Month: October 2024

Before I start writing a memo, I take some time to hype myself up. This bit of internal communication will be read by my peers, my boss, and likely my boss’s boss. Getting the language right is essential, and every word counts.

Unlike an email, memos typically go out to your entire department or everyone at the company, so knowing how to format a memo is just as important as what you write. No pressure. (Well, maybe some pressure.)

In this post, I’ll share my experience writing memos, tips from my HubSpot peers, and best practices for using AI throughout the process. From there, I’ll showcase stellar memo examples and a template to help you create your own.

Table of Contents

• Memo Definition, Types, and Parts
• When and How to Write a Memo
• Best Practices for Formatting a Memo
• Memo Examples and Templates

Memos are versatile. Businesses can use memos to relay information involving newly updated policies, changes in procedure, important milestones, or necessary employee actions, such as attending an upcoming meeting or convention.

On the other hand, communities can use memos to tell people within it about public safety guidelines, promote various events, and raise awareness on subjects that affect their lives.

I often find myself writing memos when there are significant changes to my program at HubSpot. Perhaps we’re implementing a new workflow, reorganizing the structure of our team, or sharing insights from a project we just completed. 

Memos denote importance, so I only write them when I have important updates to share that impact multiple stakeholders.

Types of Memos

When I do have those important updates to share, I like to consider the type of memo I’m writing before I get started. For your reference, here are four of the most common types of memos:

1. Informative Memo

Also known as announcement memos, these make up the bulk of most memos I’ve seen. The goal is to communicate new information to your audience.

Sample use cases: To state changes in policy, company news, and new processes or to welcome new staff members

2. Request Memo

Request memos are designed to make a request and get a positive response. When writing request memos, I’d focus on using persuasive language and include stats or numbers to highlight why a ‘yes’ is the right answer.

Sample use cases: To request a new purchase from your company or to authorize professional learning or volunteer opportunities

3. Confirmation Memo

I think of confirmation memos as a paper trail to make sure key stakeholders have a record of discussions. When writing confirmation memos, specificity and clarity should be your number one goal.

Sample use cases: To document conversations or clarify ambiguity to avoid misunderstanding down the road

4. Directive Memo

If I need to communicate how to do something to my audience, I’d write a directive memo offering detailed instructions that are easy to follow.

Sample use cases: To share how to implement a new process, comply with new requirements, or complete necessary tasks

The main difference between all of these memo types is the purpose behind the writing. However, regardless of purpose, every memo is usually made up of the same component parts.

Parts of a Memo

What are those parts, you ask? Here’s what I include in just about every memo I write: 

• Heading: This section specifies who the memo is to (your audience) and from (you or your department), and it includes the date and a subject to describe what it’s about.
• Introduction: This is your opening paragraph that highlights the purpose of the memo and provides an overview on what the memo is about.
• Background: Here, you want to provide clear, specific context around the problem you’re aiming to solve.
• Recommendations: This is where you’ll list the specific tasks or milestones you plan to complete in order to address the problem you’ve identified.
• Discussion: This is the meat of your memo sandwich — it’s where you’ll justify your recommendations with supporting details that map back to your problem statement.
• Closing: This section creates space for a call to action for your readers. What do you want them to do after reading your memo? State that here.
• Necessary attachments: This is where you can include any supporting documents to back up your research and recommendations.

I’ll show you how I build out each of these elements in our how-to shortly. In the meantime, here's more on memos from the HubSpot marketing team:

When to Write a Memo

I default to writing a memo when I need to communicate new information in a way that's more formal than an email.

However, memo purposes stretch far and wide.

“Memos serve a variety of purposes, but generally speaking, they either pitch or propose something new, consolidate information into one place for the sake of alignment, or explain or clarify information about a project or program,” says Hesterberg.

You might write a memo in the following scenarios:

• You have a new policy, and you need to explain it to your audience.
• Sharing important company updates and information.
• Announcing new staff members or promotions.
• Confirming details of a discussion to get everyone on the same page and create a paper trail.
• Teach or tell people how to do something.
• Requesting something and justifying why it matters.

There are lots of possibilities out there. In a nutshell, if you have something you need to share, a memo might be the answer.

Onto the how-to.

You can put together a memo in a few short steps, and you can even use AI to help.

To give you an idea of how each step is formatted, I’ll write an example memo, break it down for each step, and include tips for incorporating AI along the way. 

My example memo will be an internal announcement for a writing training session.

1. Start with your heading.

No matter what kind of memo I’m writing, I always include a heading. In this section, I note who the memo is to, who it’s from, the delivery date, and the subject of the memo.

I’d recommend starting off all of your memos with this formatting:

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

SUBJECT:

Your subject line should be short, attention-grabbing, and give readers a general idea of what the memo is about.

“The headings you use should be descriptive enough that your readers can infer what they'll get in each section,” suggests Kaitlin Milliken, senior program manager at HubSpot. “Cut the cute language and keep your headings very tactical.”

I always make sure the tone of my subject matches the seriousness of the subject matter and my organization’s communication style. I love a witty opener, but it won’t be right for every memo.

Testing It Out

Here’s how this would look for my example memo about a writing training session:

Simple and to the point.

2. Write your introduction.

Remember, you want your memo to be brief and information-packed. Your introduction should be an efficient use of space. 

Here, I highlight the main issue or problem that your memo aims to resolve along with the intended solution.

"The beginning of any memo should state a clear purpose of what the memo will cover,” says Karla Hesterberg, director of content marketing at HubSpot. “Depending on the subject, this could be as simple as an overview of a statement that establishes the need for a new investment. The more simple and straightforward, the better."

This is actually a reality that I personally struggle with. As a writer, I want to include those eloquent phrases and thoughtful transitions that sound great when read aloud. 

However, I need to take a different approach to writing memos. I try to remind myself that my introduction should just summarize the purpose of the memo in two to three sentences.

Testing It Out

Using Hesterberg’s tip, here’s how I’d write the introduction for my memo:

You can also use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to help summarize the purpose of your memo. In fact, this is one of my favorite ways to use AI — to condense and recap information.

Here’s an example.

Prompt I used: I'm writing a memo to announce a new training session for writers on my team. The training session is on how to use AI in your writing process without losing the human touch. Write an introduction to summarize this announcement and highlight the importance of this training. Keep the summary brief, around 2-3 sentences, and keep it conversational.

Output:

While I like my original version better, this would be helpful to use as a starting point — especially if I was in a time crunch.

3. Provide background on the issue.

Remember, memos go out to a wide group of employees. Not everyone reading your memo will have the same background that you do as the writer.

You’ll need a section to explain any necessary context that folks need to know before going forward.

So, what do you put in? I asked Basha Coleman, one of the best memo writers on my team. Coleman is a principal marketing manager on HubSpot’s audience development team.

Coleman says she includes a section at the top of her memos that cover the following:

• The situation
• The impact of the situation
• Recommended solutions

“This gives stakeholders the need-to-know info right away in case they don’t have time to read the whole memo at once,” Coleman says.

Beyond that, I like to link to other important documents that provide context on a topic.

That could be a related memo from a different team with more information, a news article that you're directly responding to, or a relevant dashboard that showcases the issue.

You don’t want this section to be long. However, if folks are interested in learning more, you’ve just given them the power to do so.

Testing It Out

Based on Coleman’s recommendation, here’s how the background I’d include as context for the new training:

Could AI help here? Alana Chinn, Marketing Blog editor at HubSpot, shared her thoughts on using AI in this section:

"Since I have the most context about the situation and impact, I probably wouldn’t use AI in the background section," she says.

"Tools like ChatGPT probably aren’t going to know which information is the most important to highlight for my audience. But if I did, I’d use AI to organize, summarize, or provide structure around my thoughts."

Bouncing off of this and following Coleman’s format, I'd suggest outlining the situation, the impact of the situation, and your recommended solutions and asking ChatGPT to summarize those details into a few short paragraphs.

4. Outline action items and timeline.

Depending on the purpose of your memo, you may have action items for employees to complete or provide a timeline of when changes will take place.

For example, they may need to complete a task or provide information by a certain deadline.

Of course, if no action is needed on the employee’s behalf, you can leave this section out. But when action is required, here’s what I’m including in this section:

• When employees can expect changes to go into effect
• What changes have already been made and what to expect in the future
• Deadlines they need to adhere to

Pro tip: Whenever I’m developing a timeline, I avoid just creating a paragraph with dates interspersed throughout. It’s harder to read that way.

“Don’t be afraid to use visual cues in your memo, like tables, heading colors to display hierarchy of information, charts, and graphs. These can keep a memo brief and skimmable,” suggests Coleman.

Milliken agrees. In a recent memo on building a thought leadership program, she included tables that laid out each step her team would take, more details about what was needed, and when it would occur.

“I also included an infographic of a pipeline to show the stages of the project and how long each would take proportionally,” she says. “This makes it easier to visualize a timetable than just skimming chunks of text.”

Testing It Out

Here’s a sample table I created to demonstrate.

In terms of using AI for this section, I’d ask my favorite generative AI robot to help me brainstorm appropriate tasks and map action items to a timeline.

Here’s an example.

Prompt I used: Give me 2-3 action items for attendees of a quarterly writing training session that highlights how to use AI tools in writing, and map them to a 6-week timeline.

Output:

I would then take this output, customize it for my team, and add any relevant details based on our internal workflow.

5. Justify your reasoning.

Whenever I have to communicate a request or anything new that could ruffle some feathers, I always try to make my case by offering a rationale as to why it’s so important.

“Think about your target audience and try to anticipate areas where they might ask questions, have concerns, or need more clarity,” says Hesterberg. “Try to re-read as someone who doesn't have all the context you have to identify areas you need to build up.”

Remember, as the memo writer, you’re an expert on the subject. You may need to ask a manager or a peer to review your memo with a skeptical eye. Where do they have questions? What needs additional justification?

From there, you can strengthen your case. For me, this often includes featuring statistics as to why it’s critical and urgent to make a change.

“Keep in mind that data is super powerful but must be presented in a way that enhances the narrative rather than confusing it,” says Amanda Sellers, a blog strategy manager at HubSpot.

For example, the phrase “58.97% met the benchmark and 10.26% far exceeded the benchmark” is clunky. Instead, Sellers suggests writing,”Our strategy is working nearly 70% of the time."

The first example is unwieldy, Sellers notes, referring to a methodology that a broader audience is less likely to care about.

Meanwhile, “the second audience demonstrates the more important thing: why that methodology was important and what you can take from it,” Sellers explains.

Testing It Out

To justify the importance of the quarterly writing training session, especially in conjunction with AI tools, I’d add this data point in my memo:

Tools like ChatGPT can also be great for pulling external data to justify your approach or the reasoning behind your memo.

Here’s an example.

Prompt I used: Provide 2-3 data points about the importance of a quarterly writing training on AI tools.

Output:

Big time saver if you let AI do some of the digging for you.

6. Soften any blows.

Sometimes you’re making a big change that could be seen as controversial or making bold statements where people might feel slighted. In instances like these, I like to soften things with a well-placed caveat.

For example, with the rise of AI, you might be communicating a new company policy related to using AI.

You could soften the blow by sharing that it hasn't been an issue for most people, but it’s important to have a clear policy in place for handling it.

Testing It Out

Let’s say my memo took a different position regarding AI for writing. Here’s how I’d format my memo to soften the blow:

AI can also help here if you’re not sure how to mitigate concerns about a particular issue presented in your memo.

Here’s an example.

Prompt I used: Provide language to address concerns that writers may have about using AI in their writing. Note that we have a strict AI policy in place to help guide this new process. Keep it brief, 2-3 sentences.

Output:

Not bad.

7. Communicate urgency.

Any time my memo pitches something new or timely, I make sure I explain why the change is urgent and why it’s important that we move now.

“The best way to do this is to explain what we’re at risk of losing if we don’t take action here,” says Hesterberg.

For pitch memos, Hesterberg suggests telling readers why this problem is important and why people should care. For explanatory memos, she recommends explaining what the information in the memo will be used for.

Testing It Out

Here’s how I’d add urgency to my memo about the training session:

This is relatively straightforward, so I won’t tap AI in for this.

8. Include a closing statement.

When crafting my closing statement I think about the information I really want to reinforce. For example, are there any specific contacts readers should reach out to for questions? If so, I’ll include them here.

“A conclusion that just reiterates your main points is boring and likely to be skipped,” Milliken says. “End on your most compelling points. You can either reassert urgency or discuss the resources you need to be successful.”

Milliken often closes on the support her team requires to find success. That could be additional financial resources, a champion within leadership, or more time to establish the change.

Testing It Out

Here’s how I’d wrap up my memo with Milliken’s suggestions in mind:

And from the AI perspective, I’d recommend using a prompt similar to the one we used for the introduction to close things out.

9. Review and proofread before sending.

This step may seem like a no-brainer, but it‘s important to review your document before sending it out. Memos are meant to inform readers of upcoming changes and relay important information.

As a writer, I know I don’t want to risk causing confusion with a typo or misstatement.

“Memos often have a broad audience, so you'll want to craft a narrative that is easily understood no matter who is reading it,” says Sellers. “That means telling a persuasive story, getting to the point quickly, anticipating questions, and cutting jargon to find the simplest way of saying something.”

Testing It Out

I usually ask a coworker to review my memo or use an editing tool like Grammarly or Hemingway to review and proofread.

Here’s an example of Grammarly editing my memo and making suggestions for improvement:

Chinn also says, “I love using AI to proofread my work. As a writer, this is one of the use cases I tap AI for the most. Asking ChatGPT to provide a grammar or tone check, to look for spelling errors or other inconsistencies, or to simplify complex ideas are all quick and easy ways to finalize my content.”

I mean, who says you can’t use AI as your personal peer editor?

10. Create audio or video aids.

Once the memo is written, I like to give it one last pass. What would make the message even more clear? Should I work with the creative team to build an infographic? Should I amplify the document over our email channels?

Now that I’ve invested the time, I want to make sure my message is heard.

Coleman often creates a recording with a deck, highlighting the most important points in the document.

“Including video summaries of my memos with Loom is helpful for accessibility and busy stakeholders who like to listen to updates while working on other tasks,” she notes.

Testing It Out

For the sake of time, I won’t create any visuals for my fictional memo.

But another easy way to do this would be to present the memo to your team or relevant stakeholders, record that presentation via Zoom or Microsoft Teams (if remote), and circulate it as a visual learning aid for the future.

Two birds, one stone kind of deal.

Best Practices for Formatting a Memo

Now that you know what types of memos there are, what elements to include in your memo, and how to write one, I have a few overarching formatting best practices for you.

Cater to your audience.

Before you start writing your memo, consider who your audience is. Understanding who will read your memo will help you tailor your message, tone, and CTA for that audience.

Pamela Bump, head of content growth at HubSpot, suggests considering the following questions.

"Are the leaders you're writing for busy executives who want a quick one-pager focused on the most need-to-know information?” she says. “Or are the readers more inquisitive and interested in soaking in all the information they can get?”

Make it skimmable.

Milliken recalls a time when she wrote a memo that wasn’t skimmable.

"When I was asked to write my first memo, I created a document with huge walls of text,” she says.

“My manager gave me great feedback, encouraging me to use charts and graphs throughout the document. That makes total sense to me now. No one wants to read a huge string of lengthy paragraphs, but they'll definitely skim a table.”

To make your memo easier to read, use headings and separate paragraphs to break up new thoughts or talking points. You can also add tables and graphs to create a visual break when it makes sense.

Milliken adds, "Bullet points are your friend. They create breaking points throughout your document and keep information easy to digest.”

Be mindful of length.

The length of your memo depends on the type you’re writing. Generally speaking, a memo is one or two paragraphs long. But the length can vary if you’re writing an informative memo versus a request memo.

If your audience is interested in learning, an informative memo can provide more detail, while a request memo should be brief and to the point.

“If you're unsure, go for a shorter 1-2 page document, but link it to another page or dashboard with further data, context, or information that they can dig into if they choose,” Bump suggests.

Don’t shy away from AI.

Jessica Shee, tech editor & marketing manager at M3datarecovery.com says, “Memo writing can be streamlined by using AI tools like ChatGPT to help with content development, particularly for sections that are routine or involve a lot of data.”

Shee continues, “I would use it to jot down basic concepts, clarify important details, and make sure formal language is understood. AI is also useful for recommending structural changes, enhancing grammar, and proofreading.”

And I agree. AI is a great memo writing tool for time-consuming sections or simple tasks like proofreading and editing. I wouldn’t use it to write an entire memo, and Vaibhav Kamble, CEO at CloudOptimo echoes that sentiment:

“While AI can significantly enhance the efficiency and quality of memo writing, it's important to remember that human judgment is crucial for adding personal insights and ensuring the memo aligns with organizational goals and values,” Kamble says.

“The combination of AI assistance and human oversight leads to more polished and effective communications.”

Memo Examples

Different industries or situations will require slightly different memos. My memos are going to look a lot different than the memos coming out of a law office, for example.

Pro tip: Certain memos will need to be longer or shorter, others may not have a timeline, and some will have extensive background info. You should always change the format of your memo to fit the message you want your employees to receive.

I pulled together three examples of what that might look like.

Launch Delay Memo

The objective of this memo is to announce that the launch of a product will be delayed. The introduction includes the new date, so a timeline or long overview isn’t necessary.

This format of this memo could be applied to other situations where a simple, but important, change is occurring.

What I like: The launch memo provides readers with insight into product launch delays, which can alleviate some frustration that customers or employees may otherwise feel if they were not informed.

Other date changes, promotions, milestones, or product announcements could also utilize this format.

Building Update Memo

There are logistical aspects of a business that concern your employees but don’t necessarily involve their work. This memo depicts an example of a kitchen remodel in the office. It’s a bit of an inconvenience but not one of a large magnitude.

What I like: This memo demonstrates a business's understanding of the impact that renovations can have on employees and shows respect and consideration for their needs.

This memo format could be applied to other building updates, work-from-home days, or other widespread but minor announcements.

Community Memo

Celebrations, events, theme days, or other fun things for your employees can also be communicated through memos.

Community memos like this example are generally shorter because they don’t require much background information or many details.

What I like: This memo has clear directions on where to find the event taking place, something which would’ve been less effective if it only included the floor number.

Memos of this nature should include a summary, date, and location at a minimum.

Business Memo Template

If you’re writing a business memo, take it from me — HubSpot's free business memo templates are a fantastic way to help you streamline your work.

The document gives you a framework that sorts your memorandum into subtopics to help employees better digest the information and understand what's expected of them after reading it.

Download This Template

And here’s another business memo template I use for times when I want to provide a quick write-up — via email, for example.

MEMORANDUM

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

SUBJECT:

I'm writing to inform you that [reason for writing the memo].

As our company continues to grow … [evidence or reason to support your opening paragraph].

Please let me know if you have any questions. In the meantime, I'd appreciate your cooperation as [official business information] takes place.

Let’s walk through the business memo format in more detail.

Business Memo Template Format

The standard business memo template format is designed to effectively communicate your message. A memo should disseminate the necessary information in a way that is easy for a mass number of employees to digest.

An accurate subject line will alert them that this memo is relevant to them specifically. And beginning with an executive summary allows recipients to understand the general message before they dive deeper into the details.

The background information offers context to the message, and the overview and timeline should answer questions that are likely to come up.

Header

In your header, you‘ll want to clearly label your content “Memorandum” so your readers know exactly what they’re receiving. As previously mentioned, you‘ll want to include “TO”, “FROM”, “DATE”, and “SUBJECT.”

This information is relevant for providing content, like who you’re addressing and why.

Paragraph One

In the first paragraph, you‘ll want to quickly and clearly state the purpose of your memo. You might begin your sentence with the phrase, “I’m writing to inform you … “ or ”I'm writing to request ... ”

A memo is meant to be short, clear, and to the point. You'll want to deliver your most critical information upfront and then use subsequent paragraphs as opportunities to dive into more detail.

Paragraph Two

In the second paragraph, you‘ll want to provide context or supporting evidence. For instance, let’s say your memo informs the company of an internal reorganization.

If this is the case, paragraph two should say something like, “As our company continues to grow, we've decided it makes more sense to separate our video production team from our content team.

This way, those teams can focus more on their individual goals.”

Paragraph Three

In the third paragraph, you‘ll want to include your specific request of each employee — if you’re planning a team outing, this is the space you'd include, “Please RSVP with dietary restrictions,” or “Please email me with questions.”

On the contrary, if you‘re informing staff of upcoming construction to the building, you might say, “I’d appreciate your cooperation during this time.”

Even if you don‘t expect any specific action from employees, it’s helpful to include how you hope they’ll handle the news and whether you expect them to do something in response to the memo.

Boom. I think I’ve hit all the memo-related points, so I’ll take us home.

Write your memos to the point.

I’d argue the main difference between a memo and just an email is not the level of complexity. It’s the size of the audience.

A memo can be simple or intricate as long as it effectively communicates your message and is relevant to the receiving group of employees. And, the message itself should be clear and concise, no matter which memo format you use.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

As a content marketer, a website audit is vital to my work.

An analogy I like to use is that optimizing an existing website for search engines without conducting a thorough audit is akin to steering a boat without a rudder.

It’s directionless, at the mercy of the wind and waves (or in this case, algorithm changes).

In this post, I’ll cover what a website audit is, the different types of audits, how to conduct an audit, and ways to use information from an audit to improve your SEO and conversions.

I’ve also spoken with some SEO consultants and specialists who’ve shared actionable tips, which you’ll find interspersed in the article.

Table of Contents

• What is a website audit?
• The Benefits of a Website Audit
• How to Conduct a Website Audit
• Types of Website Audits
• Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website
• Website Auditing Checklist
• Website Audit Example

Before I dive into the things you should keep an eye out for, let me go through some of the different types of audits you can perform.

Types of Website Audits

Here are a few common audits among marketers.

1. Competitive Website Audit

A competitive website audit tracks your competitors and their online strategies to help you see what opportunities your brand could be missing out on.

Essentially, a competitive audit allows you to see what’s working for other companies in your market so that you can incorporate those tactics into your own strategy.

Start by performing a SWOT analysis on a competitor’s website. In a SWOT analysis, you track the website’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

For example:

• A strength could be that their website is easier to navigate than yours.
• One weakness could be that their website has slower page loading times.
• Opportunities could be items or tools missing from their website that you can add to yours to give you an edge.
• A threat could be that their website ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) than your own, resulting in your site losing leads.

During this audit, also consider the tools and software they are using to streamline their processes. This can help you discover new ways to run your site more efficiently and make it more accessible for consumers.

2. SEO Link Audit

This type of audit processes the links pointing to your website to find potential issues or opportunities in your backlink profile. By evaluating your links, this audit will help optimize your site to rank for your target keywords.

Link audits consider the URL source, domain, and anchor text to see if value and equity (called “link juice”) are being passed on to your page. This will gauge how much a link is helping or hurting your website's visibility in SERPs.

Links from well-respected websites are much more valuable than links from smaller, less well-known sites.

To perform an SEO link audit, start by gathering all of your link data. You can do this with Google Search Console by entering your domain and then clicking on “Links to Your Site” under “Search Traffic.”

From there, you can download the latest links and create a link audit spreadsheet. Afterward, you manually evaluate your links by paying attention to factors like anchor text, IP address, and page content.

You can also use tools like Ahref's backlink checker to take the guesswork out of analyzing the value of the links you gathered.

3. Lead Conversion Optimization Audit

A lead conversion optimization audit analyzes a website’s conversion issues and opportunities. In this audit, you’ll need to analyze how traffic is coming to your website and where it’s coming from.

Google Analytics is an excellent tool for this step. Knowing where your traffic is coming from will help you better understand your audience’s behavior and will help you optimize your site’s content to suit their needs.

Speaking of content, you’ll also need to analyze the content on your website. Make sure the content is helpful, informative, and up-to-date.

Is the latest information about your business uploaded to the site and easily visible? Does your content contain keywords and phrases to boost its ranking in SERPs?

Outdated or irrelevant content can hurt conversions and hurt your SERPs ranking.

Other aspects of your website you need to observe are:

• Forms. Do your forms collect enough information to contact a lead?
• Checkout process. If you notice a lot of shopping cart abandonment, customers are likely having issues with the checkout process on your website.
• Design and layout. Are CTAs clear and visible? Is the copy too small and difficult to read? Is the website easy to navigate?
• Overall user experience. Are there any sources of frustration for visitors to your site?

Pro tip: Veruska Anconitano, an international expansion consultant, recommends the following: “Use behavior flow reports in Google Analytics to find drop-off points. To identify this, look at where users exit most frequently in the flow or where they loop back to a previous page.

Once you’ve found these areas, adjust your CTAs, page design, or content to reduce friction. For example, if users often drop off from a product page, consider simplifying the checkout process or adding more trust signals like reviews or guarantees to keep them engaged.

This approach tackles both SEO and conversion by refining the user experience at critical stages.”

4. Social Media Audit

Your brand’s online performance can also be impacted by social media. If your social media presence isn’t pushing more traffic to your website, then it’s time to conduct a social media audit.

To start the audit, create a list of all your company’s social media accounts. Do some extra digging to make sure you don’t miss any you’re not aware of, such as accounts started by other departments.

From there, go through each account to determine if they’re all consistent with the company’s branding — using the same images, logo, tone of voice, etc.

Then, you’ll need to evaluate each page’s performance. What kind of content performs the highest, and which content type performs the lowest? Are these pages being updated frequently?

Finally, use information from the evaluation to better understand your audience and optimize your social media to engage them. You’ll then be able to update your social media strategy to further delight your audience, more effectively attracting them to your website.

5. SEO Website Audit

While an SEO link audit analyzes the links associated with your website, an SEO website audit evaluates all the factors that can impact your site's performance in SERPs. This includes links but also extends to other aspects such as keyword usage, content, metadata, page speed, user journey, and video optimization.

It‘s possible to conduct an SEO audit on your own, but you’ll likely get more thorough answers in less time by employing an agency.

To perform one by yourself, I would start by understanding the purpose of the audit. Next, crawl and analyze your website using software. Here are some tools to choose from when conducting an SEO site audit (you can mix and match based on your needs):

• Google Search Console (free)
• HubSpot’s website grader (free)
• Ahrefs (paid with certain free tools)
• Semrush (paid but can avail a free trial, also comes with certain free tools)
• SE Ranking’s website audit (paid but can avail a free trial and is more affordable, also comes with allied free tools)
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (limited free use)

Next, assess:

• Technical SEO. This includes insights on crawling, indexing, security, page speed, Core web vitals, site hierarchy, among others.
• On-page SEO. This includes content (review keywords targeted, content quality/depth, search intent, heading structure, images, videos, CTAs) and user experience.
• Off-page SEO. This includes backlinks, domain authority, and local SEO.

Pro tip: If this is your first site audit, I recommend you start with a free tool (or a free trial of a paid tool) along with Google Search Console to get your feet wet and keep expenses low.

6. Data Privacy Audit

A data privacy audit verifies that you’re following applicable data privacy laws and ensures you’re creating a safe space for website visitors. Search engines look for privacy-related pages when determining whether a website is high-authority.

For example, Google’s primary goal is to serve the best and most trustworthy content to users from reputable sources. Sites that comply with data privacy requirements will most likely be viewed as more authoritative than those that don’t have these essential legal policies.

To conduct a data privacy audit, determine what personal information your site collects from visitors, identify the laws you must follow, list all cookies your site uses, and create and publish website policies to meet legal requirements.

Most websites need a:

• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Consent Banner
• Terms and Conditions Agreement

While you can create these on your own, it’s much easier and more efficient to use managed solutions, like a privacy policy generator.

To take the guesswork and hassles out of privacy compliance, use a reputable generator vetted by a legal team and data privacy experts.

It should also include clauses that meet compliance requirements outlined by the most common data privacy laws.

Now that I’ve covered a few different audits you can conduct to improve your website, let’s discuss the perks of an audit.

1. You can compare your website to your competitors.

Conducting a website audit will allow you to compare your website to your competitors. You can analyze how well you’re ranking against competitors for keywords and determine potential new sources of revenue.

You can use tools, like HubSpot's Website Grader, to perform an audit on your competitor’s websites to gather more insights. You can learn how your competitors are attracting visitors and see how they’re garnering conversions.

Ultimately, this will help you brainstorm new tactics and strategies for your site.

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2. You can improve your SEO.

With a website audit, you will be able to identify any missed SEO opportunities and remedy any misguided or poorly executed SEO pitfalls (e.g., keyword stuffing, exact match anchor text links, etc.) throughout the content of your website.

An audit will also allow you to refocus your SEO efforts on users first and search engines second. This will safeguard you from constantly chasing changes to search ranking algorithms, meaning you won't be applying misguided practices just to show up at the top of the SERPs.

Pro tip: One great tool that can help keep your SEO details organized is HubSpot’s free On-Page SEO Template.

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3. You'll optimize conversion rates.

Website audits also enable you to re-evaluate the effectiveness of your website in terms of lead generation and conversion.

As a result, you’ll be able to spot any previously overlooked opportunities to convert visitors into leads by adding relevant CTAs, as well as identify deficiencies in your landing pages so you can optimize them to boost conversions.

Pro tip: Learn more about CTA selection to optimize the CTAs on your website.

4. You can optimize your website performance.

Website audits usually evaluate a site for its content and technical performance.

As a result, an audit will give you a chance to inspect the robustness of your website’s technical framework and infrastructure.

It will also evaluate how friendly your website is to search engines and determine how easy it is for users to navigate your website to find the content they are looking for.

5. You can identify issues early.

Finally, a website audit finds issues that are hurting your SEO and conversions such as broken links, hidden content, and long page load speed times. Identifying these issues will help you address problems that are diverting traffic.

Assessing both the content and technical aspects of your website will open up opportunities to drastically improve the traffic and conversions your website generates.

Now that I’ve gone over what a website audit is and why you should do one, let's look at how to conduct one.

1. Run the website URL through a site audit tool.

I’d start with a website auditing tool to help analyze how my site is performing. This can help test various important facets of a site and then provide specific recommendations.

2. Find technical errors.

Technical errors like ones related to performance, SEO, mobile, and security, can negatively impact a customers‘ experience on your website. If I notice visitors aren’t staying on a site for long, or I see a lot of abandoned shopping carts — a website audit is a great way to find out why.

3. Analyze design and UX.

How is the website design working for visitors and customers? Some software have heatmaps showing what parts of a site design draw the most attention. This type of analysis helps communicate how the overall design and user experience impact visitors.

Pro tip: Raquel González, SEO consultant and CEO/Founder at MintyConnect, recommends doing some hands-on work too: “While auditing tools are valuable, they may overlook critical UX elements. Complement their analysis by personally navigating the entire website. This hands-on approach reveals non-functional elements and user journey issues that automated tools might miss, ensuring a more thorough site evaluation.”

4. Assess website content.

An audit also helps me evaluate website content such as blogs, landing pages, product/service pages, among others.

During an audit, I’d want to know how the current pages are stacking up, identify areas of improvement, and ensure that the content targets readers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Going deeper, I’d also look at meta descriptions and review image alt text. Additionally, I’d ask: “Is my content ranking well in search engines?” and “Is my on-page SEO and performance aligned with my traffic numbers?”

5. Create a website audit report.

Creating a website audit report that clearly communicates the site issues found (and what to do about them) is an easy job when you have the right tools.

There are a number of choices available, and HubSpot’s Website Grader is one of the most user-friendly. It quickly and automatically generates a report after entering the web address you want to have crawled along with an email address.

For those with more technical experience, Semrsh’s Site Audit Tool is a very thorough reporting option, but getting started for free does require jumping through a few hoops.

You would need to create an account, answer some questions about yourself, and choose to skip a trial in order to create the free audit report.

Their in-depth report can look overwhelming unless you’re coming to the game with some technical chops.

Whichever reporting product you choose, it should provide a clear display of important website categories — such as SEO performance and the effectiveness of your security measures — and then list the individual issues along with recommended fixes.

Having a full website audit report in your hands enables you to start making improvements yourself or to efficiently send the information to the appropriate teams within your organization.

Pro tip: Preeti Gupta, B2B SaaS SEO consultant and founder of Packted, shares the following advice: “When presenting an audit report, I find it important to prioritize the recommendations based on the input you collected. I do this as simply as assigning priority to each task based on the resources it will take, the impact it will have, and more.”

Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website

First, go ahead and enter your website into HubSpot's Website Grader — this will give you a general overview of your website's strengths so you can gauge your focus on each of the assessments that follow in this article.

Check out HubSpot's Website Grader

How'd you do? Got an idea of which website audit benefits you need the most? Here we go!

1. Website Performance Assessment

In the first part of your website audit, I’d focus on how users navigate your website — from your homepage to blog posts, to landing pages, and any related content in between.

Make a list of the pages on your website and ask yourself the following questions to evaluate them for optimization opportunities:

Is your website optimized for maximum usability?

The more visitors you can attract to your website, the more opportunities you'll have to generate leads and, ultimately, customers. But only if your website performs well.

Just having a website does not guarantee results. As part of determining the overall efficiency of your website, your audit should check to make sure your site is designed with your visitors in mind.

The design and overall navigability of your website should correspond with what a person would come to the site to seek out, such as more information on a business-related topic, resources, product/pricing information, testimonials, etc. This will largely depend on your individual business.

The main goal here is to make it easy for people to get the information they‘re looking for. As a result, you’ll likely see conversion rates improve on their own.

To audit your website for usability, consider the following questions:

• Are all the main value propositions of our business easily accessible via our main navigations/menu items?
• Do we have a simple yet intuitive website design and page layout? Make sure pages aren't too cluttered; littered with ads, CTAs, or links; or void of internal links altogether.
• Are your conversion paths and/or shopping cart or checkout processes intuitive? Are there a ton of distractions along the way that could be creating friction for your site visitors?

Consider doing some user testing with members of your target audience to ensure you‘re effectively surfacing the content they’re looking for and that they find it easy to navigate to the parts of your website they're interested in.

How is your website's overall speed?

Are there excessive page sizes or long page load and server response times? Does your site go down frequently? Site speed can be impacted when image files are too large or HTML and CSS needs to be cleaned up.

Ultimately, fast-loading and optimized pages will lead to higher visitor engagement, retention, and conversions. To quickly check a web page's load time, download MozBar, a toolbar by Moz that you can attach to your browser for simple page analysis every time you visit a website.

2. SEO Assessment

Optimizing the performance of your website is crucial to holding onto visitors, but the above questions aren't the only ones I’d be asking.

It’s also crucial to audit the content you‘re publishing to ensure it’s actually solving your visitors' problems.

Is your website content high quality?

As you evaluate your content for quality, think about it from your target audience’s perspective:

• Did this information leave me satisfied?
• Did it answer all of my questions?
• Does it give me all the resources relevant to this topic?
• Do I know what to do next?

Keep in mind quality content should appeal to the interests, needs, and problems of your buyer personas. Present them with interesting and well-written content. Always aim to leave the reader with immediately actionable next steps such as calls-to-action or links to resources.

Is your website search engine optimized?

Make sure all your web pages are following on-page SEO best practices. To audit your content for on-page SEO, conduct a keyword analysis in which you do the following:

• Consult your analytics to review keyword performance. Which keywords are giving you the biggest gains in traffic and leads?
• Assess how well you're factoring keyword performance into your content strategy. How much relevant content are you adding to your website to target those keywords?
• Review basic on-page SEO elements like URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, and copy. Make sure keywords are included where relevant.

Pro tip: To help you conduct an on-page SEO audit of your content, check out this blog. You can also download our free On-Page SEO template.

3. Conversion Rate Assessment

While high-quality, search-engine-optimized content is a great way to boost your traffic numbers, it's what happens once those visitors are on your website that really counts.

This is where optimized calls-to-action (CTAs), marketing offers, and landing pages play a major role in the performance of your website.

Not only do they offer you opportunities to capture visitors' information so you can follow up with leads, but they also keep your visitors engaged with your content and your brand.

To audit your website for maximum conversion potential, I’d ask the following questions:

• How many marketing offers do I have in my content arsenal to gate behind landing pages?
• Do I have a variety of marketing offers that appeal to all my different buyer personas?
• Do I have any landing pages/conversion forms on my website to begin with?
• How optimized are those landing pages?
• Do I have conversion opportunities for visitors in varying stages of the funnel?
• Am I using CTAs effectively? Am I missing opportunities to include CTAs on various pages of my website?

Pro tip: Erica Ylimäki, growth marketer at Trustmary, recommends the following: “Check for bulk optimization options for conversions … Some examples include aiming for a simpler conversion (such as getting visitors to sign up to a newsletter instead of getting them to register to your software) or trying out a new CTA placement (exit intent popups, above the fold, below the fold). In our case, adding a hero CTA to blog posts has been especially effective.”

4. Technical Assessment

Once you‘ve addressed the three primary goals of a website audit, it’s time to loop in a developer or someone from your IT department for a technical evaluation. You could also hire an outside agency — just be sure to do your homework first.

Keep in mind that there may be some carry-over from the three assessments above — website performance, SEO, and conversion rate. The technical evaluation, however, addresses all three to maximize the user experience (UX).

Here's what I’d be looking for in the technical assessment stage of your website audit.

Is your website design responsive?

Does your website have a responsive design? Meaning, is it a mobile-friendly website?

Smartphone usage worldwide has grown exponentially, and it’s important for websites to be compatible with the rising demand.

Is your website error message free?

Are response code errors popping up all over your website where there shouldn't be any? Calling out 302-, 404-, and 500-level response codes can be useful to tell users that something's wrong.

However, having this happen is also an indication that someone isn't cleaning up broken links and, as a result, leading users to dead ends. Find those error messages and clean up your broken links.

Are your website URLs optimized?

Does your site have URLs of excessive length due to keyword stuffing? Do they contain session IDs and/or include tons of dynamic parameters? In some cases, these URLs are difficult for search engines to index, resulting in lower clickthrough rates from search results.

Does your website have too much Flash or JavaScript?

Identify areas of your navigation that are entirely Flash or JavaScript. Search engines have challenges with reading and accessing these, which could prevent your site from getting indexed.

These elements also present problems from a usability perspective. Visitors are often looking for a very specific piece of information when visiting your site. If they have to sit through a 10-second visual introduction before they can find your hours of operation, you’re going to have a pretty frustrated visitor on your hands.

Is your site structure optimized for search engines?

We already talked about site structure as it relates to accessing content and usability for users, but it's also important to make sure your site structure is optimal for search engines. If pages on your site are not internally linked to other pages on your site, those pages are less likely to be indexed.

Are you defining how your web pages are crawled and indexed by search engines?

This can be done through various methods that include everything from robots.txt files to sitemaps. These tools help you guide search engines toward your website’s most useful content.

Robots Meta Tags or robots.txt Files

The robots meta tag lets you use a granular, page-specific approach to controlling how an individual page should be indexed and served to users in search results. These tags should sit in the <head> section of a given page.

The robots.txt file, on the other hand, is a text file that allows you to specify how you would like your site to be crawled. Before crawling a website, search engine crawlers will generally request the robots.txt file from a server.

Within the robots.txt file, you can include sections for specific (or all) crawlers with instructions (“directives”) that let them know which parts should or should not be crawled.

Public and XML Sitemaps

Your website should also have public and XML sitemap files. The public sitemap is one that users can access to review the pages of your site, like the index of a book.

The XML sitemap is for search engines to review pages that get added to your site, all in one place. The usual location of a sitemap.xml file is www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml.

The XML sitemap is something every website should have. It offers an opportunity to tell Google and the other search engines which pages on your site you want to be crawled and indexed.

While search engines don’t guarantee they will abide by your sitemap, anecdotal evidence has proven time and time again that XML sitemaps help provide insurance that your pages are found, and found faster — especially if your sitemap(s) dynamically update your new web pages.

Are you defining the canonicalization of content?

The canonicalization of your website content is your final major technical consideration. To gain more control over how your URLs appear in search results — and to minimize issues related to duplicate content — you need to pick a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of the page.

You can indicate your preference to Google in a number of ways. One such way is to insert the canonical tag (rel=“canonical”) in an HTTP header of a page.

Be sure to have someone check that the canonical tag is properly implemented across the site by making sure it points to the correct page, and that every page doesn't point to the homepage.

Website Auditing Checklist

Before getting started, I’d use this basic website auditing checklist to review certain necessary elements of a site’s performance.

Website Audit Example

To pull all this together, I decided to run a website audit on one of my favorite bloggers, Christina Galbato.

Take a look at the image below. This website is performing well. SEO and mobile are scoring very high. The main areas for improvement for this site would be performance and security.

But, “What does this mean?” Well, let me dive in a little deeper. In each section, the website grader lets me know what I’m (or in this case Christina) is doing well and what could be improved upon.

Then, the grader gives recommendations to improve the site overall.

Next, there’s a table that helps compare the current site to the recommendations.

Wrapping up the Website Audit

At the beginning of the auditing process, I asked the important questions: “How am I doing?” and “How does my website compare to those of my competitors?”

Now, as I complete the audit, I’ll know the answers to those questions — and I’ll have actionable steps to improve my website, thus making it more competitive.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Good marketing is always about the customers, period. That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned from all my wins and losses as a marketer.

To launch successful marketing campaigns, you must know every detail about your audience — their goals, aspirations, pain points, and more. And building buyer personas is a good place to start.

I brainstormed with the team and curated 40 buyer persona interview questions to survey your audience and create accurate personas.

Once you have the data, use our free buyer persona template to share your findings with the rest of your company.

Table of Contents

• Why conduct buyer persona interviews?
• 3 Key Benefits of User Persona Surveys & Interviews
• 40 Best Buyer Persona Questions

Why conduct buyer persona interviews?

A buyer persona (or user persona) is a fictionalized representation of your target customer. It essentially gives you an overview of your buyers’ preferences, pain points, motivations, and more.

But even though buyer personas are fictional, you need real-life data to base each persona on. It has to represent your actual customers’ needs and aspirations accurately. That’s where buyer persona interviews and surveys will help you collect data to design these personas.

I use buyer persona surveys and questionnaires to gauge my audience's needs.

My ideal starting point is choosing a sample group from my customer base. I’ll then share the survey with these participants to comprehensively understand their goals, challenges, jobs to be done, and more.

If you lack the resources to conduct a survey, I recommend using a market research platform like Qualtrics to conduct panels and interviews with your chosen participants.

Once you’ve decided whom you’re going to survey, you can pick specific questions to collect data related to:

• Demographics such as their age, education, occupation, and income.
• Psychographics such as their habits, beliefs, behaviors, and preferences (like shopping preferences).

This information can benefit businesses and brands looking to convert leads, personalize the customer experience, and improve their bottom line.

Here’s a buyer persona example to show how it works. I created this using HubSpot’s free Make My Persona tool.

3 Key Benefits of User Persona Surveys & Interviews

Buyer personas eliminate guesswork from your marketing strategy. These personas tell you the exact problems and aspirations of your target audience.

As a result, you can make data-driven decisions and launch campaigns tailored to your customers’ preferences. I rely heavily on buyer persona surveys to get a pulse of my audience and design accurate personas.

Here are some benefits I’ve experienced from asking the right persona questions.

1. I captured more high-quality leads.

Knowing your customers’ typical challenges and needs helps create campaigns that truly appeal to them. By discovering your target audience’s habits and challenges through persona interviews, you can accurately tailor your sales and marketing campaigns to the users most likely to buy from you.

2. I personalized the customer experience.

Personalizing the customer experience is one of the best ways to stay top-of-mind for potential customers and win their business.

Customers will be more likely to buy from you if they feel like you’re speaking directly to them. You can know them better through persona interviews and recognize their concerns. As a result, it becomes easier to create personalized messaging and connect with them at a deeper level.

3. I improved my bottom line.

Buyer personas can significantly improve your bottom line by maximizing lead generation and driving conversions. These personas will also inform your strategy to deliver a positive and targeted customer experience.

The result? Higher customer retention and brand loyalty.

Pro tip: Build a laser-focused content marketing strategy to generate top-of-funnel interest in your brand. Check out the free content marketing training resources in the HubSpot Academy to build your content strategy today.

Download our free buyer persona template here to learn how to create buyer personas for your business.

Download Now

Questions About Their Personal Background

Knowing your buyers’ backgrounds gives you crucial insights into their interests, upbringing, communication style, and other preferences.

In my experience, understanding personal background gives you some much-needed cultural context to positively influence your target buyers.

This is your opportunity to ask buyer persona interview questions related to their education and work experiences, demographics, and personal interests.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ personal interests:

1. What is your educational background?
2. Share how your career path led you to your current role.
3. Where are you located? How does that influence your work?
4. What is your preferred style of communication?

Questions About Their Company

I always collect information about the company where my target buyers work.

This can include data about the company size, business goals, and challenges faced. This data gives me specific insights to tailor my communication for each buyer based on their work environment.

Besides, when you know the necessary details about your persona's company, like the number of employees, you can quickly outline the fields for your landing page forms.

Here are some questions I include about the buyers’ company:

5. What industry does your company operate in?
6. How big is your company in terms of revenue and number of employees?
7. What are the primary goals your company is trying to achieve this year?
8. What are the major challenges your company faces in the current market?

Questions About Their Role

The importance of your buyer persona‘s job depends on the product or service you’re selling.

If you‘re a B2C company, you may simply consider this information as another way to better understand the nuances of your persona’s life.

If you're a B2B company, this information becomes more crucial. Think about the many moving parts for a B2B buyer — are your personas working at a managerial or director level, and are they well-versed in the intricacies of this industry?

Experienced buyers will need less education than someone at an introductory level, who may need to loop in other decision-makers before making purchasing decisions.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ roles:

9. What is your job title, and how long have you been in this position?
10. What are your primary responsibilities?
11. What does a typical day look like in this role?
12. What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?
13. What are the biggest challenges you face in your day-to-day work?

Pro tip: Try to make these persona interview questions as close-ended as possible. This will bring more objectivity in your buyer personas, and you can quote specific data points about each persona’s role.

Questions About Buyer Goals

Identifying buyers’ goals and motivations is important to define specific outcomes for your messaging. I use this data to identify the key benefits to emphasize for each type of buyer.

You should know what success looks like for your buyers. Understanding their notions of success will help you position your product/service as a more relevant offering. Besides, knowing how buyers measure success will help you demonstrate the specific value they’re looking for.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ goals:

14. What are your main objectives when considering a product or service like ours?
15. How does your team or company define success for purchases like this?
16. What would make you a champion for the product internally?
17. Are there specific KPIs you need to meet with this purchase?
18. How do you measure success in your role specifically?

Questions About How Buyers Learn

If you're going to market and sell to these personas, you need to understand how they consume information.

I typically start by collecting information about their required upskilling at work. You can also explore their preferred learning formats, like detailed reports, blog posts, short videos, and podcasts. Ask relevant questions to identify their trusted learning sources, whether it’s industry experts or research platforms.

Your goal should be to understand their learning style entirely. Here are some questions I include about buyers’ buying journey:

19. What type of content or resources do you prefer to learn more about a concept?
20. Where do you typically find information to help you make buying decisions?
21. What publications and thought leaders do you follow for industry insights?
22. Do you attend any industry events or conferences for learning?
23. Which communities and social networks do you participate in?

Pro tip: I recommend doing independent research to learn how your target buyers learn before framing these questions. You can identify and explore the most popular resources and communities for your buyers. This way, you can skip the obvious questions and focus on collecting more meaningful information.

Questions About Their Shopping Preferences

You should understand your buyers' evaluation process when making a purchase.

Before buying a product, you need to get a behind-the-scenes look at their analysis. Ask about the avenues they use to find information, such as online searches, review websites, network recommendations, and more.

If you can anticipate the objections your persona will have, you can be prepared for them in the sales process. You will also be able to educate them in your marketing collateral to help allay fears right away.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ shopping preferences:

24. Describe a recent purchase from start to finish.
25. How do you typically find, research, and evaluate vendors or products?
26. What factors are most important when making a purchase decision?
27. How do you prefer to interact with potential vendors?
28. What makes you trust a brand enough to purchase from them?

Questions About Values

Your buyers’ values are central to purchasing decisions. You can stand out among sellers by showcasing your commitment to the core values your buyers believe in. I’ve observed how this value alignment can also win buyers’ trust in the long term and build loyalty.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ values:

29. What values or ethics guide your buying decisions?
30. What would make you loyal to a brand over time?
31. How important is it that a company aligns with your values?
32. Are there social or environmental issues that you prioritize when choosing products?

Questions About Pains and Challenges

Buyers’ pain points are a critical part of your personas. When you know their problems and challenges, you can offer specific solutions that resonate with them. It makes your pitch unique and shows you’ve done your homework.

Plus, it’s good to understand the solutions they’ve tried in the past, but they didn’t work. You can empathize with them and present your offering as a better alternative to eliminate all frustrations.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ pain points:

33. What are the biggest challenges or pain points you face in your role?
34. How are these challenges affecting your ability to meet your goals?
35. Have you tried solutions in the past that didn’t work? What were they lacking?
36. What would solving these challenges mean for your business or role?

Questions About Their Environment

A buyer’s environment typically involves their work setup and the industry they operate in.

Knowing these details makes it easier to identify their priorities and fit your offering in their preferred context. For example, remote workers will focus on greater collaboration, while in-person employees may need better equipment.

I always include some of these persona interview questions to understand market trends and shifts in my buyers’ space.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ environments:

37. How does your work environment impact your buying decisions?
38. How does your company adapt to shifts in the market or industry?
39. Are there any market trends or external factors influencing your company’s strategy?
40. What tools or technology do you currently use? Are there any limitations impacting your performance?

Pick the right buyer persona interview questions.

Building buyer personas can help you create a customer-first marketing strategy and tailor your messaging to their goals and aspirations. I use buyer personas to prepare the groundwork for every campaign I launch.

After creating dozens of buyer persona surveys and interviews, I’ve handpicked these buyer persona interview questions. Use these to survey a small sample of your target audience and collect crucial data to define your buyer personas.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Today, we bring you a unique collection of calligraphy brushes for Procreate and Photoshop that are ideal for everything from wedding invitations and branding to social media graphics.

Whether you’re a professional calligrapher, a designer, or someone who simply loves creating beautiful lettering, these brushes offer the perfect blend of traditional calligraphy charm and modern digital convenience.

With the right brush, you can easily craft stunning hand-lettered artwork, logos, invitations, and more, all from your iPad or computer.

This collection features a variety of calligraphy brushes designed to mimic real brushstrokes, ink, and pen textures, giving you the freedom to explore different styles—from classic script to modern lettering.

Each brush set is tailored for a seamless digital experience, allowing for precise control and smooth flow that feels just like working with traditional tools. Have a look.

Procreate Calligraphy Brushes

Twentyletter – Procreate Calligraphy Brushes

This Procreate calligraphy brush pack offers a range of 20 smooth, easy-to-use brushes ideal for crafting calligraphy lettering for logos, illustrations, and more. Convenient for users of all skill levels, these brushes can be seamlessly imported into your Procreate brushes panel via Files App, transforming your iPad into a versatile digital art studio.

Procreate Monoline Calligraphy Brushes

This is a set of over 15 brushes specially crafted for the Procreate app. They offer a wide range of colors and neat effects like neon and rainbow in each stroke, making it the perfect tool for design, lettering, digital art, logo creation, and social media. These user-friendly brushes are compatible with Procreate 5X and earlier versions.

40+ Procreate Calligraphy & Lettering Brushes

This Procreate calligraphy brush pack provides a diverse variety of styles and textures for use in the iOS app, including lettering, calligraphy, ribbon, shawl, Japanese, modern, monoline, signature, spray, fire, and shadow brushes. It is important to note that these brushes are not compatible with Photoshop or other applications.

Firstype – Procreate Lettering Brushes

Firstype Procreate calligraphy brush set is specifically designed for beginners using the iOS app, Procreate, and contains over 20 different types of brushes including Calligraphy, Watercolour, and Blackletter. They are great for expanding your skills in lettering, calligraphy, and typography design. The package also includes six guides for lettering.

10 Procreate Lettering & Calligraphy Brushes

Another versatile set of Procreate calligraphy brushes perfect for digital lettering artisans. From refined calligraphy to playful lettering, these Procreate brushes provide a broad spectrum of possibilities, allowing your creative expression to flow effortlessly.

Procreate Blackletter Calligraphy Brush

This is a creative Procreate calligraphy brush set that has been carefully crafted for lettering artists seeking to merge the analog and digital realms.  The set comes with six uniquely designed brushes, enabling you to create vivid lettering designs, posters, flyers, and more with remarkable authenticity.

10 Lettering Brushes for Procreate

A useful Procreate brush pack for anyone interested in calligraphy. With ten distinct, smooth brushes, you can transform your iPad into a canvas for beautiful lettering. This means you get to enjoy the freedom and versatility of Procreate Brushes while achieving stunning lettering effects easily and efficiently.

Procreate Chalk Lettering Brushes

This is a unique set of Procreate calligraphy brushes designed to replicate the distinct texture of chalk strokes. They offer a wide variety of chalk brushes including coarse chalk, wet chalk, dusty chalk, and chalk eraser. Ideal for lettering and blackboard-like illustrations, they’re perfect for creating educational content, cafe menus, decorations, or lettering artwork.

Procreate Blackletter Calligraphy Brush 2

A fantastic Procreate calligraphy brush set for digital lettering enthusiasts. This versatile brush set enables users to effortlessly create analog-style artwork digitally using iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Whether it’s calligraphic designs, posters, or flyers, these handmade, high-quality brushes offer a limitless scope for your creative expression.

Procreate Lettering Brushes

This is a diverse set of brushes exclusively designed for Procreate. Their simplicity makes them a great choice for both beginners and professionals. Excellent for various tasks such as font creation, lettering, logo development, and even designing stationery, the pack includes textured, monoline, calligraphy, and signature brushes. Compatible with Procreate 5 and prior versions, they are ready for you to enjoy.

Dry Marker Brushes for Procreate

An exceptionally curated set of 15 high-quality, original brushes designed for diverse styles and effects. Ideal for crafting quotes, lettering, fonts, and graphics, these brushes also come with a bonus Procreate-specific calligraphy brush. The set, which requires an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate App to use, is designed solely for Procreate.

Photoshop Calligraphy Brushes

45 Calligraphy Photoshop Stamp Brushes

This calligraphy brush pack offers a unique touch to any digital project. They’re compatible with all versions of Photoshop and feature a high resolution of 2500 pixels. These versatile brushes are not simply tools, but creative assets that can bring a special charm to photos, print templates, and social media content.

Inktober – 44 Photoshop Brushes Pack

The Inktober Photoshop brushes pack is an eclectic set of ink brushes designed for digital artists. Inside you’ll find a diverse range of brushes perfect for line art, calligraphy, painting, as well as specialized effects like spray, wet edge, and grunge. It imitates numerous painting styles, from pen drawings to Chinese art, and includes 15 bonus textures.

50 Calligraphy Photoshop Stamp Brushes

A versatile calligraphy brush pack perfect for a variety of projects. These high-resolution brushes (2500 pixels) can be used as clipart or decorative elements in print and web-based designs, as well as on posters and cards. Included is a selection of 50 unique brushes in .ABR format and 50 isolated .PNG images.

45 Underline Photoshop Stamp Brushes

Enhance your projects with this underline Photoshop stamp brush pack, compatible with all versions of Photoshop from CS2 to CC. With a generous size of 2500 pixels, these high-resolution brushes can be a game changer in adding ornamental value to photos, print templates, and even social media content.

Illustrator Calligraphy Brushes

Illustrator Hand Lettering Brushes

This Illustrator brush pack is perfect for those who find hand-drawn typography a tad challenging. These tools are excellent for both calligraphy and drawing. Each brush has a unique texture which mimics real-life brush strokes and can be adjusted in terms of color, thickness, and length. The set includes a whopping 74 brushes, each grouped and named for easy usage.

Japan ProBrush – Illustrator Brush Pack

Japan ProBrush is an Illustrator brush pack ideal for creating Japanese-style calligraphy. This pack, compatible with Adobe Illustrator CS3 and above, features 39 high-quality digital, ink, and Asian calligraphy brushes. Included in the pack are 14 ProBrush Japan Brush, 14 ProBrush Japan Digital, and 11 ProBrush Watercolor REALISTIC brushes, providing professional designers, illustrators, and artists with versatility and precision in their digital creations.

Free Calligraphy Brushes

Free Valentine Calligraphy Photoshop Brushes

This is a collection of creative calligraphy-style stamp brushes you can use in Photoshop to craft romantic typography designs for Valentine’s Day greeting cards and various other designs. The brushes are free to download.

55 Free Calligraphy Photoshop Brushes

This free calligraphy brush pack for Photoshop includes 55 different brushes for crafting unique calligraphy lettering for your design projects. It’s free to use with commercial projects.

Free Unique Calligraphy Brushes for Photoshop

A collection of 15 unique calligraphy brushes for Photoshop. This bundle includes multiple styles of calligraphy designs to make your lettering designs look more authentic.

Free 26 Underline Tail PS Brushes

This is a collection of underline and tail brushes for Photoshop. You can use these to add a creative and decorative touch to your graphic designs. There are 26 different brushes included in this pack.

Free 20 Calligraphy Alphabet Set PS Brushes

This is a free calligraphy brush pack for Photoshop that includes the alphabet in calligraphy style. You can use this brush pack to craft beautiful calligraphy lettering without any prior experience in calligraphy art.

Retouching and enhancing portrait photos is a time-consuming task, and starting from scratch with every photo can be frustrating. Using a portrait Photoshop Action can save time, and give you a beautiful result with a few clicks. Let’s dive into some of the best portrait Photoshop Actions available today.

These Photoshop Actions help you save time and improve your workflow when editing a portrait photo. You can use them to instantly retouch photos, add makeup, enhance colors, add effects, adjust toning, and much more with just a single click.

Say hello to a faster, simpler workflow (and some impressive end results!). And if you’re looking for more advice and guidance on using these, our Photoshop Actions feature is a great place to start.

We’re also sharing our tips for editing portrait photos to help give you a head start.

Shine Ring Light Effect Photo Overlays

This is a distinct set of 15 high-resolution gold ring light overlays designed to add flawless shine and bokeh effects to your photos. Ideal for maternity portraits, holiday snaps, and more, these overlays are compatible with any software that supports layering, including Photoshop and Canva.

Ink Blur Paper Texture Photo Effect

Ink Blur is a versatile Photoshop portrait effect perfect for graphic designers, photographers, and digital artists. It elevates your photos with a unique paper texture effect adding a unique aesthetic. This high-resolution layered PSD file, requiring nothing more than Photoshop CS6 or higher, allows for easy customization on its smart object layers.

Cartoon Halftone Portrait Photoshop Action

A creative cartoon-style halftone portrait effect for Photoshop. It allows you to apply impressive effects to your photographs with just one click. Ideal for Photoshop CC and higher, it let’s you easily customize the effect to match different types of photos.

Grain Film Photo Effect PSD

An innovative Photoshop template that transforms your portrait photos with a vivid and classic vintage look. This PSD template excellently incorporates grain film effects into your photos. It caters to diverse shots, be it fashion, lifestyle, blogging, or moody product images.

Light Leaks Effect for Portraits

This is a versatile Photoshop effect meant to give images a distinctive look to your photos. It’s great for injecting energy and glamour into photos, with realistic-looking light leak effects. The template is especially effective on photos with a resolution of 1000px to 3000px and works beautifully on a variety of photo types, from fashion to blogging.

Old Memories Photo Effect PSD

This is a versatile Photoshop template designed to give your photos a vintage effect. Ideal for shots ranging from 1000 px – 3000 px resolution, this effect can be easily customized as well. It’s perfect for giving your graphic designs and photos a classic and old-school look and feel.

Prism Focus Photo Effect for Photoshop

The prism focus PSD effect enhances your photos with an energetic prism focus effect. This versatile feature transforms your images into a unique effect that’s perfect for fashion, lifestyle, blogging, and product photography. The effect is best used on photos between 1000 px and 3000 px.

Ghost Glitch Photo Effect PSD Template

This is a dynamic Photoshop template intended to transform photos with a ghost-like glitching effect. It’s versatile, effective for various photos ranging from fashion to moody product shots. For optimal results, use with photos of 1000 px – 3000 px resolution.

HDR Portrait Photo Effect PSD

A dynamic Photoshop template designed to convert your pictures into vibrant, HDR photographs. It allows you to easily add an HDR-like look to your portrait to give a more professional look and feel. For best results, apply it to photos between 1000 to 3000 px resolution.

Hotspot Remover AI Photoshop Action

This is a handy tool for photo editing and retouching. Using AI, it quickly identifies and removes any bright spots or glare from your photos, offering flawless results. Ideal for photographers and designers, it enhances the quality and speed of your work process. The effect requires the ‘Generative Fill’ feature in Adobe Photoshop versions CC 2023 and later.

Happies – Bright Portrait Photoshop Action

This collection of Photoshop actions allows you to transform your ordinary portrait photos with a bright and vibrant look. There are 10 different PS actions in this bundle especially optimized to enhance the exposure and colors of your photos with just a single click.

Fuji – Vintage Photoshop Action for Portraits

This pack also comes with high-quality Photoshop actions especially made for portrait photos. It has 10 actions that are compatible with Photoshop CS3 and higher. These effects have subtle Fuji film-style vintage looks that are ideal for classic portraits and selfies.

Movietic Aesthetic Portrait Photoshop Action

If you want to add a vintage movie-style look to your photos, this Photoshop actions bundle is for you. It instantly adds a color filter that turns your photos into stills from a vintage film. These are great for Instagram selfies as well.

Republic Aesthetic Photoshop Action for Portraits

Add a classic aesthetic look to your selfies and portrait photos with this collection of Photoshop actions. It includes 10 actions with subtle effects that will make your photos look more professional and creative.

Film Wash – Free Portrait Photoshop Action

This free Photoshop action does exactly what its name suggests. It adds a nostalgic look to your portrait photos with a washed-out film effect. The action is most suitable for outdoor photos.

Warmer – Photoshop Action for Portraits

This Photoshop action features a very bright and warm effect that completely changes the way your portraits look. It seems to work surprisingly well for outdoor portraits, especially for sunny and beach-themed photos.

Color Glitch PSD Photo Effect for Portraits

This Photoshop photo effect allows you to easily add a glitching effect to your portrait photos. It comes as a PSD template with smart object layers for easy editing. This template will help you craft amazing effects for graphic design projects.

Nostalgic – Portrait Photoshop Action

The amazing vintage-style effect features in this Photoshop action are designed by a group of professional photographers. It lets you apply an instant filter to give a nostalgic look and feel to your portrait photos.

Dreamy Haze PSD Photo Effect for Portraits

Another Photoshop photo effect template with a unique design. This effect features an effect that combines glitching and hazy effects to create a beautiful dreamy look for portraits. The PSD template is very easy to customize as well.

Free Warm & Airy Portrait Photoshop Actions

You can download this Photoshop actions pack for free to easily enhance your portraits, selfies, and Instagram photos. It includes multiple PS actions with warm and airy effects. They are ideal for optimizing outdoor photos.

Oceania – Portrait Photoshop Actions

Oceania is a collection of professionally crafted Photoshop actions you can use to optimize your portraits, travel, and social media photos. It includes 5 different actions with various color styles and effects. The actions work with Photoshop CS4 and higher.

Glamour Photography  – Portrait Photoshop Actions

This is a set of 15 different Photoshop actions that are designed for improving your fashion photography and portraits. The actions create non-destructive effects that are also easily customizable to your preference.

10 Portrait Photoshop Actions

Check out this set of 10 orange and teal Photoshop actions for portrait photography that will help you create memorable pictures in just a matter of a few minutes. It’s. a great time-saving tool that deserves a spot in your Photoshop toolkit.

Digital Portrait Photoshop Action

This digital portrait Photoshop action is a must-have for every graphic designer and photographer. It will bring out your artistic side, and help you create stunning artwork. Grab it right now!

Black & White Portrait Photoshop Actions

Our next option provides you with 10 black and white Photoshop actions that will add a touch of vintage charm to your portraits. The product comes with a step-by-step instruction manual helping you make the most of the effects.

Portrait Series Photoshop Actions

Whether you are looking to add a subtle touch or a more dramatic effect to your portraits, this collection of 10 Photoshop actions can be of great help. The actions are non-destructive and compatible with Photoshop CS4 and newer. A great collection worth having in your arsenal!

Freya – Portrait Photoshop Actions

Perfectly suited for portrait, wedding and event photography, Freya is a fully-automated set of five photoshop actions designed to improve the overall appearance and mood of your pictures. It offers gorgeous non-destructive and customizable skin tones with soft matte touch tranforming your images into stellar shots.

Master – Portrait Photoshop Action

Kickstart editing portraits with this fine-tuned and one-of-a-kind Photoshop action. It converts your photos into amazing-looking portraits in just one click and is non-destructive enabling you to get back 100% of your original photo.

Sketch Portrait Photoshop Action

Wanting to achieve a professional artistic sketch effect for your images? Look no further than our next option featuring fully customizable colors, layers and other elements. It also comes with a video tutorial to help you make the most of the pencil sketch effect.

50 Free Portrait Photoshop Actions

Give your images a beautiful finish with the collection of 50 Photoshop actions in just a couple of minutes. Its not just super easy to create stunning portrait effects but also a lot of fun to play around with all the customizable features.

Portrait Into Text Photoshop Actions

Tranform and pin your portraits to lines of relevant wording in just a couple of seconds, thanks to this remarkably unique Portrait Photoshop action that does a great job with both black and white and colored images. A great choice for people looking to go bold, and fearless with their next visual project.

6 Free Grainy Portrait Photoshop Actions

Next up we have a fantastic set of six portrait Photoshop actions that will give a nice grainy touch to your photos. These are fast editing actions and will change the mood of your images in just a few seconds. This set of actions is compatible with Photoshop CS3 to CC.

50 High Contrast Portrait Photoshop Actions

A massive bundle full of 50 different Photoshop actions. This pack includes many types of effects that help you adjust and optimize the contrast of your photos while giving them a unique look. The actions work with RAW and JPEG images.

Infrared IR – Portrait Photoshop Actions

Another collection of unique portrait Photoshop actions that feature a stylish infrared effect. This pack comes with 12 different effects that give your photos a gothic vibe with an infrared effect.

HDR Portrait Photoshop Action

Give your photos an HDR effect without sweating over endless hours to create the look from scratch. This Photoshop action allows you to bring nice HDR effects to your images in just a few clicks of the mouse. Plus, with a range of customization options you get at your fingertips, you’ll have a great time playing around with all the amazing features.

Duotone Portrait Photoshop Action

Want to make your Insta feed interesting and scroll-worthy? Check out this collection of modern, and trendy duotone Photoshop actions perfectly suited for portrait, street, and closeup photography. This freebie is up for grabs on CreativeTacos.

Oil Painting – Portrait Photoshop Actions

This collection of Photoshop actions lets you turn your photos into oil paintings. It includes 10 different Photoshop actions featuring all kinds of oil painting effects for giving a comic-book look to your portrait photos.

Free Matte Film Photoshop Actions

The film look is a popular effect widely used in portrait photography. This bundle comes with a set of Photoshop actions that features a mix of both film and matte effects that create a unique look in portraits.

The pack includes 3 different Photoshop actions with various strengths of the effect. You can apply the action with just one click and customize the effect to your preference afterward as well.

High-quality free portrait Photoshop actions are hard to find. This is one of the actions that truly stand out from the crowd as it features a professional-quality effect you can download and use with both personal and commercial projects for free.

10 Free Matte Photoshop Actions

This is a bundle of free Photoshop actions featuring matte effects. It includes 10 different effects you can use to improve the tone and mood of your portraits.

Scarlet – Fantasy Photoshop Actions

Scarlet is a creative duo of Photoshop actions that will allow you to create a fantasy film-like effect in your portrait photos. The actions work best with outdoor photos with natural sunlight. And they are compatible with Photoshop CS4 and higher.

Nighty – Portrait Photoshop Actions

Give your photos a dark and gritty look and feel using this set of Photoshop actions. This pack includes 9 different actions featuring various effects. They are perfect for improving all types of photography.

Wanderlust – Portrait & Lifestyle Photoshop Actions

Wanderlust is a set of 3 unique Photoshop actions that are designed to help enhance portraits and lifestyle photos. These actions will optimize your photos to adjust the mood and tone and make them look more professional.

Free Christmas Portait Photoshop Actions

Brighten up your Christmas portraits, and winter photographs in just one click with the help of this carefully crafted set of Photoshop actions. The actions are high-quality, and non-destructive allowing you to retain 100% of the original photo.

Bouquet – Wedding Actions for Photoshop

Bouquet is a set of Photoshop actions specially designed for wedding photography. They work well with all types of wedding photos, including outdoor landscapes and portraits. It features 6 different actions with various effects.

Free Matte Photoshop Actions

This is a free Photoshop action that allows you to give a stylish film-like matte look to your portrait photos. This action works with Photoshop CS3 and higher, including Photoshop CC.

Free HDR Photoshop Actions

A bundle of free HDR Photoshop actions that will make your portraits look as if they were shot with a high-quality DSLR camera. It includes 3 different presets you can apply with just one-click.

Watercolor – Portrait Photoshop Actions

If you’re not a fan of oil painting effects, you can use this pack of Photoshop actions to make your photos look like watercolor paintings. The actions are compatible with Photoshop CS3 and higher.

Pinhole Halftone – Portrait Photoshop Actions

This collection of Photoshop actions comes with 2 different versions you can use for both low and high-resolution images. The actions create an old-school pinhole halftone effect.

Duotone  – Portrait Photoshop Actions

The duotone effect is quite popular among all kinds of graphic designers. This pack comes with multiple duotone effects you can use to give an authentic duotone look to your photos almost instantly.

Free Moody Portrait Photoshop Actions

Warm, chocolaty, and moody, these Photoshop actions will add high-contrast, and professional tones to your pictures, taking them to a new level of brilliance. The actions are non-destructive and provide you with an excellent way to perfect your everyday photos.

Free Soft Bright Portrait Photoshop Actions

Here we have a set of Photoshop actions for portrait photography that will brighten up your shots, and give them a soft, dream-like glowy look. The actions can be fully customized to match your vision, and are computable with Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, and CC.

Tone Collection – CameraRaw Portrait Photoshop Actions

This is a set of filters you can use to quickly adjust and optimize the toning of your portrait photos. The pack includes presets for Photoshop actions as well as Camera RAW. It’s compatible with Photoshop CS5 and higher.

Chocolate – Portrait Photoshop Actions

This bundle of Photoshop actions is perfect for fashion and glamor portraits and photoshoots. It comes with a set of 10 unique Photoshop actions that create unique filter effects.

Free Tone Filter Photoshop Actions

A set of 3 unique Photoshop actions that feature high-quality toning effects. These will help you instantly improve the tone of your portraits without an effort.

Film Look Free Photoshop Action

With this free Photoshop action, you’ll be able to make your portrait photos look like a scene out of a movie. The action is compatible with all types of images and its customizable as well.

Cinnamon Portrait Actions

This bundle comes with a set of 6 unique toning Photoshop actions with a fantasy effect. It’s ideal to be used with portrait and fashion photos taken in outdoor natural light settings. You can the actions to adjust the photos taken in low-contrast settings, adding an atmospheric tone, and more.

Caramel Wedding Photoshop Action

Caramel is a pack of Photoshop actions especially designed for wedding portraits. It comes with 2 different actions to improve your post-processing workflow by quickly adjusting the photos taken in natural light and outdoors. The actions also generate adjustment layers for customizing the effects to your preference.

22 Soft Pastel Photoshop Actions

This bundle of Photoshop actions includes several stylish pastel effects for adding a colorful and hipster vibe to your portrait photos. It comes with 22 actions, all of which are non-destructive and fully-customizable.

Frequency Separation Photoshop Actions

Frequency separation is a technique used in Photoshop when airbrushing the skin of portrait photographs. This actions pack automate that process to get it done with just one-click. The frequency separation action is available in several different styles and versions, including 8-Bit, 16-Bit, and 32-Bit versions.

Double Light Photoshop Action

This stunning Photoshop action is perfect for adding a unique visual effect to your portrait photos and posters. The double light effect mixes two colors to give your portraits a sci-fi themed vibe. The action allows you to choose from 10 different color FX settings as well.

Hello Baby! Collection

When talking about portrait photography, baby portraits is something we can never forget. This pack of Photoshop actions is made specifically for making your baby photos extra adorable. It includes over 40 unique Photoshop actions for enhancing your baby photos, including foundation actions, retouching actions, workflow actions, artistic toning, and more.

Peony Photoshop Action

Peony is a set of 2 Photoshop actions made for outdoor and fashion portraits. It allows you to instantly adjust and enhance photos by giving them a rich toning effect. It will even give your dull photos a better color depth, especially for greens and flowers.

Bohemia Photoshop Actions

This bundle of Photoshop actions includes 5 unique actions that help you to achieve a boho-style effect for your portrait and fashion photos. It’s perfect for giving your photos a hipster look.

Suburbia Photoshop Actions

Suburbia is a collection of Photoshop actions that will help adjust the toning of your portrait and outdoor photos. It includes 6 different actions for giving rustic, soft, contrast, and other styles of effects for your photography.

Beach Vibes Photoshop Actions

If you’re a photographer or a designer who works with lots of beach photography, this bundle of Photoshop actions will come in handy. It includes 21 presets for enhancing and adding visual effects for your beach and bright light outdoor photos.

Gypsy Portrait Photoshop Actions

This collection comes with 4 different Photoshop actions for giving cinematic effects for your portrait photos. You can use the actions to give moody and cold effects as well as adjusting the tone of your photos.

Redwood Fairytale Photoshop Actions

Redwood is a set of 3 unique Photoshop actions designed to give your outdoor portrait photos a fantasy-themed effect. It includes a morning haze effect, a twilight haze effect, and an evening sunset effect.

Photo Paint Action

This is a collection of 5 Photoshop actions that allows you to turn your portrait photos into paintings. Each action in this pack will give a different style of a painting effect with various brush stroke intensity. It also includes a sharpening action and 3 noise actions as an added bonus.

Tallgrass Photoshop Action

Tallgrass comes with 2 Photoshop actions for enhancing your portrait photos, especially outdoor and travel photography. It will help enhance the color depth and tune the greens to achieve a stunning visual effect.

Charcoal Action

This Photoshop action pack includes 3 different actions for achieving the perfect black and white effect for your portrait photos. It will allow you to enhance your photos with a soft charcoal black and white effect to give them a retro and classic vibe.

Watercolor Action

Another Photoshop action that turns turn your photos into watercolor paintings. This action allows you to choose from 5 different color options to give a realistic watercolor painting effect to your portrait photos.

Bleach Action

Bleach action comes in 2 variations that allow you to instantly improve your portrait photos to bring out more detail and color. It’s specially designed for photos taken in studios and photos with low exposure.

Cinematic Photoshop Actions

This is a bundle of 25 Photoshop actions, which includes 19 cinematic effects actions and 6 toning adjustment actions. The effects in this pack have been designed inspired by movies such as the 300, Life Of Pi, Matrix, and Skyfall to help you achieve the same movie-like effects.

50 Film Noir PS Actions Bundle

A massive bundle of 50 different Photoshop actions containing different styles of cinematic and film noir effects. All of the actions in this pack are crafted to perfection by an award-winning photographer. It includes 30 cinematic color enhancing actions and 20 B&W color actions.

Retouch – Portrait Effects Photoshop Action

Wanting an all-in-one Photoshop Action that can meet all your photo editing needs? The Retouch Bundle has you covered. With 50 Portrait Photoshop Actions, you can adjust tone, soften skin, refine details, and much more without having any prior experience with the software.

Golden – Photoshop Portrait Actions

If you are a blogger looking for a set of Photoshop Actions that can help your everyday pictures make an impression, our next option is your best bet. This bundle of actions and presets has virtually everything you might need to achieve with your portraits. It’s compatible with both Photoshop and Lightroom.

Flowerage – Photoshop Portrait Actions

Here we have a set of 24 portrait effects Photoshop Actions that are exclusively created for natural light portraiture, wedding, and art photography. The presets are fully customizable and compatible with both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

Digital Painting – Portrait Effects Photoshop Action

Transform your photos into digital paintings with our next Photoshop Action that contains exhaustive techniques and brushes, editable masks, canvas colors, backgrounds, and a range of other super amazing features.

3 Tips for Editing Portrait Photos

If you’re new to editing portrait photos, these tips will help you get a better understanding of how the editing process works.

1. Try to Use RAW Images

As you know, JPG is a file format that uses compression to try and reduce the size of your images while preserving the quality of the image. As a result, the JPG file format sacrifices some data and quality elements captured by the sensor of your camera in exchange for convenience.

This is why most professional photographers use the RAW file format. This format captures photos in much higher quality without affecting the quality of the image whatsoever. Even most modern smartphones now have the option to enable RAW file format.

Use it whenever you can to capture high-quality images so when you edit them in Photoshop, you’ll have a much better and uncompressed image to work with.

2. Master the Art of Toning

Toning is the process of adjusting the color balance, brightness, and contrast, and saturation levels to achieve the perfect balance in your photos. This process usually differs from one photo to another based on certain conditions like lighting conditions and camera settings. When it comes to portraits, this also applies to skin toning as well.

Whichever process you follow to set the mood with toning, always remember to use adjustment layers in Photoshop to create non-destructive adjustments. This way you’ll be able to easily edit or revert your changes however you like.

3. Don’t Overuse the Healing Brush

Healing brush is a handy tool in Photoshop that is widely used when editing portrait photos to get rid of things like pimples, freckles, and more. However, most designers make the mistake of taking it too far and using these tools to make photos look unrealistically flawless.

This is not what Photoshop is made for. Remember to preserve the natural look of the portraits while you improve the photos. Know your limits especially when using tools like healing brush and clone stamp.

The Photoshop actions in our list are designed to automate some of these basic adjustments. They are quite useful if you’re new to photo editing.

In this article, I try to summarize the best practices mentioned by various accessibility experts and their work (like this, this, and this) into a single article that’s easy to read, understand, and apply.

Let’s begin.

What are tooltips?

Tooltips are used to provide simple text hints for UI controls. Think of them as tips for tools. They’re basically little bubbles of text content that pop up when you hover over an unnamed control (like the bell icon in Stripe).

If you prefer more of a formal definition, Sarah Highley provides us with a pretty good one:

A “tooltip” is a non-modal (or non-blocking) overlay containing text-only content that provides supplemental information about an existing UI control. It is hidden by default, and becomes available on hover or focus of the control it describes.

She further goes on to say:

That definition could even be narrowed down even further by saying tooltips must provide only descriptive text.

This narrowed definition is basically (in my experience) how every accessibility expert defines tooltips:

• A tooltip is a popover.
• Tooltips must not contain interactive content.

Heydon Pickering takes things even further, saying: If you’re thinking of adding interactive content (even an ok button), you should be using dialog instead.

In his words:

You’re thinking of dialogs. Use a dialog.

Two kinds of tooltips

Tooltips are basically only used for two things:

1. Labeling an icon
2. Providing a contextual description of an icon

Heydon separates these cleanly into two categories, “Primary Label” and “Auxiliary description” in his Inclusive Components article on tooltips and toggletips).

Labeling

If your tooltip is used to label an icon — using only one or two words — you should use the aria-labelledby attribute to properly label it since it is attached to nothing else on the page that would help identify it.

<button aria-labelledby="notifications"> ... </button>
<div role="tooltip" id="notifications">Notifications</div> 

You could provide contextual information, like stating the number of notifications, by giving a space-separated list of ids to aria-labelledby.

<button aria-labelledby="notifications-count notifications-label">  
  <!-- bell icon here --> 
  <span id="notifications-count">3</span>
</button>  

<div role="tooltip" id="notifications-label">Notifications</div>

Providing contextual description

If your tooltip provides a contextual description of the icon, you should use aria-describedby. But, when you do this, you also need to provide an accessible name for the icon.

In this case, Heydon recommends including the label as the text content of the button. This label would be hidden visually from sighted users but read for screen readers.

Then, you can add aria-describedby to include the auxiliary description.

<button class="notifications" aria-describedby="notifications-desc">  
  <!-- icon for bell here --> 
  <span id="notifications-count">3</span> 
  <span class="visually-hidden">Notifications</span>
</button>  

<div role="tooltip" id="notifications-desc">View and manage notifications settings</div> 

Here, screen readers would say “3 notifications” first, followed by “view and manage notifications settings” after a brief pause.

Additional tooltip dos and don’ts

Here are a couple of additional points you should be aware of:

Do:

• Use aria-labellebdy or aria-describedby attributes depending on the type of tooltip you’re building.
• Use the tooltip role even if it doesn’t do much in screen readers today, because it may extend accessibility support for some software.
• Open tooltips on mouseover or focus, and close them on mouseout or blur.
• Allow a mouse user to move their mouse over the tooltip content without dismissing the tooltip.
• Allow a keyboard user to close the tooltip on the Escape button, per WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.13.

Don’t:

• Don’t use the title attribute. Much has been said about this so I shall not repeat them.
• Don’t use the aria-haspopup attribute with the tooltip role because aria-haspopup signifies interactive content while tooltip should contain non-interactive content.
• Don’t include essential content inside tooltips because some screen readers may ignore aria-labelledby or aria-describedby. (It’s rare, but possible.)

Tooltip limitations and alternatives

Tooltips are inaccessible to most touch devices because:

• users cannot hover over a button on a touch device, and
• users cannot focus on a button on a touch device.

The best alternative is not to use tooltips, and instead, find a way to include the label or descriptive text in the design.

If the “tooltip” contains a lot of content — including interactive content — you may want to display that information with a Toggletip (or just use a <dialog> element).

Heydon explains toggletips nicely and concisely:

Toggletips exist to reveal information balloons. Often they take the form of little “i” icons.

These informational icons should be wrapped within a <button> element. When opened, screen readers can announce the text contained in it through a live region with the status role.

<span class="tooltip-container"> 
  <button type="button" aria-label="more info">i</button> 
  <span role="status">This clarifies whatever needs clarifying</span>
</span>

Speaking anymore about toggletips detracts this article from tooltips so I’ll point you to Heydon’s “Tooltips and Toggletips” article if you’re interested in chasing this short rabbit hole.

That’s all you need to know about tooltips and their current best practices!

Further reading

• Clarifying the Relationship Between Popovers and Dialogs (Zell Liew)
• Tooltips and Toggletips (Inclusive Components)
• Tooltips in the time of WCAG 2.1 (Sarah Higley)
• Short note on aria-label, aria-labelledby, and aria-describedby (Léonie Watson)
• Some Hands-On with the HTML Dialog Element (Chris Coyier)

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Tooltip Best Practices originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

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Ever notice how a standout video starts strong, pulling you in within those first few seconds? That’s the power of a well-crafted intro. For anyone on a mission to up their video game—be it editors, YouTubers, influencers, or marketers—your choice of intro templates for Premiere Pro is a golden ticket to making an impression that sticks. And here’s the thing: crafting an effective video intro is less about intricate animations and more about hooking your audience right from the get-go.

Whether you’re after free intro templates for Premiere Pro or exploring some next-level options, the perfect intro template sets the tone, adds consistency to your brand, and builds that initial connection with viewers. Just picture your intro as the warm handshake before the deep dive into your content.

In this list, you’ll find a mix of visually striking and adaptable templates designed to make your content stand out—without overcomplicating things. From sleek typography-driven designs to high-energy motion graphics, these templates aim to elevate your content in a way that’s simple, effective, and easy to use.

Underlined Animation Title Premiere Pro Template

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Corporate Opener Premiere Pro Template

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Travel Vlog Intro Title Template

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Fashion Glitch Opener

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Premiere Pro Title Template

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Advance Titles Mogrt Template for Adobe Premiere

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Split Frame Opener

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Lyrics Titles Premiere Pro Template

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Clean Title Animation Pack for Premiere Pro

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Intro Showreel for Premiere Pro Template (Premium)

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Animated Titles Templates for Premiere Pro

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Titles Kinetic Typography Premiere Pro Template

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Modern Intro Premiere Pro Template (Premium)

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Nature Intro Transition Template

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Premiere Pro Sports Intro Template (Premium)

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Street Opener

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Intro – Paper Cut Premiere Pro Templates (Premium)

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Media Replacement Fitness Intro Template

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Halloween Intro Skeleton Dance for Premiere Pro (Premium)

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Sport Action Opener

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The post Top 10 Intro Templates for Premiere Pro to Boost Your Videos appeared first on CSS Author.

Final Cut Pro is one of the best tools you can use for video editing, especially if you’re a Mac user. With the help of templates and plugins, you can create amazing video projects using the software.

There are so many amazing Final Cut Pro templates and plugins out there. And we handpicked some of the best templates for this list. You’ll find many different types of plugins, title templates, transition effects, social media templates, and much more in the collection.

We’ve included a couple of premium options, but the best part is that almost all these templates and plugins are free to download. You can even use some of the templates with commercial projects for free. Most of the templates are also compatible with Apple Motion as well.

Have a look and start downloading.

Modern Typography Titles Pack for FCPX

Whether you’re a professional video editor or a YouTuber working on vlogs, you’ll often have to work with different styles of videos. These videos also require different types of title designs. This bundle is made just for creators like you to help you tackle different types of projects. It includes many different types of title scenes that are compatible with both Final Cut and Apple Motion.

Dynamic Opener – Final Cut Pro Intro Template

Looking for a modern and dynamic opener for a client project? Then this template is perfect for you. It features multiple styles of dynamic openers with attractive animations you can use to add creative title scenes to your video projects.

30 Motion Titles – Apple Motion & Final Cut Pro Templates

If you’re looking to create a more professional title scene with a minimalist design, this bundle of templates will be a better choice for you. It includes 30 different title designs that can be customized to your preference. They will work great on both Apple Motion and Final Cut Pro X.

30 Corporate Titles – Final Cut Pro X Templates

Featuring a collection of minimal and clean title designs, this Final Cut Pro title templates collection is made to cover all sorts of business and corporate videos. It includes 30 different title scenes with various animation styles. As well as lower-thirds templates. You can easily change the colors, text, and parameters however you like.

Colorful Liquid Slideshow Final Cut Pro Template

This colorful Final Cut Pro slideshow template will help you design beautiful presentations for various types of video projects from adverts to social media promos and more. There are multiple styles of slide layouts in this template with liquid-style shapes and animations. And you can fully customize them to your preference.

Smooth Letter Slideshow Free Final Cut Pro Template

You can download this Final Cut Pro template for free to design elegant and stylish slideshows for modern businesses. It has a set of dynamic slides with 14 placeholders for images or videos. There are also placeholders for text and titles too.

Fashion Photo Slideshow Free Final Cut Pro Template

This FCP slideshow template can be used to design modern and cool presentations for fashion and design-related topics. You can use it to make quick promo videos for social media as well. The template is free to download and use.

Web Promotions Free Final Cut Pro Template

If you’re working on a promotional video to advertise your brand or product online, this free Final Cut Pro template will help you make an attractive video. It features 8 unique scenes with trendy animations, 12 media placeholders, and 48 text placeholders.

Ransom Notes – Free Final Cut Pro Title Template

This is a fun and creative title template for Final Cut Pro that features letters with paper cutout styles. It makes the title look like a ransom note. The template is free to download.

Free Fashion Type Photo Presentation FCPX

This is a stylish slideshow template for Final Cut Pro that allows you to create trendy photo slideshow videos to promote fashion and apparel brands. It’s ideal for other types of videos too. You just have to make a few adjustments here and there.

Free Dynamic Title Final Cut Pro Template

This is a dynamic and creative title template for Final Cut Pro. It features several different styles of bold and attractive title designs available in multiple aspect ratios. All free to download and use.

Free Gradient Shape Title for Final Cut Pro

Another colorful and stylish title template for Final Cut Pro. This template is also free to download and it features a modern design filled with shapes and colors. It’s ideal for business promo videos.

Free Painter Style Lower Third FCPX

This is a free lower-third template for Final Cut Pro. It features a creative design with painting-themed elements. The background of the text has a paint-brush-like texture to give it a more unique look and feel.

Free Cut-Off Title Box for Final Cut Pro

This title template for Final Cut Pro comes with a modern design with a full-screen layout. It shows your title as if it’s been cut off by the screen. And you get to fully customize the text, font, and colors to your preference too.

Free Polaroid Style Slideshow FCPX

This free Final Cut Pro slideshow template is perfect for creating a simple and fun photo slideshow. It features a polaroid-style slide design with multiple variations to choose from.

Free Creative Text Line Story FCPX

With this free Final Cut Pro template, you can create a stylish and modern Story to promote your Instagram channel. It features an easily editable layout with a text and video placeholder.

Free Boxed Shape Logo Reveal FCPX

Another free Final Cut Pro template for adding a simple logo reveal to your videos. It has a minimalist design with a boxed-shaped text logo placeholder. It’s perfect for business and creative videos.

Free Broadcaster Style Lower Third

If you want to add simple lower-thirds to your videos to add a professional look, this free Final Cut Pro lower-third template is perfect for you. It has three lines of text with editable colors and fonts.

Free Colorful Glitch Opener FCPX

Use this free Final Cut Pro template to create a trendy opener for your videos with a glitching effect. You can easily replace the background video and customize the text as well.

Handwriting Titles – Free Final Cut Pro Title Template

Make your video titles look like handwritten text with the help of this free Final Cut Pro template. It features a creative lettering design and animations to make intros and title scenes look more creative.

Free Lyrics Video Creator 2 For Final Cut Pro

This is a must-have template for creating music videos and lyric videos in Final Cut Pro. It makes things much easier to add lyrics to your music videos. And it’s free to use.

Free Text Message Plugin For Final Cut Pro

Add text blocks to your videos in the style of text messages. This free Final Cut Pro template lets you add simple text blocks that look like messages popping up on the screen.

Camera Movements – Free Final Cut Pro Template

This free Final Cut Pro template includes multiple studio-quality camera movement effects to make your videos look more professional and unique. They are easy to use and perfect for enhancing all types of videography.

Snap To It – Free Final Cut Pro Instagram Story Templates

You can use this FCP template to design amazing Instagram Story clips to attract more attention. It includes 5 unique Instagram Story templates with creative animations, effects, and colorful designs. You can fully customize them to change colors and media too.

Wet Ink Opener – Free Final Cut Pro Template

This is a unique opener template for Final Cut Pro that features creative wet ink-style transition effects. It will allow you to create beautiful openers for photo album videos as well as for making channel intros and logo stings.

Light Leak Motion – Free Final Cut Pro Opener Template

Want to add a unique opener to your social media promo video? Then be sure to grab this free Final Cut Pro template. It features a simple design with a light leak effect that opens to titles and logo reveals.

Shape Filter Opener – Free Final Cut Pro Template

This free Final Cut Pro template is perfect for making openers for corporate business and event promo videos. It features a stylish animated shape with bold headings.

Fullscreen Glitch – Free Final Cut Pro Title Template

Make a big and bold title scene for your YouTube and creative videos with this free Final Cut Pro title template. It includes a fullscreen title design featuring a glitch effect.

YouTube Subscribe – Free Final Cut Pro Template

You can use this free Final Cut Pro template to add a subscribe notification bar to your YouTube videos. It’s fully animated and includes space for adding channel branding and profile icons as well.

10 Free Openers for Final Cut Pro X

This is a collection of 10 openers for Final Cut Pro X. It includes several attractive intro designs you can use to create title scenes for your videos. Each opener can be easily customized to your preference. And the templates are compatible with FCPX 10.4.7 and higher.

Company Profiles Free Final Cut Pro Template

This free Final Cut Pro template includes 6 fully animated slides for showcasing your company and team. It’s ideal for making company profile videos for startups and small businesses.

Free Lightning Elements Pack for Final Cut Pro

Lightning effects are commonly used in YouTube and social media videos to make content more entertaining. This free Final Cut Pro template pack gives you 12 different lightning effects to help make your video more fun and entertaining.

Free Creative Instagram Stories Final Cut Pro Templates

You can use this Final Cut Pro template pack to create professional-looking Instagram stories to generate more engagement. It includes 8 free Instagram story templates with animations and editable designs.

Free App Promo Video Template for Final Cut Pro

This free Final Cut Pro template is perfect for making promo videos for showcasing your mobile apps and features. The video template includes multiple slides with different styles of animations.

Free Animated YouTube End Screen for Final Cut Pro

Add a simple and animated end screen for your YouTube videos with this free Final Cut Pro template. It features a gradient color background with an easily customizable design.

mVertical Free Final Cut Pro Plugin

This Final Cut Pro plugin will be quite useful for social media content creators. It allows you to easily adjust your vertically shot videos for a wide-angle view by adding a blurred background.

mVertigo Free Dolly Zoom Effects for FCPX

With this free Final Cut Pro effect, you can add a cool dolly zoom effect to your videos. You can even use it on photos to create amazing animations. It works simply by drag and drop and offers controls for customization as well.

Free Adjustment Layer Plugin for Final Cut Pro X

A free adjustment layer kit for Final Cut Pro. Using this freebie, you can easily color grade videos to add a cinematic visual style to stock footage. It works with Final Cut Pro X 10.4 and higher.

10 Free Smooth Final Cut Pro Transitions

This is a collection of free transitions for Final Cut Pro. It features 10 different transition effects with a variety of styles. You can use them with both professional and creative videos.

Free Final Cut Pro Slideshow Template

If you’re working on a slideshow design in Final Cut Pro, this free template will help you design a professional slide without effort. It features a clean and modern design with fully customizable elements.

Free Pixel Grid Glitch Promo Final Cut Pro Template

You can use this free Final Cut Pro template to create a cool promo video. It features a colorful glitch effect with unique transition animations. Of course, you can fully customize the design to your preference as well.

Free Social Media Links for Final Cut Pro X

Direct your audience to your Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Youtube handles, and boost your social media presence with the help of this remarkably unique Final Cut Pro template available for you to download at no cost at all. Grab it now!

Self Resizing Texts – Free FCPX Templates

A creatively animated text template featuring a text resizing effect. This template is perfect for showcasing quotes and descriptions, especially for social media videos. It’s compatible with all video sizes including square, portrait, and Instagram stories as well.

Cyberpunk Effects – Free Final Cut Pro Template

This bundle includes 4 unique transition effects featuring various Cyberpunk-style designs. There are glitch animations, neon lights, and everything you need to add a futuristic Cyberpunk vibe to your videos.

Free Animated Grids Final Cut Pro Template

You can use this free FCP template to create a grid animation scene for your video. It includes 20 grid animations that are ideal for everything from photo slideshows to business showcase videos and much more.

Free Final Cut Pro Bouncy Text Animations

Next up, we have a free Final Cut Pro template that equips you with 30 in and out bouncy text animations, ensuring you never run out of choices when it comes to sprucing up your footage. This template is a must-have in an FCPX editor’s toolkit.

Sketch Reveal Free Final Cut Pro Template

Add a cartoon sketch-style transition animation to your videos using this free FCP template. It also comes with 7 title placeholders, 7 logo reveals, and 6 transition effects packed into one bundle. All for free.

Free Text Message Templates for Final Cut Pro

You can use this free template to create a text messaging scene with creative animations and video content. It’s perfect for creating fun and entertaining videos for social media content and promotions.

Music Player – Free Final Cut Pro Template

If you upload audio content on video platforms like YouTube and Tiktok, use this template to add a video player to your song compilations and soundtrack videos. It’s free to use and easily customizable with Final Cut Pro X.

Free Final Cut Pro Fast Zoom Transitions

If you’re looking for some cool zoom transitions to add to your videos, this free Final Cut Pro template is well worth checking out. It comes with 7 dynamic zoom rotation in and out transitions with incredibly unique filters that are sure to boost the overall appeal of your promo, movie, or presentation.

Silhouette Openings – Free FCPX Templates

Create a stylish silhouette-style title scene with this free FCP template. It comes in 3 different aspect ratios including portrait and square. You can use it in both Final Cut Pro X and Apple Motion 5.

Simple Transitions – Free Final Cut Pro Template

If you’re tired of using the same old default transitions in Final Cut Pro, these transition effects will definitely come in handy. This pack features a set of creative transition effects you can add to your own video projects. The effect is customizable and it’s available in different styles as well.

Free Final Cut Pro Unique Typography

Ideal for fashion events, promos, slideshows, and Youtube videos, this bundle of 14 stylishly designed animated titles should be at the top of your list when looking for the best free Final Cut Pro templates. We recommend you take this resource for a spin!

Free Final Cut Pro 3D White Logo

If you’re after a neat, and minimal logo template that comes without any bells and whistles, this 3D design is the one to go for. This template can be used as a quick introduction to your videos and comes with various placeholders making customization a piece of cake for you.

MixKit Final Cut Logo Reveal Templates

Give your brand the attention it deserves in your next video project, by incorporating a logo reveal from this collection of 9 free logo templates for Final Cut Pro. Professionally designed by talented creators, each template on Mixkit is free to download and use in your next commercial project. Simply add your logo and brand colors to easily make these templates your own.

Glitch Sport – Free Final Cut Pro Transitions

Sports and workout videos need to feature more energetic and trendy transitions that attract the right audience. This is a pack of free transitions you can use in Final Cut Pro to achieve that goal. The bundle includes a set of stylish transitions with 10 editable layers covered with a glitching effect. Perfect for your YouTube videos.

Beautiful Slideshow – Free Final Cut Pro Template

Sometimes a simple slideshow design can go a long way to make your video albums and photo slideshows look more unique and professional. This template has the same vibe. It features a simple slideshow design featuring light leaks. There are 10 image placeholders and 10 text layers you can easily edit to your preference.

Bright Summer – Free Final Cut Pro Slideshow

Looking for a more colorful and trendy slideshow template? Then grab this free Final Cut Pro template. It comes with 17 media placeholders where you can feature both photos and videos. It’s easily customizable and it’s perfect for making clips and slideshows for social media.

Movie Pop – Free Final Cut Pro X Title Plugin

Movie Pop is an amazing free plugin you can use with Final Cut Pro X. Using the plugin, you can create incredible title scenes for your videos, just like the ones you see in Hollywood movies. The plugin is also quite easy to use. The download page has links to tutorials as well.

Template Pop – 24 Free Final Cut Pro X Titles

Template Pop is a collection of Final Cut Pro title templates you can use for free with your video projects. This bundle includes 24 different title designs featuring various styles of scenes, angles, and styles. You can edit each template to change text and colors to your preference.

Sign Pop – 50 Free Animated Icons for FCP

This is a bundle full of creative and animated icons for Final Cut Pro. These adorable icons are perfect for adding a bit of creativity and quirkiness to your YouTube and Instagram clips. They are also great for making kid-friendly videos. This pack includes 50 different animated icons.

Photo Slideshow – Free Final Cut Pro Template

Using this free Final Cut Pro template, you’ll be able to create an old-school photo slideshow. It features Polaroid-style media placeholders that flip down to reveal the next slide. It includes 14 media placeholders and it works with both FCP and Apple Motion.

Free Final Cut Pro Intro Templates

Looking for an intro template to create a modern opening scene for your videos? Then this template is perfect for you. It features a stylish design with a creative animation. You can use it as an intro scene or even a title scene. It’s suitable for corporate and business videos as well.

12 Free Animated Call-Outs for FCP & Apple Motion

Callouts can be a great feature you can add to your product promotion videos to describe product features. With this free Final Cut Pro template, you can add professional-looking callouts to your own videos without an effort. It actually comes with 12 different styles of callout designs and you can use them in Apple Motion or FCP.

Live – Free Title & Lower Thirds for Final Cut Pro

With this collection of Final Cut Pro templates, you’ll be able to craft both titles and lower-thirds for your videos with ease. It includes a stylish title template and a lower-third template. Both feature modern designs with easily customizable text and colors.

Cartoon FX – Free Final Cut Pro Effects

This is a bundle full of amazing effects you can add to your videos in Final Cut Pro. It features a set of cartoon-style visual effects. When used properly, they’ll add a unique look to your videos. It includes multiple styles of effects suitable for different types of videos.

Social Media Slideshow – Final Cut Pro Template Free

Just as the name suggests, this Final Cut Pro template features a slideshow design that’s most suitable for social media videos. It includes a stylish slideshow with multiple image placeholders for featuring your photos. You can customize it using FCP or Apple Motion.

10 Basic Lower Thirds – Free Final Cut Pro Templates

If you’re a YouTuber or a social media influencer, you’ll find this collection of lower thirds templates to be quite useful. This pack includes 10 lower-third templates with various styles of designs. They are perfect for adding simple titles for different kinds of videos.

10 Free Flat Transitions for Final Cut Pro

This bundle includes a collection of very colorful and beautiful transition effects featuring flat color designs. There are circles, squares, and many other styles of transition styles. You can use them with various videos to add more entertaining transitions.

Tile Pop – Flipping Tile Free FCP Transition

Tile Pop is a free transitions template for Final Cut Pro. It features a very stylish effect that uses a tile flipping animation to transition from one scene to the next. The effect is available in multiple styles as well.

50 Free Animated Backgrounds for Final Cut Pro

Coming up with a stylish background for various scenes in your videos can be tough when you have a blank canvas. But, with the help of this pack of backgrounds, you won’t have to worry about it again. This bundle includes 50 unique backgrounds with animated gradients. And it’s totally free.

4 Essential Free Titles & Lower Thirds for FCP

Whether you’re working on a corporate video, a casual social media clip, YouTube video, or even a hipster-style fashion video, this pack of Final Cut Pro templates has titles and lower-thirds to cover all those types of videos and more. It’s fully customizable and comes with in and out animations as well.

Free Instagram Stories Final Cut Pro Templates

Looking for a way to create unique Instagram stories to stand out from the crowd? Then use this free Final Cut Pro template kit to create attractive Instagram stories. This pack includes multiple Insta story templates in different aspect ratios to fit all types of screens.

Super Starter Kit – Free Final Cut Pro Templates

If you’re new to video editing or just getting started on YouTube, this starter kit is perfect for you. It’s a complete kit that includes many different kinds of Final Cut Pro templates. Such as transitions, titles, lower-thirds, Instagram stories, and much more for creating all kinds of videos.

Social Titles – Free FCP Title Templates

This is a collection of modern title templates for Final Cut Pro. It includes 12 different title scenes fully animated to fit modern videos. The titles are especially suitable for social media video clips for adding quotes as well as for YouTube videos.

YouTube Like Notification – Free FCP Template

Getting your viewers to click subscribe and hit the notification bell on YouTube is not easy. Maybe adding small visual aid could help convince your fans. Use this template to add a YouTube Like and subscribe animation to your videos. You can easily remove the background of this clip to add the icons as an overlay on your videos.

Check out our best Final Cut Pro title templates collection to create a great title scene for your videos.

B2B ecommerce is a thriving industry. Growing at a rate of over 10% each year, B2B ecommerce will generate over $3 billion in sales by 2027.

However, no matter how familiar you are with B2C (business-to-consumer) ecommerce, selling to businesses is an entirely different beast.

I wanted to find out how exactly B2B ecommerce strategies differ from B2C ones, the different types of B2B ecommerce channels, and how to successfully market a B2B business, so I talked to the people who know it best.

Here’s how to get your B2B ecommerce strategy right, according to industry experts.

Table of Contents

• What is B2B ecommerce?
• Types of B2B Ecommerce
• B2B Ecommerce vs. B2C Ecommerce
• 3 Top B2B Ecommerce Marketing Strategies
• B2B Ecommerce Examples

B2B Ecommerce vs. B2C Ecommerce

There’s more than just a single-letter difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce. Everything from sales to customer acquisition to ecommerce trends is different when you’re selling to businesses online.

To better understand how B2B ecommerce differs — and can be more challenging — I spoke to a few experts.

Buying Cycle

For starters, the B2B ecommerce buying cycle is much longer than B2C.

Steve Hutt, the founder of eCommerceFastlane, suggests the process can stretch anywhere from three to nine months, depending on the industry. There are several reasons for this.

For one, B2B ecommerce involves multiple decision-makers. Even if you’re only in contact with one person, they need to get buy-in from their team.

Instead of selling to a single customer with a single need, you’re essentially selling to a team of people who may have multiple challenges to address. The approval process can take time on their end, which means B2B sellers also need to be flexible.

“This extended timeline requires patience and a strategic approach to nurturing leads,” says Hutt.

Order Value

Another key difference is the average order value (AOV). When you’re dealing with higher-priced goods or services or bulk orders through wholesale, each sale carries more weight. Where sales volume might be the goal in B2C ecommerce, order value is prioritized in B2B ecommerce sales.

“According to recent industry data, the average B2B order value sits at $491, compared to the average B2C order of $147,” explains Hutt. “This higher value reflects the bulk purchasing common in B2B transactions and underscores the importance of each sale.”

Pricing

Similarly, pricing is also a major difference between B2B ecommerce and B2C. B2C customers typically expect a straightforward, fixed price on whatever they’re purchasing, whereas B2B pricing structures are more fluid, suggests Gianluca Ferruggia, the general manager at online B2B marketplace DesignRush.

“We're often adjusting prices based on volume, specific contract terms, or ongoing negotiations,” says Ferruggia. “This makes transparent pricing a real challenge, and is a stark difference from the B2C world.”

Onboarding Process

Another difference I heard from ecommerce experts is the onboarding process. B2B products often have greater technical complexity, which leads to longer onboarding processes.

“In some industries, this can extend up to three months,” says Hutt. “However, this complexity also allows businesses to showcase their expertise and provide value through comprehensive support.”

Customer Retention

Customer retention also tends to be higher for B2B companies compared to B2C. When you consider how long the sales and onboarding processes are, not to mention the AOV being higher, it makes sense that customers invest longer.

“This higher retention rate emphasizes the long-term nature of B2B relationships,” says Hutt.

Data from SaaS Capital found that B2B SaaS companies have a median gross retention rate of 91%. Another report found that B2B industries like manufacturing have a 67% customer retention rate.

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Before you can venture into B2B digital commerce, it’s important to understand how the industry is broken down. There are several types of B2B ecommerce channels. I want to highlight the most common types here.

1. Wholesale

B2B wholesale is a model where businesses sell goods or services in bulk to other businesses. Wholesale prices are typically offered at a discount for bulk purchases.

The goods are then sold to consumers at retail price for a profit. Businesses can sell wholesale from their own ecommerce site or use a B2B marketplace like Alibaba or Amazon Business.

2. Manufacturers

Manufacturers are businesses that create goods and products from raw materials, usually at their own factory or warehouse.

Manufacturers can sell directly to customers or work with a partner, like a distributor, to help them sell their products.

3. Distributors

Distributors work with manufacturers to sell the manufactured product to customers. Distributors use ecommerce marketing channels to promote the manufacturer’s goods in an effort to increase sales.

4. B2B Marketplace

B2B marketplaces are a growing (and thriving) sector of B2B ecommerce.

These marketplaces are online platforms that allow businesses to sell to each other. Think of them as retail platforms designed just for businesses rather than consumers.

According to Statista, Amazon Business and Alibaba are leading platforms among generalist B2B marketplaces. There are also specialized B2B marketplaces, such as DesignRush, which connects service providers with companies.

5. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is another popular type of B2B ecommerce. This business model involves companies paying a fee, either monthly or annually, to another company for access to the latter’s software.

Companies like HubSpot, Microsoft, and Dropbox are just a few examples of B2B SaaS platforms.

3 Top B2B Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

If you’re in the B2B digital commerce space and curious about how to improve your marketing, I asked the experts for their top ecommerce marketing strategies for B2B companies.

Strategy #1: Email Nurture Campaigns

As I mentioned earlier, the B2B sales cycle is much longer than the typical B2C process. Sellers must be actively engaged with prospects throughout the cycle if they want to stay on their radar.

This is where email nurture campaigns can be beneficial.

Tools like Opensend and Retention can help you identify potential customers after they’ve visited your website, i.e., when buyers are in their research phase, and target them with personalized outreach.

“Once we identify these potential leads, we initiate a personalized ‘Thanks for visiting’ campaign,” says Hutt. “We integrate the newly discovered email addresses into our email service provider (ESP), like Klaviyo, to start nurturing campaigns. This approach helps maintain brand visibility throughout the longer B2B sales cycle.”

Strategy #2: Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) has also gained a lot of traction in B2B ecommerce, and for a good reason.

Personalization in sales is more important than ever, especially when 75% of B2B buyers prefer a self-service experience over working directly with a sales rep.

This means that when you do have an opportunity to meet with a prospect, your pitch must be tailored to their business needs to make the most of their time.

B2B sellers must show their commitment by regularly engaging with customers, offering tailored insights, adapting to their evolving needs, and giving buyers personalized marketing content that speaks to their pain points.

Being proactive with your marketing fosters loyalty and creates opportunities to add value to the relationship.

“For high-value accounts, ABM is a great way to provide value through a personalized content cadence that speaks directly to each stakeholder's unique challenges,” says Belinda Conde, head of marketing at Datos, a Semrush Company.

“One thing I’ve found especially important in B2B is focusing on problem-solving rather than feature-selling. It’s about providing value first — helping your audience tackle their pain points before you even ask for anything in return.”

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Strategy #3: Educational Content

I heard from a lot of experts that educational, hyper-relevant content is essential for any B2B ecommerce marketing strategy.

A B2B buyer wants to see evidence such as case studies, ROI calculators, and industry-specific guides. They want proof that your solution doesn’t just sound good but works in practice and for businesses like theirs, shares Paul Drecksler, an ecommerce expert and the founder of Shopifreaks.

“B2B ecommerce marketing is about meeting [customers] where they are and saying, ‘We get your world, and here’s exactly how we fit into it,’” he says.

Drecksler shares one marketing campaign that stuck out to him. “I remember one campaign that focused on segmented landing pages with tailored messaging for each industry,” he recalls.

“Each page had its own set of statistics, examples, and testimonials specific to that sector — whether it was healthcare, finance, or logistics — and each vertical got a narrative that showed an understanding of their unique challenges and priorities.”

B2B Ecommerce Examples

If you’re looking for inspiration for your ecommerce business, I’ve collected a few B2B ecommerce examples that I found helpful.

In my opinion, these companies showcase how to tailor content, landing pages, and user experience to a B2B buyer in an impactful way.

Microsoft

Microsoft showcases its use cases for different industries by creating industry-specific landing pages. They outline their solutions for healthcare, education, finance, and more.

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What I like most is the way Microsoft markets its AI solutions. They have a section on their website that is tailored to business leaders.

I like that this campaign speaks to a specific buyer and breaks down the AI use cases that business leaders seek, like boosting productivity, optimizing efficiency, and driving more value across the business.

Faire

Faire is a B2B wholesale platform that connects independent retailers and brands. Even though I’m neither a retailer nor do I sell products, I’ve been a longtime fan of the Faire platform. I personally love its branding and messaging.

To me, it’s clear Faire knows its target market and tailors everything from its imagery to its copy to that customer.

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I especially like how the website is organized. Wholesale customers can browse different products by categories, bestsellers, or even based on the values that align with their brand.

Grainger

Grainger is a leading distributor of industrial supplies and equipment. The business operates retail stores and an ecommerce site for businesses of all sizes to shop for the tools and parts they need for a job.

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My favorite part about Grainger’s ecommerce experience is the bulk order process. The simple feature is straightforward and mimics an order pad you’d see a salesperson use in-store. Buyers can easily browse the product catalog, add the item numbers and quantities to their bulk orders, and make their purchases.

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Shopify

Shopify regularly shares educational content for sellers across its blog and social media. This marketing content showcases Shopify’s deep industry knowledge and how its specific features can help businesses improve their sales.

For example, this LinkedIn carousel from Shopify breaks down three platform features that Shopify merchants can use to optimize their shipping strategy during Black Friday shopping.

This speaks to one of their customer’s pain points — keeping up with the influx of sales during the holiday season — and showcases how Shopify can help.

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Check out HubSpot’s Commerce Software to launch your B2B ecommerce business online.

What I Learned About B2B Ecommerce

While I initially began this article thinking B2B ecommerce was wildly different from B2C ecommerce, I learned that they have a lot in common.

B2B ecommerce is built off of the same principles as any other ecommerce — selling products or services — but the channels, processes, pricing, and marketing strategies are different.

Like consumer ecommerce, it’s critical to understand your audience when you’re in the B2B ecommerce space. When you understand their pain points, perceived value, and what they’re looking for in a partner, you can optimize your ecommerce experience to suit their needs.

On a recent Marketing Against the Grain podcast episode, HubSpot founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah sat down with hosts Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan to discuss the rise of AI agents.

When I heard the term “AI agents,” I thought of little robots sneaking around like spies, completing tasks for marketers.

Obviously, that‘s not completely true (they don’t wear suits), but they are very helpful to marketers and are predicted to greatly improve their efficiency and productivity.

AI agents are the latest AI trends to crop in sales and marketing, but are they worth it? Let's get into some of the points covered in the episode:

• What is an AI agent?
• When to Use AI Agents
• AI Agents in Content Marketing
• Concerns with AI Agents

What is an AI agent?

According to Shah, an AI agent is a piece of software that uses AI to accomplish a multi-step goal.

“There are varying definitions of what an AI agent actually is,” he says. “There is a spectrum of capabilities. You have very simple agents and sophisticated agents that do multi-agent things and reasoning.”

But whether we're talking about simple AI agents or more complex ones, the standout feature is their ability to carry out multistep goals that require different functions. According to Shah, this capability separates them from AI tools such as ChatGPT.

Think of it like this: When I use an AI tool like ChaGPT, it's a simple back-and-forth interaction. I make a request, and the chatbot responds.

“Whereas with an agent, you're giving it a higher order goal, and it may need to invoke Language Modeling (LM) or multiple LMs and use other AI tools and some classic tools to pull together whatever goal you're trying to accomplish.”

A simple way to think about it is that AI agents are the next generation of automation tools to streamline marketing workflows and tasks.

When to Use AI Agents

So, when should you use an AI agent instead of a standard AI tool like a chatbot? This is actually what I find most interesting about the podcast‘s discussion of AI agents.

When we think of AI, it’s hard to banish the thought (fear) of it replacing humans. However, Shah explains that an AI agent is most helpful when a human is needed to kick off the task, but many steps can be taken without human intervention.

For example, let's say a small business owner wants to route leads in their CRM using ChatGPT. They could plug customer data into ChatGPT to see what the chatbot generates.

However, if they want to take things a step further, they could use an AI Agent to bring them the most recent company numbers added to the CRM to conduct research.

They could then write rules about how they want the lead writing to happen.

“This is all doable with today's technology and AI agents,” Shah says.

Essentially, AI agents should be used when “you know what to do manually, and you could do it manually—but you want to automate some of those steps instead of trying to do this kind of one-off shot with ChatGPT,” according to Shah.

AI Agents in Content Marketing

If you‘re a content creator and marketer like him, you’re probably curious about how AI agents can help in the realm of content marketing, such as creating blog content, social media posts, videos, and graphics.

I‘ve said in the past that marketers should think of AI as a digital assistant. If that’s the case (and it is), think of AI agents as your digital team.

“The really exciting thing about these agents is that they can actually use each other,” Shah explains.

Shah mentions generative AI tools as an example and the need for images generated for your business to adhere to a style and color palette specific to your brand.

“So, I built an agent called a Color Palette Extractor,” he says. “It's a very simple agent. All you do is give it the home page or any web page. It will take a screenshot of that web page, determine which colors are used, and give you a palette proportional to the percentage of real estate that color took.”

In other words, the AI agent will generate a color palette based on the web page you fed it.

You can then take the color palette that the agent produced and pass it to another agent that will incorporate that palette to generate images or other content.

“So that's the composing two agents that didn't know anything about each other until you glued them together creatively,” he says.

From there, you can take the image and run it through a LinkedIn post generator, incorporating the results of the previous two agents. That's three agents working together as a team to generate content for your business.

Concerns with AI Agents

Listening to the podcast, Shah, Bodnar, and Flanagan's excitement about the possibilities presented by AI agents was impossible to ignore.

Shan event mentions a future where AI agents could be treated almost as salaried employees and a natural part of marketing teams.

“Some day, agents are going to have a salary that is, say, $2.00 a month, or whatever the price tag happens to be,” he says.

While I mentioned earlier that humans are still needed when using AI agents, there are concerns about what a human‘s role could look like if we’re talking about teams of AI agents.

Personally, I think an explanation would be that human marketers will still be integral to the marketing process even with the addition of AI agents, they just need to amp up their skills and consider a supervising role.

Think about it: Even the greatest teams need a leader and supervisor.

Jeremy Kahn, AI editor at Fortune Magazine, seems to share my sentiment in an interview with Fortunate Magazine.

“We need to redefine human roles, focusing on higher-level skills for supervising systems. I anticipate people will oversee multiple AI systems simultaneously, serving as both guides and judges of these systems' outputs,” Kahn says.

So, are AI agents worth the investment?

I think any technological advances that can streamline processes, free up time for marketers, and keep their businesses competitive are worth the investment. However, with great AI advancements comes great responsibility. 

In pretty much every post I’ve ever written about AI (and I‘ve written a lot), I've said that AI best practices include overlooking, proofing, and adding a human touch to every AI-generated output. And that doesn’t change with the use of AI agents.

In fact, I think it's even more important to supervise your team of AI agents and tools because more machines involved means more cooks in the kitchen.

So, yes, look into AI agents and consider ways they can make your life easier as a marketer or business owner. Just make sure you're supervising your team of agents. 

While I’m not a business owner and haven’t branded my own business, I’ve been an employee at companies that have undergone large-scale rebrands.

Most recently, Nickelodeon, where I work full-time in marketing, pulled off a rebranding strategy in 2023 for the first time in 14 years.

We brought back the “splat,” a shape inspired by Nickelodeon’s iconic green slime, as a tactic to tap into both kids and their nostalgic parents who are former 90s Nick Kids themselves. This was part of an effort to position Nickelodeon as a brand that brings families across generations together to enjoy quality time.

In my opinion, this is an example of a company rebranding correctly and out of necessity. In a competitive entertainment landscape fighting for kids’ attention, Nickelodeon knew we couldn’t keep doing more of the same.

Sometimes (but not all the time!), one of the best ways to move forward is by leaning on and adapting past successes.

It’s not easy to know when is the right time to invest in a rebrand and how to handle that rebrand successfully, so I‘ve prepared this post to help guide the process, plus examples of other brands who’ve successfully rebranded their website, name, logo, mission, and purpose.

Table of Contents

• What is rebranding?
• Rebranding Strategy
• How to Rebrand a Company
• Rebranding Examples
• The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand
• Partial vs. Total Rebrand
• Bad Rebranding Examples

Understanding what rebranding is is only part of the battle. Now, you must ensure you have the right reasons to rebrand.

The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand

Rebrands are complicated and carry big risks.

Even big brands aren't immune — just look at X, which is considered one of the biggest recent rebranding fails. Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X in 2023 by renaming and restyling the entire brand.

As a result, 78% of U.S. iOS users gave the app 1-star reviews, compared to 50% two weeks prior. Most of the negative reviews mentioned disliking the new name and logo.

While it will take time to see the true long-term effects of this rebranding, it’s clear that abrupt, random changes to brands with generally positive sentiments and long-standing reputations can be incredibly detrimental.

That’s why knowing the risks of rebranding can help determine whether or not you're jumping into a rebrand for the right reasons.

If sales have been slow or brand awareness efforts don't seem to be paying off, rebranding may not be the best immediate step.

These issues can potentially be solved with a new content marketing strategy or by conducting market research to identify the underlying cause.

But if you‘re considering a rebrand because your company’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand, then a rebrand might be the right decision.

There are a few other major reasons you might consider a rebrand. I will demonstrate these reasons using my fictitious indoor cycling business, Psyched 2 Cyc.

4 Right Reasons for Rebranding

New Locations

Psyched 2 Cyc started as a singular, local studio in New York City, so I selected a punny name that likely only works in English.

After growing throughout NYC and the country, my business is now looking to expand to non-English, international markets that may not identify with the business name. This could be a good time to consider a full brand rename.

Market Repositioning

The name Psyched 2 Cyc was chosen with young fitness enthusiasts at heart — hence the abbreviated word “Cyc” and the use of “2” instead of “to.”

But I’d now like to target older consumers interested in improving their fitness with a low-impact workout like indoor cycling.

Thus, I may need to refresh my brand name (or consider rewriting it in full as Psyched to Cycle) to better resonate with people of all ages.

New Philosophy

I started my business as primarily an indoor cycling studio. Thus, our mission, vision, and values all surround the idea of fitness, health, and wellness through the use of an indoor bike.

If I want to expand my business to include another modality, such as strength, yoga, or running, it makes sense to want to reevaluate my brand. That way, I can build new MVVs that align with the growing business offerings.

Mergers and Acquisitions

To grow my business, audience, and offerings, I have partnered with a strength training studio, Sweat Power.

Combining our two brands either means that we agree to adopt the branding of one of the studios, or we must work together to come up with a new name, logo, and positioning that best reflects our new brand.

Additionally, here are a few reasons not to rebrand.

4 Wrong Reasons for Rebranding

Boredom

It’s been more than two decades, and I’m feeling uninspired by the logo and slogan I selected back when I first launched Psyched 2 Cyc. I’m itching for some change that will refresh my business and make it look more elevated.

However, my customers (who see my branding much less frequently) might love — or quickly recognize — the signature color and logo I’ve come to loathe. I should consider how a sudden change to my branding could leave consumers confused or disappointed.

Covering Up a Crisis

One of my business’s executives recently received bad press that has reflected badly on Psyched 2 Cyc. I’m desperate for a big rebranding shift that will help us move past this period of negativity.

However, most consumers and employees are smart enough to see right through my rebrand and recognize it for what it is — a cover-up. It’s best to handle bad press with respect, authenticity, and actionable change.

Impact and Ego

I’ve recently hired some new leaders who are excited about a rebranding as they feel they were brought in to help freshen up Psyched 2 Cyc’s brand. They want to refresh our mission statement and values.

However, the kind of institutional change they want to implement doesn’t justify a rebrand. It’s more about them making their mark and producing radical change.

Looking for Attention

Classes have been half-full at best, and several instructors have recently quit. I’m tempted to execute a rebrand to bring life back to the brand and encourage new instructors to want to teach at Psyched 2 Cyc.

At best, this may generate some short-term buzz without any sales and marketing strategy to sustain it. At worst, I could lose brand recognition and set back sales and marketing efforts even more.

If you've determined a rebrand is still the right choice for you, keep reading to learn how to devise a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding efforts may include:

1. Creating a new logo.

One of the main strategies of rebranding is creating a new logo. A new logo is a clear sign to consumers that your brand's identity is different. A new logo can involve new colors, modern typography, or a new icon that better represents your brand.

Pro tip: Use your brand's vision, mission, and values to inspire your new aesthetic. For instance, Pepsi rebranded in 2023 for the first time in 14 years for its 125th anniversary.

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The logo still uses the essence of the past logo, which helps maintain consistency and brand recognition with loyal customers. However, the new logo incorporates bolder colors and a vintage appearance that ties back to the company’s long heritage.

I also appreciate that the logo is now more compact, making it easier to place on products and ads. Lastly, Pepsi has made its brand name much easier to read in the new logo, in all-caps and bold black font, rather than the blue, wavy, lower-case previous version.

2. Shifting brand position.

Unfortunately, rebranding isn’t as easy as hiring an agency to redesign your logo. It’s essential to shift your brand positioning.

The products, services, or content being marketed need to communicate a certain message, whether that's a mission, values, or vision.

This is the best way to set your brand apart from competitors and draw in consumers aligned with these beliefs.

Pro tip: Chances are, you'll need to reestablish a unique selling proposition and take stock of what distinguishes your brand from the crowd. This will help you better connect with you target audience and understand your position in the market.

In 2015, Gucci shifted its brand positioning to appeal to younger generations. To do this, they pivoted from polished and provocative to quirky and contemporary. They also focused more on communication that would resonate on Instagram and adopted a progressive stance on gender fluidity.

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These changes significantly increased sales with Millennial and Gen Z consumers who were able to better resonate with Gucci’s mission, values, and vision.

3. Creating new ads.

Once the logo and messaging are locked, it's time to create new advertisements and content with this messaging in mind.

These ads should communicate the changes to your brand and what they mean for customers. This can help draw in a new demographic and reach larger audiences.

Pro tip: New logos and messaging will only go far if you can invest in marketing to show the world these rebranding changes. For instance, Eurostar rebranded in 2023 after merging with Thalys, a French-Belgian high-speed train operator, as part of a goal to reach 30 million passengers by 2030.

After updating visual elements, the brand, now Eurostar Group, created an ad campaign around the slogan “Together We Go Further,” involving a promo, out-of-home, and digital.

The campaign highlighted the brand’s key traits — European, inclusive, unique, and sustainable — to emphasize the excitement of discovering a vibrant world of travel through Europe.

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The overall rebranding strategy resulted in route growth in 2023 in major routes, such as Paris to London and Paris to Amsterdam, as well as an increase in online sales, website conversions, and mobile app downloads.

4. Changing your brand's voice.

The last step of a solid rebranding strategy is changing the brand‘s voice.

This is the perspective from which you write all your marketing content. Your voice can be formal, casual, witty, or whatever tone best reflects your brand. Change your brand’s voice accordingly and announce your rebrand in this new tone.

Pro tip: Think of your brand as a person. When they walk into a party, are they cracking jokes and the life of the party, or are they professional and no-nonsense? Use your brand personality to inform this brand voice.

Duolingo began as a traditional language learning app and has since evolved into a silly, humorously-aggressive brand. Users started creating memes in 2019 about the evil owl mascot, Duo, who would berate them to practice.

The brand leaned into this personality and adapted its brand voice to fit this new persona.

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The brand voice is now very quirky, personable, and young, and, at times, leans into the “evil Duo” voice which has made it ultra-popular on social media.

Embracing this brand voice has aided Duolingo’s entire rebranding strategy, as it now leans on the voice to dictate its brand identity, marketing methods, goals, and target audience.

Not all rebrands are created equal, so let's first consider whether a partial or total rebrand is the best option for your business.

Partial vs. Total Rebrand

The more established your business and brand, the more you have to lose from a rebrand. If your business is more mature, a partial rebrand can help you retain the brand loyalty you've built, while refreshing your image to keep up with the times.

Think of a partial rebrand as an adjustment focused on visual brand identity to suit new offerings or markets, as opposed to a complete identity crisis.

That‘s not to say that a partial rebrand can’t be effective. Just look at Pringles.

They redesigned their mascot, Mr. P, in 2021 with a more simple, contemporary look. This partial rebrand helped them maintain their iconic brand identity while giving their mascot a bold, refreshed appearance.

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However, if the goal is a complete identity shift involving your company's mission, vision, and values, a total rebrand might be necessary.

This option is typically suited to situations like mergers, product overhauls, and other similarly foundational shifts.

If a partial rebrand is a quick touch-up, the total rebrand is a complete makeover.

Take a look at the following five steps to successfully implement a rebrand.

1. Reestablish your brand's audience and market.

Let’s return to my fictional indoor cycling business, Psyched 2 Cyc. When I got into this business, I expected my target audience to be in their 20s and early 30s, since that is the most common demographic for other cycling studios like SoulCycle.

However, after extensive market research, I realized my target market was different from what I had assumed.

Key research found that 50% of respondents spend less than 10 minutes traveling to cycling classes, and 92% complete the trip in under 30 minutes. That means only 8% of participants are willing to travel more than 30 minutes to my studio.

This has changed my entire philosophy since the neighborhood my studio launched in has a slightly older demographic (30s-40s adults with families).

Now, I can re-establish my brand’s audience and market, knowing I will have the most luck drawing in new members who live within 30 (or ideally 10!) minutes of the studio.

Pro tip: Focus groups are a great way to discover (or re-discover) your target market. You may be surprised to find that your audience isn’t who you thought it was.

2. Redefine your company's vision, mission, and values.

What am I doing? How am I doing it? Why am I doing it?

These are the three questions I will ask myself when reevaluating my vision, mission, and values for Psyched 2 Cyc’s rebrand. These messaging foundations will likely change as my company grows.

New products, priorities, services, or stakeholders can completely undo what once seemed like a given.

Here is how I will analyze the following factors to gauge which parts of my brand will need some TLC.

Vision

Vision is the “What am I doing?” of the puzzle. It’s the North Star for every action my company undertakes, and it's critical to have a firm understanding of my vision before moving forward.

Originally when I founded Psyched 2 Cyc, I simply wanted to build a new cycling studio since it’s a modality I love. Now that I have established my brand in this way, I can adapt my vision to be more specific or forward-thinking.

I founded the studio originally to target women since women are a large portion of indoor cycling participants. After all, 67% of U.S. Peloton owners are women, and women are the fastest-growing demographic in indoor cycling in 2024, with a 9% increase in cycling activities.

However, now that I’ve established my brand in the eyes of women, I’d like to rebrand to be more inclusive to both men and women.

Just because women are a large percentage of indoor cycling enthusiasts doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for men here, too.

Mission

The mission is the “How am I doing it?” component. This is my company's roadmap for how we will achieve the vision of drawing in more males to my brand.

I’m interested in adding a virtual component to my brand since 26% of Les Mills survey respondents regularly attend virtual indoor cycling classes. On top of that, data found that men are more likely to attend virtual classes than women.

This could be a great way to draw in men who may not be as inclined to take classes in a live studio but would be interested in doing so at home.

My mission is to incorporate virtual classes to target more men in a predominantly female space.

Values

Values are the “Why am I doing this” element. It’s why I’m working towards my vision and dedicated to my mission.

Now that I have adapted my vision and mission, I should accordingly adapt my values to align with this new strategy. For example, I will incorporate the following new values:

• Raise the bar. This is both a play on words (since the handlebar is a key part of any bike) and a commitment to continuously compete with yesterday’s performance.
• Room for all. This again has a dual meaning: as I embark on a journey to create a more inclusive space for all people in a predominantly young, female environment, this value will be essential. But it also indicates that Psyched 2 Cyc will create a literal “room” for all; whether in our studio room or your room at home taking a virtual class.

Understandably, some of my founding values might become unsustainable. It’s more effective to prioritize new values rather than cling to past ones, which may limit change.

Brand Voice

Now that I’ve shifted my vision, mission, and values while rebranding, how I convey these aspects of my company will also have to change. What I’m saying is changing, so how I say it will also need to change.

For instance, I have been using a tone of voice that’s young, modern, and feminine. Now that I’m shifting to target a slightly older demographic and males, I will want to adapt my language to be more attractive to these audiences.

3. Rename your company during a rebrand.

Changing names is a big undertaking and can cost brand recognition and organic search traffic in one fell swoop. I would only rename Psyched 2 Cyc if it’s a dire need and I had a plan for recovery as part of my post-rebrand strategy.

As mentioned earlier, I selected the name to attract a younger audience, which is why I used “2” instead of “to” and the shortened term “Cyc.”

Perhaps, in wanting to rebrand to attract my slightly older target audience, I may reconsider changing the name to resonate better with the residents in the surrounding area.

Ideally, the best course of action is to keep the same name to retain brand recognition, but if I want to better align with my new company identity, I can return to the drawing board.

Pro tip: It can be difficult to begin your brainstorming session. Some starter ideas for the renaming process are:

• Make a new word
• Use an old word in new ways
• Say what I do (literally)
• Modify a word's spelling
• Add a prefix or suffix
• Look to other languages
• Bring two words together
• Create an acronym
• Use a location

4. Reconsider your brand's slogan.

A good slogan is catchy and will capture my company's mission and vision. Unlike changing names, changing slogans is a little easier for my marketing efforts, so I won’t lose sight of my existing customers tied to the Psyched 2 Cyc brand.

That doesn’t mean I won’t still consider this carefully and ensure I’m changing the slogan for the right reasons.

Repetition builds recognition, and I don’t want to change too many aspects of my brand that people have come to love and remember.

An idea for a new slogan for Psyched 2 Cyc that can better represent my new mission and vision would be “Spin, Your Way.”

This highlights the purpose (an indoor cycling studio) and emphasizes that we are trying to be more inclusive and that there is space for anyone, regardless of age, ability, or class style preference.

Pro tip: Slogans can be equally as difficult to come up with as brand names. Some ways to discover new ideas for slogans are:

• Make a claim
• Get metaphorical
• Use poetic language
• Provide instructions
• Leverage labels
• Compliment customers

5. Rebuild your brand identity.

The tangible elements I use to communicate the Psyched 2 Cyc brand have been in play for several years, which has given me plenty of time to reconsider their strengths and weaknesses before deciding to replace some of them.

Refreshing some of the visual components of my brand could be a great way to rebrand without changing something as drastic as the company name or slogan.

I can consider redesigning my logo, using new colors in my brand material, or even creating new brand guidelines.

Logo

When I selected my initial logo, I had little budget and couldn’t invest dollars into hiring an external agency to design some options. Instead, I had the help of an artist friend who designed my idea for me.

Unfortunately, I don’t think my logo has a real impact on customers. It’s very generic and doesn’t reflect what is unique about Psyched 2 Cyc. So, I will return to the basics of what makes a good logo to help me get it right this time.

• Stay simple. Jamming as much symbolism as possible into a logo generally doesn't work well and can become too complex or confusing for customers to understand. Now that my brand is more established, I can show confidence with a simple, clean logo.
• Make an impact. While it’s important to be simple, I still want to make my logo memorable. There are a lot of indoor cycling brands out there, and I want my logo to be bold enough to stand out amongst competitors.
• Be adaptable. I didn’t initially consider the limitations of my original logo. Now that I know all the places my logo lives — digitally on my website, app, and social media; in print on products like fitness apparel, water bottles, and our cycling shoes; and in a huge, neon sign in the studio — I can keep these channels in mind during the redesign.
• Aim for appropriate. I designed the logo for a younger, female audience, and now that I’m expanding my target market, I might want a logo that better attracts this audience.
• Look to the long term. This rebrand will likely cost me a lot of money, so I don’t want to do another one anytime soon. Therefore, I will consider my vision, mission, values, and purpose to ensure my new logo can support them in the long run.
• Maintain through-lines. The logo, while not as much as the name, is still one of my brand's most memorable components. I want to avoid losing brand recognition by maintaining the parts of my old logo that worked.

Take a look at the Nickelodeon logo change from 2023 below. We retained the same iconic orange color and font but re-incorporated the “splat,” which would be memorable with parents.

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Color Palette

I know color is very impactful in branding — some colors are now synonymous with the brands that use them, like McDonald's yellow. However, choosing the right color can be difficult, so I might consider changing the color to reflect Psyched 2 Cyc’s rebrand.

For example, our brand logo is currently red, which I chose since red is a vibrant, powerful color that reflects fitness well. However, I now see how many competitors also have red logos, such as CycleBar, and want to choose a new color that can stand out.

According to the psychology of color, green can represent growth, freshness, and health, which resonates with fitness well. It also has an adventurous, competitive personality, which ties fairly well with cycling.

Therefore, I might consider changing my logo to dark green, especially since I don’t know many fitness brands with a green logo.

Before making any drastic changes, I will check how the color shows up on-screen and in print to ensure consistency and that I like the look.

Typography

I chose an expressive, regal font for my original logo to help it pop and appear elevated against competitors. However, I now realize that it doesn’t represent my brand well — too much sophistication can make the brand come across as elite and inaccessible to the average person, which is not what Psyched 2 Cyc is about.

When reevaluating fonts, I will ensure the font is consistent with my target market and messaging uncovered in the rebrand. A more traditional serif or sans-serif font may be better suited when trying to attract a slightly older demographic.

I will also ensure that the font is easily accessible for web design and offers various weights and cuts for different channels.

Take the 2023 Minute Maid logo rebrand, for instance, in which they adopted a softer, bolder, and more inviting new font.

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Shapes and Imagery Revisited

Like logo, color palette, and typography, my imagery and shapes play a vital role in Psyched 2 Cyc’s brand identity. In changing those other visual elements, it makes sense to reconsider my imagery and shapes to keep everything cohesive in the rebrand.

Since I want my studio to be more approachable to new demographics, such as older people and men, I might consider softer lines and rounder shapes that provide a more welcoming appearance to new customers.

Of course, having everything visually aligned isn’t enough. These visual elements must support the core messages of my brand, too.

Brand Guidelines

After going through all the trouble of creating a new brand identity for my business, I want to use all these elements correctly.

Having brand guidelines will help guide me in the rebranding process to ensure consistency in this new stage for Psyched 2 Cyc.

Brand guidelines will be especially critical when showcasing my new logo. These guidelines will make it as easy as possible for customers to see, recognize, and remember my logo, making up for any lost familiarity from the original logo.

When writing my logo guidelines, I will consider the following:

• Logo elements. What visual elements make up my logo? When and how are each of them used?
• Color variations. What does the colored version of my logo look like? What about black and white? When are each of these used?
• Clear space. Also called padding, this is the space around my logo that prevents overlap or obscuring. I will aim for at least 10% of width at all times.
• Unacceptable uses. What can never be done to my logo? What color variations, rotations, scaling, etc. do I want to avoid?

These guidelines will be essential for me to distribute to my team so everyone has the information they need to handle the rebrand effortlessly.

It will be important for my team members and external agencies we hire to help us with the website and app redesign, building out our rebrand campaign, and creating new marketing materials.

6. Track brand sentiment along the way.

Though part of the reason for my rebrand is to attract new customers, my current customers are loyal and trusted. Therefore, I will get feedback from them on the rebrand elements I am considering.

I plan to conduct focus groups to see if the new branding images and messages communicate my new mission, values, and vision. If I don't receive positive feedback, I may need to go back to the drawing board.

I know one of the most crucial steps in rebranding is tracking brand sentiment before, during, and after a rebrand launch, so I will look at brand sentiment before the rebrand to see what current or potential customers like and dislike about Psyched 2 Cyc’s branding.

Is it clear what our brand offers? Is the branding consistent? How does it compare to similar indoor cycling studios? What is something about our branding that either drew them in or made them reconsider joining our studio?

With these answers in mind, I can conduct my rebrand strategically, adding new messaging that aligns with my audience. As a plus, this also helps my current customers feel valued since their thoughts will be taken into consideration.

7. Plan a successful launch.

The rebrand will only be successful and meaningful if people actually know it’s happening. Therefore, I know that I can’t simply change the colors, fonts, and logo on our Psyched 2 Cyc website, app, and social media. I need to communicate what the rebrand means and let people know we’ve made intentional growth.

First, I plan to run a marketing campaign involving digital display banners, print ads, and a short promo that can run on TV and social media.

I will also organize a press release to announce the launch of our rebrand that will sit on our website and social channels. This allows me to share exactly why Psyched 2 Cyc needed a rebrand and what it means for our future.

This will be the perfect way for us to reset and remain consistent and on-brand in all marketing efforts moving forward.

We’ve lost our way over the past few years as priorities changed to membership retention, but I believe a solid rebrand will help redefine our branding.

Now that we‘ve explored various aspects of rebranding regarding my fictional brand Psyched 2 Cyc, let’s take a look at some real-world examples for further inspiration.

1. 7UP

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7UP’s new identity was inspired by the soda itself. The company wanted to create a new visual identity that captures the soda’s effervescent essence while modernizing with changing times.

They first handled this with a new “UPliftment” positioning, based on its history of being enjoyed in joyful moments with loved ones. This new strategy promises to “offer light relief from the mundanities of daily life.”

To feed into this “UP” movement, the brand angled its new logo up to focus on upward movement. 7UP also wanted to embrace its global audience, so the packaging logo was designed to be translated into various languages for worldwide unification.

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These changes, and the new citrus colors in the palette, have helped 7UP create a bolder, brighter, more confident, and “bubbly” persona, while still staying true to its green color. This rebrand has been widely applauded for its simplistic, minimalistic, and modern execution.

2. LG

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LG first hinted at its upcoming rebrand in April 2023 with the debut of its new and improved logo — maintaining the same icon but transitioning it from 3D to 2D. The new logo is also animated and expressive and can perform eight motions (including nodding and winking).

Beyond the logo change, LG introduced a younger and more playful appearance in August 2023 with new brand characters, Joy and Ryder, that showcase LG’s fun side while playing into the company’s heritage and Korean culture.

To add even more energy to their rebrand, LG also integrated a brighter, bolder shade of red into their color palette.

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They even incorporated new values, such as “Warmth to Power a Smile,” and made their “Life’s Good” slogan more prominent in marketing. These changes were part of an effort to attract Millennial and Gen Z audiences and redefine the brand as innovative, modern, and people-centric.

3. Reddit

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The biggest change in Reddit’s 2023 rebrand was bringing their iconic mascot Snoo to life with a new dynamic 3D look. Snoo is less robotic and more a playful creature who can perform eight motions, such as spinning.

The brand repositioned Reddit as “the heart of the internet” to highlight its role in society as a space for communication and discourse. This repositioning is also evident in the frame around Snoo and the “d” in the Reddit logo, which are now speech bubbles to emphasize the same point.

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Reddit’s new brand identity also involves four pillars: “inherently eclectic”, “positively different”, “delightfully absurd”, and “genuinely candid”, which help tie all these changes and refreshes together.

The rebrand was done to modernize Reddit’s look with changes such as 3D design elements, a simplified color palette, and new typefaces, while re-emphasizing what people already know and love Reddit for — being a hub for community and conversation.

4. Jell-O

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The 2023 Jell-O rebrand involved a change in logo and packaging for all products. The goal was to attract younger parents and kids with playful, simple, colorful imagery and bring back some of the “jiggly fun and...wonder” that has always been associated with the brand.

This new positioning played into the new designs by incorporating a modern aesthetic while showcasing the many fun flavors Jell-O has to offer. The logo shifted to a blockier sans serif font against a white background for a 3D effect, with the “O” resting slightly above.

The packaging also now includes cartoonish images of pudding swirls and jelly fruit instead of the more realistic images previously shown. This helps the brand target younger parents with fruit images that reveal healthier options while making the packaging more eccentric and light-hearted.

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This rebrand was well-received as consumers saw it as a way to significantly modernize the branding while maintaining some of its classic, beloved traits.

5. WhatsApp

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As part of the parent company Meta, which faced significant backlash for its 2021 rebrand, WhatsApp has remained relatively scandal-free. Thus, it seems the 2023 rebrand was aimed at helping set WhatsApp apart from the rest of Meta’s brands.

The goal was to evolve the brand from a social media tool to a “secure, intimate product designed to give anyone … the ability to connect and enact change.” The team worked to further the notion of “Forward. Together” based on WhatsApp being a trusted platform for safe, reliable global connection.

The color palette aligns with various product touchpoints, and new graphic modules allow for flexible storytelling. They also capture the spirit of WhatsApp by visually showcasing how back and forth communication looks.

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Since WhatsApp has nearly three billion global active users, the rebrand created a unified look that would resonate with people everywhere, regardless of age, region, literacy, or bandwidth.

It successfully established itself as a communication tool while prioritizing brand recognition with an unchanged logo and commitment to the brand’s iconic green color.

Bad Rebranding Examples

1. Comcast

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Comcast has been known to have the most hated customer service in the United States. So, the company changed its name and rebranded its logo to Xfinity. However, the company didn't change its history of bad practices.

While the company could have worked on improving customer support, they spent money on a cosmetic upgrade, which didn't help them earn back the trust of their customers. Superficial updates like a name and logo change can’t help a company unless followed by brand identity and reputation changes.

Beyond this, the name change itself is perplexing and, frankly, a waste of money and time. Many customers were confused about whether Comcast and Xfinity were the same thing, or if one owned the other. This is the exact fear in an abrupt brand name change — causing audience confusion or ridicule which can lead to a loss in current and potential customers.

2. Gap

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Remember that list of reasons to and not to rebrand above? Gap made the mistake of rebranding for seemingly no reason. The company changed its logo and caused outrage among its customers. Just six days later, the company returned to its original logo.

The new logo didn't communicate anything new about the brand and took the personality out of Gap’s logo. Additionally, customers had an emotional bond with the logo, and changing it for no reason caused upset customers.

Rather than immediately coming clean, Gap tried to justify the new logo as a deliberate move to crowdsource new ideas for a logo. As this was met with even more criticism, the brand quickly reinstated its original logo and finally acknowledged its error.

Overall, the urge to quickly modernize a logo has been seen as a panic strategy, rather than one rooted in a true desire to shift a brand’s positioning or perception. If there’s nothing to back up a move this big (and expensive), it is more than likely to receive negative backlash.

3. Weight Watchers

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Weight Watchers changed its name and logo to shift its focus from weight loss and dieting to wellness. However, the new name WW left consumers confused. People didn’t know what it stood for, and it erased brand recognition.

The rebrand was also handled rather abruptly. There wasn’t enough lead time to prepare consumers for the name and strategy change. To add to it, the "Wellness that Works” slogan didn’t inform consumers of what was going to change about the brand.

While the reasoning behind the rebrand was positive, the follow-through left people wanting more. Weight Watchers should have better explained why it was making this shift and how it would handle this change — preferably with new product or service offerings.

Are you ready to rebrand?

From the examples shared above, it’s clear that the most successful rebrands were ones that were centered around customers in some way.

Whether it was LG aligning with the interests of younger consumers or Jell-O returning to its playful roots, these brands made necessary changes to restate their presence in either the same or a new market.

The important thing to keep in mind if your business is ready to tackle a rebrand is that clear intentions and brand consistency are key. This post taught me that you need legitimate reasons for seeing a rebrand through.

But you also need to be able to handle the time and budget it will take to make all the changes and launch a marketing campaign to reveal the rebrand to your audience.

When you’re ready to make these changes, make them count.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Almost every marketing prediction, resource, or how-to guide includes the same advice: video needs to be part of your strategy. But what type of video marketing is most important right now?

From super-short (micro) video clips, to live video on social media, to full-production ads and stories, we’re going to look at some of the top video marketing trends for the year and how you can incorporate them into your design and marketing plans.

And here’s why it matters, U.S. adults spent 149 minutes per day watching digital video in 2021 and that number is only expected to rise.

Let’s dive in, and embrace video as the new marketing channel you need to get right!

1. AI-Assisted Videos

The entire marketing industry was revolutionized within a few months with the rise of AI-powered tools. A video production that took days or weeks to complete now only takes a few hours. A video that required a thousand-dollar budget now only requires a subscription to a couple of AI tools.

The entire process of creating videos can now be done with the help of AI. From creating the script with ChatGPT to generating voiceovers, stock videos, music, images, and even editing can be done with AI.

Some aspects of this process are not perfect. For example, generating stock videos still needs a little bit of improvement. But you won’t have to wait too long. Even Adobe is working on its next-gen generative AI that supports creating entire videos with text prompts, which will be available this year.

With the help of AI tools, every marketer will be capable of taking on bigger projects and be more efficient than ever before. It will surely have a big impact on the video marketing industry in 2024.

2. Branded Video Podcasts

Podcasts have been growing in popularity over the years very slowly and today they are one of the most effective mediums of marketing and promotions. As a result, they soon transitioned from audio-only medium to video format, especially with Spotify and YouTube introducing support for video podcasts.

Brands are now taking advantage of this new video marketing format by producing their own branded video podcasts. Wix, Shopify, and Microsoft Xbox are among the many brands that now have active podcasts to talk about their products, services, and success stories.

These long-form video podcasts are more than just about promotions. They are also about sharing deep and meaningful conversations with the people in charge of the company and giving the audience insights into what goes behind the scenes in an entertaining way.

3. Podcast Clips

A side benefit of producing a video podcast is how you can repurpose it to create content for other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Some of the most popular and successful types of content on these platforms have been short clips taken from podcast interviews as they make people stop and listen to tips and advice from influential people.

If you look closer, you’ll notice that every podcast channel now has a separate clips channel where they share short-form clips from their podcast episodes in the form of TikToks, Instagram stories, or YouTube shorts. This offers a simple, low-effort way to reach audiences on different platforms while also boosting engagement.

4. Event Livestreams

For a long time, annual conferences, product reveals, and special events from big companies were limited to the press. If we wanted to know what the new iPhone looked like or what kind of new features we could expect to see in the new Photoshop update, we had to wait until a press outlet published a story about it. But not anymore.

Event live streams were popularized by Apple a few years ago. Their over-the-stop and engaging style of live-streaming events were watched by millions of people around the world. Many other companies followed this strategy to livestream their own events online for everyone to see.

Now, even small startups and brands host special events to announce their latest products and updates. This has proven to be an effective approach to reach a wider audience across different platforms.

5. Personal Interviews and Tours

Exclusive office tours and behind-the-scenes videos are nothing new. Many big corporations have been doing it for years. Recently we saw a new trend in this marketing strategy where key employees and CEOs give more meaningful interviews and tours of their personal lives.

Mark Zuckerberg gave a very personal interview where he not only shared insights into his day-to-day life and his newfound hobbies but also detailed his plans for future products. IBM also offered influencers a tour of its innovative quantum computer. Elon Musk continued to provide tours of SpaceX to content creators. And it looks like more brands and companies are starting to follow this trend, now more than ever.

6. Daily Life Vlogs

Encouraging employees to share their daily life around the office environment is another effective video marketing strategy that promotes brands in a subtly indirect but more meaningful way.

Typing “day in my life” into the search bar on any video-based social media platform will show you thousands of videos created by employees of various types of companies. While most of these videos aren’t produced by brands, giving employees the freedom to create these videos helps promote brands and their work culture to the world.

This style of indirect marketing videos is much more effective at connecting with an audience than even Superbowl ads. As they help build trust, loyalty, and confidence on a personal level.

7. Edgy Brand Videos

Videos revealing the deepest secrets of brands and their marketing strategies are one of the most refreshingly unique video marketing trends we’ve been seeing over the past few months.

Popularized by independent and smaller startups, like Nothing, these edgy videos skip the traditional formats of “official” and “professional” video content to build trust and connect with audiences in a creative way.

One of the videos made by Nothing, the UK-based smartphone maker, revealed how they tricked the media to reveal their latest product by pretending to leak information. Their YouTube channel has many other videos challenging the practices used by competitors and comparing products as well.

8. Short Film Commercials

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Many brands have been making adverts disguised as short films. For a long time, these were only made by big corporations and brands such as BMW, Marriot, Coca-Cola, and Porsche. Today, it’s much easier and cheaper to develop such short film commercials.

Brands are now commissioning influencers and content creators to make long-form adverts disguised as short film-style videos. These influencers create interesting, engaging, and entertaining videos that seamlessly integrate products and brands within the story.

Rather than buying ad spots in YouTube videos or blatantly sponsoring TikTok videos, funding a short film-style video makes sense for a brand to promote products in a more natural and seamless way, while also supporting content creators at the same time.

9. Seamless Loop

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Contrary to popular belief, TikTok and YouTube shorts aren’t always about recreating awkward dances and reacting to funny videos. Content creators are now much smarter and more creative when it comes to making more entertaining videos.

One of the popular trends on these short video platforms is the seamless looping video. These videos are brilliantly designed to make the clip playable endlessly, over and over again. And they are quite mesmerizing to watch.

A few brands have been utilizing this trend to their advantage by making seamless loop videos that have users staring at the screen for a long time. And we will likely see more marketers incorporating this strategy into their video marketing campaigns this year.

10. Behind-the-scenes videos

The behind-the-scenes videos are one of the tried and true methods of marketing and promoting a brand. However, most marketers aren’t taking advantage of this video marketing method.

Giving your audience and customers a behind-the-scenes look at a brand and how it operates is an effective way of building trust, loyalty, and transparency. Many big brands have done this in the past. However, that old approach no longer interests the younger audiences.

Now, you have to be more creative and engaging when creating quick behind-the-scenes videos for platforms like TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Instagram Reels. There’s plenty of opportunity here for marketers to capitalize on.

11. Influencer Explainer Videos

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We went through a series of trends related to explainer videos in the past, from whiteboard explainers to animation explainers, motion graphics explainers, and more. The latest trend, however, may not surprise you at all.

The newest trend in explainer videos is influencer explainers. These videos involve getting influencers to create more in-depth explainer videos that dive deep into a product and its features.

These are not product reviews or feature overviews. These explainers are more focused and detailed, similar to online courses and tutorials. Influencers such as Thomas Frank does these types of videos quite brilliantly. Some of his videos are an hour long and yet they get millions of views.

It’s an effective video marketing strategy for two reasons: They don’t push a product forcefully, instead, they promote how to use it. The second benefit is these videos are more authentic than paid reviews or adverts.

12. “Shorts”

YouTube Shorts launched in late 2020 and has been steadily growing in popularity. It’s the vertical format, short form answer to video with a style that’s a lot like TikTok or Instagram Reels.

Shorts have more than 5 trillion views. So, it’s pretty obvious that this style is trending.

These videos are only a few seconds and tell a quick story. Much of the content is user generated but it has some value for marketing as well. Common video topics include pranks, silly animals, and how-tos. The latter might be the most useful for video marketing.

13. Trending Audio

Another video marketing trend that’s been fueled by TikTok and Instagram is trending audio clips on videos. These sound clips might include popular songs, voiceovers, or other sound effects that the video tries to match.

These videos can get a lot of play and may also trend with other elements such as hashtags.

For video marketing purposes, trending sound can be a quick way to hop on a trend and generate engagement, but you will have a very limited time window to act and get your video posted before the trend fades again.

14. Sequential Storytelling

YouTube, a Google company, has put a lot of time and effort into what makes great video content. Their research shows that videos with sequential storytelling – something with a beginning, middle, and end – perform better and create more effective ads.

It’s not that surprising when you think about it. With the rise of streaming television and YouTube as an entertainment platform where users watch more and longer-form videos, the narrative format is more important than ever.

This is a trend that works for YouTube and almost anywhere else you plan to use video content. It works for short and long videos as well. The common denominator is that you just have to remember to tell a story that will resonate with audiences.

From YouTube:

“Video ad sequencing updates the traditional model, allowing you to serve up a planned sequence of ads that tell a story to customers across their purchase journey. New technology makes sequencing manageable and offers gains for marketers. It’s proven to be more memorable than the 30-second ad spot.”

So what does this mean? You can tell a single story across multiple videos, picking up where you left off in one and starting again in another. Keep building the video story over time.

15. User-Generated Video

User-generated video has long been popular with social media but it is everywhere you look. Even video that’s not user-generated often has that authentic look to it.

Think about many of the videos you’ve watched recently – from dances on TikTok to commercials – almost every other video looks like something someone did on the fly. There’s less perceived production and more of a look-at-what-I-just-made feel to it.

Even one of the most famous “user-generated” movies is making a comeback with a Blair Witch sequel (Escape Blair Witch) in late 2021.

16. Interactive Video

Interactive video comes in a lot of forms. It could be virtual reality or a game or accompanying elements, links, or options on a website or with a shared post.

One thing is trending though – you have to give users something to do once they’ve watched the video. Continue the engagement. Don’t let it stop with a view. Users who stick with you and watch a video are already engaged with your brand and content and are even more likely to continue that engagement. Keep the connection with an interactive opportunity.

The key to making interactivity work is to ensure that it aligns with the video itself. The link or next action should be intuitive and interesting.

Take note of how Maybelline, above, layers video behind a box that includes a call to action. This simple layering of elements can help keep users engaging with content longer thanks to a video hook. When you think of videos and interactivity, consider ways outside of AR and VR to implement them.

17. TikTok Style

If you have scrolled any social media feed, almost every video is using the fun, fast, energetic style made popular on TikTok. These short videos explain or tell about one thing with crazy dance moves, funny jingles, and stunts or pranks.

This silly and fun style is carrying over into marketing as well. (The Washington Post has a popular TikTok account that “sells” the news in this format.)

The trick to this video style is a marriage of information and entertainment. And it’s harder than it looks. To make the most of it for true marketing purposes, you should plan to storyboard ideas first.

18. Longer-Format Video

Some videos seem to be getting shorter and shorter, but longer format videos are on the rise. People are getting more used to watching full-length videos online, from social media clips and interviews that last several minutes to full episodic videos on YouTube.

The trick to longer-format video is that it has to be good. (Think of getting sucked into those recipe demos on Facebook. They might last 2 minutes but you want to see the finished food.)

Did you know that longer videos can actually result in higher engagement rates? A study by Twentythree.net found that videos longer than 15 minutes account for 50 percent of all video engagement, but only 8 percent of content. Think about that for a minute. You can produce fewer, longer videos and get greater results.

Subaru took its popular “Dog Tested” campaign to YouTube, showing outtakes from the ad campaign. The behind-the-scenes video is one minute long and the channel has more than 318,000 subscribers. (Think about it: These are people that looked for a commercial to watch online.)

19. Educational and Training Content

From FAQs to learning how to use a new product to online learning in a university setting, educational and training content is one of the most in-demand types of video content.

According to a report by Wyzowl, 68% of consumers prefer watching videos to learn about new products or services. That is more than reading articles, infographics, ebooks, and manuals, or seeing presentations combined.

If you are struggling with what type of video content to produce, this is the place to start. Create something that helps users better understand who you are, what you do, or your service or product offerings. And share it!

20. More Live “Stories”

Live “stories” aren’t just for Instagram. They are taking over all kinds of video formats in public and more private spaces, such as web chatting or conferences.

In-the-moment video creates an authentic connection with users that they like.

According to Livestream, 80% of audiences said they would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog post, and 82% preferred live video to social media posts.

So, if you aren’t going live, it might be time to think about it. Just remember to keep the video succinct and to the point and make sure the video and audio quality is good. The No. 1 reason viewers turn away from live video is poor quality.

And if the video includes timeless content, consider flagging or highlighting it so that it can be replayed later.

21. More Personal Video Interactions

You can thank the pandemic for this video marketing trend, but more people are interacting individually or in groups using live video chat.

Zooming has become a verb that refers to this type of video. And it will spill over to person-to-person marketing. From styles and recorded videos that look like video chats to actually scheduling chats for sales purposes, expect a lot more person-to-person interaction using video.

22. Soundless Optimization

Social media has changed the game when it comes to video marketing. A significant number of users are watching without sound.

There are plenty of reasons for this from not wanting co-workers to hear what’s on the screen next to them, to watching a video in public places on phones, to general annoyance at audio. But you need to create video for those who don’t want to listen.

Captioning and on-screen instructions or information are vital to ensure that video content fully reaches the audience. This can impact the way you record video for marketing and how you edit for playback.

The good news is that optimizing for soundless playback can actually help make video content accessible to more people. We’ve got a guide to accessibility for you here, and it includes some tools for captioning video.

23. Less Production

Highly produced video is out – unless you are making a movie – and quick action, blog-style video is in. The rise in video on social media and YouTube has changed the value of production for viewers.

The other reason for this trending video marketing technique? It’s fast, agile, and adaptable.

Rather than sending a simple tweet, people can engage with each other online using video messaging. Think of how many more video requests you are getting, though direct message feeds (such as LinkedIn) to public channels (Facebook and Instagram).

24. Vlogging vs. Blogging

Vlogging on YouTube (and other video sources) is the new blogging. Video diaries, reviews, and tutorials are a great way to help people find your product or service.

Plus, it is a growing marketing segment.

Vlogging is getting more mainstream all the time with tools such as Instagram TV and the do-it-yourself nature of these videos. You don’t have to have high-end equipment to tell a video story online, just a phone, an inexpensive microphone, editing software (or an app), and YouTube.

25. Vertical Video

Some of you are going to cringe: vertical video is here to stay (for a while anyway).

You can thank Instagram Stories and TV for that. But Facebook and YouTube also support vertical video. And think about how you actually hold your phone – it’s vertically.

Square videos are also gaining some popularity, although not to the same degree.

It’s all about where you plan to post and share. Horizontal video is still best for websites being viewed on wide-screen monitors and video ad formats (although some of those are more square). Vertical video is the thing for social media.

26. Super Short Video Ads

What if your video ad finishes playing before the “skip” option pops up? It kind of ensures that all the content will be seen.

Super short (or micro) video ads are catching on.

The challenge is creating something cool enough to click in 6 to 10 seconds. But short-form video ads can tease users just enough to make them want more. Use fast-paced or highly engaging visuals to grab users and lure them to your website with this video marketing trend.

27. Searchable Video

If you are creating video, make sure Google can find it. The search engine giant is crawling video and results will show in search and video search results.

The better information you provide, the better it will look when people find video content from search. Google has plenty of information on how to structure video content to make the most of search.

While this trend has less to do with video content, it has a great impact on your overall marketing efforts. If you are spending the time to create video, take a few extra minutes to make sure it will get seen by as many people as possible.

28. Shoppable Video Content

Videos have slowly been creeping into e-commerce. And not just for online reviewers.

Shoppable videos are short video clips that allow users to click (tap) and buy instantly. They don’t have to leave the video to make the conversion.

You essentially mimic the experience of a website (think about your hero header or key b-roll elements) so shoppers can make a purchase without leaving social media or the website they are on. You are probably seeing these videos all the time — they commonly pop up in between Instagram Stories from people you follow.

Shoppable content is growing. The format is simple: Create a video showcasing a product or service and then allow users to swipe-to-buy using Instagram or Snapchat ads.

29. Less Production

Video marketing trends used to always focus on production and cinematography. Not anymore.

Today’s video marketing is all about creating authentic content that people trust. They should think it is real – overly polished video might not seem as approachable or realistic.

The good news is that this is easier for you. Much of the video content on social media is actually produced on tablets and phones. Plus, you won’t feel bad about using a low-budget option only a handful of times before moving on to something else.

30. Optimize for Different Channels

The type, size, and format of video can impact how engaging it is to different sets of users. The days where you can create one clip and use it everywhere are gone.

Think about it: Sound vs. no sound, horizontal vs. vertical orientation, shoppable link or not, and the list goes on. You need a clip for each specific platform to get the best results possible.

Editing software will be your best friend here because you can take the same basic piece of video and crop, edit, and export by channel. It’s worth the time to get the highest engagement rates possible.

Conclusion

Even if you aren’t a videographer, figuring out how video will incorporate into marketing and design plans is important. It will likely continue to grow as part of your online strategy.

Use video in website designs, in social media, and as stand-alone advertising to engage with users in a way that they find highly engaging.

Fonts with a serene and earthy vibe are an excellent choice for giving a more authentic and grounded look to your typography designs. And that’s exactly the theme of this fonts collection.

In this post, we are showcasing some of the best nature fonts with earthy, rugged, and organic looks. These are must-have fonts for reminding the digital world of the beauty of nature.

When crafting logos, headings, and typography for eco-friendly brands, outdoor-themed businesses, or organic products, your choice of font will go a long way to establishing authority and authenticity.

You’ll find plenty of incredible nature fonts here for all those types of design projects. Be sure to download the free nature fonts as well.

Beauty Nature – Beautiful Script Font

Combined with an intricate design and elegantly flowing letters, this font gives you an opportunity to craft typography designs that stands out from the crowd. It features a collection of leaf-themed swashes that creates a nature-inspired look for your title and heading designs. The font includes regular and italic styles as well as multilingual support.

LUPINES – Cute Handwriting Nature Font

Lupines is a cute handwriting font that features nature-themed thin letters with a narrow design. This font is perfect for designing typography for labels, badges, and flyers related to nature and the environment. It includes a set of foliage, floral, and nature-themed shapes as a bonus in EPS format as well.

Branch Font – Creative Earthy Font

An aptly named font with an earthy and natural vibe. Branch font comes with a set of letters that look like tree branches. It will surely add a more creative and nature-themed look to your typography, especially for floral wedding invitations, greeting cards, and logos.

Zaitun – Bold Nature-Themed Font

This font features a very natural-looking letter design with a marker pen-style feel. The thick letters with uneven strokes give a very unique look to each of its characters as well. The font is an ideal choice for crafting logos and branding designs for nature-themed businesses and products.

Bonfire – Handcrafted Earthy Font

Bonfire is a handcrafted font featuring a rough textured design that gives off a very earthy vibe. It will go along perfectly with title and heading designs related to nature, outdoor, and adventure-themed projects. The font comes in regular and rough styles and it only includes all-caps letters.

Botanical – Free Hand Drawn Nature Font

You can download this font for free to craft beautiful nature-themed text. It features a botanical-inspired design with hand-lettered characters. It has serif all-caps letters with a set of alternates. The font is free for personal use only.

Tropical Jungle – Nature Font

Unleash your wild side with the Tropical Jungle nature-themed font. Bold and playful, this font is inspired by nature’s splendor in South America, Africa, and Asia’s tropical rainforests. From monkeys swinging through the trees to butterflies dancing between flowers, each of the 500+ glyphs encapsulates these joyful scenes.

Agetya – Decorative Serif Font

Agetya is a nature-themed typeface perfect for creating standout quotes, logos, and magazine headers, among other items. Delivered in TTF, OTF and WOFF formats, it offers an array of uppercase and lowercase options, ligatures, alternates, numerals, punctuations, and two versions: regular and outline.

Natures – Decorative Earthy Font

This is a unique display font adorned with floral motifs. Featuring standard characters and punctuation, this font bestows an organic, artistic look to your typography. Perfect for nature-themed designs, wedding invitations, or eco-friendly products, it adds a touch of natural beauty to your work.

Branchy – Creative Nature Font

Branchy is a marvelously unique, nature-inspired display font featuring handcrafted letters entwined with branch-like elements. This bold, fun font adds an elegant, distinctive flair to projects from branding to posters, packaging to artistic designs. The decorative nature makes it ideal for headlines.

Balmy Morning – Earthy Font Duo

Balmy Morning is a delightful, earth-toned script font featuring delicate floral adornments within each character. Ideal for invitations, greeting cards, and brand logos, this font offers whimsical elegance to your designs. It includes Balmy Morning Color in SVG-OTF format, Block, and Script in OTF format.

Naturel – Handwritten Nature Font

Naturel is a captivating, handwritten display font inspired by the beauty of nature. With its smooth, flowing characters and handcrafted appeal, it perfectly complements eco-friendly branding, rustic invitations, and artisanal packaging. Its versatility suits various platforms from digital to print, effortlessly attracting attention to your designs.

Da Bamboo – Modern Decorative Font

Da Bamboo is a modern decorative font that perfectly blends nature-inspired aesthetics with a contemporary twist. Ideal for a range of uses, from branding and packaging to posters and invitations, its sophisticated and unique characters add an organic touch to any design project.

Quokky – Condensed Fun Nature Font

Quokky is a playful nature-themed font. It’s perfect for many creative uses, from flyers to quotes, posters, packaging, and more. Its features include uppercase, numbers, punctuation, multiple language support, private use area encoding, and OpenType format.

World Madly – Nature Themed Font

World Madly is a uniquely delightful and quirky nature-themed typeface. It exhibits a playful charm with its distinctive rounded and condensed letters, and boasts ten varied environmentally-inspired alternatives. Ideal for designs themed around Earth Day, green initiatives, or simply expressing your love for the planet, this font can add a touch of eco-consciousness to your projects.

Earthbound – Organic Nature Font

Earthbound is a rustic and inviting font that channels the quiet beauty of rural landscapes. Evoking the idyllic charm of country life, this typeface imbues your projects with authenticity, warmth, and simplicity. With its handcrafted lettering and gentle rounded edges, Earthbound is ideal for crafting signs, packaging, or invites with a nostalgic and earthy appeal.

Restless – Free Brush Script Nature Font

This font comes with a very natural-flowing brush lettering design. It takes inspiration from nature-themed elements and has both uppercase and lowercase letters. This font is also free for personal use.

Nature Force – Calligraphy Nature Font

The earthy nature of this font will add an extra natural look to your calligraphy-style typography designs. It’s especially perfect for greeting cards and smooth poster titles, magazine covers, and website headers. The font includes lots of ligatures and multilingual support as well.

The Virnature – Nature Script Font

When you combine nature with elegance, you will get a result that looks just like this. Virnature is a classy script font that features a beautifully flowing letter design. This font has an ideal look for crafting nature-inspired logos, titles, and headings for wine bottle labels, greeting cards, posters, and much more.

Earth Tone – Organic Earthy Font Family

This is a family of sans-serif fonts that feature beautiful organic letter designs. It has fonts with light, regular, and bold weights with natural hand-crafted look and feel. These fonts are perfect for everything from eco-friendly brand designs to custom t-shirts, quotes, and product labels.

Secret Nature – Creative Nature Font

A very creative script font featuring floral-themed decorative elements. This font is a perfect fit for designing beautiful titles for greeting cards and wedding invitations. The font includes uppercase and lowercase characters with decorative leaves illustrations.

EARTH – Nature-Themed Display Font

Another nature-inspired display font with stylish decorative elements. This font is most suitable for crafting typography for movie posters, book covers, and various other entertaining designs. It’s especially great for enchanting and fantasy-themed projects.

Monique Script – Free Nature Font

This beautiful script font also has a stylish letter design with a simple and natural vibe. It’s ideal for crafting signature-style logos for brands as well as for business cards. It’s free to use with personal projects.

Adhellia – Free Script Earthy Font

Adhellia is a script font with a casual look and feel. It includes a set of bold characters with an earthy vibe. The font is especially suitable for modern logos and packaging designs. You can use it freely with personal designs.

The Moot Jungle – Nature Font

With a touch of authenticity and wild variations in letter design, this font will help you craft unique and attractive typography designs for various types of projects. It includes lots of fantastic alternate characters for adding that extra special decorative elements to your logo, title, and heading designs. The font includes over 700 glyphs.

Pine Jungle – Decorative Nature Font

Pine Jungle is a creative display font that features a set of characters that’s been crafted to depict a pine forest. Each letter in this font features pine trees with a starry sky. You craft stylish t-shirts, book covers, and posters with this font. It includes all-caps letters only.

Black Ground – Rustic Earthy Font

This font features a rustic design with a strong rugged letter design. Using the font, you can design bold titles and headings with a masculine look. Especially for men’s fashion brands, luxury watches, high-end lifestyle products, and more. The font includes uppercase and lowercase characters with alternates.

Earth Elements – Handwritten Nature Font

A unique nature-themed font with a rough letter design. This font features a creative handwritten look with textured letters. It’s been designed by hand with real oil crayons. The font comes with a lot of additional elements, including ligatures, hand-painted backgrounds, textures, and more.

Pretty Garden – Unique Earthy Font

Pretty Garden is a pretty font indeed. It has a beautiful earthy design featuring handcrafted letters. It will instantly add a personal touch to your text while making them look natural and creative. There are 3 styles of fonts included in this pack, script, sans, and serif fonts. As a bonus, there’s a doodle dingbat font as well.

Nature – Free Script Nature Font

This free nature font is perfect for adding a natural look to your graphic designs. It has script letters with swirly strokes and swashes. It goes perfectly with product tags and greeting cards. The font is free to use with personal projects.

Sunflower Signature – Free Earthy Font

This font takes inspiration from sunflowers and offers you a gorgeous-looking set of letters to craft beautiful and romantic titles. It’s a signature-style font with earthy vibes that includes uppercase and lowercase characters. It’s free for personal use.

Bristol – Creative Nature Font

Bristol is a creative and decorative nature font inspired by the city in the UK. It features a set of unique carved letters with floral-themed elements. The font is a perfect choice for branding designs related to healthy foods, natural products, outdoor brands, and more.

Arthicoke – Decorative Nature-Themed Font

Arthicoke is another decorative font that comes with a nature-inspired letter design. This font has beautiful swirly edges that add a playful and casual feel to every letter. It’s ideal for product labels, packaging designs, and overall adding a fresh vibe to your graphic designs. The font includes ligatures and alternates too.

Refresh Screen – Nature-Themed Font Family

A family of brush fonts featuring hand-crafted letter designs. The condensed and narrow design of this font will allow you to craft trendy titles and headings for posters, banners, flyers, and more. The font comes in 5 styles that pair quite well together.

Verdant – Botanical Nature Earthy Font

This font has the perfect look for crafting logos, badges, and label designs for brands related to beauty products. The font features letters with beautiful botanical and floral elements. It’s ideal for nature-themed luxury branding designs as well.

Bottania – Handwritten Nature Font

Bottania is a handwritten font featuring thick letters with a nature-themed design. The font has charming and uneven strokes across all of its letters that add an authentic look to typography designs. It includes both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Nature Quest – Playful Nature Font

This font is made for all your fun, creative, and playful typography designs. It has a set of cartoon-style letters with a nature-inspired design. It’s especially great for crafting fun titles for designs related to kids and school projects.

You can find more great fonts for your inspiration in our best business and corporate fonts collection.

Being a marketer is hard — I feel it’s always been this way, but now the pressure to deliver results is even higher. Companies are cutting their marketing budgets and watching every penny before deciding what to spend it on.

Fortunately, we now have access to many tools, including AI, which can make our work a little bit easier.

While some of these tools can take over routine, time-consuming tasks, others provide valuable insights that can aid us in decision-making. I think that AI is a real lifesaver when it comes to conversion rate optimization.

In this post, I am going to explain why you should give it a shot, as well as cover the main use cases.

Table of Contents

• Why use AI for conversion rate optimization?
• How to Apply AI to Your CRO Strategy

Why use AI for conversion rate optimization?

Understand customers better — and faster.

If you’ve ever had to sift through hundreds of CRM records to identify common customer behaviors, then you know how much time (and brainpower!) it requires to reach conclusions.

Luckily, anyone working on CRO can now use AI to analyze customer data rapidly and at scale. I’d even go so far as to say that this AI application is quickly becoming the new standard for data-driven teams.

A survey run as part of HubSpot’s and The Next Wave’s 2024 “How AI Is Driving Personal Productivity and Business Growth” report found that 70% of marketers already use AI to conduct more data analyses, while 64% use it specifically to understand their customers’ profiles better.

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Naturally, I’m not suggesting that AI replaces all the customer data analysis work — you still need a CRO specialist. Still, equipping them with AI-powered tools lets them focus their manual efforts on areas that truly need human expertise.

React to “anomalies” quicker.

People are great at spotting patterns — including those in data. But, if given a vast database, they can’t go through it as quickly as AI can.

When it comes to subtle yet potentially significant trends in customer behavior, it can take a human days, if not weeks, to spot them. And, by the time they do, they could already be causing massive problems, like a drop in conversion rates from one channel or a lower average order value (AOV).

AI tools can analyze your leads and sales data round the clock, seven days a week. If they spot any disturbing, recurring user behavior, it can send you an alert straight away. This way, you can take action ASAP to address the problem.

This shows that people and AI can work in synergy — AI’s efficiency allows for real-time insights, while humans can work on adopting new business strategies.

Focus more on critical tasks.

Marketers are busy, with dozens of tasks they need to handle at once and a few meetings in between.

No wonder that as many as 73% of those surveyed by HubSpot admit to using AI for conversion rate optimization as it gives them more time to focus on creative work, which demands human attention.

By “outsourcing” routine tasks to AI, marketers can get a few extra hours in their workday and dedicate them to more strategic work, like brand positioning or market research.

Optimizes your conversion points — even if you lack real-life data.

I believe that this AI CRO mechanism doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves.

You can have AI analyze your assets, like landing pages or emails, even before you launch a product or campaign.

A great example is one of VWO’s free tools, i.e., their AI-powered heatmap generator. While it doesn’t cross-reference your customer data, it tells you if there are any usability issues that could block leads from converting.

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Gavin Yi, Founder & CEO of Yijin Hardware, told me that he used AI-driven heatmap analyses to check if their mobile app’s existing design promotes conversions.

Yi told me he found out that certain CTAs and buttons were placed too low on the layout.

This meant lost opportunities because users wouldn’t scroll far enough to see them.

“By using the insights from the heatmap, I successfully repositioned crucial elements higher up on the mobile layout, resulting in an instant spike of conversions from this platform,” he says.

Yi also adds that this AI CRO strategy showed the company how they can adjust the user interface for those accessing their product on various devices.

How to Apply AI to Your CRO Strategy

1. Collect data and segment your customers.

Before you start with AI conversion rate optimization, you need to figure out the basics, i.e. gather the data and split your customers into segments. The good news is, AI can help you with the latter.

It can analyze data from various sources like your website, app, social media, etc., and turn it into insights that will aid you in categorizing users into specific groups.

You can then start personalizing your marketing efforts, which will hopefully improve your conversion rate.

This kind of approach works nicely for InboxAlly. Their Head of Partnership, John Simmons, told me they use AI to understand each customer’s unique needs and preferences. By doing so, they can deliver hyper-relevant experiences that speak to them directly, which has proven game-changing when it comes to CRO.

“When we implemented AI-powered personalization on our product pages, we saw a 12% increase in add-to-cart rates. The system was able to discern each visitor‘s preferences based on their on-site behavior and serve them the optimal product imagery, content, promotions, etc., to compel a purchase.

We’ve since rolled this out across our site, leading to over $2 million in incremental revenue annually,” says Simmons.

What’s the secret to making AI work for CRO? Simmons suggests starting small and identifying a few quick-win use cases where AI can enhance relevance.

“As you demonstrate success, you can expand into more advanced applications. The key is pairing the technology with clear business objectives. Used strategically, AI can have an outsized impact on your CRO and customer experience efforts,” he adds.

2. Analyze customer data to personalize their experience.

These days customers expect personalization; it’s been the norm for quite some time. However, AI brings personalization to a whole new level.

It can analyze browsing patterns and provide customized website content, product recommendations, and offers in real-time.

By serving content that is relevant to the target audience, brands can not only enhance engagement but also improve conversion rates.

Imagine you run an ecommerce store selling electronics. One of the visitors searches for eco-friendly products and buys a smart thermostat.

The next time they visit your site, you could add a banner featuring the latest solar-powered gadgets or provide recommendations for energy-efficient home appliances to improve your chances of conversion.

3. Automate A/B tests in your customer acquisition funnel.

If there is one thing I’ve learned during my marketing career, it is that effective marketing is all about testing. If you want to boost your conversion rate, you need to befriend A/B testing. Luckily, you can now fully automate it with AI, which significantly speeds up the process.

Rather than manually creating and monitoring split tests, you can turn to tools like Optimizely or VWO to run multivariate tests. You can then analyze tons of variations to pick the one that drives the most conversions.

AI is really incredible at analyzing data in real-time. It can literally detect minute differences in user interaction patterns and make instant adjustments — something that a human could never do.

It can help you optimize your landing pages, CTAs, and user flows.

4. Use predictive analytics tools.

These AI conversion rate optimization tools let you forecast user behavior — or even market trends. As a result, you have more time to ideate how you can optimize your strategy.

Think, predicting what types of products will be a “hit” this upcoming Christmas season and stocking up in advance. Or knowing with high probability that a client will need to upgrade to a higher plan soon, and sending them a discount offer.

Mary Zhang, Head of Marketing and Finance at Dgtl Infra, told me that her company developed an entire AI-powered client success prediction model to optimize its customer acquisition funnel.

The algorithm analyzes three types of data, i.e., historical records, user engagement patterns, and industry trends to predict which leads are most likely to become successful long-term clients.

“This model goes beyond traditional lead scoring, because we focus on forecasting potential client lifetime value and alignment with our services,” Zhang says. “The results have been remarkable: Our sales team's efficiency increased by 35%, client retention rate improved by 28%, and the average deal size grew by 40%.”

5. Visualize your customers’ journey.

Customer journeys can be complicated. And it’s hard to spot a bottleneck without visualizing every single step that a user must take. So, why not use AI to analyze data from each channel to identify places where users drop or are less engaged? This is what Securiti.ai did.

Adil Advani, their Associate Product Owner, told me they decided to dig into the data to fine-tune their customer journey. They were aware that every click and every scroll tells a story, so they started analyzing behavior patterns on their site.

“We realized our potential customers were getting stuck at the same points, so we reshaped our site's navigation to make it more intuitive. By simplifying the journey from the homepage to the contact form, we saw our bounce rate drop by 18%, and our leads shoot up by 23%,” says Advani.

The team didn’t stop there; they kept testing different layouts and messages on their main landing pages, which boosted their conversions by another 15%. “It's all about making the experience as smooth as possible for our visitors, and the numbers really do speak for themselves,” adds Advani.

6. Consider implementing dynamic pricing and limited-time offers.

I already briefly mentioned this method when discussing prediction models, but it’s a topic that calls for a separate point.

I worked at a few startups in the mid-2010s, and I recall that their pricing schemes were almost “set in stone.” One of the companies had a “custom” pricing option with a CTA to reach out, which hinted at the company’s openness to tailor the offer or discuss discounts.

Still, it doesn't compare to the level of proactivity AI enables when it comes to negotiating prices.

Depending on your company, you can either create rules for all customers, or specific segments, as to when the AI should send over a discount or display a limited time promo. Recently, my favorite example of this AI conversion rate optimization strategy (albeit, from the perspective of a buyer) comes from Etsy.

I’ve picked up sewing as a hobby and started purchasing printable patterns through the platform. As you’d expect, a lot of sellers use upselling techniques like “Buy 2, Get 1 free.” However, the platform also offers them intelligent conversion optimization methods.

After I added some patterns to the cart and then went on with my day without finalizing the offer, I received an automatic, time-sensitive discount code from the seller.

This type of AI can act on your behalf, with agreed minimal prices or maximum discount rules, and react to even the subtlest user activity — like clicking on an image or watching a video.

I love how it helps sellers offer the perfect deal at the right moment, without any direct human oversight.

7. AI-powered email campaigns.

Email is still one of the most effective communication channels. And I believe that creating an attention grabbing email is both art and science.

If this is something that you struggle with, then I highly recommend using AI to not only personalize your content and optimize your send times, but also segment your users more accurately.

AI tools can help you decide on the best subject line, format, and content to maximize both your open and click-through rates. Journaling Supplies use AI-driven customer segmentation.

Their manager, Karen Chen, says that “by analyzing user behavior and demographics, we’re able to spot those who are more likely to convert. For instance, we implemented AI to segment our email marketing campaigns based on user engagement.”

What was the result?

After personalizing content for these segments, they saw a 25% increase in click-through rates and a 15% boost in conversions over three months.

This targeted approach allowed the brand to deliver relevant content, significantly enhancing user engagement and, ultimately, driving sales.

8. Use a co-pilot with many AI capabilities.

After reading the previous sections, you might be thinking that you’ll need to subscribe to a whole ton of different AI software.

The good news is you don’t have to — instead, I suggest that you try out a co-pilot, which will serve as your all-in-one AI CRO tool.

For example, HubSpot’s Breeze is a platform that has everything you need to boost your customer-facing teams’ productivity and scale growth. Among others, you can use it to automate repetitive tasks, pull real-time insights on buyer intent, and run better conversion rate prognostics.

These are just a few of the possible use cases. Take a look at the different ways HubSpot users apply Breeze in their CRO strategy.

AI gives your CRO specialists what they need to grow revenue.

There are so many areas where AI can support your customer-facing teams — from running large-scale data analyses at a fraction of the time needed for human work to predicting demand and optimizing your email campaigns and landing pages.

It’s the resourceful assistant whom I think most of us need, particularly if we want to stand out from our competitors.

Once you decide which tasks should be completed manually and which ones can be automated, there will be no looking back — you’ll love how much CRO creativity you’ll unlock.

If you’ve followed the news or opened X this fall, you’ve probably seen Polymarket.

It’s that prediction market for politics (and more) that’s been all over the place lately. I’ve been following their rise for the past year from a no-name niche betting market to over $1B assets under management — with the CEO on the cover of Forbes and presidential candidates mentioning them in speeches.

Throughout the rise of Polymarket, I’ve become friendly with a few members of their growth marketing team here in NYC. And the one thing I keep asking them again and again is: “HOW ARE YOU GUYS EVERYWHERE????”

Here’s what I’ve learned.

A Breakdown of Polymarket’s Marketing Strategy

Screenshot Marketing

The first time most people come into contact with Polymarket isn’t their site or app.

It’s usually a screenshot posted on social media or across the news. And if you look at any screenshot of Polymarket, you’ll see their name and logo.

This placement was not an accident, I promise you that.

During talks with their team, I learned there was quite a lot of A/B testing done to make sure their logo would appear on almost any possible screenshot.

Anytime a screenshot is shared across the internet, from X to LinkedIn to TikTok to Reddit, Polymarket is right there.

The logo and name are colored light gray so it’s not too in-your-face to the point where you’d want to crop it out. They’re smarter than that. Instead, the logo is just subtle enough to be seen, but it doesn’t take anything away from the image.

This is a genius strategy built for the age of social media that couldn’t have existed a couple decades ago.

In fact, there’s even a term for this style of marketing: it’s called screenshot marketing, and it involves using screenshots to make your marketing feel more natural.

It’s like sending screenshots of someone’s messages to a group chat. It’s juicy. Intriguing. And in the age of AI pictures and Photoshop, screenshots are unfiltered and raw.

Polymarket lives and breathes off screenshot marketing. $23B cybersecurity brands like Wiz do it. And I’ve used screenshots to go viral dozens of times.

In marketing, you always want to be as authentic as possible — and there’s nothing more authentic than sharing a basic unedited screenshot with your following like you would with your friends in a group chat.

Founder-Led Marketing

I’m a firm believer every startup should be doing founder-led marketing.

Whether you’re Elon or an 18-year-old AI founder, you should always be the biggest voice and proponent of your company. If the founder isn’t yapping about the company, then no one else will be.

The founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan, definitely believes in the importance of founder-led marketing.

He’s built his audience up to 26,000+ followers on X, and he keeps his content to a strict diet of 100% Polymarket-related tweets and retweets.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the App Store this October, Shane tweeted a simple screenshot (*cough cough* screenshot marketing) showing their success.

Because there’s been a lot of questions and attention on Polymarket betting versus regular polling, Shayne wrote a tweet to address this concern.

When Shayne spoke with famous political poller Nate Silver, he tweeted out the podcast to share this perspective on building Polymarket.

Shayne is locked in!

All Polymarket 24/7. No selfies with his dog. No pictures of his Lamborghinis. Not even any pictures of his team. All business all the time. And that business is making billions on the internet. You gotta respect it.

Social Proof

Typically when we think of social proof, we think of customer reviews.

But for Polymarket, it’s a little bit different.

Rather than customers “reviewing” Polymarket, their social proof strategy revolves around two things:

1. Amplifying thought leaders who are talking about Polymarket.
2. Sharing new big bets on Polymarket (thus normalizing the act of betting on Polymarket).

When other business leaders reference Polymarket, they repost it and hype it up.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the app store, Shayne tweeted a picture of it. When a presidential candidate talked about Polymarket during a speech, they tweeted about it.

But talk is cheap.

What’s more important for them is showing that people are actively putting money into the platform. They frequently tweet out screenshots of big bets and share updates around them.

(There we go with the screenshot marketing again!)

Capitalizing on ‘The Current Thing’

The public’s attention shifts like Charlie Sheen checking in and out of rehab programs. Remember him? Oh yeah, it’s been a while since he was The Current Thing.

See, with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, there’s always a new current thing. And whatever The Current Thing is, people can’t get enough of it.

Polymarket is built perfectly to capitalize on The Current Thing.

Anytime there’s something happening in the news, Polymarket spins up a betting market for it, which they then make content to promote. It’s the perfect cycle. And during the election season, there’s a new current thing everyday.

Here, you can see their post about the latest swing state odds keeping people up to date with the swing state current thing. When a new big movie is hitting theaters, they’ll spin up a market for that too.

Because The Current Thing is always changing, there’s literally a never-ending flood of good content ideas … which also means a never-ending flood of memes to be made.

Meme Marketing

The Polymarket team are some of the best memelords on the internet.

I originally became friends with the Polymarket growth marketing team because they’re customers of my meme marketing software, Memelord Technologies.

(If you haven’t already read my last HubSpot post on meme marketing, check it out.)

While Polymarket is a serious business with billions of assets under management, they also have a team of silly viral memelords on staff — and even more meme pages and freelancers on a consulting basis.

That’s because when it comes to capitalizing on The Current Thing, memes are the #1 tactic. They’re free, fast to make (and great for time crunch), and by nature, they can easily be shared and go viral.

The tactic that really blew me away though was how their social media intern put Polymarket merchandise on popular memes. It’s literally such a smart hack. You take an easily recognizable meme and put your brand assets on it. Easy.

The coolest part though is that they don’t just use memes for their content. Memes are baked into their product UX and philosophy.

Not only do they post memes, but they spin up silly memey non-serious betting markets about whatever The Current Thing is. Like betting markets on whether presidential candidates will say “skibidi” or “brat” before the election.

These silly betting markets are a perfect recipe for virality. Money + Absurdity = Virality.

How You Can Market Like Polymarket

Obviously, not all of us want to talk about politics in our marketing.

And even if we do, most of us can’t at work.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t incorporate trends and whatever The Current Thing is into our strategies.

Every industry has its own current thing — whether it’s OpenAI’s exodus of employees in the Silicon Valley startup community, the Met Gala in the fashion world, or maybe Black Friday for the e-commerce industry.

Look out for The Current Thing and jump on it as soon as possible. Whether it’s using my daily email of new viral memes, X’s new trend analysis tool, or Hubspot Trends, make sure you’re incorporating new trends into your marketing.

BUT …

... That being said, you can’t just rely on trends.

Even me as the meme marketing guy, I don’t think you can just rely on just memes or capitalizing on The Current Thing for your marketing.

Yes, I wrote a book called Memes Make Millions, but they can only make you millions if you have a good product and message.

This is what Polymarket has done so well.

It’s not just memes and trends and news that is stale 24 hours later.

It’s Shayne clearly explaining why he’s building Polymarket. It’s Shayne going on podcasts with industry leaders like Nate Silver.

It’s the social proof of retweeting people like Elon Musk talking about Polymarket.

It’s the constantly updated screenshots of political markets. It’s the Forbes cover and billions of assets under management.

Polymarket’s marketing perfectly blends capitalizing on The Current Thing and using timeless marketing techniques. It’s truly brilliant to witness.

Watch out folks — I think we’re witnessing the beginnings of a generational company.

HubSpot recently conducted a video marketing survey and found that 73% of respondents agreed that video marketing has been effective in reaching their marketing goals.

However, over a third of respondents (34%) say the most challenging aspect of video marketing is the lack of content ideas.

Fortunately, I‘ve got 15 video content ideas to help you achieve your business goals. But before we get to that, I will share my secret for finding video marketing ideas and what kind of video content is popular among consumers.

Table of Contents

• How do I find video content ideas?
• What video content is most popular?
• 15 Business Video Ideas

How do I find video content ideas?

My method for finding video content ideas is pretty simple. I typically go to YouTube and social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook and follow accounts that are within my niche or similar.

For example, I recently started creating TikToks for a new dance studio in my neighborhood to help attract more students.

To determine the type of video content I should create, I started following other dance studios on TikTok and observing their videos.

I bookmarked the ones that seemed to get the most views and started brainstorming ways to make similar videos for the dance studio. I found that the following videos seemed to do well:

• Videos of dancers doing complicated choreography
• Beginner-friendly breakdowns and tutorials on how to do certain moves
• Information on what exercises can improve the strength and stamina needed to dance

That's the manual and, I guess, “old school” way of finding video content ideas. You can also pair this method with AI by asking tools like ChatGPT to generate video ideas for you within your niche.

I did this for a blog post and YouTube channel, but the same can also be applied to individual videos.

What video content is most popular?

According to Statista (and Statista hasn't let me down yet), the most popular types of videos worldwide are:

• Music videos (48.2%)
• Comedy, meme, or viral videos (35%)
• Video live stream (27.7%)
• Educational videos (26%)
• Tutorial or how-to videos (25.8%)

So, what should your takeaway be? Consider ways to incorporate music, comedy, or trendy memes into your video marketing. Duolingo is a company that does this well.

I often reference its video marketing skills and wonder if the company is sick of me yet.

Whenever there's a viral trend or song, best believe Duolingo will find a way to incorporate it into its TikTok content, and the videos almost always go viral.

You can also opt for how-to tutorials, which Fenty Beauty executes very well on its accounts. Most Fenty Beauty videos will feature a person showing the products they're using and how to apply them to achieve specific looks.

How-to videos are a great way to show the quality of your products and how they work.

If you're looking for inspiration regarding educational videos, Girl With The Dogs is a great account to follow.

Girl with the Dogs is run by pet groomer Vanessa De Prophetis. She details her experience grooming various breeds of dogs and cats via YouTube and TikTok videos.

In each video, she explains her process, shares grooming tips, and provides detailed information about each breed, its temperaments, and grooming needs.

This allows her to establish herself as a trusted expert in her field so future clients know their animals are in good hands.

15 Business Video Ideas

Now, let‘s discuss some business video ideas. Most of the videos I listed below are fairly easy to create, but if you want to generate videos even more easily, check out HubSpot's Clip Creator.

Clip Creator is a free AI-powered video maker thart can convert text into professional videos for your business. All you need to do is desdcribe your video and preferred tone. Click here to learn more.

Okay, I‘m done stalling. Here’s my list.

1. Demonstration Video

As I said earlier, Fenty Beauty has how-to tutorials and demonstration videos down to a science.

Whether it‘s simple 60-second clips of the products being swiped onto a person’s lips or an in-depth long-form video of their founder, Rihanna, using the products to create a red carpet look, Fenty Beauty's demonstration videos tutorials give its audience a detailed look into the function and quality of the products.

2. Customer Testimonials

Do you have customers who have been purchasing your products and services since the beginning of your business? Or naysayers who turned into believers? Feature their testimonials in your next video!

Real customer testimonials and feedback will establish trust with potential clients, so next time a consumer sings your praises, ask them if they're will to go on camera or are comfortable being quoted.

3. User-generated Content

I'm not sure if other marketers share this sentiment, but I see user-generated content (UGC) as another form of customer testimonials.

Think about it: customers sharing videos using your products is almost the sale, if not better, than them going on camera and talking about how your company is.

One of my favorite ads featuring UGC is Ring LLC's commercial, which shows a compilation of videos taken by consumers who use their door cameras.

The video shows everything a Ring camera can capture, from special family moments to heartwarming neighbor interactions to chaotic pet shenanigans to attempted thieves.

Pro tip: Encourage consumers to tag your brand on social media anytime they post a video or other forms of content. Or you can just look up your brand on video platforms like TikTok to see what you can find.

4. Behind-the-Scenes

Do you want to show your audience the care and craftsmanship that goes into making our products? A behind-the-scenes look into products is a great way to go.

I've mentioned them in a few posts, but Gibson is an excellent example of behind-the-scenes video content. Videos like the ones below show the time and quality materials that go into making its iconic guitars.

If your consumers care a lot about craftsmanship, create something similar for your brand.

5. Product Comparison

While I prefer hotels to Airbnbs (I‘m not on vacation to do chores, sorry), I have to hand it to the company’s current video marketing tactic of comparing AIrbnb experiences to hotels.

The video below, though animated, effectively shows that travelers looking for a specific experience are more likely to find it at an Airbnb than they are at a traditional hotel.

6. Trend / Current Event

Yes, I‘m bringing up Duolingo again. How can I not?

The bulk of their TikTok strategy hinges on tapping into the latest trends and discussions on the app. I don’t have to go into too much detail again because I think you get the point by now.

7. Interviews

Crunchyroll is a streaming platform known for its variety of anime programs. For the longest time, Crunchroll's video strategy mostly featured compelling clips from their catalog, which is a great strategy in and of itself.

Lately, however, the platform has branched out into featuring interviews with big names and faces in the anime industry, from musicians to voice actors to directors.

This results in excellent video content that showcases its catalog and leaves audiences with new information about their favorite shows.

8. Offbeat Comedy Videos

As I said, comedy videos are pretty popular among viewers, so don‘t be afraid to inject a little humor into your video content.

I love this TikTok from Scrub Daddy because it’s a perfect combination of funny and current, as we‘re in election season when I’m writing this post.

9. GRWM

I don‘t know why, but I find "Get Ready with Me" videos (often shortened to GRWM) to be mesmerizing. Maybe it’s because they make me feel like I'm hanging out with a friend as we discuss a topic.

My favorite GRWM comes from my colleague Ramona Sukhraj. In the following Instagram Reel, Ramona does her makeup and casually explains how brands can go viral.

10. Announcements

Do you have a highly anticipated announcement to make? Why not share it via video? Let‘s say you’re restocking a beloved product or finally collaborating with an influencer your audience has been raving about.

A fun video is a great way to announce the big news.

It doesn't even have to be complicated. For example, they have been begging for a collaboration between content creator Amelia Dimoldenberg and actor Andrew Garfield ever since they bumped into each other on the red carpet.

The video below announced the collaboration with a simple shot of them saying hi to each other.

11. Follow Me / Walk With Me

Similar to GRWM videos, Follow Me / Walk with Me videos (I don‘t know if there’s a proper name for them) give the vibe that you're engaging in a conversation in a friend while they complete a task.

This video by my fellow HubSpotter, Alana Chinn, is a great example. In it, Alana explains work-from-home statistics while walking her adorable dog.

12. Listicle

Listicle videos can be pretty simple to make. You can opt for a list of reasons people should choose your brand over others, a list of ways to you use your products, or its top features.

13. Unboxing

An unboxing video is when a content creator (typically an influencer) unboxes items they‘ve received from a brand. If there’s an influencer you'd like to work with, consider sending them a PR package for them to unbox on their platform.

14. Live Shopping

We are in the era of live shopping, which has essentially become the new QVC. Live shopping is when a brand or seller live streams showcasing products, and viewers can buy directly from the live stream.

It's most popular on TikTok and a great way to achieve multiple goals at once: boost brand awareness, demonstrate your products or services, and generate direct sales.

15. Person on the Street

A person on the street video consists of someone out on the street or at an event interviewing people randomly. These videos are fun and simple to make because they involve minimal production and you never know what someone's genuine answer might be.

Crunchyroll created a person-on-the-street video while attending a convention, which provided an opportunity to engage with consumers while showcasing its catalogue of programs.

I told you I had you covered, didn't I? Now you have my secret sauce for finding business video ideas, and you have 15 video content ideas to choose from for your campaign.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Icons might be one of the most important – and underrated – examples of design in your portfolio. Here’s a look at icon design with some inspiring examples.

Icon elements are shown almost everywhere, but sometimes get produced as an afterthought. That shouldn’t be the case. Great icon design can be distinctive and add finesse and flair to a project.

Let’s take a look at what’s new, and what’s hot in icon design!

Y2K Icons

Y2K icons draw inspiration from the late ’90s and early 2000s, incorporating elements like metallic textures, vibrant gradients, and iridescent effects. The style often combines 3D shapes, futuristic typography, and playful motifs, evoking a sense of nostalgia for the digital culture of that era.

This trend appeals to a younger audience that finds nostalgia in the early digital age, but it can also be used to add a quirky or dynamic look to branding, apps, and websites. The juxtaposition of early internet culture with contemporary design techniques offers endless possibilities for creative expression.

For effective Y2K icon design, focus on balancing nostalgia with contemporary usability. While the style is visually distinct, it’s essential to keep icons recognizable and functional, especially for digital interfaces. Incorporate familiar shapes and symbols but give them a futuristic update through textures and lighting effects.

Pixel Art Icons

Pixel art icons bring back the charm of vintage video games and retro digital aesthetics, appealing to those who appreciate the lo-fi, pixelated look of early computer graphics. This trend embraces the limitations of pixel-based designs to create playful, nostalgic icons that feel authentic and relatable.

The pixel art style often features a limited color palette and chunky, grid-like shapes that are easy to recognize, making it ideal for applications, games, and even websites that want to add a touch of retro fun.

The resurgence of pixel art icons is partly due to the ongoing fascination with retro gaming and vintage computing. It provides an opportunity to infuse a sense of nostalgia into contemporary digital experiences.

With careful planning and creativity, pixel art icons can stand out as a fresh, vintage-inspired trend while adding a playful and nostalgic touch to modern digital designs.

Glassmorphism Icons

Glassmorphism, characterized by its frosted glass-like appearance, continues to gain traction in the icon design world. Glassmorphic icons often feature semi-transparent layers, subtle blurs, and reflective surfaces that mimic the look of glass. The trend creates a sense of depth and elegance, making icons appear to float on the screen.

Incorporating gradients and light reflections can further amplify the glassmorphism effect, making icons appear dynamic and visually captivating. Designers can use a variety of colors, from soft pastels to bold neon tones, layered over frosted backgrounds to achieve different visual impacts.

To implement glassmorphism effectively, you should focus on maintaining balance and contrast to ensure icons remain clear and distinguishable. Too much transparency or excessive layering can make icons difficult to understand, especially for users with visual impairments.

Retro Groovy Icons

Retro groovy icons take inspiration from the bold and colorful styles of the ’60s and ’70s, featuring curved shapes, psychedelic patterns, and playful illustrations. This trend brings a fun, vibrant vibe to icon design, using bright colors and swirling patterns that evoke the spirit of the era.

You can experiment with lively color schemes, combining pastel tones with saturated hues to create eye-catching icons. Adding textured details or hand-drawn elements can also enhance the groovy effect, making icons feel more authentic and dynamic.

This trend works especially well when paired with organic shapes and fluid lines, giving the icons a sense of movement and life. The style’s playful nature can help communicate a brand’s personality while still delivering functional iconography. When creating retro groovy icons, it’s important to balance vintage inspiration with modern usability.

Isometric Icons

Isometric icons offer a unique, three-dimensional perspective by using angled viewpoints to represent objects or scenes. This style gives icons a sense of depth and realism, while still maintaining a clean, graphic look. Isometric icons are perfect for illustrating complex concepts, technical subjects, or even entire environments in a compact, easy-to-understand format.

The trend is often used in infographics, mobile apps, and dashboards to convey detailed information with a visually appealing approach. This style allows you to create miniature worlds or detailed objects with precision, making the icons suitable for projects that require more than flat graphics can offer.

To maximize the impact of isometric icons, focus on using consistent angles and lighting to maintain a cohesive look. Too much variation can make the icons feel disjointed or chaotic.

Thick Line Icons

Line icons have been a big trend for quite some time. It’s something you see almost daily when browsing the web. The new take on this design trend is line icons with thick lines, as opposed to the thin styles that have been dominant.

Thick line icons are a little big trickier to work with because they need some space and size to render well. You can use them as a single color design element or filled with color and for almost any type of design need.

Thick line icons are probably best suited for oversized use and can be a fun theme option for a design project.

3D Icons

Everywhere you look, there are big, bold bubble-style three-dimensional icons in web projects. We like this icon trend because it is a lot of fun and includes a great deal of personality.

You can create 3D icons in almost any style, but the illustrated bubbles are the ones that are drawing a lot of attention as a design trend that we expect to see a lot more of.

These icons can be almost any size – from small to giant – and include animation (or not). What’s great about icons in this 3D style is that they are pretty flexible and can integrate with the rest of your planned design scheme.

The one thing to keep in mind is that this style has a light feel, so it might not work with super serious content.

Google-Style Icons

You probably recognize the look and feel of icons using primary colors and simple shapes as being a lot like the icons for Google’s family of products. And that style is trending for other projects as well.

These icons feature a flat style with a distinct color family that’s used throughout the icon set. Most icons use a few colors, although some are single color.

This icon style works for any size element, but is actually most effective for smaller icons because the design can be a little flat – literally – in oversized usage.

Fully-Illustrated Icons

Icons have been pretty simple for the most part for a while, but more designers are experimenting with fully-illustrated icon styles that are beautiful and engaging. These more complex icon elements are often used at larger sizes and contribute even more to the overall story of a design.

As with the example above, this style is perfect for a design with a more childlike tone or for icon elements that can show more of a creative flair.

Color, scale, size, and design consistency are important to keep in mind with this style so that your icon set looks like it is should go together.

Icon Doodles

Those stray doodles in the corner of your notebook might just be your next neat icon set. Doodle-style icons that have imperfect styles feel authentic and interesting and are a great accent for a project such as a personal portfolio.

The fun thing about doodle icons is that they can make a design feel a little more unique. Just the visual element of a doodle implies spontaneity and individuality. Use these concepts to your advantage when thinking about how to use this style best.

Don’t forget to play with colors and subtle adjustments between icons as well to really play up the unique, individualized nature of this design trend.

Pop-Art Style Icons

On the other end of the icon design spectrum is pop-art style icons, which are colorful, elaborate, and a little over-the-top.

Pop-art elements are a lot of fun and can inject plenty of personality into a project. The trickiest thing here is to not let color overwhelm the icon set individually or collectively. These icons can work best in a design without a lot of other dramatic color or effects.

The other trick to using this style of icon is to consider oversized usage with plenty of space around them. Let the art of each icon shine through.

Hand Drawn Icons

Hand drawn icons are not only a trendy style, but they also create a more intimate, authentic feel for a design project. Styles for these icons can vary widely, from simple shapes and lines to full-color icons.

The best part of hand drawn styles is that you don’t actually have to draw them yourself. There are plenty of hand drawn icon sets available so you can find just the right style, even if you aren’t feeling overly artistic.

Icons with Depth

Creating depth in icon design is somewhat tricky, but more designers are using this trend with oversized icon sets. Using shadows and geometry to create just the right shape combinations with an element that adds an almost three-dimensional effect.

These styles are quite fun and sometimes use hints of trends that have come and gone such as long shadows.

These icons tend to be on the more complex side and are best suited for use where the icons are fairly large or work in combination with another element, such as text for a logo.

Icons with Hover States

When it comes to icons for the web, one of the most popular techniques is to pair a set of icons in such a way that creates a hover state or animation. This might include using an icon that with a color fill and then not or almost creating a button around an icon.

If you plan to use some sort of hover state with an icon, it is important to think about this in the icon design phase. Not all icons or icon sets are optimized for this technique. Look for a complete icon set with variations that make creating a hover state that much easier.

And don’t try to get too complicated here. An elaborate icon can get lost with a hover state. This works best for simple icon pairs.

Simplified Icons

Even websites and designs that previously featured complex icon styles are moving to more stripped down and simplified icons.

What’s nice about them is that each icon portrays an identifiable thing, but the representation isn’t always 100% literal. Icon designers may take liberty with shapes or lines to create icon shapes that are the most simple version of the item it represents.

Line Icons with Color Shapes

Line icons are always a popular choice, thanks to a versatile style that looks good with almost any other design element. The trend adds just a little more visual interest with a pop of color, often in the form of a circle or square, behind the line icon.

The color shape might fill a part of the line icon design, but more often than not it’s just floating in the background. This tiny bit of visual interest can tie an icon set together, emphasize a brand color, or just freshen up an older site of line icons.

The tricky part of the icon design is placement and size of the color shape element. If it’s too big or too bright in color, it can take away from the icon. If the shape is too small, you risk it looking like a mistake.

While there’s no perfect size, most of the icons using this trend keep the color shape to about one-quarter of the full size of the icon.

Abstract Icon Shapes

Not sure what icon represents your content? An abstract icon shape might be the answer.

More designers are creating abstract style icons for use across websites. The nice thing about this style – and trend in general – is that abstract styles create a sense of whimsy and wonder that matches some of the bigger overall trends in design.

The key to working with abstract shapes is to make sure you aren’t replicating something by mistake and that icons truly are abstract. (Don’t try to create icons that are similar to your logo, for example, they might just look like errors.) For something that really matches, use the same color palette for icons and brand materials.

Icons with Background Icons

Some trending icons have icons of their own. Seriously!

For more elaborate uses of icons – we’re not taking tiny favicons here – icons can be stacked and layered to create more of an art element.

This trend often uses color and shading to differentiate between the main focal icon and background icons. The primary icon is often full color or a filled icon. The background icons are almost always line style and might have light color palettes.

You can create this effect with many premade icon kits by mixing and matching icons in different ways. Create depth and visual interest with icons of a similar theme and stick to just a handful of elements to keep the scene from getting too busy. Don’t be afraid to use and reuse elements and use the same icons (alternating line and filled) in backgrounds and foregrounds.

Two-Color Icons

Another icon design trend that builds on popular line icon styles is to create two-color elements.

Two-color icons can build on your existing color palette or brand colors or combine almost any other color pair. When designing using the icon trend, look for color pairs that will stand out from the background on which you plan to use them.

When it comes to the design, pick a primary color for most of the icon. Use a secondary color to accent an element of the icon. (Think of using the primary color for 70% to 80% of the design and the secondary color for the rest.)

This creates an accent in the icon design that will help draw the eye into the design element, and hopefully, surrounding content as well.

Bright Color

Bright color choices have been a big deal in all aspects of design. That is no different with icons. A bright color is an enticing way to draw the eye to the icon.

Color is being used in a few different ways when it comes to the icon design trend:

• As a background with a white or black line-style icon
• For full color icon elements with a more realistic look
• For icon elements with a more flat, gradient or super-bright design

Popular color choices in the bright family include yellows, blues, greens, and purples. These colors tend to be on the bright side and crafting a color palette with three to five hues for an icon set is popular.

Not sure where to start? Material Palette showcases colors that are a big part if the color icon design trend.

Icons in Logos

Take note of how many logos feature icons. Once you start thinking about it, not seeing all the little icons in logo design will be tough.

What’s nice about an icon in a logo is that it works with the brand name, and with some time and brand equity can stand alone. Think about the example above, Spotify. Even though the music provider hasn’t been around all that long (in the scope of brands), the circle with three lines is highly identifiable.

The icon works in color and without – a key of a strong icon – and can stand alone or with lettering. This versatility makes it easy to see why icons are a popular element in logo design.

Circles

Circles are one of the most harmonious shapes. And when it comes to icon design, they are rather popular. From icons that are contained inside a sphere to circles within objects, creating a design mark using circles can establish just the right feel for users.

(Want to know more about circles in design? We’ve got that here.)

Part of the influence of circle in icon design might connect back to some of the guidelines set forth by Google with Material Design. All those circular buttons are perfect for tapping on mobile phones. And that same philosophy applies to icon design. (Just think how often an icon is a touchable or clickable element.)

The part that can be a little trick about this icon trend is meshing circles in all the places where other shapes are used. App icons tend to be square; social media profiles are circular (and square).

When creating a round icon, make sure that the content of the icon design is easy to understand at small sizes, because you must shrink it often to fit in other places.

Line Style Icon Design

Line style icons seem to be the trend that never gets old.

Part of the reason is that this icon style can work practically anywhere on any background type. Many of the popular, downloadable icon packs often include a line style design because of this versatility.

It’s easy to see this in the example above. Each icon is easy to see and understand at practically any size.

Simple Elements and Representations

As with most other design trends in 2025, simplicity is part of icon design as well. Simple shapes and geography combine to create almost over simplistic representations for icons.

The result is a quite an artful design that makes users look.

In the example using food icons above, each icon uses the common thread of a circle in the icon. This can be the overall shape of the icon itself or a part of the icon design. This shape connects each icon to one another in the project.

Icons with Gradients

The gradient color trend that has become one of the dominant themes of 2019 is a factor in icon design as well. From simple gradients in line strokes (such as the example above) to full gradient coloring to white icons on a gradient background, this color scheme is popular.

That might be what’s so appealing about the use of gradients in icons (and overall) – there are so many different ways to use the trend. You can add a gradient and still not have a project that looks just like something else.

Focus on Simple Coloring

Icon designers are taking the opposite approach with color as well and sticking to simple, more limited, more basic color palettes for these small design elements.

Using a limited palette is a great idea. With a design that’s so small, too much color or detail can overwhelm the space quickly and cause strain on the eye.

You don’t want users to have to think about what the icon is or what color means. Limiting the amount of detail – including elaborate coloring – can make each individual icon a little easier to see and understand. This is most important with icons that will be used at the smallest sizes.

Everything App Style

One of the reasons that icons have grown in popularity so much is that we are already designing them for almost everything. From app icons to app-style icons for favicons or desktop icons, this style is practically everywhere.

App-style icons have a distinct style almost of their own. This includes:

• Square in shape
• Rounded edges
• Colored background (usually one color)
• Simple shape inside icon
• Plenty of contrast between icon and background color
• No text or lettering

Thick, Uniform Strokes

Not only are line-style icons popular, but icons with thick line strokes are especially popular.

Designed often for single-color applications, these icons are frequently used in white or black on top of color or photo backgrounds.

Icons with thick, uniform strokes are most frequently used on their own, such as a cart icon or contact icon. They aren’t often used in a collection of icons.

Flat Icons Remain Popular

While much of the hard focus on flat design has evaporated, icon design is still pretty flat (or at least almost flat).

This is likely due to the super-simple nature of flat design and the idea that this look can integrate with a number of other styles fairly easily.

Even looking at some of the icon design examples and trends featured here, you’ll see that many of them are flat. (Line style icons are almost always flat, for example.)

Emoji Icons

Emojis have almost become their own language – a more visual form of communication that’s getting more generally accepted all the time.

Icons design is also taking on an emoji-esque flair. These icons are identifiable because of a focus on the head shape of a person or creature. (The Star Wars-inspired emoji icons above are a great example of how to have fun with icon design.)

This style of the icon could work great for a contact page or for representing people or personas in a design.

How to Design a Better Icon

Crafting a good icon or set of icons is more than just hopping on to some of the latest trends in icon design. Because of the small size of icons, attention to detail and precision are an important part of the design process.

Simple rules still hold true for icon design in 2019. Pair these guidelines with some of the trending ideas above to create something you’ll love:

1. Start with a grid
2. Build with geometry
3. Create a unique shape
4. Give icons plenty of room
5. Stick to your brand colors
6. Use consistent divots
7. Design for the smallest size you need
8. Don’t decorate

Icon Design Guidelines

A good way to keep up with what’s “in” is by looking at graphics standards and style guides. Each time Apple or Google changes their approach so does everyone else. Partially because they have to and partially because the new style is often reflective of the times and trends in icon design.

You can find guidelines here:

• Apple App Icons
• Android App Icons
• Material Design Product Icons
• Material Design System Icons

Conclusion

Icons are a useful design tool. From use as app icons to website marks or favicons to divots that can be used in a logo or throughout a design project, the icon is a mark that’s here to stay.

Approach icon design in the same way you would almost any other project, but really think about simplicity and size. Icons are made to look at quickly and are often small. This can have a great impact on the design.