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As one of the HubSpot Blog’s email marketers, one of the key metrics I use to measure email success is open rate.
When an open rate is high, it hints that your subject line did its job to pull readers, you’re sending emails at the most engaging time of day, or your subscribers are eagerly waiting to get your content in their inbox. When it’s low, it signals that your email subscribers might not even be reading your content.
But, now, the way email marketers leverage open rates could change with Apple’s recently announced iOS 15 privacy features.
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the company announced a rollout of a handful of new iOS 15 privacy features that will include:

Mail Privacy Protection (Free): According to reports from Litmus, those with early access to iOS 15, and other tech journalists, Apple Mail will allow users to opt in to mail privacy features that mask IP addresses and block third parties from tracking email opens or other IP data.

iCloud+ (Subscription): An iCloud subscription with additional privacy features including a VPN-like Private Relay feature, which prevents sites from tracking Safari users who opt-in and allows users to see which websites they’re sending information to.

Hide My Email (within iCloud+): An email address-cloaking feature that enables users to give sites a “fake” email address. While promotional emails sent from the brand to the fake address will still go to someone’s inbox and shouldn’t impact important communication, brands will not be able to see the person’s real address unless the contact shares it.

While the paid features might not create a huge impact for marketers because they require users to buy a service, the free Apple Mail privacy feature has already caused a stir in the marketing community.
So far, all Apple has said about this feature is, “In the Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.”
Although Apple hasn’t explicitly said whether Mail Privacy Protection will be an opt-in or automatic feature, some iOS testers have shared images showing the Mail app prompts them to turn Mail Privacy Protection on when they enter the app:

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While Apple hasn’t expanded too much on its Mail Privacy feature, marketing experts say it could impact the tracking of open rates and email-based A/B testing.
Although this move might seem scary, it isn’t too surprising as it follows a trend of internet privacy rollouts from tech giants. Most recently, Apple’s iOS 14.5 update limited mobile app tracking by requiring users to opt into sharing information when they opened an app after downloading it. Meanwhile, Google has been building out its Privacy Sandbox while preparing advertisers and marketers for Chrome’s phase-out of third-party cookies in 2022.
When it comes to Apple’s iOS 15 pivots specifically, marketers aren’t only unsurprised, but many — including members of the HubSpot team — believe this will be a positive change for user experience.
“From its inception, HubSpot has been relentlessly focused on helping businesses match the way they market and sell to the way people want to shop and buy. Our founders developed the philosophy of inbound marketing in the early 2000s,  and Apple’s moves only serve to reinforce these trends,” says Will DeKrey, HubSpot’s Group Product Manager of Campaigns.
“Buyers get to be in charge of the data they share; not sellers. And big corporations shouldn’t get to create markets for tracking and selling personal data, giving them an information advantage over smaller businesses,” DeKrey says.
“This means that each individual company, large or small, will need to get better and better at building trusted relationships with their audience, earning the right to learn who they are and what they’re interested in.”
“What’s true about people today is that they want BOTH privacy AND personalization. They still want content that is targeted and messaging that speaks to their interests. Given Apple’s changes, email marketers will likely need to focus even more on creating remarkably relevant content that drives their audiences to take action, versus experimenting with headlines just to see if they can get a click,” DeKrey explains.
“Personalization isn’t going away. Conversion optimization isn’t going away. A/B testing isn’t going away. But each of these will need to be more focused on building deeper relationships and more meaningful actions,” concludes DeKrey
Although Apple’s recent open tracking pivot could be great for iOS users who’d like to feel more secure, we know that email marketers still have a lot of questions.
To help email marketers navigate the potential changes that could happen, here are a few tips and strategies teams can consider as the iOS 15 rollout gets closer.

How Email Marketers Can Navigate Apple’s Open Privacy Changes
1. Continue following updates from Apple.
Although Apple’s iOS 15 features have been announced, there’s still a lot that we don’t know yet about how it will impact email and IP address tracking. For example, while it seems like this feature will require an opt-in, Apple hasn’t explicitly confirmed that.
Throughout the next few months, HubSpot’s own email product team will be looking into the change and considering solutions if there will be a major open rate impact.
“On the HubSpot email product team, we’re going to take time to consider what the next best steps are for our customers. In this ever-evolving email landscape, our priority will be to support our marketers in continuing to create highly impactful emails and get the most value from our email tool,” says Shane Janssens, Email Product Manager at HubSpot.
As we know more about these new features and how they could impact HubSpot email analytics, we’ll continue to update this post with more information and links to helpful resources to keep you in the know.
2. Remember, this change won’t impact all email readers.
Although Apple Mail and Apple mobile devices make up over 35% of the email provider market share globally, Google, Outlook, and other email providers haven’t announced similar privacy moves, which means their open and IP data could still provide solid tracking information for email marketers.
While you should be wary that other companies, like Google or Microsoft, could follow suit on email privacy, it’s important to remember that you’ll still get open data from them for the time being and can still make some judgments on the success of opens from these email providers.
3. Consider adjusting open-rate goals.
Although open rates aren’t going away any time soon, a large chunk of email audiences might become untrackable. Because of this, you might need to lower or pivot your open rate goals to determine what your new low, average, and high open rates are.
If your goals are set by a manager above you, it will be important to audit and communicate how many opens you usually get from iOS users to help your manager and your team estimate how they could change after the rollout. You might also want to consider tracking your email open rates for a month or so after the rollout to see what new averages look like based on hard data.
4. Leverage other email marketing data.
While open rate is a key email marketing KPI at many companies, it’s certainly not the only data you can use to determine if your email content is successful. In fact, when sending HubSpot Blog emails, the open rate is just one of many metrics I look at. Here are a few others that I plan to continue to zone in on, even if open rates are impacted:

Clicks and click-through rates: If you share links to content, such as blogs, product pages, and offers in email, the number of clicks and your click-through rates give you insights on how many or how often email readers engaged with and clicked on your content. High clicks or click-throughs can hint that your content was very engaging while lower clicks or click-throughs could hint that readers were less interested or skimming through your email.

Traffic to your site: With software like HubSpot, or the use of tracking URLs, you can determine how much traffic came to your website from one single email — or which pieces of content sent the most visitors to your site. Ultimately, if you’re trying to build your audiences, get people to make purchases, or aiming to increase offer downloads, you’ll need to send people to your website. Good email traffic hints that you’re successfully getting visitors where they need to go with your content.

Clickmaps: Many email providers, like HubSpot, allow you to see which content people clicked most or least in the email. This can help you see which content within your email was most and least clickable,

Unsubscribe rates: While these usually don’t vary much, a spiked unsubscribe rate could indicate that an aspect of your email strategy (such as the content you sent or the frequency of emails) caused you to lose more audience members than usual. Meanwhile, a consistently low unsubscribe rate hints that you’re continuing to retain or even gain subscribers.

Survey or email persona research: Aside from metrics you can gain from your email marketing platform, you can also leverage other strategies, like surveys or polls to learn more about your subscribers’ interests, what they’d like to see more of, and where you can improve your content.

On top of leveraging KPIs that are less impacted by Apple’s change, you can also use email tools or benchmark reports to see how your email rates compare to that of other brands in your industry.
For example, HubSpot users can leverage HubSpot’s Email Health Tool to compare your open, click-through, unsubscribe, and bounce rates against our benchmarks.
Evolving Your Content for a More Private World
Apple’s announcement is not the only privacy pivot that’s impacted digital marketers — and in 2021 — it certainly won’t be the last.
Although the world might be changing in a way that poses some challenges for digital and email marketers, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to innovate your strategy to meet prospects or audiences where they are.
While open rates are certainly important, there are many other ways to get to know your email subscribers, learn from KPIs, and continue to create great content for them.

Perhaps you’ve spent the last quarter performing a SWOT analysis on your marketing efforts and identifying your priorities as you grow your brand. Maybe you’ve even built your entire marketing strategy.
It’s good to know what your goals are and have a big-picture understanding of how you’ll achieve them. After all, there’s no point in executing tasks without reasons for doing so.

At the same time, putting your marketing strategy into play is different than creating that strategy. It’s the channels, techniques, and tactics that help realize the vision. In addition, marketing a brand online has become much more nuanced and complex with many techniques for reaching and resonating with audiences.
To help you learn about the most effective marketing techniques around today, we’ve rounded up the best ones to add to your digital marketing toolbox.
Branding and Awareness Techniques
1. Brand Storytelling
Purpose: Capture Attention

In the neuroscience field, researchers have proven that storytelling is the best way to capture people’s attention, bake information into their memories, and resonate emotionally with them. The human brain is programmed to crave, seek out, and respond to well-crafted narrative — that’ll never change.
If you have an About page on your website that functions only to say what you do and who you do it for, crafting a compelling narrative is a great way to uplevel that page and resonate with your readers. For maximum effectiveness, consider following a storytelling framework such as Simon Sinek’s Find Your Why methodology, Donald Miller’s Storybrand, or the classic Hero’s Journey.
And storytelling doesn’t just have to live on your About page.
Just like your favorite Netflix show, you can craft a series on YouTube to entice your viewers to subscribe to your updates. This can get your audience more excited for your show’s newest season than they currently are for the latest season of Stranger Things.
Before you green light another slew of listicles, how-to posts, and ultimate guides, remember how powerful storytelling is and consider crafting a story chock-full of conflict, surprise, and emotion that your viewers will relate to your brand, regardless of the channel you’re targeting them on.
2. Digital PR
Purpose: Reach New Audiences

the group chat when you get a link in a huge publication pic.twitter.com/jdKVhLdA1C — Digital PR Memes (@DigitalPRMemes)
June 22, 2021

The average amount of time spent on social media was 145 minutes per day in 2020, an increase from the previous year. Needless to say, people spend more time on social media than ever before. And public relations professionals are pivoting their strategy from solely focusing on placing their stories in news outlets’ publications to concentrating on driving traffic to their websites and social media profiles too.
In order to successfully pitch your stories to journalists and news outlets nowadays, you need to account for the content that performs well on their social media profiles and their publication. So before you pitch your story, make sure it’s relevant and interesting to the news outlet’s social audience.
3. The Surround Sound Method
An ad’s effectiveness increases the more times it’s been seen by a prospect. It’s also pretty safe to say that any marketing asset’s effectiveness increases the more it’s seen.
This is a fact previously alluded to in this post anytime the word “touchpoints” comes up.
The surround-sound methodology takes this idea and amplifies it by challenging the notion that your owned channels and assets are not enough to create true brand awareness. You should also appear everywhere else someone goes to consider products. For example:

Review websites
The social timelines of prominent influencers
Featured in the media they consume (articles, videos, podcasts)

According to Alex Birkett, Sr. Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, if you can “get lots of people to talk about you favorably, preferably around the same time,” you can generate quite a bit of brand awareness.
4. Brand Extensions
Purpose: Expand Into Tangential Markets for Increased Awareness
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Big companies often extend their brand to develop new products in industries that they don’t have any market share in. These initiatives are called brand extensions, and they allow companies to leverage their brand awareness and equity to create more revenue streams. For example, Reese’s entering the cereal market with their peanut butter and chocolate “Reese’s Puffs” product.
Historically, the most successful brand extensions are the ones that closely tie to the company’s flagship product or core brand, like Gerber’s baby clothes and Dole’s frozen fruit bars. By entering tangential markets that can preserve your brand’s unique associations and perceived quality, you can develop new products that consumers intuitively understand the benefits of, even though they’ve never seen them on a shelf.
On the flip side, a company can also exploit its brand and, in turn, damage it. If they develop a product in a market that isn’t closely tied to their flagship product or core brand, audiences might attach undesirable associations to a brand, weaken its existing associations, and hurt its established products’ perceived quality.
Audience Engagement Techniques
5. Podcasting
Purpose: Leverage Audio Content and Reach New Audiences

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Technically, audio is more of a media type or channel than a technique, but according to a content format study conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital, people age 12 and older are listening to online audio content at unprecedented levels. On average, people spend 17 hours per week tuning into their favorite podcasts, online radio shows, and audiobooks.
Needless to say, the demand for audio content has exploded, but that doesn’t mean people will listen to your branded podcast just because it’s a podcast. In reality, they’ll only listen to it if it can hold their attention and, ultimately, entertain them.
Here’s where the technique part comes in: Many podcasts rely on a host/guest model. This model is wildly successful because hosts can tap into the audience that the guest brings in and vice versa. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement so long as both sides promote effectively. That’s why it’s important to choose guests wisely and make it easy for them to promote the show and episode they appear in.
With each guest that comes on, the podcast audience grows, and so does the engagement.
6. Video Marketing
Purpose: Leverage Video Content and Reach New Audiences

Video has overtaken blogs and infographics as the number one form of media used in content strategy (HubSpot). There’s a couple reasons for this:

It’s flexible. You can create video for YouTube, embed it on your blog, share it on social media, and more.

It’s a different kind of organic play. Google shows videos in the SERPs (search engine results pages). YouTube is also a search engine in its own right and is the second most visited site after Google itself (Alexa).

The engagement is rewarding. Video consumption continues to rise, outpacing television, and it’s more effective at conveying information (Biteable).

So not only are consumers looking for audio content; they’re looking for video content as well. And savvy marketers are getting ROI in the form of engagement and repurpose-ability.
7. Community Building
Purpose: Improve Long-Term Engagement and Build Authority

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Speaking of engagement, the last thing you want to do is create a piece of content and then hear crickets when you promote it. One of the best ways to increase engagement and brand awareness is by building relationships with prospects, users, customers, and other individuals in the industry.
Many brands are creating digital communities on social media, online boards, and their own hosted networks/forums. With community management, you’re building relationships, giving back, and establishing yourself as an authority in the industry. It can be as simple as answering questions on Quora or cultivating a hashtag on Twitter, or it can be as complex as creating a whole support network for your product.
Either way, you’re improving the affinity your prospects and customers have with your brand.
If done correctly, your community may even expand beyond your brand and become a beneficial resource for everyone within it. For example, Women in Tech SEO, founded by Areej AbuAli, is a community focused on accelerating the careers of women in the SEO industry. The organization has a network with a discussion component, ongoing meetups, a newsletter, and more.
8. Contextual Marketing
Purpose: Improve Website Engagement With Personalized Content

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Contextual marketing is the practice of serving up personalized website content to visitors according to their stage of the buyer’s journey. The idea is that if you can cut through the noise and serve your website visitors the content that matters the most to them, you’ll be far more successful at capturing their attention.
We can all agree that improving the experience for prospects can lead to increased effectiveness, but what does contextual marketing look like in practice?
For example, you might use dynamic CTAs that only show them offers that are relevant to them. This cuts down on the amount of useless information they’re taking in on your website and decreases banner blindness… in part because the banners they do see are helpful and relevant.
It might also mean using smart forms so that you don’t keep asking for the same information from website visitors who have cause to fill out multiple forms on your site.
Then, you might segment your database so that your leads receive email campaigns that are directly relevant to their needs based on content that they’ve already consumed on your website.
All of this resulting in a personalized, tailored journey without the pressure of going to a salesperson for it.
Techniques for Driving Traffic
9. Blog Title Optimization
Purpose: Increase Traffic to Existing Assets By Improving Click-Through Rate
When you write a blog post, do you use the first title you came up with or do you write a few?
People will not get to the rest of your content until they choose to click on the headline. That’s why it’s so important to have grabby titles that resonate with your audience and compel them to click.
By increasing the effectiveness of your titles, you can increase click-through rate (and, in effect, traffic). One way to do this is by using tools like this headline analyzer to see what you can do to improve your headline.
Better yet, you can always analyze your existing blog posts to see which headlines aren’t doing enough heavy lifting. By improving the click-through rate, you’ll be able to get more traffic from that asset without a heavy editorial lift.
10. The Pillar-Cluster Model
Purpose: Drive Traffic By Establishing Topic Authority

Since people heavily rely on Google to provide accurate and relevant answers for most of their questions today, Google needs to understand the intent and context behind every single search.
To do this, Google has evolved to recognize topical connections across users’ queries, look back at similar queries that users have searched for in the past, and surface the content that best answers them. As a result, Google will deliver content that they deem the most authoritative on the topic.
To help Google recognize your content as a trusted authority on marketing, sales, and customer service topics, consider implementing the pillar-cluster model on your blog.
Essentially, the pillar-cluster model is a topic-based based content strategy. This means that you generate and organize ideas for your blog by topic.
By creating a single pillar page (an ultimate guide, for instance) that provides a high-level overview of a topic and hyperlinks to cluster pages (subtopic blog posts) that delve into the topic’s subtopics, you can signal to Google that your pillar page is an authority on the topic.
Hyperlinking all of the cluster pages to the pillar page also spreads domain authority across the cluster, so your cluster pages get an organic boost if your pillar page ranks higher, and your cluster pages can even help your pillar page rank higher if they start ranking for the specific keywords they’re targeting.
11. Historical Optimization
Purpose: Drive Traffic By Improving Existing Assets

There’s a massive hole in the market for specialized services around updating/optimizing old content. We’ve all been creating content for years now. The greater opportunity, and quicker time to value for agencies/contractors, is in updating…not creating. — John Bonini (@Bonini84)
September 4, 2020

In 2015, HubSpot made a revolutionary discovery about our organic monthly blog traffic — the overwhelming majority of it came from posts published prior to that month. In fact, 76% of monthly blog views came from these old posts.
Today, the groundbreaking revelation rings louder than ever — 89% of our monthly blog views currently come from posts that were published at least six months prior, and we’ve developed an entire strategy dedicated to refreshing and republishing these historical pieces of content.
These types of blog posts are called “updates,” and they comprise 35-40% of HubSpot’s editorial calendar. By refreshing posts with new information and effectively republishing them as new blog posts, HubSpot can build upon its existing organic value that these posts have accumulated through backlinks and user engagement and double or even triple their traffic. This process also helps HubSpot optimize our blog for efficiency, decreasing the amount of new content we have to create while increasing our organic traffic and conversions.
12. Retargeting
Purpose: Recapture Lost Traffic

A lot of content marketing techniques involve attracting new audiences rather than improving the effectiveness of the audiences you’ve already acquired. That’s why retargeting earns a place on this list as a vastly underutilized tactic.
I’ll explain retargeting with a scenario: A prospect comes to an ecommerce site and checks out a product. They decide it’s not time to buy, and they leave. Retargeting allows you to remind them of their initial interest by showing them ads for the product on other sites (e.g. banner ads or Facebook ads). In effect, your ads “follow them around” the internet, increasing the likelihood that they come back to make that purchase.
13. The Skyscraper Backlinking Method
Purpose: Obtain Links for Increased Traffic and Improved SEO Signals

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Earning high-quality inbound links from websites and pages with high authority scores is crucial for boosting your domain authority. But, unfortunately, “If you write it, they will link to it,” is not a viable SEO technique.
One method for earning high-quality links is by performing email outreach to ask other websites that have the same or higher domain or page authority score than you to link to your top content. You should also make sure your content is relevant to the referring website’s content.
More specifically, you can use Backlinko’s skyscraper method. The skyscraper method is an SEO strategy where you find content that ranks well for keywords you want to rank for and then create content that’s better than the top-ranking posts. Then, you use SEO tools to find all the sites that have linked to your competitor’s content and ask the most relevant sites to replace your competitor’s link with a link to your improved content.
Conversion and Nurturing Techniques
14. A/B Testing for CTAs
Purpose: Improve Conversion Rate on Existing Assets by Testing Variables

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Since opt-ins are key for growing your email subscriber list, you’ll want to closely monitor the performance of your CTAs (buttons that send people to your forms) and improve on the ones that aren’t working out.
Every company has a different set of customers, so there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for designing the most optimal CTAs. To figure out which CTA design or copy will produce the best results for your company, you must experiment.
A/B testing allows you to do that experimentation between two CTAs synchronously, eliminating variables and giving you the best insight into which version performs better.
For example, you can run an experiment to test a variable such as color. Let’s say you have a red CTA and a blue CTA. A/B testing allows you to identify which ones produce better results.
To conduct an A/B test, you can use HubSpot’s A/B testing kit. With this kit, you’ll get guidelines for A/B testing, learn what variables to test, and gain access to a simple significance calculator to track your results.
A/B testing shouldn’t be confused with multivariate testing, though, which allows you to simultaneously test many variables.
15. Value-Add Emails
Purpose: Improve Engagement and Earn Goodwill During Nurturing Process
Email is more of a channel than a tactic, but let’s start with why the channel is an important one. Did you know that Americans spend up to five hours checking their email, and the channel is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands?
At the same time, it’s projected that 319.6 billion emails will be sent and received in 2021. This means that there isn’t a lot of room for error if you want to cut through the noise when you send an email.
Since it takes a multiple touchpoints to gain the attention of prospects, persuading people to subscribe to your emails and, in turn, constantly consume your content will generate more leads and revenue for your business.
This is where the tactic part comes in. The last thing you want to do is clutter up their inbox with yet another sales email. Instead, consider emails that actually provide value along their paths to purchase.
Take the email above from HubSpot Agency Partner Yokel Local for example. It doesn’t matter if the recipient of the email is actively considering Yokel Local’s services; they still provide value that keeps their subscribers opening emails.
Growing an engaged, loyal subscriber base also speaks volumes about the quality of your content and its emotional resonance. If your prospects actively engage with your email content, it’s a clear sign that they actually value it. This contributes to their impression of your brand and serves as the touchpoints along their paths to purchase.
16. Audience Segmentation
Purpose: Create a More Personalized Experience to Improve Nurturing
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In a world overflowing with digital noise, creating irrelevant or unwarranted content won’t catch anyone’s attention.
To email the right person the right content at the right time, consider leveraging audience segmentation, which separates your subscriber database into specific, accessible groups of people based on personal attributes like their demographics, psychographics, and behavioral information.
This technique allows you to increase the value of your emails (see the technique above) by ensuring that they’re more relevant to your subscribers. In other words, rather than creating messaging designed to appeal to everyone, you’ll be able to get much more specific with your messaging because you’ll have a narrower target audience.
To properly implement audience segmentation techniques into your email marketing strategy, you’ll need a CRM and marketing platform. For example, HubSpot allows you to gather information about your customers and segment contacts into lists based on that information. This makes it easy to target the right customers in your database with messaging specific to them.
17. Marketing Automation
Purpose: Enhance Efficiency of Email Campaigns

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Automation is the process of using technology to eliminate manual actions and trigger repetitive or programmable functionality in an automatic way. Marketing automation applies this principle to your CRM and email marketing activities, allowing you free up time and get your message out at scale.
Instead of sending one-off emails, you can use marketing automation to initiate a sequence of emails and actions, all without you hitting the send button. Best of all, you can apply it to any of the following (and more):

Lead nurturing campaigns
Auto-responder sequences
Re-engagement campaigns
Event reminders
Client onboarding sequences
Up-sell campaigns

This will allow you to increase your organization’s touchpoints with a lead without tanking your productivity. To do so, you’ll first need to invest in marketing automation software.
18. Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is an automation-based technique that rates (or “scores”) your leads based on certain attributes. The idea behind it is that you’ll be able to better identify leads that are closer to a purchasing decision so that you can prioritize those leads for your marketing and sales efforts.
Some marketing automation software can perform lead scoring using AI machine learning, but many allow you to manually designate the attributes that make a marketing or sales qualified lead. Once a lead meets the criteria, they will have a higher score (and thus higher priority for more direct marketing and sales conversations).
In addition, the act of defining the criteria for lead scoring can lead to a better relationship between your marketing and sales teams. With a clear definition, your marketing team will be better focused on generating leads that meet those criteria, and your sales team will be happy with more qualified leads.
Innovation Is Key
Whether you’re developing a new marketing plan or improving on an old one, it’s important to consider new marketing techniques.
While your marketing strategy may be sound, relying on past tried-and-true methods may not be enough. As time goes on, old techniques lose competitive advantage and become table stakes. New methods will help you implement your strategic goals in new, exciting ways.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

According to Career Builder, 40% of recruiters look for a cover letter when they’re considering job applicants.
But if you had to flip through a hundred cover letters a day, and each one began, “To whom it may concern, I am applying for the digital marketing position at your company,” how important would you rank them?

A cover letter might not always be the most important thing to a hiring manager, but if your resume or connections aren’t enough to get you through the door, a powerful cover letter could be what gets you an interview.
For instance, a hiring manager might only read your cover letter if your resume raised questions about why you’re applying for the position, or why you’re leaving your current role. In these cases, your cover letter can be a crucial factor in whether or not you move forward in the hiring process.

Your cover letter is an opportunity to showcase your personality, display your interest in the job, and include relevant information that otherwise wouldn’t be surfaced in your application. But there’s a fine line between standing out and coming across as brash or gimmicky. An ideal cover letter leaves the hiring manager with a positive and memorable impression of you, something a resume alone won’t always do.
So, where do you begin when writing a cover letter? More specifically, where should your beginning begin? Recruiters read a ton of cover letters — especially if the company is growing quickly and hiring non-stop. What does this mean for you? You need to get their attention right away. To help you overcome writer’s block, and hook your reader right away, take a look at some sharp opening sentences you can use for inspiration.

Read on to find out eight ways to grab an employer’s attention with an exceptional cover letter introduction.
Featured Resource: 5 Free Cover Letter Templates

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How to Start a Cover Letter
1. Start with humor.
Employers are humans too, and they’ll often appreciate a good joke, pun, or funny opening line as much as the next person. If done tastefully and respectfully, starting your cover letter off with a joke can be an excellent way to stand out.
Plus, a joke can still include a powerful explanation for why you’re the right person for the job, without coming off as boastful. For instance, think about something you love to do or something you’re really good at, and then imagine how friends or family might make a joke about it — if you’re really good at analyzing data, for example, a joke or pun related to that might be a good way to exemplify both your skills and personality.
Here’s a good example of using humor to bring attention to your skills, from The Muse (you’ll notice this is one of our picks for most creative opening lines, earlier in this article):
“I considered submitting my latest credit card statement as proof of just how much I love online shopping, but I thought a safer approach might be writing this cover letter, describing all the reasons why I’m the girl who can take Stylight’s business to the next level.”
Right away, the personality displayed here grabs the reader’s attention. Even better, this applicant uses humor to convey an important message to the employer — she loves shopping, and she’s well-versed in ecommerce as a consumer — which might’ve otherwise not come up on her resume or phone screening.
2. Start with passion.
For an employer to know you’ll stay dedicated to the role and company, they’ll want to ensure you’re passionate about what the job entails. Passion is more incentivizing than a paycheck.
For an employer, demonstrating how your passion matches the required skillset is a promising sign that you’d enjoy your job — if you enjoy your job, you’re more likely to stick around longer, help drive company growth, and become a dedicated member of the team.
Consider starting your cover letter with a few lines that showcase your passion: “I’ve been passionate about writing since I was ten years old. My love for writing has led me to write two personal travel blogs, get published in a local newspaper, and pursue two summer internships at publishing firms. Now, I’d love the opportunity to combine my writing skills with my interest in storytelling as a content marketer at Company A.”
If you don’t have extensive work experience in the industry you’re trying to break into, but you’ve been unofficially preparing for years, let the employer know. In the above example, the candidate’s resume would probably look weak, with only internships indicating professional experience. Her cover letter introduction, however, shows the employer she’s been writing for audiences and advancing her natural ability for years.
3. Start with an accomplishment.
Employers like seeing numbers. It isn’t enough to mention you’re a “digital marketer with proven success in SEO strategies.” Proven success? Okay, can we see?
It’s more powerful to provide statistics. You want to show the employer you’re capable of solving for long-term results. How have you contributed to your company’s bottom line? For instance, did your Facebook marketing campaign grow your social media following, or has your blog content increased organic traffic?
Consider starting your cover letter with something like this: “Over the past year as digital marketing manager at Company A, I’ve generated $30k+ in revenue, increased organic traffic to our blog by 14%, and almost tripled our social media ROI.”
Even if you don’t have the work experience to report impressive numbers, you can still offer proof when opening with an accomplishment. Think about the qualitative feedback you’ve received from employers. For instance, how would your boss compliment you or tell you you’re doing a good job? An accomplishment can be as simple as your boss sending you an appreciative email regarding your diligent meeting notes.
In this example from The Muse, the applicant provides an example of a skill for which he’s been previously acknowledged: “My last boss once told me that my phone manner could probably diffuse an international hostage situation. I’ve always had a knack for communicating with people — the easygoing and the difficult alike — and I’d love to bring that skill to the office manager position at Shutterstock.”
Even though the applicant doesn’t offer numbers as proof of success, they do manage to highlight some proof of their past performance in the form of a former boss’s praise. The candidate’s candid and funny explanation — that his last boss liked his phone manners — is another good way to brag about accomplishments without, well, bragging.
4. Start with excitement for the company.
Employers want to know why you like their company, and they’ll appreciate an explanation on why you’re interested. But it’s imperative your reasoning is thoughtful and considerate, and specific to the company. For instance, if you’re applying for a financial position, don’t write about your interest in finance; write about how your interest in finance relates to the company’s goals.
You don’t want to just say, “I’m excited to work at Company A because I’m passionate about finance, and I think my skills and experiences will be a good match.” Sure, you’ve explained why you want to work in the financial industry, but you’ve done nothing to explain why Company A specifically suits your interests.
Instead, you’ll want to mention something about the company and culture in correlation to your interest in finance. Take a look at this example from Glassdoor: “When I discovered Accounting Solutions was hiring, I knew I had to apply. I’ve been waiting to find a company where I feel like I can make a difference while working as an accountant. Not only are your clients awesome, but the overall mission of your company is something I believe in, too.”
This candidate shows they’ve done their research and care about Accounting Solutions in particular. Remember, employers want to hire people who have a demonstrated interest in working at their company. They want someone who will enjoy the nature of the work, but just as importantly, they want a candidate who enjoys the work culture and the company mission as well.
5. Start with news about the company.
Mentioning company news in your introduction indicates you’ve done research on the company. Plus, including company news might give you the chance to incorporate your own values, as well. If the company just won an award for its innovative solutions in the computer industry, for instance, you might add how you value forward-thinking methods in technology, as well.
Here’s an example of an introduction that uses a newsworthy event, from Indeed: “When I saw that Company ABC was featured in Fortune Magazine last month for its commitment to renewable energy and reducing waste in the workplace — all while experiencing triple-digit revenue growth — I was inspired. With my track record of reducing costs by 30%+ and promoting greener workplaces, I’m excited about the possibility of taking on the account executive role to expand your company’s growth and work towards a more sustainable future.”
The candidate does a good job demonstrating how Company ABC’s news aligns well with the candidate’s personal achievements. She shows she’s done her research on the company, and also indicates she values similar environmental efforts in the workplace.
6. Start with what they don’t know.
According to one seasoned hiring manager, a cover letter that begins, “I am writing to apply for [open position] at [name of company]” is grounds for nearly instant rejection. Of course you’re applying for this job — why waste your lede with something so boring and obvious?
Your cover letter should never directly state what they already know — or restate what’s already listed on your resume. Instead, start your cover letter by offering something new, expanding on what the employer already knows about you, and presenting new details about what you can bring to the company. Impress employers by telling them something about your skills or experiences they don’t already know.
To offer new information not displayed on his resume, one of my colleagues at HubSpot wrote this cover letter introduction: “My resume will tell you I’m Content Marketing Certified. Your records will tell you I’ve interviewed for a few different HubSpot positions in the past. What neither one will tell you is that I’ve been working with your customer success team to build a new campaign strategy for my company–one of your latest (and largest) clients.”
The candidate wrote an introduction that captured the reader’s attention and demonstrated he wasn’t interested in wasting anyone’s time. This is a memorable and impressive tactic. Consider writing a similar introduction, where you provide information absent from your resume.
7. Start with what you can bring to the table.
A hiring manager here at HubSpot told me she always looks for cover letters to tell her how the company and applicant can benefit each other.
Any employer is going to want to know why you think you can grow from the position you’re applying to. An employer is more inclined to hire you if she thinks you have a genuine, intrinsic motivation to work hard in the role.
A hiring manager is also going to want to know how you’ll contribute to the company’s larger vision and goals. It’s important for the manager to know what you want to get out of the role, but it’s equally important to know how you’ll help the company grow. How will the company benefit from you, over someone else?
Here’s an example: “I am seeking opportunities to improve my writing ability in a forward-thinking environment while growing organic traffic and optimizing content to beat out competitors in search engines. At Company A, I believe I will find that match.”
See how it works? In the example above, the candidate explained how she’d benefit from the role. She also explained what Company A could get out of the transaction — increased organic traffic, and optimized content — so the hiring manager is informed of the equality of the potential relationship.
8. Start with a statement that surprises them.
When applying for a role at HubSpot, one of my colleagues began her cover letter like this: “I like to think of myself as a round peg thriving in a square hole kind of world.”
Doesn’t that make you want to keep reading? It certainly kept me interested. Of course, you’ll only want to include a bold statement if you can follow it up with some concrete supporting information. My colleague, for example, continued by writing this: “What does this mean? It means that my diverse background makes me a well-rounded candidate who is able to comprehend, develop and execute various functions in business.”
While the rest of her cover letter veered on the side of professional, her opening line was casual, quirky, and surprising. Plus, you feel her personality in the line, and when an employer feels like a real person is behind the cover letter, she’s going to want to keep reading.
9. Start with a lesson you’ve learned in your career.
A great way to start a cover letter is with a lesson you’ve learned in your industry from your experience.
For example, you might say something like, “As a [current job position] with high-level management experience in the [industry], I learned that the best way to achieve success was to [biggest lesson you’ve learned].”
This opening sentence lets a recruiter know your experience level. Not only that, but it starts off with how you can benefit the company, not how the company will benefit you.
10. Start off with intrigue.
When you’re applying to larger corporate companies, you know that recruiters are getting hundreds of applicants for one entry-level position.
It’s important to intrigue the hiring manager and recognize that they’re looking at several applicants.
For example, you could say, “I understand that you have been deluged with resumes since you’ve been listed as one of the best companies to work for. Mine is one more, but I do have experience that is hard to come by.”
After this, it’d be great to list examples, stats, and experience that set you apart from other candidates and will benefit the company.
Recruiters see countless resumes and cover letters every day. It’s important to start your cover letter in a unique way so you can stand out amongst the crowd.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

“A good leader should always … ”
How you finish that sentence could reveal a lot about your leadership style.
Leadership is a fluid practice. We’re always changing and improving the way in which we help our direct reports and the company grow. And the longer we lead, the more likely we’ll change the way we choose to complete the sentence above.

But in order to become better leaders tomorrow, we need to know where we stand today. To help you understand the impact each type of leader has on a company, I’ll explain what a leadership style is, then share eight of the most common types and how effective they are.
Then, I’ll show you a leadership style assessment based on this post’s opening sentence to help you figure out which leader you are.

Why It’s Important to Know Your Leadership Style
Knowing your leadership style is critical because it can help you determine how you affect those whom are under your direct influence. How do your direct reports see you? Do they feel you’re an effective leader?
It’s always important to ask for feedback to understand how you’re doing, but knowing your leadership style prior to asking for feedback can be a helpful starting point. That way, when you receive junior employees’ thoughts, you can automatically decide which new leadership style would be best and adopt the style’s characteristics in your day-to-day management duties.
Knowing your leadership style may also remove the need for getting feedback. Each leadership style has its pitfalls, allowing you to proactively remediate areas of improvement. This is critical because some employees might hesitate to speak up, even in an anonymous survey.
Ready to find out which leadership style you might currently have? Check out the eight most common ones below.
1. Democratic Leadership
Commonly Effective
Democratic leadership is exactly what it sounds like — the leader makes decisions based on the input of each team member. Although he or she makes the final call, each employee has an equal say on a project’s direction.
Democratic leadership is one of the most effective leadership styles because it allows lower-level employees to exercise authority they’ll need to use wisely in future positions they might hold. It also resembles how decisions can be made in company board meetings.
For example, in a company board meeting, a democratic leader might give the team a few decision-related options. They could then open a discussion about each option. After a discussion, this leader might take the board’s thoughts and feedback into consideration, or they might open this decision up to a vote.
2. Autocratic Leadership
Rarely Effective
Autocratic leadership is the inverse of democratic leadership. In this leadership style, the leader makes decisions without taking input from anyone who reports to them. Employees are neither considered nor consulted prior to a change in direction, and are expected to adhere to the decision at a time and pace stipulated by the leader.
An example of this could be when a manager changes the hours of work shifts for multiple employees without consulting anyone — especially the affected employees.
Frankly, this leadership style stinks. Most organizations today can’t sustain such a hegemonic culture without losing employees. It’s best to keep leadership more open to the intellect and perspective of the rest of the team.
3. Laissez-Faire Leadership
Sometimes Effective
If you remember your high-school French, you’ll accurately assume that laissez-faire leadership is the least intrusive form of leadership. The French term “laissez-faire” literally translates to “let them do,” and leaders who embrace it afford nearly all authority to their employees.
In a young startup, for example, you might see a laissez-faire company founder who makes no major office policies around work hours or deadlines. They might put full trust into their employees while they focus on the overall workings of running the company.
Although laissez-faire leadership can empower employees by trusting them to work however they’d like, it can limit their development and overlook critical company growth opportunities. Therefore, it’s important that this leadership style is kept in check.
4. Strategic Leadership
Commonly Effective
Strategic leaders sit at the intersection between a company’s main operations and its growth opportunities. He or she accepts the burden of executive interests while ensuring that current working conditions remain stable for everyone else.
This is a desirable leadership style in many companies because strategic thinking supports multiple types of employees at once. However, leaders who operate this way can set a dangerous precedent with respect to how many people they can support at once, and what the best direction for the company really is if everyone is getting their way at all times.
5. Transformational Leadership
Sometimes Effective
Transformational leadership is always “transforming” and improving upon the company’s conventions. Employees might have a basic set of tasks and goals that they complete every week or month, but the leader is constantly pushing them outside of their comfort zone.
When starting a job with this type of leader, all employees might get a list of goals to reach, as well as deadlines for reaching them. While the goals might seem simple at first, this manager might pick up the pace of deadlines or give you more and more challenging goals as you grow with the company.
This is a highly encouraged form of leadership among growth-minded companies because it motivates employees to see what they’re capable of. But transformational leaders can risk losing sight of everyone’s individual learning curves if direct reports don’t receive the right coaching to guide them through new responsibilities.
6. Transactional Leadership
Sometimes Effective
Transactional leaders are fairly common today. These managers reward their employees for precisely the work they do. A marketing team that receives a scheduled bonus for helping generate a certain number of leads by the end of the quarter is a common example of transactional leadership.
When starting a job with a transactional boss, you might receive an incentive plan that motivates you to quickly master your regular job duties. For example, if you work in marketing, you might receive a bonus for sending 10 marketing emails. On the other hand, a transformational leader might only offer you a bonus if your work results in a large number of newsletter subscriptions.
Transactional leadership helps establish roles and responsibilities for each employee, but it can also encourage bare-minimum work if employees know how much their effort is worth all the time. This leadership style can use incentive programs to motivate employees, but they should be consistent with the company’s goals and used in addition to unscheduled gestures of appreciation.
7. Coach-Style Leadership
Commonly Effective
Similarly to a sports team’s coach, this leader focuses on identifying and nurturing the individual strengths of each member on his or her team. They also focus on strategies that will enable their team to work better together. This style offers strong similarities to strategic and democratic leadership, but puts more emphasis on the growth and success of individual employees.
Rather than forcing all employees to focus on similar skills and goals, this leader might build a team where each employee has an area of expertise or skillset in something different. In the long run, this leader focuses on creating strong teams that can communicate well and embrace each other’s unique skillsets in order to get work done.
A manager with this leadership style might help employees improve on their strengths by giving them new tasks to try, offering them guidance, or meeting to discuss constructive feedback. They might also encourage one or more team members to expand on their strengths by learning new skills from other teammates.
8. Bureaucratic Leadership
Rarely Effective
Bureaucratic leaders go by the books. This style of leadership might listen and consider the input of employees — unlike autocratic leadership — but the leader tends to reject an employee’s input if it conflicts with company policy or past practices.
You may run into a bureaucratic leader at a larger, older, or traditional company. At these companies, when a colleague or employee proposes a strong strategy that seems new or non-traditional, bureaucratic leaders may reject it. Their resistance might be because the company has already been successful with current processes and trying something new could waste time or resources if it doesn’t work.
Employees under this leadership style might not feel as controlled as they would under autocratic leadership, but there is still a lack of freedom in how much people are able to do in their roles. This can quickly shut down innovation, and is definitely not encouraged for companies who are chasing ambitious goals and quick growth.
Leadership Style Assessment
Leaders can carry a mix of the above leadership styles depending on their industry and the obstacles they face. At the root of these styles, according to leadership experts Bill Torbert and David Rooke, are what are called “action logics.”
These action logics assess “how [leaders] interpret their surroundings and react when their power or safety is challenged.”
That’s the idea behind a popular management survey tool called the Leadership Development Profile. Created by professor Torbert and psychologist Susanne Cook-Greuter — and featured in the book, Personal and Organizational Transformations — the survey relies on a set of 36 open-ended sentence completion tasks to help researchers better understand how leaders develop and grow.
Below, we’ve outlined six action logics using open-ended sentences that help describe each one. See how much you agree with each sentence and, at the bottom, find out which leadership style you uphold based on the action logics you most agreed with.
1. Individualist
The individualist, according to Rooke and Tolbert, is self-aware, creative, and primarily focused on their own actions and development as opposed to overall organizational performance. This action logic is exceptionally driven by the desire to exceed personal goals and constantly improve their skills.
Here are some things an individualist might say:
Individualist 1: “A good leader should always trust their own intuition over established organizational processes.”
Individualist 2: “It’s important to be able to relate to others so I can easily communicate complex ideas to them.”
Individualist 3: “I’m more comfortable with progress than sustained success.”
2. Strategist
Strategists are acutely aware of the environments in which they operate. They have a deep understanding of the structures and processes that make their businesses tick, but they’re also able to consider these frameworks critically and evaluate what could be improved.
Here are some things a strategist might say:
Strategist 1: “A good leader should always be able to build a consensus in divided groups.”
Strategist 2: “It’s important to help develop the organization as a whole, as well as the growth and individual achievements of my direct reports.”
Strategist 3: “Conflict is inevitable, but I’m knowledgeable enough about my team’s personal and professional relationships to handle the friction.”
3. Alchemist
Rooke and Tolbert describe this charismatic action logic as the most highly evolved and effective at managing organizational change. What distinguishes alchemists from other action logics is their unique ability to see the big picture in everything, but also fully understand the need to take details seriously. Under an alchemist leader, no department or employee is overlooked.
Here are some things an alchemist might say:
Alchemist 1: “A good leader helps their employees reach their highest potential, and possesses the necessary empathy and moral awareness to get there.”
Alchemist 2: “It’s important to make a profound and positive impact on whatever I’m working on.”
Alchemist 3: “I have a unique ability to balance short-term needs and long-term goals.”
4. Opportunist
Opportunists are guided by a certain level of mistrust of others, relying on a facade of control to keep their employees in line. “Opportunists tend to regard their bad behavior as legitimate in the cut and thrust of an eye-for-an-eye world,” Rooke and Tolbert write.
Here are some things an opportunist might say:
Opportunist 1: “A good leader should always view others as potential competition to be bested, even if it’s at the expense of their professional development.”
Opportunist 2: “I reserve the right to reject the input of those who question or criticize my ideas.”
5. Diplomat
Unlike the opportunist, the diplomat isn’t concerned with competition or assuming control over situations. Instead, this action logic seeks to cause minimal impact on their organization by conforming to existing norms and completing their daily tasks with as little friction as possible.
Here are some things a diplomat might say:
Diplomat 1: “A good leader should always resist change since it risks causing instability among their direct reports.”
Diplomat 2: “It’s important to provide the ‘social glue’ in team situations, safely away from conflict.”
Diplomat 3: “I tend to thrive in more team-oriented or supporting leadership roles.”
6. Expert
The expert is a pro in their given field, constantly striving to perfect their knowledge of a subject and perform to meet their own high expectations. Rooke and Tolbert describe the expert as a talented individual contributor and a source of knowledge for the team. But this action logic does lack something central to many good leaders: emotional intelligence.
Here are some things a diplomat might say:
Expert 1: “A good leader should prioritize their own pursuit of knowledge over the needs of the organization and their direct reports.”
Expert 2: “When problem-solving with others in the company, my opinion tends to be the correct one.”
Which Leader Are You?
So, which action logics above felt like you? Think about each sentence for a moment … now, check out which of the seven leadership styles you embrace on the right based on the sentences you resonated with on the left.

Action Logic Sentence
Leadership Style

Strategist 3
Democratic

Opportunist 1, Opportunist 2, Expert 1, Expert 2
Autocratic

Diplomat 2, Diplomat 3, Expert 1
Laissez-Faire

Strategist 1, Strategist 2, Alchemist 3
Strategic

Individualist 1, Individualist 2, Individualist 3, Alchemist 1, Alchemist 2
Transformational

Diplomat 3
Transactional

Diplomat 1
Bureaucratic

The more action logics you agreed with, the more likely you practice a mix of leadership styles.
For example, if you agreed with everything the strategist said, this would make you a 66% strategic leader and 33% democratic leader. If you agreed with just the third statement, but also everything the alchemist said, this would make you a 50% transformational, 25% strategic, and 25% democratic leader.
Keep in mind that these action logics are considered developmental stages, not fixed attributes — most leaders will progress through multiple types of leadership throughout their careers.
Know Your Leadership Style to Become a Better Leader
Knowing your leadership style can put you on the path to become a more effective leader. Whether you manage a big or small team, your style heavily impacts how your direct reports see you and how effectively your team works together to achieve your company’s goals.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a “technical” person. In fact, the technical aspects of marketing are usually the hardest ones for me to conquer.
When it comes to technical SEO, it can be difficult to understand how the process works. But it’s important to gain as much knowledge as we can to optimize our websites and reach larger audiences. One tool that plays a large role in search engine optimization is none other than the web crawler.
In this post, we’ll learn what web crawlers are, how they work, and why they should crawl your site.

You might be wondering, “Who runs these web crawlers?”
Usually, web crawlers are operated by search engines with their own algorithms. The algorithm will tell the web crawler how to find relevant information in response to a search query.
A web spider will search (crawl) and categorize all web pages on the internet that it can find and is told to index. So you can tell a web crawler not to crawl your web page if you don’t want it to be found on search engines.
To do this, you’d upload a robots.txt file. Essentially, a robots.txt file will tell a search engine how to crawl and index the pages on your site.
For example, let’s take a look at Nike.com/robots.txt for visual learners.

For Nike, it used its robot.txt file to determine which links in its website would be crawled and indexed.

In this portion of the file, it determined that:

The web crawler Baiduspider was allowed to crawl the first seven links
The web crawler Baiduspider was disallowed to crawl the remaining three links

This is beneficial for Nike because some pages the company has aren’t meant to be searched, and the disallowed links won’t affect its optimized pages that help them rank in search engines.
So now that we know what web crawlers are, how do they do their job? Below, let’s review how web crawlers work.

A search engine’s web crawler most likely won’t crawl the entire internet. Rather, it will decide the importance of each web page based on factors including how many other pages link to that page, page views, and even brand authority. So, a web crawler will determine which pages to crawl, what order to crawl them in, and how often they should crawl for updates.

Image Source
For example, if you have a new web page, or changes were made on an existing page, then the web crawler will take note and update the index. Or, if you have a new web page, you can ask search engines to crawl your site.
When the web crawler is on your page, it looks at the copy and meta tags, stores that information, and indexes it for Google to sort through for keywords.
Before this entire process is started, the web crawler will look at your robots.txt file to see which pages to crawl, which is why it’s so important for technical SEO.
Ultimately, when a web crawler crawls your page, it decides whether your page will show up on the search results page for a query. It’s important to note that some web crawlers might behave differently than others. For example, some might use different factors when deciding which web pages are most important to crawl.
Now that we’ve gone over how web crawlers work, we’ll discuss why they should crawl your website.

Why is website crawling important?
If you want your website to rank in search engines, it needs to be indexed. Without a web crawler, your website won’t be found even if you search for over a paragraph directly taken from your website.
In a simple sense, your website doesn’t exist unless it’s crawled once.
To find and discover links on the web across search engines, you must give your site the ability to reach the audience it’s meant for by having it crawled — especially if you want to increase your organic traffic.
If the technical aspect of this is confusing, I understand. That’s why HubSpot has a Website Optimization Course that puts technical topics into simple language and instructs you on how to implement your own solutions or discuss them with your web expert.
Expand Your Reach With Web Crawling
Web crawlers are responsible for searching and indexing content online for search engines. They work by sorting and filtering through web pages so search engines understand what every web page is about. Understanding web crawlers is just one part of effective technical SEO that can improve your website’s performance significantly.