Category: Marketing Automation

Hey all – I am ex-Bizible/Marketo and excited to share we launched our marketing automation solution for product-led companies and raised a $5M from some great investors, including a few other ex-Marketo execs. Biggest difference with Inflection is we’re built on your product activity data (+ CRM data), can scale to hundreds of millions of contacts, and also have pricing model that works for PLG. Below pretty sums up why we built the product: https://preview.redd.it/p2ghx2p9a5091.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1505dca1365fdd5741d5d994707c1d3e30d07c2a submitted by /u/Snoo-75705 [link] [comments]

https://youtu.be/2FFJv7SlFeI The Best High-Quality, Done-For-You, Content Syndication Platform For Delivering Rankings, Traffic and Sales To Your Customers On A Silver Platter is Back DFY SUITE 4.0 will allows you to get high-quality content syndication for your videos or niche sites WITHOUT having to do ANY of the work yourself… Unlock advanced System and “insider” secrets to generate even more Traffic You will get Long-Term, page 1 Rankings WORLDWIDE by leveraging the POWER of High-Quality Syndication by allowing DFY SUITE 4.0 to DO IT FOR YOU! When it comes to Ranking your content on page 1, the two most important things that help you get there are QUALITY syndication and QUALITY content! And since we ALSO handle the CONTENT that we use in your syndication, we wanted to ensure that we use the BEST quality content we can produce. So we’ve released a MASSIVE update to our content writing engine to include the ability for you to select the niche and or keyword you’d like the content to be in so our A.I knows what to write about for your campaigns. And yes, this is the THIRD time they revamped their content system because they TRULY want to be the BEST Done-For-You ranking solution on the market. Their content engine is powered by REAL artificial intelligence app, Creaite, however they ensured they updated to the LATEST version so you now get MUCH more quality and much MORE relevant content for EVERY campaign they syndicate for you. ✅ THEY added done-for-you Google Maps Embedding for BOOSTING Local Rankings! (this alone is INSANELY powerful) ✅ THEY added Done-For-You Google My Business Citations To Skyrocket Local Rankings EVEN MORE!!! (THEY REALLY stepped up the DFY local rankings) ✅ THEYadded Done-For-You Twitch Embeds so you can Get Even MORE Video Traffic And Rankings! ✅ 6x’d the size of our network, 6x’d our authority, 6x’d our ranking power ✅ THEY also added 200 NEW High-Authority Domains To Our Network EXCLUSIVELY For Version 4.0! ✅ and just like in 3.0, DFY suite 4.0 will provide DONE-FOR-YOU rankings in ANY language and or location WORLDWIDE! submitted by /u/Impossible-Ad-2600 [link] [comments]

Typical business advice touts that the customer should always come first. Given that my title is hospitality director, you’d especially think that ensuring customers are having the best experience possible would always be my top priority.And it is, but I’ve discovered a more roundabout yet incredibly powerful way of getting there: putting our employees first. After helping open and run four restaurants over the past six years as co-founder of Destination Unknown Restaurants, I’ve found that focusing on employee happiness ultimately leads to better customer experiences and a stronger business. And while I’m speaking from the perspective of the restaurant industry, this advice applies across all small businesses.For us, taking care of our employees primarily means ensuring they’re fairly compensated for their work. In 2020, we moved the bulk of our full-time staff from hourly pay to a salary so they no longer have to rely on tips or worry about scheduling when it comes to their income. We looked at what our highest-paid employees in each category made under a tipping system annually, then added 5% to determine their new base salary. The increase in cost for us is offset by a significant reduction in turnover and the associated training costs.But more than the money, this move has transformed the way we relate to our employees, and the way they relate to the business. We feel invested in them and dedicated to their growth and well-being, rather than viewing them as people who could be replaced at any time like many restaurants do. They give this back to us in spades in their care for our company and customers.Depending on the state of your business, giving your employees salaries may not be realistic, but looking for other ways to truly take care of your employees, be it through other benefits, professional development, or flexible work arrangements, will only benefit your success in the long run. Here are just a few ways we’ve seen this move improve things for our customers, for our operations, and for our morale.It’s Built a Workplace Where Everyone is Working Toward the Same GoalWhen employees feel taken care of rather than taken advantage of, it removes the “not my job” mentality and instead encourages a team environment where everyone is working to make sure every customer has a great experience.At a standard, tip-based restaurant, servers are typically only worried about their section so they can make decent money for the day. At our restaurants, I see employees working together to make sure every guest has a positive experience. If a server has a slow section, they can help another employee out instead of stressing about their income. They run food to each others’ tables and are constantly checking guests’ faces to make sure they’re having a good time. I’ve also noticed everyone banding together to train new teammates since every person impacts the guest experience.We’ve further incentivized this environment of working together to offer top-notch service by adding a bonus structure on top of employee salaries. Every month, our servers and bartenders are eligible for a bonus based on good reviews on Google and Yelp. If we get great press or an award like a Michelin star, there’s an additional bonus as well. This way, instead of just doing their one job well, each employee is focused on giving guests a great experience in any way they can.It’s Helped Us Retain the Best TalentPrioritizing employee happiness has saved us so much time and money on recruiting, hiring, and training. During a time when so many businesses are facing mass resignations and staffing challenges, we have very low turnover and have had no issues hiring. During a time when so many businesses are facing mass resignations and staffing challenges, we have very low turnover and have had no issues hiring. – Kelly Phillips, Co-Founder of Destination Unknown RestaurantsYes, it was stressful when we had to pull from our savings to make payroll during the pandemic lockdowns. But I was resolute that we didn’t let anyone go because I know I’m never going to find another Elmer, another Marco, or another one of the other outstanding employees who I trust deeply. Maybe I’ll find decent replacements eventually, but it’s certainly not going to be overnight, and not without a lot of work.Longer employee retention also undoubtedly makes the business better. When people stick around for a year or more, they get to know everything there is about the position, they become more efficient, and they find ways to serve customers even better. Many of my employees are people who helped us open these restaurants, and I can’t imagine succeeding without them.It’s Created a Relationship Where Employees Want to Reinvest in the BusinessMore than just retaining talent, I’ve noticed that investing in my team means they’re excited to invest back in the future of the business.By nature of having a salary, they feel there’s potential to stay and grow here, to move up the ladder and make this role part of their career. I could see many of these people becoming managers or partners or spearheading the opening of another restaurant one day. Obviously, this is a huge asset for us when we’re ready to grow and expand. But it’s also a huge asset now because employees are excited to work on the business rather than just work for it. For instance, I’ll notice on slow days, instead of just sitting around stressing about the lack of tips, my team will feel empowered to use the time to make small improvements around the restaurant or brainstorm new ideas. It’s exciting to have employees who want to help push the business forward, rather than just coming in and doing the bare minimum of their job.It’s Reduced Stress to Create a Better EnvironmentUltimately, I think one of the biggest ways putting our employees first has led to a better customer experience is by simply reducing the amount of stress our staff feels day to day. When you walk into a business and the team isn’t happy, you can tell immediately. At so many tip-based restaurants in particular, servers are doing math in the middle of their shift to figure out if they can pay their bills, which takes away from their focus on the customer. Meanwhile, our staff has more peace of mind, and the guests can feel that, making them excited to come back again and again. You can see that in how our businesses are doing today: We recently had a record sales week, and Destino is one of the highest-rated restaurants in Washington, DC.Your people really shape the identity of your business. – Kelly Phillips, Co-Founder of Destination Unknown RestaurantsYour people really shape the identity of your business. When they’re not well taken care of, that will reflect in how people feel when they interact with your business, even if it’s in unintentional or subtle ways. But when they feel prioritized, they’ll give that energy back to the customer.This whole experience has been a powerful reminder to me that, yes, my job is to take care of customers. But, even before that, my job is to take care of my employees, because I can’t do any of this without them.

Pinterest marketing is incredibly effective. 
Marketers target Pinterest users by sharing content that’s too irresistible for us to pass up. And with over 433 million people on Pinterest, why wouldn’t marketers want to be on the platform? Not to mention 83% of users have made a purchase from content they’ve seen on Pinterest. So, how can your business use Pinterest as a marketing tactic to help improve your brand awareness and conversions?

In this guide, we’ll cover the answer to that question as well as how Pinterest works, which Pinterest marketing strategies you should implement, how small businesses can benefit from the platform, and which tools you can use to ensure your Pinterest marketing strategy works for your business. But first, we’ll review what the platform is and how it works — let’s get started.

 
Users add, or Pin, their chosen content to boards with a common theme to keep it organized so other users can discover new content related to their interests.
If you haven’t yet opened a Pinterest account, learn more about that process here. Once you sign up, you can begin sharing content and, therefore, social media marketing on the platform.
To make the most of the platform, upload your business’s content from your computer or mobile device, Pin content you find on the platform, and add content you find on the web using the Pinterest browser button.
Engagement is key. Follow the boards of your friends and competitors, “Like,” and comment on others’ Pins, re-Pin (or repost) content, and share links to your website and blog in your Pins.

It’s important to note there are personal and business accounts on Pinterest. Choosing a business account will allow you to gain access to Pinterest Analytics and other features including a visual search tool, a native video player, and the ability to run Pinterest ads if you choose — making the platform ideal for marketers.
Now, let’s review some Pinterest marketing strategies to help you improve your influence and impact on your audience.

 

These strategies represent ways to add Pinterest to your greater marketing efforts. Here are a few benefits of using Pinterest for marketing.
1. Distribute your content.
85% of Pinners search for and prefer visual content. This makes Pinterest a uniquely strong place to distribute all types of content, including written blog content. Unlike Instagram, users can click-through live links.
On Pinterest, you share content on Pinterest boards. Boards save all of your Pins and distribute your content for your followers to explore. You can have as many boards as you want, and they can be organized into themes, ideas, plans, or types of inspiration to make it easy for your audience to find the content they’re looking for.
You can also invite people to join your boards — which would make your board a “group board” — if you want other contributors to add content they believe works with your board’s theme. This is a great way to increase engagement and interaction on your profile.
2. Build a community.
Online communities bring together like-minded people and serve as helpful hubs for businesses.
With a Pinterest community, you can count on your followers and fans to interact with your boards, consume your content, and make their way to your website — driving traffic in the process.
There are millions of people who use Pinterest every month. By treating your Pinterest board as a two-way street through which you can interact with and engage users (not like a one-way billboard), you can build a loyal community of Pinterest users who may become customers, too.
How to Build Your Pinterest Following
Although you can search for and add specific friends via their name, Facebook account, and other identifiers, this is time-consuming and would make it nearly impossible to substantially grow your following.
Instead, consider the following methods to build out your base of fans and followers on Pinterest.

Promote your Pinterest account via your other social networks.
Follow accounts you believe would want to follow you back.
Watch what your competitors are doing to increase their base of followers and learn from their techniques.
Use keywords in your posts (we’ll discuss these tactics in more detail later).
Ask influencers to re-post some of your content to gain the attention of their followers.
Pay for a Pinterest ads account to run ads on the platform.

3. Educate customers.
Pinterest is rife with tutorials, infographics, how-tos, and links to additional educational content. Given its propensity for visual content, it’s a powerful channel to educate and engage customers.
While creating and sharing content for your Pinterest profile and marketing to users, be sure to keep your target audience in mind.
Similar to the way you would when creating new products, developing your branding, or posting to other social networks, you want to ensure you’re pushing out content that appeals to your target audience, current customers, and buyer personas on Pinterest.
You can do this in a few different ways:

Research your buyer personas to determine what type of content would be most helpful and appealing to them.
Survey and ask your current followers and customers for feedback on what they want from your company on Pinterest.
Look at what your competitors are doing well (or not) to help you think about new ways to push out your content and make it unique.
View the boards of your current followers and customers to aid in your understanding of who your audience is and what they’re most interested in.

4. Drive website traffic and boost online sales.
Pinterest, unlike Instagram, allows you to link your visual content to another website — namely, your website. This feature allows you to share both written and visual content and direct users back to your website in the process. 
This is a powerful addition to your marketing as it can boost online sales, too. Many brands use Pinterest to showcase product images while sharing content.
For example, this board, created by the clothing company Madewell, serves as a source of travel inspiration and is paired with real products they sell to get their audience excited about their brand, the lifestyle they promote, and the idea of purchasing some clothing.
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By integrating Pinterest on your website, you’ll be able to easily drive traffic from one of your web pages directly to your Pinterest profile so your leads and customers can begin viewing your content in seconds (and hopefully follow you!).
These Pinterest widgets and buttons allow your website visitors to interact with your Pinterest page via your website and give them the ability to view and follow your profile or go directly to a specific Pin or board. The network’s widget builder helps you quickly customize, create, and add this feature to your site.

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These 9 Pinterest marketing strategies hold value for businesses of any size, in any industry. This universal approach to marketing is one reason Pinterest is such a valuable social media tool.
1. Sign up for a business account.
To market to your target audience, you should create a Pinterest business account. As mentioned, this free account provides you with access to Pinterest Analytics (which we’ll review in more detail shortly) and other handy marketing features such as a profile that clearly states you’re a business, Pinterest widgets, and Pinterest tag. If you already have a Pinterest account and want to convert it into a Pinterest business account, you can also do that without losing any of your content or work.
Note: If you’re looking to enhance your business account and run ads on Pinterest, you can do so by upgrading your account — and setting up your method of payment because this part of Pinterest is not free — to target your audience more aggressively with the help of the platform’s Ads Manager.
2. Choose the right categories for your content.
By choosing the right category for your content to be shared in, your Pins and boards will become more searchable for users looking to discover content similar to that of your business. Users can search for specific categories on Pinterest or simply go to the “Categories” section of any profile on the platform to view all content related to the topic they’re searching for.

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Some of the most popular Pinterest categories include travel, health and wellness, and beauty.
3. Use unique images and videos.
Similar to other social networks, Pinterest contains a plethora of images and videos. Not only do you want to ensure you’re posting images and videos that will help you promote your brand and market your products/ services, but you’ll also want to ensure they stand out against all of the others on the platform. Otherwise, why would a user choose to follow you over your competition?
Here are some ways to ensure you’re sharing great and unique visual content on Pinterest:

Create and share branded videos to promote your products and company. Pinterest users watch nearly 1 billion videos per day on the platform.
Share images and videos that show your products in action so viewers can more easily envision themselves using them.
Avoid excessive blank (or white) space in your images — images with 30% less blank space in the background are pinned most.
Create videos between 30-90 seconds long because they’re proven to have the highest performance.
Create specific boards to share images of your company’s most helpful data visualizations and infographics if you have them for your audience to use as resources for their businesses.

4. Leverage keywords.
By using keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards, you’ll be more likely to organically appear in users’ feeds and searches. Keywords and phrases on Pinterest are related to specific niches being searched by users.
For example, if you sell suitcases, you might use keywords and phrases like “vacation” or “going on a trip” throughout your profile and Pins. This way, when a user searches one of those terms, your profile and images of your suitcases will appear on their feeds.
When performing keyword research on Pinterest, start by searching terms related to your niche within the platform itself.
In the image below, I searched for the term “travel” and not only found content related to that niche, but Pinterest also provided a number of related keywords at the top of the screen. This tells you what other related terms users are searching for to support your research.
You can also use the plugin Keywords Everywhere to see the search volume for terms on Pinterest. This helps you understand the level of demand for the keywords you’re using.
Here are some locations in which you can insert keywords on Pinterest to improve your chances of organically ranking through search:

Bio and profile
Pin descriptions
Board titles
Board descriptions
Image-Alt-Text

For those of you who choose to pay for Pinterest ads, there’s also an option to use the platform’s keyword targeting tool to help you reach your audience through your ads.
5. Share your content on other social networks.
To promote your Pinterest account and content, you should share your Pins, images, and videos in other areas to improve your chances of being seen and followed. For example, you can claim your business’ Pinterest account on Etsy and YouTube so your followers can easily learn about the other platforms you’re on and how they can view more of your content. Additionally, claiming your account will provide access to analytics and data on all of these Pins so you can see the other networks your audience is most interested in.
You can also link your Pinterest profile to your Facebook and Google accounts so you can easily add and find friends, share content across networks, speed up your login on all accounts, and backup your profile in case you lose or forget your password details.
6. Follow, engage, and interact with other accounts.
When you follow and interact with other Pinterest users and their accounts, you’re able to initiate and maintain personal relationships between them and your business. This type of engagement has the potential to make your followers feel a level of loyalty towards your brand that keeps them coming back to your profile for inspiration, ideas, and to buy products.
Here are four ways you can build strong and lasting relationships with your target audience through your marketing tactics on Pinterest:

Follow new accounts of users who state or show they have interests related to the work your business does and the content you post (you can do this by searching keywords and hashtags or reviewing the people who follow your current audience members).
Re-Pin, Like, and comment on the content your followers and fans share.
Respond to the messages your followers write on your content to personalize their experience on your profile and make them feel heard.
Create engaging posts that showcase your expertise in your industry, teach your followers how to do something, or get them involved (in a giveaway or contest for example).

7. Use social media best practices.
When using Pinterest, be sure to follow the same social media practices you would on other social networks. Examples of this include remembering to interact and engage with your followers, regularly post to (and update) your account, and avoid blatant self-promotion that feels pushy and forced to your audience.
Additionally, you can focus on the following five best practices to boost engagement on Pinterest.

Encourage your followers to feature your brand in their content (and maybe offer to repost them or re-Pin their content if they do).
Provide your audience with an incentive — such as a prize — for choosing to follow and interact with you as well as create posts featuring your products and branding.
Offer your audience discount codes, coupons, as well as details about your latest products, and updates to existing products to keep them coming back to your profile.
Ensure your content is helpful and useful for your audience members — all content should have a purpose and/ or meaning.

8. Analyze your results.
If you’re putting all of this effort into marketing on Pinterest, it’s probably safe to assume you’re going to want to ensure the work you’re doing improves your business’ conversions and brand awareness.
So, you’ll need to analyze the results of your Pinterest marketing efforts to keep track of your referral traffic, number of engagements, leads generated, and anything else you’re interested in learning more about. The easiest way to do this is through Pinterest Analytics.
Pinterest Analytics provides you with four major types of information including:

Metrics about your profile as a whole.
Insights about the number of people who save and re-Pin your content.
Platform metrics to understand how people interact with your content via both desktop or mobile.
Data about your most popular Pins.

Pinterest for Small Businesses
If you have a small business, you may be wondering whether or not putting all of this effort and time into implementing Pinterest marketing strategies is actually worth it.
Short answer? Yes, it is.
Pinterest is one of the more versatile, affordable, and impactful marketing tools for businesses that are looking to convert more leads, drive traffic to their websites, and increase brand awareness to use.
Plus, Pinterest users have the highest purchase intent of any other social media users. Let’s discuss some more ways small businesses, like yours, can benefit from creating a presence on Pinterest.
Tell a visual story.
Pinterest helps you tell a visual story about your brand. Through pictures and videos, you’re able to show — rather than tell — your audience what you’re about as a company, the things you value, what and who you support, and the types of products and services you sell.
Pinterest provides you with a unique and engaging way to introduce your small business to platform users.
Humanize your brand.
Social media of any kind can help you humanize your brand and give it some personality — Pinterest is no exception. On the platform, you’re able to reach out directly to your audience members, chat with them one-on-one or as a group, and assist them through any difficulties or roadblocks they encounter while doing business with you.
You’re also able to show your audience and followers how much their support and business mean to you through giveaways, videos of your behind the scenes work, latest company news, product information, promotions, and discount codes.
Creating and maintaining these business-to-customer routines early on humanizes your brand, sets the tone for what your company will be known for, and shows customers how you intend to grow with them in mind.
Feature your blog posts.
You can use Pinterest to feature your inbound marketing efforts such as your blog posts or content offers. For example, you can Pin a photo or video to a board and include a link to blog post about that visual content. This not only promotes your blog posts but it also drives traffic directly to your website.

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Display your work and showcase your expertise.
Pinterest is a great way for your small business to display your work and showcase your expertise in your industry. Examples include Pins with images and videos of your work, infographics, data visualizations, and blog posts.
Due to the fact you might not be a recognized brand yet, doing this is important. That’s because as your business grows and you become more well-known, you’ll be more likely to be recognized as an industry leader and a business with helpful and applicable content for audience members.
Drive traffic to your website.
Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your business’ website — this will help your small business generate leads and conversions. You can share URLs in your profile as well as on your Pins and boards. For example, you may choose to post content with a link to your email sign up page, “About Us” page, or blog.
Conduct market research.
Pinterest is a great resource for conducting market research. It’s especially helpful for small businesses that may not have a large following quite yet or the experience to know exactly what their audience members expect and want in terms of content.
With Pinterest, you can easily review what your competitors — and the companies in your industry that are more established than yours — are doing. This will allow you to discover which tactics they’re using on the platform and see what’s working for their audience members. You can also look at the content your audience Pins as well as who they’re following and interacting with.

Pinterest Marketing Tools
There are a number of tools you can use to help you reach your target audience and engage users on Pinterest. There are three major types of resources to help you accomplish this — account management tools, image design and creation tools, and follower count and community growth tools.
1. Social Media Management Tools
Social media management tools help you schedule posts and organize your content on any social network, including Pinterest, prior to actually posting it.
This way, you can ensure everything is shared and pushed out as planned. Social media management tools often have analytics capabilities as well, which you can use in tandem with Pinterest Analytics.
Some popular social media and Pinterest management tools include:

Hootsuite gives you the ability to schedule your Pins in advance, gain insights into your data and analytics, and measure your results on Pinterest.
Tailwind provides you with analytics about your Pinterest profile, a data reporting system to help you determine what’s doing well with your audience members, and advice about the best days and times to share your Pins.
Sprout Social allows you to take advantage of a range of features to help you reach your target audience and buyer personas through Pinterest. These include platform analytics, engagement tools, post-scheduling capabilities, and details about the type of content your audience wants.

Pinterest has also launched its own scheduling tool, allowing Business users to pre-schedule their content within the platform.
2. Pinterest Image Design and Creation Tools
Pinterest image design and creation tools allow you to design, edit, create and publish professional-looking photos and images for the platform (along with any other social media site and your website).
Considering Pinterest is a visual social network where users discover eye-catching, beautiful, and creative images and videos, it’s important your content looks perfect so you can attract more followers and engagement on your profile.
The following three tools are great for anyone who doesn’t necessarily have a background in fields like graphic design or art but still wants to share unique and polished content on their profile.

Canva allows you to create professional images for Pinterest with over 1 million images, graphics, templates, and icons available to choose from.
Pablo provides you with a way to create beautiful images for Pinterest in under 30 seconds with easy-to-use effects and templates.
PicMonkey gives you the ability to create and edit images and has advanced image editing tools such as masking, mirroring, and double exposure.
AdobeExpress offers intuitive tools and templates, and Photoshop-quality effects to create expertly-designed images for users of all skill levels.

3. Follower Count and Community Growth Tools
Follower count and community growth tools on Pinterest are available to help you promote your profile and content as well as increase your number of followers and engagements. The following three tools were created to help you accomplish this specifically on Pinterest.

PINGROUPIE provides you with the number of Pins, users, and followers on different group boards on the platform so you can determine whether or not you want to join and Pin your content on it.
Loop88 helps you to create shareable content they’ve determined is ideal for Pinterest to help you attract your target audience and grow your following.

Start Marketing On Pinterest
Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool with the ability to help you organically increase brand awareness, boost conversions, increase sales, and create long-lasting relationships with your target audience and buyer personas.
You can achieve all of these things for your business by following the Pinterest marketing strategies we reviewed and incorporating the available tools and resources to help you succeed as a business on the platform.
So, sign up for a business account and begin creating unique and engaging content to market to your customers and followers on Pinterest.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

One common question you’ll get asked in an interview is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
When it’s coming from a hiring manager, we usually have an answer ready. When it comes to your personal life, do you have a five-year plan?

In the most stressful times in my life, planning brings me great joy and peace. But who says you have to wait for the stress to come? In this article, we’ll outline why you should create a five-year plan and how to build one you’ll follow through with.

Benefits of a 5-Year Plan
Whether professional or personal, a five-year plan can serve as a reset for your life. Who doesn’t like a fresh start?
After all, that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular. They give us something to look forward to. There’s also something to be said about writing out a detailed plan. It can be a great motivator to put something in motion.
Personally, I’ve said countless times that I want to be fluent in Spanish. However, it’s not until I write a detailed plan for how that it will become real. 
This brings us to our next point: clarity. Sometimes, a path seems scarier than it actually is because we don’t actually know what it looks like.
Creating a plan is like pointing a flashlight in a dark road. A more accurate description is that it turns that dark, twisty road into a clear path forward. Doesn’t mean there won’t be any bumps in the road but at least you’ll know exactly where you’ll land and how to get there.
Lastly, a five-year plan can serve as a reminder of what’s at stake. In your daily life, it can be easy to forget that every day, we’re shaping our future.
The decisions we make today affect what our life will look like years from now. Having a visual reminder of this can keep you focused on your goals.
5-Year Plan Example
Using our downloadable five-year plan template, we were able to create a detailed five-year plan, broken down by year, process, success metric, benefit, and resources. 

How to Make a 5-Year Plan
1. Know your “why.”
This is singlehandedly the most important step in creating a plan.
A clear “why” is your North star. It’s what will guide you throughout your journey and motivate you to keep moving forward.
It can take a while to narrow this down. You’ll know you have the answer when it’s linked to a core value or belief. Otherwise, you have to keep digging.
One way to get to this is by just asking the question over and over again. For instance:

I want to learn American Sign Language. Why?
To become more connected to another culture. Why?
To broaden my perspective. Why?
To be a more understanding, tolerant, and inclusive person.

Now, we’ve taken something at surface level and brought it down to a personal, human level.
2. Consider every aspect of your life.
When creating a five-year plan, you want to review your life as a whole and plan accordingly.
It’s not enough to plan for your professional career and not your personal one. After all, one impacts the other.
There are the core four that you should always have:

Career
Health (physical and mental)
Finances
Relationships

Depending on your goals, you can also add categories for religious or spiritual development, recreation, and service.
Don’t forget bucket-list items – have you been wanting to learn a new language? Or perhaps you want to visit every country in the world. Bucket list items are perfect for five-year plans because you can spread them out over a long period of time and have fun tracking your progress.

3. Make it S.M.A.R.T.
To give you the best chances of success, every goal should pass the SMART test. That means being:

Specific – The vaguer your goal, the harder it will be to reach.
Measurable – You must be able to quantify your goals because otherwise, how will you know you’ve reached it? This doesn’t always mean assigning a figure to it, it can also be a feeling.
Achievable – While it’s good to push yourself beyond your limits, your goal should be attainable and realistic based on where you stand currently.
Relevant – How does this goal fit within the bigger picture? Does it align with your personal values? What’s the impact on your life?
Time-bound – It’s not enough to say it’s a five-year plan, you have to create a timeline and set milestones at specific points within your journey.

4. Start with the big ideas then narrow your focus.
When you’re first writing your five-year plan, start with the big idea from each category.
If you don’t know where to start, use this: “In five years, I want to be [fill in the blank].” This will help you figure out goals that you may not have vocalized before.
From there, break it down into bite-size pieces.
This means turning your ideas into action items that can be executed over a certain period of time, specifically from five years to monthly milestones.
Research will play a big role in this, as you will need to learn how to achieve some of your goals. For instance, say your five-year financial plan is to be debt-free.
That’s the big idea but you need to dive deeper. How exactly will you achieve that? Your research will likely suggest setting a budget, paying off your most expensive loan first, consolidating your debts, and more.
Once you know the key action items, you can break them down by year, month, and even week.
This is a S.M.A.R.T. goal in action. The more specific you are, the better you will be at fulfilling your five-year plan.
If you want to add more structure to your life and play a more active role in shaping your future, consider creating a five-year plan. While things may not pan out exactly as you’ve expected, you’ll be surprised at how close you’ll get to what you wished for.
 

Polaris Software Adds New Role to Oversee Product Strategy Across Global SaaS Business ST LOUIS, Missouri, May 17, 2022 – Polaris Software, a leading provider of sales and marketing software, announced today that the company has hired Jeff Zimmerman as its first product leader to oversee product strategy across Polaris’ three global sales and marketing…
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Last Updated on May 16, 2022 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How to convert listview filters for use in SOQL?  Objectives: After reading this blog, you’ll be able to: Convert list view filters to equivalent SOQL Export records from list view to excel spreadsheet Understand the list views
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To understand the importance of resilience in the workplace, let’s start with an example.
Let’s say your company has just been acquired by a major corporation. This means your organization is about to undergo some major changes — including your workplace culture, leadership structure, and even your team’s goals and objectives.
When it comes time to deliver the message to your marketing team, however, you’re surprised by their reactions. While there is some trepidation, most of your employees are upbeat, positive, and excited about the new opportunities and challenges ahead of them.
Their reaction doesn’t mean they aren’t also hesitant, nervous, or unsure of the future. It simply means that your team feels secure, confident, and capable of taking on those new challenges, whatever they may be.
This is the power of workforce resiliency.
Here, we’ll dive into why workforce resiliency is one of the strongest predictors of long-term employee satisfaction and retention. Plus, how to build a more resilient workforce, according to leaders who’ve done it.

What is workforce resilience?
To understand workforce resiliency, we first need to define what resiliency is.
As Merriam-Webster defines it, resiliency is “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change”.
Essentially, a resilient person is someone who can adapt well to life’s unexpected challenges, stresses, and uncertainties.

Birdeye’s Head of People & Culture Camille Boothe told me, “When I think about resilience, certain thoughts come to mind — like adaptability, the ability to recover quickly, inner strength, and the ability to navigate challenges with a positive state of mind.”

So … what does resiliency matter for the workplace?
Workforce resiliency is, simply put, a group of employees who feel stable, secure, and capable of handling a workplace’s challenges, daily stresses, and organizational changes without losing engagement or motivation.
As Boothe puts it, “Why is resiliency important in the workplace? Because many employees cite workplace stress as the #1 stressor in their lives. That is why building a strong culture of resilience is essential for the success and well-being of employees.”
To put workforce resiliency into context, consider the past two years: Most businesses have made large-scale changes as a result of the pandemic.
Many companies shifted to an entirely remote lifestyle, and then shifted again towards hybrid or in-person once restrictions had been lifted.
Some leaders quit; while others made drastic changes to their strategies, goals, and future vision.
And yet … some businesses saw much higher turnover rates than others. Why is that?
Ultimately, the more resilient your workforce is, the more adept they are at handling business changes and industry shifts without feeling too much frustration, distrust, or uncertainty over how those changes will impact their livelihood.
Essentially, resiliency builds the opportunity for flexibility.
On the flip side, a non-resilient workforce is one that feels vulnerable, mistrustful of leadership, or tired and de-motivated. These are the workers who are most likely to quit, or who feel incapable of handling workplace changes with any sense of confidence or security.
Workforce resiliency is a strong component of long-term employee retention, and can help you build and maintain an effective and engaging workplace culture even when difficult situations arise. It’s important to consider workforce resiliency as the necessary backbone of any effective, strong company culture. Without resiliency, all the beer-on-tap and ping pong tables in the world can’t deter your employees from leaving.

Benefits of Workforce Resilience
If you’re still unsure of the benefits of workforce resiliency, let’s consider the data:

BetterUp found highly-resilient people were 31% more productive during the pandemic than low-resilience workers.
BetterUp also found resilience led to higher innovation (+22%), higher cognitive flexibility (+20%), and more novelty of ideas (+20%).
ADP Research Institute found engagement and workplace resilience to be positively correlated — in fact, engagement explains 64% of resilience.
ADP also found workers who experienced at least five changes at work were 13.2X more likely to be highly resilient.

All of which is to say: Work can be hard, and it can be particularly difficult to remain productive at work when an employee’s life is shifting dramatically as a result of unforeseen circumstances (like, say, a pandemic).
Resiliency, then, can help mitigate these stresses by providing a ‘safety net’ around the employee and helping them remain focused, positive, and engaged even during stressful times.
So — that’s all well and good. But, as a leader, how do you build resiliency? And, perhaps even more importantly, how do you maintain it?

How do you build workforce resilience? 
1. Bake it into your employee initiatives. 
To start, I spoke with leaders across organizations at Birdeye, Plecto, Alyce, Casted, and HubSpot to uncover tactical methods for developing resiliency in your workforce.
Boothe told me, “At Birdeye, we value resiliency and seek to develop that skill within our teams every day. We coach patience, empathy, control, and seeing change as an opportunity rather than a setback.”
She adds, “We recognize the factors that lead to resilience include optimism, balancing difficult emotions, and a sense of safety in a strong support system,” Boothe told me, adding that they’ve focused on three key initiatives at Birdeye to strengthen resiliency.
These include: 

Focusing on physical and mental health. Birdeye provides unlimited PTO and mental health days companywide for employees to rest and rejuvenate as needed. This gives employees a mindset to stay relaxed, even in the face of stressful situations.
Flexible work schedules. Birdeye is in a primary work-from-home mode which allows employees to gain better work-life balance and stress management.
Employee Resource Groups (ERG)/Social Connections. Birdeye builds relationships and connections for employees to leverage for support, as well as participate in forums and discussions on Mindfulness and Meditation.

Boothe adds, “We see resiliency as a competitive advantage and feel that building resilience is just good business sense.”
Along with employee resource groups, you might consider looking into trainings specifically focused on building resilience.

Additionally, you might consider offering your employees the chance to choose which employee benefits matter most to them, and enabling them to invest in whichever perks would best suit their lifestyles. 
As Alyce’s VP of People, Tori Oellers, told me, “The ‘power of choice’ is a core tenant of our platform. and we see first-hand how successful campaigns can be when you put the choice in the hands of recipients. We take that same philosophy with many of our benefits.”
She adds, “Rather than carving out various specialized programs and partnerships, we have made it simple by allocating budget to various stipends that provide our team the power of choice to utilize the benefits in a way that is supportive for them as an individual.”

Oellers told me, “Recognizing and operationalizing ways to recognize your people as individuals ensures that each person is getting what they need to be successful and foster resiliency.”

Finally, providing educational resources for your leaders to train themselves on building agility in the face of adversity can help you effectively strengthen resiliency from the top-down. The Agility Factor, by Christopher G. Worley, Thomas Williams, Edward E. Lawler III is a good option for helping your leaders’ uncover how to build agility — and thus resilience — within an organization.
2. Emulate resiliency as a leader.
To build resilience in your workforce, you’ll want to emulate it as a leader. For instance, let’s say you’re delivering the difficult news that leadership has decided to cut budgeting for a marketing project that’s already in-the-works.

As Jordan DiPietro, VP of HubSpot Media, told me, “Your team is always looking to you as their leader for guidance, strategic direction, and advice — and they’re also looking to you as an emotional compass. If you get way too high, or way too low, they will ride those waves with you.”

He adds, “As someone leading a massive team, I’ve needed to figure out a way to stay more even-keeled. For some people that’s easy because they are naturally steady and composed. However, I tend to be less equable — so I have to work hard to not let that reflect in my leadership.”
To remain steady during stressful or tumultuous times, DiPietro recommends leaders aim to minimize meetings and outward communication on days when they’re feeling overly stressed. On the flip side, he suggests leaders also attempt to curtail too much excitement — while it’s important to celebrate your team’s successes, you don’t want to go overboard with your emotions in either direction. 
DiPietro adds, “The one thing you can count on is that business will ebb and flow, and there will always be peaks and valleys. The more you can smooth those out for your team, the more resilient they will act throughout those times.”
Additionally, as a leader you can emulate resiliency by modeling flexibility. As Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted, told me, “At Casted, we prioritize flexibility and allowing team members to choose what a flexible workday looks like to them — whether that’s working the conventional 9 a.m to 5 p.m., taking long lunches to attend a favorite workout class, logging off earlier some days to spend time with kids before they go to bed, or whatever suits each individual.”
Tjepkema adds, “If we want our teams to believe that we value flexibility, we have to model it. I share my own needs for flexibility openly with the team. They know if I have a hair appointment or a family event. When they see me or another leader communicating our availability and using that flexibility, it empowers them to do the same.”
Ultimately, your resilience as a leader is contagious. In fact, highly-resilient team leaders have direct reports who experience 52% less burnout, and have roughly 80% lower intention of leaving the organization.

3. Focus on the physical and mental health aspects of resiliency.
Did you know people are 3.5X more likely to be resilient if they have good physical health?
Providing your employees with the resources necessary to remain strong phsyically — including fitness reimbursements, flexible work schedules to go on walks or runs during lunch, and even fun workplace fitness competitions — is vital for ensuring long-term resiliency.
For instance, as CEO and Co-founder of Plecto, Kristian Øllegaard, told me, “We’re an ambitious company and thrive on striving to be the best, so contests are a natural fit for the team. Most recently, we challenged the whole company to a push-up competition! The motivation to get involved and outperform colleagues was felt company-wide. This kind of fun-loving team spirit is what makes Plecto the place to be, where we build resilience and genuine relationships.”
If your workers are burnt out, exhausted, and depleted, they won’t have the energy to take care of their physical health, and it will ultimately take its toll on your employees, and your bottom-line.
Additionally, mental health is just as important as physical. Resiliency requires a healthy mindset where people are open to change and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes. This can only happen through practice.
Mindfulness and yoga are two effective opportunities to practice building resiliency, so consider how you might provide these options through a discounted mindfulness app subscription, or by bringing yoga to the office.
Additionally, therapy can be incredibly helpful for those who struggle to adjust to change, so perhaps you can try offering services such as Modern Health to your team for further mental health consultations.
Finally — encourage your team to take time off. As DiPietro puts it, “People are more resilient when they have had time to relax and reset! Nobody is meant to grind and not take breaks. The mind needs to untether from work and people need to feel like it’s okay to completely unplug without their team or performance suffering.”
He adds, “Leading by example isn’t enough here. Instead, every few months I ask each of my direct reports, ‘Hey, when is your next vacation?’ If they don’t have one planned, I follow up in each one-on-one until they make plans. I have found that the directness of my approach gives my reports the feeling of freedom to actually take time off — because if they don’t, I’m going to keep bothering them about it. Force your employees to take time off. You will be rewarded for it!”
4. Practice transparency within your organization as a whole.
No matter how resilient your workforce is, they won’t feel comfortable or optimistic about company-wide or team-wide changes if they don’t understand the why behind the change.
This is where transparency comes into play. While you don’t have to over-explain, divulge confidential information, or apologize for your decisions, your team does deserve to understand the background context of the change and how leadership hopes it will impact the future of the company.
Øllegaard adds, “Since the beginning, business transparency and celebrating success have been at the heart of the Plecto culture. It’s no secret when it’s a record-breaking (or slower) month at Plecto. It’s hard to ignore the TVs around the office with dashboards of each team’s key performance metrics, which are broadcasted for everyone to see. What’s important is being completely transparent about how the company is performing.”
For instance, let’s say your CMO has issued a re-org — and, as part of the change, your social media team will move from under the Content Team VP to under the Brand Strategy VP.
When you deliver this news to your team, you’ll want to explain the context behind the decision.
For instance, you might say, “We’ve decided it makes more sense to have the social team live under Brand Strategy, since the Brand Strategy teams share a common goal of brand awareness. By contrast, most other Content teams share the goal of lead generation, which doesn’t make as much sense for our team’s purpose.”
Ultimately, transparency can build trust, which goes a long way towards making your employees comfortable, and even excited, about upcoming workplace events.
Workforce Resilience Examples
Finally, let’s dive into a few examples of workplace resilience to see how this looks in practice.
1. Staying calm with last-minute requests.
Your SEO team is getting ready for the holiday season when your VP tasks you with a major request: Please put together a memo of your 2023 vision, including areas of opportunity and pre-existing at-risk content, within one week.
When you tell your team, they immediately jump into action. They decide to stay after work, order takeout, and prep the doc together. Your employees are energized and confident that they can meet the deadline, and they’re excited about the challenge. By the end of the week they’ve created a flashy, engaging, compelling 2023 vision, and they can’t wait to hear the VP’s thoughts.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
Even though the request is last-minute, your team feels comfortable handling the shift in priorities. A low-resilience team would’ve felt discouraged, frustrated, or uninterested in working on the task so close to the holidays, but this high-resilience team was able to shift their mindset quickly and look at the task from a more positive perspective: as a chance to impress leadership and get excited about the year ahead.
2. Taking risks and seeking out new challenges.
On Tuesday, your direct report comes to you with a pitch deck she’s put together in which she’s outlined why it’s a good idea to embed YouTube videos into existing blog posts.
It’s risky — your blog team hasn’t tried incorporating videos before, so there’s no prior evidence that it will be successful. However, your direct report has data from other brands to showcase how videos can increase blog traffic and time-on-page.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
Risk-taking is all about willingly venturing into unknown territory … something a low-resilience person is unlikely to do. In this case, your employee is demonstrating resilience by showcasing her open-mindedness to test out new ideas and innovate, as well as her engagement and commitment to your team’s success. A low-resilient employee would likely feel less engaged and less willing to take risks.
3. Remaining positive and upbeat.
When you tell your employees your director is leaving your company for another role, they are saddened by the news. She has been an effective leader for the team for a number of years.
However, they are not fearful, mistrustful, or anxious. Instead, they understand this is the best next step for the director, and suggest ideas for a goodbye party. The vibe is ultimately positive and optimistic.
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
When a beloved leader leaves the company, it’s always a sad experience, but high-resilience employees can see the bright side of the situation and don’t dwell on the potential negative outcomes they could experience in their own roles as a result of the director’s departure. Instead, they trust your leadership and the organization at-large will continue to meet their expectations.
4. Handling constructive feedback well.
In a recent performance review, you tell your employee that he’s been underperforming. He’s missed a few deadlines, and recently arrived unprepared to a meeting with a client.
Your employee is unsurprised by this information, and responds calmly: “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this with me. I will give what you’ve said serious consideration, and reach out next week to plan a follow-up where we can discuss how I can improve my performance.”
Why This Exemplifies Resilience
A highly-resilient employee is likely effective at positive self-talk and harnessing optimism in the face of adversity. Additionally, resiliency enables people to handle rejection more smoothly by seeing it as an opportunity to grow.
Ultimately, you can’t always control the situations that arise in your workplace. But what you can control, if you’ve laid a foundation of resilience, is how your team reacts to those changes. The more resilient your employees are, the more likely they are to be happy, engaged, and motivated at work.
Taking the time to teach and foster resilience in your workforce isn’t easy, but in the long run, it will enable your team to more efficiently and willingly handle all the challenges thrown their way.

Streaming is ubiquitous. From from services like Netflix to user-generated content on YouTube, we’re all streaming video online. As customers are consuming more video content, video marketing has become an integral part of marketing strategies. All of this is made possible by codecs.

We’ll explain what codecs are, why you need them, and how they make streaming high quality content possible.
What is a codec?
A codec is a term used to describe a computer program that can encode and decode data. Their main purpose is to compress data, particularly media. Without them, audio and video files would be too large to transfer over the internet.
A combination of “encoder” and “decoder,” a codec is used to encode data into a format that can be stored or transmitted and viewed later with its corresponding decoder. Essentially you won’t be able to play audio or video files unless they are paired with their corresponding decoder.
What is a video codec?
A video codec compresses and decompresses digital video files. The software takes large video files and compresses them so they take up less space on your computer or device. A popular video codec is MPEG, which was established by the Moving Picture Experts Group. The MPEG suite of codecs is a popular choice due to its high quality video display with relatively low data rates.
Other Common Types of Codecs
1. MP3
Most of us are familiar with MP3s. This popular audio codec changed the music industry, allowing people to listen to and share music online, store it on their phones, and computers. 
2. WAV
Created by IBM and Microsoft, Waveform (WAV) is an uncompressed audio format. Unlike MP3s it’s not meant for sharing audio files online since it takes up too much space. Instead WAV is best used in areas that need higher quality audio like radio, television, and editing music.
3. HEVC
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a popular compressed video format. In fact, many phones and smart TVs already have built-in hardware to support HEVC playback. Since it doesn’t require much bandwidth, HEVC has become the go-to format for streaming. The H.264 codec is used by Vimeo and YouTube.
Lossy vs. Lossless Compression
An important distinction between codecs is whether they use lossless or lossy compression. With lossy compression, some of the visual data is left out in order to reduce the size of the video or audio data. This loss is typically minor and worth the tradeoff for the smaller size.
Media files using lossy compression are very common; an MP3 is a great example of lossy compression as they can be compressed at a number of different bitrates depending on your desired file size.
Lossless compression reduces file size by identifying redundant patterns in video or audio, which ensures no data is lost. Lossless files maintain the bit rate of the original data stream creating a large, high quality file. A WAV file is an example of a lossless audio file. Use lossless video when quality matters above all else, like a final copy of a video piece you’ve created for broadcast purposes.
Why do marketers need codecs?
Working with video is becoming a must-have skill rather than nice-to-have for marketers. While you won’t necessarily have to shoot the video content, you’ll most certainly need to share and store it.
When getting started with online video you might consider using an inexpensive camera, doing some minor edits, and posting the video on your blog or social media. As quality and production value have become more important, it is critical to understand codecs.
You’ll need to ensure you’re using the proper format to compress and share video marketing content. However, the amount of codec options can be overwhelming if you’re just getting familiar. Luckily there are codec packs, which come with a variety of codecs, that allow you to simply download the pack and go.
Image Source

K-Lite: K-Lite comes in either Basic, Standard, Full, or Mega versions. This bundle is a good choice for newbies since the Basic tier covers most video and audio formats.
Media Player: This pack supports most video and audio formats, plus offers installation options for both novices and those who need more advanced options. It supports standard definition up to 4K.
Wonderfox HD Video Converter Factory Pro: While this isn’t a codec pack, it’s an excellent option for most of your audio and video needs. This tool can be used for video editing in addition to converting video formats.

Why Codecs Matter
While online video is fun to watch and an important part of your inbound marketing content strategy, it does require some technical knowledge to execute well. Codecs are involved in many stages of video production and distribution, working behind the scenes to provide a better visual experience for your audience.
This article was originallypublished in February 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you work in tech, media, or even marketing, you’ve likely heard a lot of buzz around Web 3.
And, when filtering through all the noise about future versions of the internet, you might find it hard to differentiate all of the predictions from myths and reality. And, more importantly, if you’re likely asking questions like, “How could Web 3 impact my business?”, “Will I fall behind if I don’t get in on Web 3 now?”, and “Is Web 3 just built on hype?”
“When you’re listening to the news, or you’re on Twitter, and people are talking about NFTs and Web 3, it seems really abstract and futuristic and stupid. It’s really easy to naysay all of it. I get that,” says Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot CMO. “A lot of it is going to be crap. And a lot of it’s going to fall away.”
But, Bodnar adds, “In the last version of the internet, your whole job was to make a product or value proposition 10 times better than it was before. In the next generation, the internet, it’s making something somebody thought was impossible possible.”
“And if you can’t pull that magic trick out as a business over the next 10, 20, or 30 years, you’re not going to exist. Because that is the game that’s going to change. Don’t think about the technology, think about the changing customer experience and that move from impossible to possible,” Bodnar says.
In this post, we’ll dive into the questions businesses are starting to ask about Web 3 and how it could impact the changing landscape.
To hear more about Web 3 from our very own CMO Kipp Bodnar, and our SVP of Marketing, Kieran Flanagan, you can also check out this episode of their podcast, Marketing Against the Grain (plus other episodes and interviews coming soon).

Editor’s Note: This post will discuss the wider business-wide impacts of Web 3, and while we will mention marketing a bit, you can find a piece specifically about how Web 3 will impact marketers and its core characteristics here.

What’s Web 3 (And How Did We Get Here)?
When explaining the possible impacts of Web 3, it’s helpful to go back and look at how the previous evolutions of the internet impacted consumers and businesses. The graph below highlights just a few high-level characteristics of Web1, Web2, and Web 3 without getting overly technical.

Web 1 (1983 to Early 2000s)
Web 2 (Early 2000s to Today)
Web 3 (The Next Internet Evolution)

Low-Speed Enabled basic messaging, email, search queries, and PC-based web surfing.
High-Speed Offers advanced messaging/communication, video calling, streaming, social media, and early AR/VR.
Highest Speed Decentralized on the blockchain. Could Enable extended reality, user-built platforms, coin/token incentives, and other experiences.

When the internet launched, it was essentially decentralized and many companies that focused on internet services had a slight leg up as many tech firms began to invest in it and learn what it could do. Today, the internet has become drastically centralized with companies like Google and Meta owning many of the platforms we visit each day.
Because consumers want growing control over their experience and are more hyper-connected to technology than ever, some describe Web 3 as “giving the internet back to the people”, as blockchain-built web experiences are often decentralized.
The image below shows how Web 3 infrastructure could compare to that of our current internet. While business owners and marketers that aren’t goaled around Web 3 investments don’t necessarily need to know all the technical lingo in the images below, this graphic essentially shows a more streamlined, centralized path from user to internet access while Web 3 will host a more complex, decentralized path that leverages blockchain technology.

Source: Coinbase
While we won’t go too deep into the technology behind Web 3, you can find some great resources on the technical side of things with online courses – like this one from Coursera or this content from Reforge.
At this point, it’s still a bit too early to know how many of the predictions we’re seeing will come to light. And, if they do become a reality, they’ll likely require a learning curve and a long adoption lifecycle. Because of this, the move from Web 2 to Web 3 might be much slower and more gradual than some would expect.
But, even though we likely won’t see the entire internet change in one day, week, or year, we’ll still watch some Web 3 concepts, companies, and technology grow in the coming years — which could enable us to adopt it at a quicker pace.
Ultimately, you don’t need to ditch your current business plan to focus on major Web 3 investments just yet. But, there are concepts, consumer behaviors, and tech you might want to keep on your radar so your company can adapt if and when a wide-scale evolution happens.
Web 3 Concepts & Business Shifts You Could See Soon
Full Web 3 implementation is far off, and we know a lot of SMB marketers don’t have any interest, technical bandwidth, or budget to dive into Web 3 complexities yet. And, that’s okay.
But, if you put overwhelming technical lingo and wild predictions aside, the way consumers have optimistically buzzed-about Web 3’s potential shows just how much they’re ready to see the internet, businesses, and society evolve. And, even if your business plans to stay in the Web 2 world for the foreseeable future, you should still make note of how these shifts and growing web technology could impact your business.
Here are a few business shifts we’ll see soon, in part because of Web 3 development.
1. Consumers will want more say in the online products and platforms they use.
Right now, the platforms we use daily, like Google and Facebook are centralized. When you log on to a platform like Facebook, you’re exchanging web data with its Meta servers.
This means that Meta and its biggest stakeholders ultimately determine how Facebook works, user rules, how it uses your data, and how the UX changes over time. And, if Meta were to pull the plug on Facebook servers, it would disable usage for everyone.
Because of this, just a few key tech companies and big-name investment firms have a solid hold over many of the things we do and see online. And, in certain areas – as with data usage, social media feeds, search engines, or web experience – many users wish they had more say.
But, what if users were treated more like shareholders and could give input on how a platform worked, used their data, or built experiences for them? In a decentralized Web 3 world, some believe this could be possible.
For example, some platforms, like metaverses will allow you to trade crypto, NFTs, non-crypto currency, or other items of value for a plot of land (or a stake in the platform). While large brands and investment firms would still likely own a majority stake in their platforms and serve as decision-makers for terms of use, users could at least personalize their experiences a bit more, or have more control over how the platform works for them.
While not all businesses will lean into decentralized platforms, those who do could put some key developments of their online products into the hands of loyal users or customers.
Giving users the ability to play a role in the evolution of platforms they use not only allows them to feel linked to a brand through a sense of ownership and trust, but it also allows you as a business owner to benefit from the ROI of user experience improvements the users themselves are making.
How Businesses Can Respond
Even if you aren’t ready for Web 3 investments, or never plan to invest in it at all, you can still take steps to make your audiences or customers feel like they have an impact on your business’s evolution. Here are a few smaller-scale ideas.

Introducing Product Developers to Customers: Oftentimes, sales and service are the only ones who talk to customers. But, product developers can learn a lot from meeting with a few loyal customers, listening to feedback, and learning about their pain points. In turn, the customer feels like their actionable and constructive feedback has been heard.
Customer Feedback Research: If your product development team prefers to look at more quantitative data, consider running a survey about your product and returning that feedback to marketing, sales, service, and product teams.
Report on Your Progress: After customers or prospects give you feedback, create a marketing plan highlighting the improvements you’ve made around your product after receiving feedback. This will show customers and prospects that you are acting on their needs and that they have a voice when they’d like to request changing something.
Customizable Features: Customization might not make your customers feel like stakeholders, but it does have similar benefits. When users can customize how online products look, feel, and work around their preferences and goals, they might feel more attachment to your product than one that allows no customization. Ask yourself, “Are there ways I can better help my customers make their own great experience with my offerings?”

More Companies Will Invest in Incentivization
While incentivization has been around for quite some time, blockchain technology will make it easier for brands to track and incentivize usership and community engagement in Web 3.
Imagine going on a website and being paid to spend time there, or logging into an app and receiving points that you can trade for something of value later – like cryptocurrency or even NFTs. These are the types of tactics that brands could potentially leverage to gain solid growth.
“When you think about the difference between the last generation, the internet and the next generation the internet – understand that it is a massive change in incentives and the ability to incentivize,” says Bodnar.
Kieran Flanagan, HubSpot SVP of Marketing also explains, “In Web 2, for [gaining] leads and things like that, we had a cost per acquisition and freemium. You make the product free, so your cost per acquisition goes down.”
“In Web 3, I think your incentives drastically change that, again, because you have a flywheel effect through your incentives. I don’t know how it changes. … But I do think how you think about acquiring customers and the cost to doing that is greatly changed when you’re using these different incentives or tokens to build your business,” Flanagan adds.
Meanwhile, Bodnar added that incentivization will become more of an economic proposition in Web 3.
“While the cost of the old way of doing [acquisitions] is getting so high that you can take more risks to do the new way (because the old way is becoming untenable). And then, can I take that same amount of money, incentivize my community to drive referrals, and be advocates to spread word of mouth to drive the brand? And can I factor in customer acquisition cost on top of that?” Bodnar says.  
“We’re not going to give up customer acquisition cost,” Bodnar explains. “What we’re saying is, community acquisition cost is going to be the precursor. We’re going to figure out the economics of acquiring people through communities, and that customer acquisition cost is going to be basically an output metric of how effective our community strategy is.”
One example of a startup that’s already using digital incentivization (and is currently used by Flanagan) is STEPN, an app that rewards you in NFTs as you make running accomplishments with the app turned on.
“STEPN is a Web 3 lifestyle app with Social-Fi and Game-Fi elements. Users equipped with NFT Sneakers – walk, jog or run outdoors to earn GST, which can be used to level up and mint new Sneakers,” notes the website, adding that players can “choose to lease or sell their NFT Sneakers on the in-app Marketplace; users’ GST earnings are stored in the in-app Wallet, which has a built-in Swap function.”
While people are earning NFTs by running with the app on, STEPN benefits from data collection agreed upon when first using the app, transaction fees from buying and selling NFT products, and fees consumers pay to lease NFT sneakers.
To learn more about STEPN, check out this demo which STEPN features on its official website.

Ultimately, the business model is simple: Users pay to buy a product to join the app, they are treated to coinage or NFTs for spending time on the app, and the business makes money from the trades, transactions, and purchases made in the app once the user loyalty model has brought them in.
Embracing Incentivization Ahead of Web 3
Want to leverage incentivization without building a Web 3 experience? There are plenty of ways to do this.
One example of a Web2 incentivization is our HubFans platform. With the platform, HubSpot customers and partners can assist HubSpot in some way by completing “Challenges” for rewards and digital badges.
HubFans challenges that help HubSpot, could include a mix of small and larger asks, like promoting our brand, filling our feedback surveys, or meeting with teams looking to chat with customers. As you complete more challenges, you move into higher tiers of HubFans status and can start to access rewards like event invitations, networking sessions, and potentially an invite to join the HubFans council.

While HubFans doesn’t involve Web 3, it is a great example of a digital incentive-based opportunity that can both help a brand gain insights from its partners and customers on various initiatives, build a strong fan-based community, and – most importantly – reward great customers and partners for their loyalty to the brand.
Crypto, NFT, and Blockchain Tech Will Gain Wider Use
While you shouldn’t just change your whole business model or payment features to accommodate crypto, the growing interest in this currency is worth keeping on your radar if your business appeals to audiences that have invested in digital coinage.
As interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based transactions grows, many brands – including B2B companies have embraced crypto-based payment features on their websites or platforms for quite some time – and not just for NFT purchases. Among them are Overstock.com, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Whole Foods. Additionally, payment platforms – such as PayPal – have adapted to accept crypto-based payments.
If you think it makes sense for your brand to start accepting cryptocurrency pay, it couldn’t hurt to start looking at credible companies that offer website plugins for this, as well as platforms that can help you manage and monitor your company’s cryptocurrency. You’ll also need to read up on any laws and regulations your company or state might have about crypto usage and taxation for businesses.
If you live in the United States, you can find a list of state-based legislation for the United States here. However, you should also keep in mind that regulations might vary when doing transactions with customers in countries outside of the U.S.
Branded Content and Services Will Get More Experiential
Over the past five years or so, experiential marketing and product experiences have gained steam. And when the COVID-19 pandemic kept any of us on lockdown, millions turned to remote experiential content with VR and AR platforms.
In the marketing and sales realm, brands like Walmart and BestBuy are already identifying ways that they can sell products through VR stores (complete with sales reps who are also logged in to a VR metaverse.
Meanwhile, companies like Mercedes already leverage AR with virtual assistant platforms. Through platforms like these, customers can scan an element of their vehicle or product and have its functionality explained to them. They can also ask questions about any problems or faults in its operation. Combined with an AI chatbot, the AR element of the assistant makes it much more user-friendly.

Source: PTC
With the connectivity, speed, and advancements of Web 3, interest, and engagement in virtual experiential content could only grow.
How to Prepare for a More Experiential Internet
While most businesses can’t affordably build VR or AR experiences or even physical experiential events just yet, there might be more accessible opportunities to advertise, build communities, talk to your customers, or even offer services in a more experiential environment that arise for you as technology develops.
For example, brands can already work with businesses like Snap, tech agencies, or software companies to have AR/VR experiences created for them.
To learn more about experiential or VR marketing specifically, check out this post and this post, respectively.
Community will be Key for Business Growth
With Web 1, we still focused on building communities through word of mouth within the limits of the internet. In Web 2, we discovered the impact of community building on major social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter.
Now, many community managers and company leaders are just waiting with bated breath to see how they’ll be able to invest in community building in Web 3.
“The convergence of brand and community is going to be one of the biggest trends in marketing over the next decade,” says Bodnar.
“The reason communities are becoming more important is because going through intermediaries to reach people directly like Google and Facebook is getting way more expensive,” Bodnar explains.
Additionally, with Web 3’s blockchain-based incentivization opportunities, “you can now properly incentivize your community members to share in the success of your business with you in a way that you couldn’t before – through the use of tokens, NFTs, and a whole host of things.”
Building Communities (Even in Web 2)
While you don’t necessarily have to be a Web 3 expert, coder, or developer to win over audiences in the new era, building out an active and effective web community could be a key priority for your brand in the coming years.
If you have a base following and even a few channels now, you can already get started in using tactics like these to build an engaged online community and network that you could carry over into the Web 3 era.
Here are a few quick ways to start developing a sense of community.

Meet your targets where they are: Are your audiences, customers, or targets spending time on one social media channel or platform over another? Focus on growing your community and building engagement there first.
Create great content: “The core object of most communities is content. It’s some type of story, some type of exchange of ideas. If you’re going to build a remarkable brand through community, you first have to have remarkable content and remarkable stories.  In your community,” says Bodnar.  
Don’t be afraid of long-term bets: Communities don’t just appear overnight and take time and energy to build out. “I think these bets are long term. They’re not for the next six months. They’re for the next 12, 24, 36 months,” Bodnar advises.

Want to learn more about community marketing or building a community that can boost business? Check out this guide.
When to Start Thinking About Web 3
Many tech lovers will often tell you, “the Web 3 era is coming, whether we’re ready or not.”
And while a new iteration of the internet is coming, evolutions take years or even decades before a new era is clear.
Like any new technology, this rollout will be fast for some businesses, but happen over a longer time for others.
Do you have incredibly tech-savvy customers that are interested in crypto and blockchain tech? Or, do your offerings already include user-built platforms, token incentivization, blockchain services, metaverse offerings, tech security, or something that’s strongly associated with Web 3? if not, you don’t necessarily need to transform your whole business plan or take other big bets on future predictions
In any era, the best thing you can do is think about your customer or target buyer and their experience and identify what you need to do to meet them where they are.
Ultimately, when you’re responding to your customer and creating experiences for them that competitors can’t – you’ll still be ahead of the curve.
To learn more about all the latest emerging trends and how they’ll impact marketing as well as the bigger business, check out Marketing Against the Grain, HubSpot’s newest podcast hosted by Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan.