12 Different Types of Marketing Email You Could Be Sending

The internet is swarming with tips, tricks, and suggestions about how to design beautiful emails. And while a lot of marketers seem to understand the basics – personalize the copy, make the call-to-action pop, segment your list, etc. – many still overlook an important component of effective email marketing: emails also need to have visual appeal.

Oftentimes, marketers do give a lot of thought to email design when it comes time to launch a campaign. It makes perfect sense: You have an awesome new announcement or event, and you want to kick off the campaign right with a darn good looking email.

But what about the follow-up email? Or any email that may be included in an automated email workflow? It’s time to stop focusing on the design of just your biggest sends, and spend some time spiffing up all those other emails you’re sending. 

Need some inspiration? Check out the email examples below.

12 Types of Email That Marketers Can Send

Informational Emails

Informational emails are one-to-many emails you can send to folks to bring them up to speed in regards to your latest content, product announcements, and more. Note: You should only send them to people who have opted in to receive emails from you.

1) New Content Announcement Email

This is one you probably already know and love. You know, the one where you announce your next sale, ebook, webinar, coupon, free trial … and the list goes on. This email is used to describe and promote a particular marketing offer – one single offer – with a call-to-action that links to a targeted landing page made for that specific offer.

When it comes to designing an email for a specific offer, the main component to keep in mind is the offer itself. You want the copy to be brief but descriptive enough to convey the offer’s value. In addition, make sure your email’s call-to-action (CTA) link is large, clear, and uses actionable language. You can also include a large CTA image/button underneath to make the action you want email readers to take crystal clear.

(Example: NextView Ventures )

2) Product Update Email

Product emails are tricky. People generally don’t want to receive these often, and they’re typically not as interesting or engaging as something like an offer email. That said, it’s important to keep these emails simple and straightforward.

Many companies choose to send weekly or monthly product digests to keep their customers or fan base up-to-date with the latest features and functionalities. And no matter how much a customer loves your business, it’s still work for them to learn how to use new features or learn why a new product is worth their investment.

Rather than inundating your contacts with a slew of emails about each individual product update, consider sending a sort of roundup of new updates or products periodically. For each update you list, include a large, clear headline, a brief description, and an image that showcases the product or feature. It’s also worth linking to a custom page for each feature to make it easy for recipients to learn more about it.

(Example: Adobe)

3) Digital Magazine or Newsletter

Do you maintain a business blog for your company? Are you a magazine or media outlet? No matter which of these categories you fall into, many companies choose to send a roundup of stories or articles published weekly or monthly. And if you truly want people to read these email roundups, it’s critical that you share them in a visually appealing way.

Within these roundup emails, it’s a good idea to use an image paired with a headline, a brief summary or introduction, and a CTA for recipients to read more. This simple format will allow you to use visuals to attract the reader to each article while still giving you the ability to feature multiple articles – without sending a super lengthy email.

(Example: Skillshare)

4) Event Invitation

Email can be a great vehicle for promoting an upcoming event you’re hosting. But if you want to invite your contacts to an event and motivate them to register, it’s extremely important to clearly showcase why that event is worth their attendance.

A great way to do so is through visuals. A lot of events cost money to attend, and most cost a pretty penny. So if you want to attract registrants, cut down on the copy and show potential registrants why the event will be awesome.

(Example: FutureM)

5) Dedicated Send

Every now and then, you may want to send a dedicated email to a certain group of people. For example, if you’re hosting a conference or event, you might want to send a dedicated email just to event registrants to alert them of any new event updates they should be aware of (like in the screenshot above). Or if your business is community based, it might be a good idea to send a monthly email to welcome all your new members. 

(Example: INBOUND)

6) Co-marketing Email

Co-marketing is when two or more complementary companies partner together for some mutually beneficial task, event, or other promotion. The main draw of co-marketing is to leverage the audience of another company to increase your reach.

Sometimes the relationship results in a strategic announcement; other times it’s as simple as a joint webinar. Let’s use the latter for an example of how co-marketing emails work, and why they’re so beneficial: Let’s say you and another company decide to do a webinar together on a particular subject. As a result, that webinar will likely (pending your arrangements) be promoted to the email lists of both of your companies. This exposure to a list that is not your own is one of the key benefits of co-marketing partnerships.

When it comes to the email your business sends, make it clear that this offer or event is the result of a partnership with company X – especially if your co-marketing partner is particularly popular or impressive. To do this, you can adjust the company logo in your email to also include the other business’ logo. Furthermore, make sure your copy mentions both businesses, and create a custom graphic or image to visualize the offer or event. 

(Example: HubSpot + Unbounce)

7) Social Media Send

Wait … what does social media have to do with email? Well, if you’re making good use of LinkedIn Groups or Google+ Events, email has everything to do with social media.

As the administrator of LinkedIn Group, when you send a LinkedIn Announcement, you’re directly reaching a LinkedIn user’s inbox. And when you create a Google+ event, sending the invite directly sends you into users’ email boxes as well. Without having to create lists or collect email addresses, you automatically have access to users’ email, but be sure to tap into these resources with care.

When it comes to these social media emails, you don’t have the option of using email software that allows you to customize the layout or add images. You’re at the mercy of copy alone. This is where leveraging white space is very important. Keep your paragraphs short, your sentences brief, and your thoughts clear. Optimize these emails for the scanning reader, and use bullets or numbers to deliver your main points. 

(Example: CMI)

8) Internal Updates

Don’t neglect a very important audience for your company: your employees. Many companies, especially if they’re on the larger side, choose to send internal updates or newsletters to their employees to keep them in the know about the latest company information – whether it be new product updates, marketing offers, or events.

With these emails, it’s less about the beauty, and more about the clarity. The most important formatting tip for these types of emails is to arrange the information in a simple and helpful way. Once you’ve nailed your formatting, it’s simply a matter of highlighting the most critical information associated with each offer or update so its messaging is crystal clear to everyone.

(Example: HubSpot Academy)

Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are one-to-one emails that are triggered by specific actions, such as completing a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. Note: You’ll need specialized software in order to set up transactional emails.

9) Confirmation Email

How frustrating is it to book a flight or register for an event and not receive an automatic confirmation email? I know that personally, every time I make an online transaction, I wait impatiently to see that my transaction was complete. After all, nobody wants to worry that they’re first payment wasn’t processed, only to click the payment button again and get charged twice.

What bothers me most about so many businesses’ confirmation emails are two things: when the subject lines are vague, and when the information I actually want to confirm isn’t immediately evident when I open the email. Confirmation emails should be just that – confirmation emails.

To avoid any confusion, keep these emails simple, with just a brief summary of the information your recipients would want you to confirm. Try not to fuss with the design, as they simply want to know that the action they took was completed so they can save the information, have peace of mind, and move on. 

(Example: GrubHub)

10) Form Submission Kickback (Thank-You) Email

Whenever a prospect, lead, or customer fills out a form on one of your landing pages, a kickback email should automatically get triggered after their submission. Depending on the form, these kickback emails are often referred to as thank-you emails. These emails are mainly for the sake of fulfilling your promise to the user, and storing the information you promised them safely in their inbox.

How frustrating would it be if you downloaded an ebook, and then forgot where you stored the link to the PDF? Kickback emails solve that problem.

These automatic emails should make the CTA big and clear. Keep in mind that the CTA should link to the direct offer – NOT to the form. In these emails, simply thank the reader for their form submission, and give them what you promised, whether it be a link to the PDF of an ebook, instructions on how to activate their free trial, or the coupon they requested. Furthermore, don’t overcomplicate the appearance of these emails. The reader isn’t looking for additional information, but rather the offer or content they already know they redeemed.

 (Example: IMPACT Branding & Design)

11) Welcome Email

Another type of transactional email, the welcome email is the perfect option for thanking and providing more information to people who have signed up for your newsletter, product trial, or other offer.

The elements you include in a welcome email will depend on the specifics of what you’re offering. But in general, you can use the email to showcase your brand’s personality and to highlight the value that recipients can expect to receive. If you’re welcoming new users to a product or service, the welcome email is a great place to explain how everything works and what users need to do in order to get started.

Remember: First impressions are important, even when they happen via email. For more inspiration, check out this list of stellar welcome email examples.

(Example: Food52)

12) Lead Nurturing Email

Depending on the specific action a persona takes, you may want to enroll them in a lead nurturing campaign. Lead nurturing emails consist of a tightly connected series of emails containing useful, targeted content.

As their name suggests, these emails are used to nurture leads through the marketing funnel into a position of sales readiness. For example, let’s say you sent your list a marketing offer email. You might then set up a lead nurturing workflow that triggers another email about a complementary offer or piece of content to everyone who converted on that initial offer. The logic is simple: By identifying a particular group of contacts that you already know are interested in a specific topic, you and can follow up