How to Launch a Virtual Conference for Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition: A Step-by-Step Guide

When we say “virtual conference,” we don’t just mean webinars. We mean interactive, live panels, and microsites dedicated to the single purpose of promoting one event with various sessions a person can “attend.”

Virtual conferences have become a popular medium to develop and reach large audiences. From marketing to recruiting and sales to education, businesses in various industries have realized hosting online events are far cheaper than an in-person event — thus making it cheaper to build awareness around a brand.

We’re going to get into a lot, but by the end of this post, you’ll see the value in hosting a virtual conference and know how to organize and host your own event. You’ll have another medium to accelerate brand awareness, generate more leads, and develop authority as an industry leader.

In 2017, I helped launch Inbound Sales Day here at HubSpot, and I'm here to teach you how it's done. Continue reading to download my project management templates and emails I used to book speakers — all available for free.

Table of Contents

1) What is a virtual conference?
2) Why should you host a virtual conference?
3) A Virtual Conference by HubSpot
4) How to plan a virtual conference
Set the vision
Speaker outreach
Creation of assets
Promotion
Go live
Analysis
5) Virtual Conference Takeaways and Tips

What is a virtual conference?

Imagine a conference. There are dozens of rooms, booths with vendors trying to sell you their product, and a lot of people walking around. You might run into some very influential leaders in your industry, and you expect to see people on stage sometime during the event. You’re excited to hear them share lessons and tips they’ve learned from their own experience and journey to success.

Now, imagine a similar experience — but without having to leave your desk.

You log into an “event” online, where you can meet and interact with people through messaging platforms. You go into “rooms” (aka web pages) where you can watch speakers present their knowledge in the form of a recorded video.

It’s a simple concept: Get the content you would receive at a conference on your own time, when it’s convenient for you. It aligns perfectly with the culture and popularity of on-demand services, such as:

Lyft, with on-demand car rides

Drizly, with on-demand alcohol

Soothe, with on-demand massages

Virtual conferences, with on-demand quality content and insights about the industry.

Virtual events began in 1993, presented by Alan Saperstein and Randy Selman. They started by videotaping trade show exhibitors booths and attaching the video to HTML floor maps. These events have become more popular among marketers for their lower cost and effort to produce.

Here’s an example of an HTML floor map:

Examples of virtual events include:

• Inbound Sales Day, hosted by HubSpot
• Digital Agency Day, hosted by HubSpot and Unbounce
• Sales Acceleration Summit, hosted by InsideSales
• Digital Sales Engine, hosted by Sales For Life

You might be thinking, “There’s no way these events were produced by a small team.”

That’s fair. But I can tell you that I coordinated and launched Inbound Sales Day, a full-day virtual event with over 10 hours of video that garnered over 15,000 registrations globally. And I did most of it by myself in only three months. For a comparison, the team that organizes HubSpot’s live INBOUND event has over 10 people involved in planning the event for the entire preceding year.

It’s possible to host and launch one of these things, even with a small team, but why should you host a virtual conference in the first place? Why not just host a physical event instead?

There are numerous benefits to hosting online events. Let’s dive in.

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Why should you host a virtual conference?

Consider some of the reasons you’d host a conference, either virtual or in-person:

• To grow awareness for your business. Depending on your market, there may already be competitors or other companies targeting the same target audience as you. You can use an an online conference as a means of partnering with those other companies.
• To generate leads.
• To acquire new customers.
• To create a revenue stream from sponsorships. People host these conferences strictly as a revenue stream. (Curious how? Sam Parr explains how he made a profit from hosting Hustle Con.)
• To build relationships with influencers.

Below are expenses to consider for a physical event (based on a 400-person hosted by Hustle Con):

• Venue ($5,000)
• Vendors, i.e., caterer, bartender, decorator, photographer, videographer, etc. ($10,000)
• Equipment rental ($2,000)
• Licenses and permits (dependent on venue)
• Transportation and parking for attendees and speakers (dependent on venue)
• Service fees and gratuities ($1,000)
• Speakers’ fees ($0 - $10,000+ per speaker)
• Signage ($500)
• Registration materials ($300)
• Security and staff ($2000)

Even for a smaller event, that totals at least $20,000. Soon, you're underwater and either hiring contractors or using half your team's day to get all the little details right. To top it off, there always seem to be attendees or speakers who are an absolute nightmare to deal with.

I’m getting stressed just thinking about it.

For an online conference, a few weeks of work and a small budget are all that’s needed. In fact, all of the software I used to organize everything was free:

• Trello for project management (check out my free template below)
• Google Sheets to manage the assets (you’ll get a template of this, too)
• YouTube to host videos
• Dropbox to host files
• Canva to create images

Plus, when you create assets for your event online, you continue reaping the benefits of long-tail keyword SEO and organic traffic from evergreen content for months to come.

Depending on your resources, you may want to hire freelancers to help you with asset creation or to run Facebook ads to get more awareness about your event.

In many cases, you end up cutting expenses dramatically by hosting an online event instead of an in-person conference. Let's dive into how we decided HubSpot should host an online conference about inbound sales.

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A Virtual Conference by HubSpot

HubSpot revolutionized marketing in 2006 by introducing the concept of inbound marketing and telling the story of how marketing had changed. Since then, sales has also changed, and we’ve introduced the concept of inbound selling.

However, similar to when inbound marketing was a new concept in 2006, people needed to be educated about the concept of inbound selling.

We had various goals that overlapped with each other when thinking about hosting a virtual event:

• Spread the message of inbound selling
• Generate leads for our sales products
• Develop authority in the sales industry
• Promote the first sales-focused track at our INBOUND event

What better way to educate our audience and develop credibility around inbound selling than by hosting real experts to talk about it? Influencers already have an audience who will listen to them. They have their own methodologies and many of those ideas aligned perfectly with inbound selling.

By hosting a virtual conference, we were able to scale influencer marketing and associated the credibility of those influencers with the HubSpot brand.

Plus, with the changing landscape of content and more consumers preferring video content, this was an opportunity to develop high-quality video content we could continue to use.

Still interested in hosting your own online conference? I’m going to lay out all the steps I took to organize Inbound Sales Day that you can replicate for your own event. I’ll also give you the project management and email templates I created that kept me organized throughout the whole process.

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How to Plan and Execute A Virtual Conference

Before we jump into the planning, decide how you’re going to manage the project. I used a combination of Trello and spreadsheets to manage my work.

I laid out all activities in my project management Trello board, which gave me a bird’s-eye view of the timeline, what needed to be done at the moment, and what was coming up. This allowed me to catch situations where I would need to delegate work or ask for help ahead of time.

Get my Virtual Conference Project Management Trello Template here.

All assets that were created (landing pages, emails sent, social posts, videos, etc.) were listed in an asset management spreadsheet. This way, I had access to every asset in one place without having to search for it.

The campaign was executed in six phases, which I’ll walk you through below:

1. Set the vision
2. Conduct speaker outreach
3. Create assets
4. Promote
5. Launch
6. Analyze

Phase 1: Set the vision

What do you want the event to look like? What topics do you want to cover? Who’s your audience? How many registrations do you expect?

All of this will be important for your speaker outreach as those will be your selling points. If you can pinpoint your target audience (try the MakeMyPersona tool to help with that), you can find speakers who also want to reach that audience. If you have a set number of expected registrations, you can attract speakers with an idea of what their reach will be if they participate.

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Phase 2: Conduct speaker outreach

The most important step to producing a viable virtual conference is to get speakers in your industry. This will benefit you in two ways:

1. You can build relationships with these industry experts.
2. You can associate your brand with these experts, making yours more credible.

I highly recommend getting experts within your company to speak on the subject matter and promote the event by giving a talk or interviewing another expert so that your employees will come to be seen as trusted industry thought leaders.

My goal was to get on a video call with the potential speakers I emailed. A video call allows you to sell them on the idea and show them how excited you are.

Here’s the email template I used:

Invitation to Participate in [NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE]

Hi [NAME]!

[YOUR COMPANY] is launching [NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE], a virtual event for [#] [TYPE OF PEOPLE YOU’RE TARGETING] on [DATE] and we would love to have you as a featured speaker.

We’re inviting top experts in [INDUSTRY] to help [PROFESSIONALS] become more successful by providing actionable information about [BROAD OVERVIEW OF TOPICS].

I watched your talk on [TOPIC] and think you'd be a great fit for our audience.

If you're interested in speaking, we have many speaking options available that can be flexible with your schedule. I’d love to discuss them with you on a quick call.

Let me know if you're interested and we can schedule time this week or next to talk through the details.

For your convenience, here's a link to my calendar so we can schedule time right away: [MEETINGS LINK]

Best,

[YOUR NAME]

Pro tip: If you're a HubSpot customer, I recommend using the HubSpot Sales Meetings and Templates tools to make scheduling meetings really, really easy.

Once I got the meeting scheduled, I made sure to hit the following points for each conversation:

1. Explain the event and why you’re doing it.
2. Emphasize what the speaker would get out of participating. (We emphasized that we were aiming to reach over 10,000 salespeople and they would get their own landing page with links to their website and social profiles.)
3. Tell them about other speakers you’ve booked to develop credibility around your event and that it’s something worth being a part of.
4. If they’re interested, explain what we need from them right then and there: I asked for a rough title and outline of their talk, and the format they preferred (live Q&A, recorded interview, or recorded lecture-style video).

After the call, I immediately sent a follow-up email which:

• Recapped the call included topic and format of their talk
• Attached a speaker agreement form
• Asked for their availability to schedule introduction to interviewer, recordings, and dry-runs
• Listed specific deadlines of when everything is due

Here’s a template I used:

[NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE] Call Recap

Hi [NAME]!

I'm glad we got to connect today. We're very excited that you're going to join us for [CONFERENCE NAME]. Here's a recap of what we discussed earlier -- feel free to revise any of it.

• Working session title: [SESSION TITLE]
• Working session description: [DESCRIPTION]
• Format: [FORMAT]
• What I need from you by [DATE]:
  • Bio (max 200 words)
  • Preferred headshot
  • A page you want us to link to
  • A rough outline of your presentation

Again, it was great connecting today! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Hope you have a great week!

Best,

[YOUR NAME] 

A week later, I followed up again for all those items. Speakers are really busy, and it’ll take a few emails and calls to get those details from them. This is why I suggest you begin the process at least two months before your launch date.

Some speakers will ask for a packet with more details. You can use this template to create your own speaker packets.

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Phase 3: Create assets

On my Trello board, I laid out a timeline of when all assets were created and used a spreadsheet to keep track of them as they were created.

Landing Pages

Your landing page is going to be a selling point for your event to get speakers and attendees. Don’t expect to attract many of either if your page doesn’t look sharp.

Below you can see the homepage, agenda page, and session pages we created for Inbound Sales Day.

The homepage highlighted the benefits of attending and the various speakers we featured.

The agenda page shared more details about what topics will be discussed and the main takeaways of each talk. This gave viewers an opportunity to see who would be speaking and do their research or reach out to influencers before the event.

The session page is where the fun happened. Each video had its own landing page on the HubSpot domain so viewers wouldn’t have to leave our website to see the content. We had over two-dozen of these pages.

Landing Page	Agenda	Session Page

Click the images to see the full versions

Video Hosting

I recommend using YouTube Live to broadcast live videos and to host all videos to take advantage of its video SEO. I then embedded all the videos on landing pages so people wouldn’t have to leave our website to watch the video.

Video Production

There were three different session formats which each required different preparatory measures. Here was my process for each format:

Live Q&A

• Speaker chose topic
• Researched their online material (blogs, videos, interviews) and created a Google Doc of canned questions
• Introduced the speaker to the employee who would host the session via email and set up a call to develop their rapport
• They reviewed the list of questions together and brainstorm more questions
• We prioritized top five canned questions to ask in case there were no live questions
• A week before the live session, get on a call with the speaker to do a final check-in (the meeting was hosted using a private YouTube Live session so they understood how to sign in)
• Live broadcast: Speaker was expected to sign into YouTube Live an hour ahead of time for audio and video check, review the talk points with HubSpot host, and build rapport for the session

Recorded Interview

• Speaker chose topic
• Researched their online material (blogs, videos, interviews) and created a Google Doc of canned questions
• Introduced the speaker to the employee who would host the session via email and set up a call to develop their rapport
• They would review the talk track outline and go back and forth about what topics the speaker would want to hit on
• We agreed on five questions that would be asked by the interviewer to guide the conversation
• Booked an hour with the speaker and interviewer which gave enough time for audio and video check, review talking points, and record at least twice (in case the first run was too rough

Recorded Lecture

• Speaker chose topic and provided outline of talk track
• Provided feedback on their outline based on what our sales audience is interested in (based on previous campaigns and blog performance)
• Two recording options:
  • Book an hour of their time to record the session via YouTube Live
  • They recorded on their own and sent the video

Question Submission Form

For live events, we created a Google Form for people to submit questions ahead of time. These questions were used to inform talking points for relevant sessions.

Social Media Images

The obvious goal for social media images is to make a person stop scrolling through their newsfeed and read what the event was about. We went with blinking GIFs that included photos of the speakers.

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Phase 4: Promote

As with content distribution in general, this was the most difficult part of the process. We leaned into speakers a lot and asked them to promote the event to their email list and on their blogs and social profiles.

Speakers: Email, Blog & Social

We asked each speaker to send an email to their list, write a blog post, and post on social media about the upcoming event. We made it as easy as possible for speakers to promote the event by creating speaker promotion packets, which provided pre-written emails, blog posts, social media copy, and images. All they had to do was copy and paste the text and insert the image.

We also gave each speaker their own unique tracking URL (learn how to do it using HubSpot software) to use in promotional materials. This showed us how much interest each speaker drove and how many registrations they contributed.

Don’t start a packet from scratch, get the free speaker promotion packet template.

Blog Posts

Brainstorm blog post topics based on the topics your speakers will discuss, and come up with a publishing cadence for your promotional posts. If you already have an editorial calendar, I’d suggest you avoid making every post promotion and instead periodically insert promotional posts.

Social Posts

I met with HubSpot's Social Media team two months before the event launch to discuss the campaign and come up with a promotional cadence that made sense for each channel.

I used a spreadsheet to organize all social media posts. I wrote most of the copy in bulk and scheduled the posts in batches as each date came up.

Your promotion strategy will vary depending on which channels you have access to. I sat with my team and brainstormed promotional tactics before deciding which were most viable. A few of those included:

• Pop-up forms on highly trafficked site pages
• Calls-to-action on the home page
• Posts in relevant LinkedIn and Slack groups
• Links to the event in sales reps' email signatures

Pro Tip: Use our free tool, Lead Flows, to easily build pop-ups on your website.

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Phase 5: Launch

The night before your launch, make sure:

• All recorded videos were hosted on YouTube
• Landing pages that hosted videos were tested
• Reminder email to registrants have been scheduled so they remember to watch the videos
• Emails are pre-scheduled to notify speakers to log into YouTube Live an hour before the broadcast time

On the day of the event:

• Monitor your social media hashtag if you have one
• Keep an eye on your email if case people have trouble accessing the event

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Phase 6: Analyze

To prove that the virtual conference was worth the time and effort, do an analysis of the traffic and registrations you received, how many video views you got, and send a survey to your registrants.

The best way to prove value is to tie it all back to revenue. How many qualified leads did you get, and what is the monetary value of a lead? How many new software signups did you get and what is the worth of each signup? How many new clients did you get and how much are they paying you?

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Learning Lessons and Tips for Hosting A Virtual Conference

As always, no matter how successful the event, things can always be better. Here are a few things I wish I had done differently that you can learn from.

Align with your sales team.

This event would’ve been great for sales enablement. Sales reps could use the conference as a piece of content to share with prospects and be helpful. It’s also good to let reps know about the event and how to talk about it in case prospects bring it up on a call.

Get speakers with large audiences.

This may be more difficult for your first event as you start developing credibility for your event, but get speakers with large audiences if you can. It’s even better if you can get them to commit to driving a certain number of registrations.

Have a post-event plan.

Ideally, you’re going to get a lot of registrations for the event. What are you going to do with them after the event? Have a communication plan for your registrants, whether it’s sending them content, telling them about your products or services, or asking for feedback. Don’t leave them hanging.

Build anticipation before the event.

How can you get registrants to share the event before it happens? Maybe a contest or giveaway? How can you get registrants to engage with speakers before the event?

As more companies work to get a foothold in their industries and the marketing industry evolves to encompass more video content, virtual conferences will become more and more common. And as with any marketing tactic, as virtual conferences become more common the medium will become less effective.

Host your first virtual conference now before your competitors and gain first-mover advantage. Good luck.

Here are all the resources and templates I’ve shared throughout this post:

• Project management template for Trello
• Speaker information packet template
• Speaker promotion packet template

Thanks to Kendrick Wang, Cambria Davies, and Scott Tousley for reviewing drafts of this post.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Launch a Virtual Conference for Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition: A Step-by-Step Guide was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Everything Our Paid Team Learned From Attempting a Reddit Advertising Strategy

With a ranking as one of the top ten most popular sites on the internet, Reddit is undoubtedly an intriguing channel for advertising purposes.

However, the site can often seem intimidating, and perhaps even too random to create a cohesive advertising strategy. Plus, since its primary purpose is to expose viewers to the top-trending content of the moment, Reddit users are notoriously anti-marketing.

Regardless of its challenges, its potential advantages proved too good an opportunity to pass up. At HubSpot, we decided to implement a strategy to see for ourselves whether Reddit can serve as a promising channel for the future.

Here, learn what our team figured out about advertising on Reddit, and whether it's worth the attempt for your own company. Plus, we've provided a step-by-step tutorial on how you can advertise on Reddit if you determine it's a valuable option for your own company. 

The Strategy Behind Reddit Advertising

1. Identify subreddit topics which are well-aligned with your target audience.

To investigate the benefits of advertising on Reddit, I first spoke with Josh Chang, a Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot. He told me HubSpot's initial strategy on Reddit involved highly targeted campaigns on specific subreddits, including r/entrepreneur and r/sales.

"The goal of the campaign," Chang explained, "was to drive awareness and conversion for our products. In terms of results, we saw cost-per-acquisition similar to what we've achieved on Facebook in North America, although we did notice a lower activation rate from Reddit -- suggesting lower-quality conversions."

If you're interested in testing out a campaign for yourself, then, you'll want to start by identifying subreddits which can likely help foster genuine connections between your brand and your ideal audience. Consider topics your target audience is most interested in, and make a list. Then, narrow your list by investigating how many subscribers each subreddit topic has, whether it's relatively active, and whether self-promotion or sharing content is allowed on the subreddit topic.

Chang told me, "One of the main things we learned was targeting subreddits specifically was much more effective than broader interest targeting. However, this strategy requires a lot of research, and getting to know which subreddits are most relevant to your audience."

Additionally, Chang said, "We noticed tailoring our ad creative for individual subreddits helped improve our conversion rates."

2. Begin engaging with your subreddit communities.

Once you've cultivated a list of subreddits that are likely of interest to your target audience, it's time to start engaging with those subreddit communities.

However, it's critical you don't begin by promoting your own content.

To build a level of trust and authentic connection, begin by upvoting other submissions you find interesting and that align well with your brand. Next, share valuable content -- but not your own. Instead, post interesting content produced by other media outlets or blogs that you believe will be useful to your subreddit community.

It's vital you genuinely use the Reddit platform as an opportunity to get to know your target audience before you offer them your own content. Not only will this show your community you're not simply joining the site to self-promote, but it will also help you tailor your content more accurately down-the-road.

3. Begin promoting your own content, paid or otherwise, on the subreddit platforms.

At this point, you might consider simply posting valuable content from your company that you feel will benefit your community -- for free.

However, you might alternatively try spending money on a paid sponsored post, which essentially guarantees your post will be pinned to the top of the subreddit. Here's what a sponsored post looks like, for context:

In many ways, this post looks similar to all other Reddit content. However, there's a blue "Promoted" tag in the top left, signifying it's a paid ad.

In HubSpot's case, we decided to test out the power of paid advertising on the site. However, it's still critical you follow the steps listed above to cultivate authentic relationships with your subreddit communities.

Think of it this way -- if I begin engaging with a brand on one of the subreddit groups I've joined, and notice they typically post helpful content (including content from other publications), then I'm much more likely to take notice when they pay for a sponsored post. If they appear out of nowhere, I have no sense of brand awareness and probably won't trust the advertisement.

Reddit Advertising Cost

As of right now, the minimum daily spend for an ad on Reddit is $5.

Additionally, Reddit FAQ states, "The Reddit Ads platform uses a second price auction based system, which means you pay a cent higher than the next highest bidder. Because we are using an auction based system, there is a risk of 20% over-delivery when setting up an individual campaign."

However, as of January 2019, Reddit changed their pricing model from CPM (cost-per-impression) bidding to CPC (cost-per-click). The CPC model will likely make it easier for brands to track conversion or traffic goals, and could result in changes in prices over time.

Advertising on Reddit: Worth it?

When I asked Chang whether he felt advertising on Reddit is a worthwhile investment, he offered a candid response, admitting HubSpot has temporarily halted its efforts on Reddit.

"We saw promising results," Chang told me, "But because we were targeting specific subreddits, it wasn’t crazy volume that could really move the needle. However, we have on our docket to re-test Reddit to see if we can improve performance and scalability in the future."

It's important to note, there have been success stories -- Findlay Hats, for instance, drove $28,000 in sales from one viral Reddit post.

However, most brands see better results simply by relying on Reddit for community engagement and brand awareness. Alex Berman found one of his free, unpromoted videos got 25,000 views when it hit the top of a subreddit -- but, when he put $250 behind his Reddit posts, he acquired zero leads.

1. Make a company profile.

You'll want to ensure you're running advertising campaigns on your company profile, not your personal Reddit account.

Along with evoking a sense of professionalism, a company Reddit profile is necessary since users can click on your account and see other content you've viewed and upvoted — so you want to ensure that content aligns well with your brand. Additionally, when responding to comments on your ad, you'll want to be able to respond from a company profile, not a personal one.

To set up a profile, go to https://ssl.reddit.com/login and fill out the Sign Up form, shown below:

2. Set up an advertising account.

To start advertising on Reddit, you'll need to set up an advertising account. To do this, go to ads.reddit.com and fill out the necessary fields:

Once you've inputted your information and selected "Sign Up", you'll see an advertising dashboard, as shown below:

Before you can begin advertising on Reddit, you'll want to add your billing information by clicking the drop-down menu on your username and selecting "Billing":

Additionally, if multiple people on your team will be involved in advertising on Reddit, ensure you add users by clicking "Manage permissions" underneath your username, and then adding their emails and permission level (including "Analyst", "Creator", and "Administrator"):

Once you've clicked the blue "Invite" button, your colleagues should receive an email with next steps.

3. Find your audience on subreddits.

It's important to note, you don't want to spend money advertising on the homepage of Reddit. Reddit users visit the homepage to browse popular posts and trending news, so it's too big of an audience for you to target your ideal persona.

Instead, you'll want to explore subreddits to find your ideal Reddit audience. For instance, let's say you sell e-commerce software. To find an interested audience, then, you'll want to explore retail-related subreddits, such as r/retail (8.2K members), r/AskRetail (4.5K members), or even r/retailmemes (733 members).

Make a list of subreddits that might fit your audience, and then spend some time perusing the content that already exists on that subreddit. Does it seem to match content your customer would be interested in? Additionally, does it look like the subreddit community could be filled with high-intent prospects (like a retail advice subreddit), or is it too superficial for your needs (like retail memes)?

To help you find your audience, try a tool like RedditList to sort through various reddit communities and find the ones of highest value for you.

4. Ensure the subreddit(s) you find have enough page views.

This is important enough to warrant its own section: you can't necessarily advertise on any subreddit you want. Once you make your list of potential subreddits, you'll need to ensure it has enough page views to be eligible for advertising.

To figure out whether a subreddit has enough page views, consider that one Reddit advertising campaign has a minimum spend of $5, and it costs $0.75 per thousand page views. Additionally, you can purchase up to three months out.

With those requirements, you'll need roughly 6,700 page views over three months to achieve the $5 minimum spend.

To figure out how many page views you're likely to receive on a subreddit, take a look at how many users are currently on the subreddit. For instance, you can see at 2 p.m. on a Monday, there are roughly 2K users on the r/marketing subreddit:

Dividing 6,700 by 90, you'll note you need roughly 74 viewers per day on a subreddit to reach the minimum requirement — r/marketing, then, is way over the daily required page views, but there are other smaller subreddits with only 5-10 users per day, which could make it more difficult for you to reach minimum spend. Plus, you want to choose subreddits that enable you to have the highest reach possible.

5. Set up your campaign.

Once you've chosen your subreddits, it's now time to set up your campaign. In your account, start by clicking on "Dashboard" in the top left of your screen, and then select "Create Campaign".

Next, you'll need to create a name for your campaign, a funding instrument, and a campaign objective:

After you click "Continue", you'll need to narrow down your audience — including interests, communities, and device type — your budget, and your bid (the maximum price you're willing to pay per 1,000 impressions). Additionally, you'll need to figure out a schedule for your ad, including what time(s) of day you want it to appear, and when you want your campaign to end.

Once you click "Continue" again, you'll be able to add third-party trackers to distinguish how many unique web page visits or social media viewers you've gained from your Reddit advertisement.

Here, you'll also either create a new post or upload an existing advertisement that you might've designed for another platform. Feel free to take a look at Reddit's internal advertising resources — including Reddit's Advertising Help page — to learn best practices when designing an ad for Reddit.

Once you're happy with the creative assets, click "Review":

Once you've reviewed all the information regarding your campaign and have determined it's accurate, click the blue "Submit" button to submit your advertisement for consideration. You'll get an email once your ad is live.

6. Analyze your campaign performance to improve over time.

Once your campaign is up-and-running, you'll want to track its performance. You can monitor within the Reddit advertising dashboard itself, as well as through third-party tools like Google Analytics. Additionally, ensure you're taking the time to respond to any comments left on your ad.

As with any advertising campaign you run, you'll want to use analytics on this campaign to iterate and improve for the next one.

Ultimately, it's worth considering using Reddit as a platform for sharing content for the sake of helpfulness and audience engagement, rather than as a cost-effective advertising strategy.

Everything Our Paid Team Learned From Attempting a Reddit Advertising Strategy was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Ads in 2020

Ah, Instagram Stories — the one-stop-shop to find short, engaging content from high school friends, celebrities, and major brands alike.

With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram Stories is an undeniably powerful opportunity to connect with new audiences.

And, if you're not using Instagram Stories as a marketing tool, you should be. In fact, Instagram reports that of the 500 million accounts using Instagram Stories, one-third of the most viewed stories come from businesses.

I can personally attest to the power of Instagram Stories to incentivize purchasing decisions. For instance, the other day I was mindlessly scrolling through Stories when I came across an ad for Crest 3D whitestrips — with a $50 off coupon attached. I swiped up to purchase without ever leaving the app itself.

Here, let's dive into what Instagram Story ads are, and how you can run Instagram Story ads for your own business. Plus, we'll explore examples of Instagram Story ads and best practices to ensure your ads are as powerful as they can be.

What are Instagram Story ads?

Instagram Story ads are vertical ads you can run on Instagram's Stories feature. (To recap, Instagram Stories are photos and videos visible to an Instagram account's audience for 24-hours, and is published separately from the content found on your Instagram profile.)

Instagram allows you to target your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs, and brand awareness. Additionally, unlike an organic Instagram Story, an Instagram Story ad doesn't disappear after 24-hours — instead, you can choose the length of the campaign and frequency of ads on Facebook's ad platform, like any other ad created for Instagram or Facebook.

An Instagram Story ad is immersed seamlessly into a user's Stories viewing experience. Additionally, a user doesn't have to follow your account to see an ad from your brand. For instance, I don't follow Crest on Instagram, but I was still shown a Crest ad.

You have a few different options for ad formatting, including video, photo, or carousel. A video ad plays for up to 15 seconds, an image ad will play for five seconds, and a carousel ad lets brands play three separate pieces of content (video, photos, or both) within one ad.

If you aren't sold on running ads on Instagram Stories yet, consider these facts:

• Ad spending on Instagram is 23% higher than on Facebook.
• Videos get 21.2% more interactions compared to images and 18.6% more interactions compared to carousels.
• 71% of U.S. businesses use Instagram. It surpassed Twitter in business users in 2017.
• 500 million Instagram users use the app daily.

If you're convinced Instagram ads could be a good platform for you, let's dive into how you can run your own Instagram Story ads, next.

How to Run Instagram Story Ads

1. Go to your Ads Manager, and click "Create", which will bring you to "Quick Creation". If you'd prefer, you can switch to "Guided Creation", instead.

2. Next, select a marketing objective — your options for Instagram Stories include "Brand Awareness", "Reach", "Video views", "Conversions", "App installs", "Lead Generation", or "Traffic".

3. In the Placements section, you'll want to select "Automatic Placements", where Instagram Stories is selected by default. However, if you choose "Manual Placements", check the box for "Stories" under Instagram.

4. Next, set your ad's budget and schedule. 

5. Next, you'll want to choose "Single Image or Video" or "Carousel" as your ad's format.

6. Add videos or images to your ad, and finish including any other details, including headline and description. If you'd prefer, you can use Stories Templates, which will transform your image into an ad automatically, and add movement to grab a viewer's attention.

7. Once you're happy with your ad, select "Confirm" to finish the process.

Instagram Story Ads: Cost, Specs, & Length

There are three separate areas you can place an ad on Instagram: Stories, Feed, and Explore.

For the purposes of this post, we'll focus on the cost, specs, and length of an Instagram Stories ad.

First, all feed photo and video dimensions are supported in Stories (anywhere from 1:91 to 4:5). However, 9:16 ratio is encouraged to fit the full-screen, vertical format of Stories.

Additionally, .mp4 or .mov is recommended for video ads, and .jpg or .png file type is recommended for photo ads.

If you're creating a video ad, 4GB file size is encouraged — and, for a photo, 30MG file size is suggested.

If you're creating a video ad, the length can't surpass 120 seconds. For a photo ad, five seconds is the default for how long the image will be shown.

Finally, the recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920, with a minimum dimension of 600 x 1067.

Instagram ads, including Instagram Story ads, cost between $0.70 to $1.00 per-click on average — although cost varies depending on industry, days of the week, time of year, targeted ages and sexes, ad placement, and plenty of other factors. In some cases, Instagram ads can exceed $5.00 per-click.

Fortunately, you have plenty of control over how much your ads cost by setting a pre-determined budget. You can choose your budget based on how much your company is willing to spend daily, or the total cost you're willing to spend over a campaign's lifecycle.

Examples of Instagram Story Ads

Below, I've collected a few impressive examples I found on my own Instagram Story feed. While most of these examples are bigger brand names, there are plenty of small-to-medium sized businesses using Instagram

1. Aveeno

Aveeno's Instagram ads are clean and simple, with neutral colors — apart from the brand's signature green — drawing attention to the brand's daily moisturizer. The ad features a short clip of a hand pointing to a shopping cart, with a "Shop Now" swipe-up link. The ad focuses on the brand's product and doesn't distract with people, making it effective for anyone scrolling who's in the mood to refill their moisturizer.

2. Miller Lite

This is an example of an ad that felt tailored towards me, a 27-year-old female in the Boston area. First, the ad features a call-out to the Boston Celtics, immediately capturing my attention. Once I'm intrigued, the ad segues into a picture of their Lite drink, with the text, "Great taste, only 96 calories, 3.2G carbs". In this example, the ad does a good job drawing my attention to the things I care about most: namely, low-calorie alternatives to beer (and Celtics).

3. Trunk Club

This engaging, fast-moving ad shows a few different outfit options on the screen with the text, "Keep what you love, send the rest back". The ad shows a few different outfits, ranging from dresses and cardigans to dress pants and heels, to capture the attention of a wider range of people than it could if it featured only one style. With the plain white background and easy-to-read black text, it's simple, clean, and hard to miss.

4. Febreze

I mean, come on … who doesn't love a puppy? This fun, clever Febreze ad shows an adorable puppy on a couch with the text, "Refresh wherever they roam", with their Febreze product at the bottom of the screen. While most of the other ads in this list featured subdued, plain colors, Febreze goes all out with light blues, greens, and purples, inviting a sense of playfulness and fun into the user's feed.

5. Tractor Beverage Co.

What I love most about Tractor Beverage Co.'s Instagram video is the end, which features a different call-to-action from most of the others in this list. Rather than "Shop Now," this ad reads, "Now Available at Chipotle" with a "Learn More" swipe-up function. As a lesser-known brand, Tractor Beverage Co. wisely aims to use their ad space to increase brand awareness, so that next time you're at your favorite nearby Chipotle, you might give their drink a try.

6. Crest

If you have the means, it makes a lot of sense to include a coupon or discount in your Instagram Story ad, like Crest does in its 3D Whitestrips ad. The $50 off encourages viewers to purchase immediately so they don't miss out on the deal, and the fun, bright colors effectively capture viewers attention. With the limited time allotted in an Instagram Story, it makes sense for these brands to get straight to the point.

7. Kayak

Kayak, a travel search engine, created this impressive, engaging Instagram Story video ad to demonstrate how easy it is for Kayak users to filter flights depending on airline, price, cabin seating, and destination. Kayak served the ads to lookalike audiences based on the characteristics of its current website customers, and saw 5X increase in sales conversions, as well as a 50% increase in overall ROI, with combined ad placements on Instagram Stories, Instagram's news feed, and Facebook's news feed.

Instagram Story Ads Best Practices

Now that we've explored a few impressive examples, let's dive into some best practices to follow when creating your own Instagram Story ad. With four million active advertisers on Stories as of January 2020, it's going to take a lot to ensure you're able to stand out and drive results. Let's dive in.

1. Pay attention to speed.

Facebook reports that Instagram Stories are consumed faster "tahn any other mobile format". People's attention is severely limited when perusing Stories, especially since the content has a 24-hour time limit before disappearing forever.

For that reason, you'll want to ensure you get straight to the point and capture a viewer's attention from the first frame. Unlike other forms of content, suspense isn't usually effective here, especially since images can't surpass five seconds, and videos have a 120-second limit. You'll want to jump the viewer right into the message you're hoping to deliver.

2. Include motion in your ad.

Facebook reports that "ads that use motion perform better." Motion captivates the viewers' attention and can help you tell a story faster than you could with a static image. Even if you're using animation, consider how you might add motion to create more engaging content.

3. Ensure you're using sound in your ad.

60% of Stories are viewed with the sound on, so you'll want to ensure you use sound in your ad to provide optimal value to your audience. Consider how you might use music, sound effects, or voice-over to capture viewers' attention in a new way. If you're unsure which types of sound work best in your ad, try A/B testing to conclude what your audience prefers.

4. Create your ad for Stories first — rather than attempting to repurpose an existing ad made for another vertical.

It can be tempting to simply copy-and-paste the ad you've already created for Facebook or Instagram news feed, but that could result in a less-than-ideal experience for those viewing your ad in Instagram Stories. For one, your ad might not follow Instagram Story sizing best practices, resulting in key parts of your ad being cropped out. Additionally, you'll want to play around with features exclusive to Stories to ensure your ad is as effective as possible.

5. Use your call-to-action wisely.

Ultimately, your Instagram Stories ad won't be effective if you don't include a clear call-to-action you want viewers to follow. You might use language like "Learn More", "Shop Now", or "Swipe Up" to encourage viewers to take action, depending on your goal — for instance, if your goal is brand awareness, "Learn More" tells viewers you simply want to educate them about your brand's offerings, which is a very different CTA from "Shop Now".

Take a look at the examples, mentioned above, for more CTA inspiration.

6. Include text to emphasize key message.

Including text is a best practice for accessibility in general, as it helps viewers' who are hard-of-hearing decipher your ad's message. Additionally, text can help emphasize your key points — for instance, Aveeno's "Get Healthy Looking Skin Every Day" text illustrated their main point, and convinced me to purchase.

7. Test out mobile shots.

Facebook reports, "Mobile shots outperform studio shots for ad recall and intent, while studio shots tend to drive higher brand awareness." For this reason, consider forgoing fancy studio equipment for video shot and edited straight from a mobile phone.

The majority of users consume Instagram's content from their own smartphones, so you might as well try creating content on the same device. And, when in doubt, don't be afraid to A/B test this theory for your own brand, as well.

For more best practices related to advertising in general, take a look at The Ultimate Guide to Mastering the Basics of Effective Social Media Advertising.

And there you have it! You're all ready to begin creating an inspiring Instagram Story ad of your own. Just remember — you know your brand, and your audience, better than anyone. Use these best practices and examples as inspiration, but feel free to A/B test to figure out what works best for your unique business goals and social media objectives. Good luck!

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Ads in 2020 was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

These Two Simple Strategies Led to a 71% Increase in Qualified Leads for the HubSpot French Market

My role at HubSpot is the French Marketing Automation Manager — essentially, I’m in charge of the marketing automation for HubSpot leads and free users in our French market. This past January, we noticed that one of our key automation programs — our onboarding and nurturing email program for our free users — was dated and needed a revamp.

When our free users sign up, they receive a series of onboarding emails that helped them get set up and answered any potential questions. Here are some screenshots of the old onboarding emails:

 

As helpful as these emails were, we decided we could do better by our users and leads.

Our free HubSpot Academy course on lead nurturing can help you develop a lead nurturing strategy to build long-lasting relationships with your customers.

As we started brainstorming and creating proposals for this program revamp, we came across a core challenge: We didn't really understand our users’ needs, challenges and goals.

At HubSpot, we do a lot of user research, but much of this research is focused on English users. Also, as marketers, we don’t talk to our customers as much as our sales and customer service teams do. Yet, we can all agree on one thing: The better you know your audience, the better you can serve them and help them.

Phase One: Researching our Free Users

Before working on our email program revamp, we decided to get to know our audience better. We chose to conduct research on our French free users. We did this by releasing one survey and holding several interviews.

The survey was first sent to two audiences: active free users and inactive free users (those who haven't used their portal for more than 30 days). We were curious if there were differences between the two audiences, but we didn’t discover many.

When analyzing the survey results, we identified contacts with various job titles and different expectations when they signed up. Users that I named "end users" represent about 80% of our free users and signed up only to use the free tools. The other 20% represent what I call "evaluators," and they signed up to discover HubSpot while thinking of buying a paid version. They are here to evaluate the tool and use the sign up as a trial.

For the interviews, I wanted to get a mix of evaluators and end users and also people from different job fields and departments to better understand their needs. So, I interviewed a wide variety of our free users. Here are a few responses that stood out when I asked “Why HubSpot?”

“[To] find a database, more automated and fluid and adapted than Excel.” — Marketing Manager

“The objective was to bring together [my] various contacts from different bases. [I] then discovered the other features of HubSpot. ” — CEO

The results of the survey and interviews were incredibly insightful. We learned a number of important things about our free users. Here are a few main takeaways:

1. Most of our free users are part of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and therefore, wear multiple hats and do multiple jobs. For example, some folks were CEO and made sales.
2. They mainly come to HubSpot for the free CRM. They want and need a CRM, and that’s why they signed up for HubSpot.
3. Our free users are not aware of everything that’s included in their free plan, so they are even less aware of what’s included in the paid plans. For example, some users didn’t know they had access to the Form Builder or Email Marketing tools and were using external tools for these functions. Additionally, some users didn’t realize the Landing Page Builder and Workflows features were available with the paid plan. When discussing this during the interviews, they confirmed that they are interested in knowing more about HubSpot paid plans.

What we discovered about our audience and free users changed our thinking quite a bit. For example, before conducting this research, we weren’t promoting our paid plans and features to our free users. That was about to change.

Phase Two: Email A/B Testing

With our new research in mind, we were ready to address our onboarding and nurturing email program.

Before rolling out a new nurturing email sequence to our free users, however, we first wanted to test their reactions to the new content. They’d told us during the market research that they’d be interested in learning more, but how would that translate to reality?

We decided to run an email A/B test to measure how our audience responded to this new approach.

First, we set a hypothesis: Our free users were not aware of the possibilities and features included in their free plan and even fewer of those included in paid plans. If we provided more visibility into what they could do with a paid HubSpot plan and made an effort to educate them about how to try those premium features, they would be pleasantly surprised and sign up for trials — and eventually purchase.

We believed this because our free users mentioned they weren’t fully aware of what was included in the paid plan and why they should subscribe.

So, we developed an experiment to test this new approach. For this our A/B test, I didn’t want to target all of our free users — only the ones who’d been actively using the HubSpot free tools in prior few months. I assumed this audience would be interested in learning more about what they could do and achieve with a paid version since they were already so active in the free version.

Download our free guide on lead nurturing to learn how to use lead nurturing for smarter marketing.

We divided these active free users into two segments:

1. Our control group didn’t receive any nurturing emails, as this was the case before the experiment.
2. Our variant group received a series of two emails promoting key paid features, including Attribution Reporting, Workflows, and Sequences, and offering them a trial to test out those features.

Here are some screenshots of the text emails:

 

Our Email A/B Test Results

We ran our email experiment over the course of four weeks and sent about 3,000 emails.

At the conclusion of the test, we were pleased with the results as they were highly conclusive and confirmed our original hypothesis. When we compared the control and variant groups after one month, we found that the emails sent to the variant group:

• Generated 71% more qualified leads
• Created 125% more deals
• Generated 12% more trials
• Generated 15% more revenue

Wow!

Learnings and Takeaways

Both the research and experiment we conducted yielded valuable insights and takeaways. Here are my top four:

First, get to know your audience. As marketers, we don’t often have the opportunity to discuss with our audience.

If you can chat with your target market and customers, I highly recommend it! This can be a gamechanger for your marketing strategies and alert you to insights and trends you otherwise wouldn’t have known.

Second, align with Sales. Sales talks to hundreds of prospects and free users per week, so they know what features and components of your product or service are most important for certain leads.

You probably can’t promote your entire product in one email and have to select some features. For this reason, you should better align with Sales to better understand who your audience is and what their goals, needs, and pain points are.

Third, test your content formats and information to know what your audience prefers.

For example, we’ve seen in France that doing short videos or GIFs of HubSpot tools was highly appreciated. For each feature or functionality of the tool, our emails included a text description, and, next to it, a video or GIF of it. This helped our readers see what the tool looked like in action.

Finally, experiment as much as you can.

Even if your experiment is not conclusive or doesn’t yield the results you were looking for, it’s not a waste of time if you’ve learned something new and valuable about your audience, content, or product.

Bonne chance!

These Two Simple Strategies Led to a 71% Increase in Qualified Leads for the HubSpot French Market was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Cultural Competence: What Is It and How To Develop It At Your Company

When I went to college, it was the first time I truly interacted with a bunch of people who were completely different from me.

I grew up in Orange County, an almost infamously undiverse, homogeneous place.

It was during college that I was able to broaden my horizons and I quickly realized how important diversity is to every area of life whether it be education, or even business.

In fact, did you know that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns greater than their industry mean?

Additionally, findings show that diverse teams make better business decisions 87% of the time.

As business leaders, it's impossible to ignore those stats.

But, if you have a similar background (or lack thereof) in diversity as I did growing up, you might not know how to develop cultural competence and cultivate a diverse team.

To help, I talked to a wide range of experts on diversity, inclusion, and belonging, from both internal HubSpot employees to external thought leaders.

In this post, we'll learn what cultural competence is, why it's important, and how to develop it at your company.

It's important to discuss that cultural competence isn't about hitting a diversity quota. It's about facilitating an environment of open and honest communication in a diverse setting. If you aren't culturally competent, you might not attract the best talent for your employee base.

On the consumer side, cultural competence is important because customers might not support your company if they don't think you're inclusive.

So, what does cultural competence really mean?

According to Martin Tettey, co-chair of diversity and inclusion at PRSA-NY, "To be culturally competent in business, an organization must be fully aware of their surroundings to ensure that the contributions being shared are from a diverse group of people -- differences in race, gender or sexual identity."

Mita Mallick, the head of diversity and cross-cultural marketing at Unilever, says "While companies are focused on diversity of representation and who gets to sit around the table, they can no longer ignore how their products, services and content show up in the marketplace. Consumers are voting with their wallets and want to buy from inclusive companies and brands."

Being a culturally competent company means that your organization actively and vocally invests in continued learning, listening, and change (when need be).

Your business should benefit all your customers and your employees, so people from all backgrounds and experiences can find success.

Additionally, Melissa Obleada, a previous diversity, inclusion, and belonging team member at HubSpot, says "Cultural competency positively impacts your company culture, which we know has a multitude of benefits for your employees as well as your bottom line."

Being aware of the space you take up, and exist within, will allow you to navigate those differences with empathy and understanding.

Cultural competence should impact all areas of your business from hiring practices to company culture to marketing.

Lucy Alexander, a coordinator of a HubSpot discussion group focused on diversity and inclusion, says doing this will "Allow you to think about questions like, ‘How will this sales approach resonate with cultural norms of that country?' or ‘How could this marketing campaign be perceived by this group of people?'"

She continued, "It's about creating truly inclusive strategies from the ground up. Crucially, you need employees of all different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds who represent different genders and sexualities if you hope to apply this lens consistently -- otherwise, you'll come off as inauthentic and you won't be walking the walk."

1. Provide workplace bias training.

To develop cultural competence, Tettey suggests providing workplace bias training.

With bias training that's focused on empathy through academic and experiential learning, you can create a more inclusive workplace.

The training strategy should help get the conversation started on implicit bias and how to minimize workplace bias through education and discussion.

Remember, this shouldn't be the only thing your company is doing to become culturally competent. Rather, this is a good first step to lay the foundation.

Additionally, it's important to keep in mind that implicit bias training should include conversations on systemic and structural issues at your company. This means that you might discuss company practices and hold the leadership team accountable for enacting change on a structural level.

Tettey says, "Companies shouldn't do these things just to avoid lawsuits or fulfill a quota, but make it a part of the backbone that fuels the company and keeps it standing."

2. Have an ethical hiring process that ensures opportunities are readily available to all.

Another suggestion from Tettey is to implement an ethical hiring process that ensures opportunities are readily available to everybody.

Think about it like this -- how can you become culturally competent if your own employee base isn't very diverse?

To attract a diverse pool of candidates, you should advertise jobs through diverse channels, like diverse job boards. Plus, your recruiters should proactively recruit from a diverse talent pool.

Alexander says, "If your employee base is not very diverse yet (and the vast majority of companies in America could do better), you must couple efforts to tangibly change the makeup of your organization with internal education efforts."

For instance, "That means that while you're improving your hiring process to bring more diverse talent in and setting up your employees from underrepresented backgrounds for success and promotion, you're also running internal education initiatives like content discussion clubs or anti-bias training. Do not give up when you hit roadblocks. The work takes time, and consistent effort is key."

3. Proper compensation that is based on experience.

Another way to develop cultural competence is to evaluate your compensation packages. You should ensure that people with the same experience and professional backgrounds are being offered the same compensation.

Doing this will help you attract the top talent, increase employee retention, and improve job satisfaction.

It might feel difficult to evaluate your own compensation packages, but it's important to recognize that implicit bias could have impacted compensation offerings. If it did, you need to correct it.

4. Invest in meaningful cross-cultural relationships.

Cultural competence is really all about knowing your customer.

According to Mallick, "My job as a marketer is this: To surprise and delight a consumer with a product or service they never would have expected. In order to do that, I need to intimately know the consumer. But do I know their history, and the history of their communities? And the bigger question is, in today's environment, how can I as a marketer afford not to know all of this?"

The answer is that developing cultural competence starts outside of work. That means that your leadership team should invest in cultivating meaningful cross-cultural relationships.

Additionally, you should encourage your employees to do this as well.

Mallick says, "How can we expect to show up and be culturally competent in our workplaces if we live the majority of our lives in communities surrounded by people who only look like us?"

5. Prioritize cultural competence learning and work on your leadership team.

To truly develop cultural competence, continued education in diversity, inclusion, and belonging is imperative.

Obleada says, "Your organization -- particularly leadership -- needs to make it clear to everybody internally that you prioritize this type of learning and work. Look into resources – blogs, podcasts, consultants, workshops, etc -- that focus on building this particular muscle, and make sure that you're making it possible for your colleagues to share their feedback (both positive and constructive) with those leading these initiatives."

Essentially, this means that you should implement cultural learning into the fabric of your company culture. You could invest in resources to help cultivate culturally competent teams and practices.

"Rome wasn't built in a day, so it's not like you can flip a switch (or attend one training) and magically be culturally competent," Obleada says. "It's a process that involves being more open as individuals and bringing our learnings and empathy into each workplace interaction we have. Have patience with yourselves and one another as you work on developing your cultural competence."

6. Be willing to listen.

A major part of cultural competence learning is listening. In fact, most cultural competence education is about listening to other people about their experiences.

Gabrielle Thomas, a program manager on the diversity, inclusion, and belonging team at HubSpot, says "Listen to those inside and outside of your organization and make sure those voices create a diverse group. You can't build that awareness if you aren't willing to listen. It means you have to truly be okay with hearing feedback that may not always be positive and to make progress you have to be okay with doing things differently."

7. Evaluate where you stand.

Just like you did with your compensation packages, you should look at where your company currently stands in terms of cultural competence.

Alexander says, "Look critically at who gets opportunities to lead in your company (not just in official leadership positions, but who gets to lead projects? Lead meetings? Own initiatives?). Survey your employees anonymously and regularly solicit feedback, and create tangible action plans to address inequities. Then, revisit those plans to create accountability and ask where you could've done better and what needs to change."

You can only get better when you know where you're starting from and what needs to be done. It's time to make space for this type of work in your business strategies.

8. Create a psychologically safe environment.

Psychological safety is essential in the workplace. This means that employees have the option to be included and feel safe to have conversations with their coworkers or managers when they don't feel included.

Richard Ng, a coordinator of a HubSpot discussion group focused on diversity and inclusion, says, "To become culturally competent, you need to invest in psychological safety to enable day-to-day communication between employees."

Creating psychological safety can help build true allyship among your employees. With allyship, the burden of speaking up is fairly distributed across everyone on your team.

To create a psychologically safe environment, it's important to have solid guidelines and training for conflict and de-escalation.

So, you might be wondering, "Why are we talking about this?" Below, let's dive into why cultural competence is important.

Why is Cultural Competency Important?

Cultural competence is important for both your bottom line and creating a workplace culture that employees are proud of.

Mallick says, "It's not the job of your employees to lead diversity and inclusion efforts on top of their day jobs. You need a diversity and inclusion strategy, which then informs the structure you will need to implement your vision. You need to make a commitment to invest with headcount/resources, budget and time. If you don't see the benefits of having a diversity and inclusion team, your organization will be left behind in the marketplace."

Tettey would agree. He says, "Companies are nothing without a team that strategically helps with the D&I efforts."

In that same vein, Obleada says that companies with leadership that don't dedicate itself to diversity, equity, and inclusion are in the minority.

"A 2017 Deloitte study showed that over 75% of employees at all levels would consider leaving their current organization for a more inclusive one," Obleada adds. "Exclusive and rigid company environments where only certain types of people are granted access and set up for success hurt everyone involved – your employees, your business, and your customers."

Essentially, when it comes to diversity and inclusion efforts, you get what you give.

Thomas says, "We invest in what we value. If you don't invest energy, money, or both into D&I then that makes it clear to your team and customers that you don't value an experience based on an inclusively built foundation."

This work is important because it's essential to see your company and employees grow and thrive.

Alexander adds, "In a fair work environment that celebrates a variety of backgrounds and diversity of thought, employees will be more prone to share ideas, stay longer, and feel brought into the company's mission and work. Most importantly, they're more likely to feel valued as human beings, which is crucial for personal happiness and professional fulfillment."

Additionally, cultural competence is important because it takes into account that minorities face a harder time when it comes to making a living.

Ng says, "We should also acknowledge that people's value comes not from their ability to generate revenue for your company but from the fact that they are human. What happens when they don't improve company numbers? Do they not matter then? They, like everyone else, deserve a chance at working and growing at a company that recognizes the steeper climb minorities face when making a living and supports them through it."

Ultimately, cultural competence can benefit your company in many ways. You'll have better employee retention, customer satisfaction, and attract the top talent and customers. Cultural diversity impacts every area of your business, and you should give it the attention it deserves when you're developing your overall business strategy.

Cultural Competence: What Is It and How To Develop It At Your Company was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

18 Webinar Promotion Tips to Guarantee Nobody Misses Your Next Webinar

Here at HubSpot, we know a thing or two about webinars. We set the Guinness World Record for largest online marketing seminar in 2011, hosted webinars with partners such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Unbounce, and we’re able to host and promote in-house because of the modern marketing team we've built.

No matter how great the content of your webinar is, though, it doesn't mean much if there's nobody there to hear it. So what do you do to ensure people actually, you know ... show up?

Turns out, there are at least 18 things you can do to get people aware of, excited about, and attending your next webinar. Here's a guide to making your next webinar a rousing success.

What Is a Webinar/Webcast?

A webinar (also known as a webcast) is a live, online seminar or workshop that's delivered over the internet. A host -- that's you -- organizes the event and invites attendees. The beauty of a virtual event? The host and the attendees can be located anywhere in the world.

Make it educational.

Education is one of the most powerful tools you can use to make change happen. Webinars need to have some type of educational component to it -- whether you're educating your audience about a product, a service, a new piece of content, how to use a tool, and so on. 

Communicate your content clearly.

Webinars are great ways to scale your communication. Provide value to your audience by communicating your message clearly. This includes how you organize the content of the webinar, how you present it verbally, and how you present it visually in your PowerPoint deck.

Entertain your audience.

Finally, a great webinar needs to be entertaining. Otherwise, your attendees might as well think of your webinar as 40 minutes to catch up on email. After all, that verbal component is what makes webinars so unique: There are few other mediums where you can deliver content that lets your personality shine through to such an extent.

It's really easy to create webinar content with only your end goals in mind -- that point you want to get across, or those things you want to talk about -- but that won't keep your audience engaged. Think carefully about who your audience is while crafting your webinar content. At the end of the day, your webinar is about building connections and relationships with your audience so they trust you that much more.

1. Choose a topic that straddles the line between broad and actionable.

It's really, really hard to get people to attend your webinar if your topic stinks. Try to select a topic that's broad enough to attract a large audience, yet targeted enough to provide actionable advice that attendees can implement the second they hop off your webinar.

For a webinar with Unbounce, for example, we decided that we wanted conversion rate optimization to be the overarching theme (because what marketer doesn’t want to optimize?) but with a focus on landing page copy and design.

When titling your webinar landing page, do some SEO research to see which keywords you want to rank for. Use that same title for subsequent blog posts and SlideShares, and you'll end up with a slew of assets to back up that keyword ranking.

2. Set an attendee goal.

Having a goal will inspire you to hit it, and help you measure success. When we attempted to break the Guinness World Record for webinar attendees, for example, we knew we'd have to hit about 10,899 attendees. 

World Records aside, there are many reasons why you should set a goal. In theory, you're not putting on a webinar for the fun of it. You want it to contribute toward lead generation and brand awareness. For this reason, consider what your marketing goals are and then decide how you want this webinar to contribute toward it. 

Note: Just because people register for your webinar does not mean they will attend your webinar. Which brings us to our next tip...

3. Set an registrant goal that will actually result in your desired number of attendees.

Webinars typically get 44% of pre-registrants to attend the live event. To determine how many registrants you need, you should think ahead to how many actual attendees you want.

Continuing with our Guinness World Record example in the previous tip, we knew we needed 10,899 attendees. So, with a little backwards math using the 44% figure above, we'd need to shoot for more than 24,770 registrants to meet the attendance goal.

You should track performance on at least a weekly basis to see whether your marketing efforts are moving the needle towards that registrant goal. That way, if you need to dial up your promotion due to low initial registration numbers, you'll know what to do to fix it. 

You will see the word “remind” quite a bit in the rest of this post. That's because getting people to attend your webinar requires lots and lots (and lots) of registrant reminders. People often sign up for webinars weeks in advance, so it's critical that you're making an effort to keep your webinar top-of-mind during that time.

4. Give attendees something special.

Try to think of things that will get people excited, feeling special, talking with colleagues, and remembering their experience on your webinar in the future. Excited registrants turn into excited attendees.

At HubSpot, we’ve given away tickets to events, free marketing assessments, and ad spend coupons to Facebook and LinkedIn. We’ve also inspired the audience by asking them to be a part of something huge, like breaking a world record.

Another example of a contest you could run? Ask them to tweet something related to the webinar a week in advance, and pick the winner at the beginning of the webinar. At HubSpot, we held a #WorkRemote hashtag challenge to support our webinar on working remote effectively, and we built a landing page to explain the rules and how a winner would be picked. (Note: Be sure to work with your legal team when planning any challenge or contest.)

You could note in the promotional and reminder emails that "attendees are getting a special 25% discount on X," and include that discount code in the final slide of your webinar.

To make things easy, consider using Rybbon, a system that can help gift rewards to participants on webinars. 

5. Choose the right day of week.

Don't host your webinar during the weekend. Okay, you probably knew that one. But did you also know that it's best to host your webinars on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday?

Monday and Friday always seem to get filled up with “catch-up” and “last-minute emergency” happenings around the office. According to GoToMeeting, Wednesday and Thursday are the days people are most likely to attend webinars. "Both Wednesday and Thursday attract 26% of attendees, making up more than half of all webinar attendance." Tuesday comes in third at 24%, which validates the Monday/Friday hypothesis.

6. Choose the right time of day.

HubSpot typically runs webinars at 1 p.m. EST or 2 p.m. EST, because it's the most convenient time for the largest chunk of our audience. But if you have a huge audience in... I don't know... Jakarta, you might want to reevaluate your timing. Right? Right.

However, like any variable in marketing, the best time (and day) will depend on your audience. Which time zone(s) do they live in? Do they work nine-to-five jobs, or are their daytime schedules more open? To maximize attendance, experiment with different days and times, compare attendance rates and conversion rates, and tweak your timing accordingly.

If you're just starting out or have no clue what time works best, you can always ask. Include a field on your registration form that asks attendees to confirm the time slots that work best for them, and schedule your webinar based on that feedback.

7. Create an informative landing page.

Be clear. Be honest. Set expectations. Take a look at the landing page we created for our webinar with Rajan Kapoor of Dropbox:

On this landing page, we’ve clearly outlined a few things:

• Who? Introduce presenters on the landing page, with brief bios that explain who they are and why they matter. (Well, why they matter for this webinar, at least.)
• What? Include an explanation of what the webinar is about and some of the topics it will cover. Bullet points are best. Pick a dedicated hashtag for your webinar and include it, too.
• When? Seemingly obvious, but ensure you provide a date and time so people can mark their calendars.
• Where? Clearly explain when and how the webinar will be accessible. Typically, webinars are accessible via links and can be joined 30 minutes prior to the start time.
• Why? Explain the value of your webinar. What will people be able to do after they leave your webinar that they weren’t able to prior to attending?

8. Send a thank-you email and registration confirmation.

Sending a thank-you email isn't just good manners -- it also gives you a chance to confirm your attendees' registration (so they know that their form submission worked) and, you know, remind them about your webinar. Some people will delete it. Some people will save the email in their inbox, serving as a periodic reminder of your webinar. Some people will take the details in the email and input it on their calendar. If any of your registrants fall into those last two groups of people, you're sittin' pretty.

We recommend including a call-to-action to "Add this webinar to your calendar" as the #1 CTA in both your thank-you and follow-up emails. (More on this later.)

9. Send value-building reminder emails.

Send these two weeks in advance, and one week in advance on your webinar. They not only serve to remind registrants about the webinar's date and time, but rebuild the value that you established with them on your registration landing page. Many of your registrants may have not only forgotten that they registered for your webinar ... they may have forgotten why they registered in the first place.

Are you ready for next week?

Hi [REGISTRANT NAME],

We're 7 days away from the [WEBINAR NAME], where you'll learn to [GOAL/VALUE PROPOSITION OF EVENT].

Here's a quick reminder of the details of this webinar:

[EVENT DETAILS IN BULLETS]

Before showing up, check out this resource [LINK] on [TOPIC], which will be informing our discussion. Attendees tend to get more out of the event with this knowledge in their back pocket.

Tweet us at [HASHTAG] if you have any questions.

We're excited for you to join us on [DAY]!

Cheers,

[YOUR NAME]

Include relevant blog posts or previous ebooks or webinars that cover similar topics. You might frame this as content your team has recently updated, which they can learn more about in the webinar. Include the webinar's hashtag and tell people to tweet if they have any questions.

10. Send two final reminder emails.

People forget. Things come up. Last-minute reminder emails -- specifically, one the day before, and one the day of -- give people enough time to finagle attendance around meetings and other items on their to-do list, but also not too much time that they'll forget about the webinar. It's only a day (or less!) away, after all.

Webinar planning is like any other event, with lots of things to do and stuff to organize. To ensure that you don't forget this important aspect of promotion, marketing automation can come in handy. HubSpot's Workflows tool includes a "Center on date property" that can help you build a drip sequence that leads up to the day of the webinar. This allows you to schedule all the emails at once and leave the worry behind once and for all.

11. Market your webinar using social media.

You know what's awesome about social media? It's much more difficult to oversaturate your social audience than your email audience. And there's a really, really good chance much of your email audience is connected with you socially, too. That affords you the opportunity to use social media to remind your audience about your webinar.

If you're using a social media publishing schedule, you can pepper in updates for every social channel that remind your audience you have an upcoming webinar. Increase the number of reminder updates as the date approaches, particularly the day before and day of. Make sure you pick a dedicated hashtag for your webinar and include it on the landing page, in your emails, and everywhere else you're promoting it.

12. Market your webinar through your speakers.

Of course you'll be promoting your webinar, but what about the presenters? You know, the ones with a different audience than yours right at their fingertips? Are they leveraging their personal connections, social accounts, and email lists to make sure they have a giant audience? If they're not, they sure-as-shootin' should.

13. Don't be afraid of paid media.

If you’re looking to drive more attendees to your webinar and have the budget, a little paid media to supplement your organic efforts can always help. For instance, you might run a PPC ad on Google for a search term that aligns with your webinar content in order to get the word out and drive attendance.

By bidding on a long-tail keyword such as “aligning sales and marketing” you can also keep your PPC costs low, promoting your webinar in a cost effective way. Just make sure your paid media team and organic team are aligned, so your company is organically publishing terms like "aligning sales and marketing" while you bid on the same term, resulting in total dominance in the SERPs for that keyword phrase.

14. Blog about your webinar.

Use your blog (and other blogs if you have the relationships) to promote your webinar and the topic it covers. Create a "launch blog post" for your webinar indicating the excitement of new content/data in the webinar. Obviously, you'll want to provide links to the registration landing page within the blog post, too -- including a webinar-specific CTA to include at the end of your post.

You can also get your audience warmed up to the topic of the webinar by creating blog content that discusses that topic at different angles. Include the webinar CTA in these posts as well, but be sure to swap it out with a different CTA once the webinar is over.

Bonus: If you start writing posts about the webinar topic far enough in advance, you can use the questions readers ask in the comments section to beef up your presentation, too.

15. Set calendar reminders.

Some uber-organized people will put your webinar right on their calendar, but there are tools out there that let you take it a step further. 

My colleague Christine White, manager of marketing acquisition here at HubSpot, uses AddEvent and WorldTimeBuddy to create add-to-calendar CTAs.

16. Partner up.

If you want more people to attend your webinar, you can always consider working with another brand. But while additional attendees is one benefit, it shouldn’t be the main focus of partnering up -- relevancy, however, should be.

HubSpot has partnered with numerous partners specifically for co-marketing purposes because we believe that two well-aligned brands have the power to be truly amazing together -- much more amazing than they can be apart. It's also helpful for your audience if they can hear another perspective once in a while, particularly when that perspective comes from a specialist's point of view.

17. Leverage your homepage.

Your homepage is likely one of the most visited pages on your website. So why wouldn’t you leverage your homepage real estate to promote upcoming webinars?

It's a great way to show people that your entire company is behind the webinar and sees the value in it for site visitors. Don’t hide behind your webinars; get them out in public and show people that your company believes in the initiative.

18. Use the best video conferencing tools to ensure a smooth video experience.

If an industry expert reveals the secret to success, but their technology wasn't good enough to record it, did they make an impact?

The content of your webinar might be unparalleled industry insight, but it isn't nearly as valuable if your attendees can't easily access and listen to the event. Picking the right video conferencing tool puts your webinar on the platform it deserves so people are encouraged to join in and listen to you.

What are some reliable webinar hosting services to choose from? Glad you asked ...

Loom

Loom is a video recording software, compatible with Mac, Windows, and Chromebook computers. The tool offers a convenient desktop app and can record your screen activity in real time. Loom is particularly useful for pre-recorded webinars, slide presentations, and single-hosted experiences.

Zoom

Zoom is a cloud-based conferencing tool that offers live and on-demand video services. You can use a Zoom account to add a video chat option to group events listed on your online calendar.

GoToWebinar

GoToWebinar helps you create branded webinars with automated email invitations leading up to the event. It also makes it easy to follow up with attendees after the webinar, while reporting on who attended and who didn't.

Customers buy from the companies they can trust, and broadcasting your industry expertise via webinar is one of the key ways of doing that.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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