Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Buffer has been built on the belief that transparency builds trust, holds us accountable, and can push our industry forward. Our salaries have been transparent since 2013, and for the fifth year in a row, we’re sharing our transparent pay analysis. In this report, we share the difference between what men and women earn at Buffer.
We have come a long way in the last five years. Far from the ratio of 70 percent men and 30 percent women on the team when I first wrote this report, this year, we are close to 50/50. And at the time of this report, our leadership team is eight people, five of whom are women.
Here are all of our numbers from our 2021 pay analysis, along with more on the positive impact that transparency has had on the gender pay gap for us.
2021 Pay Analysis
Here’s what the unadjusted gender pay gap looks like at Buffer as of March 2021:  
Buffer team: 83 people Women: 39 Men: 44 Average salary for women: $123,707 Average salary for men: $131,923 Unadjusted percentage gap: 5.46%Note: We specify an unadjusted pay gap as we are comparing earnings between all men and all women at Buffer, regardless of their role or experience level. An adjusted pay gap would be the earning gap between people who perform similar roles. We have no adjusted pay gap at Buffer as we use a salary formula for all of our salaries. About the numbers For the second year in a row, our gap has gone down, and this year it went down significantly compared to last year. We’ve been tracking the unadjusted gender pay gap at Buffer monthly since 2019. Here, you can see our progress over the last year, where the gap has gradually gone from 12.5 percent down to 5.5 percent.
Compared to previous yearsHere’s a comparison of all of the years we’ve been running this pay analysis. You can also read each full report at the following links: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.
Our gender pay gap has gone down from 15% to 5% in the last two years — how did that happen?
We’ve been paying close attention to the gender wage gap at Buffer since we first started sharing transparent pay analyses, and we’ve been committed to lowering our gap. Transparency has been a critical factor in lowering our gender wage gap. There have been many small shifts we’ve made along the way, but the most significant factor for us has been transparency. We believe that transparency creates accountability, and it’s clear from our example that transparency can have a powerful impact on closing the gender wage gap. Transparency led to more learning. Through being transparent, we’ve learned more about the gender pay gap and have been able to keep making changes and adjustments every year. In 2017, when we first ran the report, we didn’t know much about equal pay. We also had a smaller team size with fewer women and later realized that having one high-earning woman on the team made our gap lower in 2017, so our report wasn’t an accurate reflection of the year for us.In 2019, we had our highest yet gender pay gap — 15 percent — and that came the year that we also increased the number of women on our team.
The correlation we saw is that when we hired more women that year, our gender wage gap became larger because many of those women were hired at lower experience levels. However, we’ve seen that gap slowly decrease over the years as more women joined the team, and more women have been getting promoted and earning more overall. Transparency brought more attention to making this change.The act of reporting the gender wage gap every year has also brought more teams together to focus on how we can improve equal pay at Buffer. It’s not fun to publish a report showing that our gender wage gap is getting worse every year, and several teams have been highly motivated to improve this number. Our Finance team started tracking gender pay data monthly instead of annually, and it gave us a clearer picture of the impact that new hires and departures have on our overall gap. Our People team also played a huge role in diversifying our hiring pipeline over the years to bring on more women in higher-earning positions. Our People team’s work is especially impressive considering that as a long-term focused company, we aren’t growing our team considerably year-over-year. Our team size was 72 teammates in 2017 and is 83 teammates now. The ratio of men and women at Buffer has improved significantly. When we first started reporting on equal pay, we were 70 percent men and 30 percent women at Buffer. That meant that any change to the women at Buffer had a significant impact on this number, and it was much more likely to fluctuate when women joined or left Buffer.
Since then, our gender split has become nearly 50/50 with 44 men and 39 women on the team, and at the time of this report, our leadership team at Buffer is eight people, five of whom are women. We’re confident about this positive downwards trend.Now, we can safely say that our five percent gap isn’t a result of one high-earning person on the Buffer team. This consistent decrease of our gap over the last two years is a result of many areas of work, and it isn’t going to change drastically in one month.
What’s next for equal pay at Buffer?
We’re proud that our gender pay gap is at 5.5 percent, much lower than the industry average. We’ll continue doing everything we’re doing and closely watching our gender pay gap throughout the year. We’ll continue working towards no unadjusted gender pay gap and focusing on diversity overall in our hiring. We’re also hoping that our journey can help others looking to tackle the gender wage gap. If you know of other companies sharing their gender wage gap publicly, or if you’d like to share yours publicly, please reach out. We’d be happy to chat!
Want to work at a company with pay transparency? We’re hiring, check out our open roles!

Compensation is an important topic at any company. At a company like Buffer, where our salaries have been transparent since 2013, compensation is a transparent internal discussion where the whole Buffer team can share thoughts and feedback.A lot has changed in our salary formula over the past few years. We took a very simple formula and made it more accurate to the labor market, and most recently, we’ve been focused on improving our formula to make it a true benchmark for a remote-first world. In this post, we’ll share an overview of our compensation philosophy and a simple explanation of our salary formula. Transparency is an incredibly powerful tool, and we hope that sharing our approach to compensation can help others who are currently navigating this space.
How we think about compensation
Our approach to compensation has evolved over the years, and our salary formulas have taken various forms, but a few fundamental pillars of our overall compensation philosophy haven’t changed. ️Ultimately, we view compensation and benefits as the set of tools that empower our teammates to bring their best to Buffer so that we can share that same generosity in service of our customers. We want every single customer interaction to be a delightful experience. By ensuring our team members are fulfilled and engaged with their work, we can build the solutions and tools that support our customers to achieve success and fulfillment in their personal and work lives. These key principles guide all the decisions we make about our team’s compensation and benefits:
Transparency: We openly share our approach and all salaries to create trust, hold ourselves accountable, and serve as a resource for the industry.
Simplicity: We aim to maintain an easy-to-understand formula that allows anyone to easily see how we arrive at any individual salary.
Fairness: We ensure that those with the same role and responsibilities who are at the same experience level are paid equitably.
Generosity: We pay above market to attract the team we need, thrive as individuals, and avoid exceptions and inequity resulting from negotiation.
Our salary formula
Every base salary at Buffer is derived from our salary formula. The formulaic approach minimizes biased decisions about compensation. This has been a valuable tool to ensure our awareness of any gender wage gap since our salary formula is rooted in objective market factors applied consistently across the team. Read our latest pay analysis for more insights into equal pay at Buffer.Our formula is your role x cost of living = your salary.How we determine role compensation We benchmark each role to data from Radford, a platform that gathers compensation and benefits data from companies participating in global surveys twice per year. The role benchmark is based on the software industry and the 50th percentile of San Francisco market data. We selected San Francisco as a part of our principle of generosity as it is a competitive labor market. How we apply cost of living After we’ve benchmarked for position and experience level, we multiply by a cost of living factor that objectively considers one of four geographical areas in comparison to San Francisco’s cost of living and property price index.
High cost of living 100% of the San Francisco market = multiply by 1. Examples: San Francisco, CA & New York, NY
Intermediate cost of living 90% of the San Francisco market, multiply by 0.90 Examples: Singapore & Sydney, Australia
Average cost of living 85% of the San Francisco market, multiply by 0.85 Examples: Boulder, CO & Madrid, Spain
Low cost of living 75% of the San Francisco market, multiple by 0.75 Examples: Bangalore, India & Wroclaw, Poland
These cost of living multipliers take into account being a global team while closing the gap found in traditional compensation approaches.To see this formula in action, check out our salaries page with the whole Buffer team’s transparent salaries.
The future of our salary formula
For the past few years, we’ve had the goal to further simplify our formula and do away with the cost of living consideration as a component of the formula. In practice, this would mean we’d eliminate the low, average, and intermediate bands to pay everyone at the same level of San Francisco market salaries. The result of this shift would be a $1.2 Million increase in operating expenses based on the team we have today (March 2021).  While this change remains a consideration, we’ve deliberately set a goal to do this incrementally rather than all at once. Investing in our team is important, though we must weigh trade-offs, and in this season for Buffer, we believe that expanding our team size is more in line with serving our customer’s needs.  Meanwhile, we’re also seeing market shifts that are bound to impact global compensation. With more companies embracing remote work, access to talent is no longer dependent on the local talent pool. You don’t need to live in Silicon Valley or New York City to work for companies headquartered in those areas. You also don’t need to headquarter in those cities to access top talent! While we’ve never looked only at local market to benchmark our salaries, we recognize that cost of living will likely become more and more irrelevant as part of the movement towards supporting a global workforce.  Want to work on a team that has transparent salaries? Check out our current job openings here.

If you’ve ever written a blog post before, you know how much time it can take.
From topic selection and gathering research to writing the post and pressing “Publish,” the process often demands hours. That’s why, if your post doesn’t earn the traffic you expected, it can be a major letdown.

Fortunately, there’s a way to combat low traffic: search engine optimization. As marketers, we’re always aiming to write content that’ll rank highly on Google, and SEO is the bridge that’ll help you get there. That begs the question: How do you incorporate that into your content?
Don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. In this post, we’re going to dive into 12 ways to master SEO writing.
A 2020 Search Engine Journal study found that the clickthrough rate for websites in position one on the search engine results page (SERP)is 25%. This number drops drastically to 15% for websites in position two and then down to 2.5% for websites in position 10. When you get to page two of Google, that number gets even lower.
This means that if your website is not on the first page, there’s a small chance consumers will find your website organically. Fewer visits to your site mean fewer opportunities to generate leads, and ultimately, revenue.
Your next best option is investing in advertising to get those users to your site. But that costs money, and if you’re on a tight budget, why not invest time in SEO writing? It’s free and will likely bring you traffic for much longer than a campaign would.
12 Tips on How To Incorporate SEO in Your Writing
1. Use headings to your benefit.
Headers help Google’s web crawlers understand your blog post and the sections within it.
Think of the crawlers as readers who are skimming your blog. They want an overview of what your article will cover, that’s your H1. Then your H2s, H3s, H4s break down the subtopics within the piece.
So, your subheaders should reflect the content in the body and include high-intent keywords. When you use the right keywords, meaning the ones your target audience is using, you have a much higher chance of ranking on the SERP.
2. Optimize your content for featured snippets.
Featured snippets on Google are the most direct answers to search queries. For instance, if I were to search, “How do you write a blog post?” Google might use a featured snippet to show the best answer.

To earn a featured snippet on Google, you’ll need to answer the question thoroughly and succinctly.
For instance, if the search term is “How to screenshot on mac,” you can put “How to Take a Screenshot on a MacBook Computer” as your H1 or H2, followed by the steps in a numbered or bulleted list.
Once you’ve done that, be sure to include part of the question in your answer. Using the example above, you would start the paragraph with the following: “To take a screenshot on your MacBook, here are the steps…”
Additionally, start each sentence with an actionable verb, like “click” and “select.”
If the keyword for which you want to capture the featured snippet requires a definition, write an answer that’s no more than 58 words.
3. Write for humans, not search engines.
With all these SEO guidelines, it can be easy to forget that when a user searches on Google, they are looking for an answer. The best way for you to improve your chances of ranking is by writing high-quality blog posts.
What does that look like? Thorough answers, scannable sections, organized subheaders, and visual aids.
Keep your buyer personas, their motivations, challenges, and interests in mind. It’s also important to choose topics that will resonate with your potential customers and address their pain points.
4. Include keywords in your meta description.
Are you adding meta descriptions to your post? If your answer is “no,” then you’re probably not giving your post the most exposure possible. Let’s get into why they’re important.
By now, we’ve talked about a couple of the ways a blog post can communicate with Google: subheaders, keywords, and snippets. However, that’s not an exhaustive list.
Meta descriptions are another area Google crawls to determine search rankings. Meta descriptions are the one- to three-sentence descriptions, you’ll find underneath the title of a result.

Use meta descriptions to sum up what your post is about, and remember to:

Keep it short.
Use one to two keywords.
Make it compelling. After all, there are going to be other posts similar to yours so you’ll want your description to stand out above the rest.

Most content management systems (CMS) have meta description boxes built-in, so you likely won’t have to look far to use the function.
5. Add alt text to images.
With any image you add to your post – featured or body images – you’ll want to add alt text.
Alt text describes what’s happening in the photo and it helps Google (as well as those who are visually impaired) understand why the photo is in your post.
For instance, let’s say your article is about virtual events and you include the following image:

Image Source
The alt text should read something like, “Business man attending a virtual event sits at a desk while holding a pen.”
This sentence is descriptive and includes the main keyword “virtual event.” So, even if the reality is that this is a stock image, you can create a narrative that aligns with your blog post. 
6. Start with keyword research.
It’s estimated that Google processes over 70,000 search queries a second. Staggering, right?
If you want to cut through SERP clutter and outrank your competitors, you need to target the specific keywords and phrases your potential customers are searching for. Otherwise, how else will they find your content and website?
Start with a keyword research tool. Sites like Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner give you details on what users are searching for and how popular those queries are.
Google Trends can also give you a feel for what keywords are popular at any given time. If you see searches are steadily declining over time for a specific keyword, you know that’s probably not the right keyword to target for your marketing. The opposite is true for rising trends.
If you’re ever running low on keyword ideas, get inspiration from your competition. Use competitive intelligence tools to see what keywords their domains currently rank for. If these keywords are relevant to your business, consider using them too.
However, keep in mind that the most obvious keywords don’t always align with your strategy. Additionally, your focus keywords will evolve over time as trends shift, terminology changes or your product/service line grows.
Be sure to conduct keyword research periodically to ensure you’re still focusing on the right keywords for your target audience and not missing out on vital ranking opportunities.
7. Resist the urge to keyword stuff.
The goal is to make your page fully optimized, not overbearing. Find natural fits for keyword additions, but don’t force them to the point where your content is illegible.
For example, if your keywords are “account-based marketing,” “startups,” and “sales,” avoid a meta description like this: “Sales for account-based marketing startups.”
Instead, try focusing on one or two keywords to make the description more natural: “Are you looking for killer strategies to boost your account-based marketing game? Discover our research-backed techniques in this post.”
With this approach, you’re still using keywords, but you’re not oversaturating the post. Remember, your goal is to solve for your audience. If your users have a poor reading experience, that will signal to Google that your post may not be meeting their needs.
8. Link to high-authority websites.
As you build out your blog post, don’t be afraid to link externally.
Linking to reputable websites not only offers blog readers additional reading material to expand their knowledge, but it also shows search engines that you’ve done your research.
Nothing strengthens a blog post like research-backed statistics from influential websites. Compelling stats help you build a more convincing and concrete argument that will help you gain trust from your readers.
9. Aim for scannable, longer posts.
In an age of short attention spans, you would think shorter blog posts are the way to go. But in fact, search engines like Google actually prefer longer, in-depth blog posts.
Think about it: the more content on the page, the more clues search engines have to figure out what your blog is about. At HubSpot, we’ve found that the ideal length is between 2,100 and 2,400 words.
The downside to longer blogs is that they may overwhelm your readers. One way to combat that is by breaking down your content into bite-size, scannable chunks.
Turn a long-winded sentence into two and keep your paragraphs to three sentences or less.
Don’t forget about bullet points – they’re great attention grabbers and easily digestible, especially on mobile devices.
10. Link to other posts on your site.
Linking to other pages or blog posts on your website helps search engines create an accurate sitemap. It also helps your audience discover more of your content and get to know you as a trustworthy, credible source of information.
On the user side, Internal links to other valuable content keep readers on your site longer, reducing bounce rate and increasing your potential for a conversion. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
When linking to any pages on your website, or even outside sources, use natural language for your anchor text. Avoid using spammy or generic calls to action, such as “top-rated cheap laptops” or “click here.”
Instead, use descriptive keywords that give readers a sense of what they will find when they click on the hyperlink, like “Download your SEO guide.”
Never force-feed links to your top webpages, featured products, or discounted items. Include links that enhance the points made in your posts and naturally tie in with the subject matter.
11. Compress images for fast page load speed.
Google rewards pages with fast loading speeds, as it improves the user experience.
One of the leading culprits of page lag is large, heavy images. If you have several images in your post and each one is over 100KB, that can drastically impact your page speed.
Luckily, there are free apps, like Squoosh.app, that compress images without sacrificing quality.
If you suspect that your low ranking is due to slow page speeds, head over to Google’s PageSpeed site for a free analysis and recommendations.
12. Design a link-building strategy.
Link building is crucial to your search ranking.
Why? Think of search results like a competition where the winners get the most votes. Each webpage that links back to you is considered a vote for your website, which makes your content more trustworthy in the eyes of Google. In turn, this will make you rise further up in ranking.
So, it’s good to write posts that other websites or publications will want to hyperlink within their own posts. To make your website’s blog post more linkable, include high-value assets in your posts, such as original data and thought leadership.
Conducting interviews with experts is another effective way of leading traffic back to your website.
How to Title Blog Posts for SEO
Even with a great, SEO-friendly post body, a bad headline could hurt you in the SERP.
To title your post with SEO in mind, write something compelling that also incorporates your main keyword. Here are a few tips:

Incorporate numbers. E.g.: “5 Ways to Rock a Matte Lipstick.”
Include your offer in the title. E.g.: “How to Write a Cover Letter [+ Free Template]”
Add a teaser. E.g.: “We Tried the New [Insert App Name] App: Here’s What Happened”

You know how to write content audiences will love. Now, it’s time to include elements that Google will love too. It can sound tricky at first, with these SEO tips, you’ll be on the first page of Google in no time.

As a marketer, you’re undoubtedly aware of some of the major social media sites you can use for lead generation. I’m willing to bet you’ve already heard about the importance of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter — and if you use all three as part of your lead generation strategy, you might think you’re all set. 
However, if you’re not using LinkedIn you could be missing out on a major opportunity to grow both brand recognition and revenue, especially if you’re a B2B business. In fact, studies have shown that LinkedIn is the top paid and organic social channel for B2B businesses, and 82% of B2B marketers report finding the greatest success on the platform. 
These statistics make sense, especially if we consider platform-specific demographics. The average Instagram user scrolls through their feed, like photos of their friends, watches their favorite celebrity’s Story, and occasionally uses the platform to find and purchase products. 
Alternatively, the average LinkedIn user is on the site specifically for professionally-geared content. They’re already seeking out information to help grow their businesses, so you should meet them where they are.
Of course, it’s easier said than done. Without a clear strategy in mind, the task of lead generation on LinkedIn can feel challenging. Justin Shriber, Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn, was interviewed as part of HubSpot’s campaign, “Advertising, a Look Behind the Screens.” Take a look at the full interview series here, or keep reading to learn some of his key insights, as well as additional tips on how to use LinkedIn for lead generation. 

LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategy
As a refresher, lead generation refers to all of the activities and strategies you use to attract potential customers. Generating leads is important because, with nurturing, potential customers can become paying customers that use your products and drive revenue. 
LinkedIn’s typical audience comprises professional decision-makers with purchasing power, helping you speak directly to the potential customers that can become paying customers. Below, we’ll discuss how you can use LinkedIn for lead generation.
1. Make sure your executives have a strong LinkedIn presence.
When you’re first getting started on LinkedIn, it can be tricky to know how to dedicate your initial efforts. Should you create a compelling LinkedIn Page and immediately begin posting content to your business’s feed? Or should you start by posting all your job openings to attract new talent?
Shriber suggests another strategy: “We definitely want to fuel the growth of small businesses that have aspirations to grow to become larger, and we put together a playbook that allows them to do that. The playbook always starts with the individual LinkedIn profiles of the employees at the company, and in particular, the executives at the company.”

“[Executives are] trendsetters. They can make statements about what they stand for, and in many cases, develop a strong following in relatively short order.”

Consider the leaders at your company and their current LinkedIn presence. Could they contribute more thoughtfully to LinkedIn groups within your industry or post more often to their feeds? More likely than not, your executives could be doing more to grow their LinkedIn following.
For instance, let’s take a look at Sallie Krawcheck’s, CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, LinkedIn activity:

Krawcheck uses LinkedIn wisely, leveraging the platform to promote content from her own investment company while also liking or sharing other relevant financial content geared towards women. Ultimately, Krawcheck uses LinkedIn to build a personal brand and help her followers find valuable content related to investing and women in finance. Ideally, your executives should be doing the same.
2. Create a powerful LinkedIn Page for your business.
Once you’ve ensured your own executives have a strong LinkedIn presence, it’s time to cultivate an impressive page.
You’ll want to ensure your page is active, with thought-provoking content and contributions to conversations already happening on LinkedIn.
Shriber notes — “Once you’ve got a strategy related to your executives and their presence on LinkedIn, step two is to think about the presence of your company on LinkedIn. We have a product called LinkedIn Pages, which has been incredibly powerful for businesses that want to establish their place in the world’s professional community.”

“[LinkedIn Pages is] a free product,” Shriber adds, “and really, at the end of the day, it’s a place for you to stage the content that you have to offer, and really promote all of the benefits that you have for people that want to follow you.”

He continues, “So, when you come to a good LinkedIn Page, you’ll find information about what the company does, but beyond that, some of the thought leadership that’s happening. There will be video content as well as the written word, commentary from executives, but also in many cases, information that’s curated from other sources. It doesn’t just need to be from the marketing group or from an internal source.”
3. Post relevant content and updates. 
To ensure your LinkedIn page and profile are strong, consider posting various content types, including video. Featuring this industry-relevant content can help you position yourself as a knowledgeable source and establish relevance and credibility with potential customers. 
When you’re recognized as an insightful, valuable source, you’ll begin to develop connections with like-minded professionals that fit your ideal customer profile. If you post often, you’ll become a regular on their feed, and familiarity makes it easier to initiate further conversations.
If you assume that the connections you have on LinkedIn are professionals within your industry, they can expose you to new audiences with the content you post. When your connections click ‘Like’ on a post you’ve made, it may show up on the feed of a new lead. This lead will see that your shared connection has liked your post, vouching for your credibility and authority, and possibly prompting them to send a request to connect.
To ensure that you’re creating content that people want to see, follow your page analytics to figure out what resonates with them the most and create accordingly.
4. Join LinkedIn groups your clients and customers are in. 
LinkedIn, at its core, is a social platform like any other. Just as you can on Facebook, users can create groups centered around industry-relevant interests, and you should join these groups and have conversations with other professionals.
You can post content and updates to encourage discussions about relevant topics or simply talk about the services you offer. If you’ve joined groups wisely, your potential customers can see what you say and begin to recognize you as a source of valuable information. 
You can also use groups to learn more about your audience. If members are active, learn from what they say and discover common industry pain points and how leads want these issues addressed. Use this information to your advantage, and create hyper-targeted value propositions when you reach out that speak directly to your customer’s needs. 
5. Use paid products to ensure your content reaches your intended audience.
Businesses with small marketing budgets may be wary of putting money behind paid campaigns on LinkedIn. They often ask — We have a small marketing budget, and we want to use it wisely. Where should we spend it? Given that LinkedIn is the top paid and organic channel for B2B businesses, spending your money on the platform would be worth your while. 

Shriber told me, “Once you’ve built that strong LinkedIn Page, companies tend to realize that that audience that’s consuming information is incredibly valuable, and it’s different than what they’re finding on other platforms.”

He adds, “We have a series of paid products that you can then move into that allow you to insert content into the LinkedIn feed. Now you’ve got a series of followers or you’ve got a set of targeted members that you care about. Suddenly, they’re seeing your content appear in the feed itself and there are some really rich ways to turn that engagement into actual activity.”
While LinkedIn has a native ads management service, you can also use HubSpot’s ads management tool to create, organize, and execute advertising campaigns on LinkedIn. You’ll also get access to high-quality reports that explain ad performance, helping you optimize a strategy to meet your customers’ needs. 
6. Ensure you have strong sales and marketing alignment.
You’re likely all too familiar with the recent shift in consumer buying behavior. Nowadays, customers are researching online ahead of time and typically use marketing content to inform their purchasing decisions before even reaching out to a sales rep.
Shriber describes the shift like this: “What you’re seeing now, is consumers are becoming more savvy about learning about products and services that they need and progressing deep into the sales process before they reach out, raise their hand, and say that they need help.”
He adds, “It’s becoming incumbent upon marketing to really meet the needs of customers that are investigating and exploring, and then seamlessly handing that off to salespeople so sales has context on the journey customers have already traveled.”

