The 5 Best Messaging Apps for Marketing in 2017

Remember only being able to send 1,000 texts each month?

My mom definitely remembers our phone bills when I doubled that amount every week in middle school.

Thankfully, companies created messaging apps to provide free and unlimited messaging, which was a refreshing solution for rigid text message limits and their lofty costs.

But messaging apps refused to be just another form of text messaging. They kept innovating and evolved into apps for almost every digital interaction possible.

Now, within a single app, you can chat with your friends, communicate with brands, make calls, play games, consume content, buy products, and even call a cab.

These added functionalities make messaging apps sticky. They draw users to the app more often and keep them there for a longer time. Today, messaging apps have over 5 billion monthly active users worldwide.

Most messaging apps also let businesses market to their massive, engaged user bases. Marketers can now use chatbots to provide customer service, send content to users, sell products, and advertise.

Naturally, different countries and age groups prefer some apps to others. Read on to learn how you can tailor your messaging app marketing for five different global messaging apps.

5 Best Messaging Apps for Marketing in 2017

1) WhatsApp

Monthly active users:1.3 billion

Most Popular Regions: Latin America, Europe, The Middle East, Southeast Asia, India, Russia, and Africa

Age Group: 25-44

Marketing Features:

WhatsApp doesn’t sell ads, prohibits third-party bots, and limits its broadcast message feature and group chats to 256 people. How are marketers supposed to leverage the most popular messaging app in the world then?

Since WhatsApp isn’t conducive to large-scale content distribution, marketers must take advantage of its one-to-one messaging capabilities. And by interacting with WhatsApp users like a normal user would, marketers can execute hyper-targeted and personalized campaigns.

In 2014, Hellman’s Brazil created WhatsCook, a live recipe service that connected people to real chefs. This wasn’t a service that just recommended recipes, though. It created recipes with the ingredients users already had.

After signing up for the service on their website, users would send a picture of their refrigerator's contents to WhatsCook. Then a chef would whip up a unique recipe using the person’s available ingredients and teach them how to cook it using pictures, videos, and other WhatsApp features.

Over 13,000 people people signed up for WhatsCook and each user spent an average of 65 minutes interacting with Hellman’s chefs. The service also received a 99.5% approval rating.

WhatsCook is a prime example of creative WhatsApp marketing. By attracting users with a helpful service, they engaged thousands of more people than they could by blasting content through a broadcast or group chat.

To start a service like WhatsCook, you just need users’ phone numbers or they can add your number to their contact list.

Fortunately, WhatsApp offers a click-to-chat link that you can embed in your website, email signature, or social profiles, allowing you to effectively promote your service.

2) Facebook Messenger

Monthly active users: 1.2 billion

Most Popular Regions: North America, Europe, Australia, The Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa

Age group: 16-44

Marketing Features:

Facebook messenger offers brands a stockpile of marketing features.

For instance, you can serve destination ads in people’s newsfeed to drive them to your messenger and spark a conversation, send sponsored messages to people who’ve messaged you in the past, integrate messenger bots like Chatfuel and ManyChat to interact with customers, and more.

At HubSpot, we use chatbots to automate Facebook conversations with people. Whenever someone messages our Facebook account, our chatbot will message back with a menu of options.

People can then search and subscribe to our content, check out our software, look at job openings, ask for customer support, and manage their Facebook messenger blog subscription.

 

3) WeChat

Monthly active users: 938 million

Most popular regions: China

Age Group: 18-50

Marketing Features:

WeChat isn’t just a popular Chinese messaging app. Most Chinese citizens use it to run their entire lives.

In one app, they can:

• Message friends
• Post social updates in WeChat Moments
• Read the news
• Make in-store payments
• Pay for bills
• Transfer money
• Shop online
• Play games
• Make voice and video calls
• Book a taxi
• And manage their personal finances

WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app for a reason. And it also provides marketers a lot of opportunity to engage and delight users.

But if you want to market to users in China, or 90% of the user base, your business must be registered in Mainland China.

Businesses based in the United States, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, South Africa, Taiwan, and Thailand can only market to around 100 million of WeChat’s international users.

To establish a strong presence on WeChat, you should set up an official account for your business. This will allow you to create a company micro-site, publish content, and provide customer services all within the WeChat app.

There are two types of official accounts. Content publishers usually sign up for subscription accounts that let you broadcast one message per day to your subscribers in their subscription accounts folder.

Big retail chains usually sign up for service accounts that let you broadcast four messages per month to your subscribers in their friend session list.

Verified service accounts have access to 9 advanced APIs and WeChat payment. With access to these APIs, marketers can:

• Leverage personalized content marketing, location-based marketing, influencer marketing, and QR code marketing
• Open micro-stores
• And run lotteries

All accounts also offer bots that can interact with users and deliver keyword-triggered content.

BuzzFeed uses these bots to send WeChat users instant, personalized content whenever they message them a certain keyword like "dogs", "lol", or "fail".

 

4) Line

Monthly active users: 217 million

Most popular regions: Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia

Age group: 10-49

Marketing Features:

Line is a free messaging app that offers a profile page, stickers, games, video calling, music streaming, ride-sharing, and about 30 other features. It dominates Japan’s messaging app market, where 94% of messaging app users use the app.

Line is chock full of opportunity for marketers. In its four most popular countries, 73% of monthly active users use the app every day. This abundance of user engagement allows brands to build huge followings and boost engagement rates.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal acquired 2 million Line followers in only 15 months, which is the fastest social channel growth they’ve ever seen. They also claim that 30% of its followers like, comment, and share all their posts.

When brands sign up for Line official accounts, they can:

• Set up a profile page
• Send chat messages to each of their subscribers
• Post content on their subscribers’ timelines
• Activate chatbots that deliver keyword-triggered responses and content
• Optimize Line advertisements based on user demographics and interests
• Distribute free branded stickers
• And reward customers with stickers after they buy a product

For Paul McCartney, Line is actually the best way to reach fans. His 12.5 million Line followers are more than all his Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers combined.

And since he can send private messages to each of his 12.5 million Line followers, he also engages with them a lot more than he can with his traditional social media following.

Photo Credit: TechCrunch

5) Slack

Daily active users: 5 million

Most popular regions: United States

Age group: 25-54

Marketing Features:

Slack is the main internal communications platform for many businesses. In fact, 77% of Fortune 100 companies use it. If you work in B2B, Slack could be your most targeted marketing channel.

At HubSpot, we knew Slack could be an effective content delivery channel, so we decided to offer a Slack blog subscription. When users sign up for it, they add the HubSpot Blog app to their Slack profile, where they receive a weekly broadcast of content. They can also search for content in the app.

What messaging apps do you use for your marketing? Let us know on Twitter!

 

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Growing Social Media Examiner: The Bumpy Road of Pursuit

Ever wonder how Social Media Examiner started? Are you curious about the obstacles we faced in building a sizable media entity? Sit back and learn the story that led millions of people to us. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed [...]

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How to Create Compelling Content as an Amateur Writer: 7 Frameworks to Try

Just over a year ago, my business partner and I bet the future and success of our company on content marketing. We dismissed our sales team and put all our efforts into SEO and content.

As an engineer, I get the technical aspects of this process. I can use SEO tools to identify opportunities, I understand why links are important, and I can follow the link building process. But I’m not a professional writer and no one else on our team is either.

How were we going to create compelling content as a bunch of amateur writers?

Luckily, we discovered content frameworks.

What is a content framework?

A content framework is a basic system that guides you through the content creation process. It structures your article in a way that effectively presents your content's insights.

Over the past year, we've explored seven different content frameworks. During this time, we’ve skyrocketed our organic traffic by more than 1,000% and ranked on the first page of Google for a lot of highly competitive search terms.

In this article, I’ll describe our experiences with each framework, the pros and cons of each one, my personal tips for success, and which frameworks worked best for us.

Let’s dive in.

1) Standard List Post

Everyone loves a good listicle. A standard list post will usually contain a short introduction, the list items, and finally a brief conclusion. The list elements will simply link to other sites or summarize the topic.

Positives

One of the biggest pros of a standard list post is that they’re easy to write. You don’t need to be a gifted wordsmith to put together a great listicle.

For us, listicles and the expanded-list post (covered below) have been some of our most successful pieces of content.

Negatives

If there are a lot of other listicles covering your topic, it may take some work (and time) for your list post to rise to the top of Google.

Pro Tip

Implement tactics like the Skyscraper Technique and Ego Bait in your list posts. If your list is longer, more comprehensive, and beautifully designed, it'll overshadow all the other lists about your topic.

2) Expanded-List Post

The expanded-list post, coined by Brian Dean of Backlinko, is an adaption of the standard list post. Like I mentioned before, there’s a ton of list posts on the web. How do you make yours stand out from the crowd?

Instead of listing a bunch of topics or links, the expanded-list post goes beyond a standard list post and take a deep dive into each item.

In the eyes of Google and your readers, these lists are rich with insights.

Positives

This has definitely been our most successful content framework. Our expanded list posts consistently rank on the first page of Google.

Expanded-list posts will usually be long-form content pieces, which Google prefers to show readers. Also, in comparison to competing list posts, the expanded-list post will be much more comprehensive, providing more value to your audience.

Negatives

Producing a stellar expanded-list post requires a significant amount of work.

For example, it took us multiple weeks just to collect the data for one of our posts about the best business apps.

It was worth it, though. Google ranks the post third or higher for number of competitive keywords.

Designing and organizing expanded-list posts may require more time too. You might need to group elements by category and provide jump links to different sections of the content. This will make your content more digestible.

Pro Tip

Similar to the Standard List Post pro tip, you want your article to be more in-depth and better than everyone else's. So take your time when you design and organize the post. You need to make sure that your readers can easily find the information they're looking for.

3) Go-to Guidebook

A Go-to Guidebook is a curated list of the top posts about a particular topic.

The biggest difference between this content framework and the list-type frameworks is that a go-to guidebook is normally organized like a book, with brief introductions to each sub-topic and links to the best content available around those topics.

Positives

This is one of the easiest types of content to produce. Even a complete amateur like myself can create a great go-to guidebook. You really don’t need to write that much.

It’s also a great way to re-purpose the best content that's already available. All you have to do is source and organize the content.

Negatives

Since you’re promoting other people's content with your go-to guidebook, the original authors should have an incentive to share and promote your piece. Unfortunately, they may not always care to promote it.

You also might have to curate content that isn't fresh. We've managed to get posts in this style to rank, but it took a lot of research and work.

Pro Tip

Use graphics in your go-to guidebook to make it more visually appealing. The go-to guidebook consists of short paragraphs, so adding vivid pictures can make it feel like a real book.

4) How-to Guide

A how-to guide is a content framework where you explain how to use a product or perform a task. It’s much more focused than a go-to guidebook, so you have to rely on your own research or knowledge to create it.

Positives

Google generally loves it when your content can answer a question or solve a problem. And the how-to guide is a great way to provide value to your audience. So far, almost all our guides receive consistent organic traffic without us having to build a ton of backlinks.

If you can effectively optimize for search engines, Google might highlight your guide in the featured snippet, like the screenshot below.

By optimizing our "How to Post a Job on Craigslist Guide" to rank for the snippet, Google ranked it first. And we didn't even have to build a single backlink.

Negatives

How-to guides require significant time and subject matter expertise to produce. You'll have to write more than you would for any other framework.

Pro-Tip

Clarify all of your guide's takeaways. Even if it’s an obvious step or detail, just spell it out and make your content easy for people to understand. What is obvious to you might not be obvious to your audience.

5) Expert Roundup

An expert roundup is a collection of quotes or short interviews with influential people in your industry. You basically reach out to a bunch of experts, ask them specific questions, and compile their answers into an article.

To do this effectively, you'll need to grasp a few nuances, but the great thing is that the experts you interview will write most of the content for you.

Positives

Once you’ve collected your experts' responses, you can easily produce a really unique and great piece of long-form content.

Another big advantage of an expert roundup post is that your contributors will have an incentive to promote the article to their own audiences.

Our most successful roundup was about remote work. The article has over 100 backlinks, and most of the initial links came from the article's contributors. This also helped us form relationships with a lot of industry experts, created other blogging opportunities, and piqued the interest of mainstream writers in our stance on remote work.

Negatives

While creating an expert round up post might not take much work, collecting your experts' contact information and gathering their responses can be a handful, especially if it's your first time doing it.

Your next roundups will be easier since you can interview some of the same experts again. But there will be a steep hill to climb during your first go-around.

Another significant con is that you're depending on your influencers' schedules to complete your piece. Compared to writing your own piece, you'll definitely have less control over an expert roundup post's production time.

Pro Tip

Take time to craft your questions because you'll only have one shot to interview most experts. If your questions are clear and straightforward, they'll be more likely to participate. 

6) Interview-Style Post

With this framework, you simply interview an expert on the topic you want to cover and turn the interview into an article. This is more of a journalistic approach to content creation.

Positives

After you conduct the interview, the article doesn’t require a lot of writing. The expert you interviewed can also potentially be asked to promote the article on their own social media channels and networks. And since you're showing how an expert tackles a certain topic, your post will be unique and compelling.

Interviews provide an opportunity to produce content across multiple mediums. For example, we now interview small business owners and feature them in our podcast, our blog, and -- down the road -- in our own book.

An interview can be very insightful, so there's a lot of opportunity for re-purposing it into multiple content formats.

Negatives

When we first tried this approach, we ran into a lot of issues scheduling the interviews. We also struggled to convince the experts to promote our content to their fans.

After our initial attempts, we actually thought the time investment wasn't worth it anymore, but we tried out the approach again and have seen some success.

Pro Tip

Interview micro-influencers in the industry you're covering. They'll be more willing to promote your article, where a huge celebrity will have less of an incentive to help you out.

7) Infographics

Nowadays, infographics are very popular. They're unique and engaging because they visualize data sets to tell a compelling stories.

Positives

According to Massplanner, infographics are liked and shared on social media three times more than any other type of content. You can easily spread awareness for your infographics by sharing them on Pinterest, Visual.ly, and the Infographic Directory.

You can also reach out to the sources you cited in your infographic and ask them to promote it.

Negatives

You'll need some graphic design chops to craft a great infographic. Or you can pay someone to do it. Tools like Venngage can help you create your own infographic, but these tools' capabilities are somewhat limited, so the graphic could look a little generic.

The infographic market is also over-saturated. There are some really great infographics out there, but there’s loads of them that don't do anything except collect internet dust.

Our track record with infographics hasn’t been great. None of our infographics have ranked that well on Google.

In terms of social shares, our Snapchat marketing infographic has performed the best, with over 800 pins on Pinterest. Its search value is still low, though

Pro Tip

When you create your infographic, make sure to breakdown the graphic's content in your introduction.

Google can't crawl your graphic, so you need text to explain your piece's premise. This is the only way Google can truly know what your article is about.

Final Thoughts

As amateur writers, we rely heavily on the structure of existing content frameworks. They help us efficiently produce quality content and massively boost our search presence.

We've experienced consistent success with expanded-list posts, how-to guides, and expert roundups. Each of these frameworks help us create rich pieces of long-form content that provide a lot of value to our readers.

For us, these three frameworks provide the most benefits relative to how long it takes to create them. You could experience differently depending on your skill set and industry.

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How to Write a Press Release [Free 2017 Press Release Template + Example]

When it comes to content, sometimes old school can be a good thing (namely, when it comes to old school rap or Throwback Thursday on Instagram). But when it comes to your company's public relations strategy, being old school isn't advantageous for your business or your brand. 

Ten years ago, people still relied on morning papers for news. Today, the vast majority of your company's customers and prospects scan headlines on Twitter or see what’s trending in their Facebook feed.

People now have control over where, when, and how they consume information. As a result, public relations is no longer about feeding into a traditional news cycle; it's about providing relevant content when, where, and how your prospects, influencers, and customers will consume it.

Sounds pretty hopeless, right? Wrong. While relationship-building still helps you get into popular publications, we now have the opportunity to quit playing the waiting game and generate our own buzz. By turning your PR strategy into an inbound one, you create opportunities that weren’t there before and carve out a place for your company, building meaningful mindshare with your target audiences in the process.

One of the most crucial updates to make to your PR strategy is to think of press releases as an opportunity to connect to the audiences you care about -- including, but not limited to, reporters. 

What is a Press Release / News Release?

A press release is an official announcement (written or recorded) that an organization issues to the news media and beyond. Whether we call it a "press release," a "press statement," a "news release," or a "media release," we're always talking about the same basic thing.

Most press releases are succinct at just a page long. Two pages tops. Ultimately, companies want to provide enough information so that news outlets have sufficient material for publishing their own stories about whatever the company is announcing in the release.

And while it may be tempting to craft a press release that embellishes your company's accomplishments or twists the facts to make a story sound more intriguing to the media, remember: Press releases live in the public domain, which means your customers and prospective customers can see them. So instead of thinking of a press release solely as a ticket to earning news coverage, you should also think of it as a valuable piece of marketing content.

How to Write a Press Release [With Example]

You've got your announcement in mind, and now it's time to get it down in words to share with your community, industry, and followers.

Take Catbrella Inc., a fictitious ad agency, which just gained its 10th Twitter follower after two years of paid social media efforts. To announce its achievement, Catbrella could issue a press release like the one we've dissected below.*

Sample Press Release Format:

*Disclaimer: HubSpot is entirely responsible for the silliness of this faux announcement. 

Rule 1: Make Your Headline Irresistible 

Just like writing the perfect blog post title, setting up your press release for success starts with your headline. You only have one line to work with, which can seem scary, but consider diction carefully to make your headline captivating.

Use action verbs, clear, understandable language, and keep your headline simple and short -- fortune (and search engines) reward the brief, so keep your title to one line to clearly focus people's attention on your topline message. 

Most importantly, make it interesting: Keep in mind that reporters get dozens, if not hundreds, of releases each day, so invest the time to write a compelling headline. It's worth the time and effort on your part. 

Rule 2: Don't Play Hard to Get

For reporters, analysts, influencers, or followers to be inclined to share your announcement, you have to tell them upfront why they should care.

The first paragraph of your release should cover the who, what, why, where, and how of your new launch, update, or development. Reporters don't have a ton of time to sift through details and fluffy background information -- they just need the facts that'll help them tell your story to someone else from a position of authority. 

There shouldn't be any new, crucial information covered after this section that the reader could potentially miss. 

Rule 3: Offer a Tempting Quotable 

Once you've set the scene, it's time to bring your details to life with a quote that reporters can use for context around your announcement and help paint a picture of how your news affects the given industry, customer base, and landscape.

Ideally, quotes will be from key stakeholders in your company including your executive team, project leads, or those directly impacted by your announcement. Quoting key figures and authorities underlines the importance of your development. The chosen quote should shape your narrative and emphasize the core of the announcement. Don't ask everyone in your office for a comment or feel compelled to quote all 25 people included in the acquisition -- pick one or two critical spokespeople and focus the quotes around their unique perspective. 

Rule 4: Provide Valuable Background Information

In this last paragraph, keep in mind that the reader already has all of the vital details and information they need to file a story or spread the word.

It can be tempting to provide superfluous facts and tidbits about your company or the development of your announcement -- we sometimes think a piece of writing is lacking if it isn't drawn-out and just shy of being a novella. However, a press release needs to be helpful and concise.

Offer details here that strengthen your narrative, like creative or noteworthy ways your company developed the project or announcement at hand. Or, when applicable, comment on future implications of your announcement. 

Rule 5: Make the "Who" and "What" Obvious 

Twitter is chock-full of reporters lamenting press releases or pitches that don't clearly explain what the company does or what the announcement is actually about, so instead of being the butt of a joke, make your release incredibly easy to reference. 

Describe what your company does in clear, plain English, include a link to your company's homepage early on, and make your boilerplate succinct and straightforward. If you cite data, include a reference link for the data source, and make sure every name in the release has an associated title and company as well.

To keep yourself honest on this front, ask a friend or colleague to read the release without context and ask if they can easily and readily explain why the announcement matters, what your company does, and why the executives included are quoted. If the answer to any of those questions is no, get back to the drawing board. 

The key to keeping your PR strategy new school is forgetting preconceived notions of what public relations is and instead focusing on creating highly remarkable content. Traditional press releases can still be really valuable when executed well, so instead of ditching releases as a tactic, give them a modern makeover to make them more useful for your marketing. 

Think about how you've used inbound methods to transform your marketing strategies to be more personalized, approachable, and build relationships. Those same principles apply to your PR strategy: Create content to craft your own story and use tactful outreach to get reporters and analysts familiar with your brand.

When Should I Distribute a Press Release?

While there's no cut-and-dried formula for when a press release should be written (and distributed), here's a few reasons when it's a good idea:

• New product launches
• Updates to existing products
• Opening a new office
• Introducing a new partnership
• Rebranding
• Promoting/hiring a new executive
• Receiving an award

A regular cadence of (meaningful) news can help a company stand out and build mindshare with journalists over time, so that's where the press release (or news announcement) comes in. 

Press Releases Can Be a Viable Content Type

Many people think press releases have to be chock full of buzzwords and branded terms. Big data anyone? Five syllable words you have to look up on Thesaurus.com? Quotes from every executive on the planet that go on for pages? We've seen it all. Unfortunately, so have reporters -- and they are not fans. 

So instead of stuffing your next release with jargon, take a page out of our book (okay, fine, ebook), The Newsworthy Guide to Inbound Public Relations, and brainstorm some creative approaches for your next announcement. Can you include new data? A remarkable graphic or video? A shareable SlideShare? If so, a creative angle will often help carry your content and increase the likelihood of social sharing. 

Even so, a press release can still be a really valuable medium for communicating news to your audiences. You just have to make it readable, relevant, and relatable.

We have crafted this comprehensive, easy-to-follow press release template complete with a promotional plan and considerations for your next announcement. We use these same guidelines when writing and formatting our releases here at HubSpot, and created a faux, sample release to illustrate what content goes where and why.

Tips for Publishing Press Releases

Writing a press release is really only half the battle. Once you're finished with production, it'll be time to focus on distribution.

Of course, we're all familiar with the traditional distribution levers we can pull, which include publishing the press release on our website/blog, as well as sharing the press release with our followers/subscribers via social media and email. But for ensuring a press release gets the maximum amount of distribution possible, here are some tips you can follow.

1) Reach out to specific journalists.

Instead of blasting a press release out to every journalist you can find an email address for, focus on a few journalists who have experience covering your industry (and company, hopefully) and send them personalized messages. Connect the dots. Show why what you wrote connects to what they write.

2) Don't be afraid to go offline.

Most journalists have mountains of emails (and press releases) to sort through. Try sending your release through snail mail or another offline channel to differentiate yourself.

3) Send the release to top journalists the day before.

Give journalists some time to craft a story around your press release by sending it to them -- under embargo -- the day before it officially goes live. (FYI "under embargo" just means they aren't allowed to share the information in the press release until the time you specify.)

4) To avoid competition, don't publish your release on the hour.

If you're publishing your press release on a distribution service like PR Newswire or Business Wire, avoid publishing it on the hour (e.g., 1 p.m., or 3 p.m., or 5 p.m.). The reason? Most companies schedule their releases to go out on the hour, which means if your release goes out on the hour too, it's more likely to get lost in the shuffle. Instead, try going with a more distinct time (e.g., 1:12 p.m., or 3:18 p.m., or 5:22 p.m.).

5) Share your media coverage.

If all goes according to plan, and your press release gets picked up by the media, your job still isn't finished. To keep the buzz going, you can release a "second wave" of distribution by sharing the specific stories that news outlets write based on your press release.

What other best practices do you follow when writing press releases? Share your thoughts with us below, and don't forget to download our free press release template here.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 

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How to Build a Remarkable 21st Century Brand

Economic disruptions produced by the ongoing technological revolution, rising uncertainty in global markets, and crises of complexity generated by social media all make this an exceptionally challenging time for organizations seeking to create or refine their brand identities.

Explored in what follows are critical issues to address in assembling a comprehensive branding program, based on challenges and opportunities that we at Siegelvision consistently encounter with clients.

The Inside-Out Approach

Henry Ford is often quoted as having said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Whether the words were his or not, they reflect what we call the "outside-in" approach -- trusting customers to provide critical insights to help define a brand identity. But relying on customer feedback alone is akin to treating symptoms rather than the underlying illness.

While customers may be able to pinpoint certain problems they would like to see addressed, they rarely have enough information to understand the organization in sufficient detail.

An "inside-out" approach, on the other hand, helps achieve a distinctive and credible branding program by tapping insights that emerge from within the organization itself -- a process largely contingent upon leadership support.

Validation research is then conducted, bringing employees and outside audiences together to react to concrete ideas, and helping ensure that the resulting strategy will be clear, compelling, and relevant.

Driving Brand Identity Through a Clearly Defined Purpose

Most organizations spend months devising predictable, and often garbled, mission or vision statements that employees ignore and that fail to guide decision-making in both day-to-day management and big-picture strategic planning.

An effective purpose statement defines your reason for being in business, the calling your organization aims to answer in the marketplace, and the problems you strive to solve.

Moreover, defining a clear and concise purpose statement creates coherence for your employees -- coherence about what your company stands for and what inspires its work, beyond just the pursuit of money. Effectively crafted, it should be the driving force behind strategic decisions, investments, and other critical matters.

The Urban Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., was established by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to "help solve the problem" of inner-city poverty. Over the years, it's become a respected source for intelligent, accessible analyses of economic and social policies. But despite the institute's admirable aims, its impact was long undermined by a verbose and confusing mission statement, which read:

"The Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues -- to foster sound public policy and effective government.

The Urban Institute builds knowledge about the nation's social and fiscal challenges, practicing open-minded, evidence-based research to diagnose problems and figure out which policies and programs work best for whom, and how."

The Urban Institute certainly does all of those things, but, as we learned during our immersive branding project, they do not comprise the organization's core purpose. We replaced the institute's lengthy and impractical mission statement with a powerful three-word purpose statement:

"ELEVATE THE DEBATE."

The Urban Institute's cogent new expression of its purpose -- its essence -- resonated deeply with all stakeholders. Defining the organization's role in simple, concrete terms provides a strong guide for decision-making and acts as a beacon for employees at every level.

Creating Bold, Action-Driving Positioning

Americans are daily bombarded by vague, generic taglines that masquerade as brand positioning. Such identity imprecision appears everywhere, including among institutions of higher education.

"Fierce Advocates for Justice," the highly effective positioning that Siegelvision developed for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, provided the touchstone for an aggressive campaign to change the public's perception of the school as a "cop college" into a view of it as a comprehensive educational institution, one that boasts a liberal arts curriculum coupled with world-class criminal justice courses for undergraduate and graduate students alike.

In a 2012 conversation, Jeremy Travis, the college's current president, told me that the "Fierce Advocates for Justice" positioning "has allowed every member of our community to see a place for his or her interests in the brand of the college. The language we now use ... [reflects] who they are and want to be. When we first put up [signage with our new tagline,] a student told me: 'That wakes me up when I come to school every morning, to remind myself that I'm here because I'm a fierce advocate for justice.'"

Defining and Implementing Your Brand Voice

We define "brand voice" as the distinctive tone and style of an organization's communications, which should reflect its personality and positioning and provide coherence for its brand across all communications platforms.

I find that these voices can be fragmented, driven to a large degree by advertising and public relations, direct-response mailings, and the uncoordinated management of financial and internal communications.

In recent years, corporations have strived to unify their diverse communications, but the internet has proven disruptive to such efforts. The production of corporate communications has now gone from being a professional operation to a free-for-all in which everyone, at all levels, communicates internally and externally via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other platforms. Brand voice is becoming increasingly decentralized and social; the most successful organizations understand how to engage audiences and leverage the voices of employees and consumers effectively.

As digital platforms become more sophisticated and audiences grow more distinctly delineated, organizations must keep up by embracing experiential and personal communications that harness opportunities for consumers to engage with them.

Finally, the information immediacy that now so powerfully defines our lives means that messages are spread far and wide very quickly, a fact that underscores the importance of having an organized and unified brand voice.

Our work with The College Board provides valuable insight into the process of developing an effective voice that enhances and reinforces brand messaging. Driven by the College Board's dynamic purpose statement, "Challenging All Students to Own Their Future," we defined its voice as:

• Refreshingly clear
• Credible
• Supportive
• Galvanizing
• Forward-thinking

Each of these terms was then defined to reflect the College Board’s messaging and public persona. To describe its most distinctive quality -- galvanizing -- we recommended the following: "We make things happen. We challenge students to persevere and make the most of their education. We rally our member organizations to challenge the status quo and extend the promise of education to all. We are motivating and collaborative, not confrontational."

Culture Trumps Strategy Every Time

Employees will thrive and become powerful brand ambassadors if their organization's culture embraces a set of values that resonate deeply and authentically. Building an atmosphere in which this happens depends on what you do, not just on what you say.

Wells Fargo, today a textbook case of poor corporate culture, communicates a vision and values that are shockingly discordant with its recent behavior. Even now, in the wake of its management scandals, Wells Fargo continues to speak of "integrity," "principled performance," and a tireless commitment to valuing "what's right for our customers in everything we do."

In an extensive 2015 document, "The Vision and Values of Wells Fargo," CEO John Stumpf (who was fired the following year) defined the bank's vision as being "about building lifelong relationships one customer at a time," with the promise to "never put the stagecoach ahead of the horses." What comedy.

A positive, top-down culture is crucial to the success of your organization and the people who work for it. This is powerfully demonstrated in the 2014 book "Any Wednesday" by Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of the global advertising firm DDB Worldwide. The title stems from the brief, encouraging memos he sent to everyone in the agency on Wednesdays to help them finish the week with optimism.

Even from his seat at the head of the table, Reinhard did not forget the importance of connecting creatively and personally with all employees. His memos show a person who has served at all levels in an organization and who understands better than most that there is no substitute for an inspiring and inclusive work culture. Here's one of our favorites:

"When I first became head of the agency, I gave board members small potted plants with a note saying I expected each one of them to cause his or her plant to grow. It was a simple -- perhaps simplistic -- reminder that talent, like the plant, must be nurtured. Neither plants nor talented people can be instructed or commanded to grow."

Impact

Ultimately, the best test of an organization's voice is its impact on the market. ROI (Return on Investment), a conventional measure of impact, may work well in measuring tangible outcomes but does little to predict the effect of a product or program on an intended audience. We recast this formula as Relevance, Originality, Impact. The omission of any of these three elements can spell disaster for a branding program; by contrast, the most successful rebrands embrace each one with care and authenticity.

Our work for John Jay College exemplifies the importance of this ROI and its effectiveness in the marketplace. "Fierce Advocates for Justice" was a call to action to the younger generation to respond to the social injustices troubling our nation.

The motto was a stirring expression of purpose that made waves in the higher education community and inspired other schools to follow suit. And it was accompanied by a comprehensive campaign -- aimed at having maximum impact on the targeted demographics -- that included striking subway advertisements and geofencing around high school campuses to help attract prospective students -- achieving relevance, originality, and impact.

Various metrics were developed to gauge the campaign's reach, including measurements of awareness, familiarity, and reputation, as well as a willingness to provide financial support. "Fierce Advocates for Justice" generated highly impressive results: the number of alumni donors has increased by 35% since 2013; and the Justice Campaign -- a comprehensive digital and subway ad initiative than ran in the fourth quarter of 2016 -- has sparked an increase in applications of more than 40%. As a result, for the first time in its 52-year history, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice has a waiting list for enrollment.

Clarity Above All

Building a brand for the 21st century is no easy task. The advent of social media has provided podiums for customers and employees to voice their criticisms of once-impervious brands. Rather than fight this pervasive change, organizations would do well to evolve toward more transparent and authentic identities.

Siegelvision's own mantra is "Clarity Above All," which means clarity of purpose, expression, and experience. It is only getting easier today to identify organizations that fail to practice what they preach. Therefore, it is in the interests of everyone in your organization that you define and deeply believe in your purpose and positioning, express your voice coherently and empathetically, and promote an internal culture that eschews disingenuousness and places a premium on authenticity.

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How 11 Students Built a Company's Inbound Strategy with HubSpot Certifications

If you're familiar with the HubSpot Academy, then you know it offers online certifications and free tools to help people all over the world learn how to market, sell, and grow an inbound business.

Recently, HubSpot Academy launched its Education Partner Program, which helps college and university professors teach inbound marketing, sales, and provides guidance on using the HubSpot Marketing Software and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The mission of the program is to bring the theory and practice of running and growing a business into the classroom -- and to give students the hands-on experience they need to launch their careers right out of school.

But when it came time to drive even more value for this program, there was much more we could for students. The program already provided educators with the software, resources, community and support to build leading marketing classes. We wanted to do even better at providing students with valuable, market-ready skills -- by way of certification.

Here’s what happened when we challenged 11 marketing students to get their HubSpot certifications in one semester -- and build an inbound strategy for a real company in the process.

How HubSpot Certifications Helped Build an Inbound Strategy

The Hypothesis and Objective

The Certification

HubSpot Academy certifications are designed to help marketers stay up-to-date on the latest marketing and sales techniques, while also boosting their resumes. They allow users to take their inbound skills to the next level, with a confirmed completion of a qualifying exams.

When we looked at which certifications were being assigned by Education Partner Program professors -- and which ones students were receiving -- the HubSpot Marketing Software Certification (HSMC) was missing. But we didn't despair at that finding. Rather, we looked at how we could address those barriers to adoption.

To say that the HMSC is "difficult" is a tremendous understatement. It involves an exam, a mastery of the Inbound Methodology, a practicum component, and a proven ability to achieve results using the HubSpot Marketing Software.

Having this certification can help a marketer stand out during a job search -- especially a recent graduate.

The prospect of more students receiving their HMSC was a mutually beneficial goal for instructors, students, and their respective institutions. We wanted to show that students could get their HSMC within a single semester, so we created an experiment to do that, with the mentality that if it was successful, we could roll it out across the entire Education Partner Program community.

The Framework

The biggest HSMC adoption barrier for students seemed to be the practicum component, which requires users to carry out actual inbound marketing activities using HubSpot Marketing Software -- and achieve tangible results. That meant we would need a real business to agree to let these students use its HubSpot portal to complete these tasks, while working toward the HSMC.

But a barrier to adoption didn’t have to be a deal-breaker. In fact, it turned out to be quite the opposite -- in addition to building an experiment to show that students could get their HSMC within a single semester, our objective would now also require them to complete real-world marketing work on behalf of an actual business. Around here, we call that a “win-win.”

Using those factors as a foundation, we determined our hypothesis: Students will be able to earn their HubSpot Marketing Software Certifications within a single semester.

The Experiment

What We Did

To test the hypothesis, we first pitched the experiment to Randy Harrison, a senior member of the affiliated faculty at Emerson College’s Department of Marketing Communication. He had previously spoken of his desire for his students to become certified, and was eager to give them the real-world experience that came with completing the HSMC.

Since HubSpot has roughly 30,000 customers, we (optimistically) figured that at least one of them would be willing to let a classroom of eager students do free marketing work on behalf of the company. The idea was that the customer would add the students as users in its HubSpot portal, who would then work to complete the practicum requirements of the HSMC by way of the aforementioned marketing work.

But Professor Harrison was already way ahead of us. After we approached him with the experiment he convinced one of his business contacts to not only become a new HubSpot customer -- but also, allow his students to carry out the marketing work for their HSMC.

Before jumping right in, we established some guardrails. If the experiment was successful, we wanted it to be designed to scale -- and more seamlessly replicable by other educators in the future:

• Every student should become certified.
• The class would visit the HubSpot office at least once.
• A member of the HubSpot team would visit the class at least once.
• Professor Harrison would work with a member of the Education Partner Program team to design the course.
• Professor Harrison would document this experience and allow it to be used publicly.

How We Would Measure Success

Success would be measured according to the following metrics:

• Every student meets the practicum component of the certification.
• 80% of the students complete the HSMC in its entirety.

The Spring 2017 semester began -- and we were ready to get to work.

The Results

All in all, the experiment was a success.

Every student completed the practicum component with flying colors -- which meant they were able to accomplish the objective of applying the Inbound Methodology to build and execute an inbound strategy for a real business.

Meanwhile, 66% of the students passed the entirety of the HSMC -- which meant they both completed the practicum and passed the certification exam. And while we didn’t reach the 80% metric we originally established, the benchmark was high enough for us to take the experiment out of beta, tweak it to even better set up students for success, and replicate for the following semester.

And finally, here’s our favorite part: The company that became a customer for this experiment hired four of the students before they even graduated.

Where We Go From Here

Next Steps

As we mentioned previously, following the success of the experiment, we structured it in a way that has allowed it to become an official offering of the Education Partner Program. Working with our Customer Success team, we have established a system to match professors who want their students to obtain the HSMC with HubSpot customers, using criteria like product fit and shared expectations.

How Marketers Can Use What We Learned

When we carried out this project, we didn’t just learn more about Education Partners -- we also learned some valuable lessons about experimentation in general.

Go Big

Pick experiments that, if they’re successful, will produce significant results. Design them with impact and scale in mind -- for many, time is the most valuable resource, so don’t let it go to waste on an experiment that will only have minimal impact.

In our case, we needed a way to dramatically increase the value of the Education Partner Program for participating schools, professors, and students, and knowing whether the students could become HSMC in one semester was crucial to that. Even if our hypothesis was proven wrong, we would know to look for a different potential value source.

Recycle When Possible

Unless your company was founded yesterday, you likely have a wealth of resources to draw upon for your experiments -- things like previous experiments, marketing collateral, fellow employees, and historical data.

Notice that we didn’t actually create any net-new assets to conduct this experiment -- the only investment was sweat equity and time. Additionally, the other major stakeholder in the experiment, Professor Harrison, agreed to document the experiment, regardless of the outcomes. That meant we would be creating a new value point for the program, as we paved the way for other professors to get their students certified … or cautioned educators on what we learned, had it failed.

And About That Documentation

Document everything like your life depends on it. Use the scientific method, and be sure to debrief when it concludes -- remember, if it succeeds you’ll be repeating it, and regardless of the outcome, you want to discuss ways to improve upon it.

And remember this: Many times, an experiment is more valuable if it fails. For that, we use this famous quote from Thomas Edison -- “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

What are some of the ways you've used HubSpot Academy certifications? Let us know about your best experiment in the comments -- and hey, we might even feature it on our blog.

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