Category: Marketing Automation

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Looking to build your photography portfolio? Here’s a full guide with all you need to know.

Our direct integration with Blackbaud’s donor management platform, Raiser’s Edge NXT, makes email marketing for nonprofits a whole lot easier.
Nonprofits and social good organizations will be excited to hear about our new direct integration with ​​Raiser’s Edge NXT, a fundraising and donor management platform from Blackbaud.
This integration creates an automated email marketing solution designed for the needs and goals of nonprofits and social good organizations.
“By combining the power of Raiser’s Edge NXT with a leading email marketing automation platform like Campaign Monitor, our joint customers will enjoy a new, highly sophisticated experience to help them take the effectiveness of their email marketing and fundraising to a whole new level,” said David Loring, senior director, partners, Blackbaud.
For customers of Raiser’s Edge NXT and Campaign Monitor, here’s what you can expect.
All your supporter activity, all in one place. Seeing all of your supporter’s activity, including marketing activity, all in one place is wildly important, and this integration helps you do just that. Campaign Monitor will send subscriber email engagement activity right to Raiser’s Edge NXT without you having to do anything.

More control over your marketing campaigns. The data shared between platforms will provide users with the granular information they need to accurately segment their audiences and include relevant and compelling content in their email marketing campaigns.
Better unsubscribe management. If a subscriber unsubscribes from your marketing campaign, that information will be updated automatically in Raiser’s Edge NXT, so there’s no need to manually update supporters who have unsubscribed.
Add new subscribers to RE NXT. New subscribers to Campaign Monitor can be synced to RE NXT as new constituents. You can control which subscribers you transfer by setting up individual lists in Campaign Monitor. 
You’ll also get basic deduplication to make sure those subscribers don’t already exist.
Wrap up
This direct integration between Campaign Monitor and Raiser’s Edge NXT from Blackbaud can be a game-changer for nonprofit organizations and their marketing teams.
For more information about Campaign Monitor for Raiser’s Edge NXT, visit the Blackbaud Marketplace.
The post Introducing: The Blackbaud + Campaign Monitor Integration for Nonprofits appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

In the world of search engine marketing (SEM), more and more marketers are buying into PPC campaigns. Google Ads specifically has increased its revenue from year to year. In 2021, Google advertising revenue accounted for $53.1 billion — 81% of Alphabet’s overall sales.

Properly investing in PPC can result in nearly guaranteed ad placement in the search engine result pages of their choice. And this placement can help generate leads. If your ads tool is tightly integrated with your CRM, you can even leverage ads data to nurture these leads across their buyer’s journey.
As you prepare to create a PPC campaign, it’s important to get a rundown of what a successful campaign entails and identify management missteps that you’ll want to avoid.

Building a successful PPC campaign includes a few key steps:

Determine your PPC campaign structure.
Identify, build, and refine your campaign’s landing pages.
Create a keyword strategy based on your research.
Create ads based on insights from the steps above.
Share your campaign plan with stakeholders.

The problem is, many marketers have poor PPC campaign management, which ends up costing them way more money than they need to spend and delivering underwhelming lead generation results.
Here are a few ways marketers could go wrong with PPC campaign management:

Coming up with keywords on the fly without doing prior research.
Only building one basic campaign without utilizing Google Ads’ Ad Groups tool.
Attaching unengaging landing pages — or a homepage that generates no leads — to the campaign.
Not adding “negative keywords” or monitoring campaigns to avoid wasting budget.
Creating campaigns, setting budget caps, and going live without telling internal or external stakeholders.

So, how do you manage a PPC campaign properly so that you get leads at a reasonable cost? It comes down to intelligent campaign structure.
How do you master intelligent campaign structure? You use a template!
PPC Plan Template
We’ve created a free PPC campaign management template that will help you and your clients set up a full-funnel campaign structure that follows PPC best practices. Once you do that, you’ll be better positioned to maximize the return on your PPC investment.
If you’re running PPC campaigns for someone who doesn’t understand the importance of an organized campaign structure, this template will also act as a PPC campaign management task checklist that will enlighten your boss or clients.

We’re going to show you how to use that PPC template in this blog post — so download it now and follow along.
Steps for Using This Template
Before we get started, let’s go over a few tips that’ll make using this template even easier:

You will want to clear out the example data I have in the template such as keywords, campaign and AdGroup names, ads, and destination URLs.
Be careful not to erase columns E, G, and I. They contain formulas that will help you in subsequent steps.
Click on the red markers in the top corners of the cells. They contain helpful tips and FAQs. If you ever forget what a cell is used for, they will remind you.

Step 1: Choose your PPC campaign management tools and software.
There are several places to begin your PPC campaign strategy, but my advice would be to start with one platform and expand to another until you cover each channel your audience visits. This tactic works because it keeps your costs low in the initial stages of PPC planning. Rather than paying for an external campaign management tool, you can manage your campaigns natively within the platform on which you’re running the ads.
However, as you expand your strategy to include more sites, you’ll want to scale to a PPC campaign management software that can help you keep track of each platform, each budget, and each set of creative all in one place.
Here are some of our favorite tools for the job:

Marin Software: Integrates with Google and Facebook — two of the most popular PPC platforms.

Wordstream Advisor: Analyzes Google and Facebook ad spend for you to keep you on budget.

SpyFu: Analyze your competitor’s campaigns to build a well-rounded strategy.

Step 2: Understand PPC campaign structure.
Before we do anything with this template, it’s important to understand PPC campaign structure. Far too many marketers will just set up an account, create an ad, direct the ad to their home page, pick some keywords and hit go. This is not the way to do things.
With Google Ads, you have the opportunity to create multiple campaigns. Each campaign may contain several AdGroups, and each AdGroup may contain a few ads and multiple, similar keywords.
It’s wise to create multiple campaigns because you can set daily budget caps, day-parting, and select geo-targeted regions at the campaign level. If you’re bidding on generic keywords and branded keywords, you’ll want to put these in separate campaigns because the economics around these two types of keywords will likely be very different.
As you can see, your template reflects these best practices, providing space for several different campaigns, AdGroups, and ad variations within those AdGroups.
Download this Template Free
Step 3: Identify your landing pages.
The “Destination URL” is the place on your website where you want the PPC traffic to end up. Because there is a marginal cost associated with each PPC visitor you attract, I recommend you choose a landing page URL as your destination URL.
Do not drive them to your home page or a blog in hopes that they will stumble upon a lead generation form. That’s the job of organic search. Drive them to a landing page with a form on it. Don’t forget to put in a tracking token so you know where these leads are coming from.

You will notice that the Destination URL within the AdGroup is the same regardless of the keyword or ad. If you really want to drive a keyword to a different landing page, then create another AdGroup. If you want to get even more specific, create another campaign for that keyword.
You should also keep your sales funnel in mind when you identify these landing pages. Think about which part of the sales funnel each landing page and offer speaks to.
For example, an educational PDF about an industry concept would be appropriate for a top-of-the-funnel offer, while a coupon or a demo would be at the bottom of the funnel.
Manage and create separate campaigns for each part of the funnel. If you scroll down in your template, you’ll see that there’s dedicated space allotted for campaigns in all of these funnel stages.

Step 4: Build your keyword strategy.
Next, select the keywords that are relevant to the landing page and offer. Make sure to keep them as relevant as possible to increase the chance that each visitor you pay for completes the form on the landing page.
Yes, it would be nice to rank for certain keywords, but if the landing page doesn’t answer the keyword query, think twice. Or better yet, create another offer and landing page that speaks more directly to the keyword.

Download this Template Free
To understand search volumes and costs around each keyword you want to select, you can use free tools like the Google Ads Keyword Tool or — if you’re a HubSpot customer — our keywords tool.
If this is your first time managing a PPC campaign, it would be wise to read up on how to design a keyword strategy. In the case of Google Ads, you might also want to learn more about keyword quality scores.
Step 5: Create your ads.
This is the fun part! Both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads allow you to create more than one ad for each Ad Group (hence the “group” terminology). The service will rotate them until it notices that one appears to drive a higher clickthrough rate (CTR). This is how A/B (and C and D) testing works. While this is optional, you should take advantage of the ability to create more than one ad.
Keep in mind that you are allotted 25 characters for the title of the ad, 35 characters for the display URL (the URL that’s displayed in the ad, not to be confused with the destination URL), and 35 characters for each line of copy. But if you’re using this template, we’ll keep track of that for you.

In my experience, the title has the greatest influence on an ad’s CTR. It’s wise to include a keyword in the headline to draw a user’s attention to your ad. An even better practice would be to use dynamic keyword insertion.
A good rule of thumb is to simply try to provide a cohesive experience for searchers — from seeing your ad in the search engine results to completing the form on your landing page — everything should align with the goal of getting them to click through.

Finally, there’s the tricky matter of the display URL. You’re only allowed 35 characters here, but it’s unlikely that your destination URL, the actual URL for your landing page, will be that short. So the search engines allow you to create a display URL, which may not even be an actual URL on your website. The domain in your display URL must be the same as the domain in your destination URL so that users end up in the right place when they click.
Step 6: Share the completed template with stakeholders.
Whether you’re doing PPC for your business or a client, your completed template will ensure alignment between the stakeholders’ expectations with the realities of a productive PPC campaign. If you’re the stakeholder of a PPC campaign, this template will help you think about what you’re doing with the money you’re spending on PPC.
By doing so, you’ll have created a congruous user experience that search engines like to see. This can benefit you in terms of your positioning in the SERPs and, ultimately, your costs. It will also grant you the agility you need to swiftly reallocate and modify your budget as you respond to changes in the marketplace, and drive the maximum return on your PPC spend.
PPC Campaign Management
Understanding where your audience is spending most of their time online is key, in addition to figuring what kind of ads work best for your business. It’s imperative to familiarize yourself with the different platforms available to run your PPC campaigns. Let’s continue by looking at some of the most prominent online ad platforms: Google, Microsoft (Bing), Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Google PPC Campaign Management
Google has been the dominant player in the search engine space for more than 20 years and it still produces some of the most innovative ad experiences on the market. Here’s a look at a couple of the most popular ways to serve ads on Google.
Google Search Ads
One of the most popular types of Google ads is the search ad. These ads appear at the top and bottom of the search results for specific keywords that you bid on. Google search ad campaigns are usually run with the goal of driving traffic to a specific webpage — like a landing or product page.
Google Display Ads
Have you ever visited a website that has advertising on the banner, sidebar, or footer of the page? Then you’ve probably crossed paths with a Google display ad. These types of ads are typically visual, featuring colorful graphics, videos, and sometimes audio. Google display ads are helpful for retargeting customers who have visited your website before without making a purchase.
Microsoft Ads (Formerly Bing Ads) PPC Campaign Management
Overall, Microsoft Ads works very similarly to Google Ads. However, here are a few tips that can help get the most out of your PPC campaign strategy for Microsoft Ads.
Bing Keyword Suggestions
If the bulk of your PPC efforts live in Google Ads and you decide to start bidding on Microsoft Ads, you might be tempted to use the same keywords that you’re already bidding on in Google. The issue here is that Google and Bing are different search engines and it’s possible that your Google keywords won’t see the same search volume in Bing.
Bing’s keyword research and suggestion tool will give you more accurate search volumes for your keywords. You can still use your original list of keywords from Google to start with, but utilize this tool to verify whether you should be bidding on the same keywords, or something similar that yields more traffic.
Lower CPC
Ad bids can end up being quite costly for a business so many marketers are constantly working to decrease ad spend. Wordstream tested the cost of running ads on both search engines and found that Bing’s average CPC was 33% lower than Google’s. Since bidding on Microsoft Ads is less competitive in comparison to Google, it’s likely that you won’t end up spending as much of your budget on this platform.
So if you’re able to find a high MSV keyword to bid on there’s a good chance that you’ll see a positive shift in your return on investment. This may be especially true for specific industries. The table below shows the average industry CPC according to Microsoft Ads.

Image Source
For a deeper dive into Microsoft Ads check out this tutorial.
Facebook PPC Campaign Management
Facebook Ads Manager is a platform that connects 1.6 billion people worldwide to businesses on Facebook. It’s a great tool to target specific audiences and to promote brand presence.
Some of the most popular ads you can incorporate into your Facebook campaigns are:
Story Ads
Stories are thriving on social media platforms, so why not develop a few ads to meet your audience where they’re already spending time?
Stories are only posted for 24 hours so these types of ads are best to use when you have a specific promotion occurring. Like personal stories, story ads can be shared in the form of a video with a link or a series of still photos that lead the viewer to take a specific action.
Playable Ads
Gamification is always an innovative way to catch a lead’s attention. Facebook’s playable ads allow you to create a brief interactive version of a game or app so users can get a feel for what your product is like.
You’ll want to keep the functionality as simple as possible, so you won’t deter any potential customers, and of course, make it fun!
Messenger Ads
If you’ve ever used Facebook’s messenger tool, you’ve probably seen an ad appear among your conversations. The great thing about this is that a potential customer could choose to instantly connect with your business directly from their messages.
So, if you have a sales customer service team that connects with people via chat this is a great way to establish an instant connection. You can also send a lead to your site or a specific landing page from the ad.
To start building your own ad campaign on Facebook check out HubSpot’s Facebook Ads Training Course.
Twitter PPC Campaign Management
Twitter Ads Manager makes it easy to plan the ad you’d like to run on Twitter while providing reporting on campaign performance.
People spend 26% more time viewing ads on Twitter than on any other leading platform, so you’ll want your ads to be catchy enough to stop someone mid-scroll. Some of the types of ads you can include in your Twitter campaign are:
Promoted Tweets
The only difference between a regular tweet and a promoted tweet is that you’re spending money for the promoted tweet to appear in the feeds of people who aren’t following your business. This allows your business to convert users, or simply gain new followers which will help with your brand’s awareness
Promoted Moments
Twitter moments are several tweets that focus on a specific topic or event. Essentially you want this collection of tweets to communicate a story for your audience. These are great for more fun or trendy topics since Moments includes categories such as trending, sports, entertainment, and more.
Promoted Trends
If you’re someone that loves seeing what’s trending on Twitter you may want to experiment with promoting a trend for your target audience to interact with. This will be displayed in the timeline, the explore tab, and the “Trends for you section.”
Once someone clicks on the promoted trend they’ll see various search results for the specific trend or topic and your brand’s promoted Tweet. If your business has identified an engaged Twitter audience you may be sitting on an untapped goldmine.
Learn more about Twitter Ads Manager for your business and get to tweeting!
YouTube PPC Campaign Management
Including YouTube in your ad campaign strategies is a must. If your business can create something catchy enough to convince someone not to click ‘skip,’ you’re already winning.
As part of the Google Display Network, YouTube has become a core part of marketers’ ad strategies. With over a billion active users and the ability to be accessed in 76 languages, there’s no denying that YouTube is reaching a massive amount of people on a daily basis.
Let’s take a look at some of the different types of Youtube ads.
Skippable In-Stream Ads
These are probably the ads that you’re most familiar with already because we’ve all clicked that magical little button that says “skip ads” to start viewing what we searched for as soon as possible.
The ads can play before the ad even begins, which means the viewer never sees it, or they’ll have to wait five seconds before they can skip. Five seconds isn’t much time to convince some not to hit skip, so make sure the hook of your ad is immediately enticing. The good thing about this is that if they skip within those first five seconds, you don’t have to pay for the ad.
Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads (Including Bumper Ads)
Since so many people opt to skip ads on YouTube, advertisers have the option to create non-skippable ads. If you’ve developed a strong creative as you feel will resonate with your target audience this may be the option for you.
However, make sure that you’re avidly measuring results to ensure you’re getting what you’re paying for. If the results aren’t in your favor, you may want to revert to a skippable ad instead.
Video Discovery Ads (Formerly Known as In-Display Ads)
Discovery ads are what users see in the search results. Remember, YouTube is the second largest search engine and shows more than 1 billion hours of video to users each day – so you’ll want those ads appearing in search results too!
These ads will include a thumbnail and a few lines of text as a description. Since many people prefer visuals over text this is an opportunity to get someone to view your video instead of reading a competitor’s textual resource.
Start Your PPC Campaign Today
PPC management is all about researching, budgeting, testing, reporting, and doing it over until you get the results you need. You don’t have to do it alone, though. With the right tools and instructions outlined in this guide, you’ll be able to implement a PPC campaign that yields results for your business.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

During the 1950s, Volkswagen sold a bus. Although now considered a classic vehicle, the bus remains an icon for the car company decades later.
The cool part? Volkswagen announced their new VW Bus — it’s electric and features sleek, modern styling. Volkswagen’s marketing for the vehicle is eye-catching, unique, and fun, and it complements the original “hippie” vibe the company was once known for.

Image Source
Volkswagen also released a TV commercial for the bus that’s clever, minimalist, and on-brand. It introduces the new vehicle with the song The Sound of Silence playing in the background (hint: electric cars are silent) and ends with a short message on the screen for viewers to read: “Introducing a new era of electric driving.”

This sentiment touches on the fact Volkswagen is contributing to society’s interest in electric, eco-friendly vehicles. It also relates to this being a new era for the bus.
So, who works on this type of marketing? Who helps create content that excites consumers about new and updated products, like the Volkswagen bus? Who encourages consumers to buy? Product marketers.

What makes product marketing unique? How is it different from conventional marketing? Let’s unpack the differences.
Product Marketing vs. Conventional Marketing
Product marketing is strategic whereas conventional marketing is all-encompassing.
Product marketing is considered a component of conventional marketing. In fact, if you look at the seven Ps of marketing, you’ll see product marketing is one of the most important aspects of a business’s marketing efforts.

Product marketing is focused on driving demand for and adoption of a product among existing customers. It’s focused on the steps people take to purchase your product so product marketers can build campaigns to support this work.
Product marketing is about understanding a specific product’s audience on a deep level and developing that product’s positioning and messaging to appeal to that audience. It covers the launch and execution side of a product in addition to the marketing strategy for the product — which is why the work of a product marketer lies at the center of a business’s marketing, sales, and product teams.

Conventional marketing is focused on broader topics under the umbrella of marketing such as lead generation, SEO, and anything related to acquiring and converting new leads and customers. It’s about promoting the company and brand as a whole, including the products that are sold. These marketers make sure there’s a consistent, on-brand message behind all of the company’s content.

Why is product marketing important?
Product marketing is a critical part of any business’s marketing strategy. Without it, your product won’t achieve its maximum potential among your target audience. To understand its importance, let’s look at the goals of product marketing.
Product Marketing Goals

Understand your customers better.

When you implement a product marketing strategy, your target audience can see the value of having that specific product in their lives. Understanding how many customers gravitate to your product lets you conduct customer research.

Target your buyer personas effectively.

Alongside understanding your customers in general, you can figure out the type of buyer persona to target for the future. Knowing the exact needs of your target can help you when innovating your product to better suit their needs.

Learn about your competitors (products and marketing tactics).

When you market your product, you can compare your strategy and results to those of your competitors. What features and benefits of their products are making a statement within the market? What ideas haven’t they explored? What does their product offer that yours doesn’t? You can use this research to your advantage when crafting your product marketing strategy.

Ensure the marketing, product, and sales teams are all on the same page.

Making your product offering abundantly clear for both buyers and your employees is mutually beneficial. Every team working together in your business can have a better understanding of the purpose of the product and better communicate that in their operations.

Position the product appropriately in the market.

In product marketing, you want your product, brand image and tone to be consistent and evoke the right feelings intended for your audience. When you brainstorm your brand positioning, some questions to consider are:
1. Is this product suitable for today’s market?
2. How is this product different from our competitors’?
3. Is there a way to further differentiate this product from our competitors’ offerings?
4. Are there any products we’ve sold in the past that we wouldn’t market or sell again? If so, why not?

Boost revenue and improve sales.

There are also questions you, as a product marketer, will have to ask yourself and reflect on in regards to your product. Asking yourself these questions will help you ensure your product is a success among customers.
1. Is this product suitable for today’s market?
2. Is this product appropriate for our customers today?
3. How is this product unique from similar products of our competitor’s?
4. Is there a way to further differentiate this product from those of our competitor’s?
5. Are there any products we’ve sold in the past that we wouldn’t market or sell ever again now that we look back? Is so, why not?
As you can see, product marketing requires you to look at your products from a strategic perspective to ensure they’re successful among customers in your current market.
Now, let’s take a look at the specific responsibilities you have as a product marketer (or product marketing manager).
Your responsibilities as a product marketer may vary slightly based on industry, company, products, and company size and resources. If you’re working for a startup, you may be a product marketer who also helps create the content the broader marketing team produces due to limited resources and budget. As the business grows, you may move onto a team whose sole job is product marketing.

Let’s take a look at six common product marketing responsibilities.
1. Identify the buyer personas and target audience for your product.
You must identify the buyer personas and audience for your product so you can target customers in a way that’s convincing and makes them want to make a purchase. This will allow you to tailor your product and its features to solve the challenges your audience is facing.
Pro tip: Use templates to create buyer personas for your business. Having a tangible outline of who you’re catering to can help align different teams in your business, and better position your product in the marketplace.

2. Successfully create, manage and carry out your product marketing strategy.
A product marketing strategy (which we’ll review shortly) allows you to create, build, and execute content and campaigns — this supports the steps that will lead your buyer personas and customers to make a purchase.

3. Work with and enable sales to attract the right customers for your new product.
As a product marketer, you have to maintain a direct relationship with sales. You’ll work with sales to identify and attract the right customers for the product at hand and provide sales enablement materials to reps to ensure they understand the product inside and out, along with all of its features.
This way, you and your teams are on the same page in terms of what’s being shared with customers, allowing you to provide a consistent, on-brand experience for anyone who comes in contact with the product.

4. Determine your product’s positioning in the market.
One of the most important parts of your job is determining the product’s positioning in the market. Think about this process in terms of storytelling — your positioning requires you to create and tell the story of your product.
As a product marketer, you’ll work with the broader marketing team and the product team to tell this story by answering critical questions like:

Why was this product made?
Who is this product made for?
What challenges does this product resolve?
What makes this product unique?

5. Ensure your product meets the needs of your target audience.
You must also make sure your product meets the needs of your customers and target audience. Through the research conducted to determine your buyer persona’s and target audience, you should have uncovered the pain points and challenges you’re working to solve with your product.
If your product doesn’t meet the needs of your customers, they’ll have no reason to make the purchase or choose your product over your competitor’s.
6. Keep your product relevant over time.
Your product needs to stay relevant over time. As needs, expectations, and challenges change and evolve, it’s your job to make sure your product marketing strategy, and the products themselves, remain relevant among customers.
This means you may have to manage slight changes in your product marketing strategy (which we’ll discuss next), or updates and modifications to the product itself (you’ll likely work with the product team, who actually creates the product, to do this).

Now, let’s take a look at five steps that can help you optimize your product marketing strategy.
1. Define your product’s target audience and buyer personas.
One of the main roles you have as a product marketer is to define a specific target audience and create buyer personas for the product being sold (different products will likely have different target audiences). This is the first step to marketing your product.
By understanding your customers and their needs, challenges, and pain points, you’ll be able to ensure all aspects of your product marketing strategy (as in, the rest of the steps we’ll define below) are tailored to that target customer and persona. This way, the product and the marketing content that’s created for the product will resonate with your audience.
2. Determine the positioning and messaging to set your product apart.
After performing your customer research and learning about your audience, you’ll have identified their needs, challenges, and pain points. From here, you can think about how to highlight the ways your product resolves those challenges for your customers.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve differentiated yourself from your competitors. After all, they are your competitors because they solve the needs of your customers in a similar way to your company.
The key to setting your product apart is positioning (which we touched on earlier) and messaging. Positioning and messaging answers key questions your customers might have about your product and what makes it unique and then turns those answers into the main points behind your product’s marketing strategy.
It’s your job as the product marketer to ensure your customers and audience know the answers to these questions and don’t have to dig around for (or make assumptions about) them.
Examples of questions you’ll need to answer to develop your product’s positioning and messaging include:

What specifically makes our product unique?
Why is our product better than our competitors’?
Why are our product’s features ideal for our target audience?
What will our customers get out of our product that they cannot get from our competitors’ products?
Why should our customers trust and invest in us and our product?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can compile these responses into one, impactful, and shareable statement that captures your positioning and messaging as a whole. To do this, follow these steps:

Turn the answers to the positioning and messaging questions into an elevator pitch.
Use action words to excite your customers.
Ensure the tone of your statement captures the tone of your brand.
Focus on the benefit of your product as a whole (not just one specific feature).

Pro Tip: As product marketers, you should ensure the sales, product, and (the broader) marketing teams are also aware of your positioning and messaging around the product so they too can communicate the same information to prospects and current customers.
This allows you to ensure the entire company is consistent in the content and information they share about your product. Additionally, you can provide this information to your support team if you think it’s necessary, as they may be fielding support calls and working with your customers who’ve already invested in the product.
3. Set goals for your product.
Next, you’ll want to set goals for your product. These will vary based on your specific product, the type of company you work for, your overall marketing goals, and more — your goals will be specific to your business and situation. However, let’s review some common goals product marketers aim to achieve:

Increase revenue
Engage with customers
Improve market share
Gain customers from competitors
Boost brand recognition

Pro Tip: Feel free to combine several of these goals or just choose one to focus on — every company and product will have different goals. The key is making sure you view and set these targets in the SMART goal format, meaning they’re specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
Use a free template to help you create and achieve your SMART goals.
4. Price your product.
As a product marketer, you’ll also have to contribute to the discussion of the price of your product. Depending on the company you work for, you might work with other teams on this part of the strategy, or it might be a job just for you and your fellow product marketers. Either way, you can consider competitive vs. value-based pricing.
Competitive vs. Value-Based Product Pricing
Competitive pricing means you’re basing your product’s price off of the similar products your competitors sell. It’s ideal for companies who have created a product similar to one that several other companies sell.
If you believe your unique features warrant a significantly higher price than those of your competitors’, you might choose to price your product above the other similar products on the market. A good way to evaluate the fairness of the pricing of all of your competitors is by studying financial reports and industry trends.
Value-based pricing allows you to maximize your profit, although it’s a bit more time-consuming to establish in comparison to competitive pricing. It’s ideal for companies selling a product with very few competitors on the market or one with exceptionally new and unique features.
Value-based pricing quantifies your item’s value in a way your customer can relate to their profitability. It allows you to base your product’s price on its value for your customer rather than whatever the market, industry trends, and your competitors say.
5. Launch your product.
Now it’s time for the most important part of your role as a product marketer — not to mention, the most exciting: the launch of the product you’ve been marketing.
There are two main parts to the launch to focus on as a product marketer: the internal launch (what goes on within your company upon product launch) and external launch (what goes on outside of your company, with customers and audience members, upon product launch).
Internal Aspects of a Product Launch
As previously stated, your job as a product marketer entails making sure the entire organization is on the same page about your product. This way, your customers only receive consistent and accurate details about the product.
The marketing, product, and sales teams at your company should be aware of the following information:

The product’s benefits
Any available product demo information
Sales training opportunities on your product and details about how it’s used
What the positioning and messaging looks like
Who your buyer personas and ideal customers are
What the goals for your product include
What your product’s features are
The pricing of your product
How your product is being launched to customers

Now, you might be wondering how to provide this information to marketing, product, and sales. Which channels are ideal for sharing these details with your fellow employees?
Here are a few examples of ways to do this:

Sales enablement kit (ideal for sales)
Presentation (ideal for the broader marketing department and product)

Knowledge base (ideal for support)

External Aspects of a Product Launch
Externally, there are many ways to market your product launch so your current base of customers, prospects, and target audience learn about whatever it is you’re selling.
First, determine where you’re going to focus your product marketing efforts. Here are some examples of channels and places to do this (you might choose several of these or just one to focus on depending on your needs, goals, and resources).

Social media
In-store
Product launch event
Blog
Website landing page
Exclusive product preview (prior to the official launch)
Promotional event/ campaign (in-person and/ or online)

On whatever channel you choose to focus your product launch marketing efforts, you should include relevant product information (focused on your positioning and messaging) so prospects and customers can learn all about your product and why they need it. This includes your product’s features, what makes it unique, pricing, demos for customers, training for customers, and any other materials you’ve created and want to share.
Congrats! You’ve just worked through the steps to marketing a product. Remember, this process is one that should be thought about and updated as your products change and evolve so they remain relevant among your customers. (This shouldn’t be an issue as long as you have a member of your team focused on product marketing, considering it’s one of their main responsibilities.)

Let’s review four real-life examples of stellar product marketing.
1. Apple

Apple is a household name for leading technology products and software. Not only are its products gorgeously well-designed; it’s also super useful. But Apple’s product marketing doesn’t focus on the many product features — it markets the user benefits.

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Apple doesn’t simply list the impressive features of their products; the brand uses those features to tell consumers who they could be and how they could work if they have those products. Apple tells a narrative using its products and encourages people to buy in the process.
2. Billie

Billie is a women’s razor brand. In a highly competitive market, Billie has helped its products stand out. How? It established a sharp competitive edge (no pun intended) by doing what no razor brand had done before — show body hair in its advertising.

Not only did this advertising approach get Billie’s audience talking about the brand, but they also appreciated the brand’s accurate portrayal of women’s bodies and body hair. These differentiators were more than enough to set Billie apart from other razor brands and products.
3. Pepsi Cola

As a brand, Pepsi has positioned itself as one with youthful energy and excitement, and this can be seen consistently through its product marketing campaigns.
Pepsi’s customers are mainly aged between 13 and 35 years old with modern and active lifestyles, so it only makes sense to hire popular celebrities like Doja Cat for a commercial in a homecoming tailgate.

Through highly targeted positioning, repetitive advertising, and consistent branding, Pepsi has become a truly global household name and product.
4. MailChimp

There are dozens of email marketing tools on the market, but MailChimp hasn’t been fazed by competition. In fact, the company has risen above its competition by positioning itself as more than an email marketing tool: it’s an all-in-one marketing platform that helps businesses grow.

Like Apple, MailChimp primarily highlights its benefits for the end-user, not just its product features. A recent rebranding and site redesign further drives this narrative home.
Start Marketing Your Products
Product marketing is the process through which a company brings a product to market. Being a product marketer (or product marketing manager) means you’re at the center of your company’s marketing, sales, and product teams.
You’re an integral part to the success of your product, as you create and manage your product’s specific marketing strategy, but you also serve as a liaison between all three of these departments, ensuring everyone is on the same page with your product, it’s features, capabilities, and more. So, start developing your latest product’s marketing strategy to ensure it’s a success among your target audience and customers.
This post was originally published in February 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Yes, you own or work for a business that sells products or services. However, you are also a consumer. For just a moment, take off your business hat and put on your consumer hat.
Every day, you research items from pet shampoo and carpet cleaner in your personal life to CRM systems and social media schedulers for your professional life.

Our world is filled with hundreds or thousands of items for anything your heart desires. With so many options, we become easily distracted, following the next shiny object to another site, another company, or another method of meeting our needs altogether.
Marketers know this, and so they’ve had to find a way to recapture our attention when we’ve been squirrelled by another option. Once they’ve got our attention, they have another opportunity to sell their products to us.
You can put your business hat back on. Isn’t it frustrating when you see how many people visit your website and look at a product, and leave without ever making a purchase? You’ve managed to attract them to your business, but what good is paid advertising and a beautiful website if shoppers don’t convert to customers?
Thankfully, marketers have a solution for this. It’s called “retargeting” and you’re about to learn everything you need to know about LinkedIn Retargeting.
LinkedIn Retargeting
If you own a business, work for a business, or are looking to be hired by a business, you know that LinkedIn is a necessary platform. While you may opt out of more “social” social media like Facebook or Instagram, employers look to LinkedIn to find new employees and vet potential candidates, and most professionals use LinkedIn as a networking tool.
In the third quarter of 2020, LinkedIn reported more than 690 million users. Like many types of social media, it could be considered a “necessary evil.” Fortunately, it can also present an opportunity to recapture the attention of prospective clients and customers.
What are Linkedin Retargeting Ads?

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Also known as remarketing ads, LinkedIn retargeting ads allow you to reach LinkedIn users who may have previously interacted with your brand in some way (so they have some level of interest), yet they haven’t purchased from you.
How to Retarget on LinkedIn
Retargeting through LinkedIn is a 7-step process (with a potential 8th step):

Users see an ad in their LinkedIn feed.
The user clicks on the ad.
They are brought to your website.
They interact in some way, perhaps filling out a form in exchange for an offer.
The user becomes a lead in your system.
Their history is stored in cookies and the data is sent to LinkedIn.
Retargeting ads are shown to the user.

And hopefully… The user takes the steps to become a customer.
You might be wondering how the cookies know how to communicate with LinkedIn. This is done through a piece of code called an Insight Tag that gets installed on your website. The pixel is able to track conversions, website audiences, and website demographics for all your LinkedIn ad campaigns. It then passes this data from your website to LinkedIn, letting it know that you’ve got someone interested who needs to be reminded you exist.
LinkedIn Retargeting Cost
Any smart business person is going to wonder if Linkedin Retargeting ads provide a worthwhile ROI. Before you learn how to create these ads, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know:
In their pilot study, Linkedin’s 2,000+ Matched Audiences campaigns reported an average of:

30% increase in click-through rate (CTR) with Website Retargeting ads.
14% decrease in post-click cost-per-conversion (CPC) with Website Retargeting ads.
37% increase in CTR with contact targeting.

Retargeting allows you to capture and convert leads that would otherwise be lost. Because of this, successful Linkedin retargeting campaigns will also increase your conversion rate and lower your average cost-per-lead (CPL).
Sound like something you could benefit from? Read on to learn the “How.”
Creating LinkedIn Retargeting Ad Campaigns
Thankfully, you don’t have to be a tech genius to set up a LinkedIn Retargeting Ad. They’ve made it fairly user-friendly so as long as you have access to your website code, and basic knowledge of how to navigate inside it, this is doable. With good directions (they’re coming, don’t worry), you can be well on your way in a short period of time. If you have access to a website designer who will help you, that’s great too.
Let’s take a look at the overview first and then we’ll dive into specifics:

Create a LinkedIn advertising account
Build LinkedIn Retargeting Audience
Use Matched Audiences in a LinkedIn Retargeting Campaign

How to Create a LinkedIn Advertising Account
If you are not yet using Linkedin Campaign Manager, start here and follow the prompts to set up your account.

Then, you can set up your campaign:

If you are new to Linkedin ads and would like some assistance creating and managing campaigns, consider using a program like Rollworksto help.
Assuming you’ve done all of that and are already running LinkedIn Ads, let’s look at how to set up a Linkedin pixel.
How to Install a LinkedIn Advertising Pixel
Earlier, we mentioned the Insight Tag. This is the most important piece of the retargeting ads puzzle because, without it, your website and LinkedIn won’t communicate.

To find your unique Javascript code, head to Linkedin Campaign Manager.
Check the box next to your business account and then look at the Campaigns tab.
From the Account Assets tab dropdown, click on Insight Tag.
Select Install my Insight Tag.
Choose I will install the tag myself.

Copy all of the tag code.
Choose I’m Done.
Go to your website and paste the Insight Tag code at the end of the <body> tag in the global footer.

Once this is done, it’s time to check each page to make sure the Insight Tag has been installed properly.

Head back to the Campaign Manager and look for the Insight Tag under Account Assets. When a tag has been installed correctly, it will send a signal from your website to Linkedin. Whenever a LinkedIn member visits that page, the domain name will appear here.
It may take up to 24 hours for a page visit to verify, so you may need to come back and check the connection later.
Check the Status column for all verified domains (they’ll show up as active/green).

LinkedIn Advertising Pixel for Google Chrome
The next step is necessary to ensure that this system works with any users on Google Chrome. They have more safeguards in place to prevent third-party cookies, so you’ll need to do an extra step to make this work.

Make the SameSite attribute ‘None.’
Add the Secure label to your cookies.

If you’re not sure how to work with SameSite attributes, it may be good to bring in a developer for help. Once this step is done, Google Chrome users will join the party.
Linkedin Retargeting Options
With the Insight Tag installed, we can begin Building Linkedin Retargeting Audiences. All the options are on one page, so it’s fairly easy to do.

If you’re not already there, log into your Linkedin Campaign Manager and select the account you’ll be working with.
On the Campaigns page, find the Account Assets tab and select Matched Audiences.
Click on Create Audience on the right side of the Matched Audiences page.
Select the audience type you’d like to build.
Follow the rest of the page’s flow and then choose Create to build a new audience.

Keep in mind that it takes 48 hours to build an audience. You also need at least 300 members before you can send retargeting ads to those users. Different audience pages will look slightly different so we’ll review these next.
Website Audience Set Up
This variation will retarget users who visited a page on your website using Website audiences. You’ll need the Insight Tag for this audience.

Name your audience. You’ll have to remember this name later in your campaigns, so be specific.
Add key pages from your website under Match a URL that… You can add multiple links to one audience.
Pay attention to page rules:

Equals – this is the exact URL you list and is great to use when you want to restrict subpages.
Starts with – includes all pages starting with whatever you enter.
Contains – you’ll be asked to type in a word or string. This option would make it easy to group URLs in a pattern, like related products, service offerings, or blog topics whose URL string includes the same keyword or phrase.
AND/OR: Use AND to retarget users who both visit a page URL and visit another URL containing a word you specify. Use OR to group URLs and retarget people who visit any page listed.

Video Audience Set Up
To retarget users who viewed a video ad, follow these steps.

Name the audience.
Choose viewing percentage (25%, 50%, 75%, or 97% of the video).
Select lookback period (30, 60, 90, 180, 365 days in the past).
Click the checkbox next to the video campaigns you want to include.
Hit Create.

Lead Gen Form Audience Set Up
Follow these steps to retarget audience members who opened or submitted a lead gen form.

Name your audience.
Choose the engagement level. This can be anyone who opened your lead gen form (including submissions) or only people who have submitted your lead gen form.
You can specify how long ago the audience members engaged with this form: between 30 days to a full year.
Check the box next to the campaign(s) you want to retarget.

Company Page Audience Set Up
To set up an audience of users who have interacted with your company’s LinkedIn page, follow the process below.

Name the audience.
Choose an engagement type. Engagement on a company’s Linkedin Page includes a page view or a click on your page’s header CTA.
Select how recently audience members engaged.
Click Create.

Event Audience Set Up
Do you host events on LinkedIn? Retarget LinkedIn members who RSVP to your event (you can do this for past and upcoming event registration).

Name the audience.
Check the boxes next to Event names to include the events you want.
Click Create.

How to Use Matched Audiences for LinkedIn Retargeting
Want to use a matched, or lookalike audience for LinkedIn retargeting? Here’s how to set it up:

Create a Linkedin Campaign.
Use Matched Audience in Campaign.
Scroll to Who is your target audience.
Select Audiences > Retargeting.
Select from one of the options of Matched Audiences.
Choose the Matched Audience under that type.
Finish the campaign setup.
Create your ads and launch the campaign.

LinkedIn Retargeting Best Practices
You’ll want to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to LinkedIn Retargeting Ads. Follow these best practices to make sure your advertising dollar stretches as far as possible.

Refine your ad content over time. If you notice certain pieces of content aren’t resonating with your audience, don’t be afraid to refresh it until you figure out what works. Images and ad copy should reflect the retargeting audience you’re trying to reach.
Create multiple ad formats depending on the stage your prospective customers are in. Continue testing formats and use the format that will best move them towards your objectives.
Be flexible. You’ll be learning what works and what doesn’t as you go. When you discover something isn’t creating the results you want, change it.

Final Thoughts
There’s no need to accept lost leads. When someone heads to your website, downloads content, or interacts with your brand in any way, it’s because they are interested in what you offer and how you can help them.
Rather than counting them out if they don’t immediately convert, focus some of your advertising dollars on recapturing their attention and gently guiding them back to your company and what you can do for them. You have the solution to their problem — make sure they know it.

We instinctively use stories to understand the world around us and to influence each other. Stories are what give our ideas and experiences meaning.
I teach, speak, and write on the topic of narrative intelligence, which is the idea that stories are the most powerful tool we have for behavior change. Through my work helping leaders from Fortune 500 companies and startups alike tell stories to transform behavior, build inclusive culture, and communicate new ideas, I know the impact that stories can have. But I also know just how much business owners struggle to use stories to create an emotional connection, build their brand, and sell their bold ideas.
Why Numbers Don’t Cut It
Most business owners communicate in numbers: sharing the size of their communities, the profits they’ve generated, and the statistics behind the problem they’re solving. Numbers are an important part of your brand, but without a story, they fall flat.
In a series of studies about compassion and empathy, psychologist Paul Slovic discovered what he coined “psychic numbing”—the phenomenon describing how people ignore a problem when it is communicated solely in statistical terms.
He and co-authors demonstrate that people generate sympathy toward a story around an identifiable victim of poverty or war, but fail to do so toward statistical victims. As a result, even the most convincing data often fails to create change.
This truth is applicable even on a smaller scale. If you want to have a brand that moves people to action, you’ll need to craft a story.
The Types of Stories to Tell
Before owning my own business, I used stories to drive behavior change in media, marketing, sales, and nonprofits. I discovered that every organization goes through a series of milestones and repeating events that stories can be built around. These include:

The origin of why the organization exists
Adversities the organization has to overcome
New ideas and innovations it creates as it grows

Collecting and telling your Origin, Adversity, and Innovation stories is a powerful way to build an authentic brand that connects more deeply with the people you serve. Here’s how.
Origin Stories
Origin stories help people to understand the why behind what you do. For example, the origin story behind my company The New Quo begins with my childhood. I was raised as what I’ve coined an “extreme minority,” as I was racially, religiously, and politically different from the majority growing up in Utah. Being on the outside of so many groups informed me of how powerful narratives people pick up from education, media, family, and other institutions were for influencing biased beliefs and behavior.
I then spent a career using stories to motivate people to take action on social causes, as well as to close sales. I used story as a tool of influence but noticed how most organizations had no clue how narratives affected their cultures and leadership practices.
These experiences inspired my fascination with how narrative affects our beliefs and behaviors and motivated me to build tools to help people become better communicators and more inclusive leaders.
I now share this Origin story openly in my brand communications and thought leadership, and it helps individuals truly understand my brand and why I built my company.

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My Origin story, which I regularly share in brand communications and on social media.
Discover your Origin story by asking yourself the following:

What problem motivated me to create the solution my company provides? What is my personal connection to this problem?
What aspects of my identity and experiences shaped the values behind the solution I created?
What does the company stand for outside of profit? What values drive our business decisions?

Adversity Stories
Adversity stories capture the moments you’ve been able to overcome an unexpected challenge. They showcase your brand’s resilience while also making you relatable, as everyone deals with adversity in some form.
A great example of an Adversity story is when Procter & Gamble hit a business slump and realized they needed a new cleaning business. They hired a research firm, Continuum, that discovered that people were cleaning their mops as much as they were cleaning their floors. There was a clear need for a speedier clean, and perhaps a new tool.
These researchers realized just how much people hated touching dirty mops, and also that most dirt in the home is dust. The team used that knowledge to design a new cleaning tool: essentially a wet towel on a stick that could be thrown away once it was soiled.
Although this pivot challenged what they originally knew about the mop market, it created a new product that had $100 million in sales in the first year it was released and is a staple in households today.
To discover these stories, ask yourself:

What key challenges has my business overcome?
What lessons were learned during these challenges, and how did they strengthen the solutions we provide?

Innovation Stories
These stories capture when you’ve created new insights and connections between unlikely ideas, and they demonstrate the creativity of your brand.
A great example of an innovation story is the invention of Post-it notes. In 1974, 3M employee Arthur Fry had an “aha moment” while at church. He knew about a light adhesive developed by fellow 3M employee Spencer Silver, but no one had figured out how this new glue could be used. He realized a piece of paper with this type of adhesive on it would be a great way to mark his place in his hymnal book while singing in the church choir.
The company was initially skeptical about the product’s profitability, but in 1980, the Post-it was introduced. Today, Post-it notes are sold in more than 100 countries.
This story showcases unconventional inspiration and problem solving that 3M can tell again and again to cement their brand and demonstrate their innovation.
To discover your own innovation stories, answer the following:

What unconventional connections and insights has our company made that others have not?
What unexpected solutions have we generated?
What about our creative process showcases our values?

Once you’ve collected your Origin, Adversity, and Innovation moments, you can begin to tell versions of these stories on social media, in long-form content, on your website, and more.
The stories we tell are powerful—personally in terms of how we feel about ourselves, and socially by how they define how others see us. The more you honestly share the truth of your experience, the more impact and results you’ll create with an authentic brand.

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