“I’ve got a number of customers that have come to me and said, my salespeople know my target customers better than my marketing group. They’ve been in the business for 20 years, and they know all the key people, so I’m going to use them to create awareness, build a brand in a way that historically has been reserved for marketing.”

On the flip side, of course, marketers play a heavier role in closing a deal. Shriber told me, “Imagine, for example, that you’re procurement and you’re trying to negotiate a contract. Historically, that’s been the domain of a sales professional, but today, savvy marketers know that that’s where you are in the sales process.”
Shriber adds, “They’re able to target that procurement person, send in some relevant content related to validation of the solution, why it’s valuable, what other customers are saying about it, and all of a sudden, that marketer has played a key role in getting the deal closed.”
All of which is to say — it’s critical you align your sales and marketing teams since they play equally valuable parts in finding prospects and closing deals, and they overlap more heavily now than ever before.
To figure out strategies for better aligning your sales and marketing departments, take a look at this Ultimate Guide to Sales and Marketing.
7. Leverage connections with current customers and clients. 
LinkedIn’s main draw is networking, and you should use this feature to your advantage for lead generation. 
Connect with current customers and clients on LinkedIn and learn from who their industry connections are, as they may be relevant to you as well. If you have relationships with existing clients you connect with, ask for referrals, references, or simply learn how to get in contact with a connection they have that matches your customer profile.
As LinkedIn is a professional network, such requests are less pushy, spammy, and salesesque than cold calling someone after finding their number online. Leads can receive your request to connect, browse your profile, and see your shared connection as a guarantee of trust. 
In addition, when you connect with new leads, you’re using warm outreach. This means that you already know a bit about them and can immediately make propositions that relate to their interests, providing value to them off the bat.
8. Maintain a consistent presence on the platform. 
Just like all of your other social media sites, LinkedIn requires consistency. If you post an article once a week and then log out, you’re not establishing yourself as a consistent presence with your connections. You also want to communicate consistently with your leads. Disappearing in the middle of a conversation is not a good look and does the opposite of furthering their interest in doing business with you. 
As mentioned above, use platform analytics to learn about your audience’s interests, when your posts get the most traction, and create a strategy that will keep you consistently present and visible on LinkedIn. 
LinkedIn Can Help You Attract Your Ideal Customers
Ultimately, if you aren’t using LinkedIn or using it often enough, you’re likely missing out on significant opportunities to grow your business. 
As Shriber told me, “We’ve really tried to think through the full spectrum of what you might care about, from building a brand to generating leads, whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise — and we built playbooks that address you where you are, and help you to get where you’re going.”
Learn more from Justin Shriber and other advertising leaders by accessing an exclusive interview series with LinkedIn, Google, and Facebook.

I fly Southwest Airlines almost exclusively. They offer reasonable prices, make it easy to rack up points, and always have fun and kind flight attendants.
One thing I’ve noticed about Southwest is their branding is on point. Whether I’m booking a flight on their mobile application, being served my go-to in-flight ginger ale, or walking through the terminal at Midway Airport, I’m surrounded by Southwest’s consistent brand colors, messaging, and imagery.
This is an example of integrated marketing at work. If you’re interested in presenting a cohesive, consistent brand experience that leaves your products or services top-of-mind — like Southwest does — this guide is for you. Read on to learn more about integrated marketing and how to create a campaign of your own.

Imagine discovering a new brand on Instagram and visiting the company’s website to purchase one of their products. If their website promoted a different message or campaign than the one you found on their Instagram account, you’d have a hard time understanding the gist of the brand, right?
Integrated marketing exists to eliminate these disparities and differences regardless of how or when a customer interacts with your brand. It’s similar to multi-channel marketing, except integrated marketing is what aligns the message you’re sharing on all of those channels.
Speaking of channels, integrated marketing doesn’t apply to just your inbound or digital marketing channels; traditional media channels are also included. Many of the integrated marketing examples we’ll review below incorporate traditional marketing channels such as print, radio, and TV ads.
Now, let’s talk about integrated marketing campaigns.
Why are integrated marketing campaigns effective?
While integrated marketing campaigns can differ in their goals (e.g. converting views, building brand awareness, etc.), they should all have one component in common: to align your marketing channels to present a united marketing “front”.
If your marketing channels are players, consider your integrated marketing campaign the coach in charge of running plays and helping your channels work as a unified system — not disparate ones.
It’s also more effective to run integrated marketing campaigns as compared to campaigns on individual channels. Integrated marketing campaigns are impactful for a few reasons:

They reach a wider audience than a single marketing channel.
They have a greater chance of being seen on multiple channels, thus keeping your brand top-of-mind and pushing visitors closer to conversion.
They build trust with visitors as they see a consistent message on multiple channels.
They save you money since assets can be shared between and repurposed for different marketing channels and, depending on your campaign, customers can help you market your product or service for you.

So, how can you build your own integrated marketing campaign? Follow these steps to get started.
1. Establish your overarching campaign goal.
Before you consider what channels will be part of your integrated marketing campaign, you must consider the goal of the entire campaign.
Maybe you’ve launched a new product, service, or initiative and want to get it in front of customers — like Southwest’s Transfarency. Maybe you’ve completely rebranded and want to broadcast your new message — like Old Spice’s Smell Like a Man, Man. Perhaps you’ve simply chosen a new positioning tagline and want your audience to start associating your brand with it — like Snickers’ You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.
(Don’t worry, we’ll dig deeper into these examples later.)
Whatever your campaign goal may be, always remember to make it SMART. This will help you stay focused, track your campaign success, and learn how to improve the next time around.

These goals should also relate to at least one of the following key performance indicators (KPIs) and their subsequent metrics, which you can track when you launch your campaign.

KPI
related Metrics

Traffic/reach
Unique page views by channel and source

Engagement
Bounce rate; average time on page

Top (and falling) content
Top page views; top exits

Impact
Click-throughs; conversions; backlinks

Sentiment
Comments; social shares

Lead generation
Total leads; total sessions; session to lead conversion rate

Sales
Lead to marketing qualified lead (MQL); MQL to sales qualified lead (SQL); customer purchase/closed-won business

Also, while increased engagement and new leads are always exciting, a multi-channel campaign should also consider the bigger picture: how your campaign impacts sales opportunities and business revenue. Take a moment to map out how you want your campaign to impact your bottom line, too.
2. Choose your marketing channels and set goals for each one.
Now that you know your overarching integrated marketing campaign goal, you probably have a better idea of what channels (if not all of them) can help you reach that goal.
For example, if your goal is to roll out a new logo and branding suite, you don’t necessarily need to leverage radio ads. On the other hand, if you’re extending your audience to target a new geographic region or city, radio ads, billboard ads, TV ads, and other local channels may come in handy.
When choosing your channel(s), it all boils down to what you’re trying to achieve through your integrated marketing campaign. There are 10 major marketing “channels” that you can use to distribute your campaign content.

Advertising (both print and PPC)
Direct marketing
Email marketing
PR
Personal selling
Sales promotions
Digital marketing (e.g. website, content marketing, and SEO)
Social media

Events and sponsorships
Packaging

Your integrated marketing campaign should include a variety of marketing channels in order to reach the widest audience and drive home your campaign message. If you see one or more channels plateau, don’t hesitate to add, remove, or test new ones.
3. Define your buyer personas by channel.
Every marketing channel targets its own specific buyer persona. For this reason, instead of defining a broad persona for your campaign, you must define your audience by channel.
There will inevitably be some overlap, but it’s wise to understand exactly who you’re talking to on each medium and how you can tailor those specific assets to be the most successful.
Note: With some campaigns, you may be targeting a specific audience. In this case, steps 2 and 3 would be flipped — you’d define your buyer persona(s) first and then decide which channels can help you reach that audience.
Download our free Persona Templates to easily organize your audience segments and make your marketing stronger.
4. Identify your channel managers.
Depending on the size of your marketing team, you may have different people (or entire teams) in charge of different channels. When running a multi-channel marketing campaign, you must determine who specifically will be in charge of ensuring their channel(s) is aligned with the campaign.
This is important for two reasons: 1) that manager is the expert on their channel (e.g. audience, posting cadence, optimization tactics, reporting strategies, etc.) and will know how to tailor the campaign content to be the most successful; and 2) putting one person in charge of all channels may be overwhelming and will cause the content and campaign to suffer.
Perhaps you have a smaller marketing team where one person handles multiple channels. Regardless of your team size, do your very best to share channel management responsibilities across a few people — ideally with one person handling one or two channels.
5. Create adaptable marketing assets and messaging.
At this point, you have your campaign goal, target audience(s), and marketing channels. It’s now time to create your integrated marketing campaign content. This stage is where copywriting, graphic design, and other creative processes come into play.
Before I dive into how, let’s talk about an important component of integrated marketing content: adaptability. To keep your campaign consistent (and ease your workload), you should be able to repurpose any content to be used on different channels.
For example, let’s say your integrated marketing campaign is focused on the launch of a new 3-minute brand video. You could repurpose this video into:

30-second and one-minute “trailer” videos
Still images
Quotes
GIFs
Hashtags
Blog posts
Soundbites

As you develop and repurpose these creative assets, keep them aligned with your brand guidelines and consistent with each other. In fact, it may be helpful to create your own set of brand guidelines for your integrated marketing campaign to share with your team and any channel managers.
This documentation could include a few things:

Visual guidelines (logo, color palette, typography, etc.)
Any developed and repurposed assets in multiple file formats
Voice and tone guidelines (taglines, preferred language, words to avoid, etc.)
Messaging guidelines (pain points, goals, types of content, resources, etc.)
Buyer persona information and guidelines

Integrated marketing is all about a consistent brand experience. Be sure your campaign assets reflect that, regardless of what channel your audience visits or sees.
6. Establish your plan for collecting leads.
Whether or not you intend your campaign to collect leads, you should always be prepared to receive them. You don’t want to leave this as an afterthought once you launch your campaign. Even if you’re simply campaigning to raise awareness of your brand, consider how your visitors might convert to leads — and, eventually, customers.
First, consider how a visitor might convert to a lead. Would they subscribe to your newsletter? Input their information to download a content offer? Create an account on your website? Ensure these conversion aspects of your campaign are also on-brand with the rest of your visual and messaging assets.
Next, consider how your leads will be nurtured once they convert. Would they roll into an automated email workflow? Would you pass them along to Sales? However you go about this step, make sure your leads aren’t forgotten once they willingly give over their information.

As always, communicate with Sales to confirm that they’re aware of your campaign and on-board with your plan for new leads and customers.
7. Launch, measure, and iterate your campaign.
Ready to launch your integrated marketing campaign? It might be time to put your campaign to work … but it’s not time to rest just yet.
Remember those KPIs and metrics from step one? Whichever KPIs relate to your overarching campaign goal (e.g. boosting brand awareness, rebranding, new product, etc.), start tracking those subsequent metrics each week, month, and quarter (depending on how long your campaign is running) to see how successful it is at reaching your goal.
As always, take what you learn from each integrated marketing campaign and apply it to future campaigns. With the right strategies, managers, and tools in place, you can create a never-ending cycle of integrated marketing campaigns — and wins.

Integrated Marketing Strategies and Best Practices
As you construct your integrated marketing campaign, there are a few key strategies and best practices to keep in mind. We’ve detailed them here, and they apply regardless of what media, channels, or goals you’ve chosen.
Align behind the scenes.
In order for you to successfully implement an integrated marketing approach, it’s imperative that you not only choose marketing channel managers but that all your marketing managers also communicate often about projects and campaigns.
While not every integrated marketing campaign or promotion needs to be on all of your channels, they should at least complement each other to avoid a fragmented brand experience for customers.
Consider the channel transition.
Integrated campaigns receive traffic from a number of sources — and pass along those sources like a game of Hot Potato. Consider how a visitor may view/experience each marketing channel 1) if it was their first visit and 2) if they transitioned from another channel. Think about how each channel can help others convert.
For example, say a customer saw your new billboard on their way to work and, once they arrived, visited the website that was on the billboard. Imagine if, on your website, the customer couldn’t easily find whatever your billboard was marketing. How confusing would that be? That customer would likely drop off immediately.
Don’t neglect the small overlaps.
When preparing to launch your integrated marketing campaign, it’s tempting to separately think about each channel and its respective media assets. But this thought process inherently goes against the ethos of integrated marketing. Integrated marketing exists to eradicate the silos of traditional marketing and bring together a cohesive campaign experience.
For this reason, don’t neglect the places in which your campaign overlaps. Here are a few examples:

Your email signature, where you can plug your social media handles, website URL, or video links
Your social media bios and posts, where you can include links to your website, blog posts, content offers, or other digital content
Your blog and website, where you can incorporate social sharing buttons

Your standalone landing pages, where you can optimize for relevant keywords and SEO

Your PPC copy, where you can test subject lines to see what your audience responds to

While these overlaps might not directly support your campaign goals, they help your audience transition seamlessly between channels, enjoy that consistent, cohesive brand experience, and ultimately find their way to a page that converts them.

Every marketer knows just how much you can learn from those who’ve come before you. In this section, we’ve pulled together a handful of well-executed integrated marketing campaigns to give you an example of just how successful this tactic can be.
1. Smell Like a Man, Man by Old Spice
For years, I associated Old Spice with something only my dad or grandfather would wear. I can remember the old, white bottle of aftershave — the one with the faded pirate ship — that used to sit in my dad’s cabinet.

 

I don’t think I’m the only one who held this association, so it’s no surprise that, in 2010, Old Spice launched a major rebranding campaign to give its products a more youthful, playful feel — and ultimately attract a younger audience. Not only did Old Spice change the design of their packaging, but they also renamed their products and crafted a new tagline (“Smell Like a Man, Man”).

The initial campaign launch featured one 30-second TV spot, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, that was so beloved that Old Spice launched a handful of others.

 
But Old Spice didn’t stop at the TV commercial. They also included their website, product pages, Instagram, YouTube, and other channels in their campaign.
No, they don’t all feature the specific characters or taglines from the original TV spots (remember, the campaign launched almost 10 years ago), but they do reflect the same tone, theme, and brand, thus giving customers a consistent brand experience across all media.

2. Transfarency by Southwest Airlines
I discussed Southwest Airlines’ consistent branding at the beginning of this article. One campaign that stands out is their Transfarency movement, which introduced a brand new word that marketed Southwest as an airline with straightforward pricing and no hidden fees.

The campaign originally launched in 2015, but Southwest has since been rolling out phases to release new elements and introduce more themes and stories. This tactic has helped elongate the campaign message and truly solidify the association between flying Southwest and saving money on fares.
Southwest has used almost every possible marketing channel to broadcast this campaign: a dedicated landing page on which you can purchase tickets, print advertisements posted along airport walls and tucked behind airplane seats, a slew of video spots, and plenty of user-generated content on their social media.

3. You’re Not You When You’re Hungry by Snickers
Snickers is one of my favorite chocolate bars, so I paid close attention when I started to see commercials for their You’re Not You When You’re Hungry advertisements.
Launched at the 2010 Super Bowl, this Snickers campaign has remained top-of-mind for chocolate and candy lovers everywhere.

 
One reason for this is the campaign’s humor, but the other, more pertinent reason is that Snickers pasted this movement everywhere … on its website, social media, TV, print ads, and more, and they included plenty of celebrities to boot. By presenting an aligned, cohesive integrated marketing campaign, customers now think of Snickers when craving a sweet snack — and the company has benefitted as a result.

4. Share a Coke by Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign was unique in that the company put their customers front and center by featuring names and fun phrases on their product. Not only did this create endless advertising angles, but it led to endless user-generated content from customers wanting to share products with their own name. The #ShareaCoke hashtag was shared via 500,000+ customer photos.

When this campaign was at its height, I found myself taking pictures of and even buying Cokes featuring the names of my friends and family. It seems that others did the same — the campaign resulted in an increase in Coke consumption from 1.7 billion to 1.9 billion daily servings.

5. Grow Better by HubSpot
HubSpot has countless digital properties — its blog, website, social media channels, and SaaS products. This level of variety requires a lot of consistency in messaging and marketing.
HubSpot recently set its ultimate vision to help customers grow better — all customers, on all channels. To promote this messaging, it updated all content to reflect this vision.

The message may be short, but the impact is big. However and wherever customers interact with HubSpot, its integrated marketing has ensured that they know how HubSpot operates — and why they should become a customer.

Integrated Marketing Helps You Grow Better
Integrated marketing turns your marketing campaigns into multi-channel movements. In today’s omnichannel world — with consumers encountering your brand online, on social media, and on their daily commutes — integrated marketing is more important than ever to capture new customers and build brand recognition and loyalty.
Implement these steps and strategies for your next integrated marketing campaign, and it will surely be a success.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 An event is a fantastic opportunity to delight existing customers, while also reaching new audiences and increasing brand awareness.
Consider, for instance, how I first came across Southcoast Open Air Market — a local, Massachusetts-based market featuring handmade goods, fresh produce and meats, and live music — by searching “Events near me” on Facebook.
I never would’ve found the company if not for an event they posted recently:
And, thus, the ultimate power of online events: The ability to attract new customers to your business.
Fortunately, an event doesn’t have to be expensive. You can set up virtual events and webinars with Facebook Live for free, or create small events at your company’s physical location to encourage new local visitors.
Of course, one of the biggest challenges when hosting a Facebook event is spreading awareness of the event to both new and existing audiences.
If you’re going through the trouble of hosting an event, you want people to show up — and, better yet, you want people to continue spreading the word about your business even after the event is over.
Here, we’ll explore some creative opportunities you can use to promote an upcoming event on Facebook.

How to Promote an Event on Facebook
To demonstrate how to effectively promote an event on Facebook, let’s walk through an example.
Let’s say I recently started a business — Caroline’s cupcakes — and I want to host an event to drive new traffic to my page.
But, once I’ve created the event … how do I promote it? Let’s explore how to do that, next.
It’s important to note — in this section, we’ll explore how to formally promote your event using Facebook advertising features, which means it costs money to run these promotions. If you’re looking for cheaper or free alternatives, skip to the next section in this post, Best Ways to Promote an Event on Facebook.
Additionally, take a look at Facebook’s instructions if you’re new to creating a Facebook event. You’ll need a Facebook event to continue with these steps.
1. As soon as you’ve created your event, Facebook will serve you a pop-up that reads, “Boost Your Online Event”. Click “Boost Event” to promote your event to new audiences.

Alternatively, if you clicked away from the pop-up or created the event a while ago, simply return to your company’s page and click the “Promote” button displayed there:

And then click the box that reads, “Boost an Event”.
2. Next, fill in the Ad Creative you want to use when you promote the event, including an event description, image, and Ad Category. Here’s where you want to use advertising best practices to ensure your copy and image attract new audiences when they come across your event.
3. Once you’ve filled out the Ad Creative, you’ll want to choose the Audience you want to see your event. Plug in certain key audience factors related to your target audience, or consider using Facebook’s lookalike feature to find similar people to those who already follow, Like, and engage with your content online.  
4. Finally, choose the duration for which you want to promote your event. We’d recommend promoting a few weeks before the event, so your audience has time to schedule it into their calendars and even invite friends or colleagues. Additionally, you’ll want to choose your budget here, as well.
5. Once you’ve finalized your ad, click “Boost Event Now” to ensure your event is shared with new, interested audiences.
Of course, these steps can help you promote your event through advertising. But if you’re on a strict budget, you might not have the resources to officially promote it.
Fortunately, there are a few alternative best practices to promote your event — which I’d recommend doing even if you’ve officially boosted your event, as well.
Let’s explore those, now.

Best Ways to Promote an Event on Facebook
1. Change your business’ page settings so your Events are listed first when people find your business page.
When visitors find your business page, they’ll see a few tabs at the top, including “Home”, “Group”, “Photos”, etc.
To increase traffic to your events page, consider re-organizing these tabs so an “Event” tab is listed first on your business page.
To do this, click the “More” dropdown on your company page, and then select “Edit Tabs”:

Next, drag the “Events” tab to the top, right under “Home”:

This is a small detail, but it could go a long way towards encouraging new page visitors to click and view upcoming events.  
2. Share and pin your event to the top of your business page.
Even though you have a different page for your event invite, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be broadcasting the event on your business’ official Facebook page, as well.
To do this, share a post highlighting details about your event — including where people can sign up, when it is, and what content you’ll cover. Then, right-click the three dots at the top right-hand corner of your Facebook post, and select “Pin to Top of Page”:

This is another easy opportunity to promote your event. When both new and existing audiences come across your business page they’ll see, front and center, a pinned post about your upcoming event.
3. Post a status highlighting the event from your business page.
A few days before the event, reach out to your page followers with a quick reminder status. Use images, emojis, and other fun, interactive elements to remind your audience about the upcoming event and increase excitement for it.
If you can, publishing a short, promotional video could help raise awareness and excitement, as well. For instance, take a look at how Content Marketing Virtual Summit published a short video from one of its webinar speakers, Ellie Hernaman, to remind followers of the upcoming event:

4. Optimize your event page for wider reach.
If you’re going through the trouble of promoting an event page, you’ll want to make sure the event page itself is ready to attract and delight new viewers.
A few small details can go a long way, here. For instance, consider using a unique, original image as your cover photo, as The Honey Pot Company did with its Essence Wellness House Atlanta event:

Additionally, use relevant tags related to your event — such as “startup” and “technology” — to ensure the event gets shared and viewed by the right channels.
5. Share your event to relevant Facebook groups.
If you’ve created a Facebook group for your business, this could be a good opportunity to broadcast your event to audiences who’ve already proven an interest in your brand. 
Additionally, if you’re a member of a Facebook group made up of people you believe would truly find an interest in your event, go ahead and share your event there as a member post.
However, a word of caution: This can easily feel promotional and can backfire, particularly if members feel you’re only sharing content related to your own business.
Instead, you’ll want to ensure it’s authentic and helpful to the topic at-hand. For instance, if you’re part of a Tech Startup Facebook group and your company is hosting a webinar, “8 Impressive New Tech Startups to Watch”, then by all means — go ahead and post with a quick, “Hey fellow members, feel free to join this webinar on Tuesday.”
Just be careful not to overdo it, particularly if it doesn’t feel relevant to the other topics being discussed.
6. Copy the link and paste it into an email newsletter, or alternative channels to broadcast it to existing leads.
On your event page, you’ll see a “Share” option (the arrow pointing to the right) — when you click on it, Facebook gives you an option to copy-and-paste a specific URL link, or share to a Page or group: 
If you feel many of your prospects and customers engage with your brand outside of Facebook, it could be a good idea to copy-and-paste the URL into other channels and share with engaged followers on other social platforms.
Additionally, you might consider opening your event for “pre-access” to an exclusive email subscriber list — like those who’ve purchased your product or service, or your Blog subscribers — on a “first come, first serve” basis. Here’s an example of how that might look in practice: 

Ultimately, it’s a good idea to paste the URL into other content channels to expand your reach. For instance, if you have a dedicated Instagram following, you might paste the URL into your Instagram bio. 
7. Ask other businesses or influencers to co-host or sponsor your event so they can share your event with their audiences.
One sure-fire opportunity to reach new audiences is by asking another business or influencer in the industry to co-host or sponsor your event.
This can help you increase the amount of people who hear about your event, and it can also make the event itself more valuable by including unique, original thought leadership content. 
For instance, M&M BBQ, a Boston-based barbecue restaurant, partnered with Dorchester Brewing Company to host events like Sunday brunch and combine its barbecue with Dorchester Brewing Company’s popular beer. 
Recently, Dorchester Brewing Company posted about the event with a link directly to M&M BBQ: 

This serves two purposes: First, any Facebook followers or customers of DBC might take an interest in M&M BBQ as a result of the Facebook post (or an in-person experience of testing out the barbecue).
And, second, Dorchester Brewing Company has increased value of its own event by providing its loyal customers with the option to eat delicious barbecue as they test out beers. A win, win. 
Ultimately, you’ll need to figure out which promotional methods work best for your brand, your event, and your audience. Fortunately, the sky’s the limit when it comes to promoting an event on Facebook — both on, and off the social network.