Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Ever click on a website, take one look and say “Hm, that’s going to be a no” while you look for the exit button?
For me, it’s usually because of three reasons: the site looks outdated, crowded, or hard to navigate.
Bad design can keep your target audience from gaining any interest in your brand.

That’s why it’s important to understand the key design principles that will help you draw your audience in, keep them on the page, and generate conversions.
Here’s an easy guide on a specific design principle: visual hierarchy. We’ll cover all the elements that contribute to visual hierarchy and look at good and bad examples.
Visual hierarchy affects what you look at and focus on in a design, whether it’s an image, graphic design, or web design. It’s a key player in ct (i.e., how information is organized and displayed for easy understanding and navigation) and can greatly impact the user experience (UX).
When thinking about visual hierarchy, you want to ask yourself a few questions:

What do we want to draw attention to?
What actions do we want our users to take?
Where does the eye naturally go to and where do they land?

Asking these questions will help you use the principles outlined below to create a clear visual hierarchy.
What constitutes bad visual hierarchy?
When it comes to visual hierarchy, there’s a golden rule: If every element appears important, nothing will seem important.
Visual hierarchy serves as a way to rank the information you’re consuming. If there is no way to differentiate between the elements, that is considered poor hierarchy.
Take this example:

On the left, there’s a lot much going on. The two main elements are the same size, there are many different colors. It makes it hard to know where to look. Your eyes glaze over everything, creating some uneasiness and lack of direction.
On the right, your eye is automatically drawn to the main blue box on the left, then naturally goes to the elements on the right before landing on the orange call to action (CTA).
A poor visual hierarchy:

Confuses the user.
Makes it unclear where to look.
Creates a bland design.

Instead, create a visual structure that facilitates understanding and guides the user.
1. Consider reading patterns.
When designing, you want to note your target audience’s natural eye patterns.
Across all cultures, we read top to bottom. However, there is some variation in how we read horizontally. Western cultures tend to read from left to right, while some Semitic and Indo-Aryan languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu are read right to left.
With this in mind, it impacts how we scan and understand designs. For instance, Western users usually follow an F or Z reading pattern.

Knowing this information will help you design projects that convert, particularly in landing pages.
2. Users notice bigger elements more easily.
Size plays an important role in visual hierarchy. It’s one of the main ways to rank elements in a design.
Take this example from Netflix.

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The first thing you’ll read when looking at this image is “Unlimited movies, TV shows, and more.”
Then you’ll read the next line, and then the next before you explore the other elements on the page.
Size signifies importance. The bigger an element is, the more attention it draws, and then more likely you’ll look at it first.
As you design your webpage, consider what you want your audience to look at first and use that to guide your strategy.
3. Color and contrast draw the eye.
The second principle to keep in mind is color.
We know that color can evoke emotion and can have certain cultural and social connotations. Just look at logos by industry, and you’ll notice a trend. Food brands tend to have reds and yellows, while financial institutions tend to be in blue.
In design, color is great at drawing attention.

In the example above, you’ll see that the elements that stand out the most are in orange. It’s only after looking at them that you’ll scan the other elements on the page.
On a website, you can use this to draw focus to your CTAs.

In the example below, the CTA that stands out the most is in the middle. The brand likely wants users to choose this option. The other CTAs are still visible but muted compared to the orange.
To create the most visual impact with color, use it sparingly. That will make the elements stand out more, as seen in the above example.
4. White space creates emphasis.
White space refers to the empty space within a design.

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Sometimes, there is a desire to fill the space with as many elements as possible. However, this goes back to the concept of importance: If they all seem equally important, none of them are perceived as important.
This is why adding white space to your web design is key in pulling in your visitors.
Apple is also well known for its use of white space.

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The brand offers a simple user interface, which creates more emphasis on the elements on the page. Apple’s use of white space also reflects a brand’s identity.
5. Proximity and repetition create unity.
When you put several elements together, it tells the user the concepts are related.

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This design offers many examples of proximity.
Take the elements under “Master The Basics.” By having these boxes all grouped closely together, the visitor can understand they fall within the same category.
The same goes for the icons under “Follow Us.” If the icons were all spread out randomly on the page, it would be difficult for users to understand their purpose.
If you’re not sure how to group certain elements, you can employ certain UX research strategies, such as card sorting, to group elements based on your audience’s expectations.
Examples of Good Visual Hierarchy
1. Visme.co

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Visme.co has a striking pop-up that encourages users to sign up for their newsletter.
The brand successfully uses white space, color, size, and contrast to make key elements stand out. You’ll also notice that the elements are designed following the Z-pattern, making it more likely that users will convert.
2. Studio 8AD

In designing their website, this brand leverages white space to focus users’ attention on three key elements: the image and the two CTAs located on the bottom left.

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3. Predominantly Black

This brand offers a great example of proximity to create visual hierarchy.
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By organizing all products under the main title and leaving little space in between, visitors quickly understand that these products fall within the same category.
Visual hierarchy is all about ranking your elements by order of importance. Once you narrow down what you want to focus on and consider your audience’s needs, you can create designs that produce the desired impact.

In 2019, DoorDash was losing money on the average order and reported an operating loss of $616 million on $885 million in revenue. By the end of 2020, their revenue jumped to $2.89 billion — a 226% gain.
Why the sudden success?

For one, the global pandemic spiked the demand for food delivery. But DoorDash also responded to customers’ needs right from the start. They delivered COVID test kits and launched the #OpenforDelivery campaign to support restaurants by the end of March, made it easier to filter customer ratings in April, and released a Gifting feature to send loved ones food over the holidays.
Simply put, they figured out what customers desired and rapidly delivered.
Now more than ever, customers expect brands to understand and respond to their needs. In a survey of global consumers, 58% of people remembered a brand that quickly pivoted and 82% ended up doing more business with that company as a result.

But a lightning-fast response only happens if your team can handle abrupt change.
Agile marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on quickly executing projects by working in short sprints. It makes room for marketers to shift their focus, adapt to customer needs, and change priorities alongside expectations.
With Agile, what once took months to deliver can take weeks.
Adopting this approach takes work, but this post shares how to get started with Agile marketing by explaining the process, sharing examples, and showing you how to automate your efforts.
What is Agile Marketing?
Agile marketing is a strategic marketing approach that prioritizes creating high-value deliverables, working in short, intense bursts to achieve goals, and rapidly iterating.
By the end of each burst — often called a ‘sprint’ or an ‘iteration’ — teams complete their outlined deliverables and begin testing so they know how to improve during the next iteration. Data collection and analytics allow teams to incrementally refine and improve the results over time.
Agile marketing embraces failure. It also requires teams to learn from their mistakes and make adjustments to continuously get better. This mindset isn’t always easy for teams to instantly adopt. That’s why it’s important to understand the core values outlined in the Agile Marketing Manifesto before switching to this approach.

Validated learning over opinions and conventions.
Customer-focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy.
Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-Bang campaigns.
The process of customer discovery over static prediction.
Responding to change over following a plan.
Many small experiments over a few large bets.

When these values play out in real-world projects, the impact can be massive.
Research by McKinsey found that digital marketing organizations using Agile have seen a 20-40% increase in revenue. Agile has also cut down the time it takes for companies to turn an idea into an offer — from multiple months or weeks to less than two weeks.
You may think this acceleration leads to sloppy deliverables and disappointment. It’s the opposite. Agile marketing can improve performance and quality by creating space for clear goals, frequent feedback, continual testing and iteration, on-time deliverables, and inevitable impact.
To get those results, you have to dive into the nitty-gritty details.
Agile Marketing Process
No marketing team follows the exact same Agile approach. Some stick to the traditional frameworks while others pick and choose which parts work for them to create a hybrid method.
The method you choose can depend on the goals you want to accomplish. While its roots are in web and software development, 77% of companies using Agile rely on it for creative services, content creation, and operations.
The main methodologies for Agile marketing teams are Scrum and Kanban.
Scrum
The Scrum framework revolves around sprints. Each sprint lasts for two to six weeks and is organized by the team doing the work. Depending on the size of your project, you may need to break it up into multiple smaller sprints to tackle it bit by bit.
The goal of each sprint is to rapidly deliver small projects that can be combined into a larger project over time. Once a sprint is set, the team shouldn’t change its goals or reprioritize until the sprint is complete.
To make sure your sprints stay on track, you need to establish a few key roles and meetings.
Roles
1. Scrum MasterThis person is responsible for keeping the team on task. They know the Scrum framework and use it to facilitate meetings, remove roadblocks, help team members use the framework, and make sure everyone on the Scrum team is collaborating and communicating.
2. Product OwnerThis person understands the reason for the work and makes sure the process is being done at the right time. They understand the customers better than anyone else, and they collaborate with the stakeholders and team to ensure the deliverables provide value to the business and to customers.
3. DeveloperEveryone else on the team falls under the Developer role. Ideally, the people in this role are cross-functional and contribute a unique set of skills needed to accomplish the sprint. You want to choose at least one person from each department that your project touches.
Meeting
1. Planning
A planning meeting kicks off every sprint to decide what the team can achieve. Everyone looks at the priorities the Product Owner has put together and agrees on which to include in the sprint.
The project(s) are divided into tasks, given deadlines, and assigned to individual team members so people know exactly what to work on when they leave the meeting. These meetings take time, so dedicate at least one hour per week of the total sprint time (i.e., a three-hour meeting for a three-week sprint).
At your first planning meeting, emphasize that Agile is a new way of working and the typical rules don’t apply. Reiterate the need to focus on the customer above all else and highlight the need for speed, collaboration, data, and accountability.
2. Stand-up
The daily stand-up gets your team together for a brief (15 minutes or less) check-in. The aim is to make it very clear where everyone is on progress, roadblocks, and tasks. Everyone on the team answers:

What they accomplished yesterday
What they plan to do today
Any blocks in their way

3. Review
The review is the time to show off what your team has achieved during the sprint. It’s open to anyone interested in the results and is a good time to show off campaign materials, demo content, or share early testing data.
Make note of feedback and add or adjust your priority list as needed, but don’t get wrapped up in additional approvals or new ideas. The point is to share insight into what your team is working on and highlight the impact.
4. Retrospective
Headed by the Scrum Master, this meeting is a chance for the Scrum team to reflect on work from the latest sprint. Everyone shares what went well, what didn’t, what can be improved, and lessons learned. Make sure people don’t point fingers in the meetings, and assign action items as a way to continually improve before the next retrospective.
Kanban
If your marketing team is full of visual learners or does work that won’t fit well into a predetermined sprint timeline, Kanban may be the Agile framework for you.
Kanban is made up of three main components: visualizing workflow, setting WIP limits, and meeting cadences.
1. Visualizing workflow
Unlike Scrum, Kanban uses visual cues to track progress. A Kanban board is how people track the progress of user stories (i.e., tasks) to be accomplished. The board is divided into columns, each their own stage in a workflow.
The simplest boards have To-Do, Doing, and Done columns, but the more complex your workflow, the more columns you may need. (One of my favorite tools for building boards and tracking progress is Miro).
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Each card on the board represents a task to be completed. For example, if you’re planning a social calendar for the upcoming quarter, you would list each task that needs to be accomplished on its own card (i.e., choose topics, assign copy, write copy, schedule posts, and so on).
As the task is being completed, you move the card into the corresponding column. A quick glance at the board and everyone on your team knows how the project is progressing and what still needs to be done.
2. Setting WIP limits
When people have too much on their plates, nothing gets accomplished. This is why Kanban uses WIP limits — boundaries that outline how people will work on the tasks within each column on the Kanban board.
Placing limits on how many tasks can be in one column or how much time people have to accomplish a task. Let’s say you want your social coordinator to schedule the posts for each month before they begin reviewing posts for the following month. That rule means they can’t move the “Review posts” task into the “Doing” column before the “Schedule posts” are in the “Done” column.
Setting ground rules helps people focus on finishing a specific goal or task before starting another one. In a world of context switching and mental burnout, limitations are a way to achieve your goals without juggling too many tasks at once.
3. Meeting cadences
Similar to Scrum, Kanban is designed to help teams work better and accomplish their goals. It incorporates planning meetings, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives to make sure a project is on task and continually refined.
The one meeting that’s different from Scrum is the delivery meeting, a time to plan when to release the content or project. Since Kanban works on longer timelines than Scrum, the delivery meeting is the place to bring in other groups that may need to help get the work out.
While a small team may own a project, a successful Agile marketing strategy relies on everyone. It’s helpful to bring in outside team members to collaborate on timelines, share feedback, and assist in launching the work your team accomplishes.
Agile Marketing Examples
Most Agile marketing efforts break down into a few simple steps.

The team makes a list of priority projects to work on.
The steps to tackle a project are planned out in a sprint.
The team checks in every day in a stand-up meeting.
Everyone accomplishes their specific tasks and testing begins.
Data from the testing is collected and used to improve the project.

Let’s look at how this process can play out in real-world Agile marketing examples.
1. Scrum Example
The United Kingdom-based Santander bank struggled to produce efficient marketing campaigns due to long production lead times and expensive creative costs. In an effort to increase efficiency, they adopted an Agile marketing method for their “Unlock you London” campaign. The bank’s goal was to convince customers to download and use their mobile app.
They “put everyone together around shared objectives, shared KPIs, and a budget in the middle of the table” and agreed to tweak the campaign on a weekly basis. Instead of dedicating a massive spend working with a creative agency that would take months to develop everything needed for the campaign, they began spending a few thousand pounds at a time. This swap allowed them to make changes quickly and test an idea on customers.
If something resonated, they’d keep it. If not, they’d make a small change and test again.
The new Agile approach produced incredible results. By the end of the campaign, the bank saw a 12% increase in loyalty, a 10% increase in account satisfaction, the highest Net Promoter Score in 17 years, and the highest positive sentiment (90%) among customers.
2. Kanban Method Example
A technology startup recently revamped its brand and wants to update essential marketing materials. The creative team puts together a small Agile team to revamp the website and create new marketing materials.
They include a designer, copywriter, sales rep, creative director, product lead, content coordinator, and a member of the legal team. The team chooses tasks to be completed, decides on a six-week timeline, and lays out the work in a Kanban board.
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The team lays out the individual tasks associated with each task in a project management tool and tracks the progress of each project in a Kanban board.
Six weeks later, the Agile team has designed five new web pages, six one-pagers, and two decks. While more complex projects like the website will need another sprint or two in order to build out simpler materials — like the one-pagers — for the sales team to use. What once took an entire quarter to complete has been condensed into several weeks.
Agile Marketing Automation
Having the right type of technology for Agile marketing automation is crucial for collecting data and conducting analytics.
A well-designed CRM platform can help you collect, organize, test, and manage data about your customers and sprint iterations. It can automate campaign delivery and send messages to customers, feeding tracking and performance metrics back to you.
Above all, automation improves your ability to react to customer requests. In a survey of C-suite executives, 41% said they hoped to implement more digital technology in order to respond quickly to customer needs. So if you need to convince your boss that automation technology is worth the investment, explain how it’s essential to collect data that allows you to share the most relevant messages and offers.
Let’s say you decide to turn an idea for an email campaign into reality using your newly established Agile marketing team. You gather a copywriter, designer, analyst, developer, operations lead, and email lead. Before starting the sprint, you’ll want to make sure you have the following tools to automate your efforts.

A collaboration tool
A tool to review copy, design, and development
A way to collect feedback
An email marketing tool
A way to gather data and analyze it

Look into the following Agile marketing automation tools to see which one works for your team. Evaluate the features, user interface, customer support, integrations, resources, reviews, and pricing.

HubSpot
Marketo
Agile CRM
NetSuite
Pardot

Once you have the technology you need to automate your Agile efforts, you can focus on the tasks at hand and make sure every sprint or board stays on track.
Switching from a traditional project management approach to Agile marketing may seem intimidating. But the switch will be simple if you keep a few rules in mind. Start with what you want to accomplish (your goals), get buy-in from the senior marketing leaders who can advocate for you with the rest of the team, bring together a small group of people, and explain this new way of working to them. Finally, set up the technology you need to collaborate, collect feedback, and analyze data.
Soon, you’ll be finished with your first project — and gaining momentum that lets your Agile marketing efforts stay focused, grow faster, and get better results than ever before.

In more ways than one, branding is a pillar of success.
It helps you develop a set of features unique to your business, like a logo and brand name, which allows customers to come to know your brand and associate it with what you have to offer.
Branding is impactful in and of itself, but co-branding brings additional opportunities and benefits to businesses that engage in it. In this post, discover the advantages that come from generating brand individuality for your business, and the added benefits that come from co-branding with a partner.

1. Branding is often the deciding factor for consumers making purchasing decisions.
Branding is often the deciding factor for consumers when making a purchase decision. In fact, consumers report being more likely to buy from brands that they know or know and already have a positive experience with.
This is especially true for social media, as 89% of consumers say they’ll buy from a brand they already follow and recognize over a competitor. Given this, having a recognizable and unique brand gives you a leg up with customers, as they would feel safer buying from a business they already know.
2. Branding gives your business an identity.
Branding gives your business an identity beyond just the products and services you sell. You become more than just a name, especially if you develop a brand mission separate from your products.
For example, if your brand is committed to social responsibility, you’ll become associated with those interests in addition to your products. Your business develops a personality outside of your sales, which consumers appreciate.
3. Branding sets you apart from competitors in a saturated market.
There’s no way to quantify how many brands there are globally, but there are certainly a lot. Given this, branding helps you stand out from the crowd and gain an edge in an increasingly competitive market.
Your brand identity differentiates you from your competitors, especially in industries where it’s not easy to stand out because you offer similar products. If you have a unique identity, you can still offer those similar products, but your unique brand personality and reputation are what seals the deal.
4. Branding makes your business memorable.
Strong branding makes your business memorable and recognizable to consumers.
They’ll be able to quickly discern that content you create belongs to you, especially if they see it on channels you don’t own, because it looks like and is in line with the content and content style they know you create.
Being memorable is also helpful when it comes to ad spend. A memorable brand can devote more resources to product promotion and less to brand awareness because consumers already know who you are. For example, Coca-Cola doesn’t need to get the word out that they exist because their brand already has universal awareness. Instead, they can focus marketing efforts on advertising a new drink.
5. Branding supports your marketing efforts and promotes consistency.
When you have consistent branding, future business efforts always have a clear path to follow. You’ll spend less time coming up with ways to present yourself and more time ensuring that you’re consistently delivering high-quality content, products, and experiences that customers desire.
Here are some stats that support the benefits of branding consistency:

Uniformly presented brands are 3.5x more visible to customers.
Consistent brand presentation has been seen to increase revenue by 33%.
Inconsistent branding damages a company’s reputation and credibility.

Consistency also helps build trust with your audience, which we’ll discuss further below.
6. Branding builds credibility and trust.
Inconsistency confuses, but strong branding does the opposite.
Customers don’t have to guess how or why your content and products relate to your business because it’s clear. This helps build credibility because you show consumers that you stick to your word and don’t engage in practices that seem misaligned with what you stand for.
When you build credibility, you also increase trust in your business, which influences consumers making purchasing decisions. As mentioned above, a customer is more likely to do business with a company they recognize and trust because they already know who you are and what you stand for.
7. Branding inspires customer loyalty and retention.
Branding increases trust, and trust is a pillar of customer loyalty.
Your identity attracts customers because they can tell what you stand for, which helps them feel connected to you. When customers feel connected to a business, they’re more likely to be loyal. Loyal customers, in turn, drive revenue, as they’re more likely to make repeat purchases and draw in new clients to your business.
8. Branding encourages word-of-mouth marketing.
Having consistent branding makes customers loyal, which makes them more likely to practice word-of-mouth marketing.
Word-of-mouth marketing is when consumers promote you to their friends, family, and even strangers online. This is highly beneficial for all businesses, as people trust other consumers more than marketers because they believe they have an agenda. Consider these statistics:

39% of consumers build trust in a brand from peer-to-peer conversations compared to 23% from a brand’s paid ads.
Consumers report that a person like themselves (another consumer) is 14% more credible than a brand employee.

When you build a following of loyal customers, they provide your business with free marketing to draw in new clients and increase revenue.
9. Branding helps you share your values.
Customers are more interested than ever before in buying from companies that share their same values, so having a consistent message to share is critical. In fact, if customers believe you’re making a positive impact on the world, they would pay 31 to 50% more for products and services.
Branding helps you appeal to this new consumer interest, as it goes beyond just a recognizable logo — it enables you to communicate your brand mission and values.
10. Branding builds internal employee morale and pride.
Branding is beneficial for outward conceptions, but it also impacts internal employee retention, morale, and hiring processes. Consider these statistics from LinkedIn Business on the impacts of strong employer branding on hiring and retention:

Well-regarded brands can bring down training expenses by as much as 50%.
72% of recruiting leaders worldwide say that the employer brand has a significant impact on hiring.
50% of employers report more qualified applicants.
Strong branding is associated with a 28% reduction in organizational turnover.
Inconsistent branding has been found to embarrass employees and lower morale.

The statistics show us that branding helps you position yourself as a reputable source, making employees feel like they’re working for something big and authentic. They’re proud of representing your brand and business, ensuring that everyone is continually working to satisfy your customers.
11. Branding helps you easily introduce new products.
Branding helps you easily introduce new products to market and drive sales for those products.
Firstly, you already have consistent branding, so it doesn’t take much legwork to market a product, so it aligns with your existing products and brand message. You don’t have to sit at a table and figure out how everything will fit in or rebrand your business; there is already a path for you to follow.
When you launch these new products, customers already loyal, familiar with, and appreciative of your quality of service will be eager to try what you have to offer, generating sales and driving revenue.
12. Branding brings a high return on investment and increased profits.
Being profitable is the ultimate goal as it allows you to keep your business running, continuously innovate, and provide the delightful experiences that customers expect and desire.
As branding is a significant factor in achieving high ROI, it makes sense to invest in the practice.
The benefits discussed above are relevant to all businesses, regardless of size or maturity. Co-branding can bring about additional advantages, which we’ll discuss further below.
Benefits of Co-Branding
Co-branding is a partnership between two businesses where one company’s success contributes to the success of the other. Co-branding partnerships are most impactful when they involve two similar companies working together, as audience members obtain unique value from their relationship. An example of co-branding that you may already be familiar with is a sports company partnering with an athlete.
1. Co-branding is exciting for consumers.
When two businesses work together, the partnership is exciting for consumers. They may have never expected your collaboration, so they’re eager to see what’s to come.
Co-branding attracts interest and increased attention, as it is not a common practice. You may have customers refreshing your social media feeds or checking your websites on launch days because they’re incredibly excited about what’s to come.
2. Co-branding brings exposure to new audiences
Although you may operate in the same industry, you and your partner likely target different audience segments. When you work together on a co-branding campaign, you gain exposure to their audience, they gain exposure to yours, helping both of you increase brand awareness, draw in new clients, and grow your overall reach.
3. Co-branding helps you generate trust with new audiences.
When you’re advertising alone and emerging into new markets, it is your responsibility to build trust with your audience. However, a benefit to co-branding is that your partners vouch for your credibility.
Your new audiences may not trust you 100% off the bat, but the trust that they have in your partner tells them that they wouldn’t expose them to a brand that they disagree with or don’t find credible. Essentially, your partners are telling their audience that they can trust you because they trust you.
4. Co-branding is cost-effective
When you work with another brand, you’re both committing to sharing resources and putting money into your advertising efforts. This means that you can save money and spend more than you may have had access to with your individual budget.
For example, if you and your partners agree to share ad costs, you can use double the money to access resources to create your campaigns. If you’re a small brand, this can be highly beneficial, as you have the opportunity to branch out in ways you couldn’t do alone.
At the end of the day, your business’ branding, regardless of whether you’re working with a partner, is the first thing consumers will see about your business. If you take the time to prioritize strong branding for your individual business, you’ll find sales growth, and retain new audiences when your co-branding campaigns go live.

When it comes to the important elements of an email, lots of brands and professionals underestimate the power of their signature. Your email signature tells your recipients who sent the message, of course, but it also lends legitimacy to your content and/or your request. And if you really take the time to do it right,…
The post 10 Ways to Take Your Email Signature to the Next Level appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Hello all – I am looking to connect with US based Marketing Automation experts (Eloqua and Marketo). My current need is to fill a long term contract for a fortune 500 company. Should be US based, open to remote contract work. 40 hours a week for 6-12 months.
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