Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Last Updated on January 26, 2021 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How can we develop declarative functionality to add or remove followers from a record? In Salesforce, a user can follow Chatter groups or Records. Salesforce provides out-of-the-box … Continue reading →
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 55 (Add or Remove Followers to a Record with the Help of Salesforce Flow) appeared first on Automation Champion.

What if I told you engaging with your customers on Instagram can double or triple your revenue?
That’s exactly what happened to Southern Elegance Candle Co. as its founder and CEO D’Shawn Russell told us:
“Our social media makes us a lot of money… We went from doing maybe $20,000-30,000 a month just posting pretty images to well over a $100,000 a month now simply by engaging people more.”
Russel and Southern Elegance Candle Co aren’t alone. Brands like Glossier (which attributes 70% of its growth to owned, earned, peer-to-peer, or organic channels), MadHappy, and Sass & Belle, focus on responding to almost every customer on Instagram.
So it can be incredibly powerful to focus on engagement. But how do you actually stay on top of every comment?
After working and testing with thousands of customers, we have developed a solution that is truly focused on enabling you to build better relationships and a stronger brand on Instagram.
We are excited to share it’s available to all Buffer customers today!
(If you are not a Buffer customer yet, you can get started at just $15 per month.)
Introducing Instagram engagement in Buffer
Every time an Instagram comment goes unanswered, an opportunity to create a lifelong customer is lost.
The problem?
Staying on top of these interactions is really hard.
Notifications from Instagram quickly disappear and important comments slip through the cracks. And we get why — no one has the time to hang out on Instagram 24/7. Your time is precious, and we’re here to help you win it back.
With this latest addition, you’ll be able to reply to more comments, stay on top of important interactions, and turn your followers into fans. All from the comfort of your Buffer dashboard.
Never miss a comment
It’s really easy to miss new comments among the likes, follows, and mention notifications on Instagram. For most small business owners and marketers, this means checking Instagram regularly to keep a close eye on important comments.
We have experienced this ourselves with our own Instagram account and have heard the same from many customers. And that’s why our engagement features are built specifically to help you stay on top of all your comments.
There are all the benefits of community building and engagement but it’s also a huge time saver for me. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been.
Right at the top, you can immediately see how many unanswered comments you have. The familiar grid view make it super easy and quick for you to jump to the respective Instagram posts to respond to a comment.
You can quickly reply to as many comments as possible, and if there’s a comment that doesn’t need a respose you can easily dismiss it by clicking on the checkmark beside the comment, and it will be considered as “answered”.
Course creator and artist Tamer Ghoneim shared with us, “it’s really important to me to try to reply to every comment but finding them was impossible, notifications expire, and I just didn’t have a good way to manage comments on Instagram. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when saw the engagement features in Buffer. I literally spent hours if not days looking for something like this. There are all the benefits of community building and engagement but it’s also a huge time saver for me. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been.”
Prioritize important conversations
Notifications in Instagram are shown in a reverse-chronological order. So for most people you’ll see the latest notifications first and likely work your way through in the order they are displayed.
But the latest notification might not be the most important or urgent one to respond to. There could be a comment about a major issue with an order or a comment from an influencer asking about your products—hidden somehow in the middle of all your notifications. These are the comments you might want to prioritize.
With Buffer, you can do just that. We use a mix of filtering and machine learning to identify three types of comments that you might want to check out first:

Negative comments
Comments about an order
Comments with a question

Posts with one or more of these comment types will have a label so that you can spot it right away. No more scrolling and searching. Just click on the post and jump right over to answer the comment.
“We use the Engage tool on a daily basis to ensure we never miss a comment or question from our community. I really like how it flags out comments that may be an issue or that is potentially an important question that we may have missed,” said Stephanie Kaluza, the social media manager of Sass & Belle.
The fastest way to engage on Instagram
Time is one of the most important assets for small businesses. There are always so many things to do and so little time. We want to help small business owners and marketers take back their time so that they can work on other parts of their business and also contribute back to their communities.
First, being able to reply to comments on a laptop and desktop allows you to get through the comments much faster than doing so on a mobile app—without compromising on the quality and thoughtfulness of the response.
“It is difficult to stay on top of Instagram, especially since as a full-time marketer, I’m on a laptop/desktop most of the time and IG is so mobile device oriented. You can’t do everything on the platform from a desktop. Bravo for Buffer’s ingenuity!” Beverly McLean, CTC, Director of Social Media at Covington Travel told us.
Second, there are hotkeys to help speed up your engagement:

Use the Up and Down arrow keys to navigate your comments
Hit CTRL + D to dismiss comments
Hit ENTER to send a reply (and you’ll automatically be brought to the next comment)

Finally, sometimes you might just want to respond with a quick emoji (especially when responding to an emoji comment). Buffer studies the emojis you use most often and suggests them to you when you are responding to a comment.
Build a lifetime audience
For many years, businesses have simply focused on publishing lots and lots of content. The ones that have been able to build a community of loyal following are those that understand our human instinct to connect and socialize.
While many businesses are not being super responsive on social media, this is an easy way to stand out from the crowd, impress your fans, and build a relationship.
If you have a Buffer (Publish) subscription, this has been added to your account for free! Simply click “Engagement” in the upper-left corner to start engaging your fans on Instagram—right within Buffer.
Otherwise, we would love for you to try Buffer for free for 14 days.  

FAQs
Do I have to pay extra for this feature?
Nope. If you have a Buffer (Publish) subscription, this has been added to your subscription for free. If you are not a Buffer customer yet, you can get started here at just $15/month.
Can I use this for Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
We are working on integrating with Facebook right now, so that you’ll be able to reply to comments on your Facebook Page. We do not have a timeline for Twitter and LinkedIn yet.
Does this work for all Instagram profiles?
This only works for Instagram business profiles. If you are using an Instagram personal profile for your business, you could consider converting to a business profile to take advantage of this feature (and our publishing and analytics features).

You know LinkedIn — the professional, polished, responsible sibling of the social media sphere. 
Considering the social network has 722 million+ members, you almost certainly already have a profile. 
The stats about its effectiveness and usage are mind-boggling: for instance, three people are hired every minute on LinkedIn, and the network reports a 55% increase in conversations between connections just in the last quarter. 
If you’re anything like me, you read these stats and get the feeling you should be getting more out of your LinkedIn experience. But navigating a world of over 700 million individuals can seem pretty daunting – and, like any social network, there’s plenty of spammy content from publishers clogging feeds with self-promotional materials. 
You’ve probably seen these cringe-worthy posts. Things like: “I was rushing into a job interview, but stopped to help a woman collect a bunch of papers she’d dropped in the lobby. Turned out she was the hiring manager. I got the job on the spot. #karma” 
But, unique amongst social media platforms, you can rest-assured that individuals show up on LinkedIn thinking about work. This means LinkedIn users are primed for social selling, and there are ample opportunities to find, connect, and build relationships with potential prospects on the network. 
The data backs this up: a HubSpot study of over 5,000 businesses found LinkedIn traffic generated almost three times the visitor-to-lead conversion rate of either Twitter or Facebook.
This is extremely valuable in any profession – and especially if you work in the B2B space.
Get the essential guide to using LinkedIn for marketing and professional networking.
So, how do you focus in on a community of people from your industry or with shared interests to get the most out of this massive network? Enter: LinkedIn Groups.
Here, we’re going to explore what LinkedIn Groups are, as well as LinkedIn Group best practices, and the most impressive Groups to join on the network. Let’s dive in. 
What are LinkedIn Groups?
LinkedIn Groups is a dedicated space for professionals to share expertise, seek advice, and build meaningful relationships. They’ve been around for a while, but, as the trend in social media moves towards more intentional, self-selected communities, their importance continues to grow. 
Groups represent a targeted opportunity to build your personal brand and professional community on LinkedIn. 
Only members of a given group can view, post, or comment on conversations within that group. Groups can set their own admissions criteria and establish admins as gatekeepers.

By default, your Group affiliations show up at the bottom of your LinkedIn Profile under the ‘Interests’ section. You can edit the visibility for specific groups –– just one of the many ways to customize how your LinkedIn Profile represents your personal and professional brand. 
Unlisted Groups don’t appear in search results, and only fellow group members will see the group’s information on your Profile. These more private communities require a direct link or admin invitation for access.
LinkedIn Groups Best Practices 
To get the most out of LinkedIn Groups communities, be a good community member. Consider that your Golden Rule in this ecosystem. Let your work and your insight speak for itself –– avoiding blatant self-promotion or outright spam. 
Other best practices for becoming a valued group member include:

Contribute first – Bring value to the group. This builds trust and offers greater value to you long-term as well. Jumping in with an off-topic post or link to your own content is a great way to get banned or panned [/ignored]. 

Listen and Engage – Unless you’re the Group’s founder and creator, remember that you’re joining an ongoing conversation. Take some time to listen and observe. Pay attention to topics, tone, and who the group recognizes as experts or authorities. Try liking and commenting on a few posts before you spout off some contrarian or opposing views.

Encourage discussion – Ask questions. Then listen and respond, seeking to further the conversation. 

Keep it professional – People are on the platform for work, remember? If you wouldn’t say it to a colleague or your boss in person, don’t say it here.

Think before you link – LinkedIn is pretty clear about this. Any URL to commercial sites that try to sell a product or service will be reported and removed, as will those redirecting to inappropriate/spam-like content.

Pro-Tip: Want to capitalize on time you spend acclimating yourself to a LinkedIn Group and its particular community? Leadjet is a browser extension that helps salespeople work faster and more efficiently. Automatically add LinkedIn prospects in a single click to your CRM, without wasting time to enter the data manually. 
With a tool like Leadjet, you’re easing into a Group’s community and meaningfully adding to your pipeline of high-quality prospects at the same time. Win-win.
Navigating LinkedIn Groups
You can navigate to LinkedIn Groups in several ways. Look for Groups directly in the Search bar, just as you would find connections, companies or anything else on LinkedIn.
You can also find them in the ‘Work’ grid on your Navigation bar within LinkedIn, or at linkedin.com/groups.  

How to Find Groups on LinkedIn 
Look for groups that match your industry and interests by searching for relevant titles, keywords, or phrases. For virtually any industry or job function, you’ll find a number of LinkedIn Groups. 

Evaluate Groups’ descriptions, as well as connections from your network who are already members, to determine which Groups are the best fit for you. 
LinkedIn Groups Directory 
Browse the LinkedIn Groups Directory — accessible from the right navigation as well as the search drop-down in the upper left part of the LinkedIn user interface. Search by name, phrase, or keyword, and sift through results based on either the group name or a keyword in the group description.
How to Join Groups on LinkedIn 
You can join a Group on LinkedIn by click “Request to Join” on a Group’s home or profile page. Your request goes directly to the Group Admins, who evaluate your fit for the Group. 
Or, if another connection invites you to join a group, simply ‘Accept’ on the invite from your inbox or notifications screens, as you would a standard Connection request.
Where are my Groups on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn Groups impact the appearance of your LinkedIn Profile in several ways. As mentioned, people looking at Groups can see which of their connections are already members. Additionally, the ‘Interests’ section at the bottom portion of your Profile displays a selection of information, including topics and experts you follow on LinkedIn, as well as Group memberships.
If you’ve been on LinkedIn for a while, you may have some outdated or inactive Group memberships. You can curate what displays on your Profile for others to see by leaving Groups that no longer interest you. But what if you want to continue receiving messages from certain Groups but don’t want them to appear on your profile? 
On the page listing all of your Group affiliations, click the three dots to the right of any Group listing and select “Update your settings”:

On the linked sub-page, toggle “Display group on profile” to “No”, which maintains your membership but hides it from the ‘Interests’ section of your profile. This ensures that only other members or people searching directly for that Group can potentially see your affiliation. 

Now, you can stay connected to that high school alumni group or keep following a competitor’s learning community without this information popping up for just anyone to see on your profile.
The above applies for Listed Groups. Unlisted Groups are not publicly searchable and will not appear on your profile, except to other people who are also members of the same group. Potential members can only see or access the Group after receiving an invitation from a current member or Admin.
Best Groups to Join on LinkedIn 
Whatever your industry, role, or goal for joining LinkedIn Groups, there’s likely no shortage of curated recommendations for the best Groups. To start, you might check out resources like “20 LinkedIn Groups Every Marketer Should Join” or “11 Must-Join LinkedIn Groups For Recruiters.”
It’s also helpful to think beyond immediate or explicitly professional affiliations. Don’t limit yourself to only joining groups directly related to your industry. 
Alumni groups are often both particularly active and helpful – especially if you’re trying to break into a new field or build relationships in a new region. 
Seek out groups that your ideal customers belong to and be an active, engaged member of the groups you join to maximize potential for meaningful networking and social selling.
Explore LinkedIn Groups’ potential to support your own goals by joining a couple of Groups today. Get started with one or two groups in your industry, and another based on where you went to school or a favorite personal interest. 
Think of them as digital versions of groups and spaces you’d consider visiting offline, too. Begin observing the conversations, looking for ways to contribute, and assessing how you might fit into the Group’s community. Good luck! 

Wouldn’t it be great if creating infographics was as simple as writing regular old text-based blog posts? Unfortunately, making visual content like this usually takes a lot more time, effort, and let’s face it — skill — than the written word. Usually.
But considering the popularity and effectiveness of visual content in marketing today, you can’t just afford to throw in the towel.
That’s why we decided to take all the pain and suffering out of infographic creation. Seriously — don’t give up just yet. You, too, can create infographics that are professional-looking, high-quality, and completed in under an hour. I’m going to prove it. First things first:

Then, all you have to do is provide the content to use inside them. Easy as that. In fact, I’m going to show you just how easy it is to make your own infographic by demonstrating with one of our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint (pictured above). Then, I’ll explain exactly what I did so you get a sense of how easy it really is.

How to Make an Infographic

Identify the audience for your infographic.
Collect your content and relevant data.
Choose your desired infographic template.
Download your template to PowerPoint.
Customize your infographic.
Include a footer with your sources and logo.
Add an embed code and Pinterest button, and publish it.

1. Identify the audience for your infographic.
Infographics don’t sell themselves on design alone. You need to deliver “info” that’s just as compelling as the “graphic,” and to do that, you need to know the audience your infographic intends to reach.
According to Harvard Business Review, there are five possible audiences that can change how you choose and visualize your data: novice, generalist, managerial, expert, and executive. Start by comparing your infographic’s ideal reader with one of these five audiences — which one applies to your reader?
When thinking about the data you want to visualize, let the five audiences above dictate how advanced your data will be. A “novice” audience, for example, might need data whose meaning is more obvious at first blush. An “expert” might be more interested in getting into the weeds of your numbers and posing theories around them. An “executive” has more in common with a novice audience in that they only have time for the simplest or most critical information, and the affect it’ll have on the business.

2. Collect your content and relevant data.
Using the audience you’ve chosen above, your next step is to organize all the content and data you’ll use in the infographic. You can either collect third-party data or use your own original data. If you use third-party data, just be sure you properly cite your sources — just like in any other good piece of content.

Choosing your data: Compelling data needs to be “comprehensive” enough to give your readers proper context around the data you’re presenting. For example, a spike in website traffic from one month to the next doesn’t mean much — until, say, you reveal that traffic was on a steady decline over the previous three months. Suddenly you have a story of how you were able to reverse a downward trend.

Organizing your data: When collecting your data, make sure you know what story you want to tell through this information. Data for the sake of data won’t add value to your infographic at all.

Citing your sources: To keep your infographic uncluttered by a ton of different source URLs, a great way to cite your sources is to include a simple URL at the bottom of your infographic that links to a page on your site. You can also list the individual stats used in your infographic, and their sources — such as the landing page to the full offer on which you’re basing this free infographic.

That way, your infographic looks clean and professional, yet people will still be able to access the sources no matter where the infographic gets shared or embedded. It may also even drive visitors back to your site.
3. Choose your desired infographic template.
Your next step is to choose an infographic template appropriate for representing that data. The important thing is to choose a template that specifically works for the type of data set/content you want to present. As you saw pictured above, you can download our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint and choose whichever template you’d like.
Some of your template options in the offer linked above include a timeline, flowchart, side-by-side comparison, and a data-driven infographic. Here are some basic ideas for choosing an infographic template that suits the story you want your data to tell:

Side-by-side comparison infographic: This infographic design can help prove the advantage of one concept over another, or simply explain the differences between two competing entities.

Flowchart infographic: This design is perfect for presenting a new workflow for your organization, or how a linear or cyclical process works across your industry.

Timeline infographic: This design can tell a chronological story, or history, of a business, industry, product, or concept.

Graph-based infographic: This design is suitable for content creators publishing a high volume of data and statistical information, making it a good fit for expert-level audiences, too.

Image-heavy infographic: This design caters to content creators who are trying to reveal trends and information from shapes, designs, or photography — rather than just numbers and figures.

4. Download your template to PowerPoint.
For the sake of time (remember, our mission is to create an infographic in under an hour), I’m going to create an infographic based on a compilation of steps and best practices we put together in our guide, How to Run an Inbound Marketing Campaign in 2018. For this, I’ve picked the “World’s Greatest Timeline” infographic template from our collection of infographic templates, which is helpful for my data set since it will allow me to outline each step of the campaign creation process in order.

5. Customize your infographic
Obviously, this is the most time-consuming part — but it’s also the most fun. Simply come up with a catchy title, plug in your data/content, and adjust your font sizes and formatting. Feel free to switch up the graphics and colors, too, so they’re relevant to your brand and the data you’re providing. To customize the look of the infographic even more, you might add or change up the colors or font styles.
In this example, you’ll notice that I’ve inputted my text and changed the font colors to HubSpot’s signature orange and dark blue:

You’re not limited by what the template includes, either. You can use the tools in PowerPoint’s software to create bar graphs, pie charts, and other visuals to support your data. (Note: Download our free infographic templates for a cheat sheet for using PowerPoint’s various features and tools.)
6. Include a footer with your sources and logo.
Finally, I included a link to my source (which can be found here), as well as the HubSpot logo so people know who created the infographic if it gets shared in social media or embedded on other websites — which is definitely something you want, since one of the main benefits of creating infographics is their shareability.

7. Add embed code and a Pinterest button, and publish it.
The only thing left to do is to publish and promote your awesome new infographic. As I mentioned earlier, we recommend using your blog to publish it (including your list of sources), including a Pinterest button for visitors to easily “pin” your infographic on Pinterest, and create and add an embed code for visitors to share it on their own websites and blogs, as we did above.

Share This Image On Your Site <p><strong>Please include attribution to blog.hubspot.com with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href=’https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/create-infographics-with-free-powerpoint-templates’><img src=’https://blog.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/free_infographic_template_custom-1.png?t=1519094621186&width=1138&height=3412&name=free_infographic_template_custom-1.png’ alt=’free_infographic_template_custom-1′ width=’660px’ border=’0′ /></a></p>
That’s it! This whole thing took me under an hour to put together — much shorter than it would’ve taken me if I’d started from scratch (not to mention more professional looking… and less expensive than hiring a designer). 
That’s it! This whole thing took me under an hour to put together — much less time (not to mention more professional looking) than it would’ve taken me if I’d started from scratch. Plus, it’s less expensive than hiring a designer and using the resources you might want to save for larger campaigns.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Did you know that landing pages have the highest conversion rate at 23% than other types of signup forms? It’s true, but landing pages don’t convert visitors to leads all by themselves. If they don’t have attractive and compelling offers behind them, they won’t generate the leads your sales team is looking for.
That’s why it’s so important to create valuable content people want to download, and then package it in a way that’s visually appealing to your readers. An ebook is a practical content choice that delivers so much value to your audience that they won’t mind submitting a lead form to download it. WP Forms reports that ebooks are the most popular lead magnet amongst subscribers, with 27.7% of marketers using them.

Adding ebooks to your content archive can be a worthwhile effort, but it’ll take work. While every step of creating an ebook is critical, a substantial step of the ebook development process is creating a design that helps tell the story in the copy. A professional and functional design makes the copy more readable to your audience, thus making it more likely that they’ll refer back to it and maybe even share it with a friend.
We know not every team has someone in-house who can (or has time to) whip up a slick, shareable ebook design. But we have good news: You don’t need to be a designer by trade to design beautiful ebooks yourself. With the right resources and approach, you can deliver valuable content to your audience in a fraction of the time.
A few years ago. we created ebook templates to help make this process easier for you. They were so popular that we decided to revamp the offer and include PowerPoint, Adobe Indesign, and Google Slides formats. We hope these templates minimize the time you spend on the details of design, allowing you to concentrate on writing valuable, lead-generating content your readers will love.

Download the Templates Now
 
Start With One of These Free Ebook Templates
Each of these templates is sure to organize your content into a readable, shareable ebook that your readers will enjoy. Each one is complete with a table of contents, chapter page, copy pages, and a call-to-action page at the end. Here is a preview of some of the ebooks you’ll find in the template bundle:
1. Artistic Theme

Download This Template
For the marketer, salesperson, or designer who needs to communicate a vision from high-level strategy to detail, the Artistic theme template is a smart choice. This template uses white space to set boundaries between sections, giving your ebook a clean, uncluttered charm. Colorful headers with serif fonts, eye-catching graphics, and stunning images will make your ebook come to life. The Artistic theme includes several unique layout options including light and heavy text pages, photo layouts, and more so that the design is fresh from one page to another.
The Artistic Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Marketing Content
Target Audience Personas
Sales Tips and Tricks

 
2. Professional Theme

Download This Template
Appeal to the professional yet bold aesthetic, the Professional theme ebook template. Image-based title pages and thick, bold fonts draw attention to headlines and big ideas while body pages with room for photos make it perfect for a showcase or inspiration guide. The Professional template is made with the visual communicator in mind. Social media experts, event planners, and web designers — this one is for you!
The Professional Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Social Media Guidelines
Event Planning
Web Design Content

 
3. Honeycomb Theme

Download This Template
Your ebook is sure to get the crowd buzzing with this honeycomb-inspired design. The hexagonal shapes in the background are neutral-colored in the original ebook template, but adding in your brand colors can make these hives look sweet. Inside, you’ll find page layouts for quotes and captioned photos, making it a good choice for ebooks with a healthy balance of imagery and copy.
The Honeycomb Theme Ebook template is best for:

Recipe Books
Customer Service Guidelines
Technology Best Practices

 
4. Triad Theme

Download This Template
Great for educational workbooks that include heavy visual designs, the Triad theme provides plenty of space to organize your content on every page. The triangular shapes in this template give your ebook a sense of direction that keeps the reader moving forward. The bold complementary colors jump right off the page and grab your attention, but this template can be edited to incorporate your brand colors.
The Triad Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Educational Workbooks
Educational Presentations
Seminar Courses

 
With these polished templates, you’ll be able to:

Create beautifully designed ebooks without either the cost of a designer or experience with InDesign/Illustrator/Photoshop.

Choose from six different ebook designs across three different platforms (Adobe InDesign, PowerPoint, and Google Slides), and even add your own brand colors for a custom look.

Spend more time writing awesome content and less time getting the layout right.

Use all of the stock images provided in the templates, free of charge.

Save your ebooks as professional and attractive PDF files that are ready for download.

 
Start Creating Your Ebook For Free
Ebooks are one of the most popular content offerings available to consumers, but the effort required to make them can deter content creators from starting the process. These templates make designing your ebook simple so you can spend more time sharing your big ideas with the world.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Nowadays, significant career shifts are as prevalent as they’ve ever been. Some people want to assume a different degree of responsibility. Some want to pursue a passion they’ve put on hold for too long. And some flat-out need a change of pace.

It’s a popular course that comes with a host of challenges, several potential pitfalls, plenty of barriers of entry, and a lot of requisite hard work — especially when it comes to transitioning to a role in marketing.
And if you’re making that leap, you’ll need all the help and insight you can get, so we’ve provided some tips and tricks to consider if you want to shift your career trajectory and become a marketer.

1. Study, study, and study some more on your own time.
This one might go without saying, but you can’t expect to smoothly transition into a marketing role if you have no concept of what marketing entails. One of the best ways to make your job search and ultimate career shift more viable and straightforward is to study marketing on your own.
Learn as much as possible on your time. Check out some books on the subject. Follow marketing influencers. Conduct independent research, and if you have the necessary time and motivation, complete some online courses to help bolster your marketing knowledge and relevant skillset.
Employers are rarely interested in new marketing candidates who haven’t demonstrated the interest and initiative to understand the field. Plus, training new hires who are building their marketing knowledge from scratch is often a waste of time and resources.
If you want to transition to a marketing role, you need to show that you’re familiar with and enthusiastic about the practice. Learning about the field on your own time is one of the best ways to do both.
2. Try to assume more marketing-oriented responsibilities
within your current role.
While using external resources like books and online courses to step up your marketing game is always a good call, accruing real marketing experience can help you stand out from other candidates and make your transition between fields even more seamless.
See if you can help with some marketing responsibilities at your current company, and make a point of legitimately pursuing and fulfilling them. That might mean helping out with tasks related to social media, email outreach, company newsletters, or any other aspects of your organization’s marketing strategy that the department might need help with.
In doing so, you can string together some legitimate experience that shows potential employers (or your current company) that your interest in and aptitude for marketing isn’t all talk. That kind of clout can go a long way when transitioning to a marketing role.
3. Consider accruing external marketing experience.
Sometimes assuming marketing responsibilities at your current employer isn’t feasible. Your company might be perfectly satisfied with how its marketing team operates, or it could want to keep departments siloed and focused on their immediate responsibilities. 
In that case, you might want to look into avenues and opportunities to supplement your current role. Try pursuing positions like part-time or unpaid digital marketing internships that can help you get your feet wet in the field.
Bear in mind that if you go this road, your current position has to remain your first priority. You don’t want to undercut your professional performance by prioritizing what will essentially be a side hustle.
So naturally, this point falls squarely on you and your free time — it means putting in a lot of extra effort outside work hours. But if you’re serious about making the transition to a marketing role, it’s an excellent way to flesh out your résumé, refine your skillset, and offer you some much-needed clout.
4. Adjust your résumé.
As you can assume, employers trying to hire marketers aren’t prioritizing candidates who only tout skills and accomplishments relevant to other areas. So if you don’t have extensive experience in marketing, you’ll likely need to re-tool your résumé a bit when trying to make the shift to the field.
That doesn’t mean throwing every record of your professional accolades, accomplishments, and acumen by the wayside. Instead, see if you can use your experience in your current field to highlight skills that can be applied in the context of a marketing role.
For instance, if you’re in sales, you could play up your strategic and critical thinking skills by discussing how you helped shape and implement a successful go-to-market sales strategy.
You might also demonstrate a knack for high-quality content creation by referencing effective pitch decks or case studies you’ve had a hand in. And you could tout your communication skills by pointing to your experience with responsibilities like prospect outreach or social selling.
Again, you don’t have to lie about or disregard your prior experience. Just be mindful of what potential employers will be looking for. Make sure your résumé reflects the fact that you have the necessary fundamentals to be an exceptional marketer — not just a solid worker in general.
5. Fold more marketers into your professional network.
These days, a robust professional network is much more of a need-to-have than a nice-to-have — and when you’re transitioning into a marketing role, one can be an invaluable asset. When you’re trying to breach a new field without much experience, you need all the guidance you can get. An active network can provide that.
Try reaching out to internal marketing experts at your company to see if you can shadow them a bit. See if they’d be willing to set aside some time to provide some insight about their experiences and advice to set you on the right track. Maybe, you’ll even find someone who could be interested in mentoring you.
And while you look for more immediate connections, hit LinkedIn and reach out to some external marketers to see if they’d be willing to chat and offer some advice. One way or another, communicate with experienced marketers and learn as much as you can. It can only help your case when trying to transition to a marketing role.
Switching professional gears in favor of a position in marketing is never easy. It takes a lot of effort, thought, persistence, and ambition. So if you’re thinking about transitioning into this kind of role, you need to make sure you’re truly in it before you start taking the necessary steps.
But if you’re still set on shifting careers after considering the challenges that might come with the process, it’ll be well worth the trouble. Just be sure to consider the points on this list — among others — when you start setting things in motion.