Infographic Resumes: 6 Hiring Managers Weigh In

The modern job search is incredibly competitive, and technology has made it easier for your resume and job application to be overlooked and discarded before you even make it to the interview.

Luckily, technology is also here to help. There's no longer a template for how to apply for a job — you can use social media, websites, and even interactive campaigns to get your name noticed by a recruiter.

One resume format you may not have considered? Infographics. A highly engaging and visually appealing infographic that explains your skills and qualifications might help you stand out in the crowd and serve as a work sample when applying for a job.

It's important to note that an infographic resume won't be appropriate for all job applications. If you submit a resume in this format through an automated system, you could disqualify yourself if the technology can't read visual information, so it's best to stick to the format prescribed by the job posting.

Additionally, while an infographic resume might be a good idea for a more design-related role, it's likely not a good idea for most non-design roles. Here, we'll explore what six hiring managers have to say about infographic resumes — plus, how to make one for yourself.

How to Make an Infographic Resume

1. Start with a good structure. 

You'll want to start by figuring out which tool you're going to use to create your infographic. You might choose to create one in Powerpoint, or use pre-made infographic resume templates on a design website like Canva or Venngage. 

Once you choose your tool, you'll want to identify a good structure. Do you want your name and a brief opening description at the top? Would you prefer to put the Education section at the beginning, or end? Are you going to include previous positions, or focus on just the current one? 

Additionally, you might want to figure out whether you're going to focus more on icons and images, or data. 

For instance, take a look at the differences between these two Venngage infographic resume templates: 

In the first Kyle Fisher example, you'll see he's structured it so there's plenty of white space; he's also highlighted creative and software skills, and left space for hobbies. 

In the second Linda Jackson example, on the other hand, you'll see technical skills and educational training take up the majority of the space on the resume, along with work experience at the bottom. 

When comparing these two infographic resumes, you'll see the structure is vastly different. Similarly, consider the role for which you're applying and which information is critical to demonstrate on your resume as it relates to the role — and which you can skip. 

2. Take note of everything you want to include in your infographic resume. 

Once you've chosen a structure, pull up an existing resume and take note of everything you want to transfer over to the infographic resume. 

For instance, if you want your infographic resume to be data-heavy, write down a few key metrics related to your current role, such as "43% YoY growth" or "12% increase in MRR". It's easier to design your infographic resume once you know what you'll need to include. 

3. Choose a good color scheme. 

A cohesive color scheme is a critical component of any good design, and this is no exception. Consider using clean, complementary colors — like white, black, and orange, or yellow and teal — to help your resume stand out without becoming too distracting. 

4. Have a strong opener. 

This is a best practice for any resume, but particularly for an infographic, you'll want to start with a good, powerful opener. In the examples below, for instance, I put: "Passionate, creative, and driven Elon graduate with leadership experience and strong communication skills." 

Ultimately, your opener is your value proposition — what will you bring to the role that the hiring manager can't find elsewhere? 

5. Use good design principles. 

Finally, an infographic resume should use the same design principles as anything else. 

These include: 

• Creating balance, using either symmetrical or asymmetrical designs. 
• Leveraging contrast to highlight certain elements. 
• Using movement to create a narrative and provide a high-quality user experience. 
• Ensure there's unity in your design — i.e. your composition's elements are in agreement. 

Take a look at Everything You Need to Know About the Principles and Types of Design for additional information regarding design principles.

6 Hiring Managers' Opinions on the Infographic Resume

To explore when — if ever — infographic resumes are a good idea, I reached out to a few HubSpot recruiters to get their take. 

Kenny Nestle, a HubSpot G&A Recruiter, told me: "I personally love infographic resumes. It's different and stands out from your typical resume, and it's easy on the eyes."

Nestle adds, "I've had candidate share graphics on the types of roles they've supported, as well as metrics related to their current role."

Devon Brown, an Executive Recruiting Manager at HubSpot, echoes Nestle's perspective, telling me, "I love when candidates use infographics as an opportunity to highlight their creative or design abilities."

However, she urges candidates to ensure their design is clean and easily digestible. "It has to be formatted in a way that makes it just as easy to read as a typical resume," Brown advises. "The flow of information, and how it's presented, is critically important if a candidate chooses to go this route."

Not every recruiter feels that infographics are a good idea. Technical Recruiter Sarah Magner, for instance, says, "I could see why people applying for design, marketing, or branding roles might use an infographic to set themselves apart, but I've always found them to be a bit distracting. Plus, the graphics can take away from the actual content on the resume."

"I'd prefer an easy-to-read resume over a pretty one," Magner adds. 

Tríona O'Sullivan, HubSpot's Global Marketing Recruiter, agrees with Magner that infographic resumes are typically not a good idea. She told me, "It can be great to see the creative side, but sometimes a candidate can spend so much time designing the template that they miss out on key information, details aren't aligned, or there are really obvious spelling and grammar issues in the mix."

O'Sullivan adds, "Given how competitive and busy the job market is today, it's more important to ensure your resume is easy to review, and states your experience and achievements clearly and quickly, since that's what someone is going to look for first when reviewing."

Amelia Towle, HubSpot's Head of Brand Infrastructure & Design Team Manager, spoke with her Design team on the potential merits of an infographic resume, but agrees that it's typically not a good idea. Towle told me, "If I think about the purpose of a resume, it's a document that your intended audience typically wants to scan as quickly as possible to glean information in an efficient way. If you drastically alter the format, you are perhaps forcing extra cognitive load on a busy recruiter who is just trying to narrow down a potentially vast pool of applicants."

Additionally, Towle told me that if a big company is using software to scan resumes, changing the layout might result in the resume being impossible for the scanner to interpret. 

Ultimately, she believes infographics are typically unwise, unless it fits the business for which you're applying: "If it's a huge HubSpot-sized organization, you might be shooting yourself in the foot by altering format beyond what is expected. But if it's a tiny agency that is solely design-focused, it might be helpful to stand out."

Towle adds, "Infographics-for-the-sake-of-infographics has arguably had its day, so in that case, you might want to conceive of something new."

Finally, there are some recruiters who don't necessarily care one way or the other. As HubSpot Marketing Recruiter Erica Matos told me, "I don't really care about what a resume looks like — instead, I look at the content and make sure they have experience that aligns with what I'm looking for. I'd always love something visually appealing, but if I can't clearly gauge the candidate's actual experience, it's not going to help them get the job."

You'll only want to create an infographic resume if it makes sense for the role. If the role is design-related, then an infographic resume can help you display some of your skills.

However, even if the role is design-related, there are some risks associated with infographic resumes — including difficulty downloading or viewing across devices, and the design elements detracting from the resume itself. 

For this reason, you might consider alternative methods to showcase your skills.

For instance, O'Sullivan told me, "While I don't love super creative infographic style resumes, I love when someone hyperlinks to their portfolio or website, etc. That's an amazing way to showcase both their experience and their thought process when it comes to applying for roles. If I see a hyperlink for one, 99% of the time, I will go and check that out."

If you do choose to create an infographic resume, take a look at a few of these examples for inspiration. 

Infographic Resume Examples

1. The colorful, graphic-heavy infographic resume. 

The resume I created below uses plenty of visuals and numbers to highlight relevant information. For instance, there's a graph to showcase the blog posts I've written that have earned a spot on the first page of Google; there's a large "12" to highlight the years of content creation under my belt; and there's even an image of 10 stick figures to demonstrate my individuality. 

Consider how you might use one font, and a complementary color palette, to create a similar infographic. I designed this one using one of HubSpot's free infographic templates, so feel free to create the same one using the templates, as well. 

2. The data-heavy infographic resume. 

In the following infographic resume (also created using HubSpot's templates), you'll see I've highlighted most of my accomplishments using data — such as the 45% YoY growth, 1,400 additional subscribers, or 24,000 hours managing deadlines. 

I also used icons of a smiley-face, pencil, and painter to demonstrate some of my skills in more visual form. 

What do you think? Ready to take your resume to the next level? Grab some starter templates below.

Infographic Resumes: 6 Hiring Managers Weigh In was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Ads in 2021 [+ New Data]

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

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

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

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

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

What are Instagram Story ads?

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

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

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

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

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

• Instagram users have high disposable income. In fact, 42% of U.S. Instagram users make more than 75k per year. 
• Instagram is the social channel with the second-highest ROI among marketers. 
• Videos on Instagram get 21.2% more interactions compared to images and 18.6% more interactions compared to carousels.
• 71% of U.S. businesses use Instagram. It surpassed Twitter in business users in 2017.
• 500 million Instagram users use the app daily.

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

For the full rundown on all things Instagram advertising, make sure to check out our guide below:

How to Run Instagram Story Ads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instagram Story Ads: Cost, Specs, & Length

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Consumers Want to See in Instagram Story Ads [New Data]

It's important to note — if you're planning your own Instagram advertising campaign, you'll want to consider the type(s) of ads that perform best on the platform.

For instance, in a recent survey HubSpot conducted, we found 50% of Instagram users prefer image-based ads that show product shots and light text — which is followed by 31% who prefer video-based ads that showcase real customers.

Perhaps most intriguing, the majority of people (80%) don't necessarily care if an ad includes a discount or coupon. This suggests that Instagram users are more interested in appealing, engaging content that highlight a product's benefits. 

User preferences will vary depending on your audience, industry, and message, but consider keeping this data in-mind when preparing your own Story ad. When in doubt, try A/B testing to figure out which types of ads your own audience prefers.

Let's dive into some other best practices, now. 

Instagram Story Ads Best Practices

With four million active advertisers on Stories as of January 2020, it's going to take a lot to ensure you're able to stand out and drive results.

Here, let's dive into a few best practices to follow when designing your own Instagram Story ad.  

1. Pay attention to speed.

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

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

2. Include motion in your ad.

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

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

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

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

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

5. Use your call-to-action wisely.

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

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

6. Include text to emphasize key message.

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

7. Test out mobile shots.

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

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

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

Examples of Instagram Story Ads

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

1. Aveeno

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

2. Miller Lite

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

3. Trunk Club

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

4. Febreze

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

5. Tractor Beverage Co.

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

6. Crest

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

7. Kayak

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

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

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Ads in 2021 [+ New Data] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Everything You Need to Know About Marketing Operations in One Place

One of my favorite movies is "School of Rock," which also happens to be one of 2003's best films. In the movie, Jack Black poses as a substitute teacher at a private school, and, after noticing the students are musically talented, he turns the 10-year-olds into a fully-fledged rock band.

When assigning roles to the students, he approaches the class president and deems her band manager because she had the organizational skills needed to help the band run smoothly. "Summer," he says, "You're in charge of the whole thing."

When I think about marketing operations, I think of this quote — without a team, businesses that depend on technology would have a less-than-seamless experience carrying out their duties. In this post, learn more about marketing operations and why these teams are essential to a business.

What is marketing operations?

Marketing ops enable the greater marketing team to run efficiently. They also can scale their operations as the company grows larger.

The people involved in marketing operations align and optimize all processes, from data reporting to strategy implementation, to build a foundation that reinforces and supports marketing efforts, and makes it easier to achieve goals by implementing systems to ensure marketers are best equipped to succeed at their jobs. 

Marketing ops can be considered a crucial element of your business, and below we’ll discuss why.

Why is marketing operations important?

Without marketing operations, it would be tough for marketing teams to complete essential activities effectively. 

For example, as technology is necessary to carry out most marketing tasks, a team to manage the complexity of that technology and ensure it works as it should is also necessary — which is exactly what marketing ops is. 

Here are some examples of situations that can be rectified by having a marketing operations team: 

• Your investments in marketing technology don’t provide the solutions you thought they would.
• You want to streamline data reporting and metrics tracking to understand ROI.
• Strategy execution is a timely process, and you want to lower the amount of time it takes from start to finish. 

At HubSpot, the marketing ops team is responsible for supporting the systems and processes that enable the marketing team to perform optimally in their roles. This includes everything from permissions, conversational marketing, user data, forms, and email operations. 

An essential function of how well a marketing ops team works is proper management. So, in the next section, we're going to talk about marketing ops management and what it entails.

Marketing Operations Management

Marketing operations management creates the framework for how marketing ops and teams do their jobs. This management will make strategic decisions on marketing activities and develop an optimized strategy that dictates beginning to end systems that will contribute to success. 

As a point of reference, marketing operations is the process of strategizing and optimizing, while marketing ops management defines how that strategizing and optimizing will happen. 

Since marketing operations management aims to increase efficiency, ops teams often have a hand in content planning and campaign analysis. Now that we understand what marketing ops is and what they do let's talk about the details of a marketing ops strategy.

Marketing Operations Strategy

Marketing ops team members need to have an expansive skill set. Some of the typical activities this department deals with are email operations, systems analysis, customer data and marketing, user operations, and lead rotation. 

All of these roles come together to align the process and platforms needed to carry out marketing tasks for the greater marketing team.

When thinking about a marketing ops strategy, think about the problems the marketing ops team needs to solve. For instance, it's common for marketing operations strategies to solve the needs of customers, stakeholders, and the employees of your company.

Below we’ll go over how to create a marketing operations strategy for your own business.

To understand what a marketing operations strategy is, we'll start with an example: Let's say a marketing ops team wanted to make email marketing a more valuable process for both parties involved (customers and marketers).

1. Identify what you want your operations strategy to accomplish for stakeholders.

The first step in defining a marketing ops strategy is outlining significant goals. For instance, your marketing ops team might decide to send email marketing messages, enabling sales to source quality leads, and identifying key marketers to execute that process are three goals they have for quarter one.

When you identify those major goals, make sure you also determine which stakeholders you are targeting. You might be targeting one group or many, but being clear about who you're planning for will make sure your plan is actionable and valuable.

2. Determine actionable steps in your plan that will help you reach your goals.

Then, the team would look at how these tasks would help them complete their goals. For instance, the team would ask themselves, "How will enabling teams to effectively send email marketing help us reach our goals?" and estimate with an answer such as, "We should see a decrease in email churn rate."

Determining these steps will help your marketing ops team stay organized as they work through their tasks. Additionally, by outlining these steps, your team can figure out what needs to be done and the resources required to see success.

3. Figure out a measurable metric to determine the success of your strategy.

The next step in strategizing is to identify how the team would measure the success of the project. In this example, the team might conclude, "We will calculate churn by dividing the number of contacts who unsubscribed from emails in a month by the number of unique email recipients in a month."

When you figure out a measurable metric, you'll be able to keep track of the strategy's success as your team works through the plan. The metric will remind your team of the goal you want to accomplish and what stakeholders want to see as a result of your plan.

4. If needed, communicate how colleagues can take part in refining your strategy.

With the goal and measuring metric identified, your next step is to outline what this change would mean for affected colleagues, such as the team members who create and distribute email marketing messages.

The team might conclude that "Marketers can expect an easier email guideline process, a more effective format and to receive a form to offer input about how to make that happen."

5. Assign team members to specific tasks that will contribute to the completion of your goals.

Having that set in place, what's next for the marketing ops team is to assign team members specific tasks to help them achieve their goals. For instance, one team member might be in charge of redefining email marketing contact lists. Another might be in charge of auditing the current workflows in place for email marketing.

As team members complete these tasks, they would check them off in a centralized space so the entire team can stay updated on the project’s status.

Marketing operations teams are equally effective with their strategies and management capabilities as Summer's character in "School of Rock." With her processes, the group was able to obtain their own rehearsal space and offer music classes.

Marketing ops can come up with ways to increase customer satisfaction and ease the job of marketers. Their strategies make marketing activities and duties accessible to all, and because of that, are an essential part of a business.

Everything You Need to Know About Marketing Operations in One Place was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Permalinks: What They Are & How to Structure Them for Max SEO Value

What comes to mind when you think of SEO?

"Permalink" probably isn't the first or second thing, maybe not even the 10th thing.

The truth is, though, permalinks and SEO have a lot more in common than you may realize, and — when done correctly — can play an important role in improving your website's ranking. Luckily, they are also simple to master.

Let's get into how permalinks work, how to create them, and set them on WordPress.

Let's break down this post's permalink.

You first have your domain (and subdomain in some cases) which is where your website lives. It's followed by the path, which indicates the location of the page. In this example, the article is located under the "Marketing" category.

The last part of your URL is the slug – an essential part of your permalink and vital for SEO because it tells search engines how to index your site.

Each component creates a permanent link leading to a specific page on your website that is unlikely to change, hence the name "permanent."

When you don't customize your URLs using permalinks, you get a randomized ID. The problem is that this isn't attractive to site visitors and isn't optimized for search engines.

Let's say you're blogging about sponsored tweets and their value. Would you rather have the URL look like this:

yourdomain.com/sponsored-tweets-guide

Or like this:

yourdomain.com/post-id?=5726fjwenfkd

Probably the first one, right?

Great slugs should include the keywords targeted in the post. Take our example above: "sponsored-tweets-guide."

From this permalink, the reader (and Google) know the page houses a guide to sponsored tweets and is targeting the keyword "sponsored tweets." This makes it easier for readers to find and share your content.

In addition, using keywords with high monthly search volume (MSV) in your slug can help you increase your ranking.

That's why when using a content management system (CMS) like CMS Hub or WordPress, you want to think about your permalink structure early on in your web development process.

What's the difference between a permalink and a URL?

A URL is a web address that directs a web browser to the location of a page or file. It can include a domain name only, or also include the path, slug, and other information depending on the page you are accessing.

A permalink, on the other hand, refers to a specific URL structure, a tool made popular by bloggers for sharing and SEO purposes. While every permalink is a URL, not every URL is a permalink.

The Best Permalink Structures

With several permalink structures to choose from, think about your content and your audience to determine what format will work best.

For instance, a news site can greatly benefit from having a slug that includes a date and title. This lets readers know quickly by scanning what the post is about and when it was written.

On the flip side, if you manage a blog that prioritizes evergreen content and has pages that get constantly updated, you'll likely want to avoid having any dates in your titles.

That can signal to readers that your content is old and therefore, irrelevant. Instead, have a simple slug that only includes your article title.

It's all about using a structure that will benefit you (and your users) in the long run. Once you decide on a permalink structure, you can set it up in your CMS.

How to Make a Permalink

To make a permalink, all you need is:

• Your domain name
• Your slug
• Your path (if you have several topic categories and want to organize your content)

Then, there are a few best practices to keep in mind when deciding on your permalink structure:

• Keep it short – Avoid articles like "the," "a," "an" and create a slug that's a shorter version of your title. E.g.: If your article is titled, "How to Create an Instagram Story," your slug can simply be /Instagram-story.
• Include your main keywords – Optimize your slug by including your keywords. Make sure the keyword you use directly relates to the content on the page.

Now, in terms of where you go to create your permalink, that's typically on your CMS. The ideal time to set your permalink structure is shortly after developing your site but before any posts go live. However, you can also do this at any point.

If you decide to change old URLs to reflect your new structure, be sure to update all backlinks or set up redirects for those pages.

So, you're probably wondering how to optimize a permalink for WordPress. We'll cover that next.

Using Permalinks with WordPress

When you create a post in WordPress, the permalink will not be optimized unless you have already set the structure. Otherwise, it will look like a random ID.

You can find the permalink on the page post while you're editing, as seen in the example below.

Changing permalinks is a fairly simple process, and you won't need to install plugins to do so. You can select from a few structures or customize your own.

More on this in the next section.

1. Open "Settings" and click on ‘Permalinks."

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The first step in structuring your permalink is to open the "Settings" section of your WordPress dashboard. This should bring you to a list of options with various subheadings.

Once you click on this option, you'll be taken to a screen with a variety of options to choose from. Depending on your preference of how you want your post to be archived and searched, you can pick the one that most aligns with your goal.

2. Choose a permalink structure option.

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Here are the different choices you'll have and what they mean:

• Default — Avoid this default option if you're looking for maximum SEO value. It's the post identification number, with no other information.
• Day and name — This option sets up the slug to be the day the post went live and the name of your post. A good reason to use this is if you have multiple posts of the same name but want the differentiator to be the date it was posted.
• Month and name — The same as the previous option, this time with the month being displayed. If you have a monthly column, such as a "Favorites" or "Best Of", this is a great option.
• Numeric — Numeric is another choice that's safe to ignore, as this structure is all numbers and provides little SEO value. If you're archiving posts numerically, as a way to look back and see previous posts, numeric is the choice for you.
• Post name — Choosing this route is an okay method for SEO, but not the best, as Google likes to focus strictly on keywords when ranking posts.

Learn more about that "custom structure" option next.

3. Consider creating a custom permalink structure.

If you're not too excited about the structures WordPress offers, you can create your own permalink structure in minutes.

You'll create a formula for your permalink structure, and every time a post goes live, it will follow that formula.

For example, let's say you have a lifestyle blog and a travel category (i.e., path) under which you post about your latest vacations.

If you wanted to set the structure to be the category followed by the year and post name, here's what you would put in the box:

/%category%/%year%postname%/

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Each custom structure is separated by a backslash, and each tag starts with the percent sign.

You can find all of the structure tag options available to you on WordPress here.

When creating permalinks, the main thing to keep in mind is focusing on SEO (i.e., keywords) and user experience. They're the virtual key (pun intended) to making sure your content is found by the people you want to reach.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October of 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Permalinks: What They Are & How to Structure Them for Max SEO Value was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

6 Steps to Build a Single Customer View & Improve Customer Experience

Ever see those cool 360-degree cameras on red carpets at award shows?

Someone famous will stand in the middle and several cameras positioned all around will simultaneously capture pictures of the star, creating a spectacular image that gives you a 360 view of the person.

Now, imagine if you could do that with your target audience? Capture them from all angles as they interact with your brand. With a single customer view, you can.

The issue is, many businesses struggle to know where to start.

At the end of this article, you’ll understand what a single customer view is and how to create one for your brand.

A single customer view combines data from a consumer’s behavior on web and email, social media activity, demographics, interactions with customer service, and purchase history.

Let’s go through an example of an interaction between a consumer and a brand.

A consumer, let’s call her Jazmyn, discovers a brand on Instagram. Jazmyn visits the brand’s website through Instagram and downloads a free offer. Said brand adds Jazmyn to an email list and she starts receiving nurturing emails.

After months of no interactions, Jazmyn rediscovers the brand and makes a purchase. A month after that, she calls customer service regarding an issue with her product.

In just a few months, Jazmyn has interacted with at least three departments within the company: marketing, sales, and customer service. In many businesses, every department tracks data using its own system.

For instance, sales teams often use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track their interactions with clients and prospects while marketing teams use marketing platforms and automation tools to generate leads.

This creates huge data gaps, making it difficult to understand how a user is behaving over an extended period of time beyond a single vertical. It can also lead to duplicate information, leading to dirty data.

For instance, Jazmyn might receive ads for products she’s already purchased. Or she may get a call from customer service asking about a product she’s already reviewed via email.

Having a single customer view allows organizations to build personalized interactions with consumers, based on their current stage in the customer lifecycle. This creates a better customer experience, stronger brand loyalty, and better retention rates.

When you know where your target audience is, you can make enticing offers based on their current needs. It’s personalization at its best.

Benefits of a Single Customer View

When you invest in a platform with a single customer view, you:

• Have cleaner data – With an integrated system, you remove information silos, which often cause data duplication.
• Gather better insights – When you have an accurate map of the customer journey, you can better understand how your campaigns are performing and identify areas of improvement.
• Assign proper credit to the right channels – Proper attribution is a major issue when it comes to audience tracking. With an SCV, you can identify the best and worst-performing channels for future campaigns.

1. Align your data owners and your KPIs.

The first step in creating an SCV is aligning all your data owners across your organization.

It’s important to align your teams early on key targets and key progress indicators. This keeps everyone on the same page and striving toward the same goal.

So, although everyone will be working on different sections, they’ll all be contributing to the same objective. This is key in keeping everyone in the same mindset and easing the transition to a data-driven approach.

Your data owners will serve as liaisons between IT and your team, enforcing governance standards and supplying IT with the access they need.

During this process, your IT team will be instrumental, as they will need to consolidate data from multiple systems and sources.

2. Find the right tech.

The next step is finding a platform with the capabilities to support your company’s needs.

Key features to consider when searching for a platform include:

• Usability and accessibility of software
• CRM Integration
• Data quality tools
• Automation

You’ll also want to consider the size of your company and the scalability of the software. all-in-one CRM platform like HubSpot, which combines sales, marketing, customer service data to support a holistic customer experience.

3. Hire data managers.

Depending on your company size, you may want to onboard roles dedicated to data, such as data miners, data analysts, and data migration specialists.

The process of migrating data is a costly and time-consuming one that you may not be equipped for. Instead, hire experts with the knowledge and experience to do it right.

They will be essential not only during the initial building phase but also as you grow your customer base.

4. Sort and integrate all data from your legacy systems.

If you’re an established brand with a ton of scattered data, you’ll need to sort through your systems.

Start by conducting an audit of your data quality. From there, clean your data so you can start integrating it with your other systems, including:

• Your data warehouse
• Your point-of-sale systems
• Your marketing automation systems
• Your call center systems

5. Set your data governance strategy.

As you’re in the process of cleaning out old data, you’ll need a new system for new, incoming data.

This is where your data governance standards come into play. They serve as operating guidelines for retrieving, storing, and processing data.

You may wonder, what’s the difference between a data management strategy and a data governance strategy? The former refers to the actions you take to fulfill the guidelines outlined in your governance strategy.

To learn about how to develop a governance strategy, click here.

6. Test your processes.

The last step in this process is testing your new centralized system.

To ensure that your new environment works (i.e., that the data linkage is complete), some test data will need to be used to ensure the data is gathered, stored, and reported correctly on your platform.

This will likely be an ongoing process as your business scales and you implement new touchpoints.

The earlier your team can implement a single customer view framework, the better equipped you will be to serve your target audience. While the process can be expensive and time-consuming, it’s a worthwhile investment that will be instrumental in making strategic business decisions.

6 Steps to Build a Single Customer View & Improve Customer Experience was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

9 Breadcrumb Tips to Make Your Site Easier to Navigate [+ Examples]

In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, two children drop breadcrumbs in the woods to find their way home. Nowadays, you probably don't experience too many lost-in-the-wood experiences, but I'm willing to bet you've felt disoriented on a poorly designed website.

In web design, breadcrumb navigation is a way to show your users their location and how they got there. Like Hansel’s breadcrumbs, it helps users retrace their path and see where they are in the greater scheme of your site.

While you can style breadcrumbs however you'd like, they tend to look the same across websites that use them. Here's a simple example of breadcrumbs from the HubSpot Knowledge Base:

Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the acclaimed Nielsen Norman Group, has been recommending breadcrumb navigation since 1995, and makes a strong point for their usefulness and efficiency: "All that breadcrumbs do is make it easier for users to move around the site, assuming its content and overall structure make sense. That's sufficient contribution for something that takes up only one line in the design."

If your business's website is multi-layered, you might consider implementing breadcrumb navigation to make your site easier to navigate. However, like any design element, there's a right and wrong way of doing it. Here, we'll explore nine tips and examples to ensure you're creating the most effective breadcrumb navigation for your users.

Breadcrumb Navigation Tips and Examples

1. Only use breadcrumb navigation if it makes sense for your site's structure.

Breadcrumb navigation has a linear structure, so you only want to use it if it makes sense with your website's hierarchy. If you have lower-level pages that are accessible from different landing pages, using breadcrumb navigation will only confuse readers who keep accessing the same pages from different starting points. Additionally, if your site is relatively simple, with only a few pages, you probably don't need breadcrumb navigation.

2. Don't make your breadcrumb navigation too large.

Your breadcrumb navigation is a secondary tool to your primary navigation bar, so it shouldn't be too large or prominent on the page. For instance, on DHL's website, their primary navigation bar is large and recognizable, with columns like "Express" "Parcel & eCommerce" "Logistics", etc. Their breadcrumb navigation is the smaller section below that reads, "DHL Global | > Logistics | > Freight Transportation". You don't want your users to mistake your breadcrumb navigation as the primary navigation bar.

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3. Include the full navigational path in your breadcrumb navigation.

I Googled "Elon University Non-Degree Students" to reach this landing page, but Elon is smart to include the full navigational path, including "Home" and "Admissions". If you leave out certain levels, you'll confuse users and the breadcrumb path won't feel as helpful. Even if users didn't begin on the homepage, you want to give them an easy way to explore your site from the beginning.

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4. Progress from highest level to lowest.

It's important your breadcrumb navigation reads left to right, with the closest link to the left being your homepage, and the closest link to the right being the user's current page. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found users spend 80% of their time viewing the left half of a page and 20% viewing the right half, making a strong case for left-to-right design. Plus, the link closest to the left will appear as the beginning of the chain, so you want it to be your highest-level page.

5. Keep your breadcrumb titles consistent with your page titles.

To avoid confusion, you'll want to remain consistent with your page and breadcrumb titles, particularly if you're targeting certain keywords in those titles. You also want to clearly link your breadcrumb titles to the page. If the breadcrumb title doesn't have a link, make it clear. Nestle effectively labels its breadcrumb titles to match the page titles. "Areas of impact & commitment", for instance, reads the same in the breadcrumb navigation as it does on the page.

Nestle also does a good job differentiating links from non-links with different colors -- the links are blue, while the non-links remain gray.

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6. Get creative with design.

The traditional breadcrumb navigation looks like this: Home > About Us > Careers. However, you don't need to follow the traditional path if you feel a different design could appeal more to your audience, or look better on your site.

For instance, Target uses breadcrumb navigation in their product pages (because who wouldn't get lost in the virtual shoe section?), but uses "/" symbols and simple black and grey text. In this case, the subtle design variation makes sense for their site's aesthetic.

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7. Keep it clean and uncluttered.

Your breadcrumb navigation is simply an aid for the user, and ideally shouldn't be noticed unless the user is looking for it. For this reason, you don't want to clutter your breadcrumb navigation with unnecessary text.

Eionet, for instance, could do without their "You are here" text. While meant to be helpful, the text clutters the page. With the right design, a breadcrumb navigation should be noticeable enough without an introduction.

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8. Consider which type of breadcrumb navigation makes the most sense for your site.

There are a few different types of breadcrumbs you might use -- location-based, attribute-based, and history-based. Location-based breadcrumbs show the user where they are in the site's hierarchy. Attribute-based breadcrumbs show users which category their page falls into. Finally, history-based breadcrumbs show users the specific path they took to arrive at the current page.

Bed Bath & Beyond uses attribute-based breadcrumb navigation to show users which category their product page falls under, so users can click back to "Kitchen" or "Small Appliances" to peruse similar items. This type of breadcrumb navigation is most effective for Bed Bath & Beyond customers. When you're creating a breadcrumb navigation, consider what's most useful for your site's visitors.

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9. Know your audience.

Best practices in breadcrumb navigation urge web designers to place the navigation at the top of the page -- but Apple, one of the most valuable companies of all time, defies this logic by putting their breadcrumb navigation at the bottom of their site. Ultimately, it's critical you know your audience. Apple's customers are typically tech-savvy, and would likely find the navigation if they needed it. Consider your customers' needs, and implement A/B testing if you're unsure.

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Breadcrumb Navigation in HTML and CSS

Not only are breadcrumbs useful — they’re also easy to add to your website with a bit of HTML and CSS code.

Let’s start with the HTML, which we’ll use to make the links themselves. The easiest way to do this is to organize your links in an unordered list (<ul>) element, with each list item (<li>) comprising a link in the breadcrumb series until the final item, which denotes the current page.

Here’s an HTML template for breadcrumbs that you can use:

Notice how I’ve also enclosed the unordered list in an HTML <nav> (navigation) element, and added a class and an ARIA label to its opening tag. This is optional, but helps make your page more accessible to screen readers and search engines.

Of course, this HTML alone isn’t enough — right now, we just have a bulleted list of links. By adding CSS, we can achieve the breadcrumb look that we’re looking for. Apply the following CSS to the HTML above:

Together, this code generates a basic breadcrumb navigation area that can be used on any site — see the final result below. I’ve also added some additional styling for a cleaner look. To see how the breadcrumbs look without this styling, comment out the code at the bottom of the CSS tab.

See the Pen Breadcrumbs in HTML and CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.

 

Breadcrumb Navigation in Bootstrap CSS

Bootstrap CSS also offers a way to create breadcrumbs without needing to add custom CSS. To do this, use the Breadcrumb component like so. Here’s an example from the Bootstrap 5 documentation:

See the Pen Breadcrumbs in Bootstrap CSS by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen.

This is just the basics of breadcrumb navigation in Bootstrap — see the Bootstrap breadcrumb documentation to learn all the details.

Design to Help Users Navigate Your Site

Ultimately, breadcrumb navigation is an effective tool to make your site easier to navigate, but you want to follow design best practices to ensure you're leveraging the tool's helpfulness. For additional UX advice, check out our Ultimate Guide to UX Design.

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

9 Breadcrumb Tips to Make Your Site Easier to Navigate [+ Examples] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns