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The goal of a landing page is to get visitors to take an action, whether that’s to buy a product, sign up for an email list, start a free trial, or something else. 
But like any goal, you shouldn’t just “hope” that it’ll be achieved. You need a strategy that guides visitors toward completing the desired action. 
One way to get visitors to take action is to use mental triggers — subtle cues that nudge readers in the right direction. In this post, we’re sharing effective mental triggers you can use to optimize every element of your landing page. 
Optimizing your offer
Your offer is the most important part of your landing page. Because no matter how many optimization techniques you employ, if your target market doesn’t want your offer, your landing page will not convert. 
A quick way to test whether your offer will convert is to see if it fulfills one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who theorized that there were distinct levels of basic human needs. Certain levels (like the need for food and water) had to be met first before a person would care about more sophisticated needs (like creativity). 
Maslow envisioned this hierarchy like a pyramid: 

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If you can match your offer to one of these basic human needs, you can be relatively sure it will be desired. 
For example, computer security software would fall into the “safety needs” category, like this offer from McAfee Total Protection:

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On the other hand, a university landing page inviting visitors to enroll would fall into the “esteem” or “self-actualization” category, like this offer from Capella University:

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Optimizing your copy
Your copy – the words on your landing page – is what will ultimately persuade someone to take the desired action. So, it’s very important. 
Don’t rely on sales techniques, such as using hyperbolic words like “best” or “only.” Today, most people are too familiar with marketing tactics to fall for these techniques — and may even resist them. For example, a 2013 study found that people react negatively when they sense someone is trying to persuade them in marketing. 
Instead, emphasize the free will of the reader, so they feel empowered to make their own decision and will be more likely to trust your offer. Use phrases such as “you are free to choose” to ensure readers don’t feel they are being “sold to.”
Another non-salesy (but very effective) strategy is to use storytelling in your copy. Studies have found that traditional urgency techniques (e.g. “limited time offer”) are not as effective, especially in the long-term, as showing the value of your offer through storytelling. 
To make storytelling easier, try following the simple framework created by the founder of Storybrand, Donald Miller. It consists of elements found in the hero’s journey: 
 

Character

Has a Problem

Meets a Guide

Who Gives Them a Plan

And Helps Them Avoid Failure

To End in Success

For example, this accounting firm’s landing page uses the story of the Problem their market is facing to make their message persuasive, but not salesy:

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Optimizing your headlines
To capture visitors’ attention immediately and keep them engaged on your page long enough to evaluate your offer, you need a compelling headline. Speak directly to the benefits of your product or service and how it fulfills an essential need for your prospect.
One technique to use is the focusing effect.
The focusing effect is the tendency of people to place too much emphasis on one thing at the expense of others. When it comes to your landing page headline, though, you can use this to your advantage.
Your product or service likely has many benefits, but highlighting your unique value proposition (UVP) in your headline helps prospects focus strongly on that one feature. 
JumpCrew lists several of its benefits in the copy, but highlights its UVP (more customers for less money) in the headline to grab visitors’ attention and make them hungry for more information:

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Optimizing your images
Your images are also very important when it comes to how visitors will feel when they view your landing page. 
One proven strategy is to choose images of people (instead of inanimate objects). 
The theory goes that it’s easier for people to relate to other people than to objects. But you can also take this a step further and take advantage of research that found that when the people in the images are looking at the CTA button, viewers also instinctively look at the button and become click it more often. 
For other best principles, you might find it helpful to follow an image checklist created by the 60-Second Marketer. The images must…

Look trustworthy
Demonstrate the advantages of the offer
Contrast with page design (stand out)
Express desired emotions
Make it easy to see the CTA button

For example, on the following landing page, there’s a photo of a person, who’s looking at the CTA button, and who conveys the desired emotions of the target audience: 

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Optimizing your CTA buttons
Finally, apply strategy to create CTA buttons that drive more conversions. One of the most effective strategies is to make your buttons stand out from the rest of the page as much as possible. 
According to marketing and psychology researcher, Nick Kolenda, this strategy works because of something called processing fluency. Processing fluency refers to the phenomenon that the ease with which readers understand what to do is closely related to whether they perceive the action as easy and pleasant. 
In other words, if a button is easy to spot and click, it feels easier and more pleasant to actually click. In turn, this will increase conversions.
Take a look at the following example landing page. The CTA button is orange when nothing else on the page is orange. This makes the CTA stand out more. 

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Wrap Up
Simply creating a landing page and generating traffic to it is not sufficient to increase your conversions. You must design the page with the right elements while implementing some mental triggers. Only then will your visitors be persuaded to take action and your marketing funnel start to collect more and more leads.
The post Design An Optimized Landing Page Using Mental Triggers appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Big Idea or Enduring Question: How do you allow Sales reps an easy to transfer their opportunities to another user? In today’s world, Sales reps switch their job frequently. Transferring their existing or closed deals or leads to another user is … Continue reading →
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 63 (Allow Users to Mass Transfer Records They Own) appeared first on Automation Champion.

My email inboxes can be a bit of a mess at times — both my personal and professional accounts. I tend to check my emails when I first log on in the morning, at lunchtime, and when my afternoon meetings taper off, but if you wanted me to verify the exact times of day I’m most inclined to review, I couldn’t do it. And when I’m short on time, I typically gravitate toward the more interesting messages sitting at the top of my inbox, instead of the critical business notices that require me to take an action.
When it comes to identifying engagement patterns like these, humans are pretty unreliable. But as it turns out, computers are very good at it.
As a marketer, don’t you want your email to be at the top of your subscriber’s inbox at the precise moment they’re ready to read it?
That’s where Einstein comes in.

What is Pardot ESTO?

Einstein Send Time Optimization (ESTO), one of the most popular features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, is now available for Pardot customers. ESTO uses artificial intelligence to evaluate the open and click data for your messages, then picks a send time that’s best for each prospect.
When you conduct a list email send with ESTO, it means that your message will show up at the top of your prospect’s inbox at the exact time they’re most likely to interact with it — whether that time is between their first and second cup of coffee, during the lunch time lull, or between back-to-back afternoon meetings when they’re looking for an energy boost.
In Pardot, this level of personalization is now as easy as scheduling a send.
How Pardot ESTO works
Simply pick a start time for your send and a time window over which to send it. The length of time can range from three hours to one week. When the scheduled start time arrives, Einstein will pick the best send time for each prospect and deliver accordingly.
Over the course of the send’s time window, you can monitor your open rate to see which prospects are still in the queue and the individual send time for each prospect, so you can keep a close eye on what’s happening with the send.
I may not be as wise as a computer when it comes to analyzing my daily email habits, but I do know that the best time to get started with ESTO is now.
Ready to try it? ESTO is only available in the New Pardot Email Experience. Still need to activate it? Get started with our Set Up Email in Pardot knowledge article.

In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, two children drop breadcrumbs in the woods to find their way home. Nowadays, you probably don’t experience too many lost-in-the-wood experiences, but I’m willing to bet you’ve felt disoriented on a poorly designed website.
In web design, breadcrumb navigation is a way to show your users their location and how they got there. Like Hansel’s breadcrumbs, it helps users retrace their path and see where they are in the greater scheme of your site.

While you can style breadcrumbs however you’d like, they tend to look the same across websites that use them. Here’s a simple example of breadcrumbs from the HubSpot Knowledge Base:

Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the acclaimed Nielsen Norman Group, has been recommending breadcrumb navigation since 1995, and makes a strong point for their usefulness and efficiency: “All that breadcrumbs do is make it easier for users to move around the site, assuming its content and overall structure make sense. That’s sufficient contribution for something that takes up only one line in the design.”
If your business’s website is multi-layered, you might consider implementing breadcrumb navigation to make your site easier to navigate. However, like any design element, there’s a right and wrong way of doing it. Here, we’ll explore nine tips and examples to ensure you’re creating the most effective breadcrumb navigation for your users.
Breadcrumb Navigation Tips and Examples
1. Only use breadcrumb navigation if it makes sense for your site’s structure.
Breadcrumb navigation has a linear structure, so you only want to use it if it makes sense with your website’s hierarchy. If you have lower-level pages that are accessible from different landing pages, using breadcrumb navigation will only confuse readers who keep accessing the same pages from different starting points. Additionally, if your site is relatively simple, with only a few pages, you probably don’t need breadcrumb navigation.
2. Don’t make your breadcrumb navigation too large.
Your breadcrumb navigation is a secondary tool to your primary navigation bar, so it shouldn’t be too large or prominent on the page. For instance, on DHL’s website, their primary navigation bar is large and recognizable, with columns like “Express” “Parcel & eCommerce” “Logistics”, etc. Their breadcrumb navigation is the smaller section below that reads, “DHL Global | > Logistics | > Freight Transportation”. You don’t want your users to mistake your breadcrumb navigation as the primary navigation bar.

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3. Include the full navigational path in your breadcrumb navigation.
I Googled “Elon University Non-Degree Students” to reach this landing page, but Elon is smart to include the full navigational path, including “Home” and “Admissions”. If you leave out certain levels, you’ll confuse users and the breadcrumb path won’t feel as helpful. Even if users didn’t begin on the homepage, you want to give them an easy way to explore your site from the beginning.

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4. Progress from highest level to lowest.
It’s important your breadcrumb navigation reads left to right, with the closest link to the left being your homepage, and the closest link to the right being the user’s current page. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found users spend 80% of their time viewing the left half of a page and 20% viewing the right half, making a strong case for left-to-right design. Plus, the link closest to the left will appear as the beginning of the chain, so you want it to be your highest-level page.
5. Keep your breadcrumb titles consistent with your page titles.
To avoid confusion, you’ll want to remain consistent with your page and breadcrumb titles, particularly if you’re targeting certain keywords in those titles. You also want to clearly link your breadcrumb titles to the page. If the breadcrumb title doesn’t have a link, make it clear. Nestle effectively labels its breadcrumb titles to match the page titles. “Areas of impact & commitment”, for instance, reads the same in the breadcrumb navigation as it does on the page.
Nestle also does a good job differentiating links from non-links with different colors — the links are blue, while the non-links remain gray.

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6. Get creative with design.
The traditional breadcrumb navigation looks like this: Home > About Us > Careers. However, you don’t need to follow the traditional path if you feel a different design could appeal more to your audience, or look better on your site.
For instance, Target uses breadcrumb navigation in their product pages (because who wouldn’t get lost in the virtual shoe section?), but uses “/” symbols and simple black and grey text. In this case, the subtle design variation makes sense for their site’s aesthetic.

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7. Keep it clean and uncluttered.
Your breadcrumb navigation is simply an aid for the user, and ideally shouldn’t be noticed unless the user is looking for it. For this reason, you don’t want to clutter your breadcrumb navigation with unnecessary text.
Eionet, for instance, could do without their “You are here” text. While meant to be helpful, the text clutters the page. With the right design, a breadcrumb navigation should be noticeable enough without an introduction.

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8. Consider which type of breadcrumb navigation makes the most sense for your site.
There are a few different types of breadcrumbs you might use — location-based, attribute-based, and history-based. Location-based breadcrumbs show the user where they are in the site’s hierarchy. Attribute-based breadcrumbs show users which category their page falls into. Finally, history-based breadcrumbs show users the specific path they took to arrive at the current page.
Bed Bath & Beyond uses attribute-based breadcrumb navigation to show users which category their product page falls under, so users can click back to “Kitchen” or “Small Appliances” to peruse similar items. This type of breadcrumb navigation is most effective for Bed Bath & Beyond customers. When you’re creating a breadcrumb navigation, consider what’s most useful for your site’s visitors.

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9. Know your audience.
Best practices in breadcrumb navigation urge web designers to place the navigation at the top of the page — but Apple, one of the most valuable companies of all time, defies this logic by putting their breadcrumb navigation at the bottom of their site. Ultimately, it’s critical you know your audience. Apple’s customers are typically tech-savvy, and would likely find the navigation if they needed it. Consider your customers’ needs, and implement A/B testing if you’re unsure.

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Breadcrumb Navigation in HTML and CSS
Not only are breadcrumbs useful — they’re also easy to add to your website with a bit of HTML and CSS code.
Let’s start with the HTML, which we’ll use to make the links themselves. The easiest way to do this is to organize your links in an unordered list (<ul>) element, with each list item (<li>) comprising a link in the breadcrumb series until the final item, which denotes the current page.
Here’s an HTML template for breadcrumbs that you can use:

Notice how I’ve also enclosed the unordered list in an HTML <nav> (navigation) element, and added a class and an ARIA label to its opening tag. This is optional, but helps make your page more accessible to screen readers and search engines.
Of course, this HTML alone isn’t enough — right now, we just have a bulleted list of links. By adding CSS, we can achieve the breadcrumb look that we’re looking for. Apply the following CSS to the HTML above:

Together, this code generates a basic breadcrumb navigation area that can be used on any site — see the final result below. I’ve also added some additional styling for a cleaner look. To see how the breadcrumbs look without this styling, comment out the code at the bottom of the CSS tab.
See the Pen Breadcrumbs in HTML and CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.
 
Breadcrumb Navigation in Bootstrap CSS
Bootstrap CSS also offers a way to create breadcrumbs without needing to add custom CSS. To do this, use the Breadcrumb component like so. Here’s an example from the Bootstrap 5 documentation:
See the Pen Breadcrumbs in Bootstrap CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.
This is just the basics of breadcrumb navigation in Bootstrap — see the Bootstrap breadcrumb documentation to learn all the details.
Design to Help Users Navigate Your Site
Ultimately, breadcrumb navigation is an effective tool to make your site easier to navigate, but you want to follow design best practices to ensure you’re leveraging the tool’s helpfulness. For additional UX advice, check out our Ultimate Guide to UX Design.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Content marketing as a strategy centers around the idea that providing value to readers will eventually convert them to customers. But, content creation isn’t just about the direct funnel from Google to your site to sales. Your content can and should help your peers, too – even those who might be seen as your competition.  A…
The post How to Get Other Sites to Link to Your Content (and Why You Should) appeared first on Benchmark Email.

 

 

As Campaign Monitor reminds us, segmented campaigns can lead to a 760% increase in revenue. What’s more, segmentation makes companies 130% more likely to research the motivations of their buyers and 60% more likely to understand their fears and challenges – which leads to exceeding companies’ lead generation and revenue goal. Hyper Segmentation takes this game to the whole new level through adapting no-code, AI-driven solutions to bring even more marketing ROI.

 

You want to use 1:1 hyper segmentation, but can’t code? That can be arranged!

 

It seems like marketers and e-commerce owners have recognized the importance of the right consumer experience. I’m talking about an experience that can’t be faked with mass campaigns. Every audience is different. Customers belong to different demographics and passion tribes. So it’s not surprising that they require different approaches. Proper segmentation for all marketing efforts may be the answer.

 

Segmentation is named among TOP 10 challenges by MarTech users. (Automizy)
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Campaign Monitor)
Segmentation is mostly used to adjust content to recipients’ preferences. 70% of consumers say they would pay more attention to personalized products. (Infogroup)
Segmentation makes companies 130% more likely to research the motivations of their buyers and 60% more likely to understand their fears and challenges – which leads to exceeding companies’ lead generation and revenue goal. (Cintell)

77% of the ROI generated through email marketing comes from audience segmentation, targeted, and triggered campaigns. (Higher Logic)
Segmented campaigns get 14.37% more opens and 64.78% more clicks. (MailChimp)

 

This all sounds very encouraging, but often professionals don’t know much about how to fully leverage the potential of segmentation based on demographic/behavioral data, not to mention the full profile of CDP data. The challenges vary – lack of analytical skills, lack of proficiency with the platform, or lack of time for multi-level target group analysis and so on.

 

Moreover, classic segmentation no longer meets the needs of the audience. What they are looking for and what they respond to best is 1:1 hyper personalization. Is it possible to achieve it in a simple way?

 

Go where no man has gone before and let AI identify the most relevant segments for your marketing campaigns

 

Go beyond basic demographics, with hyper segmentation that considers interests and behaviors of consumers to understand their individual preferences.
Leverage 1:1 personalization for real-time customization of marketing campaigns, content and customer experience.

Identify high-potential and high-probability-to-buy segments and accounts to target and deliver the right messages and offers at the right time to get the desired action or response.

Create, edit, manage and analyze all segments from one unified, user-friendly Center, and from all places in the system where contact selection takes place for example:
Email Marketing (individual campaigns, birthday emails etc.) 
Web Push Notifications, 
Mobile Marketing,
Contact Management,
Custom Audiences.

Use a unified interface that allows instant no-code data processing and leverage accessible and editable segmentation creators that save your time while granting precise targeting. 

Hyper Segmentation Center is a cutting-edge solution that allows easy, one-click creation of the most advanced segments combining all data collected in CDP, such as behavior, transactions, customer characteristics, etc.
Easily target the most meaningful groups of contacts for specific campaigns without composing new ones manually for every marketing action. AI-powered segmentation center will analyze customer data and deliver a list of relevant segments.

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Join the segmentation revolution

 

Proactively engage all your contacts and enjoy good performing campaigns and excellent ROI with preset custom-made audiences.
With one click select predefined groups, like for example customers with a high risk of churn to leverage existing long-term growth strategies while still discovering the platform.

Save your time while getting fast track to increased ROI with simple dashboard accessible from any place where you set campaign audience
Mix and match segments to prepare the most relevant groups of contacts and adjust any segment at any time from any place, even outside the creator.

Target unconventional yet most relevant groups of customers beyond buyer personas to maximize the effect of each campaign.

 

What’s the difference between standard segmentation tools and Customer Segmentation Center?

 

Although the practices of marketing and branding have been around for centuries, the industries started to shift in the 1990s.
The digital age came about and companies began to market their brands more than their products with the goal of giving their company a personality.

As a millennial born in the early 90s, I grew up at the same time as the digital revolution. In fact, millennials have a reputation for spending all day on their phones and being lazy.
However, I’d argue that as the digital age and technology began to evolve, so did society’s work expectations. Businesses, and even employees, are expected to be a brand in and of themselves that has value and positively impacts society (instead of just selling products).
As a marketer or business owner, you might be wondering, “How can I create a brand that my audience connects with?”
In this post, we’ll discuss how to create brand pillars that clearly communicate your brand identity to your audience.
For example, brand pillars can be core values, important strengths, or aspects of a brand that support or add dimension to the core idea of “Who are you?”
Essentially, these brand pillars can be anything that your customers find important — perhaps it’s innovation, reliability, on-time delivery, etc.
Brand pillars are meant to differentiate your brand and should be valued and endorsed by your customers. When someone asks why your customers like your brand, they’ll probably be able to list off your brand pillars if you’re clearly communicating your brand well.
These pillars should be decided on strategically to provide better products or services to your customers.
I know this might sound slightly conceptual. Brand pillars can be easier to understand when we break them down into categories.
Below, let’s learn about the five brand pillar categories you can use to determine your own brand pillars.
What are the five brand pillars?
The main brand pillars are purpose, perception, identity, values, and brand experience.
1. Purpose
Purpose can be described as the mission and foundation of your company. It will answer questions like “Why did you start your company?” and “What are you hoping to achieve?”
Think about this strategically. What do you want to communicate to your audience as your purpose? What do you want to communicate to employees or potential employees? Knowing your purpose will help you hire employees who align with your mission and correctly target your audience.
Purpose can even be described as the culture of your company. For example, at HubSpot, our culture is about growth-minded individuals who have HEART (they are humble, empathetic, adaptable, remarkable, and transparent). The acronym HEART is one of our brand pillars as a company.
2. Perception
Perception is about how your customers perceive your company/brand. You’ll want to either evaluate how current customers view your brand, or if you’re a new company, write down some characteristics that you’d like customers to associate with your brand.
This could be something like hospitality or leadership. If these are your perception brand pillars, then you want customers to view you as a leader in your industry that is a trusted, good host (this makes sense for a hotel, for example).
3. Identity
This brand pillar is about who you are as a brand. A brand is something you are, it’s not something you have. It’s all about your personality as a company.
For example, an identity brand pillar could be something like “cheeky” or “bold.” This means that you want customers to see you like a cheeky personality. The reason to define this brand pillar is so you have a guiding light for how to be human and interact with your customers.
4. Values
Your values are about communicating your overall position to your audience. What’s important to you as a company? How do you want to make a difference? This could be something like valuing integrity and ownership.
5. Brand Experience
Lastly, brand experience is a pillar that will help you promote your products and services. People use products and services when they like a brand. When there are so many options to choose from these days, customers will choose to buy from companies they like. This means you need to create a positive customer experience and association with your overall brand.
By using these brand pillars as a basis, you can create a brand identity that sets you apart from your competition. Companies that fail most likely haven’t considered what their brand pillars are and how they align.
If you have a robust strategy, but you don’t have a purpose or identity, people won’t feel compelled to purchase from you. On the other hand, if you promise that you value user experience, but the perception is off, then you also won’t find success.
In the next section, let’s review how you can use these categories to define your brand pillars.
How to Determine Your Brand Pillars
To determine your brand pillars, you should ask yourself a series of questions to come up with the top characteristics that you want to communicate to your audience.
Purpose

Why did you/are you starting your company?
What do you want to accomplish?
How do you want to serve your customers?
What value do you offer to customers that support your mission and vision?

Your purpose should serve as a magnet for employees and customers who share similar values. It will also provide a hook to tell your company’s story and differentiate yourself from your competition.
Perception

What role do you play in your customer’s mind?
What do they perceive your value to be?

This pillar could be something like education. Perhaps people view you as a place they go to learn about your industry. This is completely owned by your audience and how they interpret your brand through messaging and reputation and management.
Identity

What’s your culture like?
What’s your point of view?
What kind of tone of voice do you use in communication?
What are your convictions and behaviors that define your brand?

Defining your voice and brand is about strategizing how you want to speak to your audience on several platforms. The brand personality signals what employees might be like, how they behave, who your customers are, etc.
Values

What’s important to you in your interaction with your audience?
What do you value above all else, even before your own financial interests?

Again, this pillar will help define what you care about as a company.
Brand Experience

How do customers interact with you at each touchpoint?
What kind of experience do you want customers to have?
What makes your customer experience better than your competitors?

This pillar will define much of your perceived personality and reputation.
When creating your brand pillars, think about what your customers get from you. Do they get convenience, higher quality, time savings, etc.?
To determine your brand pillars, think about your brand strategy and come up with things that clearly define your personality, voice, customer experience, your purpose, and how people will perceive your brand.
Brand Pillar Examples
1. Hilton Brand Pillars
Hilton’s brand pillars are very clearly stated on its website. They value hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership, and now (sense of urgency).
These are stated as their values, but they’re really brand pillars that showcase how the company wants to be perceived, what their identity is, what the customer experience is like, and what they value.
2. Patagonia Brand Pillars
Patagonia is a brand that has personality and purpose. Their mission is to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis (this is their purpose). Additionally, Patagonia offers a minimalistic style and values simplicity and utility (this is their personality and values).
3. Nike Brand Pillars
Since it was founded, Nike has been consistent in its brand pillars. They are all about competition and surpassing one’s limits. All the company’s advertising, messaging, and investment decisions support that personality and value.
Brand pillars are a great way to define and differentiate your company from the competition. It’s not just about making products anymore — it’s about having a voice and point of view that offers value to its customers.

What will your marketing team look like six months from now? Or a year from now? How many people will you add? What new tools, systems, and data will you need?
There are a lot of potential questions you can ask about the future of your business, but there is one certainty: you’ll deal with more data, more people, more processes, and more complex problems as you grow.
But how do you deal with that in your marketing team? That’s where marketing technology, or martech, comes in. By automating tasks and removing obstacles from your team’s workflows, marketing tech empowers your team to waste less time on menial tasks, allowing your business to grow more efficiently.

When you put it all together, you get a marketing technology stack: a collection of tools that your team uses to do their best work every day.
As your team and business scales, it’s important to create a martech stack that streamlines your day-to-day processes. In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about martech and how to build a marketing tech stack that will stay with you as you grow your business.

Marketing technology can be used by any type of marketer — even non-digital marketers. One martech tool is typically used for a different marketing discipline.
Here are a few examples of disciplines and a martech tool that can be used for them.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): A keyword research tool such as Moz is an example of a martech tool for SEO.

Content marketing: A content management platform such as CMS Hub can be used for content creation.

Social media marketing: A social management platform such as HootSuite is an example of a martech tool for social media marketing.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Google Ads is an example of a martech tool for SEM.

Event marketing: A lead collection software like the one included in Marketing Hub can be used for lead capture during an event.

Advertising: A programmatic ad platform such as mediasmart is an example of a martech tool for advertising.

Instead of adopting a plethora of different tools, some marketers choose to adopt an all-in-one solution such as Marketing Hub.
How is technology used in marketing?
Technology is used by marketers to execute their marketing campaigns. Marketers use software to automate marketing tasks and collect data so they can get insights related to campaign activity and their impact on customers.
For example, say that your team spends a significant amount of time emailing customers. The action feels repetitive, and it’s keeping people away from more pressing assignments. You may choose to use an email automation software, so less time is spent sending emails.
You also want the software you use to track data related to those emails, so you gain an understanding of how your users interact with them.
In brief, marketers use technology to make their jobs easier and understand their levels of success. The technology that marketers use in their campaigns is known as their marketing tech stack.
Let’s say that you primarily focus on SEO and paid ads on social media. You would add the following tools to your marketing tech stack: Moz for SEO and HootSuite for social media management.
Alternatively, you can adopt an all-in-one solution such as Marketing Hub to take care of both your SEO and social media marketing strategies.
For instance, Marketing Hub’s SEO tool will assist you in optimizing your site with its built-in keyword research tools, as well as as-you-type optimization advice while you’re creating content.

Its social media management tool will take care of everything related to social media — including post creation and audience engagement analytics. You can even reply directly to comments from the tool.

Overall, the technology you choose will help you execute your campaigns from start to finish.
But with so many to choose from, it can be difficult to build a martech stack that works for your team. Let’s go over how you can build an effective stack.
How to Build a Marketing Tech Stack
There is no out-of-the-box method for building your martech stack. Your company is unique, and your perfect marketing stack is not going to look exactly like anyone else’s.
This is the time for choosing the right tech tools for your team and setting them up in a way that your future team can use and understand. To do so, take the following steps.
1. Identify your primary marketing strategies and goals.
Before ever choosing a martech tool, you’ll need to outline your marketing strategies. It doesn’t have to be complicated, either: you simply need to have an idea of the basic strategies that you want to implement.
If you already have an established marketing team, take a look at the strategies that are currently in place. This will help you gauge, from the get-go, the types of tools you need.
Here’s an example. Let’s say that you want to increase organic traffic to your website. The strategy for that would be SEO. Next, you want to capture leads. So you would invest in a website redesign strategy that highlights your calls-to-actions more efficiently.
Jot these strategies down in a document, then include ideas for possible tools you can use to implement the strategies. If you don’t know which tools you use, simply write that you’ll list them after further research.
Example 1

Goal: Increase organic traffic

Strategy: SEO

Tools: To be determined

Example 2

Goal: Get more visitors to convert

Strategy: Redesign the website

Tools: To be determined

2. Survey your team to find out their challenges.
Next, sit down with your team and find out the challenges they encounter when trying to execute their day-to-day duties.
What adds more time to their workflow? What makes their job harder?
While the conversation should be open-ended, try to connect their challenges to your marketing goals. For instance, if you want to increase organic traffic, ask what specifically your team finds challenging when trying to optimize the website. If they say keyword research takes too much time, then you’d know that you’ll need a keyword research tool specifically.
Jot these challenges down in the same document you’ve already started. Keep it simple — just a sentence or a few bullet points will do.
Example 1

Goal: Increase organic traffic

Strategy: SEO

Challenges: Keyword research takes too much time

Tools: Keyword research tool that quickens the process

Example 2

Goal: Get more visitors to convert

Strategy: Redesigned website

Challenges: Unable to add CTAs because of the outdated backend system

Tools: A new content management system that allows the team to add CTAs to any page

3. Establish an estimated budget.
Building your dream martech stack means nothing if you can’t afford it. As you begin to determine the types of tools you’ll need, think about the funds you’ll allot for them.
You can go several ways about this. You can determine a budget per tool or per strategy. Alternatively, you can choose a budget overall for the entire team in a yearly, quarterly, or monthly basis.
Choosing a monthly budget is the best choice for small businesses without a dedicated finance team. Most tools are available on a monthly subscription basis, which makes it easier to drop one if it doesn’t work for the team.
You can also choose a budget per strategy. For instance, you can decide you’ll invest $200 a month in SEO tools.
Be sure to take into account the amount of seats you’ll need for the tool, or ensure the team is open to sharing one subscription. Most times, sharing a single subscription will work without a problem, and you can save a significant amount of money.
4. Research the tools you’ll consider for your martech stack.
Now that you have your strategies, your tool ideas, and your budget, it’s time to research the actual products you’ll add to your martech stack. If you’re a marketing leader, you can leave this task to individual team members, because they’ll be the ones using the tools.
It’s helpful to look at product curation posts to get a general idea of the offerings that are out there. For the keyword research challenges in your team, for example, you can look at a list of keyword research tools. If you’re looking for a new CMS, you should look at a list of the best CMS systems.
From there, you can investigate pricing, product reviews, and general fit for your team.
Make a list of the tech tools in a spreadsheet and include pricing and a general description of the product. From there, refine the list until you’ve decided on the tools you want to try out, and be sure to specify whether the tool needs a monthly or yearly subscription.
5. Consider non-marketing tools to add to your tech stack.
When we talk about the martech stack, we’re often caught up in marketing-specific tools. But there are a wide range of “general” tools that are useful for a marketing team.
Project management tools, collaboration platforms, and data sync software solutions are just a few of the products you can consider. Anything that cuts time from a complicated workflow is worth exploring. Google Drive would be an example, and so would Asana.
Add these products to your martech list, including the pricing and a brief description.
6. Compile the data that you’ll transfer into the tools.
After you’ve purchased the tools, it’s time to transfer the data. Already have a list of leads? How about Microsoft Word documents you’d like to import into Google Drive for collaborative editing?
Compile all of them in folders. Assign a type of data to each team member. For instance, one team member can compile the contacts from a conference. Another team member can compile the current templates you use for your social media posts. Another can compile all of the copy from the website for the website redesign.
When it’s time to sign up for the tools and adopt them, you can transfer these files and data and more easily pick up where you left off.
7. Assign one team member to create a workflow per tool.
Now that it’s time to adopt the martech tools, you don’t want to throw it out to your team without a workflow. That’s an easy way to end up with a subscription that no one is using.
Assign one team member to explore one specific tool. This team member will jot down workflow steps for using the tool effectively and write a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots. After, schedule a meeting for the team member to carry out a live tutorial.
Why? You can establish the best way to use the tool without a lot of guesswork. The process will be scattered and haphazard if everyone starts using the tool at once. By having a single uniform process, you can guarantee that every team member is using the tool to its fullest extent.
8. Analyze the tools’ success and switch solutions if necessary.
You don’t want to end up with an unused martech stack. Always audit your tools for their success — whether they effectively streamline workflows, automate tasks, and help your team do their work in a better way.
If not, there’s no shame in cancelling your subscription and going for another solution. Take a look at product curation posts, or research individual tools you may have heard of from other marketing leaders.
Let’s go over a few tips you should apply when building your martech stack.
Martech Stack Tips
As you build your marketing tech stack, you’ll be pulled in all sorts of different directions. When your business is growing, you’ll be tempted to add more complexity to address urgent gaps.
We’ve been there. HubSpot’s marketing operations team is all too familiar with the challenge of dealing with more and more as our team grows.
We’ve learned a lot along the way — so we gathered insights from HubSpot’s resident operations experts to ask what they wish they would have known when growing HubSpot’s own marketing tech stack.
1. Strategy first, technology second.
As companies grow, it can be tempting to rely on technology to support processes that are still evolving. Usually, this happens when a team adopts powerful tools that have a lot of potential, and they try to mold their systems around it.
HubSpot’s marketing operations team has made this mistake, too, and with an important takeaway: What sets apart truly powerful tech stacks isn’t just about the technology.
“The tools themselves won’t make you successful but rather how you use them,” explains Kerri Harrington, Marketing Ops Analyst here at HubSpot.
Harrington has worked closely with HubSpot Partners, consulting many who were in the midst of building their tech stacks. She taught them to think about their tech stack not as the powerhouse behind their systems, but a vehicle to efficiently and effectively execute their strategy.
If you are still developing your strategy, she says, try drawing out and visualizing your tech stack. This gives you an opportunity to think critically about each tool, the purpose it serves, and where there is any overlap or duplication in your tools.
2. Keep systems simple.
Have you heard of the “keep it simple, silly” (KISS) principle? The term, originally coined by an aeronautical engineer in the US Navy, states that simplicity guarantees the greatest levels of user acceptance and interaction.
The term is used often in software design, for example, where function and instruction creep can make products unmanageable over time.
How do you prevent this happening in your own company as it continues to grow? Put your current strategy down on paper, and review the value of every stage of your process with your leadership team. Consider what processes could be done more efficiently, and what could be eliminated altogether.
“The #1 driver of complex business systems is complex business rules,” says Mark Metcoff, Director of Marketing Technology at HubSpot. “If you can simplify your go-to-market strategy as much as possible, then regardless of how you structure your systems, you’ll be heading in the right direction.”
3. Aim for medium-term solutions.
In an ideal world, every decision you make about your tech stack today will work seamlessly for your team for years to come.
In reality, though, you are probably going to change systems a dozen times over the next few years if you continue to scale. You shouldn’t worry about picking your forever tech, but do not settle for a tool that will become obsolete in 6 months, either.
“Aim for the medium-term,” Metcoff suggests. “The costs of switching systems has never been lower, thanks to the emergence of more persistent datastores like customer data platforms that can underlie front-office facing systems, and iPaaS solutions that allow you to integrate front-office providers for easy data transfer.”
4. Document everything, and document it well.
Imagine opening your spice cabinet, ready to cook up a chicken curry, to find that nothing in the cabinet is labeled. Every spice and herb is in the same colored jar, with no ingredient label or expiration date.
Unless you have a noteworthy sense of smell, this project would not be very easy or enjoyable.
This is what it’s like to step into a new role only to realize that your new team’s processes and database have not been properly documented. This is common among growing companies, because as your database grows and your systems evolve, it’s easy to end up with a lot of clutter, data integrity issues, and confusion.
Many will skip right over this — who likes to document? Who has the time to ‘waste’ a day of innovation to do seemingly admin work? We get it — But for the sake of your future team, make sure you take the time to lay down the right foundation for data architecture.
“I can’t tell you how many times we have to review the history of a change or ‘walk through’ the last couple of years on a topic,” says Maggie Butler, Builder Marketing Team Manager at HubSpot. “It gets really, really hard if no one has documented anything.”
One incredibly valuable resource HubSpot had during one of its growth spurts, she says, was the documentation built by our engineers that detailed in simple language how the logic and code worked. Aim for this level of documentation to be comprehensive across all applications, and easily accessible for everyone on your team.
In terms of marketing tools, our Lead Management tool embodies the ‘document everything’ mantra. The tool can be used to create a database of all customer information, where you can view chronological timelines of every interaction customers have had with you.
5. Choose point solutions that serve a single purpose.
A point solution is a product or service that addresses one very specific need in a marketing organization. Sometimes, you just need a piece of software to do a specific thing really, really well. There’s no shame in it.
The data sync software included in Operations Hub is a great example of this. If you use multiple different apps to execute your marketing strategy, keeping track of customer data from each app can be a tedious process. The data sync tool can integrate with your CRM to streamline this process by syncing customer data from your favorite apps into one up-to-date database.
But keep in mind that every piece you do add to your infrastructure comes with its own compliance risks, technical challenges, maintenance and upkeep, and general administration.
“Also look closely at whether or not it needs to be integrated into your tech stack,” explains Metcoff. “Sometimes point solutions work just fine in a silo.”
If you have any point solutions in your current stack, think about how it fits into the bigger picture: how does it interact with the rest of your technologies, and what do you need to do to keep it running?
6. Aim for ease of use, but don’t sacrifice the necessities.
There are a lot of options out there — so don’t settle for less than what you need. At the end of the day, you need to choose a system that’s easy for your team to pick up and use, but still has the power and flexibility you need to get things done.
The challenge with today’s marketing automation tools is that they offer either enterprise-grade power or consumer-grade ease-of-use, but never both. As a result, many still go with the safe bet — overpriced, overly complicated, and under-utilized tools — which translates to spending more time on systems than on your customers.
Best Marketing Tech Stack
The best marketing tech stack for your business is entirely tailored to your needs, but there are a few tools we recommend — especially if you’re just building out your marketing team.
Let’s take a look at a martech stack for general use, attracting site visitors, converting site visitors, and engaging leads. These martech tools are essential for running a high-performing marketing team.
Collaboration: Google Drive

Google Drive allows your team to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and folders — all on the cloud. There’s no need for anyone to download any software on their laptop. The best part is that losing work is nearly impossible with Google Drive.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: OneDrive, Dropbox
Communication: Slack

Slack is an instant messaging platform that’s specifically designed for work (and not leisure chatting). This tool makes it easy for your marketing team to share quick updates, send files, and communicate live if necessary. With Slack, there’s no need to send emails that can be covered in a quick conversation.
Pricing: Free; $6.67/user/month (Pro); $12.50/user/month (Business +); Custom (Enterprise Grid)
Alternatives: Google Chat, Microsoft Teams
Project Management: Asana

Project management is the heart and soul of marketing. Whether your team is scheduling campaigns, managing complicated workflows, or working on a project-to-project basis, you don’t want anything to fall through the cracks. Asana makes it easy by providing a collaborative space for your team to check off tasks and share project updates.
Pricing: Free; $10.99/user/month (Premium); $24.99/user/month (Business)
Alternatives: Trello, Freedcamp, Project.co
Asset Creation: Canva

Canva offers a wide range of helpful templates to help your marketing team create assets for anything. Social media posts, Facebook banners, posters, infographics, presentations, flyers, and brochures can all be created with Canva. The best part is that you can start for free, and there’s virtually no learning curve. You can sign up and start using it right away.
Pricing: Free; $199.99/year (Pro); $30/user/month (Enterprise)
Alternatives: Visme, Snappa, Adobe Creative Cloud (recommended for advanced users)
Stock Images: Unsplash

Stock images are used in any type of marketing material, such as blog posts, banners, flyers, and brochures. It’s illegal to use images you find online unless they’re under a Creative Commons license. Some of these images are also not of professional quality. Unsplash is a great option for getting access to and downloading high-quality stock photos for free.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: Pexels, Shutterstock (Paid), Getty Images (Paid), iStock Photos (Paid)
Image Optimization: Toolur

After you download stock images, it’s important to compress them so that they don’t slow down your website. There are many image compression tools out there, but Toolur is one of the best. You can upload up to 25 images at a time, choose different compression methods, set image quality, and resize them all to a preset width. Competitors only allow you to upload an image at a time or try to upsell you by restricting compression options.
If you’re optimizing GIFs, we recommend Ezgif.com.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: Squoosh.app, TinyJPG
Grammar Checker: Grammarly

Publishing error-free copy is paramount to presenting your business professionally online. With Grammarly, you can take all the manual work out of copy-editing your work. Although it’s still recommended to give your pieces one final read-through before publication, Grammarly will catch most errors.
Pricing: Free; $12/month (Premium); $12.50/user/month (Business)
Alternatives: ProWritingAid, Hemingway App
Content Management and Blogging: CMS Hub

If you don’t yet have a website or blog and need to create one, you’ll need a scalable CMS system to power your website. If you already have a website but the CMS is clunky and hard-to-use, you’ll also need to seek a replacement that makes it easier to publish and update content.
CMS Hub is one of the best options in the business. You can build landing pages, create forms, add pop-up CTAs, publish blog posts, and see all of your performance metrics in one easy-to-use platform. It’s integrated with Marketing Hub, allowing you to seamlessly connect your other marketing initiatives to your website. Because it’s an all-in-one solution, there’s no need to pay for plugins and add-ons that slow down your site.
Pricing: $270/month (Professional); $900/month (Enterprise)
Alternatives: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal
Website Visitor Analytics: Google Analytics

Knowing who’s visiting your site, when they’re visiting, where they’re visiting from, and whether they bounce off is critical to understanding and improving your overall website performance. Google Analytics also helps you measure your organic traffic, see top landing pages, and see top exit pages.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: StatCounter (Paid), Simple Analytics (Paid)
Web Page Analytics: Google Search Console

While Google Analytics is an excellent way to measure overall website performance, Google Search Console takes it a step further by providing analytics page-by-page. You can use it to see your top queries for either the whole site or a specific page, compare time periods, and compare two or more URLs on your site.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: Ahrefs (Paid), Moz (Paid)
Website Analytics Dashboard: Google Data Studio

You’d create a dashboard for nearly anything in marketing: email marketing performance, landing page performance, user acquisition stats, and more. For those, you’d be better off with a dedicated reporting dashboard software.
For creating dashboards on website analytics, however, Google Data Studio is a budget-friendly tool that automatically imports data from Google Analytics. This makes it an easy choice for current Google Analytics users. Simply choose the data you want to show and configure it using the drag-and-drop dashboard editor.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: HubSpot’s Dashboard and Reporting Software (included in Marketing Hub), Databox (Paid)
Email Marketing: Marketing Hub’s Email Marketing Tool

Marketing Hub’s free email marketing tool allows you to create rich HTML emails without writing a single line of code. You can also personalize the emails using smart rules and A/B test campaigns to increase click-through-rates. The tool is integrated with all of Marketing Hub’s features — so a lead from any form on your website automatically turns into a subscriber.
Pricing: Free
Alternatives: Constant Contact (Paid), MailChimp (Paid)
Marketing Automation: Marketing Hub

Marketing automation allows you to nurture leads with drip campaigns that are triggered based on a lead’s specific action. Marketing Hub allows you to automate campaigns and personalize workflows with segmentation logic. You can also score leads, send leads to sales, and trigger internal notifications.
The workflows feature is included in the Professional and Enterprise subscription tiers.
Pricing: $800/month (Professional); $3,200/month (Enterprise)
Alternatives: Marketo
SEO: Ahrefs

SEO has many facets: keyword research, backlink-building, competitive research, and rank tracking. But you don’t want to pay for different tools to do each one of those things. Ahrefs has a keyword explorer, rack tracker, and site explorer where you can audit the inbound links pointing to your competitors.
Pricing: $99/month (Lite); $179/month (Standard); $399/month (Advanced); $999/month (Agency)
Alternatives: Moz, SEMRush
Technical SEO: Screaming Frog

A robust technical infrastructure can take your website from serviceable to outstanding. Screaming Frog is an essential tool for finding 404 errors, identifying broken links, generating sitemaps, finding duplicate content (which can greatly harm your rankings), and analyzing your pages’ metadata.
Pricing: Free; $211 USD/year
Alternatives: DeepCrawl, Ahrefs, Moz
SEM (Paid Ads): Google Ads

When considering an SEM tool to add to your martech stack, there’s no better option than Google Ads. This tool allows you to place sponsored results on the search engine results pages (SERPs), and also allows you to display ads on Google’s display partners.
Pricing: Varies (Pay-Per-Click)
Alternatives: Media.net, AdRoll
Social Media Marketing: Marketing Hub’s Social Inbox

Social media marketing is critical for growing your follower base and increasing lead generation. It’s important to use a tool that allows you to post, comment, and manage your brand across multiple platforms.
Marketing Hub’s social media tool empowers your team to do all of this and more. You can schedule posts up to three years in advance, analyze your performance on social platforms, monitor brand mentions, and participate in the conversations that most matter to you. It’s included in the Professional and Enterprise subscription tiers.
Pricing: $800/month (Professional); $3,200/month (Enterprise)
Alternatives: HootSuite, SproutSocial
Video Marketing: Wyzowl

If your team does any video marketing, you’ll need a video marketing tool to help you create engaging videos that increase brand awareness and effectively explain your product. Wyzowl makes it easy because you don’t have to hire a videographer, animator, script writer, and voiceover actor to create polished, shareable videos.
Pricing: Available upon request
Alternatives: Testimonial Hero, Content Beta
Webinars: ON24

Webinars are an important tool for B2B marketers and an effective way to generate leads. If your team runs webinars or is planning to, ON24 is a top option for creating engaging webinars, gauging your event’s performance, and identifying potential leads.
Pricing: Available on request
Alternatives: GoToWebinar, Zoho Meeting
Conversion Rate Optimization: Optimizely

A conversion rate optimization tool will help your team ensure that your CTAs are designed to drive conversions. The Optimizely Digital Experience Platform allows you to experiment with colors, placement, and design of your CTAs. You can also test your website’s personalization options and deliver highly tailored recommendations to your website users.
Pricing: Available on request
Alternatives: Google Optimize, Crazy Egg
Build a Martech Stack that Helps You Grow Better
With all of the tools available these days, there is no need to use clunky, complex, and time-consuming legacy software. We believe you shouldn’t have to sacrifice productivity to get power, because the best tools combine both power and ease-of-use. When you focus on delighting your customers and creating great experiences instead of managing your software, you will grow better.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.