How to Earn Free Press for Your Business When You Have No Connections

"Is that guy wearing leggings?"

"We should start a business selling male leggings."

That's all it took. One week later my business partners and I stood freezing in London's Brick Lane Market with 22 pairs of female leggings "branded" with our male leggings brand.

But after eight hours in the cold, we saw zero sales.

Fast forward two years, and sTitch Leggings was being prominently featured on the Daily Mail -- an article from which we're still converting traffic.

So how do you build press for a startup when you have no connections?

I'll walk you through some tips and examples below to help you learn how to get started and earn some recognition for your product or service.

How To Get Free Press For Your Startup When You Have No Connections

1) Be remarkable.

We've all heard people use the word "remarkable" before, but what does it really mean? According to Merriam-Webster, being remarkable means being "unusual or surprising" or "likely to be noticed."

In modern day society, male leggings are remarkable.

The man who sold his life on eBay is remarkable:

The Ryanair CEO announcing that they will introduce standing seats to charge for toilets is remarkable:

"But what if my startup is inherently unremarkable?"

Great question. And a question that we were forced to ask ourselves in preparation for the upcoming launch of a startup that we are working on.

While preparing for the launch of Virtual Valley, software that connects entrepreneurs with virtual team members such as assistants, we found ourselves struggling to differentiate it from Upwork -- a freelancing platform that operates very similarly.

Considering sources such as TechCrunch are unlikely to cover your startup launch if you don't have some new, exciting technology (or one million dollars in funding), the odds that Virtual Valley would get featured were slim.

Sometimes, being remarkable doesn't mean your product or service has to be truly unique. You can leverage remarkability to receive press by doing something remarkable.

This could mean experimenting with a bold design on your website, developing a witty personality for your brand on Twitter, taking risks with your website copy, etc. These "outside-of-the-box" efforts might be received really well ... or they might not. Either way, you're getting people talking about your product or service.

So what approach did I take to help Virtual Valley stand out? Well, that takes us to our next tip.

2) Piggyback on popular trends.

Trends emerge is every industry that can help propel your search for free press without connections. Trouble is, you have to jump on them at the right time.

Fortunately for us, men wearing leggings had actually been covered by a number of popular sites -- The Telegraph, Fashionista, etc. -- prior to the launch of our company.

When it came time to pitch journalists, we could reinforce the fact that "men wearing leggings" was newsworthy, as the topic had already been covered by other reputable sources.

So when deciding on an angle to pitch the press for our new startup Virtual Valley, we spent some time reviewing popular blogs in the startup world to spot any current trends.

One of which that really stood out was transparency:

• SumAll was publishing their salaries.
• Hubstaff was sharing their financial stats on a live dashboard.
• Buffer was publishing brutally honest blog posts.

During this time, we were also defining our company goals for the next two years, one of which being a seven-figure exit.

Would announcing this to the press be remarkable and connected to a recent trend? Would this story have a better chance of being published in TechCrunch than just writing a dull press release on the features of our product?

I guess we'll find out ...

3) Consider different perspectives.

When approaching anyone that has something you want -- in this case, a potential audience -- you need to understand their perspective and incentives. This will help increase your chances of them actually taking the action that you want them to take.

In the two sections above we have already been thinking from the perspective of the reporter. (Reporters are interested in remarkable stories connected to a relevant industry trend, right?) Now, you need to communicate your story in a way that speaks directly to the incentives of the reporter.

Here's an example of an email I sent to The Daily Express, which ultimately lead to the Daily Mail article referenced above:

Why did this approach work?

• It mentions a recent trend: "Meggings into the Mainstream"
• It provides social proof by mentioning the publications that had already covered the topic, as well as the number of times the Daily Mail article had been shared.
• It adds a personal touch by noting that the other articles touch on a Chicago-based male leggings company, and suggests they feature a brand "a little closer to home."
• It states that I'm happy to do the heavy lifting/content creation at the end.

With all of that in mind, it is not surprising that the reporter took on the story.

A relevant model on human behaviour which supports this theory is the Fogg Behavioural Model:

Image Source: Behavior Model

In order to increase the chances of a reporter taking on your story, we must consider the following three factors:

• Motivation. What is the reason that a reporter would publish your story? Will make them look good in front of their boss? Will it help them get promoted? Will it perform well in terms of views, comments, and shares? Once you understand their potential motivation, you will find it easier to communicate this to them.
• Trigger. Triggers aim to capture a person's attention. For example, Facebook uses notifications that trigger us to come back to the platform -- whether it be to see that picture we have just been tagged in or what our friend just posted. In this case, the email being sent to the reporter serves as a trigger to incite action.
• Ability. People are less likely to complete an action if the ability to take that action has been placed behind a barrier. In other words, you need to lower the effort barrier as much as possible to increase your chances of receiving press. (This is why I offered to create the content at the end of my email.)

4) Target specific publications.

Remember the motivation trigger above?

Well, there are certain journalists that will be more motivated to cover your story than others. This often falls back on their personal interests or responsibility for their media organisation. And these are the people to want to target.

To find them, head to Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn to conduct some research. The key is to become more aware of each and every publication and journalist that covers your niche.

Record every potential publication and reporter in a Google Sheet that includes their average article social share counts and followers on Twitter, as this will help you prioritise.

Once you have a list of 20 potential reporters, follow each one on Twitter and engage with their content to get on their radar.

5) Prepare necessary press assets in advance.

When your targeted reporter opens your pitch and scans your email you have one chance, as this is probably the 50th pitch he/she has read that day.

This reporter needs to access all the information they require to make a decision ... or they may just move on to the next email.

To increase the reporters ability to make a decision in your favor, consider attaching these assets in an email or creating a dedicated press page on your website.

Regardless of which option you choose, you will need to include the following:

• Contact information
• Company overview
• Media mentions
• New and existing press releases
• Media assets -- logos, screenshots, headshots, etc.

For more on how to put together an effective press page, check out this post. And to help you get started with creating an actual press release, use this template.

6) Be persistent.

Here's the thing about hunting for free press: you are going to get ignored, and you are going to get rejected.

What you do not see in the section above is the list of emails to every fashion reporter for national publications in the UK in my sent items that got rejected or no response:

Rather than let it discourage you, set realistic expectations. You might only get one response for every 20 emails you send. That's okay. Keep hustling.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, uses a concept called "the Flywheel Effect" to describe the effort it takes to build momentum for something. While the wheel is heavy and difficult to push, once you get it going, it will begin to turn itself.

In terms of press, each feature that you receive will build the likelihood that you will receive more features in the future.

At sTitch Leggings, we would not have been featured in the Daily Mail if we did not land the feature in the Daily Express. And it's likely that we wouldn't have appeared on the UK television series, Dragons' Den, unless we had been featured in the Daily Mail. And after being featured on the Dragons' Den, we decided it was time to try to earn a spot on the HubSpot blog. And here we are.

Every press opportunity must be sought out through hustle, and celebrated once achieved. As the more press you receive, the more likely you will be to receive additional press, etc.

Still feeling unsure of how to get started with building free press for your business? Tell me about your product or service in the comments section below and I'll see if I can help.

6 Essential Nurturing Workflows For Every B2B Company

Not everyone is ready to buy your product or service the first time they come to your site and that’s okay. With the right amount of time and information they will warm up to your brand, assuming they’re the right persona for your product or service, of course.

Nurturing campaigns are essential for keeping these people who visit your site but aren't ready to immediately buy engaged with your brand. Essentially these campaigns are a series of emails aimed at keeping you top of mind while building trust and moving your lead further along in the buyer's journey.

There are various types of nurturing workflows based on who you are targeting and the length of each work flow (both in terms of numbers of emails and total days in between sends). Regardless of who you are targeting or the length of your workflow, there are four basic goals you want to accomplish with each nurturing campaign:

• Create brand awareness and establish a sense of trust through helpful content.
• Address one of their pain points and offer content that may help them solve this problem either through blog posts or an ungated piece of content.
• Offer a longer, gated piece of content, like an ebook or a guide, that relates specifically to you and your brand
• Get the lead to contact you to inquire more about your services/product or make the purchase online.

For companies in the B2B space, there 6 workflows that are essential for them to be using.

1) Subscriber Workflows

A subscriber workflow is when recent subscribers to your blog/newsletter recieve an emails which provides additional information about your brand or shares recent updates with them. This type of workflow is important because it makes subscribers feel welcomed to your brand, defines what to expect from you, and may even contain a piece of content that converts them to a lead.

This workflow is typically just one email, the 'welcome email' which should include a number of different components. First and foremost, it should thank subscribers for their interest and show them that they're valued. It should also let them know what to expect from your company such as how many times will you email them? Will they be emailed every time your company publishes a new blog, or will it be in a weekly or monthly roundup? Let them know so they can update their preferences if they'd like.

Including a relevant CTA is useful- just make sure it's subtle and not salesy. You already got them to subscribe to your blog where they'll see plenty of your content; you don't want to them to feel like the email is too promotional.

2) Lead Nurturing Workflows

A lead nurturing workflow functions with the end goal of converting leads into marketing qualified leads (or MQLs), which in turn brings them further down the sales funnel, and one step closer to becoming a customer. It's important to have this be an automated email string because people want to know more about you and build trust before making a decision to purchase. You can set this workflow up to look something like the following once a website visitor becomes a lead:

• Email 1, TOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. Promote an offer that relates to the one that they became a lead from. Maybe they downloaded an infographic on Growth-Driven Design, so you would then want to send them another TOFU offer, such as a blog post. This should be a more high-level offer for someone just at the beginning stages of the buyer's journey.
• Email 2, MOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. You should promote an, such as an ebook or case study, related to what they originally downloaded. This offer can get more specific as to the products and services you offer.
• Email 3, BOFU Offer: Delay 3 days. The last email to the workflow would be a BOFU offer such as a free Growth-Driven Design Consultation, or something that gets them talking to sales.

This simple workflow will help leads move naturally through the sales cycle without looking to salesy or pushy on your end and leading to the dreaded "unsubscribe".

3) Hot Leads Workflows

A 'hot lead' is someone who is frequently visiting your website, opening your emails and engaging with you on social media which indicates that you’ve clearly got their interest. Hold onto that interset by keeping them engaged with your company.

A workflow for someone who is actively viewing and sharing your content could be:

• Email 1: BOFU offer like a case study. This is a great offer to send someone who is almost-ready to make a sale and should be related to the topics they've been viewing most on your site
• Email 2: Offer your lead a free service, such as a consultation, demo or review for what they need help with.
• Email 3: If they took advantage of the free service, the next and final email should aim to get the lead on a call with your sales team.

4) Cold Leads Workflows

So, maybe your lead fell asleep on you… wake them up with a workflow! Maybe earlier in the process they weren’t in the condition to buy, but things have changed and now they’re ready but you haven't followed up with them in a while.

Creating a workflow to remind them you’re still there and on their side is a great way to engage them again. To respark their interest you can send them some company updates or special offers, as listed below.

• Option 1: What's new with your business? Is there an exclusive offer you can send them that'll get them excited about your brand?
• Option 2: Email them a survey. What kind of experience did they have with your company the last time they interacted?
• Option 3: We're thinking abot you.. are you thinking about us? You can get fun with this email. Talk to your leads like they're people- believe me, they'll respond better to this. Tell them about a product/service they may be interested in based off of their prior page views and downloads.

5) Customer Workflows

They've become a customer, but you're not done with them yet! You want to encourage them to continue to interact with your brand. It's an important workflow to use because it keeps customers thinking about your brand in hopes that they become repeat customers and evangelists. A simple customer workflow could resemble the following:

• Email 1: Delay one day after becoming customer. The first email in the workflow should thank customers for making their purchase. Be sure to include company news to keep readers in the loop about what's going on. Invite them to add your company on social media. This will also encourage engagement.
• Email 2: Delay three weeks. In this email, you can ask your customer how their product/service they purchased from you is going. This makes sure you're delighting them and keeping customers happy. If they aren't happy, this allows you to fix it and make it right. Your customers will really feel taken care of if you include an email or phone number they can send questions or concerns to.
• Email 3: Delay 2-3 months. Use this as an opportunity to promote making an upgrade or another purchase. You can push this through promo specials and discounts.

6) Industry/specific Topics Workflows

If you know what industry one of your prospects is from- that's a golden piece of information. By knowing this, you can send them content specifically for them. By sending the right content to the right people, you're more likely to convert. Check out where this lead came from. Was it for an offer specific to a certain industry? What kind of tradeshow did you meet them at? Answer these questions to segment them for this workflow.

After discovering what industry a prospect is in, send them workflows in this progression:

• Email 1: Send them relevant blogs.
• Email 2: White papers, videos, checklists, guides, etc.
• Email 3: Webinars, case studies, ebooks, how-to videos, etc.
• Email 4: Demo, assessments, consultation, reviews, etc.

By basing these emails off of industry or specific topics of interest, you will provide your leads with valuable and relevant information.

The Key Takeaway

You know they’re interested in you; now it’s time to capitalize on it. By sending your contacts workflows based on their buyer persona and life cycle stage, you’ll decrease your sales cycle by 23% according to Market2Lead. That’s right-- 23%! So start segmenting your contacts into lists and target them with those workflows!

Want to learn from BluLeadz? Download their guide on Email Marketing.

Desk Ergonomics: Posture Tips to Stay Happier & Healthier at Work [Infographic]

You may not spend much time thinking about your posture when you're getting work done at your desk each day, but it can have a significant long-term impact on your health.

Just think about how much time you spend at your desk. Often, you'll be sitting or standing in the same position, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. If your position of choice is hunched over, or puts a strain on your neck, or means you type in a way that stresses out your wrists ... then you're might run into some health issues down the line.

Turns out there are right and wrong ways to sit and stand at your desk. If you're using a sitting desk, for example, then you should position the computer screen at your eye level to prevent neck aches. If you're using a standing desk, you should stand 20–28 inches away from the screen and keeping your keyboard at or below elbow height.

For more desk ergonomics tips, check out the infographic below from Ultimate Mats. It covers how to relieve pain points at a standing desk and a sitting desk, as well as advice on the best hand positions for typing and other tips for a healthier office life.

20 Working From Home Tips to Boost Your Productivity

Working from home is awesome ... right up until the cat throws up on your computer. And your neighbor -- who you can only assume is building a time machine -- starts firing up all sorts of power tools and noisy machinery across the street.

For many modern professionals, working from home every once in a while is a luxury that our respective companies afford us. But which environment actually allows us to be more productive: the home office or the office office?

In the office office, your coworkers often pose the greatest threat to keeping you from getting some real, heads-down work done. They drop by your desk. They engage you in conversation. They invite you to lunch. I mean, jeez, the nerve of these people.

At the home office, however, I find that it's easy for you to become your own worst enemy. Because when you're not surrounded by coworkers, you're free to drop those pesky inhibitions. At the home office, no one's watching. You don't necessarily feel that same peer pressure or communal obligation to get stuff done. (Also: You don't have to wear pants.)

Below, I've compiled a bunch of great work-at-home tips and tricks from some of my awesome coworkers.

Download our free guide here for even more work productivity tips.

How to Work From Home and Still Be Productive: 20 Tips

1) Get started early.

When I work from home, I wake up, put on a pot of coffee, and start working immediately -- much earlier normal working hours. I only start making breakfast once I've hit a wall or need a break. I'm a morning person and find I can get a ton done in the early morning hours, so this works really well for me. "

- Lindsay Kolowich

2) Pretend like you are going into the office.

Get fully ready for the day and pretend you're actually going to work. Otherwise, you might find yourself back in bed."

- Anna Faber-Hammond

3) Structure your day like you would in the office.

Are mornings for writing while you're in the office? Use the same schedule at home. While you probably will get tasks done faster at home than at work, this structure will help keep you focused and productive."

- Ginny Soskey

4) Choose a dedicated work space.

Have a place you go specifically to work. It could be a certain table, chair, local coffee shop -- some place that's consistently your 'work space.' It helps you get into the right frame of mind."

- Sam Mallikarjunan

5) Don't stay at home.

I get out of my home to work, and go to a Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, or other WiFi enabled establishment with actual tables, chairs, and people. It helps simulate the work environment for me -- white noise, chatter, that kind of thing -- that usually helps me work better than utter silence. It also removes the distractions I typically have at home like the urge to finally actually clean my room, do laundry, or watch TV.

I also refuse to play into the trope of being some jerk sitting at Starbucks not doing any real work, so I feel motivated not to mess around on Facebook all day to show there are still people who actually get stuff done at a coffee shop!"

- Corey Wainwright

6) Make it harder for yourself to mess around on social media.

I remove all social networks from my toolbar bookmarks. Even if I don't mean to browse them, some uncontrollable impulse subconsciously clicks on them when I experience downtime. You can get sucked in without knowing it (or even intending to), so eliminating the gateway to those networks keeps me on track."

- Alec Biedrzycki

7) Commit to doing more.

Our team has a daily standup meeting each morning where we share what we're working on for the day. On days I'm working from home, I tend to slightly overcommit on what I'll deliver that day. It helps keep me honest, so even if I get the urge to go do something else, I know I've already committed a certain amount of work to my team."

- Corey Wainwright

8) Work when you're at your most productive.

For me, the most productive times of the day are usually early in the morning or late at night. I recognize this and try to plan my day accordingly. Also, music that really pumps me up doesn't hurt."

- Brittany Leaning

9) Save calls for the afternoon.

Take advantage of morning hours to crank through meaty projects without distractions, and save any calls or virtual meetings for the afternoon."

- James Gilbert

10) Find a distraction ... like a baby!

When I work from home, my 20-month-old daughter is home with me, too. It seems counterintuitive, but because I have to manage taking care of her and keeping her happy and entertained while still getting my work done, the pressure helps to keep me focused. When she's napping or entertaining herself, I go into super-productive work mode.

It's the same idea for why some people work better when they have very busy schedules -- you learn how to manage your time VERY efficiently. The 'distraction' of my daughter (I mean that in the most loving way possible) means I can't possibly succumb to some of the other common distractions of home -- putting in a load of laundry, turning on the TV, doing other household chores -- or else I'd never get any actual work done."

- Pamela Vaughan

11) Plan out what you'll be working on ahead of time.

If I'm planning on working from home on a certain day, I'll make sure to get any work done ahead of time that requires me to be in the office -- for example, if I'm working on a task that would be infinitely easier to complete with access to my large monitor screen, or need to schedule meetings with coworkers that are best had in person. Plan out your week in advance to optimize for the environments you'll be in."

- Niti Shah

12) Use technology to stay connected.

Part of what enables us to work from home so much more often now is the array of apps and tools designed to help remove distance as a barrier between team members. Finding the right tools to keep you and your team connected is important for staying productive at home.

At HubSpot, we use Slack to keep conversations going remotely, Trello to keep us organized around priorities, and Google Hangouts plus Webex to make remote meetings more productive. Getting the right stack of support tools to fit your work style makes a big difference."

- Meghan Keaney Anderson

13) Match your music to the task at hand.

Find different playlists to match your different energy levels/required work throughout the day -- and only use them when you're doing those tasks. For example, when I'm powering through my inbox, I need some intense and catchy rap/R&B (like Nicki Minaj or Miley Cyrus) blasting through my headphones, but when I'm writing, Tom Petty is the trick. Finding what music motivates and focuses me for different tasks (and then sticking to those playlists for those tasks) has completely changed my WFH productivity."

- Ginny Soskey

14) Use laundry as a work timer.

I usually do laundry when I work from home and I set mini-deadlines for myself corresponding to when I have to go downstairs to switch loads. If I'm working on an article, I tell myself I'll get to a certain point before the wash cycle ends. Then I set another goal for the dryer."

- Emma Snider

15) Communicate expectations with anyone who will be home with you.

If anyone else is going to be at home when you're working, they just have to be clear that when you're in your 'office' (in my case, my signal to the family is having headphones on), you're working -- even if it looks like and feels like you're hanging out at home. It's easy to get distracted by the many things that have to be done around the house during the day."

- Sam Mallikarjunan

16) Take clear breaks.

Breaks, like making and eating lunch, can recharge you to do better work. Don't assume you need to be working 100% of the time while you're home to be more productive."

- Ginny Soskey

17) Interact with other humans.

Go outside and find a human to interact with -- ordering your coffee, running an errand, whatever. It keeps you sane."

- Corey Wainwright

18) Prepare your meals the night before.

When you're in your own home, it can be tempting to spend time preparing a really nice breakfast and lunch for yourself, chopping and cooking included. But that's time you wouldn't have spent meal prepping if you'd been in the office that day, and I find the minutes can really add up in the end. To mitigate that, I try to cook and prep my meals the night before, just like I would for a day at the office."

- Lindsay Kolowich

19) Pick a definitive finishing time each day.

If you work from home full-time (or on a regular basis), it’s really easy to let your work life bleed into your personal life. Maintaining a boundary is important for both halves of the equation."

- Tyler Littwin

20) Keep the TV on in the background.

I spent my first two years out of college working from home as a freelance writer. Of all the tips, tricks, and secrets I've uncovered for being more productive at home, one stands out above the rest: Putting on the History Channel. No joke. Just keep the History Channel running in the background at a low volume, and I swear, you'll get stuff done. (I'm not exactly sure why this trick works, but I can only assume it has something to do with ancient aliens.)"

- Me (Erik Devaney)

What tips do you have for being productive while working from home? Share with us in the comments.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

How to Develop and Use Personas to Attract Your Ideal Students

What are kids looking at when they spend hours a day on their phones? As an education marketer – you want to make sure some of that attention is coming your school's way. With the wealth of school content available to students, you can be sure some schools are getting prospective students' time, so some of it should be yours, right?

How do you attract those eyes to your school's website and blog? You start with creating personas of the people you want to attract.

A persona is the fundamental building block of inbound marketing. It's a fictional representation of your ideal "customer." Each persona presents the background, needs, concerns, motivations, and goals of a specific segment of the population you want to be reading your school's blog. If you want to attract your personas to your blog, you need to know who they are, and what interests them.

In this post, we take you through the process how to develop and use your personas to develop content meaningful to the students you want to enroll.

Research Your Ideal Student Personas

No matter how well we think we know our market, actively researching them always reveals valuable, actionable information. Building a persona must start with research.

You'll gather information in seven categories designed to elicit valuable insight into what the persona cares about, where they find information, and what motivates their behavior. Use our Persona Profile Checklist as your starting point to customize questions relevant to selecting a school.

For example, investigating the persona's "role" is the first category of questions. Instead of asking "What's your job role?" You might ask "What's your role in life? Are you a student? A parent?" Or, instead of asking "Who do you report to?" You can ask "Who mentors you? Who do you ask for advice?"

When you create your checklist, be sure to cover each of the seven categories. They're all important to gaining a complete picture.

You'll gather the information from three main areas:

• Talking to people
• Digital metrics
• Online sources

Talking to People

Always a good choice. You can survey and interview current and past students. Do you want to increase the proportion of students who opt for early decision enrollment? Then talk to some current early decision students. You might also consider reaching out to students accepted to the school, but who chose not to enroll.

Admissions officers will also be great sources of information. When you talk with them, ask what concerns and hesitations they hear most often, and from whom. What are the most common questions prospective students ask? What are the drivers influencing decisions where to apply?

Digital Metrics

Review your website, blog and FAQs. What pages get the most visits? What pages do visitors spend the most time on? Which have high bounce rates? What blog posts have the highest comment activity or share rate? Gather these digital metrics to get a sense of what content has traction and which content is getting ignored. What do they tell you about visitors' interests and concerns? What sources are feeding your traffic? What searches are bringing people to your site?

Online Sources

While digital metrics offer quantitative information, here you'll investigate qualitative sources. Read through blog comments. Not just on your school's blog, but other related sites where prospects talk about the school selection and application process. Research social media as well. Use relevant hashtags to find the "meaty" discussions.

This research is useful for more than answering the questions on your profile checklist. It's a great place to source content ideas and blog topics. Even better – you'll see exactly how your prospects are talking about these issues, what language they use, which you can use in your content development.

Analyze Your Persona Research

Analyze your research for patterns, trends and commonalities. Your persona is a fictional representation of real people. You don't want to focus too much on any one actual person as no individual can be representative of the group.

As you look for trends in their goals, concerns and their watering holes, pay special attention to the "why" behind each of these decisions. When you get a sense of their motivations behind their actions, you can build a highly impactful persona.

Analysis is the stage where you should start to see different personas emerging. Clearly, students and parents have different priorities and watering holes. What did you learn talking with the early admission students? Are there clear identifying trends among this group that isn't present with the general admission students?

This is also the stage where you'll start to identify negative personas. A negative person is the profile of who you don't want as a student, or who will never be a student, so you don't waste resources marketing to them. You can read more about creating a negative persona here.

Writing Up Your Personas

Start with creating a bullet list of relevant points under each research category, such as demographics and goals. You'll include some actual quotes from interviewees or that you read online. You'll also add some insights gleaned during analysis, such as what identifies a person as fitting this persona and what messages resonate with them. HubSpot has created a persona template you can use.

Once you have your bullet lists, you want to write the persona's story. That's right. A narrative that presents the persona in the context of their "life." Here's a simple 5-chapter format for writing up a persona story:

• Chapter 1: Describe their life role and demographic background.
• Chapter 2: What does their typical day look like?
• Chapter 3: What are their challenges and pain points?
• Chapter 4: Where do they go for information?
• Chapter 5: What are their common objections or hesitations when making a selection?

It's a very short story (not a book). Don't worry. Give each chapter two to five sentences built around the bullet points you've already listed.

Complete your story by adding a photo of your persona. Remember – a persona is a fictional representation, not a real person. So select a stock photo of someone or a scene that represents the persona.

Putting Your Student Personas to Use

On a practical level, marketing and admissions should use personas to direct your content and prospect nurturing strategies. This approach ensures that you're allocating your resources where they'll provide the greatest return.

First, select your primary persona. You probably have a few personas, but select the one whose attention will have the greatest impact on your goals. Gear more of your content to this persona. Do some keyword research based on the search habits of this persona. Design your blog tags and labels around the terms they use.

Through your earlier research, you've uncovered what topics interest them, the language they use to talk about it, and what sites and magazines they're already reading. Use all of this information to create blog topics and headlines they'll be compelled to read.

Last, don't neglect your personas. Refine them on an on-going basis to make sure they remain accurate. As new issues or interests engage your prospects, you want to address them to keep your blog fresh and relevant.

5 Sales Tax Tips to Carry You Through to the New Year

The sheer volume of sales you experience during the holiday season could put you in a very different situation during tax season next year. There are several considerations you’ll have to keep in mind, such as an increase in revenue, locations where you or other staff members work, and potential exemptions. These tips won't make up for advice from an accountant, but these are some things to keep in mind when dealing with sales tax.

Know Where You’re Selling

There are so many different taxes you’ll be responsible for this holiday season, from federal all the way down to city and even specific districts. If you don’t know where your customers are buying, you might miss one of the sales tax responsibilities on your list. It is up to you to know the specific districts where your buyers live, and that means you can’t just go on ZIP codes. Postal routes are changed all the time, but that doesn’t mean your districts change, too. Those ZIP codes don’t even specify certain cities, so you can’t rely on them in any way.

Know What You’re Selling

Did you know some products might carry different tax regulations than others? For instance, if you sell foods, some might be taxed in certain states while not at all taxed in others. Then, in some states, some of those foods will be taxable while others are tax-exempt. Do you have any idea which products within your ecommerce company require a sales tax in the various locations where they’re available for purchase?

Know If Prepayment Is Required

Some districts actually require prepayment, especially if large tax amounts occur often. This may also mean you’ll be on a different filing schedule than regular returns. Because you might be located in more than one jurisdiction, you’ll have to keep prepayment schedules and regular schedules straight or suffer the audits.

Know Your Nexus

This is the trickiest of all the tips, because you may not have any idea where your nexus is. Did you know it’s possible to have more than one? That’s why so many ecommerce companies end up in trouble. For the most part, you’re subject to the laws where your ecommerce company resides. However, you could have more than one nexus if you’ve opened a new office, if a large part of your staff resides in another area, and even if your products are manufactured in another area.

Know Your Automation Options

Now, keeping up with all of these things is a full-time job, unless you have some way to automate the process. There are some ecommerce platforms that take care of the process for you. These automated programs will take into account where the business is being done, where the buyer lives, and all the requirements of the various districts and locations that apply. This greatly reduces the stress, work, and record keeping that you’ll need to do, while also minimizing your risk of an audit.

Now, have you considered your tax situation for the coming year? It’s not too late to get your taxes in order for the holiday season so that your books are balanced in 2016.

This blog post has provided information about the law designed to help our readers better understand the legal issues surrounding internet marketing. But legal information is not the same as legal advice -- the application of law to an individual’s specific circumstances. Although we have conducted research to better ensure that our information is accurate and useful, we insist that you consult a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is accurate. To clarify further, you may not rely upon this information as legal advice, nor as a recommendation or endorsement of any particular legal understanding, and you should instead regard this article as intended for entertainment purposes only.

The 10 Most Inspiring & Creative Ads From 2015

This post originally appeared on Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.

For all the fear surrounding ad blocking, there are still a lot of people watching ads.

Consider Geico's Unskippable pre-roll ad: It currently has more than 8.1 million views on YouTube. Or look to Android's ad featuring unlikely animal friends: It became the most shared ad of all time, with more than 6.4 million shares.

Whether inspired by an innovation in technology or simply using the corner of a building to tell a story, this year's best in advertising made us pay attention -- and even a little jealous. Check out some of our favorites below:

10 Inspiring & Creative Ads From 2015

1) Comcast Xfinity | Emily's Oz

A 7-year-old blind girl describes what her version of the Land of Oz looks like -- and it's absolutely magical.

2) Nike | Short a Guy

This fast-paced ad is a fun break from the overwhelming number of famous athlete-focused spots this year.

3) John Lewis Home Insurance | Tiny Dancer

One tiny ballerina can cause a lot of harm to your home.

4) Atlantic Group | 37 Days

Is it possible to grow a garden in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth?

5) Women's Aid & Ocean Outdoor | Look at Me

By using facial recognition technology, the cuts and bruises on the woman's face healed when passersby looked at the digital billboard.

6) Geico | Unskippable Ads

These ads made headlines for cleverly using the YouTube pre-roll ad format, which you can skip after five seconds.

7) Honda | The Other Side

Viewers could hold down the "R" key to switch back and forth between two ads, revealing the double life of one Honda Civic driver.

8) Shiseido | High School Girl?

This surprising ad makes perfect use of the product while also addressing gender norms.

9) Android | Friends Furever

This was the most shared ad of the year thanks to the adorableness of unlikely animal pals.

10) Depaul | There's Another Side to the Story

If you only read one side of this ad, you're missing the real story.

(View larger image.)

What were your favorite ads of the year? Let us know in the comments below!

Related Questions Grow +500% in 5 Months

Posted by Dr-Pete

Earlier this year, Google rolled out the Related Questions feature (AKA "People Also Ask"). If you haven't seen them yet, related questions appear in an expandable box, mixed in with organic results. Here's an example from a search for "Samsung Galaxy S6":

If you click on any question, it expands into something that looks like a Featured Snippet:

Currently, Related Questions can occur in packs of between 1–4 questions and answers. Here's an example of a box with only one question, on a search for "lederhosen":

Once expanded, a typical answer contains a machine-generated snippet, a link to the source website, and a link to the Google search for the question.

How common are related questions?

We started tracking Related Questions in late July on the MozCast 10K, where they originally appeared on roughly 1.3% of queries. Keep in mind that the MozCast set tends toward commercial queries, and the absolute percentage may not represent the entire web. What's interesting, though, is what happened after that. Here's a graph of Related Questions prevalence since the end of July:

You can clearly see two spikes in the graph — one measured on October 27th, and one on December 1st. As of this writing (December 10th), Related Questions appeared on about 8.1% of the queries we track. In less than 5 months, Related Questions have increased 501%. This is a much faster adoption rate than other Knowledge Graph features.

Where do the answers come from?

When you expand a question, the answer looks a lot like another recent Knowledge Graph addition — Featured Snippets. Digging deeper, though, it appears that the connection is indirect at best. For example, here's an expanded question on a search for "monopoly":

If you click on that search, though, you get a SERP with the following Featured Snippet:

It's interesting to note that both answers come from Investopedia, but Google is taking completely different text from two different URLs on the same site. With Featured Snippets, we know that the answer currently has to come from a site already ranking on page one, but with Related Questions, there's no clear connection to organic results. These answers don't seem tied to their respective SERPs.

Where do the questions come from?

It's clear that both the answers in Related Questions and the snippets in Featured Snippets are machine-generated. Google is expanding the capabilities of the Knowledge Graph by extracting answers directly from the index. What may not be as clear, at first glance, is that machines are also generating the questions themselves. Look at the following example, from a search for "grammar check":

Out of context, the question doesn't even make sense. Expanded, you can see that it relates to a very specific grammar question posted on Quora. While the topic is relevant, no human would attach this question, as worded, to this search. Consider another example, for "cover letter examples":

The first and last question are obviously, to a human, redundant. To a machine, though, they would look unique. To be fair, Google has come a long way in a short time — even a couple of months ago, some of these questions were riddled with grammar and spelling errors. As of this writing, I can't find a single example of either.

Finally, there are the questions that no human would ever ask:

No rational human would ever want to know what kind of meat is in a gyro. It's better that way.

What's coming next?

It's clear that Google is rapidly expanding their capability to generate questions and answers from the index. Both Featured Snippets and Related Questions have evolved considerably since their respective launches, and Google's ability to understand natural language queries and semantic data is growing daily. It may be months before we fully understand if and how these results cannibalize organic clicks, but it seems very clear that Google no longer considers these features to be experimental and will be aggressively pushing forward question-and-answer style SERPs in the near future.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

12 Warning Signs Your Website Redesign Could End In Catastrophe

When the time finally comes to tackle a website redesign, it's difficult to contain the excitement. There are so many things you just can't wait to have put into place! Then come the first steps to making it all happen.

Excitement turns to fear and trepidation as you try to craft a plan and put together the resources to turn all of your lofty ideas into reality. Suddenly it begins to seem more and more like a home construction project: lots of advice from many sources; warnings about rip-offs, scams and slick tactics; choices for things that could go into, on and throughout your new website; decisions about who should do what, how long it should take, and how much it should cost. Finally, you're lost in so many details that you're not sure where to start.

Here are the most common red flags that your website redesign is not on the path to providing value and what you can do to avoid them.

1) Lack of strategic direction

Just like a home construction project, getting the blueprint wrong throws the final outcome into question. The worst part is you might not even realize anything is wrong until the construction team is long gone. In order for a website to have business value, it must be designed based on your business goals.

The high level goal is always the general notion of “getting more business”. Unfortunately, if that’s all that comes to the planning table, you could go live with a beautiful website that really does nothing toward meeting your business goals even though the site looks exactly the way you pictured it.

Providing strategic direction for your website should not be an easy step, so the first indication of trouble is trotting out a quick laundry list of all the bells and whistles you've dreamed of having on your website to stand as your plan. Instead, you should start with putting your business goals at the heart of your planning.

Your new website should be firmly rooted in driving business objectives. A good approach for this is to take your list of wants and incorporate them in a way that aligns with your business goals, the needs of the ideal site visitors and the technical realm of SEO. You'll need a workhorse vision where your website is built to play an active role in your sales and marketing efforts rather than operating as an elaborate, fancy brochure.

You should encourage a lot of questioning from those who are helping you. Why do you want the items on your wish list? You should have valid business reasons for them before you make the decision to incorporate them. Set a firm deadline for this exercise to make sure your project stays on track. Don't end up stalled due to avoiding making some tough calls. You'll likely have to cut some things you have on your wish list in order to add others that offer more value.

2) A narrow focus of ranking on page one of search engines

For many businesses, the most basic notion of having a website in the first place can be rooted in the idea of popping up on page one of Google and other search engines. The latest best practices in the SEO arena are very important and will definitely play a role in your website redesign, but it will involve more than a narrow view of whether or not your website appears on page one for a few keyword search terms.

Currently, more than 200 factors determine whether a web page will be served up in search results. No one can promise a rose garden of page one ranking for particular search terms and those that do are more interested in cashing your check and dashing out of the picture before you realize you aren't getting any value.

Instead, focus on using the specific language your marketing personas will use to research a problem that you can solve. Work to build content on your website that clearly conveys what you offer and how you can help them. Your website content should be tailor-made to attract your perfect customer by addressing problems, demonstrating your knowledge of how to solve them and providing useful resources.

3) Lack of understanding of how websites are created

Typically, there is a web designer and a web developer involved in creating a website. A designer makes things look beautiful and a developer makes sure things work like they’re supposed to. Often, when this distinction isn’t understood, it leads to a less than stellar website because a vendor is hired who is good in one area and not the other.

You should consider a team of professionals for the delivery of your project so you have the expertise to provide maximum value from both aspects within your project budget. You should also expect guidance for situations when a compromise is needed to align function, beauty and budget.

4) Unrealistic timelines

Getting it done fast may mean cutting some hefty corners. Someone who is overly eager to please you by promising your website in a very tight window of time is likely going to lead you to a poor outcome.

You’ll either get a website in short order that is a complete waste of money – since there really wasn’t time to build anything other than that – or you’ll be caught in a stall where the super low price vendor said yes to all your unrealistic demands, took your check and then took his time getting around to your job.

The ideal person for handling your project examines your wants and needs for the website before there is any commitment to a specific timeline. You should aim for an up front discussion about how much time it will take – whether you’ll like the answer or not – and the option of rolling your project out in phases. This approach allows you to get what you really need in a realistic time frame, test the value of your ideas along the way, and make adjustments according to outcomes.

5) Poorly considering who will be involved in the web design process

Having only a few people within an organization involved in guiding how the website will be done can be a path to disappointment, but on the other hand too many people can bring a project to a halt when everyone can't come together on the decisions.

Modern websites should speak to the needs of customers and prospects in a way that inspires them to want to do business with you. Like with so many other things in life, moderation is the key. It's important to have those on your staff who are directly in touch with the needs of your business involved in some of the planning discussions or you could miss out on some very obvious content for your website.

Ideally, the person in charge of crafting your new website will use your business goals, input from each department (marketing, sales, customer services) as well as your best customers to uncover functionality and messaging that needs to be on your website.

6) Not having a contract or clear Scope of Work (SOW)

Avoiding having a formal contract in place may seem like a win with the notion of allowing for unbridled creativity and endless revisions. However, simply "letting things evolve" as you work through the process without defining expectations, pricing and timelines in writing is a big mistake with website projects. Since each side can have completely different visions for the outcome, a lot of disappointment can be avoided by putting some things down on paper before any work takes place.

Reputable firms will bring paperwork to the table that provides a reasonable amount of definition but still allows the flexibility required for such a creative process. This becomes especially important when work is going to be divided between your in-house staff and an outside vendor. You'll need clear definition for who is doing what to avoid confusion and unnecessary delays.

7) Failing to examine data from your current website before designing the new one

Many people aren’t well informed of the mechanisms to gather analytics for their websites much less actively pay attention to them. Scrapping your old site without taking a close look at its shortcomings reflected in this type of data could lead to a repeat of the same failures.

Find someone who can guide you in how to get this information and what to look for in the data. You'll want to know some average figures that show how many visitors come to your website each month and some general information about how long they stay, new versus repeat visitors, etc. Examining past performance is key to having your redesign attempt to fix problems and lead to future success.

8) Going for WOW

We all want people to come to our website and be captured by the sheer awesomeness of it. But "going for wow" can leave you going broke when skipping over the consideration for the user expectations and experience.

It might look really flashy to have things whizzing around the homepage and popping up to surprise people but such tactics can have the opposite impact on the site visitor when it slows them down from accessing the content they expect to see. The priority should be providing the most efficient path for your target audience to gain access to what they need when they land on your site.

9) Not using a CMS

Sometimes simply leaving it up to the vendor for how a website will be built can lead to a site that cannot be edited or updated by anyone on your staff. A CMS (content management system) is a platform that can be used to build your website and often allow those with no knowledge of programming to make some simple updates to website pages.

When a vendor has complete control over updates even small changes can take forever – if they’re done at all - and lead to a lot of extra fees to make them. Choose a system that offers flexibility for you and your staff to make some simple adjustments to page copy or switch out pictures, calls to action etc. without having to wait in line, pay another fee or both.

10) Website limited to being updated every few years

The common method most businesses take with the company website is to invest a lot of time, attention and money once every few years to give it a nice, big facelift. The next few years are spent sweating out the time it takes to make it to the next update.

Modern methods for website projects include a detailed plan for growth that incorporates the fluid, rapidly changing landscape and a website that is a living part of your marketing efforts. No more once and done website projects that take forever to launch and end up partially out of date almost as soon as they're published. Instead, aim for a website that operates as a marketing vehicle that receives constant attention, aligns with your budget and changes with you as you grow.

11) A free website from a friend or family member

The free website doesn’t make much of a brother-in-law deal when it ends up doing harm to your business. Avoiding the price tag of calling in a professional seems to save you money today, but costs you a fortune in the long run in missed opportunities. By failing to invest in a website that drives leads you can nurture to become customers, the money you saved today won’t compare to the cost of lost time.

12) No comprehensive, scalable strategy for lead generation

Historically, the approach to website creation has been a loose configuration of ideas brought to the table by everyone involved in the project. The goal is simply a final consensus as to whether all involved liked the finished product. The range of complexity can be as simple as an online brochure to a giant website full of pages but neither delivers any measurable ROI.

These days the trend is to build a website that is an inbound marketing hub for your business. Every page built for a purpose with a clear call to action guiding site visitors through the buyer’s journey. The pages working in a synchronized effort to generate marketing and sales qualified leads. A definable, scalable process that can be measured and adjusted to influence the return on investment.

According to the 2015 State of Inbound Report, “inbound campaigns achieve higher ROI than outbound” regardless of company size and budget. To find success these days, a website must operate as command central for a total inbound marketing effort instead of being limited to a little more than an Internet billboard that only gets attention once every few years.

To make sure that yours does this, carefully review the 12 points outlined here. Use them to give you a new perspective. Identify your business goals, gather up the right people, resources, and processes needed to build your website to function as a more integral part of your business. Just like electricity to power lights and office equipment, think of your website as the source to generate leads and sales on a daily basis.

With this approach, instead of feeling anxiety, dread and disappointment you'll be happy with a website that is an asset delivering measurable, and much more visible return on investment.

32 Inspiring Inbound Marketing Examples to Spark Your Own Campaign Ideas [Free Ebook]

The arrival of a new year is a time for fresh beginnings. Although we may not all admit to resolutions of healthier lifestyles or less Netflix binges, it is hard to ignore the cultural push to re-evaluate your goals for a more successful year.

Likewise, with the close of Q4, now is the time to identify the focus of your marketing team for 2016 and brainstorm fresh ideas for your campaigns. But with the infinite number of approaches and ever-increasing creative standards, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the possibilities.

To help get your inspiration flowing, we've curated the top marketing campaigns from the last year in our latest ebook: 32 Enviable Examples of Inbound Marketing.

Whether you want to rethink your approach to social media or experiment with a new publishing medium, considering these diverse examples will help to improve the quality and originality of your own content.

Download it today to discover industry-leading brands outside your typical scope and spark new and exciting ideas. You might be surprised how an international supermarket could inspire your insurance firm's marketing, or how a backpack retailer could make you rethink content for your SaaS startup.

Have we left out your favorite marketing campaign from 2015? Share your inspirational examples in the comments below.