Author: Franz Malten Buemann

By aligning team members and different teams, your business’s employees are able to work together to create delightful experiences that make prospects want to convert and stay loyal to your brand.
One example of a process in which this type of collaboration only improves your ability to convert prospects into loyal customers is lead qualification.
Think about it this way: If your marketing team can align with sales on what makes for a high-quality lead at your company, then marketing can identify and handoff these leads to reps after a lead’s initial interaction(s) with your brand. Then, once sales has these contacts from marketing, reps can also qualify them and nurture them accordingly. This leads to time being well-spent across the org and ensures sales reps aren’t wasting their time trying to identify leads that marketing has already engaged and vetted.
These leads that marketing engages, vets, and passes along to sales are called marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

MQL
In this post, we’ll talk about what an MQL is, why identifying MQLs is worthwhile, and MQL criteria you can establish on your team.

How does the qualification process for an MQL work?
At a high level, a lead becomes an MQL, then a SQL, working their way down the funnel until they (hopefully) become a customer.
As mentioned, if a lead becomes an MQL, they’ve been vetted by the marketing team. In other words, the marketing team determines whether or not they believe sales would have a good chance at successfully nurturing and converting a specific lead into a customer.
If the sales team does agree with the marketing team — and believes they have a good chance of converting an MQL into a customer — then that MQL becomes a sales qualified lead (SQL).
Why You’d Want to Mark a Lead as an MQL
Whether through a content offer, social post, virtual or in-person event, web page, blog post, subscription, podcast, or ad, marketing has many potential touchpoints with leads, prospects, and target audience members before anyone else at your business does.
The resulting engagement data (and contact information, if any) is vital to the success of your business. It’s how your marketing team can efficiently sift through those prospects to identify the highest-quality leads based on criteria (which we’ll talk more about below) set by your business.
Once marketing has identified MQLs for your business, then can send them along to your sales team — this propels sales through the initial steps of their roles (e.g. discovery and prospecting), and provides them with leads their marketing counterparts believe are worthwhile.
Sales then performs their own qualification process and pulls out the top-tier prospects from that list of MQLs.
Not only does this save sales reps time, but it also ensures marketing and sales are aligned on who your buyer personas are, what type of marketing content brings the right prospects for your business in, and more.

Marketing Qualified Lead Criteria
Setting accurate MQL criteria is how you ensure your sales team is sent leads of the highest quality. Establishing these criteria is also worthwhile because it helps marketing determine which type of marketing materials, content, and offers will do best among your audience members who fit that criteria. In other words, establishing solid MQL criteria is a win-win for both marketing and sales.
How to Establish With MQL Criteria (Plus Examples of MQL Criteria)
1. Establish a working marketing and sales team relationship.
As mentioned several times throughout this article, a major aspect of MQL success is the process of maintaining open communication and alignment between the marketing and sales teams. Marketing cannot target or identify high-quality leads without aligning with sales. And sales will not have access to MQLs without the help of marketing.
You might start by reiterating the importance of this relationship to the marketing and sales orgs so they understand the value that will come from cross-team communication.
Then, you might set recurring meetings to discuss alignment as well as roles and areas for potential growth (e.g. which marketing content is working best among prospects, which enablement materials sales feels like they’re missing, or prospect feedback that reps get directly from the source and can share with marketers to help their campaign targeting, etc.).
There may be a dedicated amount of time during these meetings for discussion about how to improve the marketing and sales relationship and alignment, and another portion of time set aside for feedback, ideation, and fact sharing.
2. Create lead definitions.
Marketers and salespeople should also work together to develop lead definitions for your business. Meaning, marketing should meet with sales to identify, explain, and record the main characteristics and traits that make up an MQL on your team.
For example, your marketing managers may meet with your sales managers to create a definition of an MQL. This process will look likely look a lot like the process you used to develop your buyer personas.
Here are some examples of questions to ask while defining MQLs:

What type of marketing content should be engaged with in order to define someone as an MQL?
Which specific defining traits (demographic and firmographic) are necessary to call someone an MQL?
Which pain points or challenges should a person have to make them an MQL?

Based on the lead definitions you create, you can go a bit deeper and assign point values for various MQL qualifications in order to form the basis of a lead scoring system. This will ensure your sales team is delivered high-quality leads in an organized fashion so they stay as productive as possible.
3. Revisit your lead definitions and regularly.
Not only do your business, internal teams, and customer base grow in size over time, but your prospects, buyer personas, and leads also evolve. That’s why it’s so important to circle back to your lead definitions regularly and update them as needed.
For instance, maybe your marketing team revisits your lead definitions quarterly — they may review them as a team and then present any changes they believe are necessary to sales in order to get their feedback. Or maybe marketing and sales review the definitions together and update them accordingly in a collaborative meeting.
Either way, remember that just because something works for you now doesn’t mean it’ll be something that works for you in the future. Be cognizant of the fact that your lead definitions will need updating in order to ensure marketing is targeting, identifying, and presenting high-quality leads for and to sales reps.
Start Creating and Using MQLs
Now that you see the power of MQLs, it’s time to start creating your own. Think about the tips we covered above to get started identifying and converting more qualified leads.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

Our product strategy remains to deliver best-in-class solutions for online stores. But what our customers love is not only the current great state of the platform but more importantly they buy the future of our platform’s growth. We love being on the martech market because it constantly opens new opportunities for marketers. With our world class IT and product teams we boast the fastest time to market which over the years helped to build significant advantages and USPs.

 

We believe that our end to end strategy of building a Customer Data Platform with perfectly integrated and natively built features has considerable advantages over the strategy of buying separate best in class products and integrating them. Our customers enjoy the immediate possibility of using AI, customer data and personalization to power all execution channels and also the fact we are constantly adding new stuff that helps them build momentum of marketing and commerce innovation.

 

Let’s have a brief tour around the latest features we have introduced in Q2.

 

Marketing Insights 

 

 

Marketing Insights is an AI-powered solution that analyzes SALESmanago customer data, transactions, and behaviors within the context of platform usage. Marketing Insights automatically generates tips and insights for direct actions to be taken by marketing teams. Marketing Insights includes the following: 

 

Actionable eCommerce Insights translate real-time data into ready-made business solutions. They offer a helping hand in different areas, such as automation processes, email marketing, and lead generation. 
Tips & Tricks give you access to the know-how of top marketing automation specialists. Tips will guide you step-by-step through new solutions.
Checklists enable you to deploy the full potential of the platform and its feature richness for the best marketing result.

 

Hyper Segmentation Center

 

 

The Hyper Segmentation Center is a cutting-edge solution that allows easy, one-click creation of the most advanced segments that combine all data collected in CDP, such as behavior, transactions, and customer characteristics. It is a single place where customer data can be managed, with extensive filters and advanced criteria to specify recipients according to the context. It is a simply unbeatable feature, affording unlimited segmentation possibilities, and it will become the best such module on the market. 

 

Go beyond basic demographics with hyper segmentation that considers the interests and behaviors of consumers.
Identify segments and accounts with a high purchase probability to target and deliver the right messages and offers at the right time.
Create, edit, manage, and analyze all segments from one unified, user-friendly center—and from all areas of the system where contact selection occurs.
Use a unified interface that allows instant, no-code data processing and leverage accessible and editable segmentation creators that save time while enabling precise targeting.

 

Web Push Notifications 2.0

 

 

Web push notifications remain one of the most popular communication channels. One of the hottest marketing trends involves messaging customers in their language. Such personalized communication fosters a top-notch customer experience from the very first step of the customer-brand relationship. CSA Research found that 65% of consumers prefer content in their language, even if the content is of low quality. Moreover, 40% will not buy from websites in other languages (Shopify).

 

Web Push Notifications 2.0 outperform traditional web push notifications in many ways—from codeless implementation and multilingualism to dynamic content and advanced segmentation of addresses. 

 

Reach and engage both anonymous and identified customers by offering them bespoke content—including multilingual versions of notifications and consent forms—in one of the best consent-based communication channels, through personalized web push notifications. 
Use multifaceted CDP data to hyper-target your campaigns and enrich your omnichannel strategy. Choose whether you prefer communicating with consumers using a desktop computer, mobile device, or both. 
Stay in touch with the users that are interested in your offer but are not yet ready to provide their contact data.

 

Personal Shopping Inbox

 

We aim to be MarTech trailblazers, so we prefer to move towards innovation instead of reproducing schemes. To this end, we created this amazing new feature – the Personal Shopping Inbox! 

 

The Personal Shopping Inbox enables you to enhance your visitor’s customer experience with a fully customizable, easy-to-use, three-in-one communication channel that combines an eCommerce wish list, recommendation engine, and notification center. 

 

Boost “customer stickiness.” Encourage customers to create wish lists and save their dream products for later. Also, enable them to quickly view products they are interested in through a “like a product” mechanism. 
Increase your sales by recommending recently seen products to your customers. 
Leave personalized offers for customers and anonymous visitors in their multilingual notification inbox, and ensure they can access those offers even after they leave and return to a website. 
Enhance user engagement through loyalty programs by increasing the accessibility of their status information. 
Display the information directly in the eCommerce inbox. Recommend to customers the products they are dreaming of, and use wish lists as data sources for the recommendation engine.

 

During the first half of this year, we focused on developing solutions aimed at improving customer satisfaction. We also successfully addressed the decreasing importance of third-party cookies to enable our customers to maintain their marketing campaigns without delays. The features we introduced during H1 2021 touched on website personalization, marketing communication channels, and advanced management of CDP data.

 

Now we have another six exciting months ahead of us. We will spend this time working on the next surprising features. Our ambition is to assist you not only to achieve new business benchmarks but also to enhance the customer experience for you and your customers.I like to be in touch with our clients and people who love technology. Please do not hesitate to contact me: katarzyna.rejdych@salesmanago.com

In 2020, it was more important to us than ever to support small businesses and non-profit organizations.
There are so many organizations offering essential services to their communities, and we have felt so lucky to be able to support them while continuing to support our own customers. We always want to give back each year — the amount might change, depending on our profit, but we’ll always give back. It’s a habit worth building and continuing.
We’d love to highlight the organizations we supported in 2020 and the important work they’re doing, and how we came to support them.
An evolution of giving back and choosing flagship causes
Back in 2017, we committed to donating 20% of our profit each year to charitable organizations and, each year, we’ve chosen those non-profits in different ways.
The first year in 2017, we invited our team to nominate any organization they wanted and chose seven that got the most votes. It was a very open-ended prompt! In 2018, we focused our search a little bit, still taking in any team nominations but ultimately choosing one organization to represent each of our six company values.
In 2019, we put a stake in the ground and decided to focus our giving efforts on a core Buffer stakeholder — the environment. We worked to calculate our carbon footprint and found projects to fund that would prevent, remove or reduce carbon emissions of the same amount. Then, we asked our team to tell us their favorite organizations that produce clean energy, remove carbon from the atmosphere, support sustainable energy sources, or otherwise contribute toward the health of our planet, and ended up choosing five of them to support.
As we entered 2020, climate action was still a core cause we felt committed to supporting, but it became obvious that there was another area where there was significant work to be done. Combatting racial injustice and actively pursuing anti-racism became a priority for our company, and we worked to establish several programs to support BIPOC activists, as well as Black- or POC-owned or -led organizations engaged in anti-racism work.
When we started looking into our 2020 charitable donation, we decided we wanted to make a significant contribution to organizations tackling one of these two core causes — climate action and anti-racism — and that had a strong alignment with our vision: a world with more small businesses that do good while doing well.
The selection process
As we’ve always done, we invited our team to tell us about organizations that inspired them. Here’s what we shared about each cause and why it was important to Buffer’s vision:
“Without a habitable planet and the stability that provides, no small businesses will be able to thrive, including Buffer. Simultaneously, the climate challenge also creates tremendous opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, hence more startups and small businesses! It feels crucial to do our part in building a sustainable and healthy environment where small businesses can have long-term success.”
“Systemic racism is not only injustice, but it is also bad for business. Research ‘estimates that aggregate economic output would have been $16 trillion higher since 2000 if racial gaps had been closed.’ When it comes to a world with more small businesses, we’ll also want to see more diversity in those businesses. By making our contribution to a more equitable and just future, we can create a world where more people from underrepresented groups can start small businesses and have the means to support small businesses within their communities.”
From these prompts, we collected team nominations and we learned about some amazing organizations. After a team-wide vote, we settled on four organizations to each receive $12,152.25 USD — an equal split of $48,609 USD, which was 20% of our profit share from 2020.
Our 2020 charities and the work they’re doing
We chose two organizations to represent our focus on anti-racism and two that represent climate action. We’re proud to support these organizations that are truly working toward a more equitable and sustainable world. Read on for more information about their work!

GiveDirectlyWhen we zoom out to the global level, there is huge inequality between people born and living in developed versus developing countries. The differences in wealth and access to opportunities remain massive. Currently, there is strong evidence that giving unconditional cash grants to people living in poverty is one of the most effective ways to drive positive change in their lives.
GiveDirectly gives cash grants that enable folks to invest in the projects, businesses, and items that are most impactful for them, instead of relying on organizations to choose for them. From their website: “We believe people living in poverty deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives — cash enables that choice.”
We are excited about supporting GiveDirectly as a way to catalyze more small businesses — especially by folks from underrepresented groups — starting up all over the world.

digitalundividedThere is no doubt that the U.S. tech and startup scenes have long been homogenous in many ways — with race and gender in particular. We get really excited when we hear about organizations that are supporting underrepresented groups and lifting them up to get the same shot as other founders, and digitalundivided is doing just that.
At digitalundivided, they run training programs, pre-accelerator programs, and a fellowship to help Black and Latinx women founders get the resources and mentorship they need to develop their businesses. On top of that, we were excited to see that they conduct research about Black and Latinx women founders in the U.S and that they use their research as a catalyst for change and action. From their website: “At digitalundivided, we use original, proprietary research to develop a data-driven ecosystem that expands the current body of knowledge about entrepreneurship in emerging communities.”
Their mission is all about doing good while doing well — supporting Black and Latinx women in their entrepreneurship journeys, all while catalyzing economic growth in their communities.

Cool Earth Trees are a powerhouse for our planet, constantly pulling carbon out of the atmosphere — so deforestation is a huge contributor to the climate crisis. Cool Earth works directly with rainforest communities to halt deforestation. They do this by meeting and learning from rainforest communities around the world, many of whom are indigenous communities that have intimate relationships and immense wisdom about their local forests.
Cool Earth partners with these communities to develop solutions that are unique to each location. In many situations, they support the local communities to develop sustainable incomes so they can be self-sustaining without causing harm to the rainforests. From their website: “Cool Earth supports local and indigenous knowledge to develop innovative ways to address threats to the forest while making communities stronger and more resilient.”
Cool Earth takes a tangible climate action while empowering and supporting indigenous communities, and it’s an approach we are honored to support. VertueLabCleantech is a growing industry of companies working to support the environment through clean energy, the sustainable use of resources, carbon sequestration, and more. VertueLab works to tackle the climate crisis by providing funding and entrepreneurial support to early-stage cleantech startups whose products can deliver a measurable impact on reducing greenhouse gases. They also intentionally prioritize the growth of diversity, equity, and inclusion across cleantech industries.
In other words, VertueLab is directly nurturing small businesses that strive to make a difference in the climate space, and that shape a more sustainable and equitable world. From their website: “[Our mission is] to unleash innovation and entrepreneurship that will solve environmental challenges and catalyze shared economic prosperity.”
VertueLab actively fights against the climate crisis with a very similar vision to ours — to see a world with more startups that are doing great work for the planet and doing well in the process.
Additional donations to anti-racism organizations
In mid-2020, separately from our annual profit share donations, we also committed to donating $100,000 USD to organizations for and by Black people working to dismantle racism. After consulting with our Black teammates to determine the organizations they wanted to see the money go toward, we donated to three wonderful organizations:
The Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people.
The Marshall Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
Brave Space Alliance, a Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ center designed to create and provide affirming services for the LGBTQ community of Chicago.
We encourage you to read more about these organizations and the daily impactful work they do to support Black communities.
Learnings for next year
We’re a team that loves to give, though our approach up until now has been to “figure things out as we go.” That’s worked for us thus far, but now that we’ve established several charitable initiatives, we’re excited to think through a more holistic approach to charitable giving.
Having our two flagship causes is a great help with this, as is our annual choice to donate 20% of our profit. We’re committed to continuing our anti-racism programs, internally and externally, and working to be as carbon neutral as possible.
We’re honored to support these organizations and hope you’ll look into their work as well. We list even more anti-racist organizations worth supporting over here. There’s much more work to be done!

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

As a legally blind woman, it took me years to disclose the full extent of my disability to employers. When I did, I downplayed my blindness as “just a bit of nearsightedness,” or I had to give a disclaimer of, “It’s never held me back and I have references to prove it.”
And, if I had to go back in time, I’d do the same thing.
Why? Even if I had a great manager, I couldn’t deny the stats that were engrained in my mind. Although one in five U.S. adults has a disability, more than one-third of corporate employees report negative bias or discrimination at work.
If that stat seems tough to swallow, imagine reading it as a young professional with a disability.
Because of hard data, combined with the fact that I knew no one like me in my field, I was terrified to mention my disability.         
Now, at HubSpot, I’ve safely opened up about my blindness. Through doing so, I’ve met others with disabilities. I’ve even helped other colleagues to form HubSpot’s first Disability Alliance group, which provides education, virtual meetups, and resources to our allies and others in the disabled community.
One thing I’ve discovered is that disability impacts almost all of us, regardless of race, gender, or geographic region. If you don’t have a visible or unseen disability right now, you might learn how to navigate one as you age. If not, you might have a friend or family member that navigates a disability every day.
Unfortunately, there are still employers that will ignore someone’s achievements due to physical or mental disabilities. Sadly, because disabled people might be limited by location or financial restraints, they might still have to endure judgment in the workplace to earn a living wage.
Luckily, in 2021, we can and should work towards changing this. And, there’s no better time to start than in July (a.k.a. Disability Pride Month).

These endeavors encourage those with disabilities to show pride in what makes them unique while encouraging allies to promote the visibility and representation of those in this group.
Disability Pride Month is also an important time to look back and reflect on all the great strides that the disabled community has made in the past. When we look back on positive historical outcomes, it can motivate us to act for a change and a better future for those with disabilities.
Why Marketers and Businesses Should Embrace Disability Pride
Although Disability Pride Month is only observed in July and primarily within the United States, Disability Pride can be celebrated every day by marketers, managers, and companies around the globe.
While marketers can take time to brainstorm new ways to make their campaigns, offerings, and content more inclusive and accessible, managers and employers can consider how they can help all employees receive the accommodations and support they need to succeed.
To inspire future action and change, here’s a brief history of how disability rights have changed and improved around the world — leading up to Disability Pride Month, declared in 2015. This is not an exhaustive list of wins for the disabled community, but it highlights a few people, landmark court cases, and international events that spread disability awareness or encouraged disability equality.
A Timeline of Disability Pride
Disability in the Late 1800s and Early 1900s
1880-1986: The Era of Helen Keller
Helen Keller, a deaf and blind woman who was nearly institutionalized for her impairments as a child, proved many skeptics wrong when receiving degrees from Radcliffe College, within Harvard University; Cambridge School in Weston; and Wright-Humason School of the Deaf.
Keller went on to work in public service and wrote a number of best-selling books.
Keller’s early life and work with teacher Anne Sullivan were chronicled in a groundbreaking book titled “The Miracle Worker.”
1930: The Mental Treatment Act 1930
This was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permitted voluntary admission to, and outpatient treatment within, psychiatric hospitals. At this point, “asylums” transitioned to “mental hospitals.”
1946: Psychiatric Hospital Employees Tried for Murder
German courts tried members of the Hadamar Psychiatric Hospital staff for the murders of nearly 15,000 citizens at the facility. Adolf Wahlmann and Irmgard Huber, the chief physician, and the head nurse, were convicted. This trial was a landmark case that put the livelihood importance on those with mental illnesses as those without them.
1947: Japan Enacts Accessibility Laws
During this year, Japan enacted three laws including

The School Education Law: Provided education for disabled children such as general classes, special classes, non-residential classes, special schools, and itinerant teaching.

The Workmen’s Accident Compensation Insurance Law: Provided disability pension and disability lump-sum payments, as well as welfare services such as special allowance, medical services, health care, or supply of prosthetic appliances.

1947: The Mail Law: Made postage for Braille paper and recorded mail for visually impaired persons are free of charge, and parcels for disabled people can be mailed at half the cost. The postage for periodicals published by disabled person groups can be mailed at a small charge.

1973: Rehabilitation Act. Section 504 is Passed by US Congress
The passage of section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act guaranteed that people could not be denied services or federal funding on just the basis of disability. It also recognized those with disabilities as a minority for the first time. This law was also incredibly historic because it labeled the exclusion or segregation of children or adults with disabilities as illegal discrimination. Because of this, disabled people were now able to be educated or work in similar roles as those without disabilities.
The landmark law passage was highly publicized and led to more conversations about disability rights and equality in the U.S. Ultimately, it was seen as the foundation for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Disability Pride Celebrations Begin with the ADA
1988-1990: The Americans With Disabilities Act is Proposed and Passed
The ADA was drafted in 1988, brought through Congress within the next two years, and was ultimately passed and celebrated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
In its earliest form, the act aimed to protect those with disabilities from discrimination both in and out of the workplace. A few of the act’s major regulations include:

State and local governments must give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services, and activities (e.g. public education, employment, transportation, recreation, health care, social services, courts, voting, and town meetings).
Employers with 15 or more employees must provide qualified individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from the full range of employment-related opportunities available to others.
The act prohibits discrimination in recruitment, hiring, promotions, training, pay, social activities, and other privileges of employment and restricts questions that can be asked about an applicant’s disability before a job offer is made.
All employers must make reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities unless it results in an undue hardship.
Public transportation authorities can’t discriminate against people with disabilities in the provision of their services.
Public transit must also comply with requirements for accessibility in newly purchased vehicles, make good faith efforts to purchase or lease accessible used buses, remanufacture buses in an accessible manner.
Paratransit must also be provided on fixed-route bus or rail systems.
Businesses must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific architectural standards for new and altered buildings, such as reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures. Additionally, public businesses must remove physical disability barriers in buildings.

Disability Pride Celebrations Begin
The first Disability Pride Day was held in Boston in 1990 to coincide with the passing of the ADA. Later, in 2004, the first Disability Pride Parade in the U.S. was held in Chicago, which made the celebration an annual tradition in the city after the first drew thousands of people into the city.

Image Source
Disability Pride did not become a full month until 2015 — when Mayor Bill De Blasio designated July as Disability Pride Month in New York state to celebrate ADA’s 25th anniversary. Aside from 2020, when public gatherings were canceled, NYC’s Disability Pride Month Parade has become a major annual celebration that pulls in people from all around the world.
Disability Pride Today
In the past decade, we’ve seen more representation of disabled people in the media and workplaces than ever before. While there are still a number of changes we’re fighting for, equality rights have come a long way. Here are a few great examples of where we’re seeing groundbreaking disability pride:
Books
One area where disability stories have particularly been embraced is in the world of literature. Even in the 1900s, we had groundbreaking books like, “The Miracle Worker” which followed the early life of Helen Keller (noted above). Today, there are thousands of great works written by disabled figures, their advocates, or their followers. Here’s just one long list to start with.
Television
Here are two awesome examples of current or upcoming shows that feature disabled actors playing a character with a disability:

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Netflix, YouTube)

This Netflix documentary follows a groundbreaking Woodstock-era summer camp that inspired a group of teens with disabilities to build a movement and forge a new path toward equality and independence.

Ramy (Hulu)

A few members of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance have recommended Ramy, a Hulu dramedy that follows a first-generation American Muslim, played by comedian Ramy Youssef, on a “spiritual journey in his politically divided New Jersey neighborhood.”
While the show’s been buzzed about for its plotline, it’s also made news because Youssef cast his best friend, a standup comedian with muscular dystrophy named Steve Way, to play his onscreen pal.
Here’s an interview Way gave about the show and how the casting was a groundbreaking move in streaming content:

This Is Us (NBC, Peacock, Hulu)
The most recent seasons of This Is Us have partially followed the parents of a blind character named Jack. As Jack grows up, he gains independence, struggles as a musician, and eventually becomes a famous singer and parent. Not only is the story hopeful, but the character is incredibly realistic because he’s actually played by a blind man.
Here’s an interview with Blake Stadnik, who plays Jack, talking about his experience on This Is Us:

Social Media
Social media has become a major platform for those with disabilities, and their allies, to tell their stories. Below is a list of just a few great accounts to follow, courtesy of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance:

Diversability: Instagram, Website

Tiffany Yu (Founder of Diversability)
Sinéad Burke: Website, Twitter, Podcast

Tess Daly:  Instagram

Jillian Mercado: Instagram

Tae McKenzie: Instagram, Website

Madeline Stuart: Instagram, Website

Haben Girma: Instagram, Website, Twitter

Keah Brown: Instagram, Website

Andrea Dalzell: Instagram,
Annie Segarra: Instagram, Youtube 
Chella Man: Instagram, Website 
Imogen Fox: Instagram, Website

Rebekah Taussig: Instagram, Website

Angel Giuffria: Instagram

Holly Scott-Gardner: Website, YouTube

James Rath: Instagram, YouTube

The Blind Life Sam: Instagram, YouTube 
Squirmy & Grubs (Shane & Hannah): YouTube

Molly Burke: YouTube

Megan Absten: YouTube

Cole & Charisma: YouTube

Where We’re Continuing to Increase Awareness
Disability Pride Month is a great time to recognize how far we’ve come, and how far we can still go. As we continue to boost awareness, July is also a time to ask ourselves questions like:

“Am I being a good ally for those in the disabled community?”
“How can we push businesses and people to become more inclusive?
“How can we make workplaces safer for those with unseen or mental health disabilities?”
“How can we prevent people with disabilities from feeling like they have to hide their identity to have job security?”

By continuing to learn, tell our stories, and listen to others, we can better reflect on where we can better improve the lives of those with disabilities.
Ultimately, landmark laws, regulations, and change — like what we’ve seen above — come from a combination of advocacy and allyship. By telling and listening to Disability Pride stories, those with disabilities can be empowered to advocate for themselves. Meanwhile, those without disabilities can learn how to serve as stronger allies.
To learn more about building inclusive campaigns or offices, check out these recent posts:

7 Brands That Got Inclusive Marketing Right
Why Accessible Marketing is the Future, According to an Inclusive Design Expert
25 Stats That Prove Why Workplaces Need to Embrace Diversity
39 Stats About Diversity In Entrepreneurship

Want to learn more about how HubSpot celebrates Disability Pride Month? Follow HubSpot Life on Instagram to catch takeovers from myself and other members of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance.

Marketers have been spoiled by the internet. Digital marketing, social media, and email marketing afford us tons of luxuries when it comes to tapping into our audiences and reaching them directly with our products or services. We’ve had it pretty good. Until now.  As I’m sure you’re well aware, Apple will be releasing an iOS…
The post iOS 15 and How it Will Change Your Email Marketing appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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Did you know Google gives out 10k per month in ad grants to qualifying businesses? My partner successfully landed us this deal recently and it’s been a game changer! Is this something you guys think I should make a post details about? View Poll
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Have you ever done some obscure search on Google, and been amazed when the search engine still returned such accurate results? 
You can thank RankBrain for that.
RankBrain went live in 2015 and is now an essential part of the Google algorithm.
This article will help break down what you should know about it, and how you can optimize for it.

What Is Google RankBrain?
RankBrain is a part of Google’s algorithm that uses machine-learning and artificial intelligence to better understand the intent of a search query. This understanding can help return the most relevant search results to users.
It was implemented into the core algorithm back in 2015 and was initially only applied to the 15% of never before seen queries it received. Once Google became more confident in it, they made it a part of every search query.
Let’s explore how machine learning and AI contribute to RankBrain.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence helps computers understand and act like a human when they are given tasks like decision-making, language translation, and visual perception.
Google has also stated they use what is called neural matching, which is an AI-based system that helps understand how words relate to concepts.
Although RankBrain and neural matching may differ, they do work together to bring the best results for a search query.
Machine Learning
Machine learning is essentially the ability for a machine to learn on its own from data it receives.
If you currently use a junk mail filter in your mailbox or have movie recommendations appear in your Netflix account, these are examples of machine learning.
The combination of AI and machine learning are what drives RankBrain to be an effective part of the algorithm.
As an example, if I were to look for “the scary hotel movie with the maze”, I would get results for The Shining.
Even without the results using that exact term on the page, RankBrain can assess the topical relevance and deliver the results I want.
Pretty cool, right?

How important is RankBrain?
Given that RankBrain is used in every search that takes place on Google, it’s pretty important.
RankBrain is the first attempt at machine learning and will be paving the path for the future of search. By implementing some best practices now, you can ensure that your website is ready for the continued improvements machine learning will bring to search results over time.
At one time Google claimed it was the third-most important ranking factor. While we are not sure that still applies, what we do know is that RankBrain is still a big part of how Google delivers search results.
So what does that mean for you?
It means you need to up your content and SEO game. Let’s dive into how to do that, next. 
Optimizing With RankBrain In Mind
You cannot directly optimize for RankBrain.
But what you can do is better optimize your content, which will then improve how RankBrain views your website.

RankBrain is focused on ranking sites that most accurately match a users’ query. So your job is to make sure you create content that can match those specific needs.

Below are some ways you can better optimize your content for RankBrain.
1. Use Natural Language
When creating content, you’ll want to write in a natural tone that you might also use when speaking.
Read your content aloud when creating it — does it sound like a human would say it? Is it conversational?
This writing style can make a big difference in helping RankBrain understand your content.
2. Search Intent
This is a big one!
Type the keyword you would like to rank for in the search results and review the top-ranking pages.
These pages are ranking because Google understands that this is the type of content a searcher is looking for based on interactions with the results.
3. Strengthen Relevance
Once you are clear on the intent of the keyword, you will need to create content and optimize it to match that intent.
Think of each page more as a “topic” than just a keyword and make it as comprehensive as possible.
In the past, we may have written several posts about a topic so we can optimize each for a specific keyword. But now the goal is to combine those posts into one post, and rank for multiple keywords and phrases.
When you create a post that covers all possible variations of a topic, you will ultimately rank for more keywords — which will help make the page more authoritative.
Below is an example of a website that has thousands of keywords ranking for their two top pages.

How can you create posts that have thousands of keywords?
Be comprehensive about your topic.
If your main topic is “how to potty train a puppy”, for instance, you’ll want to add content that relates to all aspects of training a puppy. This might include:

How long does it take to train a puppy
How fast can you train a puppy
At what age can I start training a puppy
How to potty train a “5” month old puppy (break it down by age)
Easiest way to train a puppy

All of these variations of terms and phrases will build a strong piece of content that addresses all issues related to puppy potty training. This in turn will help with RankBrain because you are adding items of topical relevance!
4. Improve Click-through Rate (CTR)
Because RankBrain does look at how many clicks from the search results you get, writing exceptional title tags and meta descriptions is critical.
Using emotions in your title is one of the best ways to increase those clicks. You can also use numbers, brackets, or parentheses to help make your title stand out from the rest.
Look at what paid ads in your niche are using as inspiration, as well as the top ranking pages.
5. Quality Over Quantity
If you have been in SEO as long as I have, you will have to change how you view content and keyword strategy.
The days of writing a post around a singular keyword are gone. In the past you may have written a separate post for the terms “get more sales”, “increase your sales”, or “grow monthly revenue” so that you could optimize for each of those phrases.
Unfortunately, that no longer works with RankBrain.
Creating one post and maximizing the content around the term “get more sales” should help RankBrain understand that it is related to those other terms.
For instance, below you can see the search results for “get more sales” and “increase your sales”. You will notice how close the results are for these terms.
This may not have been the case before RankBrain.

RankBrain has made it more beneficial to create long-form content that can be optimized around many phrases or terms.
6. Time On Page (Dwell Time)
Once it delivers the search results, how does RankBrain understand which results are good ones?
There is some indication that it will take UX signals and pages that have more engagement, and rank those higher. Measuring a user’s time on page and whether any pogo-sticking is happening are two of the factors that are likely used.
Some things to consider to improve these UX signals include:

Break-up the text into small paragraphs so it is easy to read
Use titles to break content into sections
Create an engaging introductory paragraph to get users interested in reading more
Use images and videos
Answer questions early in the content
Create content that answers all the questions a user may have about the topic

This is why it is more important than ever to take time to craft great content that makes users’ stay on the page. The longer they stay on your website, the better signals it will send to RankBrain.
7. Improve Old Content
If your website has been around for a while, you may have old content that was optimized before RankBrain.
Additionally, you might have several posts that are topically relevant that might now be better served as one long-form post.
If this is the case, determine which post has the highest traffic, backlinks, and ranking, and make that your primary post. Then merge the content from the other posts into it and do a 301 redirect for those posts to your new “RankBrain-optimized” post.
This is a great opportunity for some quick ranking wins!
RankBrain is definitely a game changer for search. As a content creator or SEO professional, it’s important to use the strategies above to help improve your chances of ranking well with RankBrain.
One thing we know for sure is that RankBrain will be here for a while. While it may evolve over time, the combination of AI and machine learning is here to stay. Learn how you can adapt your own content to reap the full benefits of the SERPs.