How to Write a Blog Post Outline: A Simple Formula to Follow

What makes a blog post bad?

There are lots of reasons a blog post could be less-than-perfect. Poor formatting. Poor grammar. Poor word choice. Poor shareability. 

The most pervasive problem? Poor flow. The post jumps from one idea to the next to the next and then circles around again for a split second to the first idea, then back to the fourth, and so on. Or the post reads like a stream of consciousness -- but it wasn't a stylistic choice. 

Luckily, you have a simple solution. Before diving headfirst into writing your post, you can create an outline. 

I'm not talking about jotting down a few quick bullet points -- even experienced writers can go astray with just a few talking points. I'm talking a fully fleshed-out outline with enough details that make it virtually impossible for your writing to go off the deep end. And it's pretty easy to do.

Below is my method for outlining posts and organizing my thoughts. You may prefer to switch up some of the steps depending on your writing style, but your end goal should always be to get an outline detailed enough that its result is a cohesive, logical piece. Here's one way you can do that. 

1. Nail your working title.

This is the most important step of this entire process. You want to have a clear understanding of what you're going to write before you start outlining. 

My colleague Corey wrote an awesome post about how to pick a great working title. Go read it, now. I won't go too much into the weeds here (that's why you should read her post), but a great working title is specific. It's "How to Use Images to Generate Leads on Twitter," not " Twitter lead generation."

Spend time getting your working title to something specific and easy to tackle in a blog post format -- but don't waste time getting nitpicky. You can refine your title later. The goal here is to have a title that gives you a very clear idea of what the whole piece is about. You can make it sound catchy later.  

2. Write down as many distinct takeaways from the article as you can.

Next, you get to brain dump. Write down all the things you want your readers to get out of the article. These won't always be the main sections of your article -- it's just all the things you want your readers to know by the end of reading your post.

This is the only time in the whole process you're not worried about organization -- just let your ideas flow naturally. You need to get out all of your wild and crazy ideas now so they won't muck up your post later in the process.

Let's use the previous example to show you what I mean. If my working title was "How to Use Images to Generate Leads on Twitter," I'd probably want readers to know:

• What sets a good image apart from a bad one on Twitter
• Where they can find images to use legally 
• How they can create images on their own
• What sizes they need to make images
• How often they should tweet images
• How to actually upload an image to Twitter
• How they can generate a lead on Twitter
• How long their tweet should be with the image in it
• What results they should expect to get 

Notice how these are really unfiltered and all over the place. That's okay. We'll wrangle it all in in the next step.

3. Break up those takeaways into larger sections.

Now, we'll take that jumble of ideas and place them into overarching sections. Think of it like sorting laundry -- each thought belongs to a different pile. From your brainstorm, you should come up with a few big themes. Sometimes, one of your brainstorming bullets will be a theme in itself, but usually several bullets will fall under one overarching theme. You may also realize that there's a theme that you may not have any bullets for, but the post definitely calls for it. 

Lots of people recommend sticking to 3-4 larger sections, but it really depends on what type of post you're writing. If you're writing something that's long and comprehensive, you might need more. If it's a quick post, fewer sections would be ideal. But if you need a benchmark, 3-4 sections are fine. 

So if we're writing that post about generating leads on Twitter using images, we'd bucket my ideas into the following buckets:

1. Intro
2. Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
   • How they can generate a lead on Twitter
   • How often they should tweet images
3. How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
   • How long their tweet should be with the image in it
   • How to actually upload an image to Twitter
   • What sizes they need to make images
   • How they can create images on their own
   • Where they can find images to use legally 
   • What sets a good image apart from a bad one on Twitter
4. Measuring Your Strategy's Success
   • What results they should expect to get

4. Add more takeaways to some sections. 

At this point, you should have a pretty weird looking outline. Mine is. Some sections have lots of little bullet points, others have only a few, and others have nothing. 

Now's the time to fill in the holes. What did you miss in your initial brainstorm? Thinking about what's missing is always hard, but it will help improve your final post significantly. 

Don't forget to beef up your intro here, too. Have a great point you think would set the stage for the article? Add a little reminder below that section so you don't forget it. 

Below shows how my outline's evolved. I italicized all the things I added, and the outline is becoming closer and closer to being a post:

1. Intro
   • Images work really well on Twitter (find study)
2. Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
   • How they can generate a lead on Twitter
   • How often they should tweet images
3. How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
   • How long their tweet should be with the image in it
   • How to actually upload an image to Twitter
   • What sizes they need to make images
   • How they can create images on their own
   • Where they can find images to use legally 
   • What sets a good image apart from a bad one on Twitter
   • Should you tag people in images
   • Should you use photo collages
   • What colors you should use to stand out
4. Measuring Your Strategy's Success
   • What results they should expect to get
   • Which metrics to look at
   • How to find them in your analytics
   • How to adjust the above to get better results

Essentially, you're re-doing the second step, but in a more controlled, organized manner.

5. Revise, remove, and reorganize details in each section.

Now comes the fun part: editing your outline. You've already done the hard part of actually thinking of your ideas. Now, you're tightening up your outline to include only the most relevant information, revising the sub-bullets to actually make sense, and reorganizing the sub-bullets to tell the most logical story.

First, let me show you what I'd cut -- shown in bold. 

1. Intro
   • Images work really well on Twitter (find study)
2. Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
   • How to generate a lead on Twitter
   • How often they should tweet images
3. How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
   • How long their tweet should be with the image in it
   • How to actually upload an image to Twitter (This is a pretty basic step that someone would already know if they're reading this post.)
   • What sizes they need to make images
   • How they can create images on their own
   • Where they can find images to use legally 
   • What sets a good image apart from a bad one on Twitter
   • Should you tag people in images
   • Should you use photo collages
   • What colors you should use to stand out (Don't believe there's hard data on this, just speculation. Let's cut it.)
4. Measuring Your Strategy's Success
   • What results they should expect to get (The study in the first part should cover this bullet point.)
   • Which metrics to look at
   • How to find them in your analytics
   • How to adjust the above to get better results

I cut things usually because the sub-bullet didn't add value to the post or the reader would already know it. That's a pretty good benchmark to remember if you're not sure whether to cut something. 

Next, we'll reorganize the remainder of the sub-bullets and rework them to sound like actual takeaways. We'll also turn some of the sub-bullets into sub-sub-bullets. Here's what this outline looks like now:

1. Intro
   • Images tend to work really well on Twitter (find study)
2. Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
   • How to generate a lead on Twitter
   • How lead generation fits in with the rest of your Twitter strategy
3. How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
   • How to choose the right image
     • Creating it on your own 
     • Finding images to use legally
   • Optimizing the image for Twitter
     • Sizing images for Twitter
     • Tagging people in images
     • Using Photo Collages
   • Optimizing the rest of your tweet
     • How long the tweet should be with the image in
4. Measuring Your Strategy's Success
   
   • Which metrics to look at
   • How to find them in your analytics
   • How to adjust your strategy to get better results

Ta-da! A much more comprehensive outline that makes your post easy to write.

6. Include links to your examples and/or data.

This is purely a time-saving trick. After you've fully fleshed out and then trimmed your outline, you should look for examples and data to support these claims. Once you find a source to support your arguments, just add them as a note underneath the section -- that way, when you go to write it, it's all organized for you.  

7. If any details come to you that you don't want to forget, add them in. 

Last, but certainly not least, spruce up the outline with anything you don't want to forget while writing. Maybe you're writing the post right away -- or maybe you won't have time to actually start for a few more days. Regardless, having these details in your outline will make sure you're not missing a thing. I do this often if I think of a terrible pun or pop culture reference while outlining ... and trust me, that's something I definitely wouldn't want to forget. ;)

Here's my final outline: 

Blog Post Outline Example

1. Intro
   • Images tend to work really well on Twitter
2. Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
   • How to generate a lead on Twitter
   • How lead generation fits in with the rest of your Twitter strategy
     • Reference Anchorman line: "Come and see how good I look."
3. How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
   • How to choose the right image
     • Creating it on your own 
     • Finding images to use legally
   • Optimizing the image for Twitter
     • Sizing images for Twitter
     • Tagging people in images
     • Using Photo Collages
   • Optimizing the rest of your tweet
     • How long the tweet should be with the image in
4. Measuring Your Strategy's Success
   • Which metrics to look at
   • How to find them in your analytics
   • How to adjust your strategy to get better results

And that's it! Feel free to take that methodology and apply it to other types of posts. Once you have a solid outline, writing the actual post should be a breeze. It's even easier if you work from a template. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Write a Blog Post Outline: A Simple Formula to Follow was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

7 Tips for Running Engaging Instagram Giveaways (+Tools to Get You Started)

With 80% of Instagram users following at least one business, it makes sense you want to increase your own visibility and reach on the platform -- but with such immense competition, it can be a difficult task to accomplish.

Fortunately, there are a few specific Instagram marketing strategies you can implement that have proven effective. For instance, you might optimize your posting times to ensure maximum engagement, partner with an influencer to spread awareness, or designate a content creator to craft more compelling content.

Additionally, to delight your current followers and attract new visitors to your page, you might consider hosting an Instagram giveaway.

Simply put, an Instagram giveaway allows you to offer something for free in exchange for an Instagram like, comment, or other pre-determined requirement.

For instance, take a look at this giveaway from Fabletics:

Image Source

There are a few reasons why this giveaway works -- first, Fabletics partnered with Blissworld, which enables both businesses to reach the other brand's audience. Second, Fabletics asked viewers to "tag your bestie" and follow both brands. This doubles the reach they might've had if they'd only asked one follower to comment.

When done correctly, giveaways can help you establish your brand on Instagram, cultivate a loyal following, and share your impressive products or services with a larger audience than you could organically.

Here, we've created a complete guide on how to run your own giveaway, to ensure you're able to delight and engage both new and existing followers on Instagram.

1. Choose the prize for your giveaway.

The first thing you'll want to do is decide on the product, service, or experience you'll giveaway as your prize. This will vary depending on your goal -- if you want to spread awareness around a product launch, for instance, you'll likely want to giveaway that specific product as your prize.

Alternatively, perhaps you want to partner with a brand and create a unique prize that will appeal to each of your audiences.

Lastly, you might try offering an experience instead of a specific product or service -- like a weekend trip, a spa day, or the chance to meet a leader in your industry.

2. Determine the entry-criteria for your contest.

Your entry-criteria depends, again, on your ultimate goal. For instance, if you simply want to spread brand awareness, you might ask each participant to like your post and comment with the name of a friend -- this allows you to increase your reach quickly, and could result in new followers.

Alternatively, maybe you want to draw attention to your blog, or another page on your website. If this is the case, you might ask participants to go to your blog or web page to find entry-criteria there -- such as a question you then want them to answer in your Instagram comments section.

Lastly, perhaps you've partnered with a brand and, in exchange for one of their products as a prize, they've asked you to include a request to follow their brand as part of your entry-criteria.

3. Decide on a goal for your Instagram contest.

By determining a specific goal, you're able to tailor your strategy more specifically and keep track of whether or not your giveaway was successful.

Your goal might be an increase in website traffic, more followers, an increase in engagement, or a boost in sales -- it's to you to choose what makes the most sense for your brand.

4. Consider a brand partnership.

To explore the benefits of brand partnerships for Instagram giveaways, I spoke with Conor Janda, an Associate Manager of Marketing Partnerships at Chomps. He told me, "A giveaway is a nice way to align with peer brands and partners, and drive traffic to your account."

Janda also mentioned giveaways are particularly successful when new brands partner together. "For instance, a brand might post a recipe, and then mention specific brands in the ingredients section," he told me. "A successful giveaway is typically when a brand partners with a content creator or influencer to make something specific, and then they push that prize out through both of their channels."

Ultimately, a giveaway could allow you to reach a similar brand's followers, and vice-versa -- a win, win.

5. Select a campaign hashtag.

On Instagram, hashtags help your content surface on Explore channels, and oftentimes increase visibility on the platform. Consider creating a compelling and unique campaign hashtag to help spread awareness of your giveaway. For instance, along with #giveaway, you might include #winitwednesday #[yourbrand]giveaway #[yourbrand]contest, or something of similar nature.

6. Put a time-limit on your contest.

Tell your participants how long they have to complete your requirements by putting a time limit in your caption, and then adding "Giveaway Closed" at the end of that time. For instance, you might put, "Giveaway! Over the next 24 hours, please tag a friend in the comments and include your favorite place to travel for a chance to stay overnight at one of our resorts."

The time-limit will ideally create a sense of urgency, and incentivize followers to engage with your post more quickly -- which will also help your giveaway stay at the top of your followers' Instagram feeds.

7. Launch and promote your Instagram contest.

Once you've chosen your prize, entry-criteria, potential partners, hashtag, time-limit, and goal, you're finally ready to launch and promote your post! Remember, Instagram users favor posts during a certain time in the day, so you'll want to plan wisely.

Additionally, you'll likely attract further attention to your giveaway if you also post giveaway details on a blog post, Facebook page, or another social channel. Consider where else you can promote your giveaway for optimal results.

Instagram Giveaway Rules

Instagram's rules are relatively simple when it comes to giveaways.

First and foremost, it's critical you include a statement like the following, so viewers know your promotion is not tied to Instagram:

"Per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram's terms of use."

Additionally, you'll want to ensure you don't ask participants to tag themselves in your content, or tag something that isn't in the photo -- Instagram will penalize you for this.

Take a look at Instagram's promotion guidelines for a full list of rules and regulations.

Instagram Giveaway Ideas

Once you're ready to post your giveaway, there are a few different action items you might ask your participants to accomplish in exchange for the chance to win.

Here's a list of some of the more common giveaway ideas:

1. Like to win: Have followers like your post for a chance to win a free product or service. This helps you boost engagement.
2. Tag a friend to win: Have followers tag one of their friends in the comments section for a chance to win. This allows your brand to reach new potential leads on Instagram and grow your audience.
3. Like and share to win: You might ask followers to like your giveaway and repost it on their own channels for the chance to greatly expand your brand's reach -- if ten followers with 100 followers each re-post, that's a chance to reach 1,000 new people.
4. Follow to win: Ask followers to follow your brand, or a partner (or both) for the chance to win. This is a popular tactic since it's an easy way to increase your follower count.
5. Photo contest: Ask participants to upload a photo of themselves using your product or service. This is another easy opportunity to spread brand awareness, since your participants' posts will be seen by their own network of followers and friends. You should ask participants to include your brand's hashtag, or tag your brand, for optimal visibility.
6. Caption this: Some brands post images and leave the caption section blank with a "Caption this for a chance to win" command. Your participants will enjoy the chance to offer creative captions for your image, and you'll be able to add the caption to your post with credit to the winner once your giveaway ends.

Instagram Giveaway Picker Tools

Once you've closed your giveaway contest, it's time to pick a winner -- but how can you do that and ensure fairness?

There are a few tools you can use to truly randomize your winner. Here are a few options:

1. Use a free number generator.

While admittedly tedious, particularly if you have hundreds of entries, you might consider counting the total number of participants who engaged with your giveaway, and then using a number generator to select your winner.

For instance, let's say you count 500 participants in your comments section. Go to Google and type "random number generator" into the search box, and Google's number generator will appear as a box in the search results (you can also use another number generator tool, if you want).

Your minimum should stay 1, and your maximum should be the total number of participants. When you click "Generate", the tool will provide a random number. Now, simply go back to your comments section and count until you land on the username that matches that number.

2. Use Easypromos' Instagram Sweepstakes App.

You might consider using a tool like Easypromos' Instagram Sweepstakes App to organize your giveaway, which can help you ensure fairness and efficiency when choosing a winner.

With Easypromos' app, you can filter finalists based on number of mentioned friends. Once you've closed your giveaway, the tool can randomly select between one and 1,000 winners, and alternate winners automatically. The tool provides a test run that you can try before the final draw.

Best of all, Easypromos' offers a link to a certificate of validity that guarantees the draw has been random, ensuring a level of transparency and honesty between you and your participants. You can customize the certificate for your brand.

3. Use a random name picker.

This last option is likely the most tedious, but if your giveaway participant pool is relatively small, you could consider using a random name picker to choose your winner by username instead of number. Particularly if you've already compiled your list of names into a spreadsheet, this could be a good option for you.

To use a random name picker, go to a website like Miniwebtool.com and input all usernames, each on a separate line, into the text box. Then click the "Pick a name" button.

1. Wishpond

Wishpond is a great tool that can help you organize and track your Instagram giveaways.

With Wishpond, you can run an Instagram hashtag giveaway and view all the entrants on your dashboard. You can even add a voting capability for users to vote on the best entry.

The goal of this type of tool is to help you take your giveaway and promotions to the next level. If you want to run regular contests on Instagram, it might make sense to invest in a platform like this.

2. Easypromos

Similar to Wishpond, Easypromos makes running an Instagram giveaway or contest a seamless process.

This tool will help you track comments on one or several posts. It will help you determine if people tagged the right amount of friends in the comments section and help you randomly choose the winner.

The basic plan is affordable, with no-frills added. This is a great option if you want to run simple giveaways without adding on landing pages or marketing automation.

Alternatively, if you are running enterprise level giveaways, there are other paid options that will include the features you need.

3. Woobox

With Woobox, you can easily create and run successful contests, giveaways, polls, coupons, forms, and more.

You can download your Instagram comments and pick one or several random winners. Additionally, this tool allows you to easily collect winner contact info and export Instagram comments.

If you're looking to use an affordable tool, this is an excellent option. There is a free plan for smaller giveaways, but also an enterprise level power plan for larger contests.

Using a tool is a great way to organize and track your giveaways. Now, let's see what a giveaway looks like in action.

Instagram Giveaway Examples

1. Domino's

One of the more impressive giveaways in this list, Domino's offered the chance to win $10,000 for any participant who followed @Dominos, posted a picture to prove they're a superfan, and used the hashtag #PieceofthePieContest.

With simple, clear instructions, I'm willing to bet this was a successful giveaway as followers quickly spread the word about their love for Dominos -- and likely incentivized followers to order a pizza from the brand.

2. Ali Fedotowsky

Ali Fedotowsky, a lifestyle and fashion blogger and ex-Bachelorette, partnered with Sole Society to giveaway a pair of loafers and a purse. Since she's also well-known as an affordable fashion influencer, the partnership makes sense, and likely resulted in new followers for both Ali and Sole Society.

Additionally, Ali wisely instructed participants to check out her blog for the final requirement, likely resulting in an up-tick in traffic.

3. Cakesmiths

Cakesmiths does a giveaway every Friday and uses the same hashtag, #FridayFavourite, to evoke loyalty and engagement from their Instagram followers. Cakesmiths is proof you don't need any outrageous prizes for a giveaway -- sometimes, a simple treat will do.

4. Dig Local Asheville

Dig Local Asheville partnered with @findyourspiritfest to inspire people to visit distilleries in the local Asheville, N.C. area. This is a good example of how you might use your giveaway to increase awareness and excitement regarding one of your company's upcoming events.

5. SojoS Vision

SojoS Vision cleverly asked participants to like six of their photos instead of just one, which likely helped them increase their Instagram engagement rates. Additionally, SojoS included 'Giveaway' text at the top of the image -- if your followers don't often stop to read captions, this is a smart way to draw more attention to your giveaway.

If you're interested in learning more about Instagram marketing, consider taking an online course, like HubSpot's Instagram Marketing Course.

Ultimately, running a social media giveaway should help you increase your brand recognition and attract more followers.

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

7 Tips for Running Engaging Instagram Giveaways (+Tools to Get You Started) was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Create an Editorial Calendar in Google Calendar [Free Templates]

One of the most frequent questions we get from aspiring and current inbound marketers is, "How do you manage all of that content?"

When we tell them we use an editorial calendar, the next question is often, "Oh, how much does that cost?"

Nothing. Because, for the most part, we use Google Calendar.

Surprised? 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, 2019. Each assignment will then appear as event blocks in your 2019 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. (Read this blog post for some great benchmark data on how often companies should blog.)

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 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.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar in Google Calendar [Free Templates] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Use Instagram: A Beginner's Guide

Over the past few years, Instagram has seen exponential growth -- from one million users in December 2010 to over one billion in 2020.

If you're interested in getting an Instagram account, or just created one but aren't sure how to use it, you're in luck. Here, we're going to cover all the basics, so you can see why Instagram is the top social media platform for engagement today.

It's hard to remember a time before Instagram. "Do it for the 'gram" has become a common saying, which means, essentially, "Do something so we can take a picture and post it to Instagram."

If you're not part of the one billion on Instagram, you might want to reconsider. The app is a great chance to stay apart of friends' lives -- when I want to see how my college friends are doing, I don't check Facebook, I check Instagram. Plus, you can follow your favorite celebrities or political figures to see candid photos of their everyday lives.

Additionally, it's a phenomenal platform for investigating what other brands are doing -- for instance, Nike uses the Instagram Stories' feature to promote inspirational athlete stories you won't find anywhere else.

If you're ready to sign up for Instagram, follow these steps below:

• Go to the Instagram site on your desktop, or download the Instagram app from the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play Store (Android).
• If you're on desktop, click "Log in with Facebook", or fill in the form with mobile number or email, name, username, and password. Then click "Sign up".
• On Android, click "Sign Up With Email or Phone Number".
• On iPhone, select "Create New Account".
• Enter your email address and phone number, then click "Next". Alternatively, you can also sign up with your Facebook account on the app.
• Once you've filled out your username and password, you will be instructed to fill out your profile info. Then, tap "Done".
• If you register with Facebook, you'll need to log into your Facebook account if you're currently logged out.

How Do Instagram Notifications Work?

When your account is created, you'll want to adjust your notifications so you only receive the information you want. For instance, you can choose to receive notifications when you get likes from everyone -- but, alternatively, you might decide to only receive notifications when you get a like from someone you follow. Or, you might turn off notifications for likes altogether.

You can adjust notifications to "Off", "From People I Follow", or "From Everyone", for the following categories -- Comments, Comment Likes, Likes and Comments on Photos of You, Follower Requests, Accepted Follow Requests, Friends on Instagram, Instagram Direct, Photos of You, Reminders, First Posts and Stories, Product Announcements, View Counts, Support Requests, Live Videos, Mentions in Bio, IGTV Video Updates, and Video Chats.

If you're overwhelmed by that list, I get it -- I am, too. If you're unsure what notifications you want to receive, you might start with your notifications on "From Everyone", and if certain notifications begin to annoy you, you can turn them off later.

To customize which notifications you receive, follow these steps:

1. Go to your personal account (which you'll find by pressing the person icon at the bottom right of your screen). Then, click the "Settings" icon (the circle icon beside "Edit Profile").

2. Scroll down to "Push Notification Settings".

3. Check off the notifications you want to receive.

And that's it! Next, let's explore how to connect your other social media accounts to your Instagram, so when you post an image to Instagram, you can share it with your other online audiences, as well.

Connect to Other Social Accounts

When you post an image to Instagram, you have the option to share it on other social media accounts, like your Facebook or Twitter.

To link your other social media accounts to your Instagram, follow these steps:

1. Go to "Settings" and click "Linked Accounts".

2. Select whichever social media channels you'd like to link to, and input the necessary information to incorporate the channel with your Instagram.

In the next section, "Upload, Edit, and Post an Image", I'll show you when a linked account comes in handy.

Upload, Edit, and Post an Image

Now, for the most important part of Instagram -- how to upload and post an image.

Instagram is an entirely visual platform. Unlike Facebook, which relies on both text and pictures, or Twitter, which relies on text alone, Instagram's sole purpose is to enable users to share images or videos with their audience.

On Facebook, you might choose to post 100 photos in an album. On Instagram, you need to be choosier about which photos you post. There are a few reasons for this -- first, you don't want to post more than once a day (typically). For the purpose of scarcity alone, you don't want to post too many similar photos. For instance, it would be odd for you to post ten photos from the same beach vacation on your Instagram. Instead, you might choose one or two.

Additionally, you want your overall profile aesthetic to look diverse.

To learn more about Instagram account themes and get inspiration, take a look at "12 Stunning Instagram Themes (& How to Borrow Them for Your Own Feed)".

Additionally, if you want to embark on a deep-dive, you can take HubSpot's Instagram Marketing Course.

Now that we've covered that, let's explore how to upload, edit, and post an image.

1. Click the "+" icon in the bottom center of your screen.

2. Here, you have three options. You can look through your Photos library on your phone, you can take a new picture from right within Instagram, or you can take a new video. For our purposes, I looked through my Photos library and found a picture of Boston I wanted to use. Then, I clicked "Next" in the top right.

3. There are two categories you can use to edit your image -- "Filter" and "Edit". Instagram automatically shows you filters first. You can scroll through the carousel and click any of the filters to apply it to your image. Additionally, if you want to use a filter but you want to tone it down, double tap the filter and move the cursor to the left to lessen the intensity of the filter.

4. Next, click "Edit". Here, you can adjust contrast, brightness, structure, warmth, and more. When you're happy with your edited image, or if you don't want to edit it at all, click "Next" in the top right.

5. Now, you can add a caption, tag people (you can only tag someone if they also have an Instagram account), and add a location. Additionally, click the button beside Facebook or another linked social media account to share your image on that platform, as well. When you're ready to publish, click "Share" in the top right.

Upload a Image or Video to Your Stories

In 2016, Instagram launched "Stories", a feature that allows you to post videos or images that disappear after 24-hours. Instagram's Stories feature is similar to Snapchat in terms of content -- users often post more casual and candid videos and images, offering glimpses into their every day lives.

For instance, you might post a heavily-edited picture of yourself and friends at a baseball game. But you might post a more candid video to your Story of the stadium singing "Sweet Caroline".

To learn how to upload an image or video to your Stories, follow these steps:

1. Click the camera icon in the top left.

2. Once you're within the Stories feature, you can take a picture or video right from within the app. Alternatively, if you have an image saved to your phone that you'd like to use, click the small square in the bottom left corner.

3. Click on a photo you'd like to use in your Stories.

4. In the top right, you have a few different editing features. The smiley face lets you add a location, hashtag, time, date, and other fun images or emojis to your picture. The pencil lets you handwrite or draw on your image. And the "Aa" icon is your text button. Once you click "Aa", you have the option to change your font by clicking "Classic" at the top.

5. If you click the smiley face icon, you'll see the following screen. Simply click on one of the icons to add them to your image. If you don't like it, drag it to the bottom, and a trash can will appear so you can delete it.

6. For instance, I clicked the smiley face icon to add a location and hashtag to my image. You can also swipe to the left or right to add filters to your photo or video. Once you're happy with your content, you can either click the "+ Your Story" icon in the bottom left, which allows you to share your Story with everyone who follows you, or select "Send To" to send the post to someone specific.

How to Follow on Instagram

It's incredibly easy to find and follow users. Using Instagram's search feature, you can find celebrities, brands, and friends. Additionally, you can search "Tags" or "Places". "Tags" is particularly useful if you know what type of content you want to find, but you're not sure who posts about it.

For instance, you might search "#familyrecipes" under tags -- your results will include any images with that hashtag. As you peruse, you might find someone who posts content you really like, and you can choose to follow them so their content appears on your feed.

To follow someone, follow these three easy steps.

1. Click on the search icon on the bottom of your screen (it looks like a magnifying glass).

2. Next, type in a person or brand. For this example, I began searching "mandym" (Mandy Moore) and found her as #1 in the search results. Alternatively, I could've clicked "Tags" or "Places" to search those categories.

3. Once you're on someone else's account, you'll see a blue "Follow" button at the top. For public profiles, you can click and immediately begin following that account. However, if the profile is private, you may need to wait for them to accept you first.

And that's it! You're on your way to becoming a pro. To take your account to the next level, plan out your next posts using an array of content ideas and templates.

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

How to Use Instagram: A Beginner's Guide was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Beginner’s Guide to Usability Testing [+ Sample Questions]

My favorite part of the writing process is when my editor reviews my work. By the time I’ve submitted the first draft of most of my blog posts, I’ve invested so much time and effort into my piece that I’m too emotionally attached to it. I need to distance myself from it.

My editor also has fresh editing eyes, so she can discover any overlooked errors and new creative opportunities to sharpen my piece. After I address her edits, my piece always looks more polished.

Asking other people to evaluate your work applies to almost every discipline, especially user experience and design. It's not smart to rely on yourself when evaluating your own product or website design. You're partial towards it, and that can skew your perception of reality. Learning directly from the people that your work is actually for -- your users -- is what enables you to craft the best user experience possible.

UX and design professionals leverage usability testing to get user feedback on their product or website’s user experience all the time. So we interviewed some of HubSpot’s Senior UX Researchers and Designers to teach you what exactly usability testing is, its benefits, and how to effectively conduct your own study.

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product or website’s user experience. By testing the usability of their product or website with a representative group of their users or customers, UX researchers can determine if their actual users can easily and intuitively use their product or website.

UX researchers will usually conduct usability studies on each iteration of their product from its early development to its release. This allows UX researchers to uncover any problems with their product's user experience, decide how to fix these problems, and ultimately determine if the product is usable enough.

Identifying and fixing these early issues saves the company both time and money: developers don’t have to overhaul the code of a poorly designed product that’s already built, and the product team is more likely to release it on schedule.

During a usability study, the moderator asks participants in their individual user session to complete a series of tasks while the rest of the team observes and takes notes. By watching their actual users navigate their product or website and listening to their praises and concerns about it, they can see when the participants can quickly and successfully complete tasks and where they’re enjoying the user experience, encountering problems, and experiencing confusion.

After conducting their study, they’ll analyze the results and report any interesting insights to the project lead.

Benefits of Usability Testing

Usability testing has five major advantages over the other methods of examining a product's user experience, like a questionnaire:

• Usability testing provides an unbiased, accurate, and direct examination of your product or website’s user experience. By testing its usability on a sample of actual users who are detached from the amount of emotional investment your team has put into creating and designing the product or website, their feedback can resolve most of your team’s internal debates.
• Usability testing is convenient. To conduct your study, all you have to do is find a quiet room and bring in portable recording equipment. If you don’t have recording equipment, someone on your team can just take notes.
• Usability testing can tell you what your users do on your site or product and why they take these actions.
• Usability testing lets you address your product’s or website’s issues before you spend a ton of money creating something that ends up having a poor design.
• For your business, intuitive design boosts customer usage and their results, driving demand for your product.

Examples of What Usability Testing Can Do

Usability testing sounds great in theory, but what value does it provide in practice? Here's what it can do to actually make a difference for your product (with examples):

1. Identify points of friction in the usability of your product.

As Brian Halligan said at INBOUND 2019, "Dollars flow where friction is low." This just as true in UX as it is in sales or customer service. The more friction your product has, the more reason your users will have to find something that's easier to use.

Usability testing can uncover points of friction from customer feedback.

For example: "My process begins in Google Drive. I keep switching between windows and making multiple clicks just to copy and paste from Drive into this interface."

Even though the product team may have had that task in mind when they created the tool, seeing it in action and hearing the user's frustration uncovered a use case that the tool didn't compensate for. It might lead the team to solve for this problem by creating an easy import feature or way to access Drive within the interface to reduce the number of clicks the user needs to make to accomplish their task.

2. Stress test across many environments and use cases.

Our products don't exist in a vacuum, and sometimes development environments are unable to compensate for all the variables. Getting the product out and tested by users can uncover bugs that you may not have noticed while testing internally.

For example: "The check boxes disappear when I click on them."

Let's say that the team investigates why this might be, and they discover that the user is on a browser that's not commonly used (or a browser version that's outdated).

If the developers only tested across the browsers used in-house, they may have missed this bug, and it could have resulted in customer frustration.

3. Provide diverse perspectives from your user base.

While individuals in our customer bases have a lot in common (in particular, the things that led them to need and use our products), each individual is unique and brings a different perspective to the table. These perspectives are invaluable in uncovering issues that may not have occurred to your team.

For example: "I can't find where I'm supposed to click."

Upon further investigation, it's possible that this feedback came from a user who is color blind, leading your team to realize that the color choices did not create enough contrast for this user to navigate properly.

Insights from diverse perspectives can lead to design, architectural, copy, and accessibility improvements.

4. Give you clear insights into your product's strengths and weaknesses.

You likely have competitors in your industry whose products are better than yours in some areas and worse than yours in others. These variations in the market lead to competitive differences and opportunities. User feedback can help you close the gap on critical issues and identify what positioning is working.

For example: "This interface is so much easier to use and more attractive than [competitor product]. I just wish that I could also do [task] with it."

Two scenarios are possible based on that feedback:

1. Your product can already accomplish the task the user wants. You just have to make it clear that the feature exists by improving copy or navigation.
2. You have a really good opportunity to incorporate such a feature in future iterations of the product.

5. Inspire you with potential future additions or enhancements.

Speaking of future iterations, that comes to the next example of how usability testing can make a difference for your product: The feedback that you gather can inspire future improvements to your tool.

It's not just about rooting out issues but also envisioning where you can go next that will make the most difference for your customers. And who best to ask but your prospective and current customers themselves?

The 9 Phases of a Usability Study

1. Decide which part of your product or website you want to test.

Do you have any pressing questions about how your users will interact with certain parts of your design, like a particular interaction or workflow? Or are you wondering what users will do first when they land on your product page? Gather your thoughts about your product or website’s pros, cons, and areas of improvement, so you can create a solid hypothesis for your study.

2. Pick your study’s tasks.

Your participants' tasks should be your user’s most common goals when they interact with your product or website, like making a purchase.

3. Set a standard for success.

Once you know what to test and how to test it, make sure to set clear criteria to determine success for each task. For instance, when I was in a usability study for HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool, I had to add a blog post to a cluster and report exactly what I did. Setting a threshold of success and failure for each task lets you determine if your product's user experience is intuitive enough or not.

4. Write a study plan and script.

At the beginning of your script, you should include the purpose of the study, if you’ll be recording, some background on the product or website, questions to learn about the participants’ current knowledge of the product or website, and, finally, their tasks. To make your study consistent, unbiased, and scientific, moderators should follow the same script in each user session.

5. Delegate roles.

During your usability study, the moderator has to remain neutral, carefully guiding the participants through the tasks while strictly following the script. Whoever on your team is best at staying neutral, not giving into social pressure, and making participants feel comfortable while pushing them to complete the tasks should be your moderator

Note-taking during the study is also just as important. If there’s no recorded data, you can’t extract any insights that’ll prove or disprove your hypothesis. Your team’s most attentive listener should be your note-taker during the study.

6. Find your participants

Screening and recruiting the right participants is the hardest part of usability testing. Most usability experts suggest you should only test five participants during each study, but your participants should also closely resemble your actual user base. With such a small sample size, it’s hard to replicate your actual user base in your study.

To recruit the ideal participants for your study, create the most detailed and specific persona as you possibly can and incentivize them to participate with a gift card or another monetary reward.

Recruiting colleagues from other departments who would potentially use your product is also another option. But you don’t want any of your team members to know the participants because their personal relationship can create bias -- since they want to be nice to each other, the researcher might help a user complete a task or the user might not want to constructively criticize the researcher’s product design.

7. Conduct the study.

During the actual study, you should ask your participants to complete one task at a time, without your help or guidance. If the participant asks you how to do something, don’t say anything. You want to see how long it takes users to figure out your interface.

Asking participants to “think out loud” is also an effective tactic -- you’ll know what’s going through a user’s head when they interact with your product or website.

After they complete each task, ask for their feedback, like if they expected to see what they just saw, if they would’ve completed the task if it wasn’t a test, if they would recommend your product to a friend, and what they would change about it. This qualitative data can pinpoint more pros and cons of your design.

8. Analyze your data.

You’ll collect a ton of qualitative data after your study. Analyzing it will help you discover patterns of problems, gauge the severity of each usability issue, and provide design recommendations to the engineering team.

When you analyze your data, make sure to pay attention to both the users’ performance and their feelings about the product. It’s not unusual for a participant to quickly and successfully achieve your goal but still feel negatively about the product experience.

9. Report your findings.

After extracting insights from your data, report the main takeaways and lay out the next steps for improving your product or website’s design and the enhancements you expect to see during the next round of testing.

The 3 Most Common Types of Usability Tests

1. Hallway/Guerilla Usability Testing

This is where you set up your study somewhere with a lot of foot traffic. It allows you to ask randomly-selected people who have most likely never even heard of your product or website -- like passers-by -- to evaluate its user-experience.

2. Remote/Unmoderated Usability Testing

Remote/unmoderated usability testing has two main advantages: it uses third-party software to recruit target participants for your study, so you can spend less time recruiting and more time researching. It also allows your participants to interact with your interface by themselves and in their natural environment -- the software can record video and audio of your user completing tasks.

Letting participants interact with your design in their natural environment with no one breathing down their neck can give you more realistic, objective feedback. When you’re in the same room as your participants, it can prompt them to put more effort into completing your tasks since they don’t want to seem incompetent around an expert. Your perceived expertise can also lead to them to please you instead of being honest when you ask for their opinion, skewing your user experience's reactions and feedback.

3. Moderated Usability Testing

Moderated usability testing also has two main advantages: interacting with participants in person or through a video a call lets you ask them to elaborate on their comments if you don’t understand them, which is impossible to do in an unmoderated usability study. You’ll also be able to help your users understand the task and keep them on track if your instructions don’t initially register with them.

Usability Testing Script & Questions

Following one script or even a template of questions for every one of your usability studies wouldn't make any sense -- each study's subject matter is different. You'll need to tailor your questions to the things you want to learn, but most importantly, you'll need to know how to ask good questions.

1. When you [action], what's the first thing you do to [goal]?

Questions such as this one give insight into how users are inclined to interact with the tool and what their natural behavior is.

Julie Fischer, one of HubSpot's Senior UX researchers, gives this advice: "Don't ask leading questions that insert your own bias or opinion into the participants' mind. They'll end up doing what you want them to do instead of what they would do by themselves."

For example, "Find [x]" is a better than "Are you able to easily find [x]?" The latter inserts connotation that may affect how they use the product or answer the question.

2. How satisfied are you with the [attribute] of [feature]?

Avoid leading the participants by asking questions like "Is this feature too complicated?" Instead, gauge their satisfaction on a Likert scale that provides a number range from highly unsatisfied to highly satisfied. This will provide a less biased result than leading them to a negative answer they may not otherwise have had.

3. How do you use [feature]?

There may be multiple ways to achieve the same goal or utilize the same feature. This question will help uncover how users interact with a specific aspect of the product and what they find valuable.

4. What parts of [the product] do you use the most? Why?

This question is meant to help you understand the strengths of the product and what about it creates raving fans. This will indicate what you should absolutely keep and perhaps even lead to insights into what you can improve for other features.

5. What parts of [the product] do you use the least? Why?

This question is meant to uncover the weaknesses of the product or the friction in its use. That way, you can rectify any issues or plan future improvements to close the gap between user expectations and reality.

6. If you could change one thing about [feature] what would it be?

Because it's so similar to #5, you may get some of the same answers. However, you'd be surprised about the aspirational things that your users might say here.

7. What do you expect [action/feature] to do?

Here's another tip from Julie Fischer:

"When participants ask 'What will this do?' it's best to reply with the question 'What do you expect it do?' rather than telling them the answer."

Doing this can uncover user expectation as well as clarity issues with the copy.

Your Work Could Always Use a Fresh Perspective

Letting another person review and possibly criticize your work takes courage -- no one wants a bruised ego. But most of the time, when you allow people to constructively criticize or even rip apart your article or product design, especially when your work is intended to help these people, your final result will be better than you could've ever imagined.

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

The Beginner’s Guide to Usability Testing [+ Sample Questions] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Implement & Succeed With Marketing Automation

Emails. Social media posts. PPC campaigns. Wait — another email. Don’t miss that new lead that just downloaded your online course!

The life of a marketer or business owner is busy. Your brain is constantly swirling with ideas, which doesn’t help you get to the bottom of your never-ending task list. Believe me — as both a marketer and business owner, I know how this feels.

In the past 20 or so years, new tools and technology have helped simplify some of these tasks … but this increase has also served to heighten customers’ expectations: Oh, our audience is expecting abandoned cart emails now? Okay, let me add that to the list…

One technology improvement has made marketers’ lives abundantly easier, however — marketing automation. This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of marketing automation, including:

Let’s dive in.

If you’ve ever done some midnight shopping (ahem, like me) and immediately received a confirmation email, you’ve been met with marketing automation. You didn’t think there was a poor guy sitting behind his computer at 1:00 AM waiting for new purchases to come through, did you?

No, that online store likely has some pre-written and scheduled email automations ready to go out when their customers complete certain tasks on their website. We’ll talk more about email marketing automation below.

Other marketing automations include social media, advertising, and SMS marketing automation, as well as internal automations that help you manage and triage marketing tasks.

Marketing automation can help you capture and nurture more (and more qualified) leads. Learn more about how to do this in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Nearly 70% of marketing leaders are currently using a marketing platform. Of those who are automating marketing, 23% are automating their content delivery.

Marketing automations can certainly make life easier, but it shouldn’t replace human touch. As I said in the introduction, a recent increase in technology has been met with increased or changed consumer expectations. Marketing automation is no exception — consumers appreciate the timeliness and thoughtfulness of automation, but they also can also read between the lines of bot-written copy or stale imagery.

Marketing automation should complement your current marketing efforts, not replace them.

What is marketing automation primarily used for?

Marketing automation is primarily used to mechanize and automate otherwise manual marketing tasks like sending emails, posting social media messages, collecting information, and managing internal tasks.

Benefits of Marketing Automation

There are countless benefits of marketing automation. A few I’d like to highlight include:

• Efficiency: Wasted time is a marketer’s nightmare. Marketing automation can help you complete repeatable tasks in an efficient and effective manner.
• Nurtured leads: It takes a lot of time and energy to effectively nurture every individual lead; however, it’s too important not to. Marketing automation allows you to nurture your leads on a mass scale while still personalizing each lead’s experience with your brand. 70% of the companies report that the most important benefit of automation technology is better-targeted customer communication.
• Increased revenue: The more you nurture your leads, the more leads that’ll likely convert to users. Marketing automation can result in increased revenue as more leads become paying customers.
• Better reporting: Marketing automation streamlines important marketing tasks and allows you to review and analyze your activity and its results.

Types of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation can take many forms. Let’s unpack the different types of automation and how you can use them in your marketing.

Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is perhaps the most common use case for automation. From welcome emails to post-purchase emails and re-engagement emails, there’s a lot that goes into email marketing. Without email marketing automations and workflows, email would be an otherwise very manual process.

Email automation is typically triggered by time or action. Time-based emails are sent on certain occasions, such as a customer’s birthday (don’t you love those free birthday drinks from Starbucks?) or a holiday (Black Friday discounts, anyone?).

Action-based emails are a bit more involved. These automated emails are triggered by actions taken by a website visitor, lead, or customer who then receives an email or series of emails related to that particular action.

Let’s return to my midnight shopping example. Instead of completing my purchase and receiving the subsequent confirmation email, let’s say I exit the site with items still in my cart—and within 30 minutes, I receive an email reminding me about the forgotten items. This is called an “abandoned cart” email, and many online stores deploy them in hopes that shoppers return and complete their purchases. This is an example of an action-based email marketing automation.

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Email automation campaigns are among the top three tactics used by email marketers to improve performance, and email marketing automation has many benefits. The best one (in my opinion) is how it saves precious time and energy by otherwise priceless tasks. Automated emails can help you generate leads and increase revenue, but that doesn’t mean your marketing team has to spend all their time sending and monitoring them. That’s what marketing automation is for.

Learn everything you need to know about email marketing in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Digital Marketing Automation

Although email marketing is a common use case for marketing automation, it’s not the only one. Let’s talk about other forms of digital marketing automation (both external and internal).

Social Media Marketing Automation

Anyone who works in marketing knows how time-intensive social media marketing can be. If you’re going to do it right, you’ve got to do, well, nonstop. Thankfully, marketing automation can help. Tools like HubSpot and Hootsuite allow you to schedule content, set social media monitoring filters, and even automate the response process — although this should never replace genuine, human interaction with your followers and customers.

Advertising Automation

You’ve heard of retargeting, yes? Now … could you imagine having to go into every advertising platform and change the copy, graphics, and timing based on each customer’s individual actions or behavior? Whew, that’d be a lot. Retargeting is an example of advertising automation, as it automatically shifts and smartens its strategy in response to consumer behavior. If a customer visits your website, your retargeting automation will respond by displaying relevant ads on the sites they browse next.

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Mobile Marketing Automation

As SMS marketing becomes more popular and effective, companies are adding mobile marketing to their marketing automation tool belts. Like emails, text messages can also be automated and triggered based on time or actions, and they tend to have a higher (and faster) open rate than emails.

CRM with Marketing Automation

Ah, the CRM—a marketer’s best friend. Thankfully, your CRM and marketing automation can go hand-in-hand. A simple update in your database can trigger a whole host of internal tasks, including lead scoring and alerting your sales team to new prospects. You can also use your CRM to trigger email workflows, either based on user data or user actions.

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Marketing Automation Software

As a marketer, your marketing technology stack may or may not be your best friend … I know mine sure is.

Do you have a favorite tool or two? Let me guess — a marketing automation software (if you’re currently using one) just crossed your mind.

I don’t blame you. These tools sure make our lives easier and our customers happier. If you’re looking for new tools to add to your list, or you’re wanting to check out marketing automation for the first time, take a look at the marketing automation software tools we’ve compiled in this article. Here are a handful of of my favorites:

HubSpot

The HubSpot CRM, as mentioned above, provides many marketing automation features. As a standalone tool, HubSpot’s marketing automation allows you to automate a variety of tasks, from setting up simple email workflows to building a complex network of rules to target users with tailored emails, live chats, and more.

Drip

Drip specializes in e-commerce marketing automation. It’s mostly used for email marketing and provides email automation workflows, multi-channel marketing, full campaigns, and more.

ManyChat

ManyChat allows you to extend your marketing automation strategy beyond email. Use this tool to build a smart bot to engage with prospects and customers on Facebook Messenger and over SMS. While your marketing automation shouldn’t replace a human touch, ManyChat can help you get the conversation started with prospects — it also captures information from prospects and adds it to your CRM.

Sprout Social

I had to include at least one social media marketing automation tool on this shortlist. Sprout Social can help lighten the load of manual social media tasks — responding to messages, tracking engagement, and measuring audience sentiment. Moreover, Sprout Social provides easy onboarding documentation and resources so you can hit the ground running.

Marketing Automation Strategy

Your marketing automation strategy should vary depending on what tools you use and what goals you set. For example, if you choose to use HubSpot to nurture leads that download a free ebook, your strategy would focus on converting those leads using information relevant to why they perhaps downloaded the ebook—and how your product or service could help meet those needs.

Regardless of your marketing automation strategy, however, make note of these few marketing automation best practices:

• Know your audience. You can’t create personalized marketing — whether automated or not — without knowing what your audience’s pain points are and how you can meet them. Build your buyer personas to get to know your audience before building your marketing automation workflows.
• Know your customer journey. A key determinant of successful marketing automation is meeting your lead wherever they are. You can’t do this unless you know their journey to become your customer. Map out your customer journey and match your marketing automation to those lead stages.
• Review on a regular basis. Although marketing automation is pretty hands-off, it is not a one-and-one strategy. Review your marketing automation workflows on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Your automation should change as your business, products, and customers do.

Check out this blog post for more marketing automation tips.

Automate Your Marketing to Grow Better

Marketing automation may seem like a lot to learn upfront … but imagine what it’ll feel like to kick back and relax once you’ve got everything in place. OK, maybe not relax, but marketing automation will certainly help you shorten that to-do list.

From email marketing to advertising and retargeting to internal tasks, marketing automation can help you save time, energy, and money — and make your customers’ lives easier and happier. It truly is a marketer’s best friend.

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