Whether you’re just starting out with content marketing or you’ve been using the same approach for a while, it never hurts to revisit your content strategy plan and make sure it’s up-to-date, innovative, and engaging for your prospects and customers – no matter when or how they intend to buy. If you’re having trouble planning for the upcoming year or need some fresh ideas to include in your plan, read on. In this post, we’ll dive into what content strategy is, why your business needs a content marketing plan, and what steps you need to take to create your strategy. […]

Creating an effective content workflow is a lot like baking a cake. If you accidentally pour unfinished batter into an unprepared pan, the damage is done. You can’t go back and prep the pan after the fact. Imagine your cake batter is your content, and the cake pan is its publication. If your content goes straight from the writer to your consumers, you are running a lot of risks. You must first edit and fact-check the content before publication and distribution. Readers become disinterested or upset at careless, incorrect content. And once the information is out there, it is nearly […]

Whether you’re managing thousands of blog posts or a few dozen articles, you know that it’s imperative to have an editorial calendar to keep track of it all. The good news is, there are a lot of great calendar tools out there you can choose from. In fact, for those of you who are HubSpot customers, there’s a marketing calendar built right into HubSpot’s software. But one of the best editorial calendar options is Google Calendar. It includes features like repeat scheduling, syncing, and adjustable visibility so you can collaborate effectively with your team. Best of all, it’s completely free […]

Benjamin Franklin once said “Failing to plan is planning to fail,” and when it comes to content and media, truer words have never been spoken. Until 2020, that is. But, although 2020 saw some of the most unprecedented global events, 2021 continued to put content and media teams to the test. In fact, 99% of content planners, strategists, or marketers who have ever pivoted their strategy say some of their pivots happened in 2021. Unsurprisingly, the #1 reason they gave for this was the global pandemic. To make matters more complicated, 39% of those who pivoted in 2021 changed their […]

Imagine this: as a content marketer, things are going pretty well for you — you’re confident about your upcoming campaign, the ROI from your last couple were stellar, and projections for the new one looked just as good, if not better, than ever before. And then something happened, and you need to pivot your content. Maybe it’s a sudden trend or global event that diverts your audience’s attention. Or, perhaps a competitor’s campaign launch has everyone talking, and you’re unsure if your current content strategy is good enough to outshine theirs. Regardless, this shift has impacted your company directly, which […]

If you’re anything like me, you’re consistently working out of at least 20 browser tabs, four journals, a yellow legal pad or two, and a myriad of Post-it notes stuck around your computer monitor. To the average overseer, it’s nothing short of chaos. To the blogger, it’s evidence of a (desperate) need for an editorial calendar. My muddled system transforms dramatically when I work with a team. I realize the need for organization and structure, and this could not be more necessary than managing a blog. Without a mutually agreed-upon system for planning, writing, and scheduling content every week, you […]

If you ask marketers about their 2020 content plans, most will tell you they had to pivot because of the pandemic. In 2021, many said the same thing, as the world adjusted to this new normal. We surveyed over 600 media planners this year and 99% of marketers who have ever pivoted their content plan did so in 2021, with 39% of them pivoting three times that year. So how are they budgeting in 2022? Let’s find out. How much are marketers spending on content marketing? According to HubSpot Blog Research, 39% of marketers surveyed say they allocate 31-50% of […]

2021 was a big year for the HubSpot content team. Our team grew, we faced challenges, and we had some fun with experiments. Experiments can teach you a lot about your audience and help you unlock growth opportunities. Here are some experiments we ran in 2021 and what we learned from them. Conversion Rate Optimization In January 2021, the web strategy team decided to run a form optimization experiment to understand how altering our forms would affect our users, ahead of a blog redesign. When evaluating the current form, the team found that it was breaking several best practices relating […]