The Ultimate Guide to Integrations and Why Your Business Needs Them

Have you ever found yourself working on a project in which you had to toggle between different software and applications? Perhaps you had to plug data from one system into another or rewrite the same content over and over again to ensure it was in multiple locations.

Although few people have the time or patience for this type of tedious work, it’s common and often critical to your business’s success — these mundane tasks need to get done.

What if there was a way to connect your software to the applications you use in a way that successfully brings them together? This would mean all of your information and data would live in a central location with no manual entry required, even if those applications don’t actually come with the software itself … sound nice?

Well, good news! This type of solution exists … it’s called an integration.

Integrations are a complex topic to understand. So, let’s simplify the concept with the help of an analogy we can reference throughout this guide.

Let’s pretend you want to plug your MacBook laptop into your TV using a connector cable so you can watch reruns of Friends on Netflix on the big screen. And integration kind of works like this — I’ll explain more as we go.

Back to our analogy: If your software is your laptop, you’ll use a connector cable, or integration, to then watch Friends on the TV, or application.

Now, let’s run through some commonly asked questions about integrations to help you get a better grasp on what they are, how they work, and why your company needs them.

Why use integrations?

Integrations solve and simplify your need for new software as your business grows and evolves. They allow you to keep the system you’re currently using by simply adding connections to third-party applications to enhance system functionality and provide additional features you may need but aren’t able to build within your software. You can keep your current laptop and TV, and simply use the connector cable to watch Friends on the big screen.

By leveraging integration connections across your systems, you can power your business to achieve a much wider range of tasks on your software as you enhance its functionality. This is especially helpful as your business expands since your needs are bound to change.

Although your software may have the functionality you need when you start your business, you’re likely going to want additional applications to provide the features you end up needing later on, as you grow.

There are many types of integrations, each of which has specific functions to help meet different needs. The easiest way to think about the various types of integrations is by category. Some integrations have several functions, meaning they could technically fit into many categories because they serve more than one main purpose. Other integrations have one specific function.

Who needs integrations?

Integrations are helpful tools for virtually every business, no matter the size or industry. There are integrations suited for every type of company (startups, SMBs, and enterprise companies) with any purpose (advertising, analytics, or content).

If you sell software, as we do at HubSpot, you’ll find yourself not only using connections for your internal software but also for your customers to use along with your software. This is because your software may not have every feature and function your customers need to run their business. So, by adding an integration, they’ll get that added feature or function while continuing to use your software.

Referring back to our analogy, without the integration, or connector cable, your laptop wouldn’t be able to communicate with your TV to allow you to watch Friends on the big screen. You need that integration, or cable, to allow for added functionality and watch the show on TV — without it, this wouldn’t be possible.

How do you get integrations?

Integrations are almost always located in some type of marketplace, where customers can review and browse all of their options. The HubSpot App Marketplace is an example of this. Our marketplace allows visitors to search and learn more about the various integrations and their functions, and then connect HubSpot to their integration of choice.

(No, you can’t go to Best Buy to pick up your integration as you would with your connector cable to watch Friends on your TV… you’re right, the example doesn’t quite work here.)

How do integrations work with APIs?

API stands for application programming interface. An API is an interface that software uses to receive information (whether that’s data, servers, applications, etc.).

All of the integrations we’re going to discuss below are built on APIs. By building integrations on APIs, you can connect your integrations to your software and use them in tandem with one another. The integration allows for the flow of information to and from apps and devices in real-time — APIs allow them to talk to one another.

Think about this in terms of our analogy from above: The application is the TV, the programming allows your laptop to communicate with the TV, and the interface is how you (the user) are able to interact with the application (by watching Friends on your TV). In this example, the API is the port on the side of your laptop in which you actually insert your integration (the cable) to then connect your laptop to your TV.

Integration vs. iPaaS Solution

If you’ve heard of integrations before, chances are you’ve also heard about iPaaS, or Integration Platform as a Service. The difference between the two is an important distinction to make when determining which one you need for your business. While an integration is a one-to-one, direct connection solution, an iPaaS solution is not.

Instead, iPaaS is a cloud-based platform that connects your applications and systems — whether that’s in the cloud or on-premise — between an organization and third-party software without the use of middleware.

So, if you look for an integration solution on your software’s marketplace and don’t find the connection you’re looking for, then you’d turn to an iPaaS solution to solve your need for that connection. There are a few integrations available today (called “connector integrations”, which we’ll look at an example of below) that can help you build custom integrations..

So, which integrations should you actually use? Let’s look at a list of some of the most popular integrations available.

Popular Integrations

The following integrations are categorized by business need to help you browse through your options. (Almost all of these integrations fit into multiple categories, as they have functions that allow them to do multiple things. Below, we placed them in the category they’re best suited for.)

It’s important to note these are just some of today’s popular integrations — there are hundreds of more integrations to learn about and choose from as your business grows.

The list we’ve compiled below is of integrations that connect with HubSpot. This isn’t to say these HubSpot integrations don’t also work with other software. In fact, most of these integrations are compatible with dozens of programs in addition to HubSpot.

Let’s take a look.

Advertising Integrations

Advertising integrations help you market to and reach your target audience. Data about the success of your ads and/ or the leads obtained from them is automatically added to your HubSpot CRM so you can learn more about the people who interact with your ads and nurture them into customers.

1. Facebook Ads

The Facebook Ads integration allows you to connect your Facebook Ads account to HubSpot. This integration gives you the ability to attribute your ads directly to the contacts who interact with them. It also allows you to review real data about which ads impact your bottom line. This simplifies the reporting process for all of your Facebook Ad efforts.

2. AdRoll

Different businesses and products have various buyer personas. The AdRoll integration gives you the opportunity to create personalized retargeting ads for different lead segments in your HubSpot contacts. You can personalize several parts of the ads, such as content and formatting, that will best relate to your prospect.

This allows you to focus on your audience’s attributes so you can effectively reach your prospects — you can gather intricate details about your prospects from your CRM via the integration so you’re able to successfully retarget them.

3. Instapage

If you’re not a developer, creating your website’s landing page might sound like an overwhelming task. The Instapage integration provides a straightforward option for anyone who wants to create and personalize their landing page and then send lead information straight to HubSpot. These details are automatically placed under the associated contact in HubSpot for you— meaning, there’s no need to perform this transfer manually.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Integrations

ABM stands for account-based marketing. ABM integrations help you leverage your account and audience data so you can tailor your messaging, CTAs, and marketing strategies to close deals and attract customers.

1. OrgChartHub

The OrgChartHub integration allows you to efficiently build customer organization charts without ever leaving HubSpot. You can create customer organization charts while in HubSpot so you’re able to easily identify unknown contacts, visualize key stakeholders, and customize your sales personas without manually sending any of this information back and forth.

2. CaliberMind

With the CaliberMind integration, you’ll be able to look at your cross-channel account engagement and create alerts for your reps about which deals they should focus on closing to meet quota. The integration takes your contacts directly from HubSpot and automatically matches them to their associated accounts so you don’t have to.

3. Metadata

The Metadata integration provides account-based advertising services. You can automatically identify specific target accounts and contacts from HubSpot to create personalized advertisements at scale to help you close more deals and reach your target audience more effectively.

Analytics and Data Integrations

These integrations help you measure your success across a number of analytics platforms. You can look at your data in different ways and ensure all of this information is well-organized in HubSpot so your team can review it at any time. These integrations help you learn more about which of your efforts are working and which ones need to be modified.

1. Databox

With the increase of remote employees across businesses and the number of people who access their work while on-the-go, having the ability to review and manage your key performance indicators (KPIs) from anywhere can be quite helpful.

The Databox integration provides you with access to all of your analytics data in HubSpot from a wide variety of sources including Google Analytics, SEMRush, mobile, desktop, Facebook, and more.

2. Hotjar

In a world where many website visitors are uninterested in completing forms and providing their personal information, Hotjar is a great way to learn about who your visitors are and what they’re looking for on your site. The Hotjar integration gives you insight into who your website and mobile visitors are and what their needs consist of directly from HubSpot.

3. Klipfolio

The Klipfolio integration shows you your most important metrics in real-time and creates easy-to-read dashboards in HubSpot so you can track and analyze performance across all of your platforms from one location. This allows you to improve your data transparency and reach your targets faster.

Calling Integrations

Whether it’s a meeting with fellow employees or your prospective and current customers, calling integrations will make all phone and video call interactions simple. Your contact’s information and details about the call will be recorded in HubSpot for easy access. This also provides sales reps and support team members with the necessary background information to assist the prospect or customer appropriately.

1. UberConference

With UberConference, it takes just seconds to schedule your meetings with colleagues and prospective customers so you can focus on tasks that require more attention. The integration allows you to schedule meetings quickly and easily without ever having to leave your HubSpot portal.

2. Aircall

Phone calls remain one of the most effective ways to interact with your prospective and current customers. Whether it’s a sales or support call, the Aircall integration allows you to manage your call flows and attentively assist your leads and customers all within HubSpot so your contact’s information lives in one, central location.

3. CallRail

The CallRail integration is a call tracking and analytics system which allows you to customize segments and actions based on your specific calls with prospects and customers. All of your call and text data will automatically be added and organized in HubSpot under the associated contact so you don’t have to manually enter any data.

Connector Integrations

Connector integrations provide you with access to dozens of applications which sync to HubSpot to save you time and add functionality. Some connector integrations offer a wide range of applications and some have more specific types of applications. Additionally, some connector integrations can assist in creating a custom integration to suit your needs.

1. Automate.io

The Automate.io integration connects to HubSpot to give you access to over 80 applications. By syncing with these apps, you’ll be able to transfer data to them to create customized integrations so you can manage all of your data in a way that works for your business all within HubSpot.

2. Zapier

The Zapier integration allows you to automatically connect your software to over 1,000 applications. It links your apps to HubSpot for you in just a few clicks to save you time. There’s no coding required and your apps will be able to begin sharing data in an easy-to-read workflow format in your HubSpot portal.

3. PieSync

The PieSync integration provides real-time, two-way contact sync. This means every time you add a contact to HubSpot, it automatically syncs to an application (such as Google Contacts or Outlook), and vice versa — you don’t need to worry about any importing or exporting, expediting and simplifying your contact syncs.

Content Integrations

Content integrations help you create, design, and share custom content for your website. They also help you learn about who’s interacting with the content and how they’re interacting with it. That information is then synced to HubSpot so you can organize it and add it to specific contacts.

1. Beacon

If your website has a collection of blog posts, the Beacon integration might be a good option for you. The integration ensures your content looks professional and allows you to drive more leads by getting more value out of your existing content — it connects to HubSpot to automatically convert your blog posts into downloadable content such as eBooks.

2. briX

The briX integration connects to HubSpot so you can design and personalize web pages for your site. You don’t need a background in web design or coding to create beautiful pages — the drag-and-drop template and 100+ customizable features make it easy to organize your content in any way you choose. This integration is ideal for easily designing and personalizing web pages directly from HubSpot.

3. Belch.io

Customized landing pages, web pages, and emails provide a professional look and feel for your visitors, leads, and customers while interacting with your business online. The Belch.io integration connects to HubSpot so you can personalize and brand all of these things in just minutes.

It’s a great option for anyone without a background in coding or web development who wants to design and customize their site pages and emails to complement their brand all from HubSpot.

Customer Success Integrations

Customer success integrations connect to HubSpot to make your internal and external interactions with employees (cross-team) and customers straightforward. They simplify communication and help you share information and/or data when you need to.

1. Slack

The Slack integration is a digital workspace and communication tool that allows you to connect and talk with your team members. The integration is ideal for team collaboration and coordination from anywhere.

By connecting the integration to your software, you can use Slack’s and HubSpot’s features in either the application or the software so you don’t have to waste time toggling back and forth — the same information will be found in both locations in real-time.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk offers a ticketing system to keep track of customer inquiries and allows you to keep details about all of your customer interactions in one place. It helps you provide consistent customer experiences among your fellow employees and customers.

By connecting HubSpot to the Zendesk integration, you’ll be able to bring the work of your sales, marketing, and support teams together in a central location. It also allows these departments to communicate with each other while in HubSpot as well.

3. LiveChat

The LiveChat integration allows you to communicate with potential customers in real-time when they need assistance or guidance while on your website from HubSpot. Whether it’s a question about your product or the need for help in the checkout process, LiveChat allows you to walk them through the information they need to help you boost conversions and build strong relationships with prospects and customers.

Ecommerce Integrations

If you have an online store, ecommerce integrations are a great way to learn about what your customers and visitors are doing while they’re on your website. By connecting these integrations to HubSpot, you’ll know when your visitors are most frequently abandoning your site or their carts so you can create re-engagement content to regain their interest.

1. Shopify

The Shopify integration allows you to easily incorporate all of your ecommerce data and customer data within HubSpot. It automatically syncs customer, product, and deal information in HubSpot under the associated customer’s profile, so your entire team can view all of these details in one location. You can also create cart abandonment nurturing tactics, re-engagement ads for your website from HubSpot once you connect the integration to the software.

2. Typeform

The Typeform integration helps you create and design web and mobile forms for your leads. You can create contact forms, sign up forms, quizzes, and more, and all of your responses will automatically be sent directly to HubSpot so you can easily review your results and responses and compile them under the associated contact in HubSpot.

3. Magento

The Magento integration helps you create and send upsell, cross-sell, and reorder emails as well as develop abandoned cart nurturing tactics to boost your conversions. It automatically sends all of your customers’ ecommerce-related data, as well as emails between you and your customers, straight to their respective HubSpot contact record.

Email Integrations

Email integrations help you track a prospect’s interactions with sales reps, personalize your email automation with certain contacts, and measure the success of your email campaigns among your target audience — all from HubSpot.

1. MailChimp

The MailChimp integration allows you to sync HubSpot with your email service provider. You can build email campaigns and rest easy knowing the Intelligent Error Handling feature will continue engaging your contacts even if a syncing error occurs between the software and application.

By connecting MailChimp to HubSpot, you’ll have the ability to automatically add contacts from HubSpot into your application’s email lists and vice versa so you never have to do it manually.

2. Privy

Privy helps you make more sales and turn more prospects into delighted customers. The integration uses targeted pop-up ads, banners, bars, and more to help you boost conversions and decrease page abandonment. It also automatically syncs all of your new leads from your website to HubSpot so the software can help you nurture them and convert them into customers.

3. Front

The Front integration is a collaborative inbox, meaning all members of your team can see and access your contacts, review deals, and see all activity history while working in HubSpot. All of these details are automatically synced in Front and your CRM. This helps you improve your customer experience and ensure it remains consistent no matter which employees your customers work with.

Event and Webinar Integrations

Whether it’s an in-person event, a webinar, an online meeting, or a video conference, the following integrations simplify every aspect of hosting an event. They allow your contacts to book meetings with you and you can update all information related to your contacts post-event or meeting in HubSpot.

1. Eventbrite

Eventbrite helps you use inbound marketing tactics to attract more prospects and customers to your in-person events. Once connected to your software, the integration automatically takes data from your contact lists in HubSpot to help you uncover effective ways to connect with your target audience, face-to-face.

2. GoToWebinar

No matter the type of event you’re hosting, the GoToWebinar integration automatically syncs all of your registrant and participant information in HubSpot under the associated contact. You’ll never have to worry about manually importing data about your webinar contacts again — instead, you’ll have more time to focus on the event itself.

3. Setmore

The Setmore integration simplifies appointment scheduling for you. It automatically imports your booked appointments (and information about the customer who booked the appointment) to HubSpot under the correct contact’s profile so you don’t have to do it manually.

Lead Generation Integrations

Lead generation integrations help you transition early-stage leads into delighted customers. All of your leads’ information will automatically be synced to HubSpot so you can view it at any point during the buyer’s journey. This is helpful to learn more about your target audience and to manage customer information so your sales and support teams can refer to it if needed, all from one location.

1. WordPress

The WordPress integration helps you optimize and align your WordPress website with the data about your contacts and business goals you have in HubSpot. Your HubSpot account and all of your growth tools will automatically be connected to your WordPress site so you can work to attract, engage, and delight site visitors and customers on your site from either WordPress or HubSpot.

2. Unbounce

The Unbounce integration helps you with the lead capturing and nurturing processes. You can create lead generation forms and send all data collected about your leads directly to HubSpot. At any point in time, you can take this data about your leads and use it to create campaigns. You’ll also have the ability to export any data in just seconds from your Unbounce account and share it anywhere.

3. SurveyMonkey

With the SurveyMonkey integration, you can create and distribute custom surveys to your prospects and customers, collect all data obtained, and view your responses within HubSpot. This is ideal because you can then segment and organize all your contacts based on their survey responses to easily manage the type of content and/or follow up they receive.

Live Chat Integrations

By adding live chat integrations to your website, you’ll be able to communicate with prospects in real-time and nurture them into customers. You can answer their questions, respond to their concerns, and assist them in their purchase decisions. Then, this data is compiled into HubSpot under the specific contact it belongs to so you can follow up appropriately.

1. Intercom

The Intercom integration allows you to capture new leads and prospective customers with the help of live chat on your website. Intercom allows you to convert more leads by actively engaging with them at any time while they’re on your website once connected to HubSpot. You can then qualify your leads with custom bots, talk with them directly, and track them — then, all of this information is automatically organized under their contact in HubSpot.

2. ManyChat

Once connected to HubSpot, the ManyChat integration allows you to automate your messenger marketing so you can easily organize, nurture, and track your leads from the software. You can also take any HubSpot form and submit information obtained from it by sending custom field data to HubSpot Form Submissions.

3. Drift

The Drift integration provides live chat for your website so you can assist your leads in real-time form HubSpot. The integration allows you to watch and save all of the lead’s activity on your site in HubSpot under the correct contact. Additionally, your sales reps can use Drift to customize their outreach and follow-ups based on that activity to improve the chances of conversion.

Sales Integrations

Sales integrations help you bring your sales tools, tactics, and prospects’ information together using HubSpot. You’ll be able to keep your marketing, support, and sales details in a central location for all teams to access, analyze, and refer to as needed.

1. HelloSign

Once connected to HubSpot, you’ll automatically be notified of any action a prospect takes on any document you send them with the HelloSign integration. Examples of the actions you’ll be notified about include when a prospect or customer receives, opens, or signs the document.

Then, this activity data is sent to the contact it belongs to in HubSpot so reps know where the prospect or customer is in the buyer’s journey and how they should go about following up with them.

2. Salesforce

If you’re a Salesforce user, you can automatically sync all of your contacts’ information from the database into HubSpot once connected to the Salesforce integration. This allows you to work with reps to get strong lead intelligence and revenue reporting. You can mesh your marketing and sales work, content, and information so you and your team can access any information from either system at any point in time.

3. PandaDoc

When it comes to sales work, there are many tasks involved that don’t necessarily include the process of actually closing a deal. The PandaDoc integration automatically organizes and reviews information from HubSpot about your prospect to help you with non-selling tasks like creating and sending quotes, proposals, and contracts.

Social Media Integrations

Understanding your social media following is a huge part of successful marketing. Social media integrations help you learn about your followers, understand the type of content they interact with and share, and automate specific parts of your social media strategy.

1. Facebook

With the Facebook integration, you can automatically connect your business’s Facebook account to HubSpot. Schedule Facebook posts ahead of time analyze and measure post’s performance. This integration is ideal if you want to manage your Facebook marketing strategy alongside your other social media marketing strategies directly from HubSpot.

2. LinkedIn

By connecting your LinkedIn account to HubSpot through the LinkedIn integration, you can easily engage with your network and communicate with all of your contacts from HubSpot. You can also auto-publish your blogs and share specific content with your followers to nurture them into leads and customers. This integration is also great for tracking engagement along with all of your other social media channels and marketing efforts all from HubSpot’s social media tool.

3. Twitter

Schedule Tweets ahead of time, monitor Twitter streams, view Tweets and Twitter interactions of your competitors, and monitor accounts that are important to your brand from HubSpot with the Twitter integration. All information about your current and new followers will be added to your contact lists in HubSpot so everything is organized appropriately.

Video Integrations

With the rise of video and video marketing in business today, integrations that help you incorporate this media on your website have become quite useful. They allow you to create and implement videos on your site pages and forms as well as measure the success of your video marketing efforts.

1. Wistia

The Wistia integration provides you with the ability to integrate videos on your website, and then incorporate HubSpot forms with those videos to improve video engagement (and hopefully, conversion) rates. If any lead converts on a video, their information is automatically sent to HubSpot so you’ll have their video-viewing data paired with their contact details.

2. YouTube

The YouTube integration connects your YouTube channel to HubSpot. This way, you can easily report on your video and channel success and compare this data to that of your other social platforms using HubSpot’s analytics and social media tools and dashboards.

3. Promo

With the Promo integration, you can choose from over three million clips, templates, and music options to use to create a video for your site directly from HubSpot. You can easily throw in custom messaging, branding, or logos to personalize the video for your business based on a specific prospect’s needs and interests, found under their specific contact in HubSpot.

Get Integrated to Grow Better

Integrations have the power to enhance all aspects of your business. No matter the software you use to run your company, you can find integrations that can help simplify your processes, optimize your efforts, and empower your fellow employees. So, find the right integration marketplace for your software and begin connecting to the applications suited for your business needs.

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

The Ultimate Guide to Integrations and Why Your Business Needs Them was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Integrations: The Newest Addition to Your Marketing Ops

Marketing isn't just about campaigns, content, and creativity. There's a whole lot of "getting things done" that needs to happen behind the scenes for campaigns to roll out on time and performance to scale.

This is where marketing operations comes in — also called marketing ops or MOps, marketing operations is how a marketing team is run. It's the processes, technology, data, and people that power a marketing strategy.

Of these key pillars of marketing operations, data sounds like the most abstract one. But getting the data right in your marketing ops is crucial.

How do you do this? By cleaning, organizing, and enriching the data in every app as well as integrating data between your apps.

An increasingly important role for any team or Marketing Operation Manager is maintaining data quality and connectedness. This not only includes marketing apps but also bridges to other departments in the organization.

Let's dig into how to make this happen so you can scale the impact of your marketing ops.

What are integrations?

An integration brings different pieces of software together and enables their data to interact.

When done well, integrations enable your marketing team to:

• Create the most holistic marketing ops strategy across your software ecosystem.
• Allow data to seamlessly flow between key platforms and enrich each one.
• Automate more tasks and free up time.
• Provide stronger customer experiences with more accessible and insightful data.
• Remove data silos and other barriers to collaboration.
• Deliver accurate insights, reporting, and decision making.

As an example of a valuable integration, think of your CRM and email marketing app. A good email list is a marketer's most treasured possession, but for your email marketing to be successful, you need accurate and in-depth insights into each contact's interests, behavior, and communication preferences. You can solve this by integrating data from your CRM.

The integrations that matter most to your marketing operations depend on your organization and industry.

That said, there are certain integration best practices that businesses with strong marketing operations follow. Let's explore those.

1. Understand the ecosystem your marketing data lives in.

A strong marketing stack that your team loves using is a pivotal part of your marketing operations management.

This can include an all-in-one marketing platform or individual systems for:

• Content management
• Marketing automation
• Lead Generation
• Email marketing
• Analytics and reporting
• Project management
• Communication

One of the first steps to perfect your marketing ops is understanding the ecosystem your marketing data lives in. Some valuable questions to ask are:

• What data are we collecting in each app?
• How should data interact with other apps?
• How can we sync apps to enrich the data in each one?

With answers to these questions in mind, you can decide how best to integrate your apps and allow data to flow between them.

2. Ensure clean, up-to-date data in every app.

To get the best results from integrations, you need high-quality data in every app. Dirty data in one app is bad, but the negative impact is multiplied for every new app it enters.

To prevent this, clean up the data in every app before adding new integrations. This includes:

• Duplicate contacts
• Inaccurate contact data
• Unsubscribes
• Bounced email addresses

With clean data in every app, you can seamlessly integrate your marketing platforms and create the most streamlined and effective marketing ops.

3. Make your CRM the heart of your marketing ops.

There's a high chance your sales team is already using a CRM to store all of the key insights about your customers and their interactions with your business. That's because centralizing your data in your CRM is one of the best things you can do for strong contact management.

One way to test the strength of your CRM is by checking if anyone in your business can answer questions about a contact and their interactions with your business – whether in sales, support, marketing, or billing – just by glancing at their contact record.

To make this happen, you can use integrations to bring data from other apps into your CRM. The inverse is also valuable: syncing your CRM data with your marketing apps to enrich the data in those places.

Alongside syncing names and emails, you can choose which other information makes sense to have available in your other marketing apps. This could include:

• Lead status/stage
• Location
• Industry
• Customer Success Owner
• Business size
• Communication preferences

4. Use contact segmentation.

Segmenting your contacts using lists, tags, and properties is a fantastic way to deliver the most personalized customer experience. But it's also a key ingredient for effective integrations.

With an iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) solution like PieSync, you can create customized workflows and sync data based on specific conditions. That way, you maintain the segmentation of your database across tools. These specific conditions could be configured according to If-this-then-that rules. For instance:

• IF a contact's Lifecycle Stage is 'Lead'
• THEN sync the contact to your email marketing tool and add to the list 'List of leads'

If the contact stops being a customer, you can automatically reflect that in your email marketing app, remove the 'Customer' tag, and no longer send relevant communications.

To create powerful if-this-then-that rules, first segment data in individual apps, and then create connections across your ecosystem.

5. Create strong alignment with Sales via integrations.

Your marketing operations strategy isn't just about marketing. It's essential to look at the other teams in your organization and understand how to create the strongest alignment.

The most important bridge for marketers to maintain is with sales. By working collaboratively instead of in silos, marketers can deliver the perfect leads for sales and both teams can share what's working as well as opportunities.

To optimize your bridge with sales, you can integrate your marketing software with sales apps such as:

• Sales CRM
• Contact Management
• Live chat software
• Sales automation software
• Integrations between your marketing apps and customer support software

With your marketing and sales apps in sync, both teams are in the best position to exchange data, deliver unified reporting, and do their best work both independently and together.

6. Integrate customer data with your marketing apps.

Although marketing usually has the strongest alignment with sales, make sure not to forget about your service team.

If your data is siloed, you run the risk of the nightmare scenario of sending a promotion offer to a customer who subscribed a week ago at full price.

With integrated apps and data, you can keep your customers in mind for every marketing campaign and create personalizations based on the products, services, and upgrades that are most relevant to them.

You can align your Marketing and Service team with either:

• All-in-one CRM with service and support functionality

A good starting point is to make sure that all customer interactions and support requests are synced with your CRM. Marketers can then easily use this information to personalize campaigns and workflows.

Measure the Effectiveness of Your Integrations

You can measure the impact of integrations in your marketing operations strategy by asking if:

• Your data is accurate, enriched, and reliable in every app.
• You have a centralized contact database that quickly gives you a 360-degree view of each contact.
• Your marketing team is aligned with sales and can quickly collaborate.
• You have removed all data silos.
• You can personalize marketing campaigns for customers or exclude them from certain messaging.
• You have clear marketing reporting that brings together data from all channels and apps and highlights key areas for optimization.

As you optimize your marketing operations, remember to look at the holistic view of your marketing stack and the individual pieces of the puzzle. By paying attention to the two in tandem, you can understand where to connect the dots for the best overall outcomes in your marketing team and throughout your organization.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Integrations: The Newest Addition to Your Marketing Ops 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 Platforms and How They Can Benefit Your Business

Once upon a time, the typical business tool belt was sprinkled with digital tools: email marketing software here, website CMS there, and perhaps software for accounting and tracking sales.

In the last decade or so, software has become more intelligent, consumers have become more engaged and easier to learn from … and business owners have become overwhelmed. What was once a manageable tool belt has become an overflowing tool box akin to what you’d find in a construction worker’s pick-up truck.

According to a recent marketing technology study, the average marketer is using around 12 software tools a day — with some using over 30.

And this doesn’t even consider any sales, support, HR, or finance tools those businesses are using, too. Wow.

As versatile as technology can be, it doesn't necessarily doesn’t solve the challenge of how to manage, connect, and align all of these different tools. With the sheer amount of software and technology on the market today, is it even possible to return to that convenient tool belt our entrepreneurial forefathers once knew and loved?

Yes — with a platform. Platforms are the key to creating a centralized home base for all of your marketing technology and more.

We compiled this guide to teach you all about platforms, their various applications, and why your business should consider adopting one.

The concept of platforms isn’t new. In fact, platforms are practically as old as civilization itself — dating back to the marketplaces and bazaars of Ancient Rome. In more recent years, shopping malls and auction houses have taken over this brick-and-mortar representation.

Thanks to the rapid rise of technology, platforms have become mainly digital. Scott Brinker, HubSpot’s VP of Platform Ecosystem, defines this type of platform as “a hub, with spokes connecting other products to its center. The hub binds those disparate products together and orchestrates them in a common mission.”

A platform makes it possible to connect tools, teams, data, and processes under one digital roof — it creates that tool belt we discussed above. It’s the nucleus of all systems and allows you to connect all your favorite tools seamlessly using integrations.

Take a look at HubSpot’s Integrations and Applications Marketplace to see some of the integrations that work with your HubSpot software.

Keep reading to learn how platforms work and how they can benefit your business.

How Platforms Work

Traditional businesses follow a linear model of business, where they manufacture products or services and conduct transactions with other businesses or consumers. These businesses also own their inventory, and consumers access them to purchase their inventory.

Platform businesses, on the other hand, follow a circular model of business, where they enable and facilitate transactions between two parties without creating, manufacturing, or owning inventory. Consumers use platforms to purchase products or services from other platform users.

Platforms businesses have proven to be highly valuable — to consumers and investors alike. Did you know that six of the top 10 companies by market capitalization are platforms? That’s right: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, and Alibaba.

It’s clear that in today’s economy, who a company connects with is more important than the product or service they own and sell.

Like we said above, platforms enable interactions and transactions between interdependent groups. These direct interactions inherently create supply (from a seller, service provider, or producer) and demand (from a buyer, service seeker, or consumer) — benefiting both parties.

While traditional businesses create value by creating products or services, platforms create value by enabling these transactions.

Here’s what that transaction typically looks like:

A platform’s success is dependent on more than these transactions, though. Platforms must also attract consumers and producers, enable matches between these two groups, and provide the right technology to aid a transaction — all while maintaining rules and standards that protect both parties as well as the platform itself.

Here’s what the cycle of these four functions typically looks like:

Platform Benefits

The platform business model has revolutionized business and technology as we know it. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Platform business models grow faster and scale better.

Platforms that follow the platform business model can grow or scale rapidly because they don’t own the resources that create the value, i.e. the applications, content, service providers, or products. Their growth isn’t contingent upon resources or capital.

2. Platform business models build a reciprocal, self-sufficient community.

Platforms that follow this business model enjoy “two-sided network effects,” meaning that demand is created from the supply of both buyers and sellers, providers and users, or creators and consumers.

This equates to fewer advertising dollars (to attract either buyers or sellers) and stronger word-of-mouth marketing. It also creates a “win-win” situation that allows both the platform business and service providers or sellers to profit from users.

3. Platforms solve for connection and efficiency issues.

As marketers (or salespeople or support representatives), we tap into dozens of tools each day. In fact, as of 2018 there are over 7,000 marketing technology vendors globally. Platforms create a centralized location for the tools and applications we use to grow our businesses, reach our customers, and collaborate with our teams.

Time and energy are two things that businesses don’t have to spare. Platforms that follow the platform business model become a one-stop-shop for user’s day-to-day processes.

We’ve defined a platform, and we’ve talked about how platforms have important business ramifications. Next, we’ll cover some real-life platform business model examples, their impact, and how they’ve become successful.

Platform Business Model Examples

How do platforms play out in everyday life? Surprisingly, you’re regularly using more platforms than you realize. Let’s dive into some platform business model examples that will help round out your understanding of the topic.

Airbnb

When planning a vacation and deciding where to stay, the first thing I do is hop on my Airbnb app. I could visit a website like Hotels.com or Google to search for places to stay (which are both platforms, too), but I always choose Airbnb. Why? Not only does it allow me to “live like a local” wherever I’m visiting, but it’s relatively affordable and provides me with a wide variety of lodging.

Airbnb has revolutionized the hospitality and lodging industry. For a company that owns no property, it has beat out some of the most popular hotel chains.

Airbnb has also become successful because of its suppliers — normal people like you and me. Airbnb buyers (guests) attract Airbnb suppliers (property owners), therefore fostering a reciprocal ecosystem that benefits both Airbnb and its users alike.

Uber

Similar to the way Airbnb doesn't own any properties, Uber doesn’t own any cars … yet it’s given the taxi industry a run for its money. Sure, it’s almost always cheaper, but it also provides a much more modern and arguably safer experience. Riders can pay digitally, split the fare with other riders, and track their ride all the way to the destination.

Uber drivers also receive perks. They control their driving schedule, have access to frequent bonuses, and can find passengers wherever they are — without having to wait at a taxi stand or long queue.

The Uber platform supports both parties. By managing payment, ratings, and all dispute resolutions, Uber makes it easy to be both a driver and rider — and only takes a small percentage of earnings.

Facebook

Chances are, you didn’t realize Facebook is a platform. Think about it: Facebook produces no original content and owns no media … yet, it collects data and brings in tons of advertising revenue. Talk about brilliant. In fact, you can consider almost every other social network to be the same.

By creating a fun, interactive place for people to connect and share content, Facebook has built one of today’s most influential platforms. Content created by Facebook users attracts other Facebook users who create more content … so on, and so forth. Facebook is a great example of a platform's reciprocal network effects that create monetization opportunities for the platform itself.

Amazon

Amazon currently sells over 12 million products to over 200 million unique visitors per month — and that product count doesn’t include books, wine, media, and services.

What’s even more fascinating? Amazon doesn’t own the vast majority of the products they sell. Sure, it owns warehouse space, advertising space, a handful of product lines, and now transportation fleets … but it primarily sells other companies’ inventory. It enables (easy, quick, and cheap) transactions between sellers and buyers.

On top of that, Amazon brings in billions from advertising, seller fees, and Prime membership subscriptions.

Medium

Medium rocked the online publishing world when it was released in 2012. Bloggers, writers, and journalists could publish content online (without cost) without having to worry about hosting a website or getting their work approved by editors. In fact, large news sources and companies — including Sports Illustrated and the White House — started publishing content on Medium, too.

It became a content free-for-all, and readers benefited all the same. Readers could visit Medium and access a variety of fresh content from thousands of writers. As a platform, Medium manages its website … and that’s about it. The corporation doesn’t publish any content of its own, nor does it employ any writers. It simply connects readers and writers to produce and consume great content.

HubSpot

Last year, HubSpot announced that it’s transitioning from an “all-in-one suite vs. all-on-one platform”. This means that it’s expanding to adopt hundreds of more integrations to benefit customers and help them easily expand their tool belt — instead of requiring them to add and master even more disparate systems.

In short, more disconnected software means more friction (and frustration) for customers. Folks are used to either using too many tools that don’t connect or using archaic platforms that don’t solve for today’s buyer (a.k.a. your customers). HubSpot plans to fix that.

The HubSpot platform will allow you to seamlessly connect your tools, teams, data, and processes so you can power frictionless experiences for your customers.

Grow Better With Platforms

Platforms business have revolutionized the economy and how other companies conduct business. Not only do they bring together consumers and producers and create a valuable network, but they also solve countless connection and efficiency issues.

If you’re juggling dozens of marketing tools, consider working with a platform to help streamline your tools, teams, data, and processes. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the platform businesses around you — you might be surprised by how many you already use on a daily basis.

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

The Ultimate Guide to Platforms and How They Can Benefit Your Business was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

What Is a Landing Page? All Your Questions, Answered

If you could do one thing to dramatically improve your marketing ROI today, would it be to use landing pages on your website?

If you're trying to generate leads for your business, and you don't have at least a few landing pages on your website, you're missing out on a key opportunity to turn website visitors into something more.

Here, we'll explore what a landing page is, the myriad of landing page benefits and how you might use a landing page to reach your business goals, and how to make your landing pages as powerful as possible.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page on your website where you can offer a resource from your business in exchange for a visitor's contact information. Marketers can capture this contact information using a lead-capture form, where visitors can enter details like their name, email address, and job title.

A good landing page is focused on a particular stream of traffic -- say, from an email campaign that's promoting an ebook. Because the landing page is targeting just people who are (presumably) interested in this ebook, and because this ebook has exclusive information that elaborates on a topic your audience cares about, you can convert a higher percentage of your website visitors into leads whom you can then follow up with.

How to Create a Landing Page

To create a landing page, you'll want to start by exploring various landing page builders — unless, of course, you're using a content management system that already provides landing page templates, like HubSpot.

Once you've determined the right tool for you, explore pre-built templates or consider whether it's better to build your own. You might also use this as an opportunity to A/B test two different designs to explore which design elements result in the highest conversions.

Additionally, it's critical any landing page you design effectively communicates the value you're providing visitors in exchange for contact information. And, of course, you'll want to include a form you're asking visitors to fill out in exchange for whatever offer you've provided on your landing page. 

To learn more about how to create a landing page in detail, take a look at How to Create a Landing Page: The Simple Step-by-Step Guide.

Landing pages have one chief purpose: to generate leads for your business. However, you can define those leads in a number of ways and offer more than one type of content or experience through this landing page.

Here are some of the ways you can use a landing page to start a relationship with your future customers:

1. Ebooks and Whitepapers

If you wrote a blog post that introduces a topic relevant to your audience, you can satisfy deeper interests in that topic by elaborating on the subject in an ebook or whitepaper. Using a landing page, you can "gate" this resource behind a lead-capture form for people to download.

2. Email Newsletter Subscription

Let's say you write a lot of blog content on a similar topic. Sure, you can develop an ebook or whitepaper that elaborates on specific details, but you can also offer your readers an email newsletter they can subscribe to for the latest content around your industry. On various blog posts, use a call-to-action (CTA) to invite readers to subscribe to your blog. This CTA can link to a separate landing page where they enter their contact information for addition to your email list.

3. Online Course Enrollment

Whether you're in the education industry or you offer various skill-based certifications to your audience, online courses should have their own landing pages, too. Using these pages, you can invite new students to sign up for a class you offer and capture information on them that can lead to a customer relationship that goes beyond the courses they take with you.

4. Event Registration

Similar to online courses, industry events require you to collect information on your audience so they can receive updates prior to the event. An event, as well as its various sessions and keynotes, can have their own individual landing pages to turn event goers into event attendees and business leads.

5. Free Trial of a Product

Offering people a free demo of your product? Your demo offering could use its own landing page. Bring users to a page where they can sign up for a free trial of your software using their name, email address, job title, and any other information you deem necessary to give them the best customer experience.

6. Community Membership

If your business thrives on conversation among your audience -- perhaps you have a website dedicated to dialogue between users -- there's no harm in making it invitation-only. In fact, it's a great way to generate leads through the people who want to become members of your community. Create a landing page that lets website visitors sign up to become a bigger part of your business.

7. App Download

Developing a mobile app for your product doesn't just improve your customer experience -- it also gives you another avenue to capture leads from your audience. A lead-optimized landing page that invites users to download an app is quite common in the app-maker community.

Landing Page Benefits

1. Landing pages can lead to increased conversions. 

Having a targeted page that directly ties into a certain offer or next step is critical for providing value upfront, and can encourage new site visitors to provide their information in exchange for an immediate, tangible reward. 

For instance, let's say you've landed on a business' website and you're immediately greeted with a pop-up form asking for your name and email. A bit jarring before you even know what the company is about, isn't it? 

Alternatively, imagine you've found a business' free e-book on social media, which outlines ten immediate solutions to your problem. I'm willing to bet you're more likely to provide your email and name for that valuable content, right?

Ultimately, a landing page can help increase conversions while providing a better user experience. Plus, a landing page can help you determine which types of content to serve certain visitors for faster, more effective lead generation. 

Too many companies send their advertising, email, or social media traffic to their homepage. This is a huge missed opportunity. When you know a stream of targeted traffic will be coming to your website, you can increase the likelihood of converting that traffic into leads by using a targeted landing page.

For instance, those users who convert on your social media e-book landing page are clearly interested in social media. To further nurture those leads, you might follow-up with a personalized email, detailing additional content you can provide related to social media. 

2. Landing pages can provide additional insights into your target audience. 

By creating various landing pages with segmented offers, you can track which topics convert at the highest rate. This can give you valuable insights into your audience's interests. 

You might use the data you collect from your landing pages to create a more targeted, personalized marketing strategy. Plus, landing pages don't just tell you which content your audience likes best — they also tell you which channels your leads prefer. This can enable your marketing team to refine your strategy further, promoting content and engaging with your audience on the channel(s) they're already using. 

For example, let's say you notice your landing pages related to e-commerce perform exceptionally well, and most of those users find your landing page from your paid ads on Facebook and LinkedIn. This information can help you target future campaigns primarily towards your social audience, and consider how you might incorporate additional e-commerce content into your marketing strategy as a whole. 

3. Landing pages can grow your email subscriber list. 

In exchange for the content offered on your landing page, you'll typically ask users to provide their email and name. This can help you quickly grow your email subscriber list, and segment that list to provide more personalized follow-up emails. 

People who've filled out a form in exchange for content, or information on your product or service, have shown an interest in what you have to offer — which ensures your subscriber list is filled with potentially high-quality leads. 

Consider how you might further nurture them by sending a kick-back "Thank you" email after they download your landing page offer, with additional resources related to the content in which they've shown interest.

4. Landing pages are testable. 

A landing page is oftentimes a fantastic opportunity to get creative and test out various designs to determine which visuals and text perform best with your target audience. Additionally, it's often lower risk to test out a new landing page, rather than making major design changes to your entire blog or website infrastructure. 

For instance, AJ Beltis, HubSpot's Content & Acquisition Manager, told me, "If you're using a content management system with a built-in A/B testing tool (like HubSpot), you can easily set up and run a test to see which copy, design featured, imagery, and page elements yield a stronger conversion rate. This means you can quickly uncover new ways to drive more leads and contacts for your business."

5. Landing pages allow you to measure metrics directly tied to business goals. 

If you've created a specific landing page to market your new product or service, you can then use that landing page to measure metrics directly tied to your business goals. 

For instance, let's say your marketing team is tasked with increasing sales for your new email tool. To accomplish this, your team creates a campaign with a landing page offering a free demo of your tool. 

You might measure conversion metrics on that landing page to determine how well your campaign is performing, or whether you need to make tweaks to communicate the true value of your new product. Additionally, you can measure which sites drive the highest conversions to your landing page, and put more resources into marketing your email tool on those sites — or social media apps — in particular. 

6. Landing pages add context to your offer. 

AJ Beltis told me one of the biggest benefits of a landing page is the opportunity to add context to your marketing offer. "Marketers feel motivated to bypass the landing page process and skip right to the conversion by encouraging form fills in other methods, such as through a chatbot," Beltis told me. 

Beltis adds, "However, this process eliminates the opportunity to add more context to what it is you're offering. Imagery and essential information that can only be shared with a landing page provide content to those who need it before deciding to convert."

7. Landing pages increase brand value and help make a good first impression. 

Ultimately, a sleek, well-designed landing page can impress new visitors and turn them into leads by demonstrating the valuable content your company can deliver. A landing page is space you can use to tell your visitors what you're offering, and how it can positively impact them. Even if a viewer doesn't immediately convert, a well-designed landing page can increase brand recognition and help nurture leads for future sales. 

For instance, take a look at this impressive landing page created by Talisker, a whisky brand. Using Ceros' landing page product to design an immersive experience, Talisker is demonstrating brand value and, ideally, making a fantastic first impression on new visitors. 

This is proof a landing page doesn't have to be boring — in fact, it shouldn't be. Take the time to create an engaging, interactive, interesting landing page that convinces visitors in the value of your brand. 

What makes a landing page most effective?

Ready to create your first landing page, or improve on a landing page you already have? Here are some of the most important elements to make sure your landing page is working hard for you:

1. Limit Navigation

You've brought your targeted traffic to a page where they can take your desired action. Don't distract them! Limit the number of exits from your landing page so that your visitors are focused on filling out your form. A key part of this is to remove the website navigation elements on landing pages. This helps put the focus back on the content you're offering.

See how the landing page below does this -- aside from the HubSpot logo, there are no navigation buttons to confuse or distract visitors.

2. Enable Sharing

Tap into a huge community of your best (and free) marketers: your audience. Add share links to your landing page to encourage your website visitors to share your content with their audiences.

3. Deliver Value

First and foremost, if you have a valuable offer, your visitors will give up their contact information in exchange for your offer. Ask yourself if your offer is compelling to your audience and make sure your landing page demonstrates that value. One way to ensure your landing page adds value is to show your audience the content they're going to receive -- directly on the page. See how this can look in the example landing page below.

4. Keep it Short

The longer your landing page and form, the more friction you add to the lead-generation process. Keeping your lead form short and straightforward will increase your conversion rate.

Here's a tip: Put as many contact fields as you can on the same line. Shortening the height of your lead-capture form helps you limit the more trivial fields you might be tempted to include, and prevents your landing page visitors from getting spooked by a form that's asking too much of them. As shown below, sometimes all you need is a first and last name, followed by an email address.

5. Test, Test, Test

As many best practices as you may read about online, your landing page can always use more testing and improvement. Make sure you have a landing page creation tool that allows you to create and test many different landing pages to see what works best for your business. Additionally, if you're a HubSpot customer, consider some of the landing page tool integrations, such as briX.

Are you a landing page guru? Check out some of our advanced tips and data around landing page best practices on effective calls to action and the best/worst button text (hint: don't use "Submit"). Do you need to make any of these 10 Quick Fixes to Build Killer Landing Pages?

If you're working hard to drive traffic to your website, don't make the mistake of not capturing that traffic as leads.

What Is a Landing Page? All Your Questions, Answered 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 SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and reach new customers.

While it's critical you employ organic strategies to attract traffic over the long-term, sometimes, you can't properly compete on the SERPs without putting money behind it -- and that's where SEM comes into play.

For instance, consider what happens when I type "summer shoes" into Google:

Zappos clearly has an effective SEO strategy, since its "Summer shoes" page ranks first organically. However, their paid "Summer Shoes" ad, circled above, ranks as the first search result overall.

With 35% of product searches starting on Google, and the average Google search lasting only a minute, it's critical your business's product or service appear at the top of a SERP when a user is searching for it. This isn't always possible organically, particularly when other businesses are paying to ensure their products appear above yours. When this is the case, it's critical you invest in a SEM strategy.

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

SEM, or search engine marketing, is using paid advertising to ensure that your business's products or services are visible in search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a result for that search query.

To ensure you're able to use SEM to properly advertise your products or services on the SERPs, we've cultivated a list of the best SEM tools, as well as the components of a SEM Ad Auction.

How an Ad Auction Works

Once you're ready to invest in SEM, you'll need to enter into an ad auction -- for our purposes, we'll focus on the ad auction in Google Ads.

In simple terms, every Google ad you see goes through an ad auction before appearing in the SERPs. To enter into an ad auction, you'll first need to identify the keywords you want to bid on, and clarify how much you're willing to spend per click on each of those keywords.

Once Google determines the keywords you bid on are contained within a user's search query, you're entered into the ad auction.

Not every ad will appear on every search related to that keyword. Some keywords don't have enough commercial intent to justify incorporating ads into the page -- for instance, when I type "What is Marketing?" into Google, I don't see any ads appear.

Additionally, even if your keyword is a good fit for an ad, it doesn't mean you'll "win" the bidding. The ad auction considers two main factors when determining which ads to place on the SERP -- your maximum bid, and your ads Quality Score.

A Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. You can find your Quality Score, which is reported on a 1-10 scale, in your keywords' "Status" column in your Google Ads account. The more relevant your ad is to a user, as well as how likely a user is to click through and have an enjoyable landing page experience, all factor into your overall Quality Score.

With this in mind, here are some of the factors that should go into your strategy if you want to earn paid ads success:

Keyword Intent

Pay-per-click, or PPC, strategy starts with choosing the right keywords to bid on. That means doing research to determine what keywords to bid on or, in other words, what queries you want your ad to show up for. Start by brainstorming brand terms, terms that describe your product, and even terms that describe your competition.

If you have a small budget, you may only want to bid on keywords that have buying intent. However, if you have a larger budget, you may find that you have room to bid on keywords targeting earlier stages of the buyer's journey or even terms that are loosely related to your products.

Keyword Volume and Competition

If no one's searching for your target keywords, you won't get any results from your ads. At the same time, keywords with extremely high volume attract more competition (and, in some cases, lose relevancy). When doing keyword research, relevant high-volume and low-competition keywords are a sweet spot, but they may not be easy to come by. It then becomes a balancing act between demand (volume) and budget (competition).

Keyword Cost

Ad placement is determined by the bid you specific for the keyword and the quality score Google has given your ad. Higher bids and higher quality ads win the best placement. With this in mind, high competition keywords end up being more expensive. Bidding too low means your ad will not be shown, so you'll want to ensure that you can be competitive based on how much competition is for the keyword.

Account and Campaign Structure

In theory, you could lump all of your keywords together in a single bucket and display one ad for the aggregate lot. But your budget would be eaten up by a handful of high-volume keywords, and your quality score would go down. That's why structuring your Google Ads account properly is so important.

There are several levels for Google Ads campaign organization:

• Ad - The copy that's displayed for the keywords you've chosen.
• Keywords - The queries you're bidding on.
• Ad Group - Sets of like keywords grouped by theme.
• Campaign - Highest level for managing ad groups.

At each level, you'll be able to determine what's working and not working, making you more informed about performance and how your money is being spent.

Copy

At the end of the day, when your keywords are chosen and your account is structured, you still have to write good ads and "earn" the click.

An ad is made up of a few components:

• Title
• Display URL
• Description

Understand exactly what the searchers are looking for with their queries and see if you write a great ad that makes your offer attractive.

Keep in mind also that SEM isn't a set-it-and-forget-it activity. Ongoing PPC management helps you eliminate budget waste, experiment with ads, and optimize keywords you're bidding for to ensure that you're getting the most ROI from your efforts.

Best SEM tools

1. HubSpot's Ad Tracking Software
2. SEMrush
3. Google Trends
4. Keywordtool.Io
5. Google Ads Keyword Planner
6. SpyFu
7. WordStream

1. HubSpot's Ad Tracking Software

You're not paying for ads for the fun of it; you're paying for ads because you want to generate leads and drive revenue for your business. The HubSpot Ads tool helps you go beyond traffic and click metrics to analyze exactly how ads are influencing contacts where they are in the buyer's journey. This will help you understand which ads actually work, justify SEM as a channel, and integrate your advertising in with the rest of your marketing efforts.

2. SEMrush

SEMRush allows you to conduct extensive keyword research, keyword rank tracking, site audits, traffic analysis, and more. SEMRush is a fantastic tool for finding opportunities to rank for long-tail keywords organically, but additionally, you can use the tool for various SEM efforts. For instance, you can use SEMRush to figure out where your competitors are concentrating their marketing efforts, and analyze their regional presence, to figure out how much money you want to put behind certain keywords.

Additionally, SEMRush enables you to discover your main paid search competitors, figure out which keywords they're bidding on, and study the composition of their ads. This is vital information when you're cultivating your own paid strategy and are unsure how to out-rank other businesses on the SERPs.

3. Google Trends

Google Trends allows you to track search volume for a particular keyword across a specific region, language, or time frame -- which can enable you to identify which search terms are trending, and which ones aren't. Since you don't want to put money behind a keyword that's decreasing in popularity, this is an incredibly useful tool for your SEM efforts.

Additionally, particularly if you work for an ecommerce business, the ability to gauge interest in your product or service in a certain geographical area is undoubtedly powerful for ensuring you tailor your paid efforts to specific locations, saving you money in the long-run.

4. Keywordtool.io

One of the most helpful features of Keywordtool.Io is its ability to tap into Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, and the App Store, so that you're able to segment your keyword research through various channels and better target your efforts. Additionally, the tool takes your base keyword and provides you with variations of words and phrases, which allows you to cultivate a more extensive list of possible keywords you might want to include in a paid ad.

Using Google Autocomplete to provide relevant keywords for you, the free version of Keywordtool.Io lets you generate up to 750 long-tail keywords and keyword suggestions for every search term. Plus, you can use the tool to analyze search trends on Google, to ensure your desired keywords are increasing in popularity and will continue to serve you well over the long-term.

5. Google Ads Keyword Planner

Since Google is likely where you want your ads to appear, it makes sense to consider using Google Ads Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords for your business, and keep track of how searches for certain keywords change over time. The Keyword Planner will help you narrow down a list of possible keywords to ensure you're choosing the most effective ones for your business.

Additionally, Keyword Planner will give you suggested bid estimates for each keyword, so you can determine which keywords work with your advertising budget. Best of all, once you've found your ideal keywords and are ready to launch an ad campaign, you can do it all from within the tool.

6. SpyFu

Ever wish you could see which keywords your competitors are buying on Google, or check out which ad tests they've run? With SpyFu, you're able to do just that -- simply search a domain, and you'll see every keyword that business has bought on Adwords, every organic keyword for which they've ranked, and every ad variation they've had in the last 12 years. Plus, you can monitor your own paid and SEO rankings on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

7. WordStream

WordStream is a advertising management solution that can help you research, measure, and optimize your ads for performance. You get access to advanced reporting features for data analysis and tools for creating great ads. In addition, WordStream has alerts and workflow tools to help you make decisions about your campaigns.

With the above tools and a killer strategy, SEM can be a great strategy for lead generation. There's no reason why you shouldn't start your PPC campaign today.

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

The Ultimate Guide to SEM (Search Engine Marketing) was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

A Brief Timeline of the History of Blogging

Greetings, readers. Welcome to the HubSpot Marketing Blog.

We’re very happy to have you here. You might not realize it, but getting here was no easy task. Today, in 2016, I blog for a living, which is pretty great. But were it not for the long, twisty journey that got blogging to its current state, I might not be here. You might not be reading this.

We've found that there's quite a history behind blogs. According to the documentation we uncovered -- and will share with you below -- they've been around since 1994. They looked a lot different back then, and had many different names and meanings.

Merriam Webster currently defines a blog as “a web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” Remember that -- it’s going to come in handy later. But first, let’s talk about how we got here.

The Blogging Vernacular

The early vocabulary and semantics around blogging are more than a little muddy. As the practice developed, some of the more popular monikers were “weblog,” “personal web page,” and “online diary.” We'll dive into each of these a bit as we explore the more primitive days of blogging.

Now, we simply say “blog” -- that's a pretty popular term in our vocabulary. But what it means continues to change. Bloggers have dozens of platforms and formats available (fun fact: HubSpot has a blogging platform, too), and there's no longer a standard for what a blog is supposed to look like.

And their former look and feel was dictated by the language people used to use to describe the act of blogging. As you'll see below, the word is primarily rooted in the idea of a log on the web. At one time, in fact, blogging was somewhat restrictive and limited to web-only subject matter.

Luckily, we've evolved and expanded how and why we blog since then. One day, someone figured out that we don't have to stick to strictly technical topics when we put things on the Internet. (And thank goodness -- remember that thing I said about blogging for a living?)

So, let's see if we can better understand how that all took place. Grab some popcorn -- you're in for a 22-year-long tale.

The History of Blogging

1994-1997: First blogs

There’s a bit of debate around the first stages of blogging, much like the rest of its history -- in the first half of the nineties, for example, there wasn’t a ton of online record-keeping, and most primitive blogs are either now archived or nowhere to be found.

Many of these original bloggers -- despite not having yet earned that title -- were the same people who first understood the value of the World Wide Web in the 1980s. One of them was then-Swarthmore-College undergrad, Justin Hall, who created a site called links.net in January 1994. It was essentially a review of HTML examples he came across from various online links, but it was enough for the New York Times Magazine to dub him the “founding father of personal bloggers”.

In that article, Hall brought up the semantics of blogging, and how he was assigned many titles during his primary days online (some of which are hilariously documented here).

“When I first started [blogging], they called it a personal home page,” he said, “then they said I'm one of the first Web diarists, and now I'm one of the first Web bloggers.”

That same year, Claudio Pinhanez (who today is a Social Data Analytics Senior Manager at IBM) began to log short entries into what he called an "Open Diary."

But it wasn’t until December 1997 that the term “weblog” came to be. It was first used by Jorn Barger, creator of the website Robot Wisdom. He pioneered the term to describe a “log” of his internet activity, much like Hall did in 1994, which largely amounted to a list of the links he visited.

That may have set the tone for the new era of blogging that would follow less than a year later, when blogging-specific platforms began to debut.

1998-2001: More resources for bloggers

The later part of the nineties saw an uprising in resources created just for bloggers. One of them, Open Diary, launched in October 1998 and became one of the most pivotal blogging platforms -- its name, was a nod to its open, community approach to blogging, as Open Diary was the first of its kind to have a membership model that allowed members of the community to comment on the work of others.

Open Diary, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

In 1999 -- though no one is quite sure exactly when -- then-programmer Peter Merholz (who later went on to head up design at Groupon, OpenTable, and Jawbone, among others) shortened the term “weblog” to “blog.”

It was part of a period that displayed an influx of blogging opportunities, with each platform attempting to boast its own unique set of features for a particular audience. In 1999 alone, Blogger, (which would go on to be acquired by Google), LiveJournal, and Xanga all launched.

Blogger, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

LiveJournal, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

Xanga, c. 2000. Source: Wayback Machine

Xanga (for whom Twitter co-founder Biz Stone once served as creative director) actually began as a social networking site -- sometimes compared to MySpace -- and didn’t add blogging features until 2000.

This period of time also saw some of the first rumored video blogs. In January 2000, a man named Adam Kontras accompanied a written blog post with a video that updated friends and family on what he was doing. That November, professor Adrian Miles posted what some speculate to be one of the first video blogs, as well, calling it a “vog.”

 

"NO PETS ALLOWED. We smuggled him in. It was awesome. Felt all undercover." Source: Adam Kontras

As the sun set on the nineties, blogging began to have quite an impact on many lives. People were starting to figure out how to monetize their blogs -- which we'll get into in a bit -- and the stage was set for businesses and individuals alike to take bloggers seriously.

2002: A big year for blogging

The early 2000s saw a few significant events within the blogging realm. Technorati, one of the first blog search engines, launched in February 2002.

That month, blogger Heather B. Armstrong was fired for writing about her colleagues on her personal blog, Dooce.com. While it’s not clear if she was the first blogger to be terminated because of her personal website’s content, it sparked a conversation about the privacy and freedom of expression for bloggers.

The subject arose again in 2004, when Congressional aide and controversial blogger Jessica Cutler would experience the same fate as Armstrong. Cutler, however, blogged anonymously until her identity was revealed by the website Wonkette.

The year 2002 also saw the dawn of “Mommy Bloggers,” which largely consisted of mothers blogging about parenting, aiming to create a sense of support and learning for their readers. Melinda Roberts founded TheMommyBlog.com -- "one of the original mom blogs," she writes -- that April, creating a category that would continue to take storm for over a decade.

The following month, Newsweek predicted that blogs will replace traditional media and, rather in December of that year, it partially came to fruition, when Talking Points Memo broke the written transcript of Trent Lott’s infamous call into "Larry King Live" -- when Lott illustriously sang the praises of Strom Thurmond. Blog entries like these would serve as a precursor to live blogging, which took shape the following year.

In August, Blog Ads was launched by Pressflex LLC. Less than a year later, Google would debut AdSense, which paired blogs with relevant advertisements (at the discretion of the blogger). Being able to advertise on blogs was a major milestone for bloggers, as it created the opportunity to monetize their work. It set the stage for blogs to be sponsored by major brands that fit their respective credos, or receive free products in exchange for endorsements or reviews. Blogging was turning into a business -- and soon, a small population of bloggers would be using what used to be a hobby as their primary source of income.

The tumultuous Gawker -- which New York Magazine cited as the initiation of gossip blogs -- also launched in December 2002, only to cease operations in August 2016 after a high-profile legal battle.

2003: The momentum continues

TypePad and WordPress launched in 2003, continuing the trend of providing platform options to a growing number of bloggers. That’s the same year that live blogging is estimated to have started -- the Guardian was one of the first outlets on record to make use of live blogging during the 2003 prime minister's question time. The BBC refers to this blogging activity as “live text,” and has frequently used it for sporting events.

WordPress, c. 2005. Source: Wayback Machine

TypePad, c. 2003. Source: Wayback Machine

February 2003 also marked Google's acquisition of Pyra Labs -- the makers of Blogger. That was a sign of the growing business of blogging, particularly in the wake of the monetization programs that launched the previous year.

The early 2000s showed the first signs of a rise in political blogs. In 2003, for example, several traditional media outlets were encouraging staff writers and columnists to double as "cyberjournalists," as Matt Welch called them in a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review. It reflected a growing number of political bloggers, with many seasoned reporters looking to blogging for opinion and beat outlets.

That climate primed the blogosphere for what would follow in the latter half of the decade, when the perspectives and analyses of political bloggers began to be preferred sources of information on current events. The line between traditional media and the blogosphere would start to bend, as bloggers were fated to become members of the press.

2004 - 2005: Video and the press

Despite the earliest video blogs being recorded in 2000, it wasn’t until the middle part of the decade that visual content really had the opportunity to take root. In February 2004, videographer Steve Garfield -- who went on to be one of the Web’s first video bloggers declared it to be the “year of the video blog.”

As fate would have it, YouTube launched only a year later in February 2005, shortly thereafter inviting the public to upload their own videos. But it wasn't always what people associate it with now -- it actually began as a short-lived dating site, where singles could use videos to introduce themselves and state their romantic criteria.

YouTube, c. 2005. Source: Wayback Machine

But once YouTube turned its focus to general video uploads (which seemed to take effect by June 2005 according to Wayback Machine), it was part of a series of developments that showed the growing credibility of the online user. With ample resources already built for writers, developers were starting to address other content creators.

And it wasn’t just developers who were lending credibility these online users. In March 2005, blogger Garrett Graff was the first to be granted White House press credentials.

That might have been when the line between news reporting and blogging began to diminish, which some attribute to the launch of the Huffington Post that May. It began as what one case study named a “political forum” -- and the Washington Post called it a “group blog” in a 2007 profile -- but is today one of the highest-profile content aggregators.

Huffington Post is largely a mix of syndicated material and original content from staffers, columnists, and unpaid bloggers. Visit the website, though, and you’ll land on a page of global headlines, lending the visual impression that it’s a news outlet.

It comes as no surprise that one of Huffington Post's co-founders, Jonah Peretti, went on to co-found BuzzFeed. Though BuzzFeed wouldn’t refer to itself as a content aggregator -- it instead identifies as “a cross-platform, global network for news and entertainment” -- it contains a similar vast range of content and, despite having an editorial staff, anyone can post to the site.

These newer platforms raised the question: “Is it a newspaper, or is it a blog?” And as the 21st century progressed, the answer to that question wouldn't become any clearer.

2006-2007: The rise of microblogging and rules

The start of life in 140 characters (or less) began in March 2006, when Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sent out the world’s first tweet.

just setting up my twttr

— 🚶🏽jack (@jack) March 21, 2006

It was the introduction of microblogging -- sharing stories, news, and other types of content in the smallest format possible.

Microblogging continued to gain momentum in February 2007 with the launch of Tumblr -- yet another blogging platform that encouraged users to be brief. It was built, wrote former CNET reporter Josh Lowensohn, for those “who feel they may not have enough content or time to write a full blog, yet still want to write and share links and media.”

But with the introduction of short-form, real-time information sharing also came increasingly visceral communication. There would be countless mean tweets, as well as harmful comments left on blogs. It got to a point where, in March 2007, new media mogul Tim O’Reilly proposed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct in response to threatening comments that a friend had received on her blog. The rules were as follows:

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

It showed that the blogosphere had come a long way since the 1998 introduction of Open Diary. Being able to comment on blogs was becoming less of a novelty, and more a point of contention. Several years later -- in 2013 -- the Huffington Post finally took a cue from rule #3 on the code of conduct, banning anonymous comments on its content and requiring commenters to link their feedback to a Facebook profile.

2008-2011: Blogging Dark Ages

During this period of four years, there weren’t many major events that propelled how or why people blogged.

There were a few developments of note, however. In January 2009, the White House blog debuted.

Later that year, the film Julie & Julia premiered, which followed the success of one food blogger whose online work eventually became a book. It was one of the first pop cultural references to the professional success of bloggers, and stood to inspire others -- by 2010, Technorati shared that 11% of bloggers reported earning their primary income from blogging.

Google also made some changes that would impact bloggers in 2011 with its rollout of the "Panda" algorithm change. Its purpose was to lower the rank of sites with what Moz called "thin content," which hurt bloggers producing content that Google deemed to be of lower quality. A lot of that had to do with bloggers having a lack of inbound links -- a link to your website that comes from another one. (My colleague, Lindsay Kolowich, wrote more about that here.) Without many sites linking to these blogs, Google's algorithm would begin to interpret them as less relevant.

2012: Medium is founded

In August 2012, a co-founder of Pyra Labs -- the creators of Blogger -- Evan Williams, created Medium: One of the newest blogging platforms.

Today, Medium is more than that. People can use it to write and publish original content, like most other blogging platforms. But Medium is continuing to blur the line between news reporting and blogging. In fact, on its website, the company describes itself as serving up “daily news reimagined, straight from the people who are making and living it.”

It was a notable introduction of decentralized content: A concept that allows users to share their work that has been published elsewhere on a content creation platform. That’s different than sharing links on social media, for example, where limited content is displayed. Instead, the full text and images of the work are shared, with the original author and source credited, on a site different from its origin.

It might sound kind of confusing and pointless. But my colleague, Sam Mallikarjunan, explains the benefits of doing something like that in his article, “Why Medium Works.” In sum: Medium has roughly three million viewers, all sharing and reading content. Does your blog have that kind of reach? If it doesn’t, you can reach Medium’s vast audience by syndicating your own content on their platform, drawing more attention to your work.

The same year that Medium launched, LinkedIn introduced its Influencers program, which recruited notable business figures to guest blog on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. Eventually, that platform became open to all LinkedIn members in 2014.

Though LinkedIn’s platform worked a bit differently than Medium’s -- users can’t re-post full bodies of work in the same seamless way on the former -- it does provide another outlet for people to share original content with an audience much larger than they may have received on their own domains. 

2017 saw the latest development of the blogging realm -- the creators of WordPress announced they would be rolling out the .blog domain. 

Here’s the cool thing about .blog -- even though it was made by the creators of WordPress, you don’t have to use the WordPress platform in order to build a blog on that domain.

“The domain registrations are open to anyone,” wrote Adario Strange of Mashable, “regardless of publishing platform.”

What's Next?

I don’t know about you, but after diving into the history of blogging, I’m pretty excited to see what its future looks like.

Of course, it probably helps that blogging is my line of work. But I’m certainly not alone. Here at HubSpot, our content team has at least three full-time bloggers, and there are an increasing number of job titles that either indicate or include a blogging as a major function.

It makes sense, when you look at the state of blogging now. It's an integral part of marketing and content strategy, and has even shown to increase lead flow up to 700% for some businesses.

How blogging continues to change will determine what our careers look like, and I encourage all marketers -- corporate or otherwise -- to blog on behalf of their respective brands. It might seem like a lot of work, but if the evolution of blogging has indicated nothing else, it's that the sphere will only continue to expand.

And that's something marketers should continue to pay attention to -- not just the growth of blogging, but how many different interpretations of it exist. Just look at Facebook Live, Facebook Instant Articles, and Snapchat Stories against the context of the dictionary definition of a blog from above: “a web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” Replace “writes about” with “shares,” and you could make the case that most of today’s content platforms -- including social media networks -- are their very own versions of blogs.

Want to learn more about the future of blogging and marketing as a whole? Check out the latest edition of our State of Marketing report.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A Brief Timeline of the History of Blogging was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Host a Virtual Holiday Party & Bond With Your Team

Throughout my career, I've worked at a company that was fully remote, a company that was partially remote, and several fully in-person organizations.

Each company approached holiday parties differently. In fact, most of the remote organizations didn't even offer team bonding activities.

While we've all probably participated in various holiday parties and team bonding events, those might not have been virtual.

Hosting a virtual team bonding or holiday party can seem daunting. How can you plan activities online? What logistics are involved?

If you're planning a virtual holiday party this year, don't stress.

Let's review some tips from HubSpot's remote workforce on how to host a virtual holiday party.

1. Use a spreadsheet to organize your activities.

Planning a virtual holiday party requires plenty of logistics. That's why you should use a spreadsheet to stay organized.

Kara Korosec, a remote senior customer success manager at HubSpot, says, "I used to coordinate Secret Santa at my last company, a 100% remote company. I set up a spreadsheet where everyone listed some of their interests, then we used a random generator to assign secret Santas. Everyone had a budget of $50 and used the spreadsheet as inspiration for what to get. After the gifts were mailed, we had a Zoom where we shared our gifts and guessed who our secret Santa was."

Regardless of the activity you're doing, it's important to stay organized so it's clear who's running the activities and when the deadlines are.

2. Make it interactive.

Virtual events might automatically feel "hands-off." However, these events can still be interactive. In Korosec's secret Santa example, they opened the gifts on a live Zoom call.

The goal here is to be creative.

Eimear Marrinan, a director of culture at HubSpot, says, "There are a ton of amazing remote vendors and minority-owned businesses that we partner with in the Culture Team. They are doing amazing work. If your budget allows for it, consider outsourcing to the experts. A few brilliant events I have seen: Ski Chalet Experience, Walkthrough Christmas Markets, Cocktails in a Winter Wonderland!"

There are several online games and activities you can use for your virtual holiday party. Below are some of our favorite interactive remote activities:

• Virtual MasterChef: Ask one person to host and send out a list of ingredients (or modified ingredients for dietary restrictions) and supplies. On the cooking night, have everyone dial into the Zoom to cook the same meal together as the host walks them through the recipe. Once the recipe is ready, sit down and have a virtual dinner together!
• Jack Box Games
• Airbnb Experiences
• Patchwork Adventures
• Pinturillo
• Virtual Tea & Coffee Tasting
• Virtual Floral Arrangement Class with Alice's Table: They deliver farm-fresh flowers to your door.
• Travel to Paris and tour the Musée d'Orsay or pop over to London and tour The British Museum
• Goat 2 Meeting: Virtual Farm Tours & Animal Cameos in Zoom Meetings
• Two Bit Circus
• Splash
• ON24

3. Incorporate food.

When you have an event in person, usually the meal is provided. With remote holiday parties, don't forget about this element.

Emily Tong-Sanchez, a remote revenue operations specialist at HubSpot, says, "Let people comp their meal!"

This gives people a reason to celebrate and enjoy the party.

Marrinan adds, "Ask questions if you're incorporating food. Are there allergies or preferences? If you're arranging a cocktail hour, does everyone drink alcohol? This is all about being inclusive in how you're arranging your event."

If you're sending food, it's important to be aware of any restrictions so your event is inclusive of all participants.

4. Encourage people to dress up.

Holiday parties are usually fun events where everyone can dress up and celebrate. Being remote shouldn't change this.

Tong-Sanchez says, "Encourage people to dress up. We like having a reason to put on fancy clothes!"

5. Always lead with an inclusive mindset.

A major obstacle with remote meetings is that it's hard to feel included.

Marrinan remarks, "We are working in a distributed and remote world right now, so when thinking through a holiday event for you and your team think big & think global. Will the timezone work for all on your team? Do ‘The Holidays' resonate across the globe? Make sure you plan something fun, and inclusive that everyone can get involved in!"

6. Plan in advance.

If you're planning a virtual holiday party, it's important to plan in advance.

Marrinan says, "The end of the year is busy. Really busy! Give people advanced notice and book time in advance. A lot of people are juggling right now, so being protective of time is important! Similarly, be mindful of caregivers on your team, or anyone that may have blocked time in their day."

7. Send something physical.

Just because your event is remote, doesn't mean you can't include a physical element in your virtual holiday party.

"Can you send something out to the team in advance to spur some excitement? This doesn't have to be a physical gift -- maybe it is a handwritten card or a note of gratitude," Marrinan remarks. "A holiday event doesn't have to be a big, big thing. Sometimes it's the simple acts of kindness that go a long way for people."

8. Pick a goal.

When you're planning your holiday party, it's important to decide what your goal is. For example, it's hard to play a game while also getting to know each other.

Caroline Merewether, a strategy and operations manager at HubSpot, says, "The biggest takeaway is to figure out if it's more about deepening relationships or playing a game."

One of Merewether's favorite events her team put on was an Airbnb experience which was a virtual escape room.

"That was fun to do something different and it was a fun mental shift. But it wasn't great for getting to know people because we were trying to solve for clues. For our next party, we wanted to drive conversation between us," she adds.

For her team's next virtual holiday party, they're going to send international candies that will be a great conversation starter for breakout rooms. Then, they're going to do a costume contest and online trivia.

Jeff Boulter, an engineering lead at HubSpot, decided to combine the interactive activity with a way of getting to know each other via an interactive trivia game.

To start, Boulter sent out a Google Form with a mixture of icebreaker questions. A few examples included:

• What was your first online handle or email address?
• What course did you do the worst at college?
• What's the weirdest job you've ever had?
• What's your least favorite song?
• What's your favorite conspiracy theory?
• What's an unusual skill you have?
• Star Wars or Star Trek?
• Yanni or Laurel?
• If you could commit any crime and get away with it, what would it be?
• What's the worst gift you've ever received?
• Who would get eaten first if we all got stuck in the 1C elevator?

Then, they used a free online trivia site called MyQuiz. Here, the answers were either picking one person from their squad (who's least favorite song is "It's a Small World", for example) or picking the correct answer amongst 3 other made-up answers. They ended up with 54 questions. See the picture below for what this looked like.

Ultimately, planning a virtual holiday party takes some planning. But with a little research, you could end up with a fun, interactive game.

As a remote leader, your holiday party can be just as fun and interactive as an in-person event. To learn more, consider taking HubSpot's Remote Leadership Training.

How to Host a Virtual Holiday Party & Bond With Your Team was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns