Why Your Ads Should Look 100 Years Old

Think ‘lead magnet’ ads are new-age?

Think again.

Free opt-in ad campaigns like that have been around for almost a century.

Everyone’s looking for the hot new thing. A watch that counts your steps, takes notes, answers your calls, and oh yeah, also tells time. An iPhone that has a new update every time you turn it on. A car that is so smart it can drive itself.

But there’s something to be said for sticking with what works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Even better, if it works well, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Here’s how today’s ad pros are still using copywriting techniques from old-school campaigns that ran decades ago.

What the 1960’s Taught Motorola About Influencer Marketing

When it was time for Motorola to promote its new line of smartphones and features, it took its campaign to YouTube.

The phones were marketed for a younger audience, and with 54% of 18-34 years olds using YouTube at least once a day, Motorola knew it was the place to be.

They used 13 influencers to each create create “partnership announcements” and “hero” videos to show them using the new Moto Mods, that allowed users to customize their phones just the way they wanted. One user strapped the phone to a rocket and launched in 16,000 feet in the air.

No joke.

The result? 11.6 million video views and more than 38 million social media impressions. Even more? 80,000 clicks to motomods.com from first time users.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Buyers are 92% more likely to trust the reviews and opinions of friends and peers over standard advertisements.

A recent Tomoson study found that this kind of influencer marketing is “the fastest-growing online customer acquisition channel, beating organic search, paid search, and email marketing.”

But as hip and cool and successful as this turned out to be for Motorola, it wasn’t a new idea.

In fact, it was decades — even hundreds — of years old.

Companies have been using celebrities, real users, and even beloved, made-up characters for years to sell their products.

Remember how much Santa loved Coca Cola? This one’s from ‘64:

Image Source

And what about Babe Ruth and his love for Pinch-Hit?

Image Source

Yes, that’s Babe Ruth as spokesperson for a tobacco company. The same Babe Ruth who later died of cancer at the age of 53. Next level brand partnership, right there.

You see, this stuff is nothing new. It’s not that new and fancy and innovative and cutting edge.

It’s the same old playbook, just dusted off and revised with a new edition. One that takes into account how our constantly evolving consumer preferences keep shifting.

Here’s a few more ideas for how tried but true methods are still relevant today.

Start by Grabbing Their Attention

Remember when Old Spice used to literally mean old.

As in, the only people who wore it were your grandparents?

That all changed a few years ago with a little sex appeal and humor:

Sales jumped 107% in just one month. Old Spice became the number one body wash and deodorant brand in both sales and volume.

And they reached new demographics of people (which is important when yours historically is about to drop dead).

But even that ad campaign, now nearly seven years old, is just a first-cousin of marketing techniques from long ago.

David Ogilvy’s 1958 Rolls Royce ad uses the same shock and awe tactic by grabbing the reader’s attention with what’s essentially a one-word headline:

Image Source

$13,550 for a car in 1958 was a lot of money, and Ogilvy was hoping to hook customers with mystery, intrigue, and a little high-end appeal.

He also updated their tag line a bit, which was a simple and direct, “The Best Car in the World,” that now reads, “What makes Rolls-Royce the best card in the world?”.

By turning that statement into a question, and then answering it, he was able to produce their highest-performing marketing campaign to date.

Unsurprisingly, there’s data from today that backs this up.

For example, MarketingExperiments.com ran two basic AdWords headlines against each other. The Control was a question, while the Treatment was simple and straightforward. Can you guess which one won?

You got it. The question-based headline.

Last second copy changes in order to test headline variations ain’t new, either.

Even Ogilvy’s testing back in the ‘60s wasn’t a groundbreaking notion. Good ol Hopkins was doing that long before around 1900:

“Hopkins outlines an advertising approach based on testing and measuring. In this way losses from unsuccessful ads are kept to a safe level while gains from profitable ads are multiplied. Or, as Hopkins wrote, the advertiser is ‘playing on the safe side of a hundred to one shot’.”

Today we use content marketing to grab top of the funnel attention. Turns out that’s nothing new. Because storytelling is one of the best ways to develop the interest and intrigue required to keep people reading long enough to make a decision.

Storytelling Piques their Interest to Draw People Near

Today, marketers face unprecedented hurdles to get their name out there.

A New York Times article from a decade ago claimed the number of ads we saw each day was around 5,000. Keep in mind this was early for Facebook, YouTube, et. al. They hadn’t even hit critical mass yet.

Fast forward and nearly 200 million people worldwide are using ad-blocking software in order to take back control over their (albeit, limited) attention. A recent study found that only 14% of respondents could recall the banner ad on the page they just visited.

Couldn’t remember the company. Couldn’t remember the product.

All of this spells disaster for marketers when our prospects lack the attention span of a goldfish.

That’s where storytelling comes in.

Nike has been leading the pack for years.

Back in 1999, they put together a one minute spot for the retirement of Michael Jordan. Clips and photos of his career, telling the story of his journey and successes. They didn’t even put up the Nike logo until the very end. For a good reason.

“It understood that what would really make a lasting impression, and what would help build the brand and allow the company to sell more products in the long-term, was an authentic story,” said Sujan Patel.

Ross Jeffries told a story, albeit a slightly more seedy version, in 1998.

“The Amazing Seduction Secrets of a Skinny, Ugly, 6 Foot Geek from Culver City California That Could Get You All the Girls You Want.”

Image Source

(Yes. This actually happened.)

Nerdy guy trying to get the girl is a tale as old as time. Now every non-skinny, ugly, 6 foot geek from Culver City California is gonna be hooked to read more of this. (And trust me, there’s a lot of them.)

Taking a familiar story or something that a consumer can relate to helps them understand just how perfect your product is for them. Why they need it. The emotional aspect that tugs at our heart strings or appeals to our vanity.

Ad copywriting formulas, like AIDA, help us touch on all of these critical pressure points. And once again, AIDA wasn’t just invented by some growth hacking millennial. It’s been around the block a few times since the nineteenth century.

Ad exec Joseph Addison Richards was talking about it way back in 1893:

“How to attract attention to what is said in your advertisement; how to hold it until the news is told; how to inspire confidence in the truth of what you are saying; how to whet the appetite for further information; how to make that information reinforce the first impression and lead to a purchase; how to do all these, – Ah, that’s telling, business news telling, and that’s my business.”

Now Get Them to Take the Next Step

Nobody knows why they need anything.

I didn’t even know I needed a special bag just for my french bread until you showed me how lacking my life was before I bought one.

But this information sharing takes a little time and finesse. You have to walk the customer through their journey. Too much, too soon, and it backfires.

That’s the chief difference between running PPC ads on Facebook vs. Google AdWords. (And why the former doesn’t work like the latter.)

There’s not much seduction required when people type something into Google. They’re already at the end of their journey. But successful advertising on basically any other medium requires you to lay the groundwork (that we’ve already discussed).

Once again, classic ad copywriting formulas help you better explain why people need what you’re selling when they don’t always yet realize they need it.

Even the U.S. Military has gotten in on the PAS (Problem, Agitate, Solution) game. Here’s an ad from 1967:

Image Source

This guy waited too long to sign up (problem). Now he can’t pick which branch he wants. That could happen to you, too (agitate). Fill out this form and we’ll get you what you want before it’s too late (solution).

Or what about this example from 1990 for a book to help readers with their grammar?

Image Source

Look around and you’ll see PAS ev-ry-where. Here’s a slightly modified version from Dollar Shave Club Australia. No commitment? Everyone’s trying it? Only a couple of dollars?

Sold.

Long, long ago (like more than a century), advertising pro Claude Hopkins encouraged advertisers to create work that essentially sold itself.

According to the most factual source on the internet*, Wikipedia, Hopkins: “Insisted copywriters research their clients’ products and produce ‘reason-why’ copy. He believed that a good product and the atmosphere around it was often its own best salesperson.”

(*Not true.)

In other words? The purchase (or more accurately, decision to purchase) should be an absolute no-brainer. The value should far exceed the mental, emotional, or physical costs.

But that action-step that happens once the solution is presented often takes place with a simple click-through or from an online ad.

How exactly? Tripwires.

Here’s info-marketing guru Ryan Deiss with a too-good-too-be-true offer for his latest book:

Image Source

The offer here is low-friction. It doesn’t require a lot of steps or a big commitment, and the customer gets a good return on their time and money. And, you get to sift out the people who really have some interest from those who are just stopping by.

But, once again, not a new concept. Here’s one from over fifty years ago in 1965.

Image Source

Conclusion

The latest shiny tactics are always fun.

But sometimes even what seems fresh and new has been around the block a time or two. Decades old marketing tricks and tactics still work today.

And more importantly, can still produce more consistent results, too.

A/B testing works some of the time. But storytelling, copywriting formulas, tripwires? They’ve been working for years and years and years and years.

The next time you’re stuck on an ad campaign or looking for inspiration, don’t just look at what’s hitting the top of Growth Hackers.

Because history tends to repeat itself. And that’s a good thing for bottom lines.

About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of Codeless, a B2B content creation company. Frequent contributor to Kissmetrics, Unbounce, WordStream, AdEspresso, Search Engine Journal, Autopilot, and more.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/100-years-old/

Jay Acunzo on How to be an Exceptional Marketer

Do something different, they say. Be bold. Stand out from the pack! The list of clichéd instructions on how to improve just about anything according to them is, well, endless. So, when all the “expert” advice becomes white noise, we might as well render it meaningless. If we’re all following the same guidance, aren’t we all a bunch of followers?

Instead, marketing and sales pros must dig deeper to uncover what can truly set initiatives apart. And no, these won’t come from yet another blog.

What differentiates best practices from the right practices comes down to what Jay Acunzo, an award-winning podcaster, and dynamic speaker, says is not much more than your intuition. As the former digital media strategist at Google and head of content marketing at HubSpot, he knows a thing or two about what it takes to be the difference. I interviewed Jay to find out what marketers can do to break away from banality in a way that really matters to themselves and their customers.

Q: You’ve been quoted as saying, “It has never been easier to be average.” Expand on how this applies to today’s digital marketing landscape. How do we prevent mediocrity from creeping into the creative output?

Think about the amount of information you have access to and the speed at which you can access it. It has never been easier to find and follow someone else’s idea or answer. You need direction and someone else has pretty much handed you a “how-to.” Done. Simple.

Unfortunately, generalized advice is the best these so-called expert opinions can provide—without knowing your context, who you are, who your team is, who your customers are, etc. You can’t remove an individual from the situation, and because experts make their living providing broadly applicable knowledge, you’re just defaulting to whatever latest trend they report. You’re doing commodity work.

With more and more experts coming out of the woodwork, it’s never been easier to be average. So, the question is, what does it take to be exceptional in a world where average is now table stakes?

Q: But how can marketers initiate acting on something differently? How do we acquire the confidence to push back on the status quo?

Those doing the work have to unleash their full potential. Stop obsessing over some guru’s answers, and start asking yourself the right questions. Then almost naturally, you’ll start to focus less on generalized advice and more on the specifics of your own context, as well as the abilities of your aspirations.

Q: You host the Unthinkable podcast. What’s been your favorite strategy or guest story? What lessons can we pull about standing out in increasingly noisy digital ecosystems?

We’ve had so many incredible guests, from Disney to TED speakers to best-selling authors. But one of my all-time favorite stories involved Lisa Schneider, Chief Digital Officer at dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster. You’d never expect someone from Merriam-Webster—a brand not known to be particularly exciting—to engage in this crazy, imaginative work. But they’ve differentiated so successfully due to readjusting their focus on their team and audience, ignoring industry precedents and current digital marketing trends.

Merriam-Webster had an ordinary, corporate Twitter account that posted similar stuff and automated the same old thing, daily. Until one day, Lisa checked out the company’s internal chat groups and noticed how lively, fun, smart, and witty they were. She realized if we acted like our true selves in public, more people might enjoy what we have to offer. Fast forward to today: Merriam-Webster has over 550,000 Twitter followers and received around 7,000% more press this year than last year.

Q: What channels offer marketers the most opportunity to stand out?

Look, if somebody on a blog post tells you that a certain channel or tactic is the answer and you follow it, you’re doing commodity work. Because that expert doesn’t know your context. Unless you focus on your team’s abilities, your brand’s aspirations, and your customer’s ongoing experiences, it’s virtually impossible to apply generic answers from a blog post and succeed at a rate that’s anything but average.

Because you have so many channels, you’re all looking for a single answer. Instead, you should celebrate all possibilities. The digital age bestows us with countless options to vet for our own situations.

Ask yourself:

• Which of these possibilities match my team and the way I speak to the world when I’m not a marketer?
• What is it about ME that’s different?
• What do I bring to the table?
• Which of these channels can best amplify my unique attributes?

Q: Let’s talk automation. We can’t live without it. How can we use automation to better our marketing and creativity?

Effective automation can be indispensable—if put on repeat. You start by asking questions, you find an answer, and then you funnel the answer through automation so it continues to spit out the same answer. This can be powerful, but only if you regularly revisit the answer and make sure it applies to new scenarios.

Successful marketers must own their problems, questions, and audience insights. Automation is a fast track to complacency unless you commit to asking the right questions of various human sources and continuously update your technology.

Q: We know a big tenet of yours is trusting intuition and not settling for mediocre work. What’s more important—the message or the methodology of how it’s spread?

Intuition is often misinterpreted as being the muse that gives you the answer. In reality, the Latin root means knowledge from within or an ongoing process of thinking for yourself. So, if you’re pumping out copy, good things will happen. However, if you truly understand and articulate the process and seriously consider the “why,” you create a kink in the curve and start improving exponentially.

If you look to achieve a goal by relying on how people reached it in the past, you contribute to conventional thinking. Instead, add your own questions and consider all the different ways you could accomplish your goal. Treat gurus as just one source for identifying all possibilities. Remember, the key is to question and test everything.

Want to learn more about becoming exceptional in the world of marketing? Check out Jay Acunzo at ZoomInfo’s 2017 Growth Acceleration Summit on Sept. 13-14 in Boston where we’ll be covering best practices, growth strategies, and the future of data.

Do you have an example of exeptional marketing? I’d love to hear your example in the comments below.

The post Jay Acunzo on How to be an Exceptional Marketer appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog http://blog.marketo.com/2017/07/jay-acunzo-exceptional-marketer.html

18 Hidden Snapchat Hacks & Features You'll Wish You Knew About Sooner

Snapchat, the one-to-one messaging app with more than 160 million daily active users, has earned a reputation for fast growth and innovation.

But despite its success, it isn't the most user-friendly app I've ever played around with. Many of its best features are buried so deep in the app that a lot of people don't even know they exist. In July 2017, Snapchat added even more features in their release of a new version, and some of these features have totally reshaped how people use the app in the first place.

For example, did you know that you can use Snapchat to make a live video call? Or that you can add emojis to your Snapchat videos -- and make it so they move and scale with specific objects? What about the trick where you can save data by turning the app on to "travel mode"?

There are a whole lot of cool things you can do with Snapchat that you may not have known about. But before we jump into them, it's important that you know the basics. For more on how to use the platform -- as well as a look at how HubSpot uses Snapchat marketing -- check out this post.

Already have the basics down? Read on for some more advanced tips and features.

Note: Before getting started, make sure you're operating on the latest version of Snapchat. At the time of posting, the latest version is 10.12.5.0.

18 Hidden Snapchat Hacks & Features

1) Use Snapchat for voice and video calls.

One of the biggest changes Snapchat made during an update in March 2016 was the addition of a voice and video chat feature. There are two ways you can use voice and video chats: By sending 10-second recordings (of your voice or a video of you), or by "calling" them to start a live voice or video chat lasting any amount of time.

The voice and video call functionality is located within Snapchat's chat feature, so you'll need to open up a chat conversation with someone to begin. If you've updated your Snapchat app, you'll see the phone icon and a video icon below the chat box.

To leave a 10-second voice or video message, hold down on the voice or video call icon and it will begin recording immediately. When you release the button by picking your finger up from the screen, the recording will stop and send immediately with no do-overs. In other words, make sure you're ready to record and send the voice or video message before you begin.

To start a live voice or video call, just tap the voice or video call icon and it'll begin ringing the other person immediately. If they don't answer within a few seconds, you'll see a pop-up notification asking you if you'd like to send a voice or video message instead. These voice and video messages are identical to the 10-second voice and video messages described above.

Here's a GIF showing what it looks like to live video call another user:

Also, remember that there's no forewarning once you tap or hold down on one of the icons -- it'll start ringing or recording right away. (I learned this the hard way when I tapped the video icon accidentally.) Otherwise, it's a very intuitive and easy-to-use functionality.

2) Identify any song playing around you.

If you’ve yet to download Shazam, the music recognition app, Snapchat’s got you covered. That’s right, you can Shazam songs in the Snapchat app.

When you want to identify a song playing around you, just hold your finger down on the camera screen. After a few seconds, a Shazam window will pop up with the song’s name and artist. From there, you can snap your Shazamed song to your friends and even add the artist as a Snapchat friend.

3) Search for stories all over the world.

Hand-curating an entire community's snap submissions for a big event's story, like the Super Bowl, started overwhelming Snapchat. So they implemented machine learning to select only the most relevant submissions for these big events.

The other submissions didn't go to waste, though. Their new technology curates them into entirely new community stories, which allows users to search for over one million stories on the app and experience an event like they’re actually there.

To watch these stories, just tap the search bar on the camera screen. You can watch the top stories of the day, filter stories by topic, and search for a certain event or location's community story.

4) Turn on two filters at once.

Can't choose between giving your photo a blue hue and letting your friends know you're going 0 mph? Thankfully, you don't have to make that difficult decision. You can use both filters at the same time with a very simple trick.

To add a second filter to a photo, all you have to do is hold the screen with one finger and swipe left or right with another to find your second filter. (To add that first filter, just swipe your finger left or right over your photo to rotate among them until you settle on one.)

5) Add, resize, and rotate emojis and stickers to your photos.

If you're looking to dress up your Snapchats outside of the text box, you can add an emoji (or five) and place them anywhere you want on your photo or video.

In addition to the emojis you're probably familiar with, Snapchat added 200 new stickers in May 2016 that are similar to the stickers that are so popular in other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. These new stickers are super cute -- everything from cacti to snarky kittens to walruses celebrating Hump Day.

To access the emojis and stickers, start by taking your photo in Snapchat. Then, tap on the folded paper icon on the top of your screen next to the "T" text icon. Scroll through the available stickers and emojis until you find the one you want. Tap on it to add it to your photo, and then use your finger to move it around.

You can use two fingers to rotate it or resize it by pinching and zooming. Add as many emojis and stickers as you'd like.

To delete a sticker or emoji, simply drag it to the trash icon, which appears when you hold your finger down on the emoji and move it around.

Another creative way to use emojis on Snapchat? Create your own filters using some of the more transparent emojis by enlarging them with your fingers until they cover the whole screen.

6) "Pin" emojis to objects in your videos.

In addition to adding stationary emojis and stickers to your Snapchat videos, you can also "pin" -- or attach -- emojis and stickers to different objects in your video. This allows the emoji to automatically move, rotate, and scale with whatever object you pinned it to.

To "pin" an emoji or sticker to an object in a video, start by recording your video in Snapchat first. Then, tap on the folded paper icon on the top of your screen.

Scroll through the available emojis and stickers until you find the one you want. Tap on it to add it to your photo, and then use your finger to move it, and hold it in one place above an object to "pin" it to that object. 

7) Make your videos go in fast-forward, slow motion, or rewind.

Snapchat recently added features for videos allowing users to make them go in fast forward, slow motion, or rewind. These features work just like a filter, so to access them, record the video first and then swipe sideways to find them.

Here's how they work:

• Snail icon = slow motion
• Rabbit = fast-forward
• Backward-facing arrows = rewind

Image Credit: TechCrunch

8) Draw in black or white.

You may have noticed that the color palette in Snapchat's drawing tool doesn't offer black and white -- but that doesn't mean that you can't access both of those colors. All it takes is a few quick finger maneuvers.

To access the available colors, you're used to holding your finger down on the color palette and dragging it up or down. But to access black and white, you'll need to drag it toward the upper left corner of your screen (black) or the bottom right corner of your screen (white).

9) Change the color, size, and orientation of your text.

Think you're limited to white text? Turns out you can actually change the color of your text to whatever you want, including black (see previous tip).

To change the color of your text, start by taking your photo or video, type your message, and then tap the "T" icon at the top of your screen to make the text larger and open up the color palette. Drag your finger along the palette to change the text color. Finally, tap the "T" icon twice to remove the shadowed background.

To change the orientation and/or size of the text, use two fingers to rotate it or resize it by pinching and zooming. You can move the text around to wherever you want on the screen simply by holding your finger on the text and moving it around.

10) Make your text fit neatly in one line.

If you're anything like me and hate when your text awkwardly goes just over one line, rest assured: You can actually resize your text so it fits neatly into a single line (or however many you'd like).

To resize your text, tap the "T" icon at the top of your screen, then tap on the text to get into text editing mode. Next, use two fingers to pinch-and-zoom to resize it while it still spans the width of your screen.

11) Turn on "travel mode" to save data.

When I first started using Snapchat on a regular basis, I noticed right away that it was draining my battery faster than any of my other social media apps. Thankfully, Snapchat actually has a built-in feature to help conserve your data, in the form of "travel mode."

When you set your Snapchat app to travel mode, snaps and stories won't download automatically. Instead, you can choose when you want to load a snap or a story. It can also help reduce video lagging while you're recording videos using the app.

To turn your Snapchat app to travel mode, go to settings, which you can access by opening Snapchat, tapping the ghost icon in the top center of the screen, and then tapping the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Once you're on the settings page, tap "Manage" under "Additional Services" and toggle "Travel Mode" on.

12) Create your own geofilter on a desktop or the app.

In February 2016, Snapchat started letting anyone -- whether you're a business or an individual -- create custom "on-demand geofilters." On-demand geofilters are filters users can add when they take photos and videos from specific locations.

There are two different kinds of geofilters: a personal geofilter and a business geofilter.

• A personal geofilter promotes a personal event or location like a birthday party, wedding, graduation party, and so on, and you can set them for up to 30 days. They can't include marks, logos, branding, or businesses.
• A business geofilter promotes a business or a brand, like for an upcoming sale, an ad for a certain location, or something along those lines. Business Geofilters need to meet Snapchat's Business Guidelines.

Image Credit: Snapchat

To create them, you'll need to upload an image with a transparent background (or use one of Snapchat's premade templates), upload it to http://geofilters.snapchat.com, pick a date, time, and location for it, and submit it to Snapchat along with your payment. The Snapchat team promises to review submissions within one business day.

This feature is available in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. You can learn more about how to use them on Snapchat's website here.

If you’re a Snapchat user in the U.S., you can create on-demand geofilters in the app. Just go to your camera screen and tap the ghost icon in the top left corner. Then tap the settings icon in the top right corner and choose On-Demand filters.

You’ll be asked to select your geofilter’s theme, a premade template, its date and time, and its location. The price will depend on your geofence’s size.

13) Add music to your videos.

Here's a small tip that can make a big difference in your Snapchat videos. After all, the folks at Snapchat claim that sound is a big part of what makes Snapchat videos so appealing. In June 2016, they claimed that two-thirds of Snapchat's 10 billion daily video views are watched with the sound on.

Adding music can add a unique touch to your Snapchat videos, and it's simple to do. All you have to do is play the song you want through your favorite music player app (like Spotify or iTunes), and then record the video on Snapchat while the song is playing. The video recorder on Snapchat will pick up the music and it'll automatically become part of your video.

14) Turn the sound off in your videos.

If you don't want sound in your video, it's helpful to know that there is a way of turning it off. This might be best if you're recording a video that has unnecessary, loud, or jarring noises that don't add to the video in a way that you want them to.

To turn sound off on your video, first record your video like you would normally for a Snapchat video. Then, tap the microphone icon on the bottom left-hand side of your screen once so that the sound waves are replaced with an X.

Before:

After:

15) Save a Story as a video clip by downloading it.

Anyone might want to save a Snapchat Story to view later, but this is especially true if you're working on Snapchat content for your business so you can show your team the Stories you've put together and view them later to see what styles worked well. You can save Stories by downloading them to your device. (From there, I'd recommend emailing it to yourself so you don't accidentally lose it.)

To save an entire Story as a video clip, open up Snapchat and go to the "Stories" view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top.

Next, tap the download button to save the entire story.

To save one Snap on your Story as a video clip, open up Snapchat and go to the "Stories" view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top.

Then, tap on your Story and swipe up on the Snap you want and hit the download button at the top of the screen.

16) Delete single snaps from a Story.

If you've published a snap to your Story, you can still go back to it and delete it at any time -- even if you've published other snaps after it.

To delete a snap form a Story, simply open up Snapchat and go to the "Stories" view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top. Swipe up on the Snap you want to delete and hit the delete button.

Image Credit: Snapchat

17) Record up to six 10-second videos in a row.

Recording only one 10-second snap at a time can produce some awkward transitions in your company’s snap story. But you can say goodbye to those ungraceful snap stories because you now can record six 10-second snaps in a row, which is basically like recording a minute long video

Just hold record for up to 60 seconds. There will be a seamless transition between each 10-second video.

You can even edit each individual video or delete the ones you don't want to share. All your recorded videos will be at the bottom of your screen.

18) Add a link to your story.

Snapchat answered every marketer’s prayers by letting users link webpages into their stories. Marketers can now use their snap stories to spark interest in their content and, if their viewers swipe up, they can then seamlessly deliver a video or article to them.

To add a link to your story, just take a picture or video, tap the paperclip on the sidebar, and enter your URL. All shared links must follow Snapchat’s terms of service, community guidelines, and privacy policy.

There you have it. We hope these tricks and features help you use Snapchat to connect with your friends, fans, and even customers in a way that's low-cost, but highly personal and engaging.

Happy snapping!

 

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/snapchat-hidden-features

How We Booked Over 200 Meetings With a Single Email Send

Here at HubSpot, when we decide we really like something, we go all-in. That includes things like email personalization, a global presence, and seasonality in our marketing.

So when it came time for the Latin America Marketing team -- or LatAm -- to strategize an email marketing experiment, we wondered if there was a way to combine all three.

It started out simply enough -- we wanted to find out if an email sent directly from a sales rep that included a link to book a meeting could convert better than one of our popular offers. But then we thought, “We can do better. Let’s kick the personalization up a notch.” 

And so, we did -- and here’s what happened.

How a Single Email Send Led to 200+ Meetings Booked

The Hypothesis

Within our LatAm partner marketing efforts, our inbound funnel often involves directing prospective agency partners to the Spanish version of our Inbound Marketing Assessment (IMA). But when Semana Santa, the celebrated week before Easter in Latin America and Spain, was approaching, we knew that many of our email recipients would be taking several days off prior to the holiday.

That meant we’d have to alter the content and tone of our message. Since these recipients were likely days away from several consecutive days off, we didn’t want to ask them to complete an assessment. Sure, we needed to provide a call to action (CTA). Otherwise, what was the point of sending an email? But it had to be something that took this timing into account -- something that still provided value, but acknowledged the upcoming holiday.

That created a foundation for our hypothesis:

By reaching out to people right before a major holiday in their region with messaging that is conversational and tailored, we will see a higher level of engagement in terms of meetings booked.”

The Experiment

The Objective

Our goal was to find out if an email from a sales representative that included a direct link to book a meeting with them would lead to more conversions than our traditional one -- the email from a marketer with a CTA to complete the IMA form.

What We Did

To test our hypothesis, instead of directing the reader to our traditional IMA form, we included a link to book a meeting with a sales rep directly. But with the holiday coming up, the way we framed that option to book a meeting would have to be modified.

That allowed us to set some parameters for an A/B test, in which we created two different versions of the same email -- one sent from Stefano Gasbarrino, who was a rep at the time, and one from Carlos Villalobos, the LatAm Partner Marketing Manager. Each version contained its own message accompanying a link to book a meeting with a rep:

• Version 1: An email from Gasbarrino with the message, “Here's my calendar -- book time with me.”

• Version 2: An email from Villalobos with the message, “If you want to learn more about the Program, I invite you to book time with my colleague, Stefano, whenever you're back in the office. Here is his meetings link.”

Of course, the message had to have some additional context other than booking a meeting. So as an alternative to investing time in completing the IMA, we offered the recipient something “nice to read” at their leisure over the holiday -- in this case, it was the Spanish version of our Partner Program Info Kit. This was included in both versions of the A/B test.

The Results

Truth time: The results surprised us a bit.

To start, Gasbarrino’s email showed an 8% higher open rate than the one from Villalobos. That could be due to a number of reasons -- perhaps recipients were a bit too accustomed to seeing emails from Villalobos, and were intrigued by the new name in their inboxes.

But on the other hand, Villalobos’ email resulted in 10% more meetings booked. Those results suggest that, when people did open the email, they appreciated the more flexible language of this version.

We also wanted to test how an email send of this nature performed against our traditional one, too. So to measure the success of the "book a meeting" CTA vs. the "complete an IMA form" CTA, we also compared the average open and clickthrough rate (CTR) of our typical IMA email sends, versus those of the emails sent as part of this experiment.

Simply put, the email sends associated with this experiment performed noticeably better than our traditional IMA emails. In addition to a 15% higher open rate as well as a 7.2% higher CTR, the email sends containing links to book a meeting resulted in 40X the conversion rate of IMA form submissions from traditional emails. We booked 200 sales meetings from this one email!

Where Do We Go From Here?

Next Steps

While the experiment was generally a success, moving forward, we recommend putting guardrails in place prior to conducting tests like these. While we were thrilled to have over 200 meetings booked as a result of a single email send, that was far too many for a single rep to handle. A good problem to have, but Stefano was overwhelmed nonetheless.

In the future, we’ll use more finely-targeted segmentation when planning these email sends, and will assign a lead owner who can send "book a meeting" links on behalf of multiple representatives.

Our #1 Takeaway

Our biggest takeaway from this experiment, however, was its strong reminder to marketers not to lose sight of their audiences. It’s all too easy to forget that there is a human being on the other side of the screen -- and overall, humans want quicker, more personalized solutions. Filling out a form requires them to wait to be contacted -- booking a meeting, on the other hand, gets that person onto a rep’s calendar right away, at their convenience. Addressing that time sensitivity can make your audience feel valued and prioritized.

Moreover, the ability to book a meeting with a person who has a name, a face, and availability can humanize a brand much more than a form is capable of doing.

How have you used to email improve your conversion rates? Let us know about your best experiment in the comments -- and hey, we might even feature it on our blog.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/meetings-booked-single-email

HubSpot Celebrates Outstanding Partner Agencies at INBOUND15’s Partner Awards

 

 

Today, inbound marketing and sales platform software company HubSpot Inc., announced their Partner Awards during a ceremony at their annual INBOUND conference. The Awards celebrate agencies, both domestic and international, that have demonstrated exceptional growth in the inbound marketing space over the past year. HubSpot has over 2,500 partners globally that share the company’s commitment to transforming marketing with personalization and context, and have been instrumental in changing the way businesses attract, engage, and delight their customers. The Awards ceremony honored a range of agency achievements with categories such as ‘Agency Partner of the Year’ to ‘Best Client Ebook.’

“The agencies recognized by our Partner Awards this year are marketing leaders who have reached new heights with their inbound approach. With HubSpot they have challenged the traditional marketing playbook and succeeded in delivering exceptional value to their customers. I am beyond proud to honor them tonight” said Arjun Moorthy, HubSpot’s VP of Business Development & Partner Products.

Below are the Awards categories and respective winners:

• Website Design of the Year IMPACT Branding & Design

• Best Client Blog Design Mindtap Marketing

• Best Client Landing Page Stratus Interactive

• Best Client Graphic Design Pyxl

• Client Growth Story of the Year Leighton Interactive

• Client Campaign of the Year Quintain Marketing

• Best Client Ebook TSL Marketing

• Best Client Blog Series Blueleadz

• Services Innovation of the Year Prism Global Marketing Solutions

• Best Client Smart Content Use Impulse Creative

• Client Growth Story of the Year - People’s Choice SmartBug Media

• COS Champion New Breed Marketing

• COS Innovators of the Year IMPACT Branding & Design

• Community Developer of the Year Christopher Mathieu, New Breed Marketing

• Marketplace Provider of the Year Neambo

• Growth Driven Design Agency of the Year Media Junction

• Partner of the Year Square 2 Marketing

• Partner of the Year (International) The Kingdom

• Partner of the Year (EMEA) Increnta

• Rookie of the Year FullFunnel

• Rookie of the Year (International) The Kingdom

• Happiest Clients Sprout Content

• Happiest Clients (International) StraightArrow

• Client Growth Award FullFunnel

• Client Growth Award (International) InboundCycle

• Best New Client Onboarding SmartBug Media

• Best New Client Onboarding (International) Hook Digital

from HubSpot Marketing Blog https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hubspot-celebrates-outstanding-partner-agencies-at-inbound15-s-partner-awards