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Every marketing team is challenged to do more with less — especially nonprofit organizations. Often times, resources are tight, and teams are small. Sound like your organization?
We want to help. That’s why we created this nonprofit marketing guide. Your organization might not operate for profit, but it can still value from the traffic, funds, and awareness marketing brings in.
Bookmark this guide for later and use the chapter links below to jump around to sections of interest.

Inbound Marketing for Nonprofits
Your nonprofit organization likely takes up all of your time, and building a marketing plan might seem like an added responsibility that’s just not worth it.
We’re here to convince you otherwise. Inbound marketing is all about creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business.
Inbound marketing for nonprofits can help you attract new supporters for your cause, connect to valuable donors, engage your constituents, and inspire your community.
Boost your organization’s awareness and compel action. See firsthand how HubSpot can transform your nonprofit organization.
Here’s how else nonprofit marketing can help.
Nonprofit marketing raises awareness.
Your nonprofit organization is a brand, therefore you need to raise awareness just like any other business or company. Marketing raises awareness of your brand, and brand awareness spreads the word about your organization and your overall cause.
Nonprofit marketing raises funds.
Nonprofit marketing and nonprofit fundraising go hand-in-hand. The more people that know about your organization, the more potential funding you can bring in.
Nonprofit marketing drives donor memberships and recurring donations.
Many nonprofit organizations offer donation memberships and monthly giving programs, like this one from Charity: Water. These programs are valuable because your organization doesn’t have to fundraise so actively and so often, and they can actually help you raise more money — the average monthly online donation is $52 ($624 per year) compared to the average one-time gift of $128.
Marketing your nonprofit gets your cause in front of fresh eyes and informs your donors about how they can consistently contribute.
Nonprofit marketing recruits volunteers.
Nonprofit marketing isn’t just for funding — it also drives manpower (and woman-power!) to your organization. Regardless of industry or size, all nonprofits benefit from volunteers, and marketing your organization can help bring in new hands.
Moreover, volunteers are twice as likely to donate as non-volunteers.
Nonprofit marketing promotes your services.
Awareness, funding, and volunteers are integral to your nonprofit, but what about the purpose of your organization? What about the people, animals, or cause you’re helping? Marketing can help with that, too.
The more people who know about your nonprofit organization, the more people you can help.
These are just a handful of reasons you should invest in marketing (particularly inbound marketing!) for your nonprofit. Now, let’s discuss how to build a nonprofit marketing plan so you can start bringing in new funds, volunteers, and constituents.

Crafting a nonprofit marketing plan might not be too different than a for-profit marketing plan, but it’s debatably more important. Increasing awareness and constituent engagement without exhausting your hardworking team requires approaching your marketing systematically.
That’s where a nonprofit marketing plan comes into play. Putting systems in place to produce and distribute your marketing content allows you to focus on operating and scaling your nonprofit.
Here’s how to create a successful nonprofit marketing plan.

1. Define Your Marketing Goals
Your nonprofit marketing plan exists to transform your organization’s mission and big-picture objectives into strategic, actionable goals.

For example, let’s say one of your objectives was to protect the welfare of animals in your community (like one of my favorite local rescues, ALIVE Chicago). I’d ask you to brainstorm three to five marketing ideas to advance that objective.
Some ways you could use marketing to advance that objective include:

Create and publish content that educates your community on the state of animal welfare.
Post on social media about your organization and the animals you have for adoption.
Send a weekly email newsletter sharing your content, adoptable animals, and volunteer needs.
Host a quarterly event with educational resources, foster training, and adoption opportunities.

Next, I’d ask you to turn these ideas into SMART goals. Let’s use idea number one as an example:

Specific
Educate the community on the state of animal welfare by producing one blog post per week.

Measurable
Increase traffic by 15%.

Attainable
Our blog traffic increased by 10% last year when we upped our publishing frequency to twice a month. A 15% boost in traffic with a 100% increase in production seems attainable.

Relevant
An increase in blog traffic will boost awareness of our organization, educate the community, and alert more people of our adoption opportunities — thus, saving more animals and bringing in more funding.

Timely
We will start producing one post per week and the start of next month.

SMART Goal: By the start of next month, our blog will see a 15% boost in traffic by increasing our content production from two posts per month to one post per week. This increase will boost awareness of our organization, educate the community, and alert more people of our adoption opportunities — thus, saving more animals and bringing in more funding.
See how I turned the organizational mission into a marketing objective, and then into a SMART goal? SMART goals are especially important when it comes time to analyze and measure your marketing performance (which we talk about later), so be sure to finish this step before moving forward in your nonprofit marketing plan.

2. Understand Your Audience(s)
Nonprofit marketing is different from other types of marketing because your organization is likely targeting multiple groups: constituents, customers, volunteers, and donors.
It’s imperative to define and understand each of these audiences (a.k.a. buyer personas) because your marketing will differ based on who you’re talking to. (We’ll get into key messaging next.)
For example, following our animal shelter example from above, an email targeting donors will have different messaging than an email calling for volunteers.
One easy way to organize your different audiences is using a CRM to segment the different groups. By separating contacts with tags and lists, you can easily send marketing messages to the appropriate groups.

3. Craft Your Key Messages
Key messages encompass the information you want your audiences to hear, remember, and share about your nonprofit organization. Crafting these before you employ your marketing is important for a few reasons:

Key messages keep your organization aligned. No matter who’s doing the marketing, you can be confident the same thing is being said and promoted.

Key messages simplify your marketing. With these created ahead of time, you already know what you’re going to say in your marketing messaging.

Key messages help organize your different audiences (as we talked about above). As a nonprofit organization, you’re likely talking to donors, volunteers, constituents, and your community … more personas than a typical for-profit business. Developing key messages for each of your audiences informs your team and your marketing to make sure you’re targeting the right groups.

Continuing with our animal shelter example, here’s a look at how you can craft a key message for different audiences.
Key message: We protect the welfare of animals in our community through education, adoption and fostering, and animal advocacy.

For adoption customers/constituents: By adopting or fostering, or by alerting us of animals in need, you can help us protect the welfare of animals in our community.

For volunteers: We protect the welfare of animals through round-the-clock animal care and advocacy.

For donors: You can help us protect the welfare of animals by donating to support animal care, advocacy, and adoption promotion.

All of these key messages have the same purpose and undertone, but they vary slightly depending on your audience. Together with your nonprofit organization’s mission, vision, and goals, these messages will help effectively communicate and market your organization’s needs and purpose.

4. Choose, Plan, and Create Your Marketing Strategies
Many marketers jump right to this step — creating and publishing various marketing tactics. Marketing encompasses much more than an advertisement, blog post, or event. In order to execute successfully, you must complete all the steps prior to this.
Now that you’ve established your goals (what you want), your key messages (what you’re going to say), and your audience (who you’re going to say it to), you can determine your marketing tactics (how you’re going to say it).
Marketing tactics refer to channels like email marketing, social media, events, and more. We’ve dedicated an entire section to these marketing strategies — read about them in detail below.
Regardless of which tactic you choose, be sure to conduct thorough planning before and as you execute on it. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare:

What will you do with this marketing tactic?
When will these marketing activities take place?
Why is this tactic important?
Who will be responsible for these activities?
How much do we plan to spend?
How does this tie to our organization’s marketing goals?

Tactical planning is an integral part of your overall nonprofit marketing plan. How you approach your marketing strategies and how they impact your organization is just as important as how you execute on them.
Before you hit the ground running on any of these strategies, be sure your team has a solid game plan and a full understanding of it.

5. Analyze Your Marketing Performance
Your marketing probably won’t perform perfectly from the get-go. That’s OK. Routine reporting and analysis help you figure out what’s working and what you need to change.
As you choose and establish your marketing channels, pay attention to the measurable performance indicators for each. Here’s a list of examples from our list of marketing strategies below:

Marketing Strategy
Performance Indicator

Email marketing
Email opens

Event marketing
Ticket sales

Video marketing
Video views

Social media
Shares and comments

Website
Page views

Public speaking
Referrals

Content marketing
Subscriptions

Remember the goals you defined in step one? The point of measuring your marketing performance is to stay aligned with those goals.
You can track these performance indicators using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and the analytics tools built into Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
If you know what you want to measure before you start marketing your nonprofit, you’ll know exactly what to look for — and how to determine success and impact — when your marketing is in play.

You’ve created your nonprofit marketing plan. Now, let’s talk about how to execute that plan with actionable marketing strategies.
Many of these nonprofit marketing strategies will overlap, like sharing your blog content on social media or releasing an event invite over email. These methods can and should be used in tandem, but we recommend introducing each strategy slowly so your team doesn’t overwhelm itself.
In fact, we recognize that your nonprofit is likely operating with a small (but agile!) marketing team. For this reason, throughout these sections, we’ll recommend tips for doing more with less. Ultimately, though, don’t hesitate to outsource your nonprofit marketing where needed.
Nonprofit Email Marketing
You might be using email sporadically to call for volunteers or confirm an online donation, but that’s not enough. Email marketing is a highly effective marketing resource, especially for nonprofit organizations. Why? It’s personal and powerful.
Here are a few ways to leverage email marketing to reach all of your audiences:

Send a weekly newsletter with your newest content, updates about your organization, industry data, and volunteer needs.
Send monthly emails with donation needs and opportunities.
Set up an email sequence for new subscribers thanking them for joining and educating them on your organization.
Set up an email sequence for new donors thanking them for their contribution and sharing how else they can support your organization.

Also, don’t forget to put information on your website about how to subscribe to your email list. Nonprofit organization Acumen does a great job of this by putting subscription opportunities on their homepage and in their main menu.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Automate as much as possible. Email marketing automation (like HubSpot) saves precious time and energy for your team and can be the key to growing your email list, donations, and memberships. You can also automate an email sequence triggered by website visitor behavior indicating a high level of interest, such as downloading educational content.

Nonprofit Event Marketing
Event marketing is one of the most effective (and enjoyable!) ways to grow awareness of your organization, connect with your community, raise funds, and garner support for your cause.
PAWS, which stands for Pets are Worth Saving, is another local animal rescue that I’m a fan of. They hold a PAWS 5K race every summer to raise awareness and funding for the organization.

This type of event impactful for multiple reasons:

It inspires competition and physical activity. Runners raise money for the organization and participate in the run.
It brings people in the community together to celebrate the organization and bring awareness to the PAWS cause.
It provides PAWS a channel to promote their services and adoptable pets.
It’s fun to attend and be a part of! Many people go to the event to support runners, play with dogs, and simply be a part of the fun — all while supporting and sharing PAWS.

From fundraisers to auctions to competitions, there are many different kinds of events you can organize to market your nonprofit organization.
Nonprofit Video Marketing
Whether they’re consuming content for work, school, or fun, people prefer video content. As a nonprofit organization, video marketing is a surefire way to garner interest and support from all of your audiences.
Here are a few reasons that video can help you market your nonprofit:

Video is visual. We process visual content 60,000 times faster than written content. We also remember more content, longer.

Video is personal. It inspires empathy and emotions, which can’t be said about other types of marketing.

Video is educational. Many organizations need to educate their communities on their causes in order to garner attention and funding. Video can help you do that.

Video is shareable. 92% of consumers on mobile will share videos with others. Consumers love sharing videos, especially those that inspire and resonate with them.

Video is interesting. 60% of people are report that video is a media they consume thoroughly. Keep your visitors, followers, and supporters engaged and interested with video.

The Girl Effect, a nonprofit that works to empower girls worldwide, is a great example of video marketing. The organization’s homepage is a video, which captures visitors’ attention right away. Moreover, when you click “See more,” the site opens an informative video telling you all about The Girl Effect.

Nonprofit Social Media Marketing
Social media is a highly popular marketing strategy among nonprofits. Not only is it free, but it provides an avenue for organizations to show their brand personalities and engage with their followers and supporters.
Here are some ways to use social media for your nonprofit marketing, as inspired by a HubSpot study of 9,000 nonprofits:

Share news about your organization and cause
Boost brand awareness and recognition
Fundraise
Recruit volunteers and employees
Recognize donors, employees, and volunteers

Don’t forget to use the key messaging you crafted in your nonprofit marketing plan to keep your social media posts consistent and targeted. Also, make the most of each platform to promote your organization, such as the Donate button on Facebook.
HubSpot customer FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a nonprofit organization that works to advance STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education among children.
FIRST makes use of social media in many different ways, such as using Facebook to post videos, news, fundraisers, and reviews — as well as making use of the Donate button. The organization has amassed almost 100,000 followers.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Curate content from volunteers, customers, supporters, event attendees, and donors. Implementing a user-generated content (UGC) campaign not only lessens your workload, but it also acts as strong social proof. To enact your UGC campaign, put out a call for constituent stories, images, and videos. Create a hashtag that people can use to alert you of new UGC.
Also, let curation tools work for you. Use Google Alerts and social monitoring tools to alert you when your organization, hashtags, or relevant topics or keywords are mentioned. This provides opportunities to source UGC, get inspiration for new topic ideas, and participate in relevant conversations.
Nonprofit Website
Every nonprofit organization should have a website. A website serves as a digital home base for your organization and includes critical information — what you stand for and how visitors can participate and help.
Your website also houses important assets like your blog, social media streams, event information, videos, and more … basically the rest of your marketing strategies. Lastly, your website serves as a way to intrigue, inspire, and engage your audiences.
Nonprofit organization (and HubSpot customer) American Nursing Association (ANA) is an example of an organization with an outstanding nonprofit website. The site clarifies the ANA mission, shares news and educational content, and informs visitors how to get involved through memberships, events, certifications, or donations.

Nonprofit Public Speaking
It’s said that people buy into other people, not products. The same can be said about nonprofit organizations. If consumers believe in the people behind your organization, they’re likely to buy in your cause and donate money or time.
One of the best ways for consumers to get to know your leadership team, not to mention spread the word about your cause and organization, is public speaking. Whether you speak at a local event of 100 people or a multi-day conference with thousands, the impact is the same: telling a powerful story to real people who may not yet know about your cause.
charity:water founder Scott Harrison spoke at INBOUND18. While he shared some about the conception and organization of the nonprofit, he mostly talked about the people that his organization helps — and how the audience can support the mission. Harrison not only moved the audience of thousands but also effectively marketed the charity:water purpose and brand.

 
Nonprofit Content Marketing
Content marketing and blogging are valuable marketing assets for any nonprofit organization. Here’s why:

Content educates your audiences about your mission, cause, and industry news and trends.
Content (and SEO) bring in new visitors, subscribers, donors, and leads.
Content is shareable and serves as free PR among your audiences.
Content can be repurposed and made into different types of media, saving your marketing team precious time and energy.

Creating a nonprofit marketing blog isn’t always easy. Teams are short-staffed, budgets are low, and time is precious. Thankfully, there are lots of ways around those blogging challenges, such as sourcing story ideas from volunteers, donors, and customers as well as implementing an editorial calendar so you can plan ahead.
One of my very favorite nonprofit organizations is called Blurt Foundation, a UK-based organization that exists to increase awareness and understanding of depression and support those who struggle with it. There’s a lot of misconception and misunderstanding around depression, so Blurt Foundation uses their blog content and other content resources to educate constituents and supporters. They also incorporate these content assets into their emails, social media posts, and online store.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Save time and resources by repurposing your content. Content is an appreciating asset that you can reuse and re-promote over and over. Repurposing content to create new marketing assets costs far less than creating entirely new content.
Outline all the ways you could repurpose the content you produce. For example, you could create the following list for your blog content:

Short version for use in emails or newsletters with link back to full post
Group with related posts for report
Two to three visuals images to share on social

Infographic with post information
Reaction piece to original post

Since you’re not going to promote and distribute each piece of repurposed content immediately, your content pipeline is never empty.
Check out HubSpot’s free nonprofit content today.
Strengthen Your Marketing, Promote Your Cause
Raise your hand if your organization has to constantly do more with less. 👋🏼
If that sounds like your organization, we recommend you use this guide to build a nonprofit marketing plan ASAP. Your organization might not operate for profit, but it can still value from the traffic, funds, and awareness that systematic marketing brings in.
And not only will these activities and strategies help promote your organization, but they’ll take a valuable load off the backs of your team and volunteers — freeing them up to dedicate more time to your cause and constituents.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Contents of a Great Marketing Resume
A great marketing resume should be well written and formatted, one page in length, define your unique value proposition and contain details of your employment and education. Depending on the company and the job, you can also add an interests and hobbies section to your marketing resume.

It’s ironic, but despite knowing how to sell products and services, so many marketers have a hard time selling themselves. It can often be difficult to turn the spotlight inward, but creating a standout resume is a skill all marketers need to perfect if they want to grow their career.
How to Write a Marketing Resume
If you’re a marketer whose resume could use a little polish, don’t worry. With just a few resources and some actionable tips from hiring managers themselves, we’ll help you create a truly impressive marketing resume that’s sure to stand out to recruiters.
These free resume templates feature sample copy for 10 of the most popular marketing positions. Take a look at them, and then use the advice below to customize your resume and make it rise above the rest in the stack.

1. Know your target audience.
You never start a marketing campaign without knowing who you want to reach. That’s because once you know your target audience, it’s easier for the other decisions to fall into place.
The same logic applies to your resume. If you know who will read it and what’s important to them, you can shape your message accordingly. To do this, you need to think about the type of job and company you’re hoping to work for.
Ask yourself questions like:

Is the job purely in inbound marketing, or will it require both traditional and digital work?
Will you be a specialist or a generalist?
Who is the employer — an agency with a buzzing digital marketing team in place already, or a small company looking to leverage the power of social media to grow their sales? Or maybe it’s a marketing department within a large and established corporation?

Once you’ve outlined what’s most important to the company and job you’re applying for, you can carefully target your resume to them. You’ll know what skills or traits to highlight, what keywords to use, and which parts of your background will be most interesting to the hiring manager. (For clues about which skills different marketing roles typically require, read this blog post on marketing job descriptions. You can borrow phrasing from those for your own resume.)
2. Define your unique value proposition.
You have a unique blend of skills, characteristics, and experiences that make you different from every marketer. To create a truly effective resume, you need to define exactly what this unique blend is — we’ll call this your value proposition.
To develop your own value proposition, think about what separates you from other marketers. Is it your in-depth knowledge of marketing analytics? Your ability to write irresistible headlines? Perhaps it’s your talent for creating compelling videos? Or maybe you have an impressive record of using social media to drive sales growth? Whatever it is, you can use it to set your resume apart from the crowd.
To a large extent, your value proposition depends on the type of positions and companies you’re targeting. Large and small companies often look for completely different skill sets, as do companies in different industries. So as you think about what makes you uniquely valuable, and how that aligns with the jobs you’re applying to.
3. Determine your messaging strategy.
It’s crucial to determine your messaging strategy — before you write a single word of your resume. That’s what you do when you’re running a marketing campaign, isn’t it? Here are some of the things to think about:

What is the best structure for your resume in order to highlight your value proposition?
Which keywords will your ideal employer be looking for?
How can you give real world examples of your value proposition in action? (Think about campaigns you’ve run, social media successes, ideas you developed, etc.)
What is the best layout and design to reinforce your message?

All these decisions should be made before you start writing, and they should all be made with your target audience in mind. That way you can be sure that when potential employers read your resume, it will immediately strike a chord.
If you want an example of great messaging in a resume, check out the digital marketing executive resume sample among our free downloadable resume templates. Look at the progression of roles and key accomplishments in those roles — it tells his career story while also making him look exceptionally qualified.

4. Make sure your resume gets seen.
If you don’t already have a connection at the company you’re applying to, you’ll most likely need to apply through a computer system. This process is what makes it so critical to upload it in a format that allows all recipients to read it as intended, like a PDF. That way, none of the original formatting or spacing is lost in translation, making it really yucky to read from a recruiter’s perspective. Although they’ll still have access to your resume, confusing formatting might distract them from the content.
Many common applications have similar save or export options that let you ultimately save as a PDF. The most common are Microsoft Word and iWork Pages:

Microsoft Word: Choose File > Save as Adobe PDF

iWork Pages: Choose File > Export to > PDF

Once you send in your resume, the computer service will do is scan it for relevant keywords that have been programmed in advance by the recruiter. Then, the system will either “pass” or “fail” you, depending on how many keywords and phrases are included in your resume that match what the recruiter’s looking for.
Don’t worry: Even if you “fail,” it doesn’t mean your resume won’t ever get seen by a real human. But it doesn’t look great, either — so try to foresee which keywords the recruiter will be looking for by making a note of all of the skills you have that are relevant to the job description.
Keywords to include might be the names of the social media sites you use, analytics or CRM systems you know, and software programs or SAAS systems you’re familiar with. Make sure you’ve included these terms as seamlessly as possible throughout your resume (where relevant), and add any outliers at the very bottom under a “Technical Skills” or “Digital Marketing Skills” section.
9 Things Hiring Managers Are Looking For in Your Marketing Resume
Sure, computers may be used in the initial screening process, but it’s humans — with real feelings, pet peeves, hobbies, relationships, experiences, and backgrounds — who are ultimately reading and evaluating our resumes.
They’re also the ones who get annoyed when we don’t put our employment record in chronological order; who just don’t feel like reading paragraph-long job descriptions; and who get excited when you went to the same college as them. So to get a sense of what really matters on a marketing resume, I asked some hiring experts what they actually care about when they scan resumes, and here’s the inside scoop on the tips they shared with me. (By the way, don’t miss out on what they said about cover letters at the end.)

Length
Formatting
Writing Quality
Location
College/Graduate School and Major/Concentration
Companies and Titles
Top Few Bullet Points in Each Section
Dates of Employment
Interests and Hobbies

1. Length
Limit your resumes to one page if you can. It takes hiring managers six seconds to decide whether they like your resume or not. If they do, they’ll keep reading. If they don’t… well, it’s on to the next. So, chances are, they won’t even get to page two.
In some cases, bleeding onto another page is OK, especially if you have a lot of really relevant experience. But if you have to do that, just don’t exceed two pages. Remember, recruiters can always look at your LinkedIn profile for the full story. (Because you’ve completed your profile on LinkedIn, right?)

2. Formatting
Formatting speaks to the way candidates collect their thoughts and organize their ideas. As HubSpot’s VP of Sales Productivity and Enablement Andrew Quinn explains it, “A candidate’s resume is their ad to me. How are they structuring this ad so I get a clear picture of what they’re capable of?”
There’s a fine line, though, warns Marketing Team Operations & Strategy Manager Emily MacIntyre. “If you stray too far from normal formatting, it’s hard to read and understand your resume. Don’t get so creative that your resume becomes difficult to digest.”
Below is a snippet from a 2-page resume with great formatting that’s easy to read. If you like the format and want to use it as your own, you can find it among our free downloadable resume templates here under “Digital Marketing Strategist.”

Here’s another one, this time a one-page resume from a student seeking an internship. If you like the format and want to use it as your own, you can find it among our free downloadable resume templates here under “Inbound Marketing Intern.”

To explore other resume formats, download our free resume templates.
The creatives among you might be asking, “What about infographic resumes?” Here’s the general consensus: Don’t make an infographic resume. Every hiring manager I spoke with advised sticking to the classic resume form instead of infographics or other formats.
“Infographic resumes are impossible to understand,” says MacIntyre. “We appreciate creativity, except when it’s overkill and hard to follow. Keep it simple. Everyone appreciates a simple resume. If you’re a designer, showcase your creativity with a cool portfolio website in addition to your simple resume.”
Below is an example of a creative format that’s still easy to read and understand. It was made using the Apple desktop app iWork Pages, which can be exported as a PDF so none of that beautiful formatting gets messed up in translation.

3. Writing Quality
Hiring managers throw away resumes with spelling errors — but writing quality goes beyond just simple spelling mistakes. Writing and presenting data in meaningful ways is a critical skill for any position, from blogging to engineering.
Are the details you want hiring managers to know about you easy to consume? Do you use concise sentences to convey your performance and accomplishments? Are your verb tenses consistent (except for current positions)? Is your language overflowing with buzzwords, or does it sound natural? Are you making sure to use first-person without using “I” or “my”? (See #11 in this blog post to understand why that’s not okay.)
“Formatting, spelling, syntax, and structure are all evidence of attention to detail,” Quinn told me. “This is important for any job, but especially if you’re applying to a job where attention to detail matters.” If you’re applying for a writing position, this is even more important.

4. Location
Hiring managers want to know if you’ll need to relocate. If you already live near the company’s office, great! If you would need to relocate, then it gets a little more complicated. Technically, hiring managers can’t legally ask you directly where you live — but omitting location will raise eyebrows. Even P.O. boxes are a little iffy.
If you do need to relocate, you should still include your current, out-of-town address on your resume, but be prepared to answer relocation status questions in an interview. If the company doesn’t offer relocation packages, will you be able to afford taking the job and moving anyway? If not, you may be wasting time.

5. College/Graduate School and Major/Concentration
Which is more important: Where you went to school, or what you studied?
It depends on the job you’re applying for. In most cases, your degree should make sense for the role. Hiring managers are looking for the tie-in; what’s relevant about what a candidate’s done in school. That doesn’t mean only marketing majors can apply to marketing jobs — marketing teams might hire someone who came out of creative studies like liberal arts, graphic design, or writing. An engineering team, on the other hand, probably won’t hire someone without a computer science degree.
It also depends on how successful you were at the school you attended. While there are some hiring managers who only give interviews to graduates of top-tier schools, most say it helps to go to a top-tier school, but it’s certainly not a deal-breaker if you went to a lower-tier school or community college. A community college graduate with a 4.0 GPA could be more attractive than an Ivy League graduate with a 2.0.

Speaking of GPA — when to take it off your resume is subjective. If your GPA was below a 3.0, consider removing it altogether. If it’s higher than that, Quinn says, “The benchmark is five to seven years after graduation, which is when candidates tend have a solid track record of employment. If you did well in school but had lackluster job prospects following graduation because of, say, a bad economy, you could definitely leave it on longer.”

It goes both ways, he explained: “If you had great jobs and accomplishments following graduation but didn’t have a good GPA, consider removing your GPA earlier.”
Three to five years after college or graduate school graduation, you can move your “Education” section to the bottom of your resume — unless you connected with someone through an alumni network or if you know an executive there also went to your school.
Want to take your marketing education to the next level and make your resume even more appealing to potential employers? Become a certified inbound marketing professional with HubSpot’s free marketing certification. 

6. Companies and Titles
Hiring managers will look at where you’ve worked before (do they recognize the company names or know anyone who works there?) and your titles at those companies.
“If you’re applying for a sales position at a software company like HubSpot, we’re looking for experience selling software,” David Fernandez, former Recruiting Team Lead at HubSpot, told me. “If you’re applying for a services position, we’re looking for customer-facing experience.”

Yes, people tweak their titles at previous companies to more closely match the positions they’re applying for. If you do this, your “new” title should be close enough to what you really did that if someone were to call and check a reference, they wouldn’t be dumbfounded. Maybe “Clerk to the Surgical Waiting Room” becomes “Customer Service Clerk.” Also, make sure to change your titles on LinkedIn, too — hiring managers will check for consistency on LinkedIn, Fernandez said.

7. Top Few Bullet Points in Each Section
Each position you’ve had should be accompanied by no more than five to six bullet points. Remember, these hiring managers are scanning your resumes really quickly, so you want to make it easy for them to find and digest the relevant information by consolidating the most important points and putting them first. Paragraphs are a big no-no.
Luckily, you work in a profession where everything can be measured and analyzed, which means it’s relatively easy to tell an impressive story of success. Think about all the ways your work can be quantified through hard data and then fill your resume with action-packed bullet points that convey the value you’ve added.
Focus on accomplishments first before responsibilities and duties. If you had a senior management role, include the number of people you managed. If you built a program from the ground up, call that out.
Also, include goals and metrics that hiring managers can use to compare you against other candidates, and make sure those metrics make sense so you don’t confuse the hiring manager. Run the metrics by your mom. I’m serious. If they make sense to her, then they’re all set. If not, then you weren’t clear enough and you need to tweak the language.
Examples might be increasing social media engagement, improving SEO ROI, driving increased web traffic, reducing bounce rates, boosting landing page conversions, etc. Once you have a list of your results, choose the best four or five and turn these into bullet points like these:

Drove 37% improvement in newsletter clickthrough rates by rewriting sales copy.
Grew ecommerce sales 23% in just 6 months by redesigning and A/B testing all landing pages.

Here’s a more detailed example:

If you want more examples of actionable data points, download these free resume templates.

8. Dates of Employment
Hiring managers look for job hopping and large gaps in employment, which are both red flags. Job hopping is a sign of failure to commit, a quality no one wants at their company. A word of advice: You should try to stay at every job for at least a year, preferably two or more years. Otherwise, it’s a red flag.
And if you took longer than six months off of work, MacIntyre suggests you explain the gap on your resume. If it’s something like teaching or the Peace Corps that you can describe like a job, then you can insert it into your resume just as you would any other position:

If it’s something like traveling abroad or taking time off for family or personal reasons, you can simply add it in italics of parenthesis. “Travelled abroad.” “Took time off for family.” “Took time off for personal reasons.” Hiring managers just want to see a rational explanation — that you were doing something productive with your time.

9. Interests and Hobbies
Whether you include interests and hobbies on your resume depends on the company and the job. If you’re applying for a creative role, hobbies like photography and painting could be interesting to an employer. If you’re hiring for an accounting role, then a hobby like skydiving wouldn’t be good to include — hiring managers might categorize you as a risk-taker, and do they really want a risk-taker managing their money?
“Think about the conclusions someone could draw from your hobbies relative to the role you’re hiring for,” Quinn advises. “Do they enhance or detract from the image you’re trying to convey? If you know the culture embraces unique individuals that have a broad background and set of interests, then it could be useful information. But conservative organizations probably don’t care what you do in your free time — in fact, they could interpret outside hobbies as distractions.”
Companies with cultures like HubSpot’s want their employees to have some personality and invest in outside interests. So if you’re applying to join that kind of culture, an “Interests” or “Hobbies” section could benefit you. “They’re great conversation starters,” says MacIntyre. “‘You’re a skier? Me too! Which mountain do you go to?’ It creates common ground for conversation and helps us assess culture fit.”
Before including or omitting this section on your resume, gain some intelligence about the company’s environment and culture. (And check out HubSpot’s culture code if you haven’t already.)
Spend Less Time on These…
Personal Statements/Objectives
In fact, we recommend skipping these altogether. Frankly, they’re irrelevant — not to mention way too easy to screw up. I’ve spoken with HubSpot recruiters about numerous times where candidates put the name of another local company on there — huge mistake.
Instead, replace it with a “Skills” or “Key Skills” section at the top of your resume, in column format, that highlights the top six to nine skills applicable to the role you’re applying for. Be sure to change these skills for each job and use the job description as a guideline.
Don’t plagiarize the job description by any means, but you can pull out key phrases. For example, in the example below, one of the listed skills is “Deep understanding of the consumer lifecycle.” That’s because the job description asked for exactly that: a deep understanding of the consumer lifecycle and customer journey.

Pro Tip: Although you should leave this section off your resume, you should have something in the ‘Summary’ section of your LinkedIn profile. Focus this section on specific skills and achievements. It’s a good place to put a link to your portfolio, blog, SlideShare presentations, or examples of work you’ve created like open-source code.
Use that space to talk about specific achievements from previous roles, awards you’ve won, or projects you’ve worked on. The information and skills on here should be applicable to where you’re headed in your career, not irrelevant past skills. (When I first heard this tip, I immediately took “emergency medicine” off of mine.)
Cover Letters
Cover letters vary in importance, depending on industry, and even on individual company. Here at HubSpot, we phased out requiring one — and instead ask candidates thoughtful questions during our application and interview process. Many companies that require you to write a cover letter will read it, but they’ll focus mostly on your resume.
With this in mind, include important details on your resume, like gaps in employment, rather than relying on your cover letter — which may never get read — to explain it. And reallocate those hours you plan to spend writing and perfecting your cover letter to writing and rewriting your resume. Your resume is the most important tool in the first stage of the application process, so spend a lot of time on it and ask multiple people to critique it.
It’s Just Like Marketing
As a marketer, you have a talent for communication and a solid understanding of what makes people buy. The good news is that by applying this knowledge to your own resume, you can easily stand out from the crowd.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Like any major marketing strategy of the past decade, social media has had plenty of time to accumulate some big myths.
And despite the fact that data has disproven a number of marketing myths today, some marketers will still hold onto a few, simply because it’s hard to keep up-to-date on what’s really going on with social media.
Yes, social media landscapes change dramatically every day. However, as a marketer, it’s important to identify myth from reality in order to create an effective social media strategy. 

To help you separate fact from fiction, I put my MythBusters hat on and drudged up some of the most common social media myths out there.
Let’s dive into some social media myths we’ve all probably heard from colleagues or friends. Then, I’ll explain why you need to leave these old ways of thinking behind. 
19 Social Media Myths to Leave Behind in 2021
1. My customers aren’t on social media.
In 2021, over 3.7 billion people worldwide are active on social media. Today, it seems like there’s a social platform for everything and everyone. While family and friends connect on sites like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, professionals are networking on LinkedIn.
Odds are, at least one social media platform has an audience that will align with your brand. Not sure which one is the best for you? Check out this blog post to explore which social platform(s) are best-suited for your brand — and which probably won’t work for your needs.

2. You should join every single social media network immediately.

Just because I can name a lot of social networks, it doesn’t mean I should set up a profile on all of them.
By all means, research other social networks. Set up a company profile or page and give ’em the old college try. But you may find that some aren’t really worth your time. If that’s the case, consider removing your profile and move on. You should only devote time and resources to the platforms that align most with your audience and marketing tactics. 
The best marketers use data to identify which marketing activities yield the best results — if a social network isn’t helping you out, cut it loose. 

3. Pinterest is only for B2C organizations.

Pinterest is totally awesome for B2C marketers, to be sure. But usually when someone says a channel is only for B2C, the B2B marketer in me takes that as a challenge to prove it’s not so.
Turns out some of my colleagues feel the same way, because one of them wrote an entire guide to using Pinterest for business. You can also check out the accounts of brands like GE, Microsoft, Econsultancy, and yours truly for some B2B Pinterest inspiration!
4. You should only try to get fans and followers that will become customers.
Quality is important, yes, but don’t underestimate the power of a large social reach. Remember some of these points next time you bemoan acquiring a fan or follower that lives outside of your sales territory or target demographic:

More fans and followers means you’re gaining access to their fans and followers.
If they’re an influencer, their clout transfers to you by association.
When they share your content, your SEO improves.
They may still refer business your way.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also target a specific, high-converting audience on your social channels — to figure out your ideal target audience on social media, check out this post.
5. You should only schedule posts during the work week.
While you shouldn’t force your social media manager to work on the weekends, you certainly can schedule posts or launch social media ads on the weekends ahead of time — and, depending on your audience, it might be a good idea.
Of course, you’ll need to identify when your audience uses certain social platforms the most. While pique social media engagement times occur around the middle of the week, most platforms also have high engagement times during the weekends and evenings as well. 
6. You’ll have amazing social media engagement if you ask your friends and family “Like” every post.
You can’t just have your mom and uncle Like every post you put up on Facebook. Although it might feel like you see a lot of posts that your friends or family members like, Facebook and other social media algorithms are a bit more sophisticated than that when it comes to determining which posts get seen.
To get social media feeds to favor your content, you’ll need a variety of people interacting with your content — both to grow your reach, and to show up in users’ news feeds. 
So, rather than encouraging just your friends or family members to Like or heart your posts, encourage your followers to Like, comment, or share to encourage further discussion and spread your brand awareness. 
7. You have to respond to social activity immediately.
There’s no doubt a speedy response is appreciated, but it isn’t always required. People understand that you’re running a business. There are other things going on. If you get back in a timely manner, but not in mere seconds, it’s alright.
There are exceptions, of course. For instance, Verizon runs a few Twitter accounts. One is @VerizonSupport. While Verizon will share blog posts and educational marketing materials on this Twitter, it also uses it to respond to questions or concerns from prospects or customers.
Because Verizon’s support account is for customer service rather than marketing, reps who manage this channel should be responding immediately to inquiries.
Another example could be if you’re running a social media account that receives a complaint which is public to all users and could hurt your credibility. In that scenario, you should consult your service team as soon as possible and write a thoughtful reply that shows you’re taking the feedback seriously. 
8. Social media is only about engaging conversation — and not a place to share branded content.
It’s not that conversations aren’t important. You can’t just ignore your fans. But, while it’s beneficial to stimulate conversations and discussions with your audience, it’s not the only point to social media marketing. 

Aside from allowing you to virtually connect with people, social media is a lead generator, a non-organic traffic tool, and a great place to share your best content.

If you publish valuable posts, they might not always stimulate conversation, but they could lead people to your website and products.  
9. Social media marketing tactics don’t drive bottom-line results.
Piggybacking off of the last myth, you can actually generate value beyond just “engagement” and “brand equity” from social media. Social media drives leads and customers, period.
Don’t believe me? Here are a few stats you should know:

54% of social browsers use social media to research products.
Facebook ads are used by 70% of marketers, and there were 9 million active advertisers on the platform in Q2 2020.

83% of people use Instagram to discover new products and services and 87% said they took specific action, like making a purchase, after seeing product information.
Answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by 25%.

54% of Gen Z and 49% of Millennials say social media is their preferred channel for ad influence.

79% of people say that user-generated content on social media significantly impacts their purchasing decisions.

Ultimately, particularly through advertising or influencer marketing strategies, social media can be a viable opportunity for increasing sales. (Just check my bank account every time I scroll Instagram and “Swipe Up to Buy”.)

10. It looks tacky to seem relatable as a brand on social media.
The content you publish on social media should always keep your target audience in mind — but that doesn’t mean you can’t also publish content that shows your brand’s personality. Or, frankly, even your community manager’s personality.
There are people behind your company; don’t be afraid to show that with your own special brand of humor, pictures of people that work at your company, and links to news content that you find particularly entertaining … even if it’s not directly related to your industry.
11. Hashtags are essential for every post.
You know those tweets that look like this?
Love this article on #socialmedia #marketing that talks about #pinterest and has an image of a #puppy #lol
The point of hashtags is that they join together common conversation threads. So while it’s nice to have a hashtag for an event, like a webinar or a trade show, don’t lose your mind if it doesn’t become a trending topic. It’s not necessarily going to blow your leads goal out of the water if it does … think of hashtags as a way to be more user-friendly for those following the hashtag, not a way to make all your marketing dreams come true.
12. Social media monitoring takes forever.
One social media monitoring scenario: Glue your eyes to your computer screen, open five tabs for each of your social networks, chug three espressos, click between tabs, and hit refresh like a maniac.
Alternate social media monitoring scenario: Use social media monitoring software that alerts you when important terms are mentioned; check back to your accounts briefly every hour or two to see if you need to respond to anyone, follow someone back, etc.
That second one takes you, in aggregate, maybe 30 minutes a day. No big deal. Everybody breathe. Everything’s gonna be alright.
13. Social media managers should be new graduates or have years of experience.
This isn’t just a myth. It’s actually an ageist theory that should be completely abandoned — if it hasn’t been already.
Being good at social media marketing, or any job for that matter, has absolutely nothing to do with how young or old you are. You can learn the tools and strategies at any age, and make mistakes at any age, too.
Instead of considering a social media manager’s age range, look for the candidate who’s both creative and analytically-minded enough to manage your presence. To learn more about how to hire the best social media manager for your brand, check out this post.
14. Only young people use social media.
Think that the only people on social media are Gen Z and millennials? Think again.
Consider this: 40% of internet users age 46 to 55 are on LinkedIn by the end of 2020; roughly 55% of Facebook users are over the age of 35 as of 2021; and in 2019, over 80% of 45-64 year old U.S. internet users watched videos on YouTube.
More than likely, your audience (at any age!) is on social media — the key is figuring out which one they prefer the most. 
15. Newer platforms, like Snapchat and TikTok, aren’t worth taking seriously.
Snapchat and TikTok are both mobile social media apps that have pulled in millennials and Gen Z due to their unique platforms. While Snapchat thrives on ephemeral content, AR filters, and Bitmoji features, TikTok highlights goofy, fun, or musical 10 to 60-second videos similar to Vines. 
Despite the fact that these platforms pull in odd content created by users, it doesn’t necessarily mean that brands can’t use the apps to gain credibility and awareness. 
At this point, a plethora of brands — from publishers to B2C companies — have created profiles or ads for TikTok. One of the most surprising and oldest brands to build a TikTok strategy is The Washington Post. Although the publication has a very formal social media presence on other platforms, they use TikTok to highlight the funny, yet human, side of working in a newsroom. 
Similarly, a number of larger businesses have also launched paid promotions or long-form Stories on Snapchat Discover. To learn more about these companies and the content they’ve launched, check out this blog post.
At this point, you can certainly take any popular social media platform seriously. But, as we noted when debunking previous myths in this post, you should identify which platforms best match your audience and your goals before spending time and money to build a strategy for them. 
16. You don’t have enough content to have a social media channel.
The thing with social media is that it moves really fast. What’s posted today might very well be forgotten about tomorrow. It’s easy to think of this as a problem by saying, “I don’t have enough content to post.” But, alternatively, you could just repurpose content or re-share great content regularly.
If the topic your post discusses is evergreen, it will almost always be useful, even if you repurpose or repost it later. This doesn’t mean you should share the exact same link and update commentary day after day, but if a few weeks go by and you want to re-promote something, go for it. Just do your loyal fans a favor and find a new interesting nugget of information to call out in your update.
17. Social media gives people a venue to publicly bash your company.
The truth is, angry customers already have plenty of venues: word of mouth, Google reviews, Yelp reviews, and many other places on the internet that will allow them to give feedback when they aren’t happy. Not creating a Facebook page simply for fear of negative feedback isn’t protecting you from an angry wrath.
Instead, get ahead of the conversation by being aware when negative reviews are taking place, reading them, responding to the customer, and coming up with solutions for their problems. Additionally, when customers are pleased, encourage them to share their positive stories.
18. Social media is too “fluffy” to have solid metrics around.
Again, social media isn’t about fluffy things we talked about earlier, like “brand equity” and “engaging conversation.”
Yes, those things happen, but it doesn’t mean you can’t measure the effectiveness of your social media activities.
With HubSpot marketing tools, you can identify exactly how much traffic social media drives to your website, how many leads social media generates, and how many of those leads become customers.
From there, you can even calculate things like the average cost-per-lead and customer — across individual social media networks, and in aggregate — just like you do with every other marketing channel (right?).
19. Social media is completely free marketing.
It’s free to join, but it’s still a resource investment. Even if you are posting for free, you’ll likely need to pay an employee to manage your channels and build strategies. And, as your social media strategy grows more successful, you might decide to up time and money investments.
Luckily, social media is still one of the most affordable ways to boost audiences, brand awareness, and ultimately leads. This makes the investment worth your while. 
Navigating Social Media Marketing
Now that you’ve learned about the falsehoods and myths behind social media, it’s time to start looking at the actual research-back tactics that could make your brand successful on a given network. 
For more data that backs why you need a social media marketing strategy in 2021, check out this list of stats. For tactical advice on various social media tactics and platforms, read our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. 
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2012 but was updated in February 2021 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

Email is a great equalizer for many brands. You don’t have to have a dedicated email team with years of experience to send an email that looks professional and polished. That’s just one reason email is one of the most lucrative marketing channels for any business.
With a few tips and tricks, you can compete with even your biggest competitors. The key is to know how to design an interactive HTML newsletter that stands out and delivers the most enjoyable experience for your subscribers.
An interactive HTML newsletter does just that. Start with the beginner elements and work your way up to the more advanced techniques.
Here’s how to integrate them into your strategy.
Types of interactive HTML emails (with examples)
Interactive content can take many forms, which makes it perfect for email marketers at all levels. Here are some examples of common types of interactive HTML emails.
Beginner interactive elements
These interactive elements are easiest for marketers to implement without much time or expert knowledge:

Animated buttons
Roll-over image text reveal
GIFs
Videos that play in the email

For example, Burberry uses a small interactive element in the following email, where when you hover over the button, it animates to encourage clicks.

Intermediate interactive elements
These interactive elements require a bit more knowledge to implement correctly and may be more time-consuming to create:

Surveys
Quizzes
Calculators
Contests
“Scratch off” discount animations

For example, Harry’s includes a quiz within a promotional email, designed to then suggest personalized product recommendations based on the results:

Advanced interactive elements
These interactive elements take time to create and animate, and some may require significant coding knowledge.

Games
Long-form interactive content (ebook downloads, whitepapers, lookbooks)
Interactive infographics

For example, Email Monks launched a holiday email that included an interactive game:

Interactive HTML email best practices
Creating your interactive HTML emails is not that different from creating regular email content. However, there are a few best practices that we recommend.
Consider your subscribers’ stages of awareness
The Content Marketing Institute discovered that the efficacy of interactive content depends significantly on the stage of awareness. Most types of interactive content is most effective during the early to mid stages of awareness, instead of the later decision stage.
But there are some types of interactive content that lend themselves well to later stages. Here are our recommendations:
Early stages of awareness
Fun, entertaining, and shareable content is best during these stages. This may be because this type of interactive content does not require a large time investment or pre-knowledge from people who may be completely unaware of your product or services.
For your early stage of awareness subscribers, choose elements like quizzes, games, and contests.
Middle stages of awareness
During the middle stages of awareness (pain aware and solution aware), interactive content that educates and qualifies subscribers is most effective.
For middle stage subscribers, choose elements like interactive infographics, eBooks, and lookbooks.
Late stages of awareness
If your subscribers are product aware, interactive content designed to help people make a decision is most effective.
So, for the later stages of awareness, choose elements like calculators. This type of interactive element provides personalized knowledge to subscribers that can help them make an informed decision about whether to purchase or become a client.
Consider your time and budget constraints
With an email service provider like Campaign Monitor, creating interactive content is no longer only available to huge companies with massive email marketing budgets.
But there are some types of interactive content that require more time and more expertise, which could strain a smaller budget.
Here are our recommendations:
Small to midsize businesses without email marketing teams
Go for an easier interactive element, like a quiz, survey, or contest. Or, consider starting with even simpler elements like a roll-over text reveal or GIF.
These types of interactive content will still surprise and delight customers, but they don’t require high-level knowledge or big budgets to implement.
Businesses with a big email marketing budget or adventurous spirit
Larger businesses with more email marketing experts and bigger budgets should consider investing in complex forms of interactive content. For example, you might create a game, interactive video, or a piece of long-form interactive content like an eBook.
Make your interactive HTML email entertaining
When in doubt, aim to entertain. Consumers reported they are more likely to buy from a brand that entertains them.
So, if you’re not sure how to involve interactive elements into your email marketing, go the fun and entertaining route instead of the educational route. Some examples of entertaining interactive elements include creative quizzes, GIFs, “scratch off” discounts, and games.
Combine interactive content with personalization
Make your emails extra enticing by combining interactive elements with a proven tactic for boosting open rates, conversions, and satisfaction.
Consider that:

Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened
Personalized emails lead to 6x higher transaction rates
26% of consumers feel happy responding to a personalized message from a retailer

Personalization can be subtle, like segmenting your audience to send highly relevant content, or it can be more direct, like personalizing a subject line or salutation.
How to use interactive HTML email in a newsletter (with examples)
Email newsletters are some of the most consistent and frequent emails subscribers see from brands. So how can you leverage interactive HTML in your email newsletter?
Use tools to make it easy and fast
You don’t have to code your HTML emails from scratch to include interactive elements. There are plenty of tools that integrate with your email service provider to make incorporating interactive elements easy and fast.
Here are few key tools to consider:

Jotform for surveys

Stripo for interactive HTML email templates

Outgrow for lots of interactive elements including, calculators, quizzes, recommendations, forms, surveys, chatbots, polls, contests and assessments

Get inspired by these interactive email newsletter examples
Check out how other companies are using interactive HTML email to create stand-out email newsletters.
Wrap up
Don’t forget that your email strategy doesn’t have to be bare bones just because you have a small team or budget. These interactive elements make your newsletter stand out.

HTML email is a must-have in marketing, but interactive HTML emails is where to focus to drive engagement, improve conversions, stand out and compete with larger brands.
Interactive HTML can seem intimidating for smaller companies without a huge email team, but using tools makes it easy.
Interactive elements can also be simpler than you might expect, like adding a video into your email or animating buttons.
You can eventually experiment with more complex entertaining options like games!

To get started building interactive HTML emails today, check out our html email template builder.
The post How to Create an Interactive HTML Newsletter appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

ClickFunnels is an awesome tool but it’s not perfect for everyone. We’ve tried out 5 best alternatives and prepared in-depth feedback to aid your decision.

In 2020, you might have heard your favorite influencers talking about a mysterious new social media app called Clubhouse.
But, unless you had a huge online following of your own, you might just be getting access to the app now.
Until a few months ago, Clubhouse was a platform where big-name celebrities, company leaders, Silicon Valley investors, and some of the web’s top global influencers could have uncensored audio group chats about their lives, hobbies, work, or industries.
Now, as the invite-only Clubhouse continues to gain media coverage and a growing pool of non-celebrity users, you might be wondering, “What the heck is it? And, how do I get in on the action?”
Below, we’ll explain where Clubhouse came from, what it actually is, and the pros and cons of using it in your marketing strategy.

Clubhouse was launched in March 2020 by Paul Davison, who previously worked at companies including Pinterest and Google, and Rohan Seth, a former Google engineer. According to a post from Davison and Seth, Clubhouse was created after a handful of social media app experiments.
“After a lot of iteration in the audio space, we launched Clubhouse in March of last year,” the co-founders wrote. “Our goal was to build a social experience that felt more human—where instead of posting, you could gather with other people and talk. Our north star was to create something where you could close the app at the end of the session feeling better than you did when you opened it, because you had deepened friendships, met new people, and learned.”
Initially, Clubhouse was marketed to top-tier influencers, celebrities, Silicon Valley investors, and industry thought leaders, but recently opened to more general audiences. A few of the app’s first high-profile users include Drake, Daymond John, Elon Musk, and Oprah Winfrey. Early on, these notable users were heard chatting in Rooms related to their interests, hobbies, causes, or industries.
Despite Clubhouse’s exclusivity, it was valued at $100 million and received a $12 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz within a year of its launch.
Most recently, Clubhouse has begun to give access to a larger pool of users by allowing each new member to invite two friends of their own. This has caused the user base to jump from 600,000 active users in December 2020 to more than 2 million today.
“This past week, two million people around the world—musicians, scientists, creators, athletes, comedians, parents, entrepreneurs, stock traders, non-profit leaders, authors, artists, real estate agents, sports fans, and more—came to Clubhouse to talk, learn, laugh, be entertained, meet and connect. It’s the most exciting thing we’ve ever been a part of,” wrote the Clubhouse team in a Jan. 24 blog post.
Why Most of Us are Just Learning About Clubhouse
Just hearing about Clubhouse now? You aren’t alone.
As mentioned, Clubhouse was initially targeted to high-profile industry “elites,” such as celebrities, CEOs, and top online influencers. For a while, these types of users were the only ones who could send and receive Clubhouse invites. On top of the app’s invite-only nature, it’s only available to iPhone users.
While Clubhouse’s early exclusivity made it interesting and alluring to the every-day social media user, it caused the app’s awareness and user-base to grow at a slow but steady pace.
Now that the app’s become more accessible to social media users, it’s been getting more awareness online and across news media. At this time, marketers are also starting to wonder if and how they could use Clubhouse — or something like it — in their strategy.
In fact, many professionals, business leaders, and non-profit members can already be heard speaking in Rooms that discuss a topic related to their brand, industry, or mission.
For example, a recent Room I dropped in on featured a group of lawyers aiming to offer education around patent protection. While this content was intriguing to listeners, it also could have brought each lawyer’s firm more awareness:

Aside from marketers, major social media companies are also trying to take advantage of Clubhouse’s audio social media trends.
Shortly after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke in a Clubhouse Room, the New York Times reported that his social media company was allegedly building a similar audio platform. Meanwhile, Twitter just began rolling out Twitter Spaces — a drop-in audio feature with its app — to a small group of beta testers.
At the moment, Clubhouse seems like a promising way to network and build a community online, and its audio social format is already being adopted by competitors. However, in a time where we see a handful of new online platforms each year, is Clubhouse really a game-changer in the social media space? Or is it just another over-hyped app you shouldn’t waste your marketing efforts on?
Below, I’ll give a brief description of how the platform works and then weigh the pros and cons of using Clubhouse for marketing.
How Clubhouse Works
While we’ll be publishing a detailed how-to guide for the Clubhouse platform, which we’ll link to in this post later, here’s a quick description of how some of the major features work.
Clubhouse’s Main Tabs
When entering Clubhouse, users will find a homepage that highlights ongoing Rooms related to their interests or followers. They’ll also find search, message inbox, calendar, and notification icons in the upper navigation.

When tapping the search or “Explore” tab, users can scroll through a feed of suggested Rooms, Clubs, or people to follow. They can also use the search bar to find specific individuals or Clubs. However, it does not seem like users can search for specific Rooms yet.

If users can’t attend a Room when they’re surfing the Clubhouse app but would like to drop into one later, they can tap the calendar icon.to see or create their scheduled Rooms.

Clubhouse Rooms
Entering a Room is essentially like attending a webinar or Zoom meeting with no video and a partially muted audience.
Attendees, who can join or leave a Room at any time, enter (or drop-in) as automatically muted listeners. If they’d like to speak or ask questions, they can tap the “Raise Hand” icon in the lower right corner of the Room page. Room moderators will then be notified of the hand raise request and can ignore it or unmute the attendee.
Below is a look at what Clubhouse Rooms look like:

Visually, attendees of the Room can see only the profile photos and names of current participants, with moderators and speakers appearing at the top of the screen.
Users and moderators can also add people they follow to a Room by tapping the “+” button in the lower navigation. This gives their friends a notification that they’ve been invited to a Room and enables them to open the app and join it directly.
Starting a Room
At the bottom of the homepage, users can also tap “Start a Room” to launch either a “Closed” chat open to specific people only, a “Social” chat open to all of a user’s following, or an “Open” chat that anyone on Clubhouse can drop into.

Users can also tap the nine-dot icon on the lower homepage navigation to have a private audio chat with specific followers who are online.

Room moderators, who either launched the Room or were assigned to a moderator role after the Room launched, see a similar page that attendees see. However, they also get notifications of new Room attendees and a list of attendees who have raised their hand requesting to speak.
One interesting thing to note is that a Room only ends when a moderator ends it or when the final moderator leaves it. Additionally, moderators who want to leave a Room without ending it can assign someone else to become a moderator. This means that a Room with multiple moderators can go on for hours or even days.
Because of how long Rooms last, and the fact that attendees can join or exit whenever they want, you might regularly hear more seasoned Room moderators re-introduce themselves, what they’re discussing, and who else is speaking throughout a Room event.
Clubs and Networking
Aside from creating Rooms, users can also follow individual profiles of friends, influencers, or thought leaders in their industry.
They can also join or create Clubs, which are groups of users with interest in specific topics, hobbies, or industries. Take a look at some of the Clubs that appeared when I searched, “growth marketing.”

Once users join a Club, they can be notified if a Club’s manager launches a Room related to its core topic. For example, if I were to join one of the Growth Marketing Clubs shown above, I’d be instantly notified if they hosted a Room on a growth marketing tactic.
The Pros and Cons of Clubhouse.
Pros of Using Clubhouse
1. Clubhouse could help brands build trust and community.
In 2020, consumers began to favor companies with authentic, trustworthy messaging over big-name companies with decades of brand loyalty. This shift will likely continue through 2021.
Why? In a time of financial uncertainty and constant news events, consumers want to know that brands care about their customers and share values with them. While creating a live, uncensored, unscripted Room related to your brand’s industry might sound nerve-wracking, it could help some brands seem more authentic and trustworthy.
“Clubhouse offers a lot of opportunities for connection with celebrities, a vast variety of people in different industries, and even close friends,” says Krystal Wu, HubSpot’s social media community manager. “It opens the door for live conversations allowing people to be vulnerable within a community space. This type of connection is unique to deliver audio content with small to large groups of people. Its unscripted content that anyone can be a part of.”
Brands that use Clubhouse could earn credibility by discussing topics they’re experts on. But, they could also earn trust because they’ve made themselves available to listen and talk candidly with their audiences.
2. The app’s content is always evolving.
While the app initially hosted conversations related to entertainment, business, and technology due to its initial target audience, the audio content on the platform has broadened and evolved
In fact, CNBC recently reported that some of Clubhouse’s most engaging Rooms have been launched by innovative Black creatives who’ve done heavy experimentation on the platform.
For example, instead of hosting a chat or discussion, one group of Black performers hosted an audio-only production of Disney’s “The Lion King.” 
While there isn’t a recording of the Clubhouse performance, led by Noelle Chesnut Whitmore, Kam DeLa and Bomani X, here’s a screenshot from the event, which shows each Room moderator as the character they played:

Image Source
“What started as a random conversation on Clubhouse has scaled to something much greater. We have so many talented people contributing their time and energy to this performance,” Whitmore said in a press release. “Our goal is just to spread some joy to people through these events. I never imagined this would get such a huge response.”
In another example, a cocktail brand called Loop hosted a Room that encouraged participants to have a cocktail and join a casual conversation with no specific topic. While this strategy is less structured, it enables people who want to learn more about the brand or just want to chat with other cocktail drinkers to connect.

Because Clubhouse is fairly new, there aren’t major content-related expectations just yet. This means that anyone from any group, industry, non-profit, or brand can experiment with it and learn what’s truly engaging to the app’s growing audience.
3. The app is primed for thought leadership.
Clubhouse’s user base was built around influencers and thought leaders. This means that users are likely coming to the app to hear the latest tips, exclusive information, or discussions straight from industry experts.
For example, the scheduled Room shown below features Coinbase Co-Founder and CEO Brian Armstrong.

In a Clubhouse Room like the one shown above, users could learn more about a brand like Coinbase and ask its leader questions about the company or its industry. Through Rooms like this, Coinbase and other brands could boost both company awareness and credibility with audiences who listen.
4. Audiences want online communities and audio content.
In the last year, people who were stuck at home turned to webinars, virtual events, and other online experiences to learn more about their interests, hear from others in their industry, or just feel a sense of connection to people outside of their households.
But, while virtual events were beneficial for many, most of us eventually dealt with screen fatigue.
Because too much screentime can be mentally draining, consumers also checked out podcasts or camera-free webinars. Now, these audiences could be primed for Clubhouse’s audio-only nature.
“Clubhouse’s most appealing quality is that it’s a break from the nonstop screen time we all exist in,” says Kelly Hendrickson, HubSpot social media marketing manager. “Clubhouse is also a wonderful place to have conversations among niche communities and topics.”
And, while consumers are craving personal connections and live content more than ever, many brands are trying to build stronger online communities and launch effective digital event strategies.
Ultimately, Clubhouse’s audio-only layout could help brands meet and build an engaged community of fans on an interactive, authentic, and live platform.
Cons of Clubhouse
1. The app still has limited audiences.
Ultimately, one of Clubhouse’s biggest brand marketing flaws is also what makes it so intriguing: exclusivity.
“I am generally against anything that is invite-only as it creates a culture of ‘others’,” Hendrickson says. “Any time you need to be ‘in the know’ to have a seat at the table, how can you also be inclusive?”
While Clubhouse might pose unique group chat opportunities for community marketers when more people join, the audiences might still be too limited for some marketers at the moment. On top of this, the app is still unavailable to Android users.
“Clubhouse actually hinders its capabilities because there are many talented potential users out there that are missing out all because they are on Android,” Wu says.
If you’re looking to only create content for the largest audiences possible, you might want to hold off on building a Clubhouse strategy right now. However, if you’re only looking to experiment and see if you can reach the audiences it already has, it might be an interesting platform for your team to try.
2. Clubhouse could have strong audio-app competition.
Facebook and Twitter could be just the first platforms to create a similar audio drop-in experience. And, while this hints that Clubhouse creators have stumbled upon a platform many social media users want, the big-name competition could also pose concerns about the platform’s future.
For example, if Facebook or another major competitor can create something similar that’s less exclusive and allows iPhone and Android users, people might leave Clubhouse for a platform with a larger audience or more credibility in the social media world. If this happens, marketers who invest heavily in a Clubhouse strategy might need to do a sudden pivot.
While this shouldn’t scare you away from testing the platform if you think it’s right for your brand, the competition is still important to keep in mind. If you are considering Clubhouse, continue to follow its competitors and determine how you could pivot your strategy to those platforms if your audiences start to flock there instead.
3. Clubhouse can feel like an “unedited podcast.”
“Another challenge I think brands and individuals will have with Clubhouse is how it feels like an unedited podcast,” says Hendrickson. “That means you’re hearing all the great meat, but you also have to listen to the trimmings. It will be interesting to see if long term, people are okay with that in their content.”
If you’re planning to experiment on Clubhouse, consider practicing a few conversation starters, how you’ll enter the call, and determine what you’ll do if you run into dead air, boring conversation, or off-topic discussion that draws attention away from your Room’s goal.
Although Rooms are live and unscripted, having a gameplan will help you moderate an effective, higher-quality conversation than users might find in other Rooms.
4. Brands could be too vulnerable.
Certain generations, like Gen Z, crave authenticity from people and brands they follow on social media. With an app like Clubhouse, brands could create Rooms or Clubs related to their industry that include thought leaders, prospects, and even clients that want to talk with them in a live, unfiltered way.
However, while Clubhouse’s high level of unscripted authenticity has intrigued both marketers and prospective users, it also could put brands in vulnerable positions. Wu describes this as “a balance between good and evil.”
Within a year of its launch, Clubhouse’s live nature has already led to brand-related controversies.
For example, in February, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, dropped into a Room with Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev and raised his hand. When he was invited to speak by the Room’s moderators, Musk began intensely questioning Tenev and asked him to explain why his stock-trading company stopped its users from buying and selling GameStop and other manipulated stocks. You can hear the line of questioning in the video below:

While Robinhood’s CEO remained calm and collected throughout the chat, some brands might not have well-trained speakers who would react as calmly or professionally to this surprising scenario.
Additionally, although Clubhouse doesn’t allow users to record, many either downloaded screen-recording apps or filmed their phones with another video recording device. Because of this, Musk and Tenev’s conversation was covered by the media within hours.
Even though conversations cannot be replayed or recorded in the Clubhouse app itself, marketers on the app must remember that they’re live and anything they say could easily be streamed or quoted in seconds. Because of this, Room hosts should prepare themselves so that they can answer both easy and challenging questions from audience members. Moderators should also determine what they’ll do or how they’ll react if an unmuted audience member says something controversial or unexpected.
Is Clubhouse right for you?
In its current state, Clubhouse could offer some major awareness and community-building benefits to brands. But, because of how new it is, it also poses some challenges and cons to companies that want to reach the largest audiences possible. Ultimately, while some companies might thrive on it, others might realize that it isn’t the best platform for their goals just yet.
As with any new social media platform, you’ll want to spend some time on Clubhouse and see what the app has to offer before putting time and effort into using it.
At this point, it could be wise to see if one of your friends or colleagues can send you a Clubhouse invite so you can familiarize yourself with the app. If you can’t log on, be sure to continue following the news around it.
As you surf through the app or read Clubhouse news coverage, ask yourself questions like these:

Are topics related to your product or industry widely discussed on the platform?
Are there any thought leaders or company experts you could host a panel or two with to boost your awareness or credibility on Clubhouse?
Are our competitors using Clubhouse? And, if so, can we create stronger Room experiences than they can?
Do you already use marketing strategies that could be adapted to an audio-only platform, such as live video Q&As, webinars, or virtual events?

With questions like those above, you can determine if you’ll be able to create scalable and engaging content for this social media platform.
Can’t get access to Clubhouse just yet? Don’t worry. We’ll continue to cover it on the HubSpot Blog so you’ll be ready when you do.