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  Email marketing can do wonders for your business — if you do it right. It may surprise you, but there are various rules and regulations that come with sending emails. Sending emails is mostly all fun and games, but if you break anti-spam law or aren’t totally aware of what the regulations are, there…
The post Email Marketing Rules and Regulations You Need To Know appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

Alright, everyone: I’m about to let you in on a few of my best-kept interviewing secrets.
In this post, I’ll uncover real questions I use when interviewing candidates for inbound marketing positions and the answers I’m looking for.
These questions are meant to assess candidates not only for their marketing talent, but also for who they are as people.
Keep in mind that the best candidates aren’t just qualified to do the job you’re trying to hire them for. You want to look for people who are also passionate about marketing, fit with your culture, and show potential for growth at your company.
Here’s a quick look into my interview approach, followed by 14 excellent interview questions I recommend adapting for your industry and hiring needs.
My Interview Approach
During interviews, I put a lot of stake into each candidate as an individual. My goal is always to find someone amazing who also has great long-term potential, no matter where they are in their career.
To uncover this, I like to ask questions that get at the core of who they are, how they think about things specifically, and how they’ve gotten things done in the real world. I then balance these questions with case-style questions, which usually involve a hypothetical business situation, because they give the candidate an opportunity to show how they think about and work on problems.
Below is a list of 14 questions that make for an effective marketing job interview, the majority of which I’ve asked candidates with whom I’ve personally gotten to meet.
Keep in mind that I don’t ask all of these questions during a single interview. In fact, one case-style question can evolve into a discussion lasting anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, so I often only have time to cover two or three questions during one session.
I also don’t limit these questions to the position levels you’ll see in each section below. This list is just one reasonable way to organize your job interviews based on the average experience of an intern, coordinator, manager, and director. Depending on the candidate and the needs of the role, a question to a marketing manager candidate might be a good question to ask a marketing coordinator candidate as well.
Before the interview starts, carefully choose the questions you want to use based on the person’s role and background. For an inbound marketing generalist, you could ask any or all of these questions. For someone with a more specific role on a larger inbound marketing team, like a blogger, you could focus only on the questions about blogging and content creation.
Learn more in the following video, and check out some of my favorite interview questions below.

14 Interview Questions to Ask Marketing Job Candidates
Case-Style Interview Questions
1. “Draw a funnel on the whiteboard showing 10,000 visitors, 500 leads, 50 opportunities, and 10 new customers (or any other numbers you think are interesting). Now, pretend you’re the CMO for the company, and you have to decide what your marketing team should do to improve on these metrics. Which areas of the funnel would you focus on, and what would you do differently to change these results?”
The Follow-Up: The follow-up here is simply pushing on the candidate’s answers. Typically, they’ll pick one part of the funnel to focus on. (And if they don’t, I like to push them to do just that.)
Once they pick one area, I ask them follow-up questions like: “Which tactics would you think about changing?,” “What have you done in your past role that’s worked?,” “Do you think our company has any unique advantages to get some leverage out of that stage of the funnel?” I don’t just want them to tell me to “improve the visitor to lead conversion rate” — they need to tell me how.
If I have time, I’ll tell them to pretend they’ve implemented their ideas, and I’ll ask them to go back through the whole funnel and explain how they think each of those initial metrics have changed.
What to Look For: Everyone on the marketing team needs to be able to understand how to think about and optimize the funnel. Here’s where you assess their thought process, whether they have an intuitive sense of what good and bad conversion rates are, and whether they understand how the funnel steps are connected.
You’ll also gain some insight into whether they understand which different tactics you can use at each step to improve that particular step. (For example, if they say the lead-to-opportunity conversion rate is bad, the right answer is not to write more blog articles.)
2. “We have two potential designs for the homepage of our website, but we don’t know which one to use. The CEO likes one, and the COO likes another. Half the company likes one, and the other half of the company likes the other. Which one should we use?”
The Follow-Up: This type of question should elicit a ton of questions from the candidate, like who the target audience for the homepage is. If it doesn’t, then they’re either making up their answer or don’t have enough knowledge to address the situation. Follow up by answering their questions with hypotheticals and seeing how they work through the problem.
If they do pick one side or the other and give you a reason, ask them what the goals are for the homepage. Then, ask them how they’d determine which homepage meets those goals best. From there, tell them that Homepage A performed well based on one of the criteria, and Homepage B performed well based on another one of the criteria. This way, you can assess how they make choices when it’s not possible to get data that’s 100% conclusive, and they have to choose between two, imperfect variations.
What to Look For: While it might seem like this question is all about design, what you’re really doing is understanding how candidates approach a conflict of interest. Do they care what each of these people think, or do they go to the data for their answers, such as through A/B testing, user testing, and customer interviews. The best candidates introduce logic and marketing methodology into their answers, while removing opinions. I also like when candidates say you should be constantly tweaking and improving the homepage, rather than always doing a complete redesign every nine or 18 months.
3. “Let’s say you have an Excel spreadsheet with 10,000 leads from a few months back — long enough that those leads’ sales cycle has passed. The file contains information about each lead, like their industry, title, company size, and what they did to become a lead (like downloading an ebook). Also in the file is whether they closed as a customer and how much their order was for. Can you use this information to create a lead score? How would you do it?”
Note: I often start this question by simply asking, “How should you create a lead score?” This is how I sort out the people who don’t take a data-driven approach. Folks who answer, “You create a lead score by talking to the sales team and then assigning five or ten points to each of the criteria they say they want” are actually wrong. That is not a data-driven approach to lead scoring, and it is way too simplistic to work effectively in most cases.
The Follow-Up: Most people will answer by talking about “looking at the data” and “sorting the data.” Push them to tell you how they’d do that in Excel (or another program if they prefer something else). It’s not practical to just “look” at the data when you have 10,000 rows — you need to use statistical analysis.
They also might zone in on one factor, perhaps industry, all alone. If they do that, you should ask them what they would say if the small companies in one industry are good leads, but the big companies in another industry are also good leads? Basically, just keep pushing them until they’re at a loss for what to do next.
What to Look For: This case-style question is meant to test a candidate’s quantitative abilities, and I’d only ask it for people applying for certain marketing roles (like operations). Here, I’m trying to figure out how the candidate thinks about analyzing data and what their sophistication level is around data.
Most people don’t get very far and are either unwilling or unable to look at more than one variable at a time, or understand how to analyze a lot of data in a simple way. At a minimum, you want to find candidates who:

Look at the leads who closed in one group and compare them to the leads who did not close
Look at multiple variables at a time
Use statistical functions in Excel or another program to do that, like summary tables, pivot tables, and so on

If you find someone who starts making a coherent argument about why you might want to use logistic regression, factor or cluster analysis, actuarial science, or stochastic modeling to figure this out … refer them to me.
Marketing Internship Interview Questions
4. “What is one of your hobbies? How do you do it?”
This question will help you assess a candidate’s ability to explain a concept they know intimately to someone who isn’t as familiar with it. If their hobby is training for a marathon, ask them what advice they’d give you if you woke up one day deciding you wanted to train for a marathon. Are they able to communicate it clearly?
One candidate taught me how to make tagliatelle, which is hand-cut Italian pasta. She gave me the full run-down on how you make the noodles, how you form them and cut them, and which ingredients go into the sauce. She relayed the step-by-step process to me in a way that was very clear and understandable. I felt like I could’ve gone home and made tagliatelle myself. Not only did this tell me she knows how to convey information clearly, but it also gave me insight into her personality and interests.
5. “What brands do you like or follow on social media and why?”
This is another casual but useful question, as it can tell you both about a candidate’s personal interests and how they perceive marketing content on social media. The best answers go further than which companies a candidate likes buying from — they indicate why he or she trusts certain companies, what about their content strategy appeals to the candidate, and what specifically about those companies the candidate looks up to (and maybe wants to emulate in their own work).
If you need a candidate to elaborate, follow up by asking them to describe a post from a brand they like or follow, and what made that post so memorable to them.
Marketing Coordinator Interview Questions
6. “What do you read, and how do you consume information?”
Marketing is changing constantly at a rapid pace — so anyone in a marketing role needs to know how to stay on top of and adapt to these changes. Do they know where to look for industry news? Are they familiar with and subscribed to top marketing blogs? What do they do when they see a change has taken place, like when Google updates their algorithm?
7. “What’s an example of a lead-generating campaign you’d be excited to work on here?”
Not every marketing campaign you run generates the same type or quality of leads. This is what makes this question so interesting. It’s a chance for you to see how a marketing candidate thinks about the buyer’s journey and what that journey should look like in your company.
If you do pose this question to a candidate, don’t expect him or her to know exactly how your business generates its leads. The ideal answer simply demonstrates an awareness of your customer and perhaps some on-the-spot brainstorming the candidate might be asked to participate in while on the job.
Expect follow-up questions from the interviewee, too, especially if you pose this question to a more experienced candidate. For example, they might ask how qualified the leads should be, or how leads are scored as a result of this hypothetical campaign. The specific parameters matter less than the follow-up question itself — a positive sign of an analytical marketer.
8. “What are three components of a successful inbound or digital marketing strategy?”
There’s no “right” answer to this question — a digital marketing strategy thrives on more than three things — but certain answers show the candidate is up to date on how businesses attract and delight their customers today.
“A Facebook page,” for instance, isn’t a wrong answer, but it doesn’t give you context around how a business would use this page in their marketing strategy. Here are a few sample answers to this interview question that are on the right track:

A blog with calls to action (CTAs), landing pages for website visitors to download more content, and a defined social media strategy.
An SEO strategy, website chat, and an analytics tool to track campaign performance.
 Buyer personas, a Marketing and Sales Service Level Agreement, and a customer success strategy.

You won’t learn everything about a candidate from just these terms and phrases. But you should listen for them as the candidate responds — and expect more sophisticated answers if you pose this question to managers or directors.
Ultimately, the value you place on each of these inbound marketing components will depend on how important they are to your business and what the candidate would focus on as your employee. Before asking this question to anyone you interview, talk to your team and define your marketing strategy. Otherwise, you won’t have an accurate measure on which to evaluate a candidate’s answer.
Interview Questions for Marketing Manager
9. “Why do you love marketing?”
Or, “Which aspects of our business are you passionate about?” You want to hire someone who’s both qualified and has the desire to do the work. Otherwise, why would they work for you instead of the company next door?
Part of their answer will lie in their body language and enthusiasm. The other part will lie in how concrete their answer is. Get at the details by asking a follow-up question, like: “Let’s say you’re at home, kicking around, and doing something related to marketing. What is it that you’re doing?” Perhaps they’re reading their five favorite marketing sites, or analyzing traffic patterns of websites for fun, or writing in their personal blog, or optimizing their LinkedIn profile. Whatever it is, you want to be sure they’re deeply passionate about the subject matter you’d hire them for.
10. “Between videos, ebooks, blog articles, photos, podcasts, webinars, SlideShare, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest … there’s a lot of potential content our team should produce for inbound marketing. How do we do it all?”
The wisest candidates know you should not do it all, but rather, you should start with the content that’s most important to your prospects and customers. They should also have a plan for talking to customers and prospects by way of interviews or surveys to figure out which social networks they use and which types of content they prefer.
11. “Let’s pretend we have very convincing data that shows none of our potential customers use social media. Should we still do it? Why?”
Look for candidates who understand that being successful in social media is important even if your customers aren’t there today. Here are a few reasons qualified candidates might cite:

Your customers will be there in the future, so you should get started now.
You’ll gain industry clout. After all, journalists and influencers in your industry are probably using social media — and it’s important for them to follow you even if they don’t ever become customers.
Social media activity impacts your organic search presence, helping your content rank higher in search engines.
You’ll have more control over your online presence.
Your competitors are likely using social media.
It may cost less to generate customers via social media.

Marketing Director Interview Questions
12. “We have a new product coming out in three months. What would you do to launch it?”
This’ll show you how well a candidate understands all the different tactics of inbound marketing and how to tie them together into a holistic plan. It’ll also give you insight into how creative they are and whether they can come up with new and interesting ways to do marketing.
13. “Our CEO wants you to evaluate our blog. What would you say?”
Before giving you an answer, the best candidates will come back and ask you about the blog’s metrics, how many leads and customers it generates, what the goals are for it, how much you’re investing in it, and so on. This is also a great way to test whether they actually prepared for the interview by reading your blog.
14. “What’s the main relationship between marketing and sales?”
The relationship between Marketing and Sales is known for its unrest (Sales wants better leads from Marketing, and Marketing wants Sales to close more, faster). 
Similar to question #8, there’s no right answer here, but there are answers you should listen for. “Marketers are the lead generators and salespeople are the lead closers” isn’t necessarily wrong, but the candidate who ends his/her answer here might not be someone who can align both departments around a single, unified approach.
The best answers describe the responsibilities that Sales and Marketing have to each other, and the duties each commits to as part of this partnership. They have a plan for forging consensus on what makes leads marketing-qualified versus sales-qualified, creating a shared Service Level Agreement with agreed-upon metrics, and using content at different points in the marketing and sales funnel to turn strangers into customers.
The Candidate’s Follow-Up
Most candidates know to follow up with each of their interviewers in the form of a thank-you note or email. But part of my assessment is the depth at which candidates follow up with me.
The most impressive follow-ups are the thoughtful ones, where candidates call upon details of our discussion to show they’re really engaged in the interview process. Perhaps they did more concrete thinking about a specific question I asked, and they send a long email including research on a question they don’t think they nailed. Many times, they’ll send me a light strategy document with ideas and/or research on something we talked about. These candidates tend to stand out.
Well, the cat’s out of the bag. You’ll have to use these marketing interview questions as a basis to create your own, similar questions that are relevant to your industry and hiring needs. Good luck, and happy hiring!
Want more interview tips? Learn about some of the questions candidates should ask hiring managers.

Products are never just products, right?
Coca-Cola is more than a soda. Starbucks is more than a coffee. Ray-Ban is more than a pair of sunglasses. Glossier is more than a tube of concealer.
Interacting with these products provide experiences, and we buy them with that experience in mind. Better yet, the companies that create and market them know exactly the experience they want you to have when you make (or consider) a purchase. That’s why they create a brand.
From the language in their Instagram caption to the color palette on their latest billboard to the material used in their packaging, companies who create strong brands know that their brand needs to live everywhere. They know their names extend far beyond the label.
The result? These brands are known, loved, and chosen out of a long lineup of options.
Who doesn’t want that? I know I do. That’s why we built this guide — to equip you to create and manage a strong brand that’ll help your business be admired, remembered, and preferred.
Use the links below to jump ahead to sections of interest, and don’t forget to bookmark this guide for later.

What’s a brand?
Before I dive into the importance of branding and how to build a brand, let’s go back to basics: What is a brand?
A brand is a feature or set of features that distinguish one organization from another. A brand is typically comprised of a name, tagline, logo or symbol, design, brand voice, and more. It also refers to the overall experience a customer undergoes when interacting with a business — as a shopper, customer, social media follower, or mere passerby.
What is branding?
Branding is the process of researching, developing, and applying a distinctive feature or set of features to your organization so that consumers can begin to associate your brand with your products or services.
Branding is an iterative process and requires getting in touch with the heart of your customers and your business. It’s important for a variety of reasons — I dive into these next.

Branding can be the deciding factor for consumers when they make a purchase decision. In a 2015 global Nielsen survey, almost 60% of shoppers said they actively buy from brands they know, and 21% said they bought a product because they liked the brand.
Branding gives your business an identity beyond its product or service. It gives consumers something to relate to and connect with.
Branding makes your business memorable. It’s the face of your company and helps consumers distinguish your business across every medium (which I discuss later).
Branding supports your marketing and advertising efforts. It helps your promotion pack that extra punch with added recognition and impact.
Branding brings your employees pride. When you brand your company, you’re not only giving your business identity, you’re also creating a reputable, highly-regarded workplace. Strong branding brings in strong employees.
Branding Terms to Know
Here are some other brand-related buzzwords you should know. They further demonstrate the importance and value of branding your business.
Brand awareness
Brand awareness refers to how familiar the general public and your target audience is with your brand. High brand awareness leads to brands being referred to as “trending,” “buzzworthy, or “popular.” Brand awareness is important because consumers can’t consider purchasing from your brand if they’re not aware of it.
👉🏼 Strong branding makes your business known.
Brand extension
Brand extensions are when companies “extend” their brand to develop new products in new industries and markets. Consider Honda lawn mowers or Martha Stewart bedding. Brand extensions allow companies (or individuals) to leverage brand awareness and equity to create more revenue streams and diversify product lines.
👉🏼 Strong branding brings in more money.
Brand identity
Brand identity is the personality of your business and the promise you make to your customers. It’s what you want your customers to walk away with after they interact with your brand. Your brand identity is typically comprised of your values, how you communicate your product or service, and what you want people to feel when they interact with it.
👉🏼 Strong branding gives your business more than a name.
Brand management
Brand management refers to the process of creating and maintaining your brand. It includes managing the tangible elements of your brand (style guide, packaging, color palette) and the intangible elements (how it’s perceived by your target audience and customer base). Your brand is a living, breathing asset, and it should be managed as such.
👉🏼 Strong branding requires consistent upkeep.
Brand recognition
Brand recognition is how well a consumer (ideally in your target audience) can recognize and identify your brand without seeing your business name — through your logo, tagline, jingle, packaging, or advertising. This concept goes hand-in-hand with brand recall, which is the ability to think of a brand without any visual or auditory identifiers.
👉🏼 Strong branding keeps your business top-of-mind.
Real-life brand example: Want to test your brand knowledge? Take this Logo Quiz by Business Insider to see how well you know your corporate brands. This is brand recognition at work.

Brand trust
Brand trust refers to how strongly customers and consumers believe in your brand. Do you deliver on your marketing promises? Do your salespeople and customer service go above and beyond? These things can create trust among your customers, which is important in a world where a mere 25% of people feel confident in large businesses.
👉🏼 Strong branding builds trust with your customers.
Brand valuation
Brand valuation is the commercial valuation of your brand derived from consumer perception, recognition, and trust. This concept goes hand-in-hand with brand equity. A powerful brand can make your business invaluable to investors, shareholders, and potential buyers.
👉🏼 Strong branding increases your business’s value.
Want to build an effective, measurable brand? Download our free guide on How to Build a Brand in 2019.

How to Create a Brand

Determine your target audience
Establish your mission statement
Define your values, features, and benefits
Create your visual assets
Find your brand voice
Put your branding to work

Here’s how you can create a brand — or begin the process of rebranding your current one.
There’s a lot that goes into a brand, and there’s a lot to consider when building a strong one. So, grab a notebook and jot down ideas as you move through this section. Recognize that branding is an iterative process, so you might be repeating some of these steps as you brainstorm and build your brand.
1. Determine your target audience
Branding leads to awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue. We’ve talked about that. But let’s take a step back and understand where those stem from: consumers. And not just any consumers — your target audience and customers.
If your brand doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t lead to that awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue. That’s where target market research comes in.
Before pressing pen to paper (or cursor to digital document), you must understand to whom your branding will be speaking. Who does your product serve? Who is your ideal customer? Why did you create your business in the first place?
What you learn about your target market and buyer personas will influence your branding decisions down the line, so make this step your first priority.

Download our free Persona Templates to easily organize your target audience research and strengthen your marketing.
2. Establish your mission statement
Let’s return to a question I asked in the previous step: Why did you create your business? Answering this will help you build your mission statement, which defines your purpose and passion as an organization.
Before you can craft a brand that your audience recognizes, values, and trusts, you must be able to communicate the purpose that your business provides. Then, every part of your brand (logo, tagline, imagery, voice, and personality) can reflect that mission and vision.
Your mission statement is a building block of your brand manifesto, which encompasses why your organization exists and why people should care about your brand.
Download our free guide to Defining Inspiring Mission and Vision Statements and learn the ins-and-outs of two of the most valuable strategic planning elements for businesses.
3. Define your unique values, qualities, and benefits
There are probably lots of businesses in your industry and niche. It’s easy to focus on your competition (and there’s a time and place for competitive analysis), but, for now, let’s focus on you.
What’s one thing that your business has that no one else can mimic (er, legally)? Your brand.
Because of that, you must ensure that your brand is comprised of and inspired by elements that are solely yours: the values, benefits, and qualities that make your company unique.
Take a moment to jot down a list of what sets your business apart from others. I’m not talking about product features (like appearance, components, or capabilities); I’m referring to how your products or services improve lives and contribute to success.
Real-life brand example: Alani Nutrition
You’ve probably never heard of Alani Nu; they’re a nutrition company based in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. I order their vitamins because 1) they’re proven to work, and 2) I trust and respect the brand (and it’s gorgeous!). On their website, they’ve clearly and simply outlined their unique values and benefits as part of their overall brand. Highlighting these makes it easy for customers like me to trust their products and choose them over competitors.

4. Create your visual assets
At this point, you should understand your target audience, your mission statement, and the unique qualities that make up your business.
If you can say with confidence that you’ve mastered these steps, it’s time to move onto one of the more exciting parts of branding — the visual design. We’re talking about your logo, color palette, typography (fonts), iconography, and other visual components.
As you create these elements, build a set of brand guidelines (or a brand style guide) to govern the composition and use of your visual assets. This will ensure that whoever uses your new branding does so accurately and consistently. Check out HubSpot’s brand guidelines for reference.

Note: Design can be just as intimidating as it is exciting. Consider hiring a professional with logo and identity design experience or starting with a few helpful design templates.
Take your brand to the next level with this free e-book on creating a brand style guide. Download templates, too!
5. Find your brand voice
Next, consider the auditory component of your brand. What would your brand sound like if you had a conversation with it, or if it texted you?
How you communicate with your target market is also considered part of your branding. You want to define a brand voice that connects and resonates with your audience — otherwise, they probably won’t pay attention. Because of that, don’t hesitate to return to step one to get familiar with to whom you’re speaking.
From your advertising campaigns and social media captions to your blog posts and brand story, ensure your tone is consistent throughout all of your written content. Give your audience a chance to get familiar with your brand and learn to recognize the sound of your voice. Better yet, master a fun, entertaining voice, and your customers will look forward to your social media and email updates.
Real-life brand example: MailChimp
MailChimp is a great example of a brand that speaks with a clear, consistent tone. When I used their free plan for my small business, I always chuckled when receiving their emails and working in their interface. From its web copy to its email blasts and social media captions, MailChimp has established a brand voice and personality that is personable, fun, and accessible — it can be hard to explain the technical parts of a software product (like A/B testing), but MailChimp has mastered that, too.
Source

6. Put your branding to work
Your brand only works if you do. Once you finish designing and creating your new brand (or rebrand) integrate it throughout every inch of your business. Pay extra attention to ensure it’s displayed anywhere your business touches customers. Here are a handful of tips for applying your brand across your organization.
Website
Splash your logo, color palette, and typography across your website. Don’t use anything but your predefined assets in your brand guidelines. Your website is a major part of your company identity — if it doesn’t reflect your brand, it will only provide a jarring customer experience. Also, be sure that all web copy, calls-to-action, and product descriptions reflect your brand voice.
Social media
All profile photos, cover art, and branded imagery should reflect your brand. Consider putting your logo as your profile photo — this will make it easier for customers to recognize your business. As with your website, be sure all profile information, posts, and captions reflect your brand voice.
Packaging
If you have a physical products business, your product is probably the most tangible way that customers interact with your brand. For that reason, your packaging should reflect your new branding — in its design, colors, size, and feel.
Real-life brand example: Chobani
I love Chobani yogurt (confession: I’m eating it right now). Their new branding immediately tells me that they produce authentic, healthy Greek yogurt. That’s one of the main reasons I buy Chobani. Recently, I realized that their yogurt packages are made with a very earthy, textured material — an intentional decision that supports the overall experience they’ve paired with purchasing and eating the Chobani brand.

Advertising
Because advertisements (digital and print) are often used to establish brand awareness and introduce consumers to your brand, it’s critical that they reflect your branding. In fact, your branding should make the ad creation process easier — with your brand style guide, you already know how your ads should appear and what type of copy to write.
Sales and customer service
A brand is only as powerful as the people behind it, and if your people aren’t putting your brand to work, it won’t work for you. Moreover, your brand applies to more than your marketing. Inform your sales and customer service folks of your brand guidelines and tell them to use it, especially when they engage directly with customers. Whether they are sharing a branded product demo or answering customer support inquiries, encourage them to use your logo, tagline, imagery, and brand voice.
Download our Essential Guide to Branding Your Company to learn everything you need to go from same-old business to must-have brand.

Branding Tips for Small Business

Treat your brand as a person
Prioritize consistency
Follow a brand strategy
Don’t let inspiration turn into imitation
Use branding to hire

Treat your brand as a person
To best wrap your head around the branding process, think of your brand as a person. Your brand should have an identity (who it is), personality (how it behaves), and experience (how it’s remembered).
Ask yourself these questions about your brand:

How would your brand introduce itself? If it had to describe its appearance, how would it do so?
How would your brand talk about your products or services? Would it be serious and professional, or would it be humorous and edgy?
What would someone say about your brand after “meeting” it for the first time? What are a few sentences they’d use to describe it?

The purpose of branding is to create relationships with your customers. The easiest way to do this is to treat your brand as a person and understand that you want your customers to do the same.
Real-life brand example: Whiskey Riff
Whiskey Riff is another brand you’re probably not familiar with. It’s a two-man media company based here in Chicago that’s dubbed themselves “the most entertaining country music site ever”. I’m a fan because I love country music, enjoy their written and podcast content, and proudly wear some of their awesome apparel.
If Whiskey Riff was a person, here’s how I’d think it would answer the questions above:

“Hey, I’m Whiskey Riff. I love country music and, you guessed it, Whiskey. My logo was inspired by the Y in the circle on the Chicago Theater marquee, and I’m adorned with horizontal red stripes and stars — which represent the American and Chicago flags.”
“I publish in-your-face content about what’s going on in country music today. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. My podcast featured my founders interviewing country music artists and telling hilarious stories. Check out my apparel line; my t-shirts, tanks, hats, and accessories can be seen at country music festivals (and on stages) nationwide.”
“Whiskey Riff is like that first shot of Jack Daniels — that much-needed, refreshing drink after a long day. Its a break from that cookie-cutter way of life, and you immediately appreciate — and trust — its candidness. There’s absolutely nothing like it in the industry.”

Prioritize consistency
Inconsistency is the number one branding mistake that companies make. Inconsistency undermines your brand and confuses your customers. Recognizable, valuable brands prioritize consistency — and they reap the benefits. When your brand is a unified presence across mediums and platforms, customers can easily get familiar with, recognize, and come to prefer your brand over time. Brand guidelines can help with this initiative.
Build and follow a brand strategy
A brand strategy is more than your brand guidelines; it’s a plan with specific, long-term goals that can be achieved as your brand evolves. These goals typically revolve around your brand’s purpose, emotion, flexibility, competitive awareness, and employee involvement.
Remember how I said that branding is a continuous process? There’s a lot that goes into it. A brand strategy can help you turn that process into a well-oiled practice that keeps your brand moving toward success and recognition.
Don’t let inspiration turn into imitation
Competitive analysis is important. Not only does it educate you on where your competition stands and how they are excelling, but it can also give you ideas on how you can improve or further set apart your brand.
However, be conscious to not fall into an imitation trap. Keep your competitive research limited and focus on what your organization brings to the table. Just because a competitor (or two) has branded their company in a certain way doesn’t mean that you have to follow suit. New, unique, provocative brands are memorable brands.
Use branding to hire
Strong branding makes your employees proud. I know I’m proud to be associated with HubSpot, much less work there. Leverage your branding to attract talented people. If hiring is a strong initiative for your organization, dedicate some of your resources to employer branding. Employer branding is how you market your company to job seekers and current employees. If you’re publically proud of your organization, others will be, too.
Ready, Set, Brand
Branding is your organization’s name, logo, color palette, voice, and imagery. It’s also more. It’s that intangible feeling your customers have when they interact with your brand. You know … that experience we talked about in the beginning.
That’s how powerhouse brands deviate from all the others. The tangible components contribute to this — a gorgeous logo, a clever tagline, an authentic manifesto, and a clear brand voice — but truly strong brands thrive when they focus on the big picture of their brand. Get to the heart and soul of your target audience and your organization, and a successful brand will follow. 

Is there someone on staff who sits there and codes HTML for emails? Do you use an external service that has a more user friendly interface for newsletters than Marketo has? Do you outsource to someone?
submitted by /u/cioccolato [link] [comments]

This post is written by Daniel Englebretson. Daniel is a Salesforce Trailblazer and co-founder and VP of client services for Khronos, an agency that specializes in account-based marketing, B2B marketing, enterprise marketing, and growth marketing.
In 2020, 79% of businesses reported a decline in pipeline tied to the pandemic, and many B2B marketers are turning to account-based marketing (ABM) to redefine their go-to-market approach. Those who have built successful ABM programs have realized huge gains in ROI, win-rates, pipeline velocity, and customer retention.  
In this blog post, we’ll dive into what ABM is, why its popularity surged this year, and how marketers should think about ABM as they plan for 2021.
Defining Account-Based Marketing
Like any good marketing, ABM requires a deep understanding of your target audience and how they make purchase decisions. What makes today’s ABM different from traditional marketing is:

the wide variety of readily available target customer data
the unprecedented access to individual buyers
the scale that technology can bring to your ability to act on data 

When done well, ABM aggregates target customer data, unlocks insight, and leverages technology to facilitate the ideal buying experience for your ideal customer.
Put more simply: the account-based approach focuses your efforts on saying the right thing to the right people at the right time.
The Foundations of ABM: Data, Content, and Alignment
The success of any ABM strategy depends on having the following in place:
Data (the right people)
A strong ABM program is built on the accessibility of clean, organized account data. You can’t say the right thing to the right person if you don’t know who that person is or what their experience with your brand has been. 
Content (saying the right thing)
The goal of an ABM content strategy is to balance the most relevant experience that you can afford, while maximizing payback. Carefully consider the buyer’s journey and the ideal experience that your brand would like to deliver along that journey. 
Alignment (at the right time)
Traditional demand generation often suffers from a fundamental disconnect between what marketing and sales consider to be a qualified lead. ABM works to overcome this disconnect by encouraging cross-functional account selection, collaborative buyer journey design, and a unified definition of a qualified lead.
The Implications of Shifting to ABM
The two most significant implications of a shift to ABM are the organizational structure required to react to the output and the reconfiguration of the technology stack to support an account-based focus.
Org structure
It would be easy to look at the shift to ABM as a marketing-led initiative, but in reality, it’s a market-driven initiative.
B2B buyers are demanding a more personalized, relevant, and connected experience. This has led to a rise in behavior-driven interpretation of buying intent, and the birth of high-touch, outbound roles focused on human-to-human communication. These roles are distinctly different from traditional inside sales and place a heavy focus on high-touch, multi-channel outreach.
Tech stack
The ABM conversation is often dominated by tactical approaches to delivering  personalized messages to a target audience. There’s been an explosion of new technology vendors with exciting new capabilities, but implementing them takes time and money. This can complicate your martech stack, extend the time it takes to launch, and leave less time to deliver payback. 
Starting with a clean view into your target accounts – who they are, who you know, and how you’re engaging with them – will go a long way toward defining your tech strategy. But before evaluating new technologies, start by clearly defining the problems you’re trying to solve.
What does 2020 tell us about 2021?
A shift to remote work, tighter budgets, declining pipelines, and the elimination of most in-person events went a long way to shaping B2B marketing in 2020. I expect to see these trends hold true in 2021.
Freezes in hiring, growing skill gaps, and the traditional “sales versus marketing” conflict have driven personal challenges for many organizations. Gaps around ABM media management, lack of a business development function (BDR), and ABM data/reporting/analytics have become increasingly more prominent. 
While identifying how to maximize return on investments will vary across organizations, if you haven’t yet staffed your first BDR, take the time to fully understand what you’re missing out on. Technology is rapidly advancing to solve many of the tactical gaps, but technology can’t replace the human touch.
One of this year’s most surprising trends was the organizational willingness to reallocate event budgets into new initiatives. The pandemic has left significant dollars in the budget and a significant gap in lead generation efforts via traditional channels. Working with your sales team to understand which types of accounts are suffering the most from the lack of events, and then building a plan to target and engage those accounts via alternative channels, is a powerful opportunity for marketers to add value. 
The rapid rise of work-from-home and its impact on the efficacy of high-volume tactics like direct mail and outbound calling has been particularly interesting. It’s clear that the remote-work trend has had an impact on the ability to engage specific roles at specific accounts. As a result, there’s been a huge shift toward social media marketing. LinkedIn has solidified its place within the ABM stack, behind CRM and marketing automation, with 60% of ABM teams deploying LinkedIn.
But perhaps the farthest-reaching marketing shift is the degree to which enterprise-grade technology is becoming easier to use and more accessible by all businesses. Advanced concepts like predictive and AI are now at your fingertips, reinforcing the need to simplify your tech stack and consolidate data for advanced manipulation.
What ABM marketers need in 2021
Despite the advances, data challenges remain a critical hurdle for ABM. As a marketing leader, you should be able to answer these questions:

How big is your total addressable market?
What is your ideal customer profile?
What percentage of that audience do you currently have access to? 

These answers can help you better align your efforts, set your targets, and allocate resources. And few things build sales alignment faster than clear data on who you’re targeting, why you’re targeting them, and how well it’s going.
But no amount of data will overcome a lack of alignment. Equipping your teams with the right tools to collaborate on a unified view of your target accounts is table-stakes for the modern revenue team.  

Register for our Nov. 17 Pardot-Like-a-Pro webinar featuring Daniel Englebretson to learn more about building a world-class ABM martech stack.

Hear Daniel’s thoughts on what it takes to target the right accounts for your ideal customer profile on the Salesforce Marketing Cloudcast.

An art.
Not a process, method, or technique. Storytelling is described as an art … the “art” of storytelling.
And — like art — it requires creativity, vision, skill, and practice. Storytelling isn’t something you can grasp in one sitting, after one course. It’s a trial-and-error process of mastery.
Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is, and rightfully so because storytelling has become a crucial component of the most successful marketing campaigns. It sets apart vibrant brands from simple businesses and loyal consumers from one-time, stop-in shoppers.
It’s also the heart of inbound marketing.
Storytelling is an incredibly valuable tool for you to add to your proverbial marketing tool belt. That’s why we’ve compiled this guide, to help you discover and master storytelling and weave gorgeous, compelling tales for your audience.
Pick up your pen, and let’s dive in.

While this definition is pretty specific, stories actually resemble a variety of things. This graphic from ReferralCandy helps outline what stories are and are not.

Storytelling is an art form as old as time and has a place in every culture and society. Why? Because stories are a universal language that everyone — regardless of dialect, hometown, or heritage — can understand. Stories stimulate imagination and passion and create a sense of community among listeners and tellers alike.
Telling a story is like painting a picture with words. While everyone can tell a story, certain people fine-tune their storytelling skills and become a storyteller on behalf of their organization, brand, or business. You might’ve heard of these folks — we typically refer to them as marketers, content writers, or PR professionals.
Every member of an organization can tell a story. But before we get into the how, let’s talk about why we tell stories — as a society, culture, and economy.

Why Do We Tell Stories?

There are a variety of reasons to tell stories — to sell, entertain, educate or brag. We’ll talk about that below. Right now, I want to discuss why we choose storytelling over, say, a data-driven powerpoint or bulleted list. Why are stories our go-to way of sharing, explaining, and selling information?
Here’s why.
Stories solidify abstract concepts and simplify complex messages.
We’ve all experienced confusion when trying to understand a new idea. Stories provide a way around that. Think about times when stories have helped you better understand a concept … perhaps a teacher used a real-life example to explain a math problem, a preacher illustrated a situation during a sermon, or a speaker used a case study to convey complex data.
Stories help solidify abstract concepts and simplify complex messages. Taking a lofty, non-tangible concept and relating it using concrete ideas is one of the biggest strengths of storytelling in business.

Take Apple, for example. Computers and smartphones are a pretty complicated topic to describe to your typical consumer. Using real-life stories, they’ve been able to describe exactly how their products benefit users … instead of relying on technical jargon that very few customers would understand.
Stories bring people together.
Like I said above, stories are a universal language of sorts. We all understand the story of the hero, of the underdog, or of heartbreak. We all process emotions and can share feelings of elation, hope, despair, and anger. Sharing in a story gives even the most diverse people a sense of commonality and community.
In a world divided by a multitude of things, stories bring people together and create a sense of community. Despite our language, religion, political preferences, or ethnicity, stories connect us through the way we feel and respond to them … Stories make us human.
TOMS is a great example of this. By sharing stories of both customers and the people they serve through customer purchases, TOMS has effectively created a movement that has not only increased sales but also built a community.
Stories inspire and motivate.
Stories make us human, and the same goes for brands. When brands get transparent and authentic, it brings them down-to-earth and helps consumers connect with them and the people behind them.
Tapping into people’s emotions and baring both the good and bad is how stories inspire and motivate … and eventually, drive action. Stories also foster brand loyalty. Creating a narrative around your brand or product not only humanizes it but also inherently markets your business.
Few brands use inspiration as a selling tactic, but ModCloth does it well. By sharing the real story of their founder, ModCloth not only makes the brand relatable and worth purchasing, but it also inspires other founders and business owners.

Source: ModCloth

What makes a good story?

Words like “good” and “bad” are relative to user opinion. But there are a few non-negotiable components that make for a great storytelling experience, for both the reader and teller.
Good stories are …

Entertaining: Good stories keep the reader engaged and interested in what’s coming next.

Educational: Good stories spark curiosity and add to the reader’s knowledge bank.

Universal: Good stories are relatable to all readers and tap into emotions and experiences that most people undergo.

Organized: Good stories follow a succinct organization that helps convey the core message and helps readers absorb it.

Memorable: Whether through inspiration, scandal, or humor, good stories stick in the reader’s mind.

According to HubSpot Academy’s free Power of Storytelling course, there are three components that make up a good story — regardless of the story you’re trying to tell.

Characters. Every story features at least one character, and this character will be the key to relating your audience back to the story. This component is the bridge between you, the storyteller, and the audience. If your audience can put themselves in your character’s shoes, they’ll be more likely to follow through with your call-to-action.

Conflict. The conflict is the lesson of how the character overcomes a challenge. Conflict in your story elicits emotions and connects the audience through relatable experiences. When telling stories, the power lies in what you’re conveying and teaching. If there’s no conflict in your story, it’s likely not a story.

Resolution. Every good story has a closing, but it doesn’t always have to be a good one. Your story’s resolution should wrap up the story, provide context around the characters and conflict(s), and leave your audience with a call-to-action.

Now that you know what your story should contain, let’s talk about how to craft your story.

The Storytelling Process

We’ve confirmed storytelling is an art. Like art, storytelling requires creativity, vision, and skill. It also requires practice. Enter: The storytelling process.
Painters, sculptors, sketch artists, and potters all follow their own creative process when producing their art. It helps them know where to start, how to develop their vision, and how to perfect their practice over time. The same goes for storytelling … especially for businesses writing stories.
Why is this process important? Because, as an organization or brand, you likely have a ton of facts, figures, and messages to get across in one succinct story. How do you know where to begin? Well, start with the first step. You’ll know where to go (and how to get there) after that.
1. Know your audience.
Who wants to hear your story? Who will benefit and respond the strongest? In order to create a compelling story, you need to understand your readers and who will respond and take action.

Before you put a pen to paper (or cursor to word processor), do some research on your target market and define your buyer persona(s). This process will get you acquainted with who might be reading, viewing, or listening to your story. It will also provide crucial direction for the next few steps as you build out the foundation of your story.
2. Define your core message.
Whether your story is one page or twenty, ten minutes or sixty, it should have a core message. Like the foundation of a home, it must be established before moving forward.
Is your story selling a product or raising funds? Explaining a service or advocating for an issue? What is the point of your story? To help define this, try to summarize your story in six to ten words. If you can’t do that, you don’t have a core message.
3. Decide what kind of story you’re telling.
Not all stories are created equal. To determine what kind of story you’re telling, figure out how you want your audience to feel or react as they read.
This will help you determine how you’re going to weave your story and what objective you’re pursuing. If your objective is to …

… incite action, your story should describe a how a successful action was completed in the past and explain how readers might be able to implement the same kind of change. Avoid excessive, exaggerated detail or changes in subject so your audience can focus on the action or change that your story encourages.

… tell people about yourself, tell a story that features genuine, humanizing struggles, failures, and wins. Today’s consumer appreciates and connects to brands that market with authenticity and storytelling is no exception.

… convey values, tell a story that taps into familiar emotions, characters, and situations so that readers can understand how the story applies to their own life. This is especially important when discussing values  that some people might not agree with or understand.

… foster community or collaboration, tell a story that moves readers to discuss and share your story with others. Use a situation or experience that others can relate to and say, “Me, too!” Keep situations and characters neutral to attract the widest variety of readers.

… impart knowledge or educate, tell a story that features a trial-and-error experience, so that readers can learn about a problem and how a solution was discovered and applied. Discuss other alternative solutions, too.

4. Establish your call-to-action.
Your objective and call-to-action (CTA) are similar, but your CTA will establish the action you’d like your audience to take after reading.
What exactly do you want your readers to do after reading? Do you want them to donate money, subscribe to a newsletter, take a course, or buy a product? Outline this alongside your objective to make sure they line up.
For example, if your objective is to foster community or collaboration, your CTA might be to “Tap the share button below.”
5. Choose your story medium.
Stories can take many shapes and forms. Some stories are read, some are watched, and others are listened to. Your chosen story medium depends on your type of story as well as resources, like time and money.
Here are the different ways you can tell your story.

A written story is told through articles, blog posts, or books. These are mostly text and may include some images. Written stories are by far the most affordable, attainable method of storytelling as it just requires a free word processor like Google Docs … or a pen and paper.

A spoken story is told in person, like  a presentation, pitch, or panel. TED talks are considered spoken stories. Because of their “live”, unedited nature, spoken stories typically require more practice and skill to convey messages and elicit emotions in others.

An audio story is spoken aloud but recorded — that’s what sets it apart from the spoken story. Audio stories are usually in podcast form, and with today’s technology, creating an audio story is more affordable than ever. (For a great story-driven podcast, check out The Growth Show!)

A digital story is told through a variety of media, such as video, animation, interactive stories, and even games. This option is by far the most effective for emotionally resonant stories as well as active, visual stories … which is why it’s also the most expensive. But don’t fret: video quality doesn’t matter as much as conveying a strong message.

6. Write!
Now it’s time to put pen to paper and start crafting your story.
With your core message, audience objective, and call-to-action already established, this step is simply about adding detail and creative flair to your story. Read more about our storytelling formula to help you with this step.
7. Share your story.
Don’t forget to share and promote your story! Like with any piece of content, creating it is only half the battle — sharing it is the other.
Depending on your chosen medium, you should definitely share your story on social media and email. In addition, written stories can be promoted on your blog, Medium, or through guest posting on other publications. Digital stories can be shared on YouTube and Vimeo. While spoken stories are best conveyed in person, consider recording a live performance to share later.
The more places you share your story, the more engagement you can expect from your audience.

Storytelling Resources

Storytelling is a trial-and-error process, and no one tells a story perfectly on the first try. That’s why we’ve collected these resources to help you fine-tune your storytelling skills and learn more about the different ways a story can be told.
For a Written Story

OEDb’s writing resources
HubSpot’s list of writing tools

For a Spoken Story

The TEDx Speaker Guide

For an Audio Story

HubSpot’s guide on How to Start a Podcast

For the Digital Story

Vimeo’s Video School
Animoto

Over To You
Storytelling is an art. It’s also a process worth mastering for both your business and your customers. Stories bring people together and inspire action and response. Also, today’s consumer doesn’t decide to buy based on what you’re selling, but rather why you’re selling it.
Storytelling helps you communicate that “why” in a creative, engaging way. Plus, isn’t storytelling more fun?

According to a recent U.K. survey, bloggers have ranked as the third most trustworthy source of information, following only friends and family. That’s right — bloggers are trusted more than celebrities, journalists, brands, and politicians.
But how do you get people to fall in love with your blog in the first place? (Aside from remarkable content, of course.)
Well, just as your website homepage is like the front door to your business, your blog’s design — much like a welcome mat — is the front door to your business blog.
If you’re not attracting people visually, how will you get them to take the next steps to actually read (and, hopefully, subscribe to) your content? Once you’re done creating the quality content, you still have the challenge of presenting it in a way that clearly dictates what your blog is about. Images, text, and links need to be shown off just right — otherwise, readers might abandon your content, if it’s not showcased in a way that’s appealing, easy to follow, and generates more interest.
That’s why we’ve compiled some examples of blog homepages to get you on the right track to designing the perfect blog for your readers. Check ’em out, below.

Beautiful Blog Examples to Inspire You

Help Scout
Microsoft Stories
Pando
Design Milk
Fubiz
Webdesigner Depot
Mashable
Brit + Co
Tesco Living
Crew
Innocent Drinks
500px
Pixelgrade
BarkPost
Goodwill Industries International
charity:water
Johnny Cupcakes

17 Inspiring Examples of Beautiful Blog Homepage Design

1. Help Scout

Sometimes, the best blog designs are also the simplest. Help Scout, makers of customer service software, uses a unique but minimalist design on its blog that we love — it limits the use of copy and visuals and embraces negative space.
What we particularly like about this blog is its use of featured images for all posts, including a banner one at the top that highlights a recent or particularly popular entry. These icons are set in front of bright, block colors that catch the readers’ eye and signal what the post is about. And it works — everything about this blog’s design says “clean” and “readable.”

2. Microsoft Stories
Full disclosure: We’ve totally gushed over Microsoft’s “Stories” microsite before. We can’t help it — what better way to revitalize an old-school brand than with a blog that boasts beautiful, interactive, and inspiring branded content? Plus, the square layout of these stories is reminiscent of the Microsoft logo, which achieves a valuable brand consistency.
Microsoft Stories is also a prime example of how a business blog can be a major asset for an overall rebrand. In recent years, Microsoft has worked to humanize its brand, largely in response to a rivalry with Apple. The “Stories” microsite has a simple tagline — “Get an inside look at the people, places and ideas that move us.” It’s the softer side of Microsoft, so to speak. 
When you’re trying to convey a certain brand message, your blog can be used to communicate it — both aesthetically, and content-wise.

3. Pando

An important aspect of a well-designed blog is a consistent color scheme and style — after all, 80% of consumers say that color boosts their recognition of a brand.
It’s interesting to see how color consistency can unify the more diversified elements of design. Pando, a blog that explores the startup cycle, incorporates blue tones in several sections of its site — the background, highlight bars, and certain areas of text. But it also uses several different fonts — all of which manage to look seamless together, when tied together by a cohesive color scheme.

4. Design Milk

Design Milk, an online contemporary design outlet, uses a very simple layout to highlight its posts. The sidebar to the right — which remains visible when a blog post is opened to read — is perfect for showcasing thumbnail images for new articles. That’s an internal link strategy, which helps to encourage readers to remain on the site longer.
The social icons at the top are a pleasant addition to the overall look and feel of the site — they’re easy to spot, and make it easy to share Design Milk’s content. (And to learn more about adding social buttons to your blog, check out this post.)

5. Fubiz
Fubiz, an art and design blog, is an example of a really sleek design that also includes some cool personalization.
Near the top of the blog’s homepage, readers can side-scroll through “highlighted” posts. Below that is the Creativity Finder, where visitors can select their chosen personas — from “Art Lover” to “Freelance” — location, and the type of content they’re looking for. From there, readers can browse content specifically catered to them. 
We can’t help but love the header image, too. It uses something called “blue mind” psychology, which has found that the sight of open water can naturally draw us in. By using it in a design scheme, Fubiz is able to visually attract visitors to its content.

6. Webdesigner Depot

With a name like “Webdesigner Depot,” it’s no wonder that this design news site is visually appealing.
One thing that we particularly like is the way Webdesigner Depot has incorporated social sharing icons on each individual post. While we of course suggest actually reading each piece, having those links readily available helps visitors immediately share a headline they find interesting. And check out those navigation arrows on the right — never before has it been so easy to scroll to the top or bottom of a page.
What’s more, the color scheme, background, and fonts are all consistent — which keeps this blog looking professional, but still distinct from the basic blog templates we might be used to seeing.

7. Mashable

I mean, just look at that header image. The bold colors, the wiring overlay, the gripping pupil and the contrasting text. It absolutely catches the reader’s eye — no pun intended.
Mashable breaks its content into three noticeable sections on the homepage: New posts are listed on the left in the smallest sized thumbnails. “What’s Rising” posts are displayed in the center column as large thumbnails, and the “What’s Hot” posts are shown to the right, also as large thumbnails. This three-pronged approach to displaying content can help readers decide which kind of news matters to them the most — the attention-grabbing top story, or other posts that are currently trending.
Plus, we like that the number of shares is displayed in each post preview — that’s a great form of social proof.

8. Brit + Co

Everything about the Brit + Co homepage says “clean,” “warm,” and “welcoming.” It’s free of clutter, making the content more digestible, and the layout is extremely organized.
We dig the seasonality of the site, too. I mean, avocado jack-o’-lanterns on the dawn of October? Adorable, and replete with a colorful, fun photo to illustrate the story’s content.
The subtle “trending” header also serves as a nice way to promote popular content, without being too in-you-face about it. Plus, with such great visuals, we took note of the nod to Pinterest — that icon is important to include when your blog incorporates attractive imagery.

9. Tesco Living
We love the colorful, consistent design of Tesco Living, the blog site of British grocery chain Tesco. 
Remember how we keep harping away at brand consistency? Check out the rhombus-like designs in the top banner — that reflects the same ones that appear in Tesco’s logo.
What Tesco Living has achieved is a great balance of simplicity and boldness. The layout is extremely minimal, but it isn’t dull. Warm and welcoming shades underscore each content category, and the photos add dashes of colors throughout the site. It’s a great example of how the right imagery can achieve an appealing “less-is-more” appearance, especially if that fits in with your overall brand concept.

10. Crew
Crew Backstage, the blog of the Crew platform for designers and developers, has a fabulously minimalist blog design, but quiet a unique one.
Notice that, above the fold, it features one blog post with a large title, subtitle, and call-to-action to read more.
To the left, there’s an equally minimalist call-to-action that makes it easy for readers to connect with Crew, or learn more. Plus, there’s that consistency again — everything above the fold is the same shade of blue, which has been shown to invoke brand trust.

11. Innocent Drinks

Not only are the folks at Innocent Drinks great copywriters, but the design of its blog is also a great reminder that blog designs don’t have to get super fancy.
Notice how the logo — displayed in the upper left — is simple, cartoonish, and almost delightfully child-like. It works for Innocent Drinks (hint: childhood innocence), and that brand presence is maintained throughout the company’s blog.
The colorful fonts, for example, match the logo and stay in line with the brand’s casual, playful voice. We also like the easily-navigable archive links on the left, which are complemented by the geometric social sharing buttons on the right.

12. 500px

Much like Crew, the photography blog, 500px, leads with one featured article and a big, bold, high-definition photo to draw the reader in. That makes is pretty clear what the blog is about — it boasts valuable content on photography with gripping photography.
Plus, how cool is it that the social links are right there, obviously displayed above the fold? They keep readers engaged with the content, and make it easy to share the photography — and, content with images is up to three times as likely to be shared on social media.

13. Pixelgrade

Pixelgrade is a design studio that creates stunning WordPress themes for all sorts of creative people and small businesses. 

Their blog page does a great job of highlighting one of their most recent or popular blog posts, alongside a clear call to action and a short excerpt. What I like best is that the design of the page is 100% in line with their brand and how they communicate on other channels as well, like
Instagram
,
Facebook
, or
Twitter
.

You will have no problem in identifying their blog posts, among other content you might come across while scrolling on social media.

14. BarkPost

It’s no secret that we kind of like dogs here at HubSpot. So when a blog dedicated to life as a dog owner came across our radar, it got our attention.
BarkPost, the blog of canine subscription box company BarkBox, is a great example of design for a number of reasons. First, look how easy it is to subscribe — the call to action is right there, above the featured content. The social share icons are easily noticeable, too — and, of course, all in the brand-matching, trustworthy blue.
We also like that BarkPost draws attention to its sister companies, all of which are owned under the Bark & Co portfolio of brands. But at the same time, the blog doesn’t hock its own products — rather, it serves as an informational resource to dog parents and lovers alike.

15. Goodwill Industries International

Who says nonprofit organizations can’t blog? Nay, they should — and Goodwill’s clean, colorful navigation (again — the trustworthy blue) draw the reader to the important elements of this blog.
The posts are also neatly positioned and easily accessible to readers. And, visitors can pick the type of information that matters to them the most by choosing a topic from the drop-down menu on the top right.
Finally, we love that there’s a collaborative call to action in the introductory text that invites readers to contribute content to the Goodwill blog. After all, the organizations services have reached 37 million people — here’s a way for them to share their stories, or invite donors to write about why they chose to support Goodwill.

16. charity: water

Keeping the nonprofit blogging train going is charity: water, which makes excellent use of high-quality photography.
Recently, the organization redesigned its blog with a lengthy post dedicated to its 10-year anniversary. Using that opportunity to share its impact over the past decade, charity: water maintained a simplistic design with concise text and bright images from the anniversary event.
Plus, there’s a clear CTA to donate at the top of the page. Placing that above a story about charity: water’s impact is a double-edged sword, by both inspiring people to contribute to the cause while making it easy to do so.

17. Johnny Cupcakes

To clear up any confusion, Johnny Cupcakes doesn’t actually make cupcakes. It makes clothing. But the company has done a great job of playing up its brand’s association with baked goods — its blog uses the subdomain “kitchen.”
Plus, the folks at Johnny Cupcakes know a thing or two about brand consistency across channels. Its blog’s simple color scheme and matching fonts help to create a unified user experience from the shop to general content, all the while throwing in bold, colorful images to catch readers’ attention.
Also, visit the website and have a scroll — we think it’s pretty cool how the background images vary, but stay positionally static for each entry.

Here are 15 more award-winning website design examples.