element. A branded hashtag, for example, can get people talking about the experience.
1. Refinery29: 29Rooms
For about three years now, lifestyle brand Refinery29 has hosted the 29Rooms event: What it calls “an interactive funhouse of style, culture, & technology.” As the name suggests, it consists of 29 individually branded and curated rooms — and attendees can experience something different in each one. The rooms are designed and created with brand partners, who range from personalities like artists and musicians, to consumer-facing companies like Dunkin’ Donuts, Dyson, and Cadillac.
Each year, 29Rooms has a different theme, with this year’s being “Turn It Into Art.” Attendees, it seems, are encouraged to enter each room and use the surroundings to create something — one room, for instance, invites participants to put on punching gloves and hit punching bags that each produce a different sound when contacted to create a symphony of sorts. A truly hands-on experience, indeed.

Takeaways for Marketers

Go nuts, but keep it on-brand. An experience should be memorable, but relevant to the people attending.
Partner with creators like artists and musicians to create experiences, especially if they are recognizable within the region where you’re trying to build or augment an audience.

2. Red Bull: Stratos
If you were online October 14, 2012, you probably came across a live stream of the “Stratos” jump.
Red Bull has been at the forefront of extreme sports coverage for almost as long as the brand has existed. But in 2012, the company brought its content marketing to new heights — a world-record height, actually.
Affectionately named Stratos, Red Bull’s superterrestrial marketing campaign featured Felix Baumgartner, a skydiver from Austria who partnered with Red Bull to set the world record for highest skydive.
That record: 128,000 feet, about 24 miles above Earth’s surface. Gulp.
To pull off this amazing stunt, Red Bull housed Felix in a small communication capsule and sent him up to the stratosphere using a large helium-filled balloon. And what’s truly remarkable is that his ascent and preparation to jump, alone, allowed him to break another record before landing safely back on Earth (spoiler alert): Red Bull streamed the entire event online, and saw the highest viewing traffic of any live stream ever broadcast on YouTube — at just over 8 million viewers.
Want to see that experience again? Check out Red Bull’s recap video below. I won’t lie, I indulged in a rewatching as I wrote this article.

Takeaways for Marketers

Don’t underestimate the power of suspense when hosting an event your audience can own a piece of themselves. Being able to witness something new, and maybe a little scary, is such a personal experience. And the better the result, the longer your audience will remember and reminisce over it.
Oh, and if you can put your brand in the record books while you’re at it, that’s pretty cool too.

3. Lean Cuisine: #WeighThis
It’s disconcerting how many commercials today tell women to change something about themselves. Sitting on the couch and watching TV for just two minutes, I had already lost count of the number of times that message came up.
That’s why it’s so refreshing to see brands like Lean Cuisine, whose marketing used to center solely on weight loss, stray from diet-centric messaging. And its #WeighThis campaign is a great example of just that.
As part of the campaign, Lean Cuisine curated a gallery of “scales” in New York’s Grand Central Station, and invited women to “weigh in.” But here’s the catch: The scales were actually small boards where women could write down how they really wanted to be weighed. And rather than focusing on their weight in pounds — or anything pertaining to body image — the women opted to be measured by things like being back in college at 55, caring for 200 homeless children each day, or being the sole provider to four sons.
What’s particularly cool about this experience is that none of the participants actually interact with a Lean Cuisine product. No one was interrupted, asked to sample something, or stopped to answer questions. In fact, no one was really asked to do anything — the display itself was enough to make people stop, observe, and then voluntarily interact.
Lean Cuisine figured out what message it wanted to send: “Sure, we make stuff that fits into a healthy lifestyle. But don’t forget about your accomplishments. That matters more than the number on the scale.” But instead of blatantly advertising that, it created an interactive experience around the message.
Still, the experience was clearly branded, to make sure people associated it with Lean Cuisine. The company’s Twitter handle and a branded hashtag were featured on the display in large text, which made it easy for people to share the experience on social media. And that definitely paid off — the entire #WeighThis campaign led to a 33% increase in positive brand perception, and earned a 6.5 million reach just during week one.

Takeaways for Marketers

Don’t interrupt — especially if you’re trying to grab someone’s attention in New York City, like Lean Cuisine was. If you create an experience that provides value to the people who pass by it, they’re more likely to participate.
Figure out the message you really want to your brand to send — that may or may not be directly tied to an actual product, and it might be something that your brand hasn’t said before. Then, build an experience around it.

4. M&M: Flavor Rooms
If you’ve ever had a peanut M&M versus regular M&M debate, you know people can get passionate about candy. So, when M&M needed to choose its next flavor, the company chose to do so with an immersive pop-up in New York City. 
The experience included “flavor rooms”, which were each complete with decor and fragrances unique to a certain flavor. The pop-up also included snack and drink lounges with M&M-themed cocktails — which, I’m willing to bet, we’re great opportunities for M&M to appear on different attendees’ social pages. 

Image Source
Takeaways for Marketers

With every marketing campaign you launch, find the “fun” factor. It’s easy to get caught up in how much your brand helps solve your customer’s problem. But what about them, as people, would also bring them enjoyment?
Consider how you might leverage your audience for key business decisions. If they’re the ones who will be buying and using your product, they’re also the ones best-equipped to tell you what’s working, and what isn’t. An experiential campaign is one good opportunity to connect directly with your consumers and create enjoyable experiences in which they can provide perspective. 

5. Benefit Cosmetics: ‘A Lashtastic Virtual-Media Campaign’ 
In today’s digital-first world, a good experience doesn’t have to be in-person. But traditionally, consumers still want to test out new makeup products before purchasing — which created a challenge for Benefit Cosmetics during the worldwide pandemic, in which most retail locations were closed. 
To draw attention to its new Magnet Extreme Lengthening Mascara, Benefit, working with Because Creative Experiences, chose to create an immersive experience in which users could collect tokens and exchange those tokens for discounts, mascaras, or virtual beauty consultations on Benefit’s website. Best of all, they used Augmented Reality to create a fun, unique experience for their users. 
Here’s how it worked: Once users signed into Benefit’s Virtual Reality platform, they were asked to drop their location. Next, thanks to Augmented Reality, the prospects could use their phones to find tokens in their physical space. 
The campaign proved incredibly effective — including a conversion rate of over 50%, a CTR of 39.4%, and an average gamification dwell time of 2 minutes and 22 seconds. 

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Takeaways for Marketers: 

Even adults love games. Consider how you might gamify your own experience and provide unique challenges or contests to drive engagement. In this case, the experience is fun whether or not a user purchases the product — which is key towards creating a good user experience. 
If an in-person experience isn’t feasible, get creative with technology, VR, or AR to create the next best thing. Nowadays, digital experiences can feel just as real as in-person. But to truly grab your audiences attention, you might need to think beyond traditional social campaigns.

6. Misereor: Charity Donation Billboard
When was the last time you used cash to pay for something?
Tough to remember, right? We’re kind of a species of “mindless swipers” — globally, an estimated 357 billion non-cash transactions are made each year. And knowing how often we whip out our cards, German relief NGO Misereor decided to put our bad habit to good use with its charitable giving billboard.
It was what they called SocialSwipe. Set up in airports, these digital posters would display images of some problems that Misereor works to resolve — hunger was depicted with a loaf of bread, for example.
But the screen was equipped with a card reader, and when someone went to swipe a card — for a small fee of 2€ — the image moved to make it look like the card was cutting a slice of bread.
Even cooler? On the user’s bank statement, there would be a thank-you note from Misereor, with a link to turn their one-time 2€ donation into a monthly one.
Needless to say, this experience required a lot of coordination — with banks, airports, and a mobile payment platform. Because of that, the experience couldn’t just be a one-time occurrence. The people who interacted with it were later reminded of it during a pretty common occurrence: receiving a bank statement.

Takeaways for Marketers

Visually represent the impact of participating in the experience. People interacting with this display were shown exactly where their money was going — like slicing bread for a hungry family. (Infographics work nicely here, too — check out our templates.)
Partner with another brand to create an even better experience. In this instance, Misereor worked with Stripe.com for the payment technology, and with financial institutions to get a branded message on users’ bank statements. (And stay tuned — we’ll talk more about the value of co-branding here later.)
Don’t be afraid to nurture your leads. Even if you don’t use something like a branded hashtag to integrate the experience with an online element, find a way to remind someone that they participated.

7. Lululemon: Proud & Present
To celebrate Pride Month, Lululemon worked with MKG to create an immersive, thoughtful experience that combined an engaging social media campaign with real-life community-centered events. 
First, the athletic brand asked its own employees and ambassadors to reflect on topics relevant to the LGBTQ+ community. The brand shared their responses via images and video on Lululemon’s Instagram page throughout the month. 
Next, the brand created an art installation at Hudson River Park that reflected those same responses. This space, which stayed in the Park for two weeks, encouraged passersbys to read and reflect. That’s not all, though — Lululemon also created a community-focused yoga practice in the same park, which aimed to raise money for The Trevor Project. 
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Takeaways for Marketers

Consider how you might create a cohesive experience to unit your online and offline presence. In this case, Lululemon leveraged its social accounts to reach its 3.7 million followers, but then created a few special, in-person experiences to drive the point home for its New York-based community. 
An experiential marketing campaign shouldn’t just focus on selling a product or service — it oftentimes can, and should, focus on a larger issue. In this case, Lululemon’s dedication to Pride Month increased brand awareness and loyalty.

8. Häagen-Dazs: Strawberries & Cream with Wimbledon
To draw attention to its new, limited-edition ice cream flavor Strawberries & Cream, Häagen-Dazs worked with Wonderland to create a GIF photo booth at the tennis championship Wimbledon. 
The booth included a swing (playfully alluding to tennis), which encouraged famous tennis players, models, and influencers to take pictures to post on social media — a good opportunity to collect user-generated content and expand their reach quickly. 
Naming itself “the official ice cream of Wimbledon”, Häagen-Dazs created a commercial for the limited edition flavor, as well: 

Takeaways for Marketers 

 Consider how you might create fun opportunities to encourage user-generated content. This doesn’t have to break the bank, either — there are plenty of budget-friendly options to create small booths at business conferences that still embrace that Instagram-worthy look. 

9. Facebook: Facebook IQ Live
Facebook — who also owns Instagram — has always understood how much data it has on how people use these platforms. For that reason, it created the Facebook IQ Live experience.
For this experience, that data was used to curate live scenes that depicted the data. Among them was the IQ Mart: A “retail” setting that represented the online shopper’s conversion path when using social media for buying decisions. There was also a quintessential Instagram cafe, chock full of millennial-esque photo opportunities and people snapping them — latte art and all.
The campaign wasn’t just memorable. It also proved to be really helpful — 93% of attendees (and there were over 1500 of them) said that the experience provided them with valuable insights on how to use Facebook for business.
But what makes those insights so valuable? Momentum Worldwide, the agency behind Facebook IQ Live, puts it perfectly: “When we understand what matters to people … we can be what matters to them.” In other words, we can shape our messaging around the things that are important to our target audiences.
And by creating this experience, Facebook was able to accomplish that for its own brand. In creating this experience, it also created a positive brand perception for a few audiences — including, for example, the people who might have been unsure of how to use the platform for business.

Takeaways for Marketers

Build an experience for people who aren’t sure about how they would use your product or service. Find ways for them to interact with your brand in a way that creatively spells out how it can benefit them.
Bring your data to life. We love numbers, but creating a live installment that illustrates them can help people understand exactly what they mean. And since 65% of people think that live events help them understand a product, this setting is a great place to do it.

10. Zappos: “Google Cupcake Ambush”
To help promote its new photo app, Google took to the streets of Austin, Texas, with a cupcake truck in tow. But people didn’t pay for the cupcakes with dollars — instead, the only accepted currency was a photo taken with said app.
And really, what’s better than a free-ish cupcake? We’ll tell you what: A free-ish watch or pair of shoes.
That was the answer from Zappos, anyway. That’s why the brand playfully “ambushed” Google’s food truck experience with one of its own: A box-on-feet — strategically placed right next to Google’s setup, of course — that, when fed a cupcake, would dispense a container with one of the aforementioned goodies.
In order to reap the rewards of the Zappos box, people had to have a cupcake. So while only one brand came away from the experience with an epic sugar high, both got plenty of exposure. And since 74% of consumers say a branded experience makes them more likely to buy the products being promoted, Google and Zappos both stood to gain new customers from this crowd.
But what we really like about this example is how much it shows the value of experiential co-branding. Because Google and Zappos pursue two different lines of business, they weren’t sabotaging each other, but rather they were promoting each other (which is what happens when you pick the right co-marketer).

Takeaways for Marketers

Use experiential marketing as a co-branding opportunity.

Pick a partner with an audience that would be interested in your brand, but might otherwise be difficult to reach.
Make sure your partner would benefit from your audience, too — you want the experience to be a win-win-win: for you, your co-brand, and the consumer.

When you do pick a marketing partner, build an experience that requires an “exchange” of each brand’s product or service. That way, the audience is more likely to interact with both of you.

11. Docker: Docker Dash
Docker is a software platform that allows developers to make and run apps on different operating systems — a technology known as “containerization.” By some standards, it’s not the sexiest product you can buy. By an enterprise’s standards, it’s not even the easiest product to understand. Enter: Docker Dash.
In partnership with Jack Morton, Docker used its developer conference, DockerCon 2017, to nurture its core enterprise market with a unique product demo called Docker Dash. What made it so unique? It wasn’t a demo — it was a game. And conference guests weren’t guests — they were players.
Docker Dash was a live video game-style simulation of Docker’s application platform, and it recruited 5,000 of its enterprise attendees to create an app together by solving a series of fun challenges inside the game. Each challenge presented in Docker Dash allowed the “players” to engage a feature of Docker’s product and ultimately complete their app. It was a fun, collaborative way to show enterprise software developers why Docker is invested in the containerization market and the value these people can get from Docker’s product.
Docker Dash got the attention of more than 3.6 million people — those who watched and posted about the event from social media, in addition to those who attended DockerCon in person.

Takeaways for Marketers

Conference hosts thrive on attendees who network with one another. By creating opportunities for your attendees to collaborate and play together, you allow them to share their ideas — making for more educated customers as a result.
“Gamify” your brand. Give people the ability to play and compete for something, and you’ll instill in them a sense of accomplishment that makes them more passionate about your industry.

12. Vans: House of Vans
Recently, Vans hosted House of Vans pop-up locations at skateparks within major cities like NYC and Chicago. This gave skateboarders a place to meet up, connect, listen to live music, and shred. 
Vans also used these skatepark-based popups to promote the launch of their new shoe line which honored David Bowie. 
With Vans being a leading shoe line of skateboarders, pop-ups in and near skateparks seem like a natural fit for an experiential marketing experience. 

Takeaways for Marketers

Identify your audience’s hobbies and embrace them. In the example above, Vans knew that they had a big skateboarding audience, so they crafted an event to reward them while intriguing other skateboarders.
Similarly, if you know you have audiences based in certain locations, go to where they are for your experiential campaign. This will provide less friction and make your audiences feel like you are literally meeting them where they are.

13. Rick & Morty: Rickmobile
To promote the return of the animated Adult Swim series Rick & Morty, Cartoon Network sent a car around the country shaped like Rick, a main character and mischievous time-traveling grandfather on the show. By marketing primarily on social media, the company was able to get the campaign to go viral. 
People began following where the Rickmobile was via a live destination page on the adult swim site.
When the Rickmobile hit major cities, people flocked to it to take a picture with Rick’s face and enter the mobile where they could purchase products related to the TV show.

Takeaways for Marketers

It’s okay to embrace social media to create anticipation and excitement around your pop-up or experience, just as Adult Swim and Cartoon Network did. 
Embracing weirdness, like that of a giant cartoon head driving around the country, can be a helpful way to make your event shareable or intriguing — even to people who might not follow the content or company that you’re promoting.
If you can work in product sales, consider it. In this example, the network not only promoted the television show, but it also sold products related to it. So, essentially, people directly paid for aspects of a large scale ad.

14. Coca-Cola: FIFA World Cup VR Experience
In Zurich, during the FIFA World Cup, Coca-Cola placed a VR experience in front of a train station. With the experience, you could stand in front of a screen and see a popular soccer player next to you. You could then practice a soccer move with the athlete or compete in your own mini soccer tournament.

Takeaways for Marketers
While VR isn’t accessible to many marketers, this experience did have a few scaleable strategies associated with it.

To give your attendees an experience of value, consider hosting an expert who can answer questions or give tips related to your marketing campaign.
Embrace major events. If you know a city or area will be highly populated due to a game or another event, consider placing a pop-up there that somehow relates to that audience or the event itself.

Clearly, taking some very calculated risks worked out pretty well for these companies. So when it comes to creating an experience with your brand, don’t be afraid to think outside of the box — and don’t be afraid to work together on it with someone else.
Invest some time into thinking about the ways people could interact with you, even if it seems a little nutty. If it’s aligned with what you do and executed thoughtfully, people will be talking — in the best way possible.

When most businesses forecast their revenue goals, they first calculate their total addressable market, which is the total market demand for their industry’s products or services. Put simply, it’s the maximum amount of revenue a business could generate if they captured their entire market.

However, unless you’re a monopoly, you most likely can’t capture the total addressable market for your products or services. Even if you only have one competitor, it would still be extremely difficult to convince an entire market to only buy your products or services.
That’s why it’s crucial to calculate the maximum amount of revenue you can possibly generate by selling your products or services to the customers who would realistically benefit from buying your solutions.
This amount of potential revenue is called your market size or serviceable addressable market, and you can use it to accurately measure your business’ potential for growth.

Market Size Example
Let’s walk through an example to explore how you’d determine market size. 
A Startup Wine Company
Let’s say you wanted to start your wine company. Here’s how you would calculate market size: First, you’d want to determine how many liquor stores are in the United States — this helps you figure out the total market to which you could theoretically sell your product. 
After your research you determine there are 50,000 liquor stores in the United States. Of that total list, you only want to sell to the New England area — including Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island.
You determine your target market includes the 1,000 liquor stores in the New England area. From here, you conduct research and speak with alcohol distributors to determine there’s a roughly 40% success rate for wine distribution.  
Using this as an example, we’d calculate market size using the following formula:
1,000 liquor stores x 40% = 400 liquor stores
Then, if you assume each liquor store will result in $20,000, you can figure out potential revenue using the following formula:
400 liquor stores x $20,000 = $8,000,000
This means you stand to make $8 million if you penetrate 40% of the total market in the New England area — however, this doesn’t take into account your competitors’ wine, or all the other liquors available in any liquor store. For this reason, you’ll want to remain conservative when guessing how much of the market size you’ll win. 

How to Use Estimated Market Size
Okay, you have your estimated market size — now what? 
Market size helps your business answer the following questions: 

How much potential revenue can we earn from this particular market? In other words … is it even worth our time and energy?
Is the market big enough to interest us? 
Is the market growing? Will there still be opportunities to earn revenue from this market in 3, 5, 10 years? 

Market size is a critical number to know when you’re looking for funding. Investors are going to need to know how much money you have the potential to make from a given market. Additionally, it’s vital to recognize whether the potential revenue you can make outweighs your business’ costs. 
Once you have market size, you’ll also want to consider how saturated the market already is with your competitors’ products. Ultimately, you can’t capture the total addressable market (TAM) — some of those people will choose competitors’ products over yours. So you’ll need to determine whether you have a shot at earning enough consumers out of the TAM to make this a worthwhile venture.

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Influential leaders are a pillar of any organization.
They motivate employees, help them feel empowered in their skills, and, in turn, build strong teams that consistently meet business goals and contribute to overall business success.
Assuming a leadership role is often an end goal for many business people. If you’re hoping to get there one day and want to know how you can succeed, or you’re hoping to improve your skills, this post will explain what leadership skills are, outline how you can develop them, and learn how to display your skills on a resume to stand out amongst your competitors.

Leadership skills are essential for a business because they drive success. Strong leaders ensure that employees are equipped with the tools and resources to succeed, unify teams to create a culture of togetherness, and delegate and communicate responsibilities and wins to all involved stakeholders.
As an individual, leadership skills are important because they help you in all aspects of your career. You’ll know how to take ownership of your job responsibilities, communicate effectively, and work with others to reach a common goal. If you possess leadership skills but are not yet in a leadership role, demonstrating these skills will signal to employers that you can be a strong leader, which sets you apart from other applicants.
Examples of Leadership Skills
While not an exhaustive list, the skills below are examples of abilities that effective leaders have.

Communication: A leader needs to communicate effectively and clearly with stakeholders, employees, and all involved teams. Additional skills that support effective communication are active listening, clarity, concision, and persuasion.

Strategic thinking: Leaders must be strategic thinkers who can understand business goals and develop processes specifically to help meet them.

People management: As leaders lead people, they must manage groups and help them succeed. People management skills can include communication, active listening, working collaboratively, team building, empathy, giving feedback, and delegating responsibility.

Motivation: Leaders must be self-motivated when it comes to hitting targets and performing their job duties. You also must motivate your teams and help them feel empowered and able to achieve business goals. Commitment is a skill that strongly relates to motivation.

Flexibility: Things can change quickly for a business, and leaders must be flexible and able to face changes in the market, employee turnover, or any issues that arise. Being able to think strategically is a skill that strongly relates to being flexible.

Reliability: People look up to leaders, so they must be reliable. Your teams want to know and trust that you’re giving them the tools they need to succeed, and higher-ups want to trust that you will meet the goals set out for you. Additional skills related to reliability are trustworthiness, integrity, timeliness, and the ability to take the initiative.

Ability to mentor and teach: One of the most important things for a leader to do is mentor and teach employees and help them develop their professional skills. Related skills include helpfulness, giving positive reinforcement, understanding employee differences, and providing constructive feedback.

Decisiveness: Leaders must be able to confidently and decisively make informed decisions on critical business matters. Additional skills that support decisiveness are motivation, problem-solving, strategic thinking, and communication.

Ability to give and receive feedback: People look to leaders for guidance, so it’s critical to be able to provide feedback to employees for their development and for you to be able to receive feedback from others.

Most Important Leadership Skills
Although various skills can make someone a successful leader, a few are more critical than others. We’ll discuss two of them below.
1. Communication
Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer found that employees ranked good communication as a critical skill for leaders. As such, communication is a vital leadership skill.
The skill relates to all aspects of your job performance, as you need to be able to communicate expectations to employees, delegate job duties, and provide feedback. You also need to communicate performance with stakeholders and higher-ups, so they understand the success of your processes.
A leader unable to effectively communicate will likely find themselves leading teams that are confused about expectations, unaware of their performance, and unsure about their day-to-day tasks. In addition, higher-ups will have difficulty understanding why you’re implementing your processes and how teams are performing concerning meeting targets.
2. Ability to Mentor and Teach
A key component of leadership is being able to lead.
This means mentoring teams, empowering them, and helping people develop the skills they need to succeed at their jobs. Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO of HubSpot, says that leadership isn’t necessarily dictated by a job title but how someone focuses on lifting up and empowering those around them.

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A leader that is a good mentor also creates an environment of trust and collaboration with their employees. This can make people feel more comfortable approaching you with questions or assistance when they need guidance.
Some additional skills that are strongly associated with being a good mentor and teacher are helpfulness, the ability to see different perspectives and level with your employees, patience, clear communication, and the ability to communicate instructions and provide actionable feedback.
How To Develop Leadership Skills
One of the best ways to develop leadership skills is through experience, whether it is on-the-job, external activities, or even in a position of leadership. Let’s go over some ways to develop these skills:

Leverage resources like books, podcasts, and content from thought leaders and those with a history of leadership experience and a wealth of knowledge to share.
Participate in courses, workshops, and training opportunities where experienced leaders teach leadership skills and share their expertise.
Follow other leaders that you feel inspired by, study their practices, and implement some of their strategies into your day-to-day.
Seek out leadership opportunities in all areas of your life. For example, if you’re part of a community group, consider taking a leadership role if the opportunity arises, or create a group and gain leadership experience through building it from the ground up.
Recognize that it is a continuous process, and leaders are constantly learning and developing their skills. Therefore, be open to continuous learning, and seek out opportunities that allow you to build your skills.

How To Improve Leadership Skills
Whether you’re a seasoned leader or starting in your first leadership role, there is always room for improvement. Let’s go over some of the ways you can continue to build upon your leadership skills.
Have a mentor.
Having a mentor allows you to learn from someone that has more leadership experience than you. Some businesses have mentorship programs where you can shadow a leader at work and observe their practices, and bring their tips and tricks into your own day-to-day life. A mentor can also observe your performance and give you actionable feedback on how to improve.
Take the initiative.
It will be challenging to improve your skills if you’re not actively seeking opportunities to practice them. So, take the initiative in your current position and ask for additional responsibilities, or step into leadership roles as they become available.
For example, if your workplace creates a new employee group, offer to take the leadership role. You may feel a bit out of your comfort zone, but it will give you valuable hands-on experience that will help you perfect your skills. In addition, people you work with will likely be willing to provide feedback on your leadership, giving you additional growth opportunities.
Focus on specific skill areas.
If there are specific areas of leadership that you feel need improvement, focus on them. For example, you can request more responsibility in particular areas, so you have real-life practice with those skills.
Having a mentor can be helpful in this regard, as they can shadow you at work and monitor you to identify specific areas that may be causing you to struggle. For instance, if you’ve heard from employees that they’re sometimes confused about instructions, you may struggle with communication. A mentor could sit in on a conversation with a team member to get a sense of your conversation style and work with you to create a plan of action to improve.
Once you’ve worked to develop and improve your leadership skills, how do you share this when seeking out job opportunities? Your resume.
Leadership Skills on a Resume
Knowing how to leverage your leadership skills on a resume can be challenging. While you can certainly list the skills you have that make you a good leader, recruiters and hiring managers often want to see results that prove and support your abilities.
The most important thing to keep in mind when listing leadership skills on a resume is to ensure that you’re including skills relevant to the job description you’re applying for so it is explicitly clear to readers how you’ll succeed at the job.
Here are some ways to showcase your leadership skills on a resume:
1. List your skills.
The easiest thing to do is simply include a list of the leadership skills you have that are relevant to the role based on the job description. The image below is an example of a simple list of job-relevant skills on a resume.

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2. Demonstrate your leadership skills in action.
Another way to display your leadership skills on your resume is to show how you’ve used them to achieve results in your previous position. This can look like using quantifiable data and metrics that demonstrate how you’ve created success, and the image below is a great example of this.

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3. List awards and achievements.
Another way to showcase your leadership capabilities is to include a list of achievements, awards, or honors that you’ve received for being a strong leader. Here are two examples of what that could look like on a resume:

Three-time recipient of [Your company name] Leadership Award.
Nominated recipient of the Great Manager Award.

Everyone Can Be A Leader
There are no specifications as to who can and can’t become a leader — it’s possible for everyone. If you leverage the tips on this list to develop your own leadership abilities and actively seek out opportunities for growth, you’ll find yourself in a position to inspire others and help businesses succeed.