Category: Marketing Automation

Want to start a blog but worried that blogging is an oversaturated market? You may be wondering how your blog will stand out amongst numerous ones in the same industry.
You may even fear that your blog won’t be successful because you’re unsure how to create a blogging strategy that will make you stand out. You may have even started your blog and are frustrated that you’re not seeing the results you want. In this article, we’re going to break down what you should consider about starting a blog, how to tell if a market is too competitive, and other ways to make your blog stand out.
Considerations for Starting a Blog in 2021
Starting a blog may feel like a daunting task. There are many questions around whether your blog will gain traffic and how to put your content in front of your desired audience.
The benefits of blogging, however, is a long-term game. Posting to your blog consistently is a fundamental first step. The second step is centering your blog around a specific topic or theme.
According to Website Setup, the number of blogs on the internet has reached over 600 million. If you’re looking to start a blog and worry that this number indicates that the blogging market is oversaturated, don’t panic.
While blogging may be competitive, there’s a lot of context to consider that can give you an advantage. It all depends on which niche you enter. While most blogs lie within a specific industry, every blog has a specific perspective in that industry.
For example, if you have a wellness blog that focuses on healthy eating and exercise, the perspective can be from someone who struggles with a specific disease or has advanced education on nutrition.
This specific perspective is your unique value proposition.
An audience that may be looking for specific, niche information will gain attention and traffic because your specific perspective creates value that is rare.
Overtime, your audience will understand that they cannot find that information with this unique value anywhere else. Your blog’s perspective is what will set it apart from others. Focusing on this specific value will set you up for long term success.
How to Tell if a Topic Is Too Competitive
Now that we understand that your blog needs to have a unique perspective that brings value to your industry, we’re going to explain how to determine if a blog topic is too competitive.
There are many ways to determine how competitive your niche is, but we’ll keep it to the most simple:

Keyword Volume (MSV)
Keyword Difficulty (KD)

In order to determine either of these, you’ll need to perform some research on the keyword landscape for your intended primary topic.
For example, if you want to blog about baking cookies, you’ll want to check out the keyword landscape for queries like, baking at home, cookie baking ideas, baking desserts, to start.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools like Google Trends, Ubersuggest, Moz, or Semrush are great keyword research tools that can show you both the MSV and the KD for any query you’re interested in.
Keyword Volume
Otherwise known as Monthly Search Volume (MSV), keyword volume tells you how many times a certain keyword is being searched each month. Keyword volume can indicate how large the audience is for a certain topic, and therefore indicates how much potential traffic is available to you within this keyword’s landscape.
The higher the volume, the more opportunity for traffic from this keyword. Now, you won’t be able to capture all of the traffic available. Your opportunity is highly dependent on another factor — keyword difficulty.
Keyword Difficulty (KD)
Keyword difficulty gives you an idea of the likelihood that your content will rank in search engines for that keyword by telling how difficult it is to rank for that keyword. Other blogs are also competing for this keyword, so KD gives you a sense of your competition.
Different SEO tools consider various factors to calculate the difficulty of ranking, like number of backlinks and search volume, for instance. Overall, keyword difficulty is a helpful way to tell if a market is highly competitive.
Tips for Blogging in a Competitive Market
If you find that your niche topic has a high keyword difficulty, don’t worry. There are a number of actionable steps you can take to ensure you can still rank and get traffic.
There are ways to optimize your blog to ensure you target the right audience, rank in search engines, and keep viewers coming back. Let’s cover those now.
1. Know your audience. 
Having a foundational understanding of your blog’s goal and purpose is fundamental to standing out in a competitive market. And knowing who your audience is and what they want to read comes just before that.
You can start by building a persona to target with your content. That way, you’ll have an intimate understanding of who your target audience is and will be able to serve them.
In order to get to know your audience, you should ask yourself the following questions:

Why are you blogging this information?

What impact do you hope to bring with your blog?

What does your audience need to learn?

How does your audience like to consume information?

What demographics define your audience?

2. Incorporate SEO guidelines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key to bringing your blog to a wider audience. Essentially, you want to center your blog content on a few primary keywords that align with what your audience is interested in learning. We already discussed above how to determine the MSV and KD for your target keywords, but there’s a lot more to SEO.Your blog’s content should focus around your primary keyword. Those keywords should show up throughout your content.
For example, if your blog is about fishing, that would be considered your primary keyword topic. Relevant keywords that would appear throughout your blog are how to fish, fishing guidelines, and how to prepare for a fishing trip. The more relevant keywords appear in your blog, the more it helps search engines understand what your blog is about.
Don’t flood your content with your keywords simply to rank. This is called keyword stuffing, and it’s a black-hat SEO practice. The focus should be to create quality content that helps users. If you’re creating content that gives information that answers your audience’s needs, then it’s likely they will come back to your blog for more.
3. Build relationships.
Networking applies to online marketing, too. Try to build relationships with online leaders in your industry or those who have parallel audiences.
By building a network, you can also create opportunities for backlinks to your content, which is helpful to build authority. Backlinks help bring more traffic to your blog as the audience from one blog is being redirected to yours. This over time helps you optimize your visibility on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Backlinks can be in the form of a guest post. For example, if you have a cooking blog and feature a guest post on Food Network, that creates a backlink. They can also come from referral links from other sites that may have a bigger name in your industry. For example, if Entrepreneur.com links to your article on startups, that is also considered a backlink.
4. Be helpful. 
If your blog solely promotes your product or services, it may be overly promotional. Find out what your target audience is really interested in and pursue those topics — it’s always better to be helpful than promotional. Successful bloggers put their community’s needs before their financial gain.
“Providing accurate, useful information that informs in a non-self-promoting manner gains credibility,” writes Greg Sweval, a direct-to-consumer consultant. “It may take a little longer to build the buzz, but once the momentum gets rolling, it has exponential effects.”
5. Blog about your expertise.
Blog about the aspects of your business that you’re passionate about. “Be yourself and blog about the things that excite and interest you (without sounding like a commercial, of course) and you’ll be fine,” suggests Steve Early.
When you write with passion and offer real value, you will most likely attract a bigger audience. With all the information we have at our fingertips, readers can sense authenticity. Your goal should be to create content for humans who are curious and seeking helpful, unique information. Aim to make your readers as passionate about your subject as you are.
6. Be authentic. 
You will stand out from the noise and the crowd of bloggers if you are truly authentic. Transparency can earn you credibility in the blogosphere. In addition, it will add a more personal element to your writing style. Be authentic and let your readers see you clearly and identify with your message.
A successful blog takes time, strategy, and research.
Building a profitable and successful blog has no shortcuts. If you perform market and keyword research, you will get a feel for what your audience’s needs are and what they want to see. Once you know what your audience wants, understand your blog’s unique value, and incorporate SEO tactics, you will ensure the longevity and overall success of your blog.
Starting a successful blog in a saturated market doesn’t have to mean failure. However, it will take consistent effort, focus, and dedication to become successful. Start planning your blog strategy today and watch your audience grow.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2009 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Video adds value to your website, and the right videos can help drive increased traffic and conversion. As noted by Forbes, users retain 95% of the message when they watch videos compared to just 10 percent by text, making video a great starting point to streamline connection with prospective customers.
Your best bet for videos? YouTube. With more than two billion logged-in monthly users, YouTube videos now reach 74% of adults in the United States — so it’s no surprise that the platform is used by almost 90 percent of marketers to drive user interest. Ready to leverage video on your site and capture the growing YouTube marketplace? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

The Benefits of Adding Video to Your Website
Video rules the digital media marketplace, but popularity alone isn’t enough to drive widespread adoption. In practice, YouTube videos come with key benefits for your site, including:
Improved User Engagement
As noted above, visitors to your site retain more information when viewing videos than reading text. This makes it possible to drive improved user engagement by creating compelling content they’ll remember long after they leave your site — and will hopefully bring them back again. YouTube also incorporates features to increase engagement, like sharing options and playlists.
Reduced User Frustration
If users have to scroll through walls of text just to find the basics of your brand or understand your value proposition, chances are they won’t stay long. An embedded YouTube video provides a quick rundown of your site as soon as users arrive.
Simplified Storytelling
What’s your story? What sets you apart from the competition? This is what prospective customers want to know. While well-written text blurbs can give a general idea of what you’re about, they don’t have the same impact as video-driven stories that showcase your purpose and passion.
Increased Brand Connection
Organic marketing is now a critical part of business success. Buyers want to purchase products from brands and people they trust. Videos offer a way to connect with visitors face-to-face and help personalize and humanize your brand from the first moment visitors arrive.
Best Practices for Adding Videos to Your Website
While videos offer advantages in capturing and maintaining user interest, there are several best practices to keep in mind to ensure your videos deliver maximum impact.
Watch your file size.
When it comes to YouTube video viewing on your website, you’ve got two choices: link or embed. Linking to videos means that users must leave your page to view the content, while embedding allows users to watch the video on your site.
Although embedding is better for engagement, it’s worth considering your video’s file size — the larger your video file is, the more bandwidth it requires to display on user devices, which in turn can potentially slow down the user experience. Wherever possible, smaller and shorter is better.
View the whole video.
Whether you’re embedding a YouTube video you’ve made or one from another creator, make sure to watch the entire video before posting it on your site. If it contains information that’s not immediately relevant or actionable, consider linking to it rather than embedding.
Check the length.
Always check the length of your videos. Here’s why: If you embed anything longer than a few minutes on your home page, most users won’t stick around to watch the end. Either trim down the video and then embed it or link out to it with a small description for interested users.
Consider autoplay carefully.
It’s possible to have videos play automatically when visitors arrive on your site. This is a contentious issue — some users are vehemently opposed to autoplay and will immediately leave your site. Others don’t mind videos if they offer immediate and helpful information.
One option here is to create a small and silent autoplay video that provides basic brand information without demanding user attention. Worth noting? Autoplay consumes data without the visitor’s permission, which can be costly for mobile users. Choose carefully.
1. Find your video
First, head to YouTube and find the video you want to embed. In this case, we’re using the Introduction to HubSpot CRM video.

2. Click “Share”.
Next, click Share at the bottom right side of the screen, which will give you this pop-up menu:

Here, you can choose if you want the embedded video code or simply want to share the link on social media networks like Facebook or Twitter.
3. Select “Embed”.
Select the Embed option on the far left-hand side. You’ll be given a snippet of HTML code, which you’ll paste into your website page to embed the YouTube video.

4. Copy the HTML code.
Copy the displayed HTML and return to your website platform. To make things easier, YouTube offers a Copy button that will copy the code directly to your clipboard.
5. Paste the HTML code on your page.
Depending on your website hosting platform, the steps for pasting your HTML embed code will differ. If you’re using WordPress, for example, open the post or page where you want to embed the video and then select Text on the right-hand side.

Then, post your HTML code and select Update. When you navigate to the post or page again, you’ll see the embedded video.
If you’d rather not bother with HTML, you can also simply copy and paste the video’s URL into your visual WordPress editor. This process starts the same way as the HTML approach: Find your video on YouTube and click Share. Then, head to your WordPress page and paste your URL directly into the editor itself. WordPress will automatically convert the link to an embedded video.
Capturing Video Value
YouTube videos can add significant value to your website by making it easier for potential customers to find your content, retain key information, and better understand your brand.
The caveat? It’s not enough to simply post a video — to get the most value for your visual marketing efforts take the time to review and curate your content before posting to deliver maximum impact.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Putting together a compelling case study is one of the most powerful strategies for showcasing your product and attracting future customers. But it’s easier said than done. In this post, we’ll go over the definition of a case study and the best examples to inspire you.

A case study proves how your product has helped other companies by demonstrating real-life results. Not only that, but case studies typically contain quotes by the customer, so it’s not just a marketing advertisement where you praise your own product. Rather, other companies are praising your company — and there’s no stronger marketing material than a verbal recommendation or testimonial. A great case study is also filled with research and stats to back up points made about a project’s results.
There are myriad ways to use case studies in your marketing strategy. From featuring them on your website to including them on a sales presentation, a case study is a strong, persuasive tool that shows customers why they should work with you — straight from another customer. Writing one from scratch is hard, though, which is why we’ve created a collection of case study templates for you to get started.
Fill out the form below to access the free case study templates.

There’s no better way to generate more leads than by writing case studies. But without case study examples to draw inspiration from, it can be difficult to write impactful studies that convince visitors to submit a form.
Marketing Case Study Examples
To help you create an attractive and high-converting case study, we’ve put together a list of some of our favorites. Take a look, and let these examples inspire your next brilliant case study design.
These case studies clearly show the value proposition of each product and also demonstrate how each company benefited in both the short and long term using quantitative data. In other words, you don’t get just nice statements, like “This company helped us a lot!” You see actual change within the firm through numbers and figures.
You can put your learnings into action with HubSpot’s Free Case Study Templates. Available as custom designs and text-based documents, these templates can be uploaded to your CMS or sent off to prospects as you see fit.
Download These Free Case Study Templates
1. “How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations in 18 Months with the Help of the HubSpot CRM Platform,” by HubSpot
What’s interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. That reflects a major HubSpot cornerstone, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why the CEO of Handled founded the company and why he thought Handled could benefit from adopting a CRM. The case study also opens up with one key data point about Handled’s success using HubSpot, namely that it grew to 121 locations.
Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it’s elaborated upon in the additional text on the page. So while your case studies can use one or the other, don’t be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project’s success.
Key Learnings from the HubSpot Case Study Example

Give the case study a personal touch by focusing on the CEO rather than the company itself.
Use multimedia to engage website visitors as they read the case study.

2. “Transforming the Airport Experience by Putting Passengers First,” by IDEO
Here’s a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, they’re greeted with a big, bold photo and the title of the case study — which just so happens to summarize how IDEO helped its client. It summarizes the case study in three snippets: The challenge, the impact, and the outcome.
Immediately, IDEO communicates its impact — the company helped Toronto Pearson International Airport respond to the COVID-19 pandemic — but it doesn’t stop there. As the user scrolls down, the challenge, impact, and outcome are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.
Key Learnings from the IDEO Case Study Example

Split up the takeaways of your case studies into three easy snippets: The challenge, the impact you had, and the outcome.
Always use visuals and images to enrich the case study experience, especially if it’s a comprehensive case study.

3. “Rozum Robotics intensifies its PR game with Awario,” by Awario
In this case study, Awario greets the user with a summary straightaway — so if you’re feeling up to reading the entire case study, you can scan the snapshot and understand how the company serves its customers. The case study then includes jump links to several sections, such as “Company Profile,” “Rozum Robotics’ Pains,” “Challenge,” “Solution,” and “Results and Improvements.”
The sparse copy and prominent headings show that you don’t need a lot of elaborate information to show the value of your products and services. Like the other case study examples on this list, it includes visuals and quotes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the company’s efforts. The case study ends with a bulleted list that shows the results.
Key Learnings from the Awario Robotics Case Study Example

Create a table of contents to make your case study easier to navigate.
Include a bulleted list of the results you achieved for your client.

4. “Chevrolet DTU,” by Carol H. Williams
If you’ve worked with a company that’s well-known, use only the name in the title — like Carol H. Williams, one of the nation’s top advertising agencies, does here. The “DTU,” which stands for “Discover the Unexpected,” immediately generates interest because you want to find out what the initials mean.
Carol H. Williams keeps your interest in this case study by using a mixture of headings, images, and videos to describe the challenges, objectives, solutions, and achievements of the project. The case study closes with bullet points that summarize the key benefits Chevrolet’s Discover the Unexpected Journalism Fellowship earned during the project.
Key Learnings from the Carol H. Williams Case Study Example

If you’ve worked with a big brand before, consider only using the name in the title — just enough to pique interest.
Use a mixture of headings and subheadings to guide users through the case study.

5. “How Fractl Earned Links from 931 Unique Domains for Porch.com in a Single Year,” by Fractl
Fractl uses both text and graphic design on their Porch.com case study to immerse the viewer in a more interesting user experience. For instance, as you scroll, you’ll see the results are illustrated in an infographic-design form as well as the text itself.
Further down the page, they use icons like a heart and a circle to illustrate their pitch angles, and graphs to showcase their results. Rather than writing which publications have mentioned Porch.com during Fractl’s campaign, they incorporated the media outlets’ icons for further visual diversity.
Key Learnings from the Fractl Case Study Example

Let pictures speak for you by incorporating graphs, logos, and icons all throughout the case study.
Start the case study by right away stating the key results, like Fractl does, instead of putting the results all the way at the bottom.

6. “The Met,” by Fantasy
What’s the best way to showcase the responsiveness and user interface of a website? Probably by diving right into it with a series of simple showcases— which is exactly what Fantasy does on their case study page for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They keep the page simple and clean, inviting you to review their redesign of the Met’s website feature-by-feature.
Each section is simple, showing a single piece of the new website’s interface, so that users aren’t overwhelmed with information and can focus on what most matters.
If you’re more interested in text, you can read the objective for each feature. Fantasy understands that, as a potential customer, this is all you need to know. Scrolling further, you’re greeted with a simple “Contact Us” CTA.
Key Learnings from the Fantasy Case Study Example

You don’t have to write a ton of text to create a great case study. Focus on the solution you delivered itself.
Include a CTA at the bottom inviting visitors to contact you.

7. “Rovio: How Rovio Grew Into a Gaming Superpower,” by App Annie
If your client had a lot of positive things to say about you, take a note from App Annie’s Rovio case study and open up with a quote from your client. The case study also closes with a quote, so that the case study doesn’t seem like a marketing material written by your marketing team but a story that’s taken straight from your client’s mouth. It includes a photo of a Rovio employee, too.
Another thing this example does well? It immediately includes a link to the product that Rovio used (namely, App Annie Intelligence) at the very top of the case study. The case study closes with a call-to-action button prompting users to book a demo.
Key Learnings from the App Annie Case Study Example

Feature quotes from your client at the beginning and end of the case study.
Include a mention of the product right at the beginning and prompt users to learn more about the product.

8. “How One Ecommerce Business Solved the Omnichannel Challenge with Bitly Campaigns,” by Bitly
Bitly takes a different approach to text-heavy case studies, by providing their case study of ecommerce company Vissla in PDF form. The case study is clean and easily scannable, with sections divided into “The Goal”, “Top Omnichannel Obstacles”, and images of “The Set-Up” and “The Launch.” The downloadable PDF format makes the case study feel like an exclusive behind-the-scenes look, and uses colors and text that align with Bitly’s brand.
Since the PDF opens in a separate browser, it’s easier for the viewer to avoid distractions as they scroll through the pages.
Key Learnings from the Bitly Case Study Example

A PDF case study is an excellent way to sum up the key facts of a study.
Use a horizontal format in the PDF to gibe a greater sense of space and keep it under ten pages.

9. “In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study,” by Switch
Switch is an international marketing agency based in Malta that knocks it out of the park with this case study. Its biggest challenge is effectively communicating what it did for its client without ever revealing the client’s name. It also effectively keeps non-marketers in the loop by including a glossary of terms on page 4.
The PDF case study reads like a compelling research article, including titles like “In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study,” “Scenario,” and “Approach,” so that readers get a high-level overview of what the client needed and why they approached Switch. It also includes a different page for each strategy. For instance, if you’d only be interested in hiring Switch for optimizing your Facebook ads, you can skip to page 10 to see how they did it.
The PDF is fourteen pages long but features big fonts and plenty of white space, so viewers can easily skim it in only a few minutes.
Key Learnings from the Switch Case Study Example

If you want to go into specialized information, include a glossary of terms so that non-specialists can easily understand.
Close with a CTA page in your case study PDF and include contact information for prospective clients.

10. “Gila River,” by OH Partners
Let pictures speak for you, like OH Partners did in this case study. While you’ll immediately come across a heading and some text when you land in this case study page, you’ll get the bulk of the case study through examples of actual work OH Partners did for its client. You will see OH Partners’s work in a billboard, magazine, and video. This immediately communicates to website visitors that if they work with OH Partners, their business will be visible everywhere.
And like the other case studies here, it closes with a summary of what the firm achieved for its client in an eye-catching way.
Key Learnings from the OH Partners Case Study Example

Let the visuals speak by including examples of the actual work you did for your client — which is especially useful for branding and marketing agencies.
Always close out with your achievements and how it impacted your client.

11. “Facing a Hater,” by Digitas
Digitas’ case study page for Sprite’s #ILOVEYOUHATER campaign keeps it brief while communicating the key facts of Digitas’ work for the popular soda brand. The page opens with an impactful image of a hundred people facing a single man. It turns out, that man is the biggest “bully” in Argentina, and the people facing him are those whom he’s bullied before.
Scrolling down, it’s obvious that Digitas kept Sprite at the forefront of their strategy, but more than that, they used real people as their focal point. They leveraged the Twitter API to pull data from Tweets that people had actually tweeted to find the identity of the biggest “hater” in the country. That turned out to be @AguanteElCofler, a Twitter user who has since been suspended.
Key Learnings from the Digitas Case Study Example

If a video was part of your work for your client, be sure to include the most impactful screenshot as the heading.
Don’t be afraid to provide details on how you helped your client achieve their goals, including the tools you leveraged.

12. “Better Experiences for All,” by HermanMiller
HermanMiller sells sleek, utilitarian furniture with no frills and extreme functionality, and that ethos extends to its case study page for a hospital in Dubai.
What first attracted me to this case study was the beautiful video at the top and the clean user experience. User experience matters a lot in a case study. It determines whether users will keep reading or leave. Another notable aspect of this case study is that the video includes close-captioning for greater accessibility, and users have the option of expanding the CC and searching through the text.
HermanMiller’s case study also offers an impressive amount of information packed in just a few short paragraphs for those wanting to understand the nuances of their strategy. It closes out with a quote from their client and, most important, the list of furniture products that the hospital purchased from the brand.
Key Learnings from the Digitas Case Study Example

Close out with a list of products that users can buy immediately after reading the case study.
Include accessibility features such as closed captioning and night mode to make your case study more user-friendly.

13. “Capital One on AWS,” by Amazon
Do you work continuously with your clients? Consider structuring your case study page like Amazon did in this stellar case study example. Instead of just featuring one article about Capital One and how it benefited from using AWS, Amazon features a series of articles that you can then access if you’re interested in reading more. It goes all the way back to 2016, all with different stories that feature Capital One’s achievements using AWS.
This may look unattainable for a small firm, but you don’t have to go to extreme measures and do it for every single one of your clients. You could choose the one you most wish to focus on and establish a contact both on your side and your client’s for coming up with the content. Check in every year and write a new piece. These don’t have to be long, either — five hundred to eight hundred words will do.
Key Learnings from the Amazon AWS Case Study Example

Write a new article each year featuring one of your clients, then include links to those articles in one big case study page.
Consider including external articles as well that emphasize your client’s success in their industry.

14. “Autodesk’s Customer Events team is 50% more efficient with Asana,” by Asana
While Asana’s case study design looks initially text-heavy, there’s good reason — it reads like a creative story, and is told entirely from the customer’s perspective. For instance, Asana knows you won’t trust its word alone on its impressive product, so they let Joël St-Pierre, Head of Project Management Office at Autodesk, tell you instead: “Accountability, visibility, and discoverability are advantages that come from proper project management and using the right tools.”
Every once in a while, Asana features a quote from St-Pierre to break up the wall of text and humanize the case study. The entire case study reads like an in-depth interview, and captivates the reader through creative storytelling. Even more, Asana includes in-depth detail of how Autodesk uses Asana, including setting automation rules and leveraging the app’s native form tool.
Key Learnings from the Asana Example

Include quotes from your clientthroughout the case study.
Provide extensive detail on how your client worked with you or used your product.

15. “Rips Sewed, Brand Love Reaped,” by Amp Agency
Amp Agency’s Patagonia marketing strategy aimed to appeal to a new audience through guerilla marketing efforts and a coast-to-coast roadtrip. Their case study page effectively conveys a voyager theme, complete with real photos of Patagonia customers from across the U.S., and a map of the expedition. Personally, I liked Amp Agency’s storytelling approach best, which captures viewers’ attention start-to-finish simply because it’s an intriguing and unique approach to marketing.
Key Learnings from the Amp Agency Example

Open up with a summary that communicates who your client is and why they reached out to you.
Like in the other case study examples, you’ll want to close out with a quantitative list of your achievements.

16. “NetApp,” by Evisort
Evisort opens up its NetApp case study with an at-a-glance overview of the client. It’s imperative to always focus on the client in your case study — not on your amazing product and equally amazing team. By opening up with a snapshot of the client’s company, Evisort immediately places the focus on the client.
This case study example checks all the boxes for a great case study that’s informative, thorough, and compelling. It includes quotes from the client and details about the challenges NetApp faced during the COVID pandemic. It closes out with a quote from the client and with a link to download the case study in PDF format, which is incredibly important if you want your case study to be accessible in a wider variety of formats.
Key Learnings from the Evisort Example

Place the focus immediately on your client by including a snapshot of their company.
Mention challenging eras, such as a pandemic or recession, to show how your company can help your client succeed even during difficult times.

17. “Copernicus Land Monitoring – CLC+ Core,” by Cloudflight
Including highly specialized information in your case study is an effective way to show prospects that you’re not just trying to get their business. You’re deep within their industry, too, and willing to learn everything you need to learn to create a solution that works specifically for them.
Cloudflight does a splendid job at that in its Copernicus Land Monitoring case study. While the information may be difficult to read at first glance, it will capture the interest of prospects who are in the environmental industry. It thus shows Cloudflight’s value as a partner much more effectively than a general case study would.
The page is comprehensive and ends with a compelling call-to-action — “Looking for a solution that automates, and enhances your Big Data system? Are you struggling with large datasets and accessibility? We would be happy to advise and support you!” The clean, whitespace-heavy page is an effective example of using a case study to capture future leads.
Key Learnings from the Cloudflight Case Study Example

Don’t be afraid to get technical in your explanation of what you did for your client.
Include a snapshot of the sales representative prospects should reach out to, especially if you have different sales reps for different industries, like Cloudflight does.

18. “Valvoline Increases Coupon Send Rate by 76% with Textel’s MMS Picture Texting,” by Textel
If you’re targeting large enterprises with a long purchasing cycle, you’ll want to include a wealth of information in an easily transferable format. That’s what Textel does here in its PDF case study for Valvoline. It greets the user with an eye-catching headline that immediately shows the value of using Textel. Valvoline saw a significant return on investment from using the platform.
Another smart decision in this case study is the highlighting of the client’s quote by putting it in green font, and doing the same thing for the clients’ results. If you’re in a hurry, you can also take a look at the “At a Glance” column to get the key facts of the case study, starting with information about Valvoline.
Key Learnings from the Textel Case Study Example

Include your client’s ROI right in the title of the case study.
Add an “At a Glance” column to your case study PDF to make it easy to get insights without needing to read all of the text.

19. “Hunt Club and Happeo — a tech-enabled love story,” by Happeo
In this blog-post-like case study, Happeo immediately opens with a quote from the client, then dives into a compelling heading: “Technology at the forefront of Hunt Club’s strategy.” If you’re investigating Happeo as a solution and consider your firm to be technology-driven, this would immediately make you want to know why the client chose to work with Happeo. It also effectively communicates the software’s value proposition without sounding like it’s from the in-house marketing team.
Every paragraph is a quote written from the customer’s perspective. Later down the page, the case study also dives into “the features that changed the game for Hunt Club,” giving Happeo a chance to highlight some of the platform’s most salient features.
Key Learnings from the Happeo Case Study Example

Consider writing the entirety of the case study from the perspective of the customer.
Include a list of the features that convinced your client to go with you.

20. “Red Sox Season Campaign,” by CTP Boston
What’s great about CTP’s case study page for their Red Sox Season Campaign is their combination of video, images, and text. A video automatically begins playing when you visit the page, and as you scroll, you’ll see additional embedded videos of Red Sox players, a compilation of print ads, and social media images you can click to enlarge. At the bottom, it says “Find out how we can do something similar for your brand.” The page is clean, cohesive, and aesthetically-pleasing, inviting viewers to appreciate the well-roundedness of CTP’s campaign for Boston’s beloved baseball team.
Key Learnings from the CTP Case Study Example

Include a video in the heading of the case study.
Close with a call-to-action that makes leads want to turn into prospects.

21. “Acoustic,” by Genuine
Sometimes, simple is key. Genuine’s case study for Acoustic is straightforward and minimal, with just a few short paragraphs, including “Reimagining the B2B website experience,” “Speaking to marketers 1:1,” and “Inventing Together.” After the core of the case study, we then see a quote from Acoustic’s CMO and the results Genuine achieved for the company.
The simplicity of the page allows the reader to focus on both the visual aspects and the copy. The page displays Genuine’s brand personality well, while offering the viewer all the necessary information they need.
Key Learnings from the CTP Case Study Example

You don’t need to write a lot to create a great case study. Keep it simple.
Always include quantifiable data to illustrate the results you achieved for your client.

22. “Using Apptio Targetprocess Automated Rules in Wargaming,” by Apptio
Apptio’s case study for Wargaming summarizes three key pieces of information right at the beginning: The goals, the obstacles, and the results. Readers then have the opportunity to continue reading — or they can walk away right then with the information they need. This case study also excels in keeping the human interest factor by formatting the information like an interview.
The piece is well-organized and uses compelling headers to keep the reader engaged. Despite its length, Apptio’s case study is appealing enough to keep viewer’s attention. Every Apptio case study ends with a “recommendation for other companies” section, where the client can give advice for other companies that are looking for a similar solution but aren’t sure how to get started.
Key Learnings from the Apptio Case Study Example

Put your client in an advisory role by giving them the opportunity to give recommendations to other companies that are reading the case study.
Include the takeaways from the case study right at the beginning so prospects immediately get what they need.

23. “Airbnb + Zendesk: building a powerful solution together,” by Zendesk
Zendesk’s Airbnb case study reads like a blog post, and focuses equally on Zendesk and Airbnb, highlighting a true partnership between the companies. To captivate readers, it begins like this: “Halfway around the globe is a place to stay with your name on it. At least for a weekend.” The piece focuses on telling a good story, and provides photographs of beautiful Airbnb locations. In a case study meant to highlight Zendesk’s helpfulness, nothing could be more authentic than their decision to focus on Airbnb’s service in such great detail.
Key Learnings from the Zendesk Case Study Example

Include images of your client’s offerings — not necessarily of the service or product you provided. Notice how Zendesk doesn’t include screenshots of its product.
Include a call-to-action right at the beginning of the case study. Zendesk gives you two options: to find a solution or start a trial.

24. “Biobot Customer Success Story: Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida,” by Biobot
Like some of the other top examples in this list, Biobot opens its case study with a quote from its client, which captures the value proposition of working with Biobot. It mentions the COVID pandemic and goes into details about the challenges the client faced during this time.
This case study is structured more like a news article than a traditional case study, and this format can work in more formal industries where decision-makers need to see in-depth information about the case. Be sure to test different methods and measure engagement.
Key Learnings from the Biobot Case Study Example

Mention environmental, public health, or economic emergencies and how you helped your client get past such difficult times.
Feel free to write the case study like a normal blog post, but be sure to test different methods to find the one that best works for you.

25. “Discovering Cost Savings With Efficient Decision Making,” by Gartner
You don’t always need a ton of text or a video to convey your message — sometimes, you just need a few paragraphs and bullet points. Gartner does a fantastic job of quickly providing the fundamental statistics a potential customer would need to know, without boggling down their readers with dense paragraphs. The case study closes with a shaded box that summarizes the impact that Gartner had on its client. It closes with a quote and a call-to-action to “Learn More.”
Key Learnings from the Gartner Case Study Example

Feel free to keep the case study short.
Include a call-to-action at the bottom that takes the reader to a page that most relates to them.

26. “Bringing an Operator to the Game,” by Redapt
This case study example by Redapt is another great demonstration of the power of summarizing your case study’s takeaways right at the start of the study. Redapt includes three easy-to-scan columns: “The problem,” “the solution,” and “the outcome.” But its most notable feature is a section titled “Moment of clarity,” which shows why this particular project was difficult or challenging.
The section is shaded in green, making it impossible to miss. Redapt does the same thing for each case study. In the same way, you should highlight the “turning point” for both you and your client when you were working toward a solution.
Key Learnings from the Redapt Case Study Example

Highlight the turning point for both you and your client during the solution-seeking process.
Use the same structure (including the same headings) for your case studies to make them easy to scan and read.

27. “Virtual Call Center Sees 300% Boost In Contact Rate,” by Convoso

Convoso’s PDF case study for Digital Market Media immediately mentions the results that the client achieved and takes advantage of white space. On the very second page, the case study immediately presents more impactful results. It’s colorful and engaging and closes with a spread that prompts readers to request a demo.
Key Learnings from the Convoso Case Study Example

List the results of your work right at the beginning of the case study.
Use color to differentiate your case study from others. Convoso’s example is one of the most colorful ones in this list.

28. “Ensuring quality of service during a pandemic,” by Ericsson
Ericsson’s case study page for Orange Spain is an excellent example of using diverse written and visual media — such as videos, graphs, and quotes — to showcase the success a client experienced. Throughout the case study, Ericsson provides links to product and service pages users might find relevant as they’re reading the study.
For instance, under the heading “Preloaded with the power of automation,” Ericsson mentions its Ericsson Operations Engine product, then links to that product page. It closes the case study with a link to another product page.
Key Learnings from the Ericsson Case Study Example

Link to product pages throughout the case study so that readers can learn more about the solution you offer.
Use multimedia to engage users as they read the case study.

Start creating your case study.
Now that you’ve got a great list of examples of case studies, think about a topic you’d like to write about that highlights your company or work you did with a customer.
A customer’s success story is the most persuasive marketing material you could ever create. With a strong portfolio of case studies, you can ensure prospects know why they should give you their business as opposed to a competitor.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

Every email marketer has a story about a send that went wrong. So, we asked around and found some good (or terrifying) ones to share.
When you work in email, sending a mistake is a matter of when, not if. Ask anyone who’s worked in email for a while, and I guarantee they’ll have a story to tell you about an email send that went wrong. Some, like a small typo, are innocent enough. But others, like sending to the wrong list, are a completely different story.
Luckily, email technology has come a long way, and there are helpful resources and features that take the nerves out of pressing send. But this wasn’t always the case, and seasoned marketers have the scars to prove it.
We asked around to gather some of the best email marketing horror stories out there, and here’s what we got.
One letter makes a major difference
As the author of this post (I’m Will, by the way ) it’s only fair that I kick things off with my own email blunder.
Now, as far as email mistakes go, a typo isn’t too bad. But this one, in particular, was pretty sh*tty.
Once upon a time, I worked at a custom t-shirt printing company, where I managed the weekly newsletter. With how many times I typed “t-shirt” on any given day, you can imagine how easy it’d be to leave out the r in shirt, leaving you with a naughty typo.
While I’d love to say I caught all those typos, I left one in an email, and 200k+ subscribers got to read as I talked about t-sh*ts.
This feels like a good time to plug Grammarly for all your spell-checking needs.
Cut-off catastrophe
Lizzie Newbern, our own in-house Email Marketing Manager, has more than five years of email experience. But not even that much time in email makes you immune to mistakes. Lizzie’s horror story involves a truncated subject line and some really bad luck.
In a previous role, Lizzie was the Email Marketing Manager for one of the top senior living companies in the business. Occasionally they’d host events for the local communities where they’d send an email invite to residents and other interested leads in the area. This event in particular was for a conversation-starting cocktail night, where potential residents could come tour the community and meet some of the residents while enjoying craft cocktails. 
The subject line for the email was “Celebrate the long weekend with cocktails and conversation.” Pretty harmless, right? 
The email was tested, proofed, and sent on its way. But throughout the day, Lizzie noticed the email was getting a lot of responses.
Starting to sweat, she checked and saw replies like “SO inappropriate.” “Wow, so unprofessional.” “Looks like someone didn’t check their subject line cut-off!”
Finally, she found a response that included a screenshot of the subject line as it displayed in their inbox. There, in all its glory, was “Celebrate the long weekend with c***…”
Luckily, the email went out to less than 100 subscribers, so the damage wasn’t too bad.
Moral of the story: send a test email and make sure you check the subject line across all device types.
Dark mode faux pas
Justin is an email marketer and Campaign Monitor alum with over six years of email experience. But the thing about email marketing is, technology is always changing. And no matter your experience level, there’s always something new to keep an eye out for.
While Justin builds tests for every email he sends, he once forgot to test a campaign for dark mode compatibility. After the email was sent, he realized parts of his email were completely unreadable in Gmail’s dark mode.
Lesson learned: test, test, test. With tons of different apps and thousands of screen sizes out there, you can never be too careful.
Also, relevant to this point: don’t miss our Guide to Dark Mode in Email.
One email sent, three angry companies
Tiffani Davidson handles lifecycle marketing at Thimble. She’s also the co-admin for Email Geeks. So, needless to say, her email marketing credentials are well established. And with loads of experience, she has some good stories to tell.
Back when she was working on the email team at Academy Sports + Outdoors, she managed to anger three massive companies, all with one email send.
We’ll leave brand names out of this one, but Tiffani was sending out an email promoting a sale for Academy Sports and Athletic Company A. But, she accidentally put the name of their competitor, Athletic Company B, in the subject line instead.
That leaves Academy Sports, Athletic Company A, and Athletic Company B all equally angry.
Yikes.
A testing blunder
Grace is an email marketer turned copywriter. Why? Well, in her words, “I couldn’t afford the therapy I’d need to manage the stress.” 
One time, she was working with a junior designer to create a new email template, and she asked the designer to send her a test. But, she didn’t think to double-check and make sure that the designer understood how to send a test email.
So, instead of receiving a test of the template, the designer accidentally sent out a broken email to their entire list. Of 800k people. *Insert crying emoji*
This feels like a good time to mention our support doc on how to test your emails. You’re welcome.
Wrap up
Email marketing is not for the faint of heart, people. Even the most seasoned email marketers still get send anxiety, send-button shakiness, or whatever you want to call it. But, at least you know you’re not alone.
The post Email Marketing Horror Stories appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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In just a few years since its initial launch, TikTok has become one of the most popular social platforms in the world. Although TikTok itself has huge traffic, many brands still have a long way to go in the social media marketing layout of the platform. In order to help more brands do TikTok marketing, this report studied more than 300 brands and nearly 650 TikTok brand marketing videos with high traffic and analyzed the marketing plans of companies including Amazon, Apple, Samsung, and Chevrolet on TikTok. Based on the results, we sorted out the marketing programs that were effective for sellers. Including: which big brands have used TikTok for marketing; how often these brands post on TikTok; the channel and video level indicators of these big brands on TikTok; the style and content of TikTok videos with good marketing effects. The 15 important data sets include:
50% of the top brands (including Google, Facebook, YouTube and IKEA, including brands with a volume of more than one billion U.S. dollars) have not yet established an official account on TikTok; The TikTok account update frequency of the brand with the best data performance is 3.52 times/week; If the number of fans increases by 1%, the average number of views per video will increase by 0.65%; 80% of the videos with good data have a soundtrack. As far as it seems, light and cheerful songs are more popular; The average number of views of a single video of technology, food and game brands is the highest; Among the brands studied in this article, So Satisfying, Samsung, TikTok, Chevrolet and Flighthouse are the five brands with the highest average views of a single video; Among the top 10 videos played, 5 were created by TikTok; Among the brand marketing videos studied in this article, 90% of the videos have product placements, and 30% of the videos use humorous methods to implement advertising placements; Within the scope of statistics, about 25% of the videos have celebrities, celebrities or Internet celebrities’ participation; The video of promoting brand activities attracted nearly 20 million views; Creative videos with animations and pictures can often attract more than 11 million views; The average length of the video description copy is 87 characters (the upper limit is 150); The video description has an average of 3.26 tags; 87.3% of videos contain at least one tag; An average of 12 user participations per 100 views (user participation includes user behaviors such as likes, comments, and sharing).
You can read the rest of the article by clicking this link. Best wishes to everyone who wanna master TikTok to promote brands.
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One of the most frequent questions we get from aspiring and current inbound marketers is, “How do you manage all of that content?”
The answer: we rely on an editorial calendar in Google Calendar to stay keep our content organized.

There are a lot of great calendar tools out there you can choose from. In fact, for those of you who are HubSpot customers, there’s a marketing calendar built right into HubSpot’s software. But after trying a ton of other solutions, our team found that we really operated the best with just a simple Google Calendar. In fact, this has actually been the longest-running editorial calendar solution our team has ever seen.
Here’s how we set it up.
Follow Along With Free Editorial Calendar Templates

Download the Template for Free
1. Download HubSpot’s free editorial calendar templates.

First thing’s first: Download the calendar templates, above (they’re free.) By doing this, you’ll have three editorial calendar templates on your computer to use at your leisure: one for Google Calendar, one for Excel, and one for Google Sheets. In this blog post, we’ll be going over how to import the Excel template into Google Calendar.
2. Customize your template and prepare for import into Google Calendar.
By default, the publish dates on the templates you download will be stamped for the year 2016. Feel free to change them to the present year in the spreadsheet itself — you can also drag them to the dates of your choosing after you upload the file into Google Calendar.
Google Calendar makes it easy to load a calendar you might have pre-created in another program into Google. This includes Microsoft Excel. Here’s how to import the Excel calendar template you downloaded in the previous step into Google Calendar:
3. Open Google Calendar.
Once you’ve downloaded (or, for that matter, created) a calendar that opens in Microsoft Excel, it’s time to open Google Calendar. Just make sure you’re already logged into the Gmail account you want this calendar to give access to.
4. Use the lefthand dropdown menu to create a new calendar.
Now it’s time to set up your Google Calendar to accommodate the information in your Excel spreadsheet. First, go into your Google Calendar and click the plus sign to the right of “Other Calendars,” as shown in the screenshot below. In the dropdown menu that appears, select “Create new calendar.”

5. Fill out the details of your new calendar.
Fill out the fields that appear on the next screen. This includes a brief description of your calendar, as shown below, to give people proper context when you invite them into this calendar. When you’re done filling in the details, click “Create calendar.”

6. Import your XLS or CSV file from the same dropdown menu.
Using the same dropdown menu you used to create your editorial calendar, you’ll now import the Excel file itself into Google Calendar. Click that plus sign and select “Import.”
Click the upload box that reads “Select file from your computer,” and locate the file entitled “Blog Editorial Calendar – Excel” that was included in the ZIP file you downloaded in Step 1, above.
7. Select which calendar to add this file to.
In the second box below your imported file, click the “Add to calendar” dropdown. Be sure to choose the name of the calendar you just created from the dropdown menu, as shown below. Then, click “Import.”

8. Click Import.
Once you’ve uploaded your Excel file and selected the calendar you want to add this file to, click “Import.” You should see an Import calendar dialog box telling you that seven events were successfully imported. Click “Close.”
Now, if you didn’t change the dates of the first seven assignments in the original Excel document, you can now. Navigate to January 3, 2016, which is the start of your calendar. Be sure all of your other calendars are temporarily hidden by clicking the colored box to the left of the calendar name. On the week of January 3, 2016, you should just see one “Blog TBD” calendar event on each day from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Use the edit window of each assignment to change the publish date. For example, if you’re satisfied with the 10 a.m. publish time, you can simply change the date from January X, 2016 to January X, 2021. Each assignment will then appear as event blocks in your 2021 monthly calendar view.

9. Determine your publishing schedule.
Now that you have your calendar created, it’s time to fill it in with assignments for the year. This is when you have to make some decisions about your blog’s publishing schedule.
While the Excel file you imported accounts for one blog post per day, this doesn’t mean you need to publish seven days a week. Maybe you want to publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Or perhaps you plan on publishing on just Thursdays. Remember, the key to successful blogging is quality over quantity.
Don’t overcommit to a blogging schedule if the quality of your content will take a hit. How often your company should blog will vary depending on your business goals and resources. 
If you decide to decrease the number of days you want to publish, click on the calendar event of that day and select “Delete.”
Even if you wanted to publish multiple times a day, updating this calendar is as easy as adding an event. Select a slot on your calendar to add another “Blog TBD” event and copy the default description from another one of the events you imported.
Next, it’s time for some minor adjustments. Currently, the “Blog TBD” events are set for 10 a.m. Feel free to move these events to whichever time your blog publishes during the day. 
10. Set up recurring events.
Now that you have your publish dates and times set, you can make these recurring events on your calendar. If you have a regular publishing schedule, like every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 a.m., then put that in as a recurring “slot” on your calendar. It’s okay if you don’t have a piece of completed content — or even a working title — to put there yet. It’s just a reminder that you want to publish something that day.
To add your recurring slot, click on your first “Blog TBD” event and click the pencil icon to edit your event. This will take you to the details of the post, where you can create a custom recurring schedule for each assignment, as shown in the screenshot below.
You can set the post up as a recurring post so it automatically appears every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 a.m. (or whatever days and times you want).

Once you’ve selected the recurring days, hit “Done” and “Save,” and you’ll have an editorial calendar framework to work with.
For now, keep the title of the event as “Blog TBD,” but feel free to customize the description with any extra details you want to be sure you include for each post. Wait to invite any guest, as we’ll use this to assign posts to an author once you begin filling in your topics. With everything complete, click “Save.”
If you don’t have a recurring schedule like this, you might not be in need of an editorial calendar just yet — but it is a good way to set goals for yourself. If you know you want to publish a certain number of posts each week, even if you don’t hit every single slot, it’s a good reminder for yourself and your team that this is something you should all be striving for.
11. Fill your publishing slots.
Now that you know all of the slots you want to fill, you gotta actually … you know … fill ’em. (If you don’t have topic ideas yet, check out this free topic idea generator. It’ll give you some good ideas for content to put in the calendar.)
Let’s say one of the posts you want to write is “10 Surprising Facts About Tapirs,” and one of the posts you’ve already written and want to publish later is “Think You’re Cut Out to Own a Tapir? Read This First.” Cool! Just add ’em both to the calendar by clicking on “Post – TBD” on the correct date, choosing “Edit Event,” and then changing the “Post – TBD” text to the actual title of the post.

Now, let’s say you don’t actually want to write “10 Surprising Facts About Tapirs,” and you want your colleague to write it instead. To assign the post an author, you’ll invite them to the event as a guest. To do this, click on the event, hit “Edit Event,” then invite that colleague to the post by typing his or her name or email address into the “Add guests” box, selecting “Add” when their name pops up, and hitting “Save” on the event once you’re done.

Now, anyone can see who is responsible for writing the post that’s going up in that time slot.
You can take it a step further by adding details to the “Description” box of the event, as shown in the large box in the screenshot above. You might include a quick synopsis, the keywords you plan to target the post for, the target audience you’re trying to reach, and the offer or CTA you will direct the reader to at the end of the post. Don’t forget a due date for the draft.
Before Google Calendar will let you save the event, you’ll see a dialog box asking if you would like to change just this event or all of the events in the series. Select “Only this event.”

Repeat these steps to assign each blog topic today and in the future.
12. Share your editorial calendar with others.
Now that you have your calendar set up, you can start to invite people to see it. I’d recommend you start with your immediate team and regular contributors — as well as anyone who regularly asks you about publishing content on your company blog.
To share this editorial calendar with people, simply find your editorial calendar under “My Calendars,” as shown below. Click the three dots next to the calendar name and then select “Settings and sharing” when it appears in the dropdown menu. You’ll be taken to the same screen we saw when you first filled out the details of your editorial calendar in Step 2.
Then, you can add in the names of people with whom you’d like to share the calendar and set the right permission levels for each invitee.
It’s wise to keep those with the permission settings to manage changes and sharing to a minimum so there aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen — but I recommend you let everyone see all event details so it’s clear exactly what content is going up in each slot.
Under the “Share with specific people” heading, enter the email addresses of those on your content team and decide if they have viewing, editing, or admin privileges. Save your updated settings.
Why Using Google Calendar as an Editorial Calendar Works
I mentioned earlier that we tried a lot of different editorial calendar solutions, and this is the only one that’s stuck for more than a couple of months. I think one reason for that is because we use Gmail for our corporate email, which means everyone on our team is already in Gmail (and their calendar, specifically) all day. As a result, it isn’t hard for people to form a habit of checking the editorial calendar, because it’s not difficult for them to find it.
Google Calendar also makes things really easy to move around and schedule because … well … it’s already a calendar. It has all the functionality you need to schedule stuff out and let the people who need to know about it know. When we were using other solutions for this, we were trying to hack a calendaring function instead of just relying on one that already existed.
Along those lines, adding people to view your calendar is simple, which makes it easy for multiple teams to collaborate, see what’s being published, and figure out when they might be able to launch content and campaigns.
Finally, this sets a precedent for other teams to coordinate with you in a really simple way. You can have a calendar for upcoming campaigns, offers, social media pushes, product launches — you name it. And you can all share those calendars with one another for a single-screen view of everything that’s going on so you can coordinate more easily.
Are there other solutions of there for maintaining an editorial calendar? Of course. But if you’re looking for a minimum viable product, and a free one at that, this ain’t too shabby. It’s kept our content team sane, agile, and transparent for quite some time — and I think it could do the same for you.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Emerging technologies always encourage scrutiny and critical analysis, and ad tech is no different.
This discipline has been around for a few years, but it’s only recently caught the attention of savvy ad tech agencies. In the era of big data, they’ve recognized having ad tech company relationships makes them more powerful and attractive to clients.
The age of social media has forced agencies to investigate innovative ways to interact with relevant users, rather than relying on typical broadcast or digital media buys. And the advantages for agencies investing in ad tech are plentiful. Global advertising is forecast to recover to 10.4% growth, reflecting a total spend of $634 billion
But there’s still one issue: many young ad agencies are still trying to figure out what exactly ad tech is — and how they can best use it to their advantage.

If you’ve ever scratched your head at the terms “programmatic” or “omnichannel,” you’ve likely already heard a little about what ad tech does (though you may not have even realized it). Programmatic advertising, for instance, buys target audiences instead of time slots: Think about buying ad space that reaches a particular demographic wherever it is instead of buying a prime time TV spot and hoping the right people are watching.
Omnichannel marketing reaches target consumers across all channels — mobile, video, desktop, and more — within the context of how they’ve interacted with a brand (those first seeing an ad will receive a different message from those who have engaged with that brand a number of times). Omnichannel and programmatic aren’t the only two tools within ad tech, but they are two of the most revolutionary.
That said, ad tech is designed to help advertisers make better use of their budgets. Ad tech methodologies deliver the right content at the right time to the right consumers, so there’s less wasteful spending.
Today, ad tech methods supported by influential data allow agencies to make wiser placements that effectively position advertisements when and where they are needed most. This helps reduce wasted efforts and gets ads to users at critical touchpoints, meaning it’s helpful for both brands and consumers.
Instead of the standard sort of placement buys, ad agencies can integrate their ads using high-level data and technology. It’s a logical next step toward seamless integration and high-impact, value-added placements. And it’s redefining how agency planning and strategy teams look at media.
The Benefits of Advertising Technology (AdTech)
Ad tech has plenty of moving parts, which means there are countless opportunities for agencies to set themselves apart. The diversity of ad tech data allows for more granular and relevant targeting and integration. It also necessitates leaning upon trusted ad tech solutions and platforms to get the most out of every ad campaign.
One major effect for agencies and their clients is a noticeable improvement in prospect interactions. Thanks to ad tech, brands can now connect all advertising channels. This means saying goodbye to clunky, unnatural advertising that irritates users and frustrates agencies and their clients. Instead, cross-platform uniformity ensures brands are reaching users consistently and logically.
Ad tech has also allowed retargeting to enjoy growing popularity — so much that it represents about 90% of all advertising costs. In other words, it’s not going away.
The problem is that it can be too intrusive, which leads to reduced effectiveness. By taking advantage of RTB options fueled by ad tech data, agencies can drill down and target only those audiences most likely to convert, without badgering those who aren’t.
Connecting the Dots Between Ad Tech Companies and Agencies
Knowing that they need each other to thrive, agencies and ad tech companies are on a joint mission to figure out how to forge long-lasting relationships. Deeper connections tend to occur naturally through regular communications, realistic expectations, and thoughtful customization.
Communication
Touching base regularly and working transparently between both parties is essential. There can no longer be a “set it and forget it” attitude in the online ad industry.
With new integrations between data, tech, and content, there needs to be consistent party involvement from start to finish. To this end, media publishers are having more discussions with their agency partners about content and other creative efforts than ever before. That makes it imperative for ad tech organizations and agencies to have an “open door” policy.
Expectations
Quick turnarounds are another key factor to keep an eye on in the relationship between agencies and ad tech pros. Everyone wants rapid turnarounds, but sometimes things can get lost when too much is happening at one time, and sometimes quality is compromised.
Do you want something mediocre that’s finished tomorrow or something impressive you have at the end of the week? You likely want the latter. Project management helps smooth out the flow between ad tech and agencies and ensures more successful campaigns.
Customization
Imagine you’re a consumer who just saw a mobile ad that piqued your interest. When you go to browse on your laptop, you see the same ad. Then you see the same next time you’re on YouTube, then again before your next Hulu binge session. Seeing the exact same content becomes annoying, and your interest inevitably lowers.
That said, there can’t be a repurposing of content and strategy across all channels — that’s a dinosaur-era approach destined to backfire. Agencies and brands are realizing that they need to customize creative assets for each channel and integration. It’s no longer acceptable to have a mentality of “matched luggage” when it comes to media. Agencies can work hand-in-hand with an ad tech partner to achieve exceptional outcomes through data interpretation.
Advertising Technology Trends
1. AI AdTech
Programmatic advertising has continued to grow and one of the evolutions of the process is using automated, artificial intelligence. AI can automate the ad purchasing process so advertisers can target more specific demographics.
As advertising technology becomes more complex, the demand for it to be automated will continue to grow. Not only does it make media buying easier, but AI can also make real-time adjustments across all channels.
2. Self-Service AdTech
One of the latest trends in ad tech is the adoption of new technologies that offer self-serve options. For example, with AdVendio users can significantly reduce operational costs and time needed to manage clients by providing a branded platform for end-to-end ad campaign management. This means low-budget advertisers can scale their business efforts.
This gives advertisers more control and makes it simpler for advertisers to set up and manage advertising campaigns.
3. Header Bidding
Header bidding is an automated auction technology, which allows publishers to sell their inventory to advertisers through many Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) while receiving bids from multiple advertisers simultaneously.
With header bidding, publishers can receive bids from multiple advertisers at the same time. We anticipate this becoming a bigger trend because it ensures that advertisers receive a reasonable demand base price for their ad inventory.
AdTech Solutions
Mobile AdTech
When it comes to finding ad tech solutions, you might consider breaking down what type of advertising you’re doing. For example, if you’re only going to be advertising on mobile devices, you can use mobile ad tech solutions.
One mobile ad tech solution is Basis. With this software, you can plan, buy, analyze, and streamline your mobile ad campaigns. This software has robust business intelligence, workflow automation, and is powered by artificial intelligence.
Another example of mobile ad tech is Celtra. With Celtra, marketing teams can design, approve, and deliver digital assets for their mobile advertising campaigns.
Online Advertising Technology
Online advertising technology is a solution that will help you advertise online, regardless of device type. A great example of this is AdRoll. With this ad tech solution, you can find more customers, build profitable relationships, protect your customer data, and improve your advertising results.

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Another example of online advertising technology is the Google Marketing Platform. You can manage all your campaigns, from search engine display advertising, to retargeting, to display and video campaigns.
Video Advertising Technology
When you’re creating your ad campaigns, it’s important to be creative and think beyond display search advertising. You can use video ad tech solutions such as Tik Tok Ads. With this solution, you can tap into unique engagement solutions and immersive formats to creatively and authentically connect with audiences around the world.

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Another example is StackAdapt. StackAdapt is a self-serve advertising platform that specializes in multi-channel solutions including native, display, video, connected TV, and audio ads.
Native Advertising Technology
Native advertising is when paid ads match the look, feel, and function of the media format in which they appear. One ad tech solution for native advertising is Taboola. With Taboola, you can reach new audiences and place your ads in a media format that’s similar to that of your ad.
Another example is Outbrain. This advertising platform helps global to emerging brands connect with consumers on the open web through engaging ad formats that inspire action.
Reaching Higher With Ad Tech
Ad tech has grown rapidly, and it’s showing zero signs of slowing down.
As it continues its spread, agencies will be able to take advantage of ad tech’s opportunities to develop more integrations, more data sharing, extended reach across all channels, and cleaner integrations against content.
When ad tech and agencies partner up, user experiences will be increasingly polished and positive, and agencies will get the reward for their commitment to embracing the benefits of a lasting relationship with ad tech providers.

Content managers build a company’s content strategy, create targeted and relevant content, and distribute marketing communications to audiences online. They are organized, well-versed in fostering a brand voice, and often know their way around a blog post.

You might just be learning about the content management role and want to know the basics. Or, maybe you know this is the job for you, but want to make sure you’re prepared to be successful.
Below, you’ll find everything you need to know about content managers, from what they do to how to become one. Let’s take a look.
What are content managers, and what do they do?
Content managers develop and distribute timely, relevant content for audiences. To do that, they have a deep understanding of their company’s brand voice and use it to communicate with customers.
In addition to creativity, being a content manager usually involves the management of projects and a content team. They also might collaborate across other teams for projects.
This role is not entry-level — content managers are generally expected to lead their team and foster growth, so it’s a job that’s filled by someone with a couple of years of experience in marketing, communications, and project management.
That was just an overview of content managers and the job role. Next, we’re going to talk about some specific duties of a content manager.
The role of a content manager can depend on company structure and size. For instance, a startup’s content manager might be their only marketer, while an enterprise company might have content managers assigned to multiple teams.
You might find a content manager taking the ownership over an editorial calendar, developing content topic strategy, compiling data reports, managing social media accounts, or writing long-form editorial pieces.
Alicia Collins, Global Brand Marketing Manager at HubSpot, says, “Content managers wear many hats. Their job consists of so many moving parts — managing blogs, managing social, managing offers … in some cases, they can be a one-person marketing team.”
Even so, there are common responsibilities that define a content manager. Let’s take a close look.

Content Manager Responsibilities
The responsibilities of a content manager include:

Audit the existing content on the company’s website for brand voice, relevance, and optimization
Research competitors to find content gaps and keyword gaps that your company hasn’t yet covered
Create a new content strategy that can help your company reach its traffic goals
Promote a consistent brand identity through the company’s social media profiles
Create a long-term and short-term content publishing calendar and social media calendar
Write the new content or manage a team of freelancers and writers to create the new content
Monitor the performance of the content through online tools such as Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console

What sorts of skills do you need to carry out these responsibilities? We’ll dive into more detail up next.
So, you know what a content manager does. What about some of the skills you’ll need to exceed as one?
Content managers are brand advocates and know that the way stories are delivered reflect their company’s brand and audience preferences. We’ve lightly touched on a few of the skills you need to be a content manager, including creativity, writing, data interpretation, and organization.
But it’s also imperative to have working knowledge of a few other things.
1. SEO Copywriting and Blogging
Content managers need to have a general understanding of SEO. That way, you can effectively reach audiences through organic search. In addition, you’ll also have to know how to be a storyteller using the voice of a brand, and how to connect with customers using that brand voice.
Take it from Senior Podcast Producer Matt Brown, who says, “Empathizing with your audience and telling a story worth listening to is always the greatest skill a content manager should have.”
In order to deliver those stories, you’ll need to be familiar with copywriting and editing. Writing skills would be applied to writing marketing communications and blog posts. You’d also use them when editing the work of others.
If you’re worried about the grammar and comprehension front when it comes to writing, check out Hemingway Editor or Grammarly. Hemingway Editor is a free website that checks your writing for technical errors and readability, while Grammarly is software that analyzes your work, spell-checks it, and offers suggestions on how to improve sentence structure.
2. Data Analysis
As a content manager, you’ll spend some time analyzing datasets. Data from past campaigns, SEO research, and audience behavior are all helpful numbers to look at in order to execute job functions, because they inform leadership decisions and collaborative projects.
If you don’t analyze the results from your content performance, you won’t know if your messages are accurately connecting with your customers.
3. Basic Coding
By no means do you need to be a code whiz to become a content manager, but knowing some HTML and CSS can help you jump in when you don’t have a web developer on hand. As a content manager, you’ll be tinkering around with your website’s content management system. That may sometimes necessitate inserting a line or two of HTML and CSS code.
4. Content Management System Proficiency
On that note, you should know your way around popular content management systems such as CMS Hub and WordPress. You’ll be directly editing the content on your company’s website, so you’ll want to know how to use a CMS.
CMS Hub offers a 14-day trial that can help you get acquainted with a top-of-the-line content management system in an intuitive drag-and-drop environment. Once you learn CMS Hub, you can try your hand at a more complicated system such as WordPress.
You’ll also want to know your way around a few other tools. Generally, knowledge of one or two marketing tools for every facet of content production and management will cover your bases. This includes programs to enhance content as well, such as automatic grammar check software or graphic design tools.
It’s also a good idea to know about how social media is used as a business tool, and when that applies to marketing campaigns for your company. To help with social media management, knowing how to use a tool like HubSpot would be beneficial.
5. Strategic Planning
As a content manager, you’ll spend ample time strategizing how to deliver targeted messages to your audience. That means you won’t throw out messaging willy-nilly, but very carefully and strategically craft the messaging’s wording and timing.
Justin Champion, Principal Product Manager at HubSpot, says, “An effective content manager needs to have a vision of what story they’re trying to tell. This will help them create a cross-platform content strategy that will give the best experience possible to their audience.”
6. Time Management and Organization
As a content manager, you’ll be handling various content calendars and juggling a wide variety of responsibilities. That makes organization and time management skills a top quality of the best content managers out there.
Luckily, you don’t have to be innately organized or a strict time-keeper. You can use project management apps to keep everything going along smoothly. Remember, as a content manager, you’ll likely be the leader of a team and the go-to person for status reports. As such, you’ll want to be as organized as possible. That way, you’ll have access to the information you need when you need it.
7. Leadership
A good content manager has some leadership skills under their belt — but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be an extrovert speaking at the front of the room. You can be a leader by keeping the content management projects progressing smoothly, sending reports before higher-ups ask for them, and launching new campaigns to keep your company top-of-mind for leads and customers.
In some cases, you may need to manage a team of content coordinators or writers. That’s where more traditional leadership skills come in, such as being a great people manager and adopting a leadership style that helps your team grow. Pay close attention to the wording in any job listing for a content manager. You could be the only person in your team or the leader in your team.
So, you know what it takes to be a content manager. But how do you get there? Time to find out.
How to Become a Content Manager
1. Take a content marketing certification course.
No matter your background or years of experience, if you’re shifting from another career into content management, you’ll want to re-learn the ropes of content marketing to ensure you’re up-to-date. Take a course to help you strengthen your content marketing skills. I recommend starting with our certification course. Upon completion, you’ll get a certificate that verifies your comprehension of content marketing (plus, you can add it to your LinkedIn profile).
2. Get familiar with SEO.
At countless firms, content marketing is synonymous with SEO, so you’ll want to have a firm grasp of the concept as you seek a content manager role. If you don’t know the rules of SEO, you might write content that’s not appropriately targeted or that doesn’t serve a purpose other than filling up your company’s blog.
You’ll need to know how to carry out keyword research and use the appropriate software to find “green space” for your company’s website. Green space refers to keywords with low competition and high potential for serving your audience’s needs.
3. Create a personal website.
There’s no better way to start content management than by building a personal website with content that you uploaded and wrote yourself. This website could be for your own personal brand, for a company idea you’ve had for a while, or simply for fun. Whatever it is that you create, you want to get familiar with creating a website from start to finish, so that when it’s time to manage your future employer’s site, you can do it easily.
You’ll learn a few things through this process, including how to upload content and media, how to manage that content once it’s been uploaded, and how to effectively structure your site. It’ll also teach you how to get around a content management system.
Use your learnings from this process to give thoughtful answers to your interviewers when you’re applying for content management roles.
4. Apply for an entry-level marketing role.
It’s time to search for a role. Unfortunately, content management is a mid-level role, meaning that most content managers have been in the marketing industry for a few years. If you’re just now getting started with marketing, you’ll want to start with an entry-level role first, then move up into content management.
Not all marketing roles are created equal. Look for the following words in the job posting to ensure you’re starting on the right foot:

SEO
Blogging
Writing

If the job posting seems too general or if it seems to concern more traditional marketing methods, such as live event marketing or advertising, you’ll want to avoid it. Content managers work almost exclusively on the digital side of marketing.
5. Take on content management tasks within your role.
In your entry-level role, you’ll want to take on the duties of a content manager without yet being a content manager by name. For instance, if your team is missing a content calendar, could you volunteer to create one (without stepping on anyone’s toes)? What about volunteering to upload the week’s new content onto the CMS?
It’s important to continue expanding your technical and practical content management skill set as you gear up to apply to an actual content manager role.
6. Apply for a content manager role.
Once you have enough experience under your belt, it’s time to move into content management — either by becoming the manager of a content team or taking on more strategic roles within a marketing team.
Remember to use every piece of experience you’ve gathered thus far to show how well you can communicate with an audience and how well you’ve distributed content in the past. Lead with the results of your actions and measure them in numbers. Content reach, organic traffic, and other engagement metrics are just a few data points you can use to show how effective you can be as a content manager.
Start Sharpening Your Content Management Skills Today
If you’re looking to become a content manager, it’s critical to deepen your knowledge of content marketing and SEO. Refining your skill set ensures that you’re staying up-to-date as the industry changes. This is a must for content managers. If you don’t know how the industry is changing, you won’t be able to effectively connect to your audience — and connecting to your audience is what will make you an excellent content manager.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Salesforce Flow is like a double-edge sword – on the one hand, it is one of the most powerful tools provided by Salesforce to implement business automation declaratively; on the other hand, if one implements Salesforce Flow sloppily then, it may turn into a nightmare by flashing errors like SOQL
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 76 (Salesforce Flow Design Patterns – from Fundamentals to Mastery) appeared first on Automation Champion.