Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Email marketing is such a powerful strategy, yet if the right tool isn’t being used or the right approach isn’t taken, the benefits that come from it will never see the light of day. Don’t become victim to an email marketing strategy that falls flat. Instead, check out our case study with Katie’s Clothing and…
The post How Kate’s Clothing Uses Benchmark Email to Increase Engagement and Sales appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

The Lightning Component modern framework is a User Interface framework to develop dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices. As is the case with each release, the latest Spring’21 release is packed with rich features including, the newly added Lightning Component … Continue reading →

You know how hot visual content is, and you want to jump on board to enjoy the engagement, traffic, and leads that follow. But maybe you’re not keen on writing a blog post, and you don’t have the production resources to create videos. What to do? Create a SlideShare presentation.

I know, I know. You may have felt personally victimized by PowerPoint sometime in your career. When you open it up, you’re hit with stark black Calibri font on a white background, killing any creative spark you may have felt. It’s daunting enough to create a 10-slide deck to report your monthly marketing metrics — never mind putting together slides that can be seen by the large volume of SlideShare users.
Well, there’s good news: Creating a SlideShare presentation in PowerPoint doesn’t have to be that daunting. With the right templates and tools at your disposal, you could easily create an engaging, visual presentation — all without fancy design programs, huge budgets, or hiring contractors.
How to Create a Stunning  SlideShare Presentation in PowerPoint
To help you make a SlideShare of your own, we’ve created some free PowerPoint presentation templates for making awesome SlideShares. That way, your presentations will look great and be a breeze to put together.
Download the free PowerPoint templates, scroll down, and we’ll walk through how to use them. When we’re done, you’ll know exactly how to create a sexy presentation that gets featured on SlideShare’s homepage. Ready? Let’s dive in.
1. Get a feel for the types of presentations you can find on SlideShare. 
Just as you’d master any other medium, it helps to consume other content in that medium to get an idea of the format and what works. Go to SlideShare.net and discover SlideShares that interest you. You can view them on the platform or download them to your computer and peruse them on your local machine. 
SlideShare Presentation Download
Here’s how to download a PowerPoint from SlideShare:

Sign up for a SlideShare account.
Navigate to the SlideShare presentation that you want to download.
Click the button labeled “Download.”
When asked if you want to clip the slide, click “Continue to download.”
Click “Save File” and then confirm by clicking “OK.”

Some may not download as a .ppt file, and some may not be available to download at all. However, this method works in all other cases.
2. Decide on fonts and a color scheme. 
Before you get too caught up in the specifics of your storyline, figure out which fonts and color scheme you want to use. (If you’re using our free templates, you can skip this part.) 
When you’re choosing fonts, consider two different ones to use throughout your presentation — one for your headers and one for your body text. Your header font should be bold and eye-catching, and your body text font should be simple and easy to read. The contrast between the two will make it much easier for your SlideShare viewers to grasp your core messages. 
For your color scheme, pick a scheme that will have enough contrast between colors to make colors stand out. Whether you decide to use two, three, or four different colors in your presentation is up to you — but certain color combinations go together better than others.
Below is an example of what certain fonts and color combinations can look like. Notice how the header fonts stand out much more than the body? You can also see what different color palettes might look like: The top is monochromatic, the middle is complementary, and the bottom is analogous. 

3. Outline main takeaways and crucial sub-bullets.
Next up: Creating an outline for your SlideShare’s narrative. I like to treat SlideShare outlines just like I would blog posts — you decide on the working title and main takeaways first. Then, you elaborate on those sections with a few supporting points.
For each of those components (title, section headers, and a few supporting points), create a slide. Below is an example of what those slides might look like: 
Title

Headers

Supporting Points

You’ll also want to create slide placeholders for the call-to-action and conclusion slides (you don’t need to elaborate on them just yet).
Keep in mind that these slides should not be complex — just a title and maybe a few details that you want to remember down the road. No paragraphs. No supporting images. Nothing that’s not built into your template already. 
4. Fill out the body of your presentation.
Then, fill in the meat of the content — all the slides between the headers. Just make sure you’re not relying too much on text. SlideShare is a primarily visual platform — people are used to breezing through presentations. So if your presentation reads like an ebook, you should edit down the text and rely more heavily on visual content. 
Another thing to remember is to switch up your format from slide to slide. Try doing a checklist slide followed by, say, a quote slide — it keeps people on their toes as they flip through your presentation.

5. Add introduction slides. 
After you’ve created the majority of your SlideShare presentation, head back to the start. Wonder why we didn’t begin here? It’ll be much easier to tee up the bulk of your content if you already know what that content is about. In this step, just introduce what you just wrote about — it’ll be a breeze. 
6. Wrap up the conclusion.
Then, head to the end of your SlideShare and wrap it up in a slide or two. There is nothing more jarring than going from a body slide right to a CTA slide. You only need a slide or two to conclude your presentation, but it should naturally tee up the CTA that you will have next. 
7. Add a call-to-action slide.
At the verrrrrry end of your SlideShare, you want to keep your viewers engaged by providing a call-to-action. The CTA could be about downloading an ebook, attending an event, or even just visiting your website — pretty much any CTA you’d like to include. Here are two CTA slide examples that we included in the SlideShare template:

8. Edit, edit, edit.
You’re almost there! Next, you need to go through and edit your copy and design components. Try to get another coworker — marketer or not — to give it a once over. If you need some direction, you can use our ultimate editing checklist to make sure you’re catching everything you can.
9. Add “animated slides” and clickable links.
Though it’s easy to create a presentation in PowerPoint and upload it immediately to SlideShare, not all of the same features will appear in both programs. As a result, there are two things you’ll need to add in: “animated slides” and clickable links. 
As far as slide animation goes, SlideShare does not support PowerPoint animations. This means that all of those smooth entrances you planned for your text boxes and objects go out the window once you upload your presentation to SlideShare. But, it’s easy to manually introduce new elements on a series of slides to make it seem like it’s “animated.”
Once you’ve built in your animations, you’ll also need to make sure people can actually click on the CTAs in your presentation. 
10. Upload your PDF to SlideShare.
After you’re finished with your clickable links, your presentation will be in a PDF format. At this point, you’re ready for the final step: uploading your PDF to SlideShare. When you do this, you have the option to add a description and tags, and even schedule the SlideShare to go live at a certain time. Once your SlideShare is live, you should spend some time promoting it on your blog and social media accounts, and to your email lists. (For more SlideShare promotion tips, check out this blog post.)
Just follow this process when you need to create a SlideShare presentation, and you won’t have to fear that blank PowerPoint template ever again. 
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

This post is a part of Made @ HubSpot, an internal thought leadership series through which we extract lessons from experiments conducted by our very own HubSpotters.
Have you ever tried to bring your clean laundry upstairs by hand, and things keep falling out of the giant blob of clothing you’re carrying? This is a lot like trying to grow organic website traffic.
Your content calendar is loaded with fresh ideas, but with every web page published, an older page drops in search engine ranking.
Getting SEO traffic is hard, but keeping SEO traffic is a whole other ball game. Content tends to “decay” over time due to new content created by competitors, constantly shifting search engine algorithms, or a myriad of other reasons.
You’re struggling to move the whole site forward, but things keep leaking traffic where you’re not paying attention.
Recently, the two of us (Alex Birkett and Braden Becker 👋) developed a way to find this traffic loss automatically, at scale, and before it even happens.

The Problem With Traffic Growth
At HubSpot, we grow our organic traffic by making two trips up from the laundry room instead of one.
The first trip is with new content, targeting new keywords we don’t rank for yet.
The second trip is with updated content, dedicating a portion of our editorial calendar to finding which content is losing the most traffic — and leads — and reinforcing it with new content and SEO-minded maneuvers that better serve certain keywords. It’s a concept we (and many marketers) have come to call “historical optimization.”
But, there’s a problem with this growth strategy.
As our website’s traffic grows, tracking every single page can be an unruly process. Selecting the right pages to update is even tougher.
Last year, we wondered if there was a way to find blog posts whose organic traffic is merely “at risk” of declining, to diversify our update choices and perhaps make traffic more stable as our blog gets bigger.
Restoring Traffic vs. Protecting Traffic
Before we talk about the absurdity of trying to restore traffic we haven’t lost yet, let’s look at the benefits.
When viewing the performance of one page, declining traffic is easy to spot. For most growth-minded marketers, the downward-pointing traffic trendline is hard to ignore, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing that trend recover.
But all traffic recovery comes at a cost: Because you can’t know where you’re losing traffic until you’ve lost it, the time between the traffic’s decline, and its recovery, is a sacrifice of leads, demos, free users, subscribers, or some similar metric of growth that comes from your most interested visitors.
You can see that visualized in the organic trend graph below, for an individual blog post. Even with traffic saved, you’ve missed out on opportunities to support your sales efforts downstream.

If you had a way to find and protect (or even increase) the page’s traffic before it needs to be restored, you wouldn’t have to make the sacrifice shown in the image above. The question is: how do we do that?
How to Predict Falling Traffic
To our delight, we didn’t need a crystal ball to predict traffic attrition. What we did need, however, was SEO data that suggests we could see traffic go bye-bye for particular blog posts if something were to continue. (We also needed to write a script that could extract this data for the whole website — more on that in a minute.)
High keyword rankings are what generate organic traffic for a website. Not only that, but the lion’s share of traffic goes to websites fortunate enough to rank on the first page. That traffic reward is all the greater for keywords that receive a particularly high number of searches per month.
If a blog post were to slip off Google’s first page, for that high-volume keyword, it’s toast.
Keeping in mind the relationship between keywords, keyword search volume, ranking position, and organic traffic, we knew this was where we’d see the prelude to a traffic loss.
And luckily, the SEO tools at our disposal can show us that ranking slippage over time:

The image above shows a table of keywords for which one single blog post is ranking.
For one of those keywords, this blog post ranks in position 14 (page 1 of Google consists of positions 1-10). The red boxes show that ranking position, as well as the heavy volume of 40,000 monthly searches for this keyword.
Even sadder than this article’s position-14 ranking is how it got there.
As you can see in the teal trendline above, this blog post was once a high-ranking result, but consistently dropped over the next few weeks. The post’s traffic corroborated what we saw — a noticeable dip in organic page views shortly after this post dropped off of page 1 for this keyword.
You can see where this is going … we wanted to detect these ranking drops when they’re on the verge of leaving page 1, and in doing so, restore traffic we were “at risk” of losing. And we wanted to do this automatically, for dozens of blog posts at a time.
The “At Risk” Traffic Tool
The way the At Risk Tool works is actually somewhat simple. We thought of it in three parts:

Where do we get our input data?
How do we clean it?
What are the outputs of that data that allow us to make better decisions when optimizing content?

First, where do we get the data?
1. Keyword Data from SEMRush
What we wanted was keyword research data on a property level. So we want to see all of the keywords that hubspot.com ranks for, particularly blog.hubspot.com, and all associated data that corresponds to those keywords.
Some fields that are valuable to us are our current search engine ranking, our past search engine ranking, the monthly search volume of that keyword, and, potentially, the value (estimated with keyword difficulty, or CPC) of that keyword.
To get this data, we used the SEMrush API (specifically, we use their “Domain Organic Search Keywords” report):

Using R, a popular programming language for statisticians and analytics as well as marketers (specifically, we use the ‘httr’ library to work with APIs), we then pulled the top 10,000 keywords that drive traffic to blog.hubspot.com (as well as our Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese properties). We currently do this once per quarter.
This is a lot of raw data, which is useless by itself. So we have to clean the data and warp it into a format that is useful for us.
Next, how do we actually clean the data and build formulas to give us some answers as to what content to update?
2. Cleaning the Data and Building the Formulas
We do most of the data cleaning in our R script as well. So before our data ever hits another data storage source (whether that be Sheets or a database data table), our data is, for the most part, cleaned and formatted how we want it to.
We do this with a few short lines of code:

What we’re doing in the code above, after pulling 10,000 rows of keyword data, is parsing it from the API so it’s readable and then building it into a data table. We then subtract the current ranking from the past ranking to get the difference in ranking (so if we used to rank in position 4, and we now rank 9, the difference in ranking is -5).
We further filtered so we only surface those with a difference in ranking of negative value (so only keywords that we’ve lost rankings for, not those that we gained or that remained the same).
We then send this cleaned and filtered data table to Google Sheets where we apply tons of custom formulas and conditional formatting.
Finally, we needed to know: what are the outputs and how do we actually make decisions when optimizing content?
3. At Risk Content Tool Outputs: How We Make Decisions
Given the input columns (keyword, current position, historical position, the difference in position, and the monthly search volume), and the formulas above, we compute a categorical variable for an output.
A URL/row can be one of the following:

“AT RISK”
“VOLATILE”
Blank (no value)

Blank outputs, or those rows with no value, mean that we can essentially ignore those URLs for now. They haven’t lost a significant amount of ranking, or they were already on page 2 of Google.
“Volatile” means the page is dropping in rank, but isn’t an old-enough blog post to warrant any action yet. New web pages jump around in rankings all the time as they get older. At a certain point, they generate enough “topic authority” to stay put for a while, generally speaking. For content supporting a product launch, or an otherwise critical marketing campaign, we might give these posts some TLC as they’re still maturing, so it is worth flagging them.
“At Risk” is mainly what we’re after — blog posts that were published more than six months ago, dropped in ranking, and are now ranking between positions 8 and 10 for a high-volume keyword. We see this as the “red zone” for failing content, where it’s fewer than 3 positions away from dropping from page 1 to page 2 of Google.
The spreadsheet formula for these three tags is below — basically a compound IF statement to find page-1 rankings, a negative ranking difference, and the publish date’s distance from the current day.

What We Learned
In short, it works! The tool described above has been a regular, if not frequent addition to our workflow. However, not all predictive updates save traffic right on time. In the example below, we saw a blog post fall off of page 1 after an update was made, then later return to a higher position.

And that’s okay.
We don’t have control over when, and how often, Google decides to recrawl a page and re-rank it.
Of course, you can re-submit the URL to Google and ask them to recrawl (for critical or time-sensitive content, it may be worth this extra step). But the objective is to minimize the amount of time this content underperforms, and stop the bleeding — even if that means leaving the quickness of recovery to chance.
Although you’ll never truly know how many page views, leads, signups, or subscriptions you stand to lose on each page, the precautions you take now will save time you’d otherwise spend trying to pinpoint why your website’s total traffic took a dive last week.

Let’s face it, we love videos.
Videos of cats, babies tasting lemons for the first time, food recipes — you name it, we love it. And when it comes to marketing, this still rings true. Recent data shows that video content is one of the most influential forms of marketing out there.
A 2020 study by Wyzowl reported that people share videos at twice the rate than any other form of content. It also found that 84% of people were convinced to buy a product or service based on the brand’s video.

More recently, short-form videos have taken over social media platforms.
So, how can you leverage short-form content to grow your business? And what are some trends to look for in 2021? See what HubSpot marketing experts are saying, below.
But there’s no universal number that everyone has agreed on. For instance, a short-form video on Twitter can be up to 2:20 minutes. On TikTok and Triller, it’s 60 seconds. On Instagram Reels, it’s even shorter: 30 seconds.
Brandon Sanders, a digital marketer for HubSpot Academy, highlights that what’s considered short-form can also depend on the platform.
“With the rise of platforms like TikTok, Reels, and Vine, short form video is actually getting shorter and lending itself more to 60-second to two-minute videos,” he said. “I think the perception of short-form content on platforms like YouTube is actually around that 10-minute sweet spot because content on YouTube tends to be more comprehensive and longer.”
So, when you’re thinking of short-form video, Youtube is the exception, whereas TikTok and other growing short-form videos are the rule.
How do short-form videos fit into your content strategy?
Aside from length, one thing that set short-form videos apart is the trend culture. TikTok, for instance, is run by dances, sounds and social challenges. So, to get on the “For You” page on TikTok — which is equal to the “Explore” page on Instagram — brands must often join in on the fun.
Sanders says short-form videos give creators an innovative way to showcase their content.
“The growth of social media is causing the human attention span to become shorter and shorter,” he said. “So, leveraging the power of short-form content will give you a leg up on your competition and help engage your audience.”
As with any new trend or platform, HubSpot Senior Content Strategist Amanda Zantal-Wiener says you should always consider your audience first.
“It all goes back to a very old question: Which channels are your audiences using and for what?” she said. “And therefore, for which channels does it make the most sense for your business to create this short-form content?”
This means that while short-form video is often known for its entertainment value, you can adapt it to align with your brand.
Short-Form Video Trends to Look Out For
1. More User-Generated Content (UGC)
Consumers generally love UGC. In fact, it influences their purchasing decisions more than brand- or influencer-generated content. Without using up too many resources, brands can publish videos that evoke emotion. Another benefit? It’s budget-friendly.
Short-Form Video Example: Chipotle

@chipotle
Out of this world delivery ha @cheekyboyos #chipotle #burrito #space #fyp
♬ original sound Chipotle

This is a great example of how you can leverage user-generated content in your strategy. In this instance, Chipotle collaborated with these content producers to create a fun, viral-worthy video.
One of Chipotle’s target audiences might be young, college students looking for inexpensive meals. This video features two creators who reflect the audience they may want to attract. Brands should keep this in mind when considering UGC and ask, “will my audience relate to this?” If the answer’s “yes,” move forward.
2. More Behind-the-Brand Videos
Consumers seek out authenticity and transparency in brands. With short-form video, you only have a few seconds to connect with your audience.
So, how do you do that? Well, there’s no exact science to it, but consumers tend to feel more connected to brands that show the people behind the brand. In one Sprout Social study, 70% of consumers said they felt more connected to brands whose CEO is active on social media platforms.
So, going into 2021, brands should pull back the curtain and engage with their audiences on a more personal level.
Short-Form Video Example: Sierra Nicole

@sierranicoleofficial
Text letsgrow to 81257 for biz credit tips ☺️ #entrepreneur #businesstiktok
♬ Sean Kingston feat. Chris Brown & Wiz Khalifa- “Beat It” – TBT 24/7 🎵

Trendy? Check. Informative? Check. Prompts action? Check! This video works because it has all the ingredients for an effective short-form video.
It first grabs the viewer’s attention by including a popular song and dance. The content addresses pain points viewers may be facing. Then, the call-to-action (CTA) in the caption rounds out the video by turning viewers into potential leads.
3. More Explainer or Educational Videos
In 2021, brands will likely focus on educational content in their short-form videos. Think how-to’s, DIYs, and explainer videos. A 2020 Wyzowl report found that viewers want to see more of this video style from brands.
Educational videos are great added-value content because they help audiences in their day-to-day lives. Brands that make education a priority in their marketing strategy can improve lead generation and build stronger brand loyalty. Similarly, explainer videos target users who are at the decision-making stage of the buyer’s journey and, if done right, they can turn decision-makers into customers.
It’s a win-win situation: Brands get to address their audience’s pain points and offer solutions, which is (surprise!) them. Not sure what I mean? See the example below.
Short-Form Video Example: Soy Yo Candle

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by SoyYo | Candle company (@soyyocandle)

Soy Yo Candle used this formula to create this short-form video. Presumably, one of the biggest struggles of owning candles is making them last. In just a few seconds, the brand presented a problem, offered a solution, and promoted their product. It can be as simple as that.
Another highlight in this video is that it caters to viewers who may be discovering the brand and those who already know it. Because of the value it offers, the brand can reach a broader audience organically.
Takeaways for Video Marketers
Short-form video requires taking a more authentic, human, and creative approach to marketing. Kelsi Yamada, an associate marketing manager who works on HubSpot’s social media campaigns, says it’s a low-commitment and engaging way to connect with your audience.
“You can get a good laugh or learn something new in a minute or less on TikTok or Reels,” said Yamada. “On the flip side, it’s also relatively easy to create, which means there are more people who can share their humor or points of view. Because of this, brands should figure out what their unique point of view is, and how they can stand out in the noise.”
The desire to be on-trend is always tempting. But Yamada stresses that brands should be selective about which trends they partake in.
“Not every viral TikTok sound or meme format will align with your content strategy or brand, so don’t force it,” she said. “Focus on catering to your niche and staying authentic first. Don’t be afraid to make something completely from scratch – trends have to start somewhere!”
With this in mind, it’s all about finding the balance between what’s trending and what’s on-brand for your business.
1. TikTok

With 69% of its users between 13 and 24 years old, TikTok is definitely the platform of the Millennial and Gen Z population.

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The TikTok homepage features a timeline of videos separated in two tabs. The “Following” tab with videos posted by the user’s followers, and the algorithm-driven “For You” page based on user behavior (what they like, comment on, scroll past etc.)

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The “Discover” tab on TikTok highlights trending topics and hashtags, a great resource for marketers to generate new content ideas.
B2B marketers have been wary of using the platform, but it could be because success on the platform relies on emotional appeal. Yet, that emotional appeal may be exactly what they need.
According to a LinkedIn study, B2B strategies that appeal to emotions are seven times more effective for revenue generation than “rational messaging.”
So, it may be time to start practicing those dance moves.
2. Reels

Some call it TikTok 2.0, but Instagram Reels is proving to be its own beast.

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The Reels tab on Instagram is a scrollable video timeline, similar to what users see on their Explore page. From this page, users can click on the music the account used to see what other Reels feature that sound.
With over 1 billion active monthly users, Instagram already had consumers’ attention. When they launched Reels back in August of 2020, it became another marketing tool for brands and a worthy opponent for TikTok.Instagram caters to a broader age demographic than TikTok. And when considering their other marketing features, Reels is another way for brands to expand their reach in 30 seconds or less..
3. Triller

Triller is Tiktok’s musical theater friend (or rival), the one who bursts into song anytime, anywhere without cause or notice.

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Triller’s homepage looks similar to other short-form video platforms. However, They have made music a prominent feature on the app by making top and trending music a main tab.
The platform is popular among musical artists and allows users to edit 60-second videos within the app. This includes music, filters, effects, and transitions. Triller grew in popularity earlier this year when there was some uncertainty surrounding a TikTok ban in the United States.
The app reports having 13 million active monthly users who spend an average of 20 minutes a day on the app. With music playing a key role on the app, marketers should use music as a storytelling element in their videos.
For instance, the song “You Got It” by Vedo, a song about unlocking your potential, has been making its rounds on Triller. A recruiting firm could use that sound to create a short video targeting job seekers. The song would also work great as a backdrop for a business coaching company advertising its services. The limit does not exist.
4. Hippo Video

If you want to take short-form video content beyond social media, there’s Hippo Video. The video marketing platform gives brands a one-stop shop to produce, distribute, and analyze their video content. Users can also embed forms, CTAs, and annotations within the video, making conversions easier.

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For example, let’s say a SaaS company is launching a new product and the marketing team is using Hippo Video for the email campaign.
On launch day, they can send a product teaser video to current customers and include a “Schedule a Demo” CTA, leading users to a meeting scheduling page. During the campaign, the team can track key metrics like total plays and average watch rate — taking video analytics to another level.
5. Magisto by Vimeo
Vimeo recently acquired Magisto, a video editing software that makes video marketing easy through artificial intelligence (AI).
The first step is uploading your videos. The software will then analyze the videos and put it together based on the video editing style you’re looking for. They have over 10 editing styles ranging from real estate and fitness to Facebook and YouTube ads.

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Once you select the style you’re looking for and the video is complete, you can distribute it on social media platforms and track the analytics.
This platform is ideal for brands that don’t want to spend too much time or too many resources on video marketing. This app does it so you don’t have to.
There are hundreds of ways to incorporate short-form videos into your marketing strategy. But no matter which trends come and go, it will always come back to your audience. Try a few approaches, and listen to where the data tells you to go next.