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The Ultimate Guide to Human Resources

When I initially applied for my role at HubSpot, I was immediately blown away by the hiring manager I was working with. She was professional, incredibly informative, and experienced. She had the answer to every question I had about the company, the role I was being interviewed for, and HubSpot’s culture.

From the first point of contact with this HubSpot employee and throughout my onboarding process, she was the prime example of what I believed a person in human resources should be. Even now, she checks in with me to ask how I’m doing and how my job is going when I see her around the office.

Remarkable Human Resources (HR) employees are critical at every company. They handle all employee relations so you can focus on your side of the business. Before we discuss more reasons why your company needs an impactful HR department and how you can go about building one, let's talk more about what human resources actually means.

 

Based on this definition alone, you can see how it would be difficult to run your operation successfully without the assistance HR provides. That’s why even small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have HR departments with employees who oversee all management, engagement, and development between the company and its employees. HR departments exist to support you and your employees so you can continue doing your jobs successfully.

The work and responsibilities of a human resources employee will touch a large portion of your business every day. So what does that mean for you? Let's review some of the most common responsibilities these employees have so you can better understand the impact HR will have on your company.

 

Handle employee relations

HR handles the employee-to-employee relationships as well as the employee-to-company relationship. This means they work to develop positive interactions and treatment among all employees within your company so they feel good about coming to work, committed to their jobs, and invested in the growth of the business. Whether it’s a personal matter or a work-related issue, human resources will handle all issues with care and keep the best interest of the both your company and employee in mind.

Create an employment structure

Your HR department will handle your entire staffing plan — meaning they’ll identify the gaps in your current employee structure and fill them by acquiring new talent. They’re also in charge of firing any existing talent that isn’t meeting company standards. Your company’s HR team will ensure you have the right people to help you grow your business.

Manage employee job satisfaction

Once your employees have begun work, you’ll want to make sure they’re excited to come to the office every day and add value to your company — their excitement is directly related to their level of job satisfaction. If your employees are happy in their roles, feel as though they can grow at your company, and can change departments down the road if they choose to, they’re more likely to be productive members of the team. Your HR team ensures your employees really do feel satisfied in their roles, and will work with them if they feel unhappy or unsatisfied at any point in time.

Manage employee benefits

Your HR department will handle the amount and type of employee benefits your company offers. Providing good employee benefits is critical to the success of your business because they’re proven to attract and retain talent as well as increase employee productivity. Benefits keep employees satisfied by giving them a variety of perks and and making them feel secure in their roles.

Handle compensation

All payroll and compensation work is managed by HR — this includes employee salaries, payment schedules, W2s, and all other tax-related paperwork. If an employee is offered a promotion, or if employees are given bonuses, HR will handle all changes in their regular payment schedules.

Maintain the company business plan

Your HR department will help you create, distribute, and maintain your company’s business plan — this serves as an overview of your company’s organizational structure. It covers your company’s philosophy and culture code, the way in which you manage your employees, and how you’ll distribute your resources.

Handle new hire training

When an employee is hired, HR will often take them through the necessary training they need prior to diving into their everyday tasks. Whether it’s one day or six weeks, new hire training is critical to making that person feel comfortable in their new role. It’s also a great way to set expectations early on and get them prepared so they can begin making an impact as quickly as possible.

Create company culture standards

HR is in charge of helping you create and maintain your company culture — this includes your philosophy, mission statement, and work environment. It also includes your company’s ethical standards, values, goals, and expectations. HR may implement programming, activities, check-ins, or events at your office so your employees can learn and develop a better understanding of the culture.

Maintain a healthy work environment

Your HR team will assist you in creating a healthy and safe work environment for all employees. Their role in this includes setting health and safety standards in the office, communicating these standards to all employees, and upholding them as the business grows. These health and safety standards should be written so they can be easily referenced at any point in someone’s time at your company.

Handle necessary administrative work

A lot of your company’s administrative work is handled by HR. This includes paperwork related to federal and state tax laws, job applications, time-keeping and payroll information, and employee contracts.

 

We’ve put together a list of 10 steps — not listed in any specific order — you should take to build a successful HR department. Whether you begin working through this list with or without your company’s first (or first few) human resources employee(s), all 10 items on this list should be thoughtfully considered.

1. Create a company-wide staffing plan

Create a company-wide staffing plan so you can identify all positions you’ll need to fill with your new hires. This may also include moving current employees into new roles or even removing employees and/ or their roles entirely from the company.

2. Set an HR budget

You’ll need a budget for your human resources department — this will cover the costs of building the department and hiring your HR team. The budget will also go to company-wide programming, and culture and team building activities HR may organize. 

3. Make a payroll and compensation system

You’ll need to ensure you have payroll and compensation plans in place for all types and levels of employees. Your employees are going to want to know how, when, and the frequency in which they’re going to be paid the moment they receive their job offer. You’ll also need this information to determine salary ranges for all of your employees.

4. Write job descriptions

Job descriptions posted on your website and job sites such as LinkedIn and Glassdoor are how you’ll attract applicants. You’ll want to create job descriptions for all of the HR roles you need to hire for. Then, as you fill some of these HR openings, those new hires should be able to assist you in creating all other job descriptions for your growing company.

5. Lay out a clear benefits plans

A clear and thorough benefits plan is crucial when trying to attract and retain talent. You’ll want to lay out all of the benefits you offer to your new hires so they can feel good about their decision to join your team as well as secure and supported in their roles.

6. Create an employee handbook

An employee handbook (whether it’s print or digital) is a great way to set clear expectations from day one about workplace behavior, safety, health, and culture. Your handbook should include answers to all the questions your employees may have about these topics — and any others you see fit — as they go through training and begin work at your company.

7. Set safety procedures

Your employees are most likely in the office for approximately eight hours per day — meaning it needs to be a healthy and safe place for them to spend large amounts of time. If one of your employees ever felt unsafe or at risk of mental or physical harm at the office, it’d be very difficult to expect them to be a productive worker.

To avoid this, you should set workplace health and safety standards, which you may choose to include in your employee handbook. State your safety procedures for different types of personal altercations as well as procedures for emergencies and other potential unexpected or dangerous situations so everyone can handle them appropriately.

8. Collect administrative records

Although you may have an executive assistant who collects and organizes a lot of your company’s administrative records, there’s also plenty of documentation that should be collected, organized, and managed separately by your HR department. Some of these items may include job applications, benefit plans, tax documents, and compensation and payroll details.

9. Display necessary employment posters

There are state and federal laws that require companies and their HR teams to hang specific employment posters around their offices so they’re visible to everyone who enters the space. Some of these required posters change over time, so be sure to keep up with the laws and requirements of your state and country.

10. Create performance and feedback processes

Employee success and satisfaction are major components of a prosperous company — without these two things, it’d be difficult to retain your best talent. You’ll want to create company-wide performance and feedback processes to ensure everyone is held to a specific standard that you and your HR team set and maintain.

Employee performance evaluations should be held to ensure all employees are working up to their full potential. This time should also be spent making sure your employees are satisfied with their jobs, feel as though they can grow with your company, and enjoy being a member of your team.

What to Look For in an HR Candidate

Now that you have a better understanding of HR’s responsibilities and how you can start building your own department, let’s review the some of the things you should try to identify in potential HR candidates, including education type and work experience.

Human Resources Candidate Education and Background

It’s no secret that a lot of people often “fall” into the human resources field. By this I mean a lot of people who end up in the field don’t necessarily go into their undergraduate education thinking they want a career in HR. If this is the case for some of your HR applicants, there are a few indicators that you’ve found a great candidate despite their educational background.

• HR certifications, such as the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) certification or one of the various others offered by the HR Certification Institute.
  
• Great work ethic, personality and ability to be strategic. It’s key to find a candidate that will represent your company well and has the adaptability to grow into their role. If you see promise, you might also provide this type of candidate with the opportunity to earn a certification and/or postgraduate education in the field as they begin work at your company.
  
  

If you’re considering slightly more experienced candidates for your HR department, here are some indicators to look for:

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management, Business Administration, or a closely related field.
• Master’s degree in Human Resources or Human Resources and Employee Relations (HRER), or a closely related field such as Business Administration.
• Prior HR experience, whether it’s an internship or job(s) at another company.

Roles in Your Human Resources Department

Now that we’ve covered general requirements and characteristics that you should consider looking for in your HR candidates, let’s dive into some of the actual roles you’ll need to fill within the department. 

We’ll start with your HR department structure. Depending on the size of your company, you may or may not need all of these positions and levels in your own HR department. Another important thing to note is that the titles of these roles and level in which they’re placed also vary based on company, but this diagram will provide you with a general idea of an HR department structure.

Source

So what do HR employees in these roles actually do? And what are the differences between each position? We’ll cover the answers to these questions below.

Entry-Level Human Resources Roles

Entry-level HR jobs are fit for people who are in school, have recently graduated, or are entering the field for the first time. Their roles may include assistants and HR interns, specialists, generalists, or recruiters.

HR Assistant/ Intern

HR assistants and HR interns are typically in charge of the administrative work — such as organizing paperwork, completing the employer portions of new hire information, and other work their higher-ups ask of them — that needs to be done so everyone else in the department can remain productive and focus on more complex tasks.

HR Specialist

HR specialists focus on one specific department or discipline within human resources. These specialties include HR development, HR management, and organizational development. Their goal is to become an expert in their chosen specialty. For example, a benefits specialist would be required to know and understand the intimate details about a company’s benefits plan and be able to explain that information to new hires and current employees.

HR Generalist

HR generalists have knowledge that covers multiple different areas of the department and its needs. People in this type of role will work on the more typical tasks you may think of when it comes to HR such as compensation, employee relations, and workplace environment.

Recruiter

The sole job of a recruiter is to bring in impressive talent for the company. They find new people to fill the gaps in the company’s staffing plan so the business can continue to grow and remain as productive as possible.

Mid-Level Human Resources Roles

As those in HR work their way up the ranks and acquire more experience, they’ll likely move into a mid-level HR role. Examples of these jobs include advanced specialists, HR managers, and senior recruiters.

Advanced Specialist

An advanced specialist is typically someone who was promoted from an HR specialist role. Their work might include developing job descriptions for specific, technical roles within their specialty, and training and overseeing entry-level specialists who are also in their chosen discipline. Advanced specialists serve as a company’s high-level experts regarding their specific topic within HR.

HR Manager

An HR manager might oversee a group of entry or even mid-level HR employees. They’ll typically handle more of the complex HR tasks such as the creation and management of company-wide policies, values, and culture.

Senior Recruiter

Senior recruiters function as your very own staffing service. They may oversee a team of entry-level recruiters who work to identify ideal candidates for open positions at your company. Senior recruiters may work for your company or you might hire them as a third-party service depending on your budget and resources.

High-Level Human Resources Roles

If someone ends up staying in the HR field for the majority of their career, they may find themselves moving into a high-level position at your company. These roles may include an HR consultant, HR director, recruiting manager, or vice president of HR chief of human resources officer (CHRO).

HR Consultant

An HR consultant is typically someone who oversees all HR administrative work and makes sure you’re meeting all company, state, and federal policies and laws. They can be subject matter experts on a particular HR-related policy. People in this role may be hired as third-party help depending on your budget and resources.

HR Director

If an HR manager is promoted, that person might move into an HR Director role. In most SMBs, the HR Director typically oversees all departmental activities and reports directly to the CEO.

Recruiting Manager

Recruiting managers oversee your company’s recruiting teams. They sign off on your staffing plan and ensure all of your role gaps are filled and talent needs are met.

Vice President of HR or Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)

In a larger company, you may have a vice president of human resources or a chief human resources officer. This person reports directly to the CEO, oversees the entire HR operation, and creates overarching department goals.

Back To You

Having a fantastic human resources team is essential to the success of your business. Your HR department will manage your employee relations, hiring, training, career development, benefits, and company culture. Without HR, your employees simply wouldn’t be able to do their jobs. Start by thinking about the number and type of HR employees you’ll need and get started building your department so your company can continue to grow.

How Neuromarketing Could Revolutionize the Marketing Industry

If digital and traditional marketers faced off in a debate about whose promotional philosophy is superior (which would probably get more heated than an NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys dispute), one of the points digital marketers could hang over traditional marketers’ heads is their ability to measure a campaign’s performance -- and their opponent’s inability to do the same. 

Whether its views, social shares, scroll depth, subscriptions, leads, and sometimes even ROI, digital marketers can measure it all. But even though we have access to a laundry list of metrics, we still can’t measure what is arguably the most crucial indicator of a campaign’s performance -- emotional resonance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing a spike in traffic as much as the next blogger. But in an industry where skimming a page for 10 seconds counts as a view, leaving your desk to grab some string cheese will result in a time-on-page of five minutes, and 50% of web traffic and engagement are generated by bots and Chinese click farms, claiming digital metrics are a surefire way to gauge your content’s emotional impact is a stretch.

But what if we could actually measure emotional resonance? What if we could place a resonance score next to a piece of content, just like we do with views? Interestingly enough, there are companies spearheading this movement and developing technology that can gauge people’s emotional response to your content without needing to draw blood or scan any brains.

What is neuromarketing?

Neuromarketing blends neuroscience and marketing to help brands gauge the emotional resonance of their current and future marketing campaigns. To do this, companies like Immersion Neuroscience and Spark Neuro have developed technology that can gauge certain neurochemical and physiological responses, which both signal emotional engagement while consuming marketing content.

In 2017, Immersion Neuroscience developed the INBand, an armband that can measure your brain’s oxytocin levels by tracking the cadence of your Vagus -- a nerve that controls your heartbeat.

Image Credit: Contently

Oxytocin is known as the empathy chemical. When it’s coursing through your brain, you relate to others more, care about them, and feel an urge to help them. And when your brain synthesizes the chemical while consuming marketing materials, it's one of the best indicators of emotional engagement and, in turn, quality content.

Last year, Immersion Neuroscience hooked eight people up to the INBand and measured their neurochemical responses to 17 ads from the 2018 Superbowl. They then compared each ad’s neurological immersion scores to their ranking on USA Today's Ad Meter, which is ranked by the public.

What they found was quite shocking -- their results were almost the complete opposite of USA Today’s Ad Meter rankings. In fact, the ad that generated the most emotional engagement in the study was ranked the least popular ad in USA Today’s Ad Meter.

Immersion Neuroscience’s findings suggest that knowing what the brain actually resonates with is much more important than what people say they like, especially when you test ideas in focus groups -- participants are prone to shielding their true opinions due to groupthink and the urge to please authority figures.

So to accurately gauge our content’s emotional resonance, and in turn, its ability to grab people’s attention, makes them feel something, and compel them to act, we need to focus more on neuroscience and less on web metrics and in-person interviews.

To help you envision a world where neuromarketing is more widespread, here are three practical ways the INBand could help brands nail their marketing.

Neuromarketing Examples

1. Brands could prove storytelling is the key to emotional resonance.
2. Brands could save millions of dollars on ads.
3. Brands could host more engaging conferences.

1. Brands could prove storytelling is the key to emotional resonance.

When Shane Snow, an author, journalist, and co-founder of Contently, first tried out the INBand to see what the neuromarketing fuss was all about, the CEO of Immersion Neuroscience, Dr. Paul Zak, played this advertisement for him:

After Shane finished watching the ad, he started tearing up. But as he wiped away his tears before Dr. Zak could see them, he realized it was a lost cause -- the INBand had already revealed that the ad made him cry.

Image Credit: Contently

At each point of the ad where the father gets rejected, the corresponding points on the graph show that Shane experienced bursts of emotion because he developed empathy for him. And at the end of the ad, you’ll notice a corresponding spike in emotion on the graph that shows exactly where he cried. The ad’s emotional effects even bled over to Shane’s reality, making him feel empathetic toward the father after the ad ended, which is evidenced by the spike’s gradual fade.

Shane’s emotional response to this ad suggests that telling great stories, chock-full of conflict, surprise, and emotion, is one of the best ways to trigger the release of oxytocin, helping you emotionally engage your audience and, ultimately, make them care about your brand.

In a nutshell, great stories are about the journey of overcoming adversity and how that journey changes people. “Little Moments,” tells the story of a father who so desperately wants to connect with his teenage daughter but ultimately can’t make it happen. And at the end of the ad, her constant rejection clearly weighs on him, prompting him to lay down on her bed. But that’s when he sees all the photos they’ve taken together over the years taped above her bed, making him realize that she’s always had a connection with him -- he just didn’t know it.

2. Brands could save millions of dollars on ads.

In the same study of 2018 Superbowl ads mentioned above, Immersion Neuroscience discovered that M&Ms’ “Human” was the second most immersive ad on their list.

As you can probably predict, “Human” generated the most emotional engagement when the truck plows Danny DeVito into the basket of produce. But a few seconds after this shocking and hilarious climax, Immersion Neuroscience discovered that emotional engagement plummeted, suggesting M&Ms could’ve shaved off the last 10 seconds of this ad -- and saved over $1.5 million.

3. Brands could host more engaging conferences.

At a major global conference in Houston last year, Immersion Neuroscience put INBands on attendees and measured their immersion during certain presentations. They discovered that concise, energetic talks generated the most emotional engagement.

On the other hand, longer talks need to revolve around a strong narrative or else they can’t hold an audience's attention. Additionally, they realized the brain responds well to multimedia-heavy presentations due to the high variety of stimulus.

Based on these findings, Immersion Neuroscience believes tracking attendees’ emotional engagement during presentations can help companies refine their conferences by cutting out boring talks and even providing attendees with relevant presentation recommendations.

The Neurochemicals Don’t Lie

Even though we live in an age of data overload, where you can measure almost anything, Google Analytics will never be able to accurately gauge the most important element of your marketing campaign -- its ability to make your audience feel something.

Fortunately, the neuromarketing space is rapidly evolving, and its technology is becoming more affordable and practical for marketers today, hopefully leading to its mainstream use tomorrow.

Absolutely Everything You Need to Know About Paid Time Off (PTO)

From 1976 to 2000, the average working American took off more than 20 days a year.

15 years later, that number has decreased to 16 days for the average American.

We all know the importance of work-life balance -- but, unfortunately, we don't always know how to implement formal company policies to give employees' legitimate permission to take time off. And, without company approval, many employees are leaving free vacation days on the table.

Additionally, your employees are unique. While some might want time off to visit the Grand Canyon, others might just want to stay home with a sick child, or catch up on errands.

A lack of time off for employees can impact your company's bottom line, too. In fact, people who use vacation days are more likely to get a promotion or raise. Ultimately, time off allows people to recharge and maintain peak productivity levels, undoubtedly good for your company's long-term growth.

To ensure your company sees optimal success in 2019, we've created this guide to Paid Time Off (PTO), which can help create a culture in which employees feel secure taking the time they need to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

What is Paid Time Off (PTO)?

Paid Time Off (PTO) allows employees to take a certain number of days off, typically based on a certain amount of time they've worked at a company. Rather than giving employees vacation and sick days, many companies use PTO as an all-in-one opportunity for employees to take time off at their own discretion. This helps employees avoid burnout, and allows managers to avert the administrative hassles of tracking where employees are when they're out of office.

Your employees are all unique individuals. Some of them value travel, while others enjoy quality family time. Some want to sit at home with a book, while others want more time to train for a marathon.

Plus, events can often arise that are unplanned -- a sick child, a car that breaks down, or a last-minute dentist appointment.

Our 9-to-5 work schedule is not always conducive to the demands we feel from other aspects of our lives. For this reason, you should consider implementing Paid Time Off (PTO) to allow employees to take care of themselves without fearing financial punishment as a result.

Essentially, PTO allows employees to accrue time-off based on hours worked -- for a certain number of hours worked, an employee earns a certain amount of PTO that is credited to an employee's "bank", typically after a pay period. If an employee takes one day off, they're taking eight hours of PTO.

PTO often takes the place of a company's vacation and sick day policies. Instead of offering separate buckets of time-off for different reasons, you offer PTO as an all-in-one opportunity for employees to take time off at their own discretion.

It's easy to see the administrative and leadership benefits of PTO -- with PTO, you avoid the hassles of tracking why an employee is out, and logging the missed day into one system over another.

Plus, your managers are able to demonstrate trust in their employees.

Your employees are adults -- is it really important whether they took the day off because they were actually sick, or because they simply needed a day to recharge in front of Netflix? Either way, it's time off they've earned.

87% of companies offer PTO plans and 91% offer paid vacation plans to employees based on how long they've worked at the organization. For PTO plans, the average days awarded per year based on employee's length of service ranges from 13 to 26 days.

Unlimited PTO

Unlimited PTO works the same as PTO, except you don't assign a certain number of allotted days to your employees -- instead, you trust them to take any time off they need, as long as they get their work done.

This type of results-driven workplace culture is becoming increasingly popular, particularly in the startup and technology industries.

It might seem like a crazy idea -- why would any company offer unlimited PTO? Wouldn't that just result in an empty office, with a bunch of employees permanently lounging poolside in the Bahamas?

In reality, employees with unlimited PTO typically don't take any more days off than employees with an assigned amount of PTO -- in fact, marketing automation company Salesfusion found that after they implemented unlimited paid vacation, their employees actually started taking fewer days off.

Unlimited PTO can help you attract and retain top talent. Additionally, the impressive benefit can incentivize employees to work harder, and care about their company more.

While you might be wary of some employees taking advantage of the time off, you can mitigate those issues by enforcing regular performance reviews and ensuring each employee continues to hit their deadlines.

Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO and founder, points out three important elements to implementing a hands-off approach to employee vacation time:

1. The state-of-the-art vacation plan these days is a relic of an era when people worked 9 to 5 in an office, like our fathers did. The internet and mobile devices have enabled our employees to work where they are comfortable (often at home) and the hours they are comfortable (often in the middle of the night).

2. I always thought is was strange when an employee would hand me a paid time off form for a weekday, but never handed me a credit form for the Saturday and Sunday they just put in. Since we are not tracking weekend days worked as credit, the weekday time off just didn't seem fair.

3. We hire very smart people who are very focused on contributing to the growth of our company. We trust that the folks will use "common sense" with regards to taking an appropriate amount of time off.

How to Take PTO

This section likely sounds ridiculous to people from certain European cultures, but for Americans, it's an all-too-familiar problem. There are a few reasons many Americans end up leaving paid vacation days on the table, including a sense of obligation to work hard all the time, and a sense of guilt when a day isn't "productive".

It's time all employees globally understand the benefits of time off -- for instance, working fewer hours correlates with higher levels of productivity in the form of increased GDP (gross domestic product). Additionally, an employee's workplace happiness can help improve team morale.

If your company offers PTO and you're anxious about taking it, consider following these six steps:

1. Plan your time-off far in advance. Consider when you might need it most -- do you have a month full of conferences, travel, and all-day meetings? Perhaps you'll need a week to recharge after all that. Alternatively, maybe you just need a few days to lay in the sun in mid-January (I know I do).
2. Tell your manager as far-in-advance as possible. Ask her what she will need you to complete before you leave.
3. Send out an email to your immediate team with an out-of-office reminder in advance, if possible. Urge employees to let you know what they need from you ahead of time, so you can get your work done before you leave the office.
4. Set an automatic out-of-office reply to emails, and include an employee or manager's email as an alternative if it's an emergency. Additionally, set your slack, or company messaging system, to "away".
5. To ensure you finish your work in time, consider blocking time on your calendar as "Busy", so people can't book you for meetings and you can cross tasks off your to-do list.
6. Trust your team! They will be able to handle the workload just fine while you're gone, and you can return the favor when they're out of office.

Of course, these strategies only work if you plan on taking PTO in advance. If an illness or emergency arises, you understandably can't plan for that. Instead, it's important you keep team members in-the-loop, but remember -- PTO exists for those reasons, as well.

Use your days off to recharge, and let go of any guilt you might feel. You'll be a better employee as a result.

The Ultimate Guide to Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

At many companies, it can feel as if there are 100 miles between sales and marketing.

According to the 2018 State of Inbound report, fewer than half of marketers would describe their respective companies' sales and marketing teams as "generally aligned." That's a problem.

In HubSpot's early days, our marketing and sales executives started out on the same team, and luckily that collaboration has trickled down throughout the organization as it continues to grow. But it wasn't just luck, of course.

That alignment -- which we call "Smarketing" -- is largely the result of a conscious decision to work together, set goals, and create agreements between both teams.

One of the most critical steps to aligning your sales and marketing efforts is creating a service level agreement (SLA). Traditionally, an SLA serves to define exactly what a customer will receive from a service provider. But SLAs serve internal operations as well, and sales and marketing agreements are among the most crucial.

Service-Level Agreement (SLA)

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a contract that establishes a set of deliverables that one party has agreed to provide another. This agreement can exist between a business and its customers, or one department that delivers a recurring service to another department within that business.

SLAs are common to a business when signing on new customers. However, when one exists between sales and marketing departments, this agreement instead details marketing goals, like number of leads or revenue pipeline; and the sales activities that'll follow and support them, like engaging leads that were qualified by the marketing team.

Both the sales and marketing departments use this document as a commitment to support each other, based on concrete, numerical goals. And guess what? 65% of marketers whose companies have this type of SLA see higher return on investment from their inbound marketing efforts.

What an SLA Includes

The details of an SLA will differ among internal and external agreements. Nonetheless, there are common building blocks that each SLA should be sure to include, whether the recipient of the service is your customer or your sales team.

1. Summary of Agreement

The first item on your SLA should be an overview of the agreement. What service have you agreed to deliver to the other party? Summarize the service, to whom it's being delivered, and how the success of that service is to be measured.

2. Goals of Both Parties

In external SLAs -- those between a business and its customers -- the goals stated in the agreement are primarily those of the customer. If this is your intention, work with your client to marry their needs with the abilities of your product, and come up with a measurable goal that your company can feasibly meet for the client on a regular basis.

Is this an internal SLA between your sales and marketing departments? Both teams should have their goals outlined in this section of the contract, while making sure that when Marketing hits its goal, Sales can reach its own goal as a result.

3. What's Needed by Both Parties

SLAs should include what each party needs in order to reach their goals. In agreements that serve a customer, keep in mind their needs might go beyond simply "the product." They might need more than that to reach their goals -- such as weekly consulting, reporting, and technical maintenance from you.

SLAs between sales and marketing teams should describe what they might need from the opposite department in order to help them hit their targets. Marketing, for example, might need weekly status reports on Sales' pipeline so the marketers can adjust their lead-generating campaigns accordingly.

4. Points of Contact

Who's in charge of making sure each party's goals are met? Sort out which team does what, and who talks to whom, in this section of your SLA. Is there a separate employee using the services, in relation to the employee who reports on performance every week? Make it clear who's involved in the SLA, and how.

5. If Goals Are Not Met

You might not want to think about it, but there should always be formal consequences when a goal isn't met as part of an SLA. Don't freak out, though -- these consequences aren't always business-ending situations. Include a form of compensation to the service's end user for when the service doesn't meet their agreed-upon goals. In external SLAs, according to PandaDoc, this compensation can come in the form of "service credits." Grab PandaDoc's free SLA template here to find out more.

For Sales and Marketing SLAs, work with your sales team to establish a plan for how any lost revenue is to be made up as a result of an unreached sales quota. You might settle on a strike system that holds certain employees -- in both Sales and Marketing -- accountable for diagnosing and resolving issues of low performance.

6. Conditions of Cancellation

Under what circumstances will your SLA be terminated? Whether your contract serves a customer or two internal departments, you'll typically find yourself putting the SLA on the chopping block when it's just not working. Maybe your goals have gone unmet for the last three months, or the current agreement simply doesn't have buy-in from everyone involved.

Come up with formal conditions under which you'd cancel the current SLA in pursuit of, hopefully, a better SLA.

Service-Level Agreement Examples

1. Customer Service-Level Agreement
2. Internal Service-Level Agreement
3. Multilevel Service-Level Agreement

1. Customer Service-Level Agreement

A customer SLA is precisely what it sounds like: an agreement by a vendor to deliver a certain level of service to a particular customer. Here's a fun example:

In the TV show The Office, the company, Dunder Mifflin, supplies paper to various organizations. They might have a customer SLA stipulating that Dunder Mifflin will supply [Company X] with 50 reams of paper per month, shipped every Monday to [Address 1] and [Address 2] by Darryl Philbin -- with a confirmation of delivery sent to Jim Halpert. (Sorry, we had a little too much fun with the references in that one.)

2. Internal Service-Level Agreement

As explained earlier in this blog post, an internal SLA only concerns parties from within the company, rather than its customers. So, while a business might have an SLA open with each of its clients, it can also have a separate SLA between its sales and marketing departments.

For example, let's say Company X's sales department has to close $5,000 worth of sales per month in total, and each sale is worth $100. If the sales team's average win rate for the leads they engage with is 50%, Company X's marketing director, Josh, can work with the sales team on an SLA, stipulating that Marketing will deliver 100 qualified leads to sales director, Amy, by a certain date every month. This might include four weekly status reports per month, sent back to Josh by Amy, to ensure the leads Amy's team is receiving are helping them keep pace with their monthly sales goal.

3. Multilevel Service-Level Agreement

Multilevel SLAs can take several forms. This type of agreement can support a business's customers or the business's various internal departments. The point of this type of SLA is to outline what is expected of each party if there's more than just one service provider and one end user. Here's an example of a multi-level SLA in an internal situation:

It's a no-brainer for Company X's sales and marketing teams to partner up on an internal SLA that delivers leads from Marketing to Sales every month. But what if they wanted to incorporate a customer retention strategy into this contract, making it an SLA between Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service? After sales closes on 50 customers for the month, it's Customer Service's job to keep these customers happy and successful while using their product. In a multilevel SLA, Company X can have sales director, Amy, send monthly "customer friction" reports to Joan, the VP of service, based on dialogue the sales team has regularly with its clients. This helps the customer service team build a knowledge base that better prepares them for the pain points customers call them about. Learn more about customer service's increasing role to business growth in the HubSpot Academy.

Now, if you don't have a Sales and Marketing SLA in place, fear not: We've outlined six steps to create one below so that you can easily start aligning your sales and marketing teams.

How to Make an SLA for Marketing and Sales Alignment

To draft your SLA, you first need to align your Sales and Marketing teams around a shared set of goals -- or, as we put it before, the harmonious "Smarketing." This alignment can then dictate the creation of a written SLA that reflects these goals. Here's how to create an SLA with "Smarketing" in mind:

1. Calculate a numerical Marketing goal based on the sales team's quotas.

As a marketing department, not only should you have a concrete goal for each campaign you run, but you also should have a high-level numerical goal that aligns with the sales team's operations. At the end of the day, that'll mean qualified leads and actual sales from those leads.

Salespeople are driven almost entirely by their sales quotas -- the numerical goals that correlate with their compensation and job security. If Marketing commits to a similar, related numerical goal, it shows that the team is being held accountable in a manner similar to Sales. The trick, however, is to make sure your numerical goal can effectively power the sales team's numerical goal.

In order to calculate the marketing side of your SLA, you'll need the following four metrics:

• Total sales goal (in terms of revenue quota)
• % revenue that comes from marketing-generated leads (as opposed to sales-generated ones)
• Average sales deal size
• Average lead-to-customer close %

Then, it's time to do some calculations:

• Sales quota x % revenue from marketing-generated leads = Marketing-sourced revenue goal
• Marketing-sourced revenue goal ÷ Average sales deal size = # of customers needed
• Customers ÷ Average lead-to-customer close % = # of leads needed

2. Segment your goals by specific intervals during the year.

It might also be a good idea to reevaluate the marketing side of the SLA each month, as a variety of factors can change the numbers used in your calculations over time. To do so, create a document that tracks your SLA calculations by month, which should include the following metrics:

• # of marketing-generated leads
• # of those leads that became customers
• Revenue from those closed customers
• Total revenue closed that month from marketing-generated leads only
• Total revenue closed that month

You will also need:

• The average sales cycle length

With the figures above, you can re-calculate the metrics you started with on a monthly basis, or at whichever interval suits your business -- quarter, year, etc. Just make sure the same measure of time is used for both Sales and Marketing to maintain alignment. Have a look:

• # marketing-generated leads that became customers ÷ # marketing-generated leads = lead-to-customer close %
• Revenue from closed customers ÷ # of marketing-generated leads that became customers = sales deal size
• Total revenue closed from marketing-generated leads / total revenue closed = % revenue from marketing-generated leads

You could also take it one step further, and incorporate quantity and quality into these metrics. The above calculations provide you with a quantitative volume goal of marketing-generated leads. However, we know that not all leads are created equal, and as a result, some may be considered higher- or lower-quality than others.

For example, a decision-making executive might be a more valuable contact than an intern. If that's the case, you can do the above analysis for each subset of leads, and set up separate goals for each type/quality level.

Want to take it even further? Measure in terms of value, instead of volume. For example, a CEO may be worth $100, for instance, while a director is $50, a manager is $40, and so on.

3. Calculate Sales's figures and their goals.

The sales side of the SLA should detail the speed and depth to which a salesperson should follow up with marketing-generated leads. When establishing this end of the SLA, consider these two sales statistics:

• Salespeople who follow up with leads within an hour are nearly seven times more likely to have meaningful conversations with a decision maker on the other end.
• However, only 7% of leads respond to a follow-up contact within five minutes after filling out a form.

Bottom line? Not all leads may be fit to send to Sales immediately. They often need to meet some minimum level of quality, like reaching a certain activity level, which can only take place after being nurtured by Marketing.

Nonetheless, engaging a lead the short time after he/she converts is critical to maintaining a relationship with them -- the question you have to answer is what that engagement should look like. Either Sales or Marketing should take action to start building that relationship, make nurturing easier, and set up the sales rep for success when she eventually does reach out.

Keep in mind this advice is futile if you don't consider the bandwidth of your sales reps. Sure, in a perfect world, they'd make six follow-up attempts for each lead -- in reality, though, they may simply not have enough hours in the day to do that. For that reason, you'll also need to factor in the number of leads each rep is getting (based on the Marketing SLA), how much time they spend on marketing-generated leads versus sales-generated leads, and how much time they have to spend on each one. If you're looking to conserve time, some of the follow-up -- email, in particular -- could be automated, so look into options there.

4. Set up Marketing SLA reporting.

Now that you have your SLA goals, it's time to track your progress against that goal -- daily.

To start, graph the goal line. Multiply 1/n -- n is the number of days in the month -- by your monthly goal. That should determine what portion of your monthly goal you need to achieve each day. You'll want to graph that cumulatively throughout the month and mark your cumulative actual results on the same chart. We call that a waterfall graph, and it looks something like this:

5. Set up Sales SLA reporting.

For the Sales SLA reporting, you'll have two graphs -- one monitoring the speed of follow-up, and the other monitoring the depth of follow-up.

To graph the speed of follow up, you'll need the date/time the lead was presented to sales, and the date/time the lead received her first follow-up. The difference between those two times equals the time it took for Sales to follow up with that particular lead.

Take the averages of lengths of time it took for Sales to follow up with all leads within a particular timeframe -- day, week, month -- and chart it against the SLA goal.

To graph the depth of follow-up -- e.g., the number of attempts -- look specifically at leads that have not been connected with, since the goal of the follow-up is to get a connect. For leads over a certain timeframe that have not gotten a connect, look at the average number of follow-up attempts made, and graph that against the SLA goal.

6. Communicate, celebrate, and address the achievement (or lack thereof).

Maintaining strong communication regarding how each team is performing on goals boosts transparency. If either team isn't reaching their goals, addressing that confirms their importance, while celebrating hitting those goals can aid motivation.

If you're not sure where to begin when it comes to setting these goals, check out our free Marketing & Sales Lead Goal Calculator, designed to help you determine and track the goals that will eventually become part of your SLA.

One Last Step

When it comes to what should be in your service level agreement, there's one final piece: Review these metrics on a regular basis to monitor your progress, and make sure both Sales and Marketing have access to the reports for both sides of the SLA.

This step helps to maintain accountability and transparency and allows for both teams to address issues -- or congratulate each other on productive results.

 

What is a keyword strategy?

To get traffic, you need people willing to visit your site. To get them to visit your site, you need to know what they are looking for, which words they use and what type of content would fit their intent best. In short, you need a keyword strategy. In this SEO Basics article, we’ll take a brief look at what keyword strategy is and how it goes hand in hand with keyword research.

What is keyword strategy?

While many simply talk about doing keyword research to find out what terms you should use, what you do after that is just as important: this is your keyword strategy. A keyword strategy contains every decision you take based upon your findings in your keyword research project, whether it’s about the content you’re planning to write or how you are going to track the results in Analytics. Keyword strategy is about how you want to target those keywords, now and in the future. 

Read our ultimate guide to keyword research for SEO for an all-encompassing overview of all things keyword research. In addition, we have online training on keyword research as well.

A keyword strategy forms when looking at yourself and your environment

You need to have plenty of insights if you want to make informed decisions about your keyword strategy. Start by thoroughly investigating yourself, your product and your competitors.

Looking at yourself

A good keyword strategy starts with looking at yourself and your business. What are you doing and why? What are your goals? What’s your uniqueness in this world? What is the message you want to send? How’s your branding? Why would anyone want to visit your site? Better insights lead to a better understanding of what you want to achieve as to not waste resources. There’s no use focusing on the wrong things.

Looking at search intent

After you’ve fleshed out your uniqueness, it’s time to look at how. Search intent is the why behind the search that should lead to your site. Do you know your audience? Are people only looking for information or are they willing to buy stuff as well? Are there ways for you to target specific intents with focused content to influence this?

Looking at words

Words are at the center of everything. By doing keyword research, you should get great insights into the words people use to find what they are looking for. Now, you need to produce user-oriented content that fits their intent and goals perfectly. 

Looking at competition

While writing up your keyword strategy you need to take a good look at your competitors. What are they doing? How well are they ranking for terms you’d like to attack? What kind of content do they have? Are there ways for you to improve on that? Have you thought about looking at the long tail?

Looking at the search engines itself

Of course, while looking at your competitors, you’ll often use search engines to see how they are doing. Doing these types of searches can give you great insights into the strategy of your competitors. It also gives you a very good feel of what happens when you type in your main focus keyphrase. What’s the on-screen real estate like? Are there featured snippets you could target? Are there other types of rich results? Is there a local pack?

In some markets, if you track developments over time, you might see that search engines are increasingly giving answers that lead to no-click searches. Always keep an eye on search engines, but don’t go obsessing about every little algorithm update.

Looking at data

Of course, analyzing data plays a big role in the success of your keyword strategy. Both before and after, Google Analytics provides invaluable insights into the performance of your site. Even Google Search Console can give a lot of stuff to think about and opportunities to pursue!

How are you targeting your keywords?

Checking your analytics regularly to keep track of your SEO performance is incredibly important, but can’t have performance without content tailored to the specific needs and goals of your strategy. If you’ve ran through all the steps and did a thorough keyword research, you should have an idea of what you should target and how you should do that. You can use these insights to create the content you need to make a success of your strategy. There’s a lot you can do:

• Make landing pages
• Create specific types of content for the different search intents
• Maybe make specific content to get featured snippets
• Or maybe voice search is something that might fit your strategy?
• Or apps?
• Video?
• Something else entirely?

Many roads lead to Rome, but some roads are more difficult than others. You could say that you get to Rome fastest via the highway, but there you might run into a traffic jam because everyone wants to take that route. Sometimes, it’s better to take that rarely traveled mountain pass — the results might wow you!

Update your keyword strategy

On the way, there’s a lot that can happen and your keyword strategy should take that into account. Regularly re-evaluate your keyword strategy. Have there been significant changes in the world around you that need to be assessed? It might be that your users’ language changed or that a new competitor is gobbling up market share. Keep an eye on things and adjust where necessary!

The post What is a keyword strategy? appeared first on Yoast.

Don't Block the Exit [The Customer Code Series]

This post is part 10 of 11 in a series on the HubSpot Customer Code.

If you want to see an otherwise calm and collected person switch to blind rage, ask them about a time they tried to cancel a service.

Ask me about my attempts to cancel cable.

My colleague’s gym only allowed cancellations if you showed up in-person, during business hours.

And don’t even get me started on the nightmare of cancelling magazine subscriptions.

We’ve all had these experiences. They are universally loathed, and we remember them -- and still get angry! -- one, five, even 10 years after they have happened.

But there is often a gap between what we know as a person, and what we do as a business.

Recently our COO, JD Sherman, told me about a meeting he had with one of our customer success managers. She was nearly in tears as she told him about a customer she loved working with, who also loved working with her. They’d had a long and successful relationship together. But they were in a difficult situation as a business and needed to downgrade.

The customer missed the contractual window for downgrading, and because our customer success team is incentivized on revenue retention, she was put in the position of placing her needs and the company’s needs above the customer’s.

Legally, she had everything on her side. Personally, she knew it was wrong.

At the end of their conversation, her customer said, "Okay, you've got me. I’ll pay, but after we're done with this I don't ever want to work with you again."

Wow. I am so sorry -- to both our customer and our employee.

The goals we had in place for our customer success team forced them to solve for revenue dollars instead of the success of our customers.

We were blocking the exit even though it meant destroying the relationship.

Jason Lemkin says concisely what we as humans know to be true, but we as business leaders too often forget:

Making it hard to cancel doesn't reduce churn

It just modestly delays it

Doesn't help

— Jason ✨ 2️⃣0️⃣1️⃣9️⃣ ✨ Lemkin 🦄 (@jasonlk) October 13, 2018

If I can make a purchase with one click, I should be able to cancel that purchase with one click.

If a company makes it easy to buy, they should make it easy to stop buying.

And I’m not just saying this because it’s the right thing to do; it’s also better for business.

The HubSpot Research team asked, and 89% of consumers reported they are more likely to buy if a company makes it easy and simple to cancel.

If a customer’s meant to be, they’ll be. If they’re not meant to be, let them be.

The 9th tenet of The Customer Code is: Don’t block the exit. I give HubSpot a 7 out of 10 on this. We’ve done a lot in just the past year to improve here. Most notably, we reduced our cancellation notice window from 45 days to 10 days, but we’re not finished yet.

I want customers to be able to cancel or downgrade with a click of the button. My hope is that the experience of leaving HubSpot feels more like quitting Netflix and Spotify than it feels like cancelling a business contract -- or a cable subscription.

Not only do I want it to be easy for customers to stop paying us money, I want it to be easy for customers to take their data with them. Today, we support exports of key CRM objects. In 2019, we want to support the export of all activities associated with those exports. If it can be brought into HubSpot, we want customers to be able to take it out of HubSpot.

I don’t want anything blocking the exit, because when we block the exit, we also block the return.

This solves for customers and it solves for employees. And any change that is good for both of those groups is ultimately good for the company.

We all know that companies that retain customers grow. But companies that gracefully allow customers to leave, grow better (and leave an open door for customers to come back to them in the future).

This post is part 10 of 11 in a series on HubSpot’s Customer Code. You can find more info on The Customer Code and how we score ourselves here, and watch my INBOUND talk on this topic here:

The Psychology Behind Viral Marketing Videos

In 2007, brothers Chip and Death Heath accomplished something that even the Coen brothers would tip their caps to -- their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die climbed to the top of both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.

Made to Stick achieved astronomical success because it taught readers a model for making ideas “sticky”, or, in other words, making ideas digestible, memorable, and compelling. And by analyzing countless amounts of “sticky” ideas, like JFK’s “Man on the Moon” speech and even some conspiracy theories, the Heath Brothers noticed that a “sticky” idea usually follows six principles:

1. Simple: its core message must be easy to grasp.
2. Unexpected: it should break cliche and evoke enough curiosity to grab someone’s attention and hold it.
3. Concrete: it should be vividly painted in people’s minds.
4. Credible: it should be supported by evidence.
5. Emotional: it should have a purpose and relate to people.
6. Story-driven: it should tell a story that inspires people to act.

At their core, viral videos are sticky ideas in action. They compete against an endless supply of videos all screaming for attention, but they can slice through the clutter, resonate emotionally with viewers, and are actually considered valuable pieces of content.

The Heath Brothers recommend following as many of their "Made to Stick" principles as possible when devising your idea. Below, we’ve analyzed five marketing videos that follow most of these principles and succeeded in capturing viral attention.

1. Monday.com | What using monday.com feels like

"Made to Stick" Elements: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, and Emotional

Simple

In just 30 seconds, Monday.com cuts right to the chase and provides a high-level description of their project management tool.

Unexpected

After fleshing out each section of their product, Monday.com surprises you with a pleasant dose of comedic relief from their feature overviews. For example, after they introduce their product, they cut to an oddly satisfying bubble wrap-popping, oreo-splitting montage of what it feels like to use their product. Then, after they describe their product’s board, they zoom in on an employee winking at you and transition into a hilarious quip about how their product works on your phone because it’s 2018.

Concrete

By showing, not telling, what it feels like to use Monday.com with a hilarious montage, and how to use their project management tool, its features and benefits bake right into your memory.

Emotional

Monday.com leans on comedy to trigger an emotional response from their viewers.

2. Johnnie Walker | Dear Brother

“Made to Stick” Elements: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Emotional, and Story-Driven

Simple

Johnnie Walker’s “Dear Brother” is only 90 seconds long and follows the story of two brothers exploring what viewers initially assume must be their childhood home.

Unexpected

At the end of the video, your heart nearly shatters when you find out one of the brothers has actually passed away and the other one was actually reminiscing about him.

Concrete

By setting the story in the rugged mountains and streaming creeks of Scotland and voicing over the video with a beautiful poem that aligns with the plot, Johnnie Walker makes you feel like you’re strolling along side the brothers.

Emotional

“Dear Brother” begins as a heartwarming video about two brothers reminiscing about their past, but when you learn that one of the brothers has already passed away, you start to feel sad. At the same time, though, you also feel touched because the other brother realizes that even though his brother isn’t with him physically, he’ll always be with him spiritually.

Story-driven

“Dear Brother’s” twist ending turns the story from being about roaming the place of your past to being about keeping your loved ones’ memories alive, which really packs a final emotional punch.

3. NERD Skincare | Your Relationship With Acne

“Made to Stick” Elements: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, and Emotional

Simple

Despite an airtime of almost five minutes and an onslaught of gags and jokes, NERD Skincare stays laser-focused on a single, straightforward message throughout the entire video: the idea that their treatment arms your body’s good bacteria to kill off your body’s acne bacteria.

Unexpected

Instead of filming actors and actresses with flawless skin happily splashing water on their face, NERD Skincare shatters the conventions of most acne treatment ads. First, they hook you with a visceral metaphor for your face (the hot and cramped arcade), then deeply relate to your problems by describing realistic scenarios of how acne can sabotage your life, and continuously weave a strong thread of humor and edge throughout the entire video.

Concrete

By including clever metaphors, funny and unexpectedly realistic examples, and an actual demonstration of their product in action, NERD Skincare can sear their video’s message into your memory and prompt you to act.

Credible

NERD Skincare actually proved their brand’s credibility by putting acne bacteria on their founder’s face and demonstrating how their product quickly got rid of it.

Emotional

With a hilarious joke at almost every turn of this video, “Your Relationship With Acne” resonated with viewers through humor.

4. HP Sprocket | Little Moments

“Made to Stick” Elements: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Emotional, and Story-Driven

Simple

“Little Moments” is a short and relatable story about a father’s attempt to connect with his teenage daughter and his reluctant acceptance that she’s growing up.

Unexpected

At the end of the video, the daughter has rejected each of her father’s attempts at connection, and it clearly weighs heavily on him, prompting him to lay down on her bed. But that’s when he sees all the photos they’ve taken together over the years taped above her bed, making him realize that she’ll always love him, no matter how she’s acting right now.

Concrete

By filming familiar scenes of home life and close-up shots of the father experiencing vivid feelings of emotion, HP Sprocket can place you in this heartwarming story and make you feel the same way the father feels at the end of the video.

Emotional

The father’s growing disappointment and sadness each time he fails to connect with his daughter makes you feel bad for him. But when you can see the pure happiness and joy on his face after he finds his daughter’s pictures, you genuinely feel touched by the moment.

Story-driven

In a nutshell, great stories are about the journey of overcoming adversity and how that journey changes people. “Little Moments” recounts a father who so desperately wants to connect with his teenage daughter but ultimately can’t make it happen. But when he sees his daughter’s pictures, he realizes that she’s always had a connection with him -- he just didn’t know it.

5. Death Wish Coffee | Storm’s a-Brewin’

“Made to Stick” Elements: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, and Emotional

Simple

By using a ship full of vikings as a metaphor for their fiercely caffeinated coffee, Death Wish Coffee effectively expressed the strength of their product in only 30 seconds.

Unexpected

“Storm’s a-Brewin’” started out as a Game of Thrones-esque story about a group of vikings who were ready to die as heroes, but when you find out it’s an advertisement for a highly-caffeinated coffee brand, it’s actually a really funny and pleasant surprise.

Concrete

Death Wish Coffee’s use of ragged vikings and an incredibly realistic CGI ocean makes you feel like you’re actually rowing the boat with them -- on your way toward a noble death. And when you get to the end of the video, these vivid details solidify the strength of their coffee.

Emotional

The vikings' passionate commitment to dying with honor grabs your attention. And the realization that they’re a metaphor for caffeine makes you laugh and realize how strong Death Wish Coffee’s product is.

Following Made to Stick’s Model Could Lead to Your Viral Success

Making a viral video will be one of the hardest things to cross off your marketing bucket list. And even if you follow the six Made to Stick principles to a tee, there’s still no guarantee you’ll achieve viral success. But one thing you can expect by following this model is that your story will stick in people’s minds -- and their hearts.

Micro Conversions: What They Are, Why They Matter & How to Track Them

As marketers, we all know what macro conversions are -- simply put, a macro-conversion is the primary goal of your site.

For instance, Amazon's macro conversion is when a user purchases a product. Boston Web Group's macro-conversion, on the other hand, is when someone requests a consultation appointment.

But oftentimes, a user doesn't jump straight to a macro conversion. I've never stumbled across a site I've never heard of and immediately clicked "Buy now" on a product -- and, my guess is, neither have you.

This is where micro conversions come into play.

Similar to the warm-up before the full sprint, a micro-conversion is a necessary step in your buyer's journey.

Here, we'll explore what exactly micro-conversions are, why they matter, and how to track them.

Micro Conversions: What They Are and Why They Matter

A micro conversion is any incremental step a user can take to show initial interest in your brand or product.

If you only pay attention to those who complete a macro conversion -- like signing up for a free trial, requesting a consultation, or purchasing a product -- then you're missing out on the power of your micro converters.

For instance, let's say I stumble across your blog through a Google search. I read your article, and I like it so much, I choose to share it with friends on Facebook. Additionally, I sign-up for your weekly email newsletter, so I can receive similar blog posts in the future.

I didn't buy your product, but that doesn't mean I'm insignificant to your company's bottom line. In fact, people who participate in micro conversions before taking the leap into fully converting could be better brand advocates down the line -- through those micro conversions, they've learned to trust your brand, and see the legitimacy of your business as a thought leader in the industry.

Nielsen Norman Group’s Jennifer Cardello splits micro conversions into two categories:

1. Process Milestones are conversions that represent linear movement toward a primary macro conversion. Monitoring these will help you define the steps where UX improvements are most needed.
2. Secondary Actions are not the primary goals of the site, but they are desirable actions that are indicators of potential future macro conversions.

Examples of micro conversions, both process milestones and secondary actions, include:

1. An email newsletter sign-up.
2. Viewing a certain number of pages of your site.
3. Commenting on one of your articles.
4. Sharing one of your pages via social media.
5. Tweeting about your company.
6. Downloading an ebook.
7. Creating an account.
8. Watching a video.
9. Fulfilling a certain number of steps in your business's conversion cycle -- adding a product to a cart, beginning to fill out a form, etc.

Ultimately, micro conversions can help you understand your buyer's behavior better, and optimize your site for higher conversion rates. Down the road, this data can help you create more targeted campaigns, and even convert faster.

For instance, Wholesale Suite uses two-step conversions from OptinMonster to drive qualified leads to their email lists -- which, by itself, is a micro conversion. However, this micro conversion allows Wholesale Suite to nurture leads into sales. From that one landing page alone, Wholesale Suite collects 15-20 qualified leads every day.

Ultimately, little steps can equal big wins.

Now that we've covered the importance of micro conversions, let's take a look at how to track them.

How to Track Micro Conversions

Tracking micro conversions is a relatively easy process using a tool like Google Analytics.

Before you begin tracking your micro conversion, however, you'll want to define with your team which stage of the micro conversion you want to track.

For instance, let's say you want to track users who download an ebook. Your criteria might be any user who fills out the form on the ebook landing page -- but, alternatively, perhaps you track users who receive the "thank you" email, or visit the thank you page for the offer. This could help you distinguish where your users primarily download the ebook, if you place your ebook CTA on various pages of your site, like blog posts.

Once you've defined your criteria for a completed micro conversion, you can track your micro conversion in GA. Let's go through that process now:

1. When you're signed into your Google Analytics account, go to "Admin".

2. Next, click "Goals" under the "View" column.

3. Click the red "+ NEW GOAL" button to add a goal. (Note: If you don't see this button, it's because you've already used all 20 of the goals you're allowed).

4. You can use one of the common goal templates GA provides -- if you're tracking a micro conversion such as creating an account, sharing content on social media, or playing a video, it's a good idea to use one of GA's pre-built templates. Alternatively, you can click "Custom" to make your own.

5. Name your goal, then choose how you'll track the micro conversion -- you can track whether someone visits a page, how long they spend on a page, if they visited a certain minimum requirement of pages, or if they clicked a button or played a video. When you're ready, click "Continue".

6. Once you've successfully created your goal, you'll see it in your "Goals" chart.

7. When you need to track the progress of your micro conversions, you can do this under "Conversions" > "Goals".

It's important to note, if you've used HubSpot to build your website or track your analytics, you can also use HubSpot to track your micro conversions.

It may take some trial and error, but tracking micro conversions can ultimately help you optimize your site for a better user experience. For instance, if you notice one blog post in particular is a high-converting post, you might update the post or include more CTA's on that page.

Alternatively, if you're surprised to find one page in particular is low-converting, you might try moving the CTA to a higher position, or A/B testing the design or language of the CTA. Or, maybe you find most people ditch a form before completing it -- this signals your form might need to be redesigned for simplicity.

While micro conversions can seem minor, they're essential to growing brand awareness, increasing trust in potential leads, and ultimately converting at a much higher percentage. If you're not properly tracking your micro conversions, you're missing out on a ton of opportunity to convert higher-quality leads.

How to Make Money on YouTube, According to 3 People Who Do

Every day, five billion YouTube videos are watched around the world. And they're not just being watched -- they're being devoured. The average YouTube session by any one viewer is roughly 40 minutes, up 50% from the previous year, according to Omnicore.

If only there was a way to make money off of a website people spend so much time on. As a matter of fact, there is! A few ways, actually, and the proof is in the people (and businesses) who've cashed in on their video strategy.

Who's making content worthy of a nearly hour-long visit to youtube.com? Well, YouTube isn't just for amateur filmmakers and people videotaping their zainy housepets anymore. Musicians, TV networks, small businesses, and the self-employed all find monetary value in posting their own amazing content on a YouTube channel.

An active, entertaining YouTube channel -- which is free to make through a Google+ account (also free) -- strengthens these users' brands and extends their reach to new audiences. It can also build a base of subscribers that other companies using YouTube will actually pay to advertise their products to.

Before launching a YouTube channel for the purposes of making money, you need to decide what kind of profit you're interested in. Are you looking to use YouTube as a promotional outlet for your own products and services? Or, do you want your video content to generate ad revenue right from YouTube?

How to Make Money on YouTube

There are two ways to earn money on YouTube: as an advertiser and as an ad platform. As an advertiser, you pay YouTube for Preroll, Bumpers, or TrueView ads that get your videos in front of potential buyers. As an ad platform, you publish videos that are watched enough to host others' content as a paid affiliate or YouTube Partner.

Here's a breakdown of both monetization strategies, along with remarks from the YouTubers who've successfully made money using each strategy. Want to jump to a specific point in this article? Click the following links to jump to each YouTuber, how much they're estimated to make, and how they're making it.

• Clash Royale -- TrueView Ads
• T-Series -- YouTube Partner Program
• Marques Brownlee -- Affiliate Links

Then, at the bottom of this guide, learn about a bonus strategy that content producers are increasingly considering as their YouTube channels become more popular.

1. Be an Advertiser

As an advertiser on YouTube, you're populating your YouTube channel with video advertisements made by you. The difference between YouTube ads and, say, TV commercials, is that you get to show YouTube ads to more specific and often more engaged audience segments. You'll pay YouTube to host your ads on other, highly watched YouTube channels that appeal to the same viewership you're targeting.

The channels on which you host your video ads can range from big brands all the way to individual users who've made videos that are a hit with your audience.

When advertising on YouTube, you should know going in that you're playing the long game. It can be scary to pay others for top video slots that don't guarantee you'll be seen by your ideal buyer -- let alone get click-throughs to your website that you can convert into long-term customers.

But studies show these ads do pay off for advertisers during their time on YouTube: Those who see a TrueView ad (we'll explain what those are in a second) are reportedly 10 times more likely to take the action prompted in the ad than the viewer would be on their own.

Here's a rundown of your three advertising options on YouTube:

TrueView Ads

Who does it: Clash Royale

YouTube revenue: $2,600 – $41,600 per month

Got a great story to tell that also has a connection to your product? TrueView is for you. TrueView ads are your opportunity to create high-quality, longer creative spots that appear adjacent to the YouTube videos your target audience is already watching. These ads come in two forms: In-Stream and Discovery.

In-Stream videos play right before the YouTube user's selected video, "in the stream" of that chosen video. Users can opt to skip this video after five seconds of it playing, as shown below, and jump to their content. In-Stream ads can be between 12 seconds and six minutes in length.

Image by Brian Carter

Discovery ads appear on the right sidebar of a selected video, just below the "Up Next" video as a suggested result. See how this one looks below.

Because of the time you're allotted with this ad format, it's suggested that you create this type of ad with the goal of views and brand development, rather than just clicks into your website. This ad ideally generates revenue from the long-term brand awareness that comes out of a story people don't want to skip, and one viewers remember the next time they approach your product or service.

Both In-Stream and Discovery are pay-per-view -- you pay YouTube a fixed rate for every view the ad receives -- and their return on investment (ROI) can be measured in Google AdWords. YouTube tallies one new "view" after 30 seconds of watching, or a click on the video as it's playing. If the video is less than 30 seconds, views are tallied from people who watch the entire ad. (We'll explain how AdWords manages all three ad formats in a minute.)

Clash Royale, a popular game app for mobile devices, has produced TrueView ads that are consistently in YouTube's top 10 most highly watched ads of the year. The company's 2017 ad, "The Last Second" (shown below), garnered more than 110 million views by the end of that year. This campaign contributed to a YouTube marketing strategy that makes the app developer no less than $2.6 thousand per month, as estimated by SocialBlade.

Preroll

Like In-Stream ads, Preroll ads play in the stream immediately before a user's selected video. The difference is this ad type can't be skipped after five seconds. These videos also run a maximum of 30 seconds, though YouTube recently confirmed it will limit advertisers to 15- and 20-second options starting this year.

Because viewing is required in this ad format, advertisers pay per click, so make the click worth it. A preroll ad with an enticing call-to-action that directs viewers to an appropriate landing or purchasing page on your website can be an enormous lead-generator for the sales team.

You can also leverage YouTube's remarketing options, which enable you to send new videos back to users who've already engaged with your YouTube channel. If you're a HubSpot user, and you've built smart forms for capturing new information on returning visitors, remarketing can be a terrific addition to an inbound marketing campaign.

This remarketing option helps you learn more about a person's background and interests when they receive new videos that bring them to new landing pages.

Bumpers

Bumpers are the shortest ads you can buy. These six-second spots play just before a viewer's selected video (like the above two options) but are best for brand awareness in the short breaks between long videos, or a YouTube playlist a user might be listening to in the background.

While they might be brief, YouTube found 90% of their bumper ads were remembered later by viewers. Bumpers are sold through cost-per-minute (CPM) bidding, which means you pay for every 1,000 plays of your ad on YouTube. They're best used as a compliment to a TrueView ad campaign.

So how do you track the performance of these three video ad formats? Once you've created a YouTube channel and uploaded your video content, you can open a Google AdWords account and link it to your video campaign. In AdWords, select the campaign type, ad format, your budget, and to whom and where to show each video on YouTube.

You can target very specific audiences, and track the conversion rate of each video individually to see how much business (and revenue) you're driving. See this blog post to learn more about this process.

2. Be an Advertising Platform

If advertising is a marathon, the next two strategies are a sprint … sort of. When you think about how to make money on YouTube, you're probably thinking of the following options. In this case, you're the one getting paid to host others' advertisements -- the other side of the YouTube advertising relationship.

Keep in mind that while turning your videos into ad space can make money more quickly and directly, it requires more heavy lifting on your part to make a decent profit.

Here are your main options:

YouTube Partner Program

Who does it: T-Series

YouTube revenue: $723,500 – 11.6 million per month

The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) allows the website's most successful YouTube channels to monetize their content by serving ads made and paid for by other YouTube users.

The criteria for this program -- which changed in 2018 -- requires that your channel has reached 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 channel subscribers in the last 12 months. Once you have passed these two milestones, you can apply to join the program through the following steps:

• At the top-right of the YouTube homepage, click your account icon and select "Creator Studio."
• On the left-hand side, click "Channel" and select "Status and features."
• Under the box, "Monetization," click "Enable." Don't be fooled if it says you're already "Eligible" to the left; this just indicates there are no restrictions against you from trying to become a Partner.
• You'll be asked to agree to the YPP Terms. Do so, and you'll then sign up for an AdSense account so you can receive revenue through your monetized YouTube account.
• Set your ad hosting preferences and follow the prompts to submit your channel for review.

YouTube typically emails you a decision on whether they've accepted you into the YPP within a week of applying, so sit tight. Still trying to hit the right watch hours and channel subscribers? Keep in mind you should be posting prolifically -- having just one or two videos on your channel that you're personally proud of won't cut it.

T-Series is a prime example of how volume and consistency can make you a sought-after channel by advertisers on YouTube. This India-based record company posts numerous music videos for songs written and performed in Bollywood, India. And although the company was founded in 1984 and has been on YouTube for nearly 10 years, keeping with this music video strategy has finally put them a position to dethrone PewDiePie (the famous video game-focused YouTube user) as the most popular YouTube channel in the world -- with a whopping 83 million subscribers.

T-Series makes no less than $724 thousand per month from its YouTube channel, according to SocialBlade, much of which comes from advertisers through the YouTube Partner Program.

"Bollywood music is like Russian roulette. You keep on betting, but you don't know what will be a hit." -Nerraj Kalyan, President of T-Series

By publishing multiple videos a week, you can build your viewership, qualify for YPP, and make decent cash. YouTube splits ad revenue 55-45 with its partners -- 45% to Google, 55% to you. That means an advertiser who invests $200 in serving ads on your channel can bring you $110 for your videos' real estate.

T-Series's president attributes their success on YouTube to the fact that the business doesn't go into any one project thinking it will make money. Rather, the regular "bets" they place on YouTube increase their chances of capturing its audience, and increasing their following as a result.

Affiliate Links

Who does it: Marques Brownlee

YouTube revenue: $6,900 – $109,800 per month

As an affiliate, there is no eligibility requirement -- you're taking advertising into your own hands. This is a great option for YouTube channels that offer reviews and how-to's, and frequently recommend new products to its viewers.

Turn those suggestions into paid (but natural) product placements in the description section of your video, as shown below:

Image via Authority Hacker

Working as an affiliate of various brands can make you money -- albeit usually less than a YouTube Partner campaign -- each time that company makes a sale off a link you post on one of your videos. In this case, you're earning revenue from the company of which you are an affiliate, rather than from YouTube and its advertisers.

Start by joining an affiliate network through sites like Click Bank or Amazon's Affiliate Program, and follow the signup instructions. Keep in mind that each program takes a different percentage of a sale as commission, and your success is still tied to the popularity of your YouTube channel.

Travel vloggers can also join Travelpayouts. It is a travel affiliate program, that allows you to make money on flight tickets, hotels, tours and other travel services. The affiliate commission (percentage) depends on the service you choose and your sales volume.

YouTube personality Marques Brownlee, whose YouTube channel is shown promoting affiliate links in the screenshot above, is a consumer electronics reviewer on YouTube. This makes affiliate advertising the perfect revenue stream for his channel because his advertisers are effectively paying for Marques to review -- and, assuming it's a positive review, promote -- their products to his viewers. Marques says he also generates revenue through the YouTube Partner Program, according to Recode.

"There’s little things you can do to get people to watch your videos more, but none of it will make as drastic of a difference as the video itself. The video itself has to be what makes people watch it and share it and watch it again." -Marques Brownlee, tech reviewer on YouTube

In the example above, Marques reviews a pair of headphones by Bose, suggesting they might be the best noise-cancelling headphones on the market. This made him an affiliate of Bose -- just one piece of a YouTube marketing strategy that makes Marques no less than $6,900 per month, according to SocialBlade.

Bonus: Fan-Fund Your YouTube Channel

Who does it: Typical Gamer

What exactly is fan-funding? It's exactly what it sounds like: viewers donate money to your channel if they find your content enjoyable.

It's the perfect option for videos managed by charities and nonprofits, but even for-profit businesses and independent creatives can publish videos and YouTube Live streams that encourage contributions from their audience. Streaming platforms such as Twitch.tv, which webcasts video games and general interest content, sees accounts that are two years or older make $80 in "tips" per year on average.

Twitch.tv's most popular users make thousands.

Obviously YouTube and Twitch have different users, but YouTube has just as many loyal channel subscribers who would likely pay for exclusive rewards and content. On YouTube, sign up for Fan Funding to allow viewers of a live stream to tip through a chat window associated with the video.

YouTube calls them Super Chats, shown on a mobile device below:

Image via YouTube

You can also sign up for Patreon, which allows you to launch membership-only video channels through YouTube at a small fee per month for regular rewards. Just imagine how much a YouTube channel could generate if it has the 1,000 subscribers required by the YPP. Charge $1 for a new channel with new content, and you could be looking at a solid monthly revenue stream.

There's no shortcut to well-earned cash money, even on YouTube. The good news is video is taking up an increasingly wide slice of global internet bandwidth, and there are numerous ways to produce video content that's good enough for people to pay for.