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The other day, I was on a run and listening to my trusty Spotify playlist. Lo and behold, in between two of my favorite pump-up jams, I hear a HubSpot audio advertisement trickle through my headphones.

It’s not uncommon for me to see HubSpot ads on social media or Google, but Spotify was a new one.
This experience made me curious about what other kinds of advertisements our team at HubSpot had tested out this year. So I sat down with a few folks on our advertising and editorial teams.
Below, they share some interesting lessons and takeaways regarding the different platforms and audiences they tested in 2020.

Advertising Experiments HubSpot Tried in 2020
“While HubSpot has traditionally been relatively direct response-focused (with software signups being the main acquisition goal), one of the biggest takeaways from our advertising in 2020 actually revolves around driving awareness through brand advertising,” shared Rex Gelb, Director, Acquisition Analytics & Paid Advertising at HubSpot.
In early 2020, the team realized they were reaching diminishing returns on many of their existing ad channels, namely search and social ads, and saw it as an opportunity to branch out.
They spearheaded this effort based on the guiding principle that the HubSpot audience is comprised of people with different media habits.
“What works for one person might not work for everyone, so we were likely only reaching a small segment of them through [direct response ads],” said Jillian Hope, Senior Marketing Manager, Brand Advertising at HubSpot. “But in reality, our audience is listening to podcasts, they’re reading articles in the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal,they’re watching Hulu, they’re doing all these different activities throughout the day.”
So, by expanding where they showed HubSpot ads, the team hypothesized they could reach a much larger segment of their audience and make new consumers aware of HubSpot.
As I chatted with these experts, a few key platforms stood out.
1. Audio Advertising
“In 2020, we started doubling down on [podcasts]. It started as more of an awareness play, but we’ve invested in this really neat tool called Podsights,” said Jillian. Podsights is a podcast attribution tool through which the team measures when someone hears a podcast ad and returns to the site, and becomes a lead.
(Can I plug an audio file in COS? https://wiki.hubspotcentral.net/display/marketing/2020+Year+in+Review%3A+HubSpot%27s+First+Brand+Advertising+Push)
The team has tested a few direct buys with specific podcasts, like NPR’s How I Built This and Masters of Scale. They’ve also done some national radio buys on NPR and a few Spotify Audio Everywhere ads (for those Spotify users who don’t pay for premium).
2. Hulu Advertising
“[In addition to podcast advertising,] we’re diversifying into new channels and also looking for opportunities to really measure and hone in on what’s working even from a direct response standpoint, including Hulu,” Jillian shared.

That’s right — this year, consumers turned on their TV to see some of HubSpot’s first advertisements on streaming channels. The team found that Hulu has high completion rates (about 99%) because the network’s ads are unskippable. “This made it a great tactic for testing out more creative messaging and executions because our audience was tuning into the full ad,” shared Alicia Collins, Copywriting & Brand Strategy at HubSpot.
Alicia worked on much of HubSpot’s 2020 brand advertising campaigns, including the Hulu push.
3. YouTube Advertising
Video as a whole gave the team more room to deliver value through education, entertainment, and inspiration, especially compared to a display or static social advertisement.
“Because YouTube is a Google-owned property,” Jillian said, “we had the ability to target people who are actively searching for content related to our products, so our ads are relevant to their work.”
In fact, Rex shared one of the most successful tests they ran: YouTube’s “affinity audiences,” Affinity audiences are audiences that Google’s algorithm identifies as likely to be interested in your product(s).

“While the algorithm is a bit of a black box, trusting their data ultimately paid off for us, generating some of the most cost-efficient, high-quality impressions and video views, which in turn yielded a great brand lift (as reported by surveys), and a measurable increase in incremental Google searches,” reported Rex.
So, what does developing this brand advertising campaign creative look like?
According to Alicia: “When you’re thinking about brand awareness advertising, you have to think about who you’re coming in contact with.”
Most people who interact with HubSpot’s brand awareness advertisements have never heard of HubSpot — versus those who see the typical direct response advertising. “There’s a reason why people are getting targeted with [direct response] ads; they’ve seen our content, they’ve been on our website, and they’ve interacted with our posts.”
The same can’t be said for this new brand advertising push. Alicia and her team are trying to reach a completely new audience, meaning they have to create clear, direct ads that communicate what HubSpot is and who it’s for.
“[We’re aiming for] eye-catching and engaging, so people are either enticed to click-through to learn more or simply stop and take a second look,” Alicia shared.

Speaking of second looks, Alicia has learned just how different the brand advertising strategy can be. “[It’s a] bit different because, again, people don’t see one social ad and immediately remember your brand. It takes like seven or eight impressions for someone to start recalling.”
In her opinion, brand awareness work is unlike a lot of other bottom-of-the-funnel work. “It’s not that there’s only a science to it, but there’s also a bit of an art,” she shared. “It’s [all about] trying to find the right balance between solving for the data and the short-term results, and thinking about where you want to be in the long-term.”
She encourages those who want to invest in brand awareness plays to be patient. “It can take a long time to move [brand awareness] metrics; raising brand awareness can take years and millions of dollars,” said Alicia.
In her experience, people who want to invest in new channels and audiences tend to put their money in one place. But Alicia and her teammates have found that no one spends all their time on one channel.

For example, you might prefer to start your day listening to a podcast, read a few articles during lunch, and watch your favorite Hulu show to unwind after work. However, your coworker might like to start their day watching cable news, scroll through social media during lunch, and travel to the gym (passing multiple billboards) after work. “You’re just getting multiple touch points throughout the day and sharing your stories in new, unique ways,” said Alicia.
Jillian agreed: “What works for some won’t work for all. If we limit channels, we risk not reaching a large segment of our audience.”
And the more channels on which consumers can see HubSpot, the more likely they are to remember and return.
Read more about developing your own cross-channel or omnichannel advertising strategy on the HubSpot Blog.

When it comes to website success, what you see is what you get. While compelling text, blog, and social media content can help set your brand apart from the competition, the visual appeal of your site is the first thing users see when they follow backlinks or click through on search engine results.
Recent research found that it takes just 2.6 seconds for users’ eyes to focus on a specific area of your website. What’s more, it takes just 0.05 seconds for visitors to form a general first impression of your site — meaning you’ve got just one opportunity to change their minds or reinforce this impression, and it happens in the first three seconds of arrival.
As a result, it’s critical to create webpages that are both aesthetically appealing and contextually relevant. For larger businesses, this often means hiring dedicated graphic designers to develop eye-catching designs and deploy them consistently across web pages, but SMB budgets may not support this type of spending.

What it Takes to Have a Great Design
Advanced graphic design skills require practice, practice, practice. Great designers can take one look at your webpage and see where current visual elements aren’t performing, then create visual content options that capture both your brand position and aesthetic style. But what about website and business owners who can’t afford the skills of a master graphic designer? How can they jumpstart the process of improving their site’s visual appeal?
The first step is taking a step back. Open your own webpage in multiple browsers and see what stands out. What’s the first thing you notice? Is it a specific image — or lack thereof? Is the image clear and concise, and does it drive action? What about the text formatting, color, and font? Here, the goal isn’t to drill down and analyze the nitty-gritty details of website design but instead put yourself in the digital shoes of a site visitor.
It’s also a good idea to ask for feedback from other staff members along with friends and family. While this comes with natural bias — they want your site to succeed, after all — it can help identify persistent or problematic visual elements and suggest an initial course of action.
In this piece, we’ll examine some of the best free graphic design software tools, where this software fits into your website strategy, and how they can help capture user interest from the moment they arrive.
What is the Best Free Graphic Design Software?
If your research turns up a problem — your images aren’t compelling, your text is hard to read and your color scheme hurts the eyes — you need a simple solution.
Free graphic design software offers the ability to customize the look and feel of your site without breaking the bank. But with a host of options on the market, which is the best fit for your business?
Two broad factors impact this outcome: Your current graphical ability and your potential use case. For example, if you have no experience with graphic tools of any kind, look for a solution that’s simple, streamlined, and does most of the work behind-the-scenes. If you have a graphic design background or natural inclination, tools with more robust customization and control may be a better fit.
If you’re planning to revamp your entire site with new colors, images, logos, and menus, meanwhile, you’ll need an in-depth solution that provides this level of control. If you’re starting small with minor changes to your color scheme or image quality, this kind of granular adjustment isn’t necessary.
So which software tool is the best fit for your business? Here’s a look at five free graphic design tools and some pros and cons for each.
The Best Free Graphic Design Software for Beginners and Mac Owners
The Best Free Graphic Design Software for Beginners
1. DesignWizard

Image Source

DesignWizard ranks among the best free graphic design software for beginners. The tool offers a large database of images along with a host of free templates (over 10,000) plus a simple, easy-to-use interface. You can also quickly create custom templates, but where DesignWizard excels is as a front-line, free graphic design tool for beginners.
Despite an easy-to-use interface and no upfront costs, it’s worth noting that most of the more powerful options in DesignWizard are only available in its for-pay version.
2. Setka Editor

Setka bills itself as “everything you need to create content that converts”. This graphic design software is primarily focused on delivering enhanced content branding across your website, ad campaigns and social media posts — and works from within your current CMS or in the cloud.
The caveat? Although the Setka Editor is free to try for two weeks, companies will need to select a plan — Starter, Pro, or Enterprise — to unlock the full feature set and keep using Setka.
3. Canva

Whether you’re looking to create an ebook, infographic, business card, or email header, Canva has a template to simplify your process. The free web design tool, developed by non-designers, offers professional, easy-to-customize templates for just about any design need you can think of.
The drawback? You might need to invest in the paid version or try one of the more advanced free graphic design softwares as you skill up. While Canva’s free version is great for new designers working with templates, you can access more complex tools and features — such as team sharing — in the paid version.

4. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a free alternative to the company’s popular, for-pay Adobe Illustrator. While it’s not nearly as full-featured it does support integration with other Adobe products, is easy to use and comes with a host of free templates. If you’re looking to quickly create posters or videos for ad campaigns, Spark is a great choice.
The potential drawback? A limited feature set makes this a great starting point for beginners but less useful for more in-depth projects or experienced designers. Spark is available for both web and mobile, however, meaning you design anywhere, anytime.
Best Free Graphic Design Software for Mac
5. Krita

Image Source

Krita is a free, open-source painting program made by artists, for artists. Ongoing development of this tool depends on donations and is driven by the needs of the designer community at large. It’s no surprise, then, that Krita includes a customizable user interface, feature-rich toolset, and a comprehensive resource manager.
For businesses looking to boost their graphic design impact, Krita is a great tool — if they have the help of an experienced designer. For companies in need of simple, streamlined solutions, meanwhile, other software on this list offers a better fit for beginners.
6. Gravit

Gravit is a vector design application created by the makers of Corel Draw. With a host of tools for creating vector art and a self-adjusting interface, Gravit earns its place among the best free graphic design software for Mac and Windows — the tool is also available for ChromeOS and Linux.

Image Source
Worth noting? When you sign up for a free trial of Gravit you automatically get access to “Pro” features including the ability to work offline and see version history. However, you lose these features when your trial is up unless you’re willing to pay for a subscription.
Creating a Great First Impression
The first thing users see when they land on your website significantly impacts their perception of your brand — and their likelihood to become paying customers. The right free graphic design software can help ensure your site delivers visual value from first impressions to eventual purchases and streamlines the process of ongoing aesthetic adjustment.

How do prospective consumers spend their money? What matters to them when they make decisions about how much to spend, where to spend it, and which company earns their business?
This is the role of sales and marketing teams in your organization: Designing and deploying consumer campaigns to showcase the unique value proposition of your product or service so you stand out from the competition.

The challenge? It’s not easy.
Customer preferences are constantly evolving in response to both external market forces and internal financial constraints. As a result, the reasons around how, when, and why consumers spend money are never static — companies must find ways to understand and articulate the value of service or product offerings in a way that both captures consumer interest and convinces them to convert.
Here, the concept of utility-based marketing is markedly useful. In this piece, we’ll explore the basics of utility in marketing, why it matters, and then dive into five common types of utility in marketing.

What is utility in marketing?
Put simply? Value.
While in a non-economic context the term “utility” typically means “usefulness”, the marketing-driven definition speaks to the specific value realized by consumers when they spend on products or services. Understanding utility in marketing can help companies both better-predict spending habits and design campaigns to capture consumer interest.

Why Marketing Utility Matters
Historically, marketing efforts have focused on making an impression. It makes sense — if consumers notice and remember your print, email, or television ad campaign, you’re better positioned to capture their spending when they see your brand again in-store or while shopping online.
The problem? With so many companies now competing for consumer interest both online and in-person, market saturation is a significant concern. Even more worrisome? As noted by a New York Times article, “people hate ads.” Oversaturated and overwhelmed by ads across desktops, mobile devices, and in-person, prospective buyers are now tuning out enterprise efforts to impress.
Instead, they’re looking for utility. This is the goal of utility-driven marketing: To offer consumers functional and useful products or services that provide a specific benefit or can be repurposed to serve multiple functions.
When done well, utility marketing can create stronger bonds between customers and companies, and drive increased brand loyalty over time. It’s a slow-burn process rather than a quick-spend process and one that serves a different purpose — connecting customers with brands based on value, not volume.

The Five Types of Utility in Marketing
Despite our definition, the notion of “utility” in marketing remains fairly nebulous. That’s because trying to identify the exact value offered by your products or services to a specific customer segment, and how best to communicate this value effectively, is no easy task.
As a result, utility in marketing is often broken down into different types, each of which can help inform better ad building and effective sales outcomes. Depending on how specific — or how generalized — your marketing approach, however, it’s possible to identify anything from one massive utility model to hundreds of smaller utility types for each consumer segment.
To streamline your audience targeting and campaign creation process, we’ll dig into five common types of utility in marketing.
1. Utility of Time
This is the “when” component of utility: Is your product available when customers want it? Will it arrive quickly and without complication? Consumers want to spend as little time as possible waiting for products to arrive in-stock or at their homes — as a result, utility of time is critical to capture consumer conversion on-demand.
Time utility also accounts for seasonal changes in purchasing habits; for example, sales of boots and gloves spike in the winter, while ice cream sees greater demand during the summer.
Some products are staples and are therefore time-resistant — such as groceries — but still need to be in-stock and delivered on-time. As a result, time-based marketing efforts are inherently tied to inventory and delivery systems to ensure outcomes meet consumer expectations.
2. Utility of Place
Place utility refers to the ability of consumers to get what they want, where they want it. Often applied to brick-and-mortar stores, utility of place is paramount for customers looking for familiar items that are easy to obtain.
In a world now driven by digital marketing efforts, place offers a competitive edge if companies can showcase their capacity to keep specific items in-stock at all times. And as improved logistics chains shorten the time between order and delivery, it’s possible for ecommerce operators to leverage place utility as a market differentiator.
3. Utility of Possession
Possession utility speaks to the actual act of product possession — such as consumers driving a new car off the lot or having furniture delivered to their home. It also highlights the connection between possession and purpose.
Consider plastic storage bins. While they might be sold in the “kitchen” section of an online or brick-and-mortar store, consumers are free to repurpose the items as they see fit once they take possession, increasing their overall utility.
4. Utility of Form
While some companies offer lower prices by shifting the responsibility of assembly to the consumer (e.g. that new dresser that you bought and had delivered, but still need to assemble on your own time), finished forms are often more valuable to customers.
Consider complex products such as vehicles or electronic devices — by highlighting the finished form of these items, companies can reduce potentially purchasing barriers by making it clear that consumers will receive feature-complete products that don’t add the complexity of self-assembly.
5. Utility of Information
Information utility is a new addition to this list, but in a world where competition for even basic goods now happens on a global scale, information can make the difference between successful sales and failed conversion efforts. Information utility speaks to any data that helps consumers make buying decisions. This includes product details on ecommerce pages, targeted marketing campaigns, and well-trained call center and in-store agents capable of answering customer questions.
Simply, the right information at the right time improves market utility and increases the chance of sales conversion.
Creating Customer Value
The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is to create customer value. While not every campaign requires the complete implementation of all five utility types to improve conversion and customer satisfaction, general knowledge paves the way for implementation to deliver value at scale.

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Small businesses are smart and scrappy. They’re accustomed to working with a small staff, limited resources, and trying to find ways to battle their competitors (who are often larger companies with larger budgets). But just because their budgets aren’t as big doesn’t’ mean small businesses should miss out on the advantages that come with having…
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