How to Conduct an Exit Interview: 7 Top Questions [Form Template]

To determine what causes employees to leave — and to create a better, happier employee experience moving forward — it's critical you conduct productive exit interviews.

In this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about exit interviews, plus the best questions you should ask. We’ll also go over an exit interview form template that you can copy and paste into a document and reuse for future interviews.

What is the purpose of an exit interview?

The purpose of exit interviews is to get valuable insight from employees who are leaving your company. When conducted correctly, these interviews tell you what, if anything, could improve about your company culture. You’ll then be able to improve moving forward and drastically reduce employee turnover.

Why are exit interviews important?

According to a study conducted by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), on average it costs a company between six to nine months of an employee's salary to locate and train a replacement for them. So if the employee who's leaving makes 60K, that can work out to anywhere between 30K and 45K in recruiting and training costs.

Undoubtedly, a high turnover rate can hurt your company financially. Additionally, a high turnover rate can lead to less productive teams, and lower employee morale overall.

Luckily, you can reduce turnover rate by using the feedback you get from exit interviews. Many employees who are leaving can help you determine areas for improvement and provide valuable feedback. Additionally, it can be helpful to identify consistent patterns of discontent to figure out larger organizational issues.

For instance, let's say you hire a new marketing director, and a year later, you see a severe increase in turnover rates. Out of 15 employees, only seven from the prior year remain. Undoubtedly, this change impacts your team's productivity and morale, and leave you nervous about the future of your department.

So how do you figure out what's going wrong, or how your marketing director can improve their performance to ensure higher job satisfaction for their team?

The answer is conducting an exit interview for every person who’s leaving. You’ll find out what your marketing director is doing wrong and help them improve in their leadership role.

You’ll also improve morale because you’ll show employees that you care about their experience. You’re not just letting people leave — you want to know why they’re leaving and stop anyone else from doing the same thing.

To ensure you're asking the right questions during exit interviews, take a look at the questions you should ask below and what to look for in an answer.

1. How long have you been considering leaving our company?

This is a simple question that will tell you whether this was a rash decision or a decision that happened over time. If it seems sudden, then it was likely caused by a certain event, and you’ll be able to better tailor your questions to get to the motive behind the employee’s decision.

What to Look For

Look for a time range. A year versus a month is a big difference. Determine whether any major company changes happened at the time they considered leaving — an acquisition, a change in management, and so forth.

2. How did the job match expectations?

The job may have perfectly met the employee’s expectations, or maybe it wasn’t exactly what they were looking for when they were thinking about the next step in their career. Regardless, this question will help you determine where you could be clearer in your job postings and in your company image.

What to Look For

Listen for “I thought I would be doing more of X” or “I was looking more of an X type of company.” This will help you better refine your job postings and the way you represent your business online. If an employee was looking to work at a startup and you’re an enterprise firm, you’ll want to screen future candidates for these expectations.

3. What reason primarily describes your reason for leaving?

Was it a change in lifestyle, a career change, or a better opportunity elsewhere? While the last option may seem like the most common and useful answer, a change in lifestyle — such as becoming a stay-at-home parent — could tell you where else you could improve.

For instance, you could offer paid parental leave so that your employees no longer have to choose between their jobs and their children. Or if they’re switching careers, you could offer more interdepartmental mobility to current employees, so they don’t feel stuck in one role.

What to Look For

Dig into the specific reason for their leaving without letting the employee dive into anecdotes or frustrations. Focus on what attracted them to the new opportunity, new career, or new lifestyle, and use those answers to figure out what you could offer your current employees.

4. If you have accepted a new position, what is most attractive about your new role?

This is a fantastic follow-up to the last question if the employee has already accepted an offer elsewhere. It also helps you dig further into what convinced them to leave the company and see where, if anywhere, you may fall short.

What to Look For

Listen for standard answers such as “pay,” “benefits,” “industry,” and “location.” Only note those that you can improve. For instance, you can’t really move offices or change your industry.

5. What did you like most about your job?

Give yourself a chance to breathe — and your employee, too — by focusing on the positives. That way, you don’t accidentally overhaul the things that work. If the employee answers that they loved the people they worked with, for instance, continue attracting top talent to your firm.

What to Look For

Listen specifically for the people aspect and the project management aspect of this answer. If the employee loved the projects they were working on or the people in their team, you’re doing the core things well. If they only mention surface-level things, such as the snacks or the free parking, you’ll want to revise your recruiting strategy.

6. What did you dislike about your job? What would you change about your job?

This is your opportunity to truly dig into what prompted the person to leave as it pertains to their role. Employees will likely “skirt around” the true reason here — or they may launch into an anecdote. Either way, listen carefully, and remember that this is only one employee’s experience. Only when you see repeated patterns do you need to take action, which is why it’s important to ask the same questions every time.

What to Look For

Search for answers that allude to the people in the team, because as the old saying goes, people don’t quit companies — they quit managers. If they don’t directly mention a person, listen for emotional words that show how the employee felt working in that team, which would show how the team operates under its manager.

7. How would you describe the culture of our company?

With this question, you can identify the gaps between your employees’ experience and the culture you aim to promote. Hopefully, you’ve already defined an organizational culture that upholds your values. (Pro tip: If you’re in need of inspiration, you can take a look at our Culture Code and steal some ideas from there.)

What to Look For

Don’t look for direct antonyms to what you’ve defined as your culture, because employees won’t be as up-front. They might use seemingly positive terms, such as “fast-paced” or “structured,” but these may hint at a high level of stress and a sensation of immobility. Listen carefully for these seemingly positive adjectives.

Don’t let it stop here. To ensure you’re employing best practices to get optimal feedback from your employees, take a look at our exit interview form template. It includes even more exit interview questions that will help you understand why the employee is leaving.

Exit Interview Form Template

Once an employee has given their resignation letter, you'll want to send them a form with some (or all) of the following questions. Give them time to submit their answers through the form before meeting with them to discuss their answers, face-to-face.

Below are some of the questions you'll want your exit interview form to include. Simply copy and paste them into your preferred word processor.

Exit Interview Form

1. How long have you been considering leaving our company?

2. How did the job match expectations?

3. What reason below primarily describes your reason for leaving?

a. New industry (significant career change)

b. Compensation

c. More opportunities for learning and growth

d. Personal Reasons

e. Manager / leadership quality

f. Day-to-day work environment / culture

4. If you have accepted a new position, please select all the items that are more attractive about your new role:

a. Better pay

b. Better culture

c. Better location / commute

d. Different industry

e. Manager

f. Better work-life balance

g. More career advancement opportunities

5. What did you like most about your job?

6. What did you dislike about your job? What would you change about your job?

7. How would you describe the culture of our company?

8. How would you describe the general atmosphere in the office?

9. The quality of supervision is important to most people at work. How was your relationship with your manager?

10. What could your supervisor do to improve their management style and skill?

11. We try to be an employee-oriented company in which employees experience positive morale and motivation. What is your experience of employee morale and motivation in the company?

12. Please provide any context to further describe your reasons for leaving. Was there an event that led to this decision?

13. What were your reasons for joining our company originally? How have your feelings changed?

14. Do you believe your manager supported your professional development?

15. What are 1-2 things our company could do to promote a better workplace?

16. Please provide context and any additional feedback you’d like to provide on your manager.

How to Conduct an Exit Interview

Now that it’s time to conduct the interview, you’ll want to take the following steps to make sure the conversation is productive, amicable, and neutral.

1. Send the exit interview form to the soon-to-be ex-employee.

First, send the person who is leaving a form or document with your standard questions. This would happen the same week that they put in their resignation letter — ideally within one to two days. They should already know a form is coming their way, because you would have expressed that verbally.

2. Choose an interviewer and set up the meeting.

After you've given the employee time to thoughtfully respond, it’s time to choose an interviewer and set up an in-person meeting.

The interviewer should be an unbiased third party, such as a staff member from your HR team. Don’t set up the exit interview meeting with their manager or with anyone whom the person has worked with before. This may impair their ability to be honest during the interview.

3. Ask the same questions in every exit interview.

Ensure you ask the same questions in each exit interview so you can gather actionable data and insights.

Prepare a handout for yourself that prompts you to jot down similar notes for every person you or your HR staff member interviews. If all of the notes are highly disparate or seemingly disconnected, it will be difficult to glean insights and improve moving forward.

4. Keep the tone of the conversation neutral.

In person, do not ask targeted questions regarding specific people or departments — keep your questions general and don't input your own opinion into the conversation. Don’t prompt the employee to over-share about their frustrations with the job.

This is not constructive to you as a company. Rather, you want to find out areas of improvement in more general terms, so that you can create company-wide change.

If the employee only gives personal anecdotes, that would only help you create a better experience for them. The problem is that they’re already leaving. What you want to find out is how you can improve the employee experience for those who are staying.

5. Distill the answers into insights.

Identify patterns you see from different exit interviews, and use that data to draw conclusions on which feedback you should use to improve the employee experience moving forward. As mentioned, take similar notes for each exit interview. To make it easier, you could use a survey software that helps you collect the employee’s written answers.

Exit Interview Best Practices

Ultimately, an exit interview doesn't just help you understand why your talent is leaving — it also helps you ensure you can implement strategies or cultural changes to improve the satisfaction of employees who stay.

However, it's not always easy to discern what a highly productive exit interview looks like.

To learn more about exit interview best practices, I spoke with Winston Tuggle, an HR Business Partner at HubSpot. Here are some of the best practices he suggests.

1. Always ask the same questions.

When it comes to exit interview best practices, Tuggle suggests, "For conducting productive exit interviews, I think one key is asking the same questions of all people who leave. This structure allows us to codify the exit responses so we can extract actionable data around why people are leaving, and how we can improve the employee experience.

We do this by having a standard exit interview form that leavers submit, and then have an unbiased third-party follow up in-person to go deeper on the answers the person filled out in the exit interview. Exit interviews aren't necessary unless you plan on using them to gather as much data as possible that can be coupled with employee survey data to understand the employee experience."

2. Understand the “why” behind the person’s resignation.

Tuggle also notes, "[It's critical you understand] the 'why' behind someone leaving ... to gather trends over time. As an HR team, it helps us to not overreact to one person's experience and conversely helps us identify trends that we can proactively address before they lead to more unwanted attrition."

3. Explain the purpose behind the exit interview.

It's important you explain the purpose behind the exit interview to each employee before you begin. You might say, "We hope to use your feedback to continuously improve our culture and business processes, so we are interested in your honest opinion on how your experience has been." That way, they don’t feel they’re taking part in a conversation that won’t be used to create change.

4. Ensure interviews stay confidential.

You'll also want to make sure your exit interviews are confidential between the HR team and employees. While data or general insights can be used to improve employee experience and should be shared with leadership, your employee needs to know their exact complaints won't reach their old manager or coworkers.

5. Thank the employee for their time.

Finally, be sure to thank your employee for taking the time to provide feedback during an exit interview. While one individual likely can't pinpoint issues regarding an entire team or department, you'll likely see commonalities over time that can help you determine how you can improve your workplace for the long-run.

Exit Interviews Will Improve Your Company Culture

Exit interviews are the key for improving your business from the inside out. Knowing what makes some employees leave can help you keep the employees you already have. As a result, you’ll improve your company culture, reduce turnover, and boost productivity — leading to a better and better workplace over time.

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

How to Conduct an Exit Interview: 7 Top Questions [Form Template] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Best Facebook Ad Software For Creating Effective Campaigns

In 2020, the number of monthly active users on Facebook was 2.74 billion.

Based on that statistic alone, it goes without saying that marketers need to be on Facebook.

And they are — in fact, in 2020, there were 10 million active advertisers using Facebook to promote their products and services.

But how can you ensure you're targeting your unique audience while also breaking through the noise of all of the other ads on Facebook?

With the help of Facebook ad software.

Facebook Ad Software

Facebook ads are an effective way of getting in front of your target audience on the platform.

In this article, we'll review 1) what Facebook ad software is, 2) why it's important, and 3) popular ad tools to choose from.

Benefits of Facebook Ad Software

Here are examples of the beneficial features you get from using Facebook ad software.

• Targeting and customer segmentation to help you reach your audience based on their behaviors, characteristics, and traits (e.g. location, demographics, age, past actions or purchases, languages).
• Automation to expedite the processes of creating and sharing ads, data collection, and reporting.
• Reporting to share, visualize, and analyze all of your Facebook ad and contact data.
• Customization to create ads and CTAs that help you achieve your specific goals.
• Ad creation for different points in the buyer's journey and for new and returning leads/ customers.
• Integrations to connect your Facebook ads and data with other business, marketing, and social media tools.

By incorporating Facebook ad software in your strategy, you'll have the ability to tap into the benefits listed above and more.

1. HubSpot Ads Software

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Managing and creating personalized Facebook ad campaigns all within your CRM/ HubSpot.

Price: Free, $45/mo Starter, $800/mo Professional, $3,200/mo Enterprise

With HubSpot Ads Software, you can use your CRM data to create and optimize customized and highly personalized ads for your target audience. Report on those ads to determine which are converting audience members into paying customers.

HubSpot offers direct integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and Instagram so you can easily create, share, manage, and report on your ads all through one tool. Report on the ROI of individual ad campaigns across Facebook and those additional platforms.

HubSpot also has automated lead follow-up — meaning, once your ads do what they're supposed to (convert leads!), it automatically saves their contact details and routes those leads to the right reps on your team.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot Ads Software to manage and personalize your Facebook Ads with your CRM data.

2. Facebook Ads

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Creating ads tailored to your target audience within Facebook on a pre-determined budget.

Price: You determine the price of Facebook Ads by deciding 1) how much you want to spend on your ads or 2) the cost of each result of your ads.

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Use Facebook Ads to tailor ads to your target audience by first selecting your business type and goal.

Facebook makes it easy to then create, publish, and edit ads, as well as track and share their performance across any of their platforms (e.g. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, etc).

Customize ads by selecting one of the six available formats as well as the specific audience you're going after based on their behaviors, characteristics, demographics, and more on the platform.

Stick to your ad budget on Facebook by setting a daily and/or lifetime budget and determining the amount of time your ads will run. As a result, you'll only spend the amount you set aside on your ads.

3. Qwaya

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Ensuring your target audience sees fresh ads on Facebook using the tool's automatic ad rotation feature.

Price: Plans starting at $149/mo

Qwaya is an ads tool for Facebook and Instagram. It allows you to identify the right audience segments for your ads with A/B testing and targeting criteria. The tool makes it easy to test ad types, ad placement, text, images, and more on Facebook.

Qwaya automatically manages your audience segments and ads for those segments¸— ads and audiences are placed in a "campaign and ad set" folder structure to keep all information organized accordingly. You can also automate the process of running your ads when your target audience is most likely to be on the platform (e.g. certain time of the day and/or week).

4. AdEspresso

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Split-testing Facebook ads and saving the most successful ads and creative elements for easy, future access.

Price: Plans starting at $49/mo (billed annually) for a $1,000/mo spend limit.

AdEspresso is an advertising platform by Hootsuite with features for ad creation and management across Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads.

By making it easy to split test all aspects of your Facebook ads (e.g. creatives, headlines, images), AdEspresso helps ensure they'll reach and resonate with your target audience so you can increase conversions.

Once you determine which Facebook ads work best through split testing, save ads and creative elements in the tool for easy access across your team.

You can also bring your product catalog into AdEspresso to create dynamic ads for your individual products that are tailored to your audience. These relevant product ads will then be placed in front of your audience when they're most likely to convert.

5. SocialPilot

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Using a single social media marketing platform for Facebook ads and "boosting" those ads to increase their reach.

Price: Plans starting at $25.50/ mo for 10 social media accounts and one user.

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SocialPilot is a social media engagement platform with a tool meant specifically for Facebook ads. With this tool, you can create, schedule, and manage your Facebook ads.

With audience targeting, customizable CTAs, and dynamic ad content, SocialPilot helps you create Facebook ads that generate high-quality leads.

Use the "Boost Posts" feature (paid ads offered by Facebook) to increase the reach of your ads. Once you create your ad, select your audience, and set a budget, SocialPilot will publish the ad and immediately "boost" it for you to increase reach among your target audience.

Additionally, if the platform believes you've scheduled an ad that would do especially well with a "boost", SocialPilot will give you that suggestion.

6. Revealbot

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Merging multiple actions into individual automations to save you time and increase productivity when it comes to your Facebook ad strategy.

Price: Plans starting at $83/mo for maximum ad spend of $10,000/mo.

Revealbot is a Facebook ad automation and management tool. Use the drag-and-drop automation builder to establish automation for all parts of your Facebook ad strategy — you can set more than 20 actions for single automation to save you time.

Connect your external marketing and ad data to Revealbot to report on and analyze ads while maintaining a holistic view of your data.

Track and analyze ad data you care most about by creating unique and/or customized metrics and timeframes in your conditions. You can also use comparison conditions to compare and visualize metrics to better understand the performance of your ads.

7. Madgicx

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Using artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize and automate your Facebook ads.

Price: Plans starting at $49/mo for up to $1000/ mo ad spend.

Madgicx is an AI-powered, omnichannel advertising platform with a Facebook ad optimization and automation tool. Over 100 audience targeting options exist to help you develop a customized advertising strategy that covers every stage of the funnel.

Input your KPIs targets in Madgicx's PPC tool so it automatically optimizes your account. Meanwhile, the AI-powered creative intelligence feature analyzes the performance of your ads and creatives based on a variety of data points.

As a result, you'll have the information you need to target all of your buyer personas both effectively and efficiently.

Improve Upon your Campaign Strategy With Facebook Ad Software

Facebook ad software has the ability to help you create, optimize, and analyze your advertisements and campaigns on the platform. Begin improving upon your Facebook ad strategy by incorporating one of these tools.

Best Facebook Ad Software For Creating Effective Campaigns was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Exit Intent Pop Up Examples and What Makes them Effective

It's common for people to visit websites without converting — maybe they're conducting product research, educating themselves on your brand, or weighing out the advantages of your product versus one of a competitor.

All of these actions are normal but they're not always ideal for your business — you want those visitors to stay on your site and convert (e.g. provide their contact details, sign up for your newsletter, or make a purchase).

One way to help accomplish this — and avoid customers coming and going without converting — is with the help of exit intent pop ups.

In other words, exit intent pop ups know when one of your visitors is about to leave your website — they serve a visitor a valuable offer/ message that's designed to keep them on the page (and, hopefully, influence them enough to convert). 

How do exit intent pop ups work?

Imagine a visitor is on your ecommerce site — they’re browsing your product line. They then decide they want to exit the web page they’re on and they move their cursor out of the frame/ boundaries of your website. But a pop up appears with an offer (e.g. coupon code, free ebook, free trial, etc.) that they stay on the page to read. They click your CTA and convert in the way you intended them to.

So, exit intent pop ups make it possible to retain visitors on your site for longer periods of time, increase conversions, decrease cart abandonment rates, grow your email subscriber list, and more. 

What about exit intent pop ups on mobile sites?

Your target audience is bound to browse your site via mobile device. But if exit intent pop ups work by tracking cursor movements, then how does this strategy work on mobile devices? 

Exit intent pop ups will often appear on mobile devices after one of two actions are completed by visitors. 

1) A visitor scrolls down your web page at a normal pace, but then rapidly scrolls back up to the page. 

2) A visitor presses the "Back" button on the screen. 

How to Implement Exit Intent Pop Ups

The easiest way to implement exit intent overlays on your web pages is with the help of a tool specifically designed to do just that.

Let's take a look at the features and benefits you can get out of one of these tools by looking at an example.

Exit Intent Pop Up Software: HubSpot Exit Intent Forms

Price: Free forever, $45/mo (Starter), $800/mo (Professional), $3,200 (Enterprise)

HubSpot's Exit Intent Forms track visitor mouse movements and clicks on your website and then display your form when visitors appear to be leaving. In addition to showing your customized exit intent form, HubSpot can send automated emails (e.g. cart abandonment) and re-engagement campaigns or content.

Implementing exit intent forms with HubSpot is simple and quick — you simply embed your exit intent messaging on your website. HubSpot also allows you to customize your message, theme, and pop up timing.

With HubSpot, you can also:

• Customize your exit intent form's location, branding, and messaging.
• Trigger email campaigns once visitors leave your website to reengage them.
• Integrate with your other systems for marketing, forms, and meeting scheduling without the need for additional development (e.g. Zapier, Shopify, WordPress, etc.).

Other tools on the market to help with exit intent pop ups are Optinmonster, Sleeknote, and Informizely.

Why would you use an exit intent pop up?

When they’re used and shared on the right web pages at the right time, exit intent pop ups are an effective strategy for increasing revenue. This is because they help you lower cart abandonment and increase retainment, form submissions, and subscriptions on your website.

To better understand how exit intent pop ups work, put yourself in the shoes of your website visitors for a moment. Imagine you’re browsing a website with a specific product that you like and/or believe can help you resolve a challenge you’re facing.

But you then say to yourself, “Ehh, I’ll think about it and come back to this later.”

You move your cursor to the top of the screen to exit the page. But suddenly, a pop up appears on the screen — it’s a coupon for 20% off your first purchase.

You’re likely going to consider applying that coupon code and purchasing the product now, right?

Exit intent pop ups work by providing customers and website visitors with the value that they wouldn’t otherwise have had on the landing, web, or ecommerce page.

An important piece of information to note is that exit intent pop ups should be used when people haven’t already taken action — this feels redundant and impersonal to your visitors.

For instance, if someone already clicked your CTA to subscribe to your newsletter — which shares discount codes and information about product deals — then you shouldn’t show them an exit intent pop up with that offer.

Exit Intent Popup Examples

In this section, we’ll review some of the best exit intent pop up examples.

Best Exit Intent Pop Up Examples

Here are some of the best exit intent pop up examples for lead generation to inspire and guide your exit intent pop up creation.

1. Cart Abandonment Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it's effective: This cart abandonment exit intent pop up is effective because it appears on the page the moment someone who has an item in their cart moves their mouse towards the "exit" button on the screen.

Not only does it remind visitors that they are leaving items in their shopping cart, but it also asks for feedback about why the visitor is deciding to move forward without making a purchase.

This is unique and powerful because it shows visitors that the company cares about them on a personal level — they want to know their opinions, challenges, feedback.

These are the types of customer experiences that leave a good impression on visitors and leads even if they don't complete a purchase. You're offering them a personal experience that may lead them to come back in the future or promote your business among their networks by word-of-mouth.

2. Email/ Newsletter Subscription Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it's effective: The moment you scroll back to the top of the page and move your mouse out of Omsom web page's framework, a bright exit intent pop up appears with a form so visitors can sign up for the Omsom newsletter.

The pop up is well-timed, on-brand and eye-catching (even for someone who has the intention of leaving the page), and clearly states the value a lead will get out of submitting the form (getting the latest brand information, recipes, tips, and "hot takes").

3. Discount on Purchase Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it's effective: If you go to leave the Elaluz landing page an offer appears on the screen with a 15% off discount. Whether a visitor was thinking about moving forward with a purchase at that moment in time, the coupon is enticing for anyone on the site.

In addition to influencing purchase behavior with the coupon code, it also requires an email address — meaning those visitors who want the code must convert whether they use the code that day or not.

4. Exclusive Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it's effective: When you go to leave Curls' landing page, you're shown an exit intent pop up that asks you if you're leaving. It then succinctly tells the visitor what they'll be getting out of submitting the form.

In addition to this exit intent pop up's timing being effective, it's also located in an ideal spot — it's at the top of the page, where a visitor who's leaving the page naturally has to move their cursor. Lastly, it's unique because it makes the offer a surprise — visitors know they're getting an "exclusive offer" but they don't know exactly what that offer is which is exciting and enticing.

5. Resource Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it's effective: When you're on ActiveCampaign's blog and you go to leave the page, an exit intent pop up appears with educational resources. It's a free guide with six emails for your "welcome series".

Not only is ActiveCampaign positioning itself as valuable because they have helpful information to share with their target audience, but the company is also positioning itself as a thought-leader in the industry.

Additionally, although the offer is free, visitors who want it have to submit their email address ¸— meaning, a new lead and contact for the business.

Other Ideas for Exit Intent Pop Ups

These aren't the only five types of exit intent pop ups you can create and implement. You can offer your target audience anything you believe they'll find valuable, whether it drives leads or not — here are some more ideas:

• Free shipping
• Contest entry
• Blog subscription
• Customer experience survey
• Course or lesson
• Customized offer of some kind based on past buying experiences
• Product demo

Increase Conversions With Exit Intent Pop Ups

Exit intent pop ups are a simple yet powerful marketing and lead generation strategy. Once you implement them, you'll be able to retain more audience members on your website and increase conversions and revenue.

Exit Intent Pop Up Examples and What Makes them Effective was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Boosted Posts vs. Paid Ads: Key Differences and When to Use Each

For many businesses, social media is an intimidating landscape. You know that you need to be on several platforms to reach your audience, but you’re not entirely sure if your content is getting enough organic reach to make the time investment worth it.

To add to that, you’ve been collecting followers and page likes for years and your audience is somewhere in the thousands. Why then, do your posts only reach a few hundred people at a time?

Thanks to complex social media algorithms, your posts will only reach a fraction of your actual audience. This means that no matter how good your content is, it will never be seen by everyone who could benefit from it. Sure, every once in a while, a post may be liked, commented on, and shared so many times that Instagram or Facebook deem it worthy to be seen by the masses… but that shouldn’t be your only strategy.

If you need to get it in front of a lot of people to introduce a new product, announce an event, or just spread awareness about who you are and what you do, it’s time to invest in paid advertising.

Facebook Advertising

Within Facebook, you’ll find two types of paid advertising: boosted posts and Facebook ads. Let’s take a look at what each of these is and their pros or cons.

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is a post that you’ve made on your page’s timeline that you can boost to an audience of your choosing for a fee. It’s a very easy way to get your posts in front of more people who may not know who you are and what you do.

When you boost a post, you’ll be asked a few questions to help optimize the experience. These include:

1. Who do you want to reach? This prompts you to choose a targeted audience who may enjoy your content.
2. What is your budget? Pick a max budget that you’d like to invest over the life of your campaign.
3. How long do you want to run your boost? Facebook will take your max budget and divide it by the number of days, then apply your investment accordingly.

Pros of Boosted Posts

• Boosted posts can be a great way to help your content reach more people.
• They are easy to set up as you work directly from your timeline.
• Compared to other forms of advertising, they can be more affordable

Cons of Boosted Posts

• These still show up as "ads" to your audience so they’ll know that you paid for the reach rather than it happening naturally.
• You have limited customizability when it comes to creating your ideal audience.

What is a Facebook ad?

Unlike boosted posts, Facebook ads are created in the Ads Manager where you’ll have many more customization options to choose from.

Pros of Facebook Ads

• You can choose where your ad is placed. In addition to the Facebook time and Instagram, you can also choose from the Facebook News Feed side ads, Messenger ads, Instagram stories, instant articles, and Audience Network.
• Be goal-oriented by choosing an objective early on in your ad building. This can help you align your marketing strategy with your business goals. You can choose from options like store traffic, conversations, and lead generation.
• Get creative. Facebook ads include carousels, allow for specific descriptions, and provide a call-to-action button to motivate your audience to do something.
• Customer your audience. Facebook ads give you more options to identify and reach your ideal audience. They also have advanced tools that allow you to create “lookalike audiences” and create overlapping audience types.

Cons of Facebook Ads

• Facebook ads can be complicated to create and require more in-depth knowledge of your ideal audience.
• Ads are created from scratch rather than boosting an existing post that’s already doing well.
• Facebook ads can be more expensive than boosted posts.

Boosted Post vs. Paid Ad

Both options can provide additional reach, so how do you know which is best for you? Even with knowing the pros and cons of boosted posts and Facebook ads, the real decision comes down to your goals and what you hope to get for your money.

Before we dive in, it’s important to note that whether you choose a Facebook ad or a boosted post, both will show up on your bill as an ad.

Boosted Posts are good for bringing your business more exposure because it helps your posts reach audiences that may not be familiar with your brand. They are helpful for raising awareness but are not necessarily effective for converting customers or donors.

Consider Boosted Posts If You Want To:

• Grow your following
• Develop brand awareness with a new audience
• Increase audience engagement on your Facebook page
• Improve visibility on your best posts
• Host promotions or giveaways
• Get more website clicks

It’s always best to boost posts that are already doing well with organic reach. This will allow you to maximize your budget while increasing engagement.

For example, let’s say that you’ve got an amazing success story testimonial. A customer used your product and had phenomenal results. You’ve got a relatable character, strong visuals, and a wonderful outcome. You’ve shared this story as a post and notice that it’s getting a lot of engagement from your audience. Hundreds have liked it, commented on it, and several have even shared it.

This presents a wonderful opportunity for you to boost the post and be seen by potential customers who may not know your business existed. You’re not necessarily looking to convert customers right then and there (although you certainly wouldn’t say no!), but rather to introduce your company and what you can do, to a larger audience. In this case, a boosted post may be the perfect way to spend your advertising dollars.

Maybe though, you’re looking to do more with your advertising budget. You want to capture leads, convert customers or donors, and see both a short-term and long-term benefit from your investment. If this sounds more like your advertising goals, you may want to invest in Facebook ads.

Consider Facebook Ads If You Want To:

• Convert website visitors
• Generate leads
• Drive traffic to your store
• Get orders for your store
• Have your videos seen by more individuals

Perhaps you just opened a new brick-and-mortar location or have expanded your business to sell products online. You not only want people to know about your business and what you do, but you want them to take action and shop in your store.

You’ve got a decent social media following, however, you’d like more than just your regular audience to know about your latest expansion. You understand your ideal customer or “avatar” and rather than build an audience from scratch, you’d like to target people who are just like your existing customers and are ready to buy. In this case, a Facebook ad will help you better reach your goals.

Boosted posts and Facebook ads both have their place in robust marketing and advertising plans. The key is to learn when to use each one so you can capitalize on your effort and get the best results for your business.

Boosted Posts vs. Paid Ads: Key Differences and When to Use Each was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2022 [New HubSpot Blog Data]

In 2022, 51% of B2C marketers plan to increase their marketing budget.

The question is where is that budget going? Will marketers reinvest in the same strategies or try new trends?

To understand what trends B2C marketers are leveraging in 2022, we surveyed 1,067 global marketing professionals working in B2B and B2C companies. 

From influencer marketing to virtual events, there are so many efforts brands can focus on. Let's see what our latest research says about what worked well for B2C marketers this year and where they plan to invest in 2022.

1. Short-form video will be a priority.

Short-form video took off in early 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Back then, TikTok was the number one place to go for short-form content. Today, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are also competing for users' attention.

This is good news for brands, as the short-form video trend content offered the second-highest ROI for B2C marketers in 2021, behind influencer marketing.

Despite coming in second for ROI, it's the trend marketers plan to invest in the most in 2022. Roughly 33% of B2C marketers already invest in short-form content, while one-third of those who haven't will do so for the first time in 2022.

Why now? Well, short-form video is such a key feature in social media today. And according to the data, social media takes the lead in marketing investments for businesses.

That's likely because three key goals B2C brands will have when running marketing campaigns in 2022, will be increasing brand awareness (49%), advertising products (44%). and increasing revenue (43%). 

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With social media, you can accomplish at least two out of three. Brand awareness was always the main benefit of using social media but things have evolved.

Today, with so many platforms offering in-app shopping experiences and advanced ad formats, brands can meet more of their marketing goals.

2. Influencer marketing will still be a key lead/revenue driver.

For most B2C marketers, the power of influencers is clear.

In 2022, 61% of B2C marketers surveyed in the study plan to leverage it in 2022. In fact, it's the third-highest trend they plan to prioritize, behind short-form video content and inbound marketing.

This is because in 2021, it offered B2C brands the best returns. When asked to select their top ROI driver from a list of 27 tactics and strategies, 11% of B2C marketers chose influencer marketing. 

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What might be different in the future is the type of influencer brands focus on. Historically, brands have focused on the biggest and most popular influencers to partner with.

However, some data suggest that micro-influencers with under 100K followers may be more effective.

While the verdict is still out on that, one thing is clear: Influencer marketing isn't going anywhere.

3. Audio content will take a front seat.

Data suggests that video is the leader when it comes to content marketing. However, audio is slowly creeping up into the mix.

According to the survey, only 19.1% of B2C marketers use podcasts or other audio content in their marketing. Of those who do use it, 37.4% find it to be one of their most effective trends.

Even though adoption was seemingly low in 2021, the data suggests that more B2C marketers will add audio content to their marketing efforts in the new year.

Roughly 43% of B2C marketers plan to increase their investment in podcasts in 2022 while 38.4 plan to keep it the same. Another interesting fun fact is that this particular piece of data is virtually the same for B2B marketers.

This suggests that across all industries, brands recognize the power of audio content.

4. Social responsibility will be more important.

Now more than ever, consumers want and expect brands to be more transparent and take a stand on social media.

In fact, a 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer survey revealed that many consumers see trust as a leading factor in their purchasing decisions.

In the past two years, particularly in the height of the COVID-19 crisis and calls for social justice, consumers have started holding brands more accountable. In 2022, brands will be addressing that demand.

Currently, only a third of B2C marketers surveyed find social responsibility to be an effective marketing trend. Despite that fact, 45% plan to increase their investment in 2022.

5. Brands will continue to apply inbound marketing strategies.

Inbound marketing is all about meeting consumers where they are. Instead of marketing efforts that push messaging out to consumers, this focuses on attracting them toward you.

Behind short-form video, inbound marketing is the top trend marketers will invest in next year.

In fact, over 80% of marketers plan to keep the same budget or add more for this strategy.

This is done by following the "Attract, Delight, Engage" model that leverages content marketing, SEO, marketing automation, social media, and more to nurture consumers at every stage of the buyer's journey.

There you have it – some of the top trends B2C marketers will invest in 2022. Between publishing regular video/audio content on social media and developing a strong inbound marketing strategy, marketers have a busy year ahead.

To keep up with the latest trends in marketing, stay tuned for more upcoming marketing strategy research posts, download the 2021 HubSpot Not Another State of Marketing report to learn what marketing professionals focused on this year. 

The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2022 [New HubSpot Blog Data] was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Data Tracking: What Is It and What Are the Best Tools

When data is surfaced, organized, analyzed, and applied effectively, you have the power to delight more customers and improve your business’s bottom line. But first, you need to obtain all of that valuable information.

A common way to collect data related to the metrics that you care most about — such as churn, conversion rate, engagement rate, user activation rate, and average revenue per customer — is through the process of data tracking.

Data Tracking

To obtain meaningful data about your customers and target audience and their behaviors, you need to track the metrics that matter most to your business both accurately and securely.

In this article, we’ll talk about what data tracking is, why it’s beneficial, how it works, and which tools can help you track and analyze the metrics you care about.

How does data tracking work?

Data tracking and collection are often performed with cookies and/or Javascript libraries. This is how a business can track information about user behaviors on the various pages of your website (e.g. web page, landing page, blog article, product page, checkout page, etc.) as well as user/ customer accounts.

There are several tools available (we’ll look at some examples shortly) that use cookies and Javascript to track data.

For instance, Google uses Javascript to measure how users interact with your website, HubSpot uses cookies to monitor website traffic (on your landing pages, blogs, and web pages) and track visitors, and Segment uses cookies and Javascript to analyze site traffic, deliver personalized ads, and improve browsing experiences.

How to Choose the Metrics You'll Track

The key to data tracking is selecting the right metrics (a.k.a. what you’re actually going to be measuring).

1. Ask yourself questions about what it is you want to learn. For example, "Which version of my product page converts the most users?"
2. Then, turn your question into a metric. For the example in the above step, your metric could be a product page’s conversion rate based on page views.
3. Hone in on your metric of choice even more by indicating the "events" within that metric. For the above example, events could be: 1) when a visitor lands on a product page, 2) when a visitor clicks the CTA on a product page, 3) when a user completes a form or submits a request to speak with a rep on a product page, 4) when a visitor converts into a paid customer on a product page.
4. Your chosen metrics and events should help you prove a strategy either works or doesn't among your audience. In other words, you can use your resulting data to prove your strategy's impact on the business and revenue.

Data Tracking Compliance

Now that you have a basic understanding of what data tracking is, you might be wondering about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), privacy policies, and the laws that exist to protect visitors, contacts, and customers.

How to Comply with Data Tracking Policies and Laws

Today, businesses should share information with customers and visitors about how they comply with these regulations.

For instance, here's Segment's website data collection compliance explanation:

On the web page, Segment clearly lays out how they collect and use data and contact details that are tracked with cookies and Javascript libraries on their website.

If you're worried about the potential of not covering all of your bases when it comes to compliance, there's good news — many data tracking tools help you with this process.

Note: There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to legal compliance. That's why — in addition to implementing a data tracking tool — it's recommended that you consult your legal team on compliance. They will be able to help you apply the relevant features of your data tracking tool and determine what compliance at your company looks like.

For instance, HubSpot has a web page that explains in detail how GDPR works and how every HubSpot customer can feel confident that their website is compliant.

Here are examples of how HubSpot helps you ensure data tracking and application are compliant:

1. Cookies

GDPR requires you to tell your website visitors that you're using cookies on your website in a language that they understand. They then need to consent to that tracking.

HubSpot allows you to capture all of your visitors' cookie tracking consent and you can share different versions of your consent banner on your web pages.

2. Lawful Basis

GDPR requires you to have lawful basis to use someone's data. HubSpot categorizes lawful reason to use someone's data by your intent to either use it to 1) process or 2) communicate.

HubSpot has a default contact property to store lawful basis to process and there's an option to track opt-ins and opt-outs to store lawful basis to communicate.

3. Deletion

Under GDRP, your contacts have the ability to ask you to give them a copy of all of the personal data you have about them. They can also ask you to modify that information or delete it completely.

HubSpot makes this easy by offering a "GDPR delete" function which permanently deletes a contact for you.

Data Tracking Software

Did you know that operations teams spend 80% of their time putting out data and process fires and only 20% driving business strategy and improving the customer experience?

With the right tools, things don’t have to be this way — your team can feel confident that your data is being tracked automatically, accurately, efficiently, and securely.

1. HubSpot Operations Hub

Best data tracking tool for combining a complete operations platform with a CRM to integrate all customer data across your business.

Price: $0/month (Free), $45/month (Starter), $720/month (Professional)

According to HubSpot’s Principal Marketing Manager, Ari Plaut, “Operation Hub’s key differentiator is that HubSpot is also a CRM.” Today, many data tracking tools allow you to track and analyze data — however, they don't let you do anything else with that data.

For example, with pretty much any data tracking tool on the market, you can track your customers to help you understand your activation rate.

However, if you want to then send an email to the customers who haven't activated to show them how they can get started, you aren't able to with most data tracking tools. But with Operations Hub you are.

Operations Hub increases HubSpot’s already powerful capabilities by making it easy for users to connect, clean, and automate customer data across the entire business.

Unique features:

• Sync data without code (e.g. bidirectional sync, custom field mappings, filtering, historical syncing).
• Automate data cleaning and run code-based actions with Advanced Workflow Automation.
• Build fully-native custom applications with Custom Objects.
• Install the HubSpot tracking code to monitor website traffic on your landing pages, blogs, and web pages.
• Track and manage your data with local regulations in mind (e.g. GDPR deletion, consent and cookies, and lawful basis processing).
• Keep data secure with SSL, SSO, two-factor authentication, and more.

Pro Tip: Use Operations Hub, powered by HubSpot's CRM, to sync customer data and automate business processes.

2. Google Analytics

Source

Best data tracking tool for tracking website engagement, audience behaviors, and digital marketing campaigns for free.

Price: Free (for under 10 million or fewer hits per month).

By adding the Google Analytics JavaScript tracking code to your web pages, you'll have the insights necessary to improve the customer experience and identify the right messaging, channels, and content for your target audience across your website and app.

There are a number of customizable metrics that you can track with Google Analytics such as sessions, engagement, entry and exit pages, events, retention, return, conversions, and more.

As for reporting and tracking specifically, track custom events, attribution, user path, and user activity all in real-time via a single dashboard.

Unique features:

• Collect user session and ad campaign data from page requests by setting and reading first-party cookies on your users' browsers.
• Read the DoubleClick cookie to collect data on display features.
• Use Google's Events to collect data (such as downloads, link clicks, form submissions, etc.) about interactions with your content.
• Use Google's Event Goals to define a certain Event as a conversion.
• Decide how you want to configure your Google Analytics tracking code so it's tailored to your unique website.
• Build custom reports and dashboards to track your Events.
• Collect user-specific data while they're on your website such as location, language, and activity.

3. Segment

Source

Best data tracking tool for implementing a CDP that can track, collect, align, and route all of your customer data into any system.

Price: Free, $120+/month (Team), request a custom demo (Business)

Segment is a data collection, management, and analytics platform. It powers and integrates with all of your data tracking tools in and out of Segment to keep your teams aligned.

There are also GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations to help you maintain data compliance.

Segment uses its API to collect data from any part of your product (e.g. mobile, web, server) via open source libraries for all platforms.

Unique features:

• Integrate your data with over 300 available apps in minutes.
• Use the event tracking API to track user events and record the actions those visitors perform on any platform.
• Query data in SQL and easily access your data at any time by using Segment's APIs.
• Keep all of your analytics data in a data warehouse of your choosing (e.g. Google BigQuery, Snowflake, etc.).
• Automatically back up your data and download your data whenever and wherever you need to.
• Access your user profiles in real-time.
• Use the Segment Profile API to review user- and account-level customer data.

4. Emarsys

Best data tracking tool for collecting product and behavior data and making that information accessible across the Emarsys platform.

Price: Request a demo and/or pricing.

Emarsys' website data collection tool, Web Extend, establishes one-to-one personalization capabilities across different channels. It uses cookies and JavaScript API commands to keep track of your website visitors and their behaviors.

Emarsys tracks visitor interactions and behaviors across your website — from product catalog to online store — and combines that information with your historical sales data (if you have any) to give you a holistic view of your audience.

Then, the tool adds your data to the various Emarsys systems within the platform such as the Revenue Attribution and Automation Center systems. This way, you can share your data cross-team and -department as well as reference and apply it throughout all business decisions.

Unique features:

• Track the type of customer data you need to create personalized experiences across all of your channels.
• Use cross-device user identification and campaign tracking.
• Track your known-contact interactions on your website and sync that data into the Emarsys contact database (which automatically happens every few hours).
• Access your data via any of the systems within the Emarsys platform, so you never have to integrate it.
• Track revenue from email campaigns with the Revenue Attribution system.
• Build campaigns based on contact behavior with the Automations system.
• Apply your catalog and purchase data to customer and lifecycle segmentation with the Smart Insight system.

Choose Your Metrics and Tool, and Begin Data Tracking

Data tracking is an effective and accurate way to identify and track the most important metrics to your business — you can then apply your results and insights to improve the customer experience and your bottom line.

Data Tracking: What Is It and What Are the Best Tools was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Why Buying Email Lists Is Always a Bad Idea (And How to Build Yours for Free)

You need people who you can email, and you need them quickly. Oh, and if you could get them pretty cheap, that'd be great, too.

That's the mindset many marketers find themselves in when they're on the phone with a list-purchasing company: We need new people to email to support our sales team. Acting on that moment of desperation, however, can cause more harm than good.

Yes, thousands of contacts are a credit card swipe away, but your email marketing program — a critical part of a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy — can seriously suffer. Curious why buying email lists is a legitimate email marketer's kiss of death? Read on.

Plus, we'll give you a list of squeaky-clean and effective ways to build your email marketing list without simply buying one.

Methods of Acquiring an Email List

Before we get into the pitfalls of buying email addresses, let's review three ways marketers are currently able to acquire their email lists:

1. Buy an email list.

You work with a list provider to find and purchase a list of names and email addresses based on demographic and/or psychographic information. For example, you might purchase a list of 50,000 names and email addresses of people who live in Minnesota and don't have children. There are several sustainable ways to use email marketing to grow your business. This isn't one of them.

2. Rent an email list.

Also working with a list provider, you identify a segment of people to email — but you never actually own the list. As such, you can't see the email addresses of the people you're emailing, so you must work with the provider to send out your email.

3. Own an opt-in email list.

Someone voluntarily gives you their email address either online or in-person so you can send them emails. They may pick certain types of email content they wish to receive, like specifically requesting email alerts when new blog posts are published. Opt-in email addresses are the result of earning the interest and trust of your contacts because they think you have something valuable to say.

When it comes to rented or purchased lists, you may come across vendors or marketers who say, "This email list is totally opt-in!" This means the people on the list opted in to email communication from someone at some point in time — the list provider, for example — by filling out a form or checking a box to receive more content from that provider.

What "opt-in" lists don't mean, however, is that email recipients opted in to receive email communications from your business. This is a critical distinction, and the next section of this post will go into more detail on why this type of "opt-in email list" (should be read with air quotes) is not a good idea for your email marketing program.

1. You'll violate the rules of consent under GDPR.

Most email marketers around the world are legally required to allow recipients to opt out of emails they no longer want to receive. Contacts must be able to do this directly in the email message. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European data privacy act that doubles down on the opt-in side of this relationship — and found that purchased email lists are simply not compliant.

GDPR has revamped numerous aspects of a digital marketer's use of customer data throughout Europe — on a website, in social media, and via email. You don't even have to work in Europe to fall under the act's jurisdiction; if your recipients live in Europe, they're protected by GDPR.

With GDPR now governing all email correspondence across Europe, adding an opt-out option to your email template no longer cuts it. Under this act, you must have explicit consent from your contacts to send them emails. Explicit, in this case, means the checkbox a person must click to opt into an email subscription isn't pre-checked when they see it on your website. And when you buy your email lists, the people on it haven't been given this option — making you non-compliant with GDPR before you send your first email.

Want some non-legal reasons to avoid the purchased email list? We've got those as well, below.

2. Reputable email marketing services don't let you send emails to lists you've bought.

If you're using email marketing software or plan to in the future, you'll find that reputable companies will insist that you use opt-in email lists. You might be saying, "I'll just use a non-reputable email marketing vendor."

Alas, ESPs on shared IP addresses that don't require customers to use opt-in email lists typically suffer poor deliverability. Why? One customer's ill-gotten email address list can poison the deliverability of the other customers on that shared IP address. You're going to want to hitch your wagon to the light side of the email marketing force if you want your emails to actually get into inboxes.

3. Good email address lists aren't for sale.

Unless your company is in the middle of a merger or acquisition, you're not going to come across a high-quality email list you can purchase. If it's for sale, it means the email addresses on it have already been deemed non-responsive or unqualified for marketing outreach.

While bought email addresses might've at one time had value, they've likely been spammed to the ends of the earth — otherwise, they'd still be in the desiring hands of the company selling them. Think about it, would you sell or share the email addresses of those who have voluntarily opted in to receive email from you?

4. People on a purchased or rented list don't know you.

I referenced this earlier, but it's worth going into some more detail on this subject. Rented and purchased lists are sometimes scraped from other websites, which, I think we can all agree, is a dirty way to acquire email marketing contacts.

But let's say the email addresses you're looking to purchase were not taken from another site but rather earned legitimately. Email list purchase and rental companies might tout that those lists are "opt-in." Sounds great, right?

Not really. Email addresses that belong to an "opt-in" list have opted to receive emails from, say, the list-purchasing company — not your company. Even if the opt-in process includes language like, "Opt-in to receive information from us, or offers from other companies we think you might enjoy," the fact is the recipient doesn't recall having a prior relationship with you, specifically. This makes it highly likely for the recipients to mark you as "spam" when you arrive in their inboxes. Hey, if they don't recognize you or remember opting into communications from you ... can you blame them?

​​After all, the most prevalent type of spam is advertising-related email — accounting for approximately 36% of all spam messages.

This takes us to our next point.

5. You'll harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.

Did you know there are organizations dedicated to combating email spam? Thank goodness, right? They set up a little thing called a honeypot, which is a planted email address that, when harvested and emailed, identifies the sender as a spammer. Similarly, things called spam traps can be created to identify spammy activity; they're set up when an email address yields a hard bounce because it's old or no longer valid, but still receives consistent traffic. Fishy, eh?

As a result, the email address turns into a spam trap that stops returning the hard bounce notice, and instead accepts the message and reports the sender as a spammer.

If you purchase a list, you have no way of confirming how often those email addresses have been emailed, whether the email addresses on that list have been scrubbed for hard bounces to prevent identifying you as a spammer, or from where those email addresses originated.

Are you really willing to risk not only your email deliverability, but also the reputation of your IP address and your company? Even if you find the light after purchasing or renting email lists and decide to only email those who have opted in with your company, it'll take you months (or maybe years) to get your Sender Score up and rebuild the reputation of your IP.

6. You can come across as annoying.

How do you like it when you get an email in your inbox from a company you've never heard of? I bet that's not the kind of company you want to buy from or work for.

If someone didn't ask to hear from you, it doesn't mean they won't want to hear from you later. It's your job to prove to them — through helpful content and valuable offers — that they should stay up to date with your company via email. If you force your email content on anyone too early, even if you know in your bones they're a great fit for your products or services, you risk preemptively losing their trust and their future business.

7. Your email service provider can penalize you.

Buying email lists doesn't just damage your deliverability and brand reputation — it can also put your email account at risk. Email clients like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Outlook don't want to be associated with accounts that recipients repeatedly flag as spam. Email service providers like AWeber go as far as immediately closing your account if it suspects you're sending unwanted content.

If these consequences are too daunting, we came up with some alternatives to paid email lists that’ll gain your customers’ interests.

Paid Email List Alternatives

1. Shift your outbound marketing strategy to inbound.

Buying email lists is another form of outbound marketing — it’s the method that pushes messaging out to potential customers. Not only is it costly, but it doesn’t guarantee a higher ROI as a result.

When you shift your strategy to inbound marketing, you’re repositioning your business to build brand awareness and customer relationships through content creation and social media tactics.

2. Conduct lead generation campaigns.

Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and nurturing their interests with the goal of making them into customers. This can be achieved through effective marketing campaigns with enticing call-to-actions.

Some examples of lead gen campaigns include:

• Sharing blog posts with informational content
• Promoting product offerings across social media channels
• Offering product trials or coupons that lead to your landing page

Your business can get creative with campaigns to better engage your audience, especially with our next point in mind.

3. Show thought leadership through your content.

With the content your business shares to an audience, you have the ability to display thought leadership. This tactic is used in content marketing to build trust and gain credibility in your field.

To become a thought leader, your business needs to display brand helpfulness through informative content like tutorials, listicles, and other posts that help your target audience learn something new.

If you want to use both email marketing while implementing these alternatives, read on to see how to do it right.

How to Grow an Opt-In Email List for Free

Now that you've learned a few ways to acquire email lists, let's explore how you can acquire them through the third method stated earlier in this article — the opt-in method.

Generating your own list of email contacts who have opted in to receive content from you doesn't just comply with legal regulations and protect your brand reputation. It also presents you with opportunities to grow this list through genuine relationships with new customers. We've already written about clever ways to go about doing this, which you can check out here. But, below are the basic best practices that have a very big bang for their buck when it comes to consistently growing an email list.

1. Create gated assets so there's a reason for people to give you their email address.

Webinars, ebooks, templates, etc. — these are all good long-form, premium content assets that people may find valuable enough to give over their email address. The more gated assets you have to put behind landing pages, the better — a wider variety of content will make it easier for you to attract a wider swath of people.

2. Create useful tools.

If ebooks aren't your jam, create tools instead. I don't recommend a one-or-the-other approach, but if you have more development talent than writing talent, this may be a more attractive option for you. These tools can be valuable enough to some of your website visitors that they'll trade you their email address for a free demo of the product you built. Then, for your first email, ask them what they thought of the tool. It's the perfect icebreaker.

For example, we created Website Grader — which is free to use, but prompts you to input an email address. We also took a similar approach to a more recent tool, the Blog Topic Generator.

3. Promote those gated assets on your marketing channels.

Now that you have some gated assets that can capture email addresses, spend a considerable amount of time making sure the world knows about them. You have plenty of channels at your disposal — social media, PPC, and email are common ones to turn to. But, none will provide lasting returns quite like your blog. Consider this scenario:

You promote your new gated assets by blogging about subject matters related to the content assets you've created. Put CTAs that lead to the asset's landing page on every one of those blog posts.

Now let's say your blog posts get about 100 views per month, and your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on the blog is about two percent. That means you'd get two leads from a single blog post each month.

Then, let's say you write 30 blog posts a month. That means you'd get 60 leads in a month — two from each blog post. Now keep doing that for a year. The work you did to blog that first month will continue to drive leads throughout the year. That means you're actually getting 4,680 opt-in contacts a month by the end of 12 months because of the compounding effects of blogging — not just 720 opt-in contacts (60 leads*12 months).

4. Run creative email marketing campaigns.

Most people don't think of email as a lead- or contact-generating channel. But because people forward helpful emails to colleagues or friends, it can expand your database if you simply make forwarding or sharing email content easy for recipients. Include calls-to-action in your emails that make sharing an obvious choice for recipients, particularly with your most useful assets.

If you already have a pretty large database, you also likely have some contacts that have gone quite stale. If so, I recommend running a re-engagement campaign that can help you both scrub your list and prevent the kind of spam and IP issues I addressed earlier, as well as reawaken old contacts that might have forgotten about you, but would actually be great fits for sales.

5. Include sharing buttons in your emails.

Consider adding share buttons to your email so your email recipients can forward the emails they liked most to friends and colleagues they think would like it, too.

Have a few different buttons on your email template: separate social media buttons that produce pre-written social posts linking to a webpage version of your email, and an "Email to a Friend" button that transfers the email into a compose window so your contacts can instantly forward the message. Just make sure your email has an opt-in button so each new viewer can subscribe to more emails from you if they like what they see.

Attract Customers without Breaking the Bank

There’s already plenty of noise your business has to break through to get to your customers — so don’t let your paid email marketing efforts end in their spam box. Instead, we hope you use this article to devise a strategy to attract prospects with impressive content, assets, and tools that nurture them from leads to customer advocates.

This article was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Why Buying Email Lists Is Always a Bad Idea (And How to Build Yours for Free) was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Secret to Great Display Campaigns: Saxo Bank & Komponent

Effective collaboration between a brand and an agency can sometimes be a challenge. Yet, when two companies match each other perfectly the results can prove very fruitful.

Saxo Bank Group is one of the most trusted and respected names in fintech. While Komponent is the creative agency through which Saxo Bank’s display campaigns are scaled to all the different formats and variations they require. Together they produce amazing display advertising campaigns for markets around the world!

We spoke to Jing Pang, Display Design Specialist at Saxo Bank, Esben Skriver Hjort, Head of Design & Partner, and Jesper Haugaard, Associate Partner at Komponent about how they work together effectively.

Can you tell us about display campaign production at Saxo Bank?

Jing Pang, Display Design Specialist at Saxo Bank: Today I focus on helping to design the concept behind an ad campaign. My job is all about defining the overall structure and setting up a template. This template is later scaled out into all the ad formats we need via Komponent.

Recently I have been concentrating on updating our brand design. And integrating a logo video into a new display intro animation. For me this is quite technical and advanced – and it’s not something we would have done before. The reason for this change is that we are moving away from heavy formats and video sizes.

 

This means our display ads use more advanced animation. Thus, allowing us to catch the user’s attention even more than the static ads we have used in the past. Indeed, despite the Bannerflow platform seeming quite simple, you can actually do some quite powerful stuff in it. And that has really impressed me!

What is your normal production workflow?

Jing Pang: Whenever we start building a display campaign we start by creating a “safe version”. This is a standard static banner with easy transitions. We then create another version which is more advanced. By doing this we have two versions of what we want to achieve. We then use these versions to experiment and see how we make the most of the different features inside Bannerflow and Creative Studio.

Next, the team at Komponent scale out the campaign into different formats using the selected master assets to the volumes of ad we need. For us at Saxo Bank, defining the master template is important because it means Komponent can take the master template and duplicate it perfectly across all the formats we need for a large campaign.

Mess-up the master creative…and then not everything is going to work as well as you hoped!

How does Komponent work with Saxo bank differently since using Bannerflow?

Esben Skriver Hjort, Head of Design & Partner at Komponent: The way we work with Saxo Bank today is that we both help to create master assets and produce complete ad sets. For example, we regularly take a master creative then scale it to all the different sizes, and different versions that are required.

Often we will build the master ad together and then send it to our other division, which is based in Lithuania, who then versionise and scale the campaign, again using Bannerflow.

Jesper Haugaard, Associate Partner at Komponent: The great part about how we work with Saxo Bank is that we have a commonplace, one place to go for all of us to work in – Bannerflow. We don’t have to send material back and forth. We don’t have to log into different programs. And we don’t have to email back and forth, etc. Plus, we have one platform where we can both edit and talk about the different creatives we are working on.

Esben Skriver Hjort: An example of when this works well, is simply Jing creating the master and our team taking over a project directly in Bannerflow. The project stays in one place and there is no time lost in the transfer between Saxo Bank and ourselves.

What’s more, sometimes if the Saxo Team doesn’t have the time, we can also go in and make the master creative ourselves. Jing can then check and approve before we do the scaling for the campaign.

How do you feel about letting go of your design and having someone else take over?

Jing Pang: I think one of the most important things I have learnt by passing my design to another team within Bannerflow, is that as long as I do a good master design, and set every component right, then the production team is quite faithful when scaling out! Ha!

Of course, if your text box is not set properly in the settings then sometimes things can change. And then the output is not necessarily what I have been thinking of to start with.

Therefore, as with anything, it’s really important to set-up the master template correctly – then only simple modifications to designs are needed.

When working on ads… which other design tools do you use?

Jing Pang: When we are starting our design process, we often use figma to help us produce mock-ups, which we then use to help us build creatives from scratch inside Bannerflow. This is quite easy because you just have to create textboxes and import images, and so forth.

I actually think it’s much easier to do some still mock-ups inside figma. But it is very important to test animations in Bannerflow before creating an ad because you don’t want to show something you can’t create to stakeholders! For me it’s just what I’m used to – and I work faster that way.
What is it about the Bannerflow platform that makes designing ads smoother?

Jing Pang: The timeline! I find it easy to use. What I love about the timeline is that it is easy to understand from the moment you open Bannerflow for the very first time. You just design in it and it feels so familiar – you recognise the timeline, plus it’s drag and drop. Easy.

The copy and paste feature is great too. I remember when we had to do everything manually. Now I can just copy components into new ads, across different ad sets. It might be a tiny feature but it really helps me to work quicker and be more efficient.

How long does it take to make a campaign?

Jing Pang: It depends on the complexity of the design. A simple design is really fast to do because everything is just drag and drop. But it also depends on your experience with the platform and how familiar you are with it. However, even if you use it for the first time, Bannerflow is still very quick to use because (again) the drag and drop, and the timeline are so easy to understand.

What’s it like working with an agency?

Jing Pang: A good handover of the mock-up is essential. A well made master template has a direct input on the output of the entire campaign. So as long as you have built a good master template then any handover no matter the external agency is extremely smooth.

How has Bannerflow benefited Komponent’s relationship with Saxo Bank and the agency itself?

Jesper Haugaard: Our clients benefit, as we are becoming much closer with both the client themselves and the projects we are working on. For us, as an agency, I think this perspective gives us something unique that other creative agencies simply don’t have.

Esben Skriver Hjort: Not only are we able to look at the big idea, the design concept. But we are also able to go live in an efficient and cheap way, which is a key part of the game plan too.

On another note, I’ve experienced a lot of times when clients know about Bannerflow but think it’s too expensive to use – but that just isn’t the case.

Today we have the possibility to say that we have a deal with Bannerflow as a production partner, meaning we can produce ads for them using the platform and that’s a huge benefit for both us and them.

Can you sum up what Bannerflow means to Komponent?

Esben Skriver Hjort: It’s a tool that matches our name!

Jesper Haugaard: Bannerflow enables a greater level of collaboration and trust between us and Saxo Bank during production. They can see what you’re doing, you can see what they’re doing – it’s a much closer relationship.

As a designer, how do you continue to find inspiration for your work?

Jing Pang: I usually just research, and read about the new trends impacting display ads, and other digital channels. Lately there have been so many new technologies I want to try and implement, especially ones focused on producing more dynamic ads. That’s the next thing I want to try out in Bannerflow!

Find out more about how Bannerflow can help your organisation

Effective collaboration between a brand and its agency requires not just the best people but also the best technology. Working simultaneously between offices and on the same projects requires tech that doesn’t just enable this but makes it as easy as working side-by-side.

If you would like to find out more about how you too can benefit from this, apply for a demo of the Bannerflow platform today. Or if you would like to find out more about the amazing work of Saxo Bank check out our recent case study.
 
Download the Saxo Bank case study
 

The post The Secret to Great Display Campaigns: Saxo Bank & Komponent appeared first on Bannerflow.

The Secret to Great Display Campaigns: Saxo Bank & Komponent was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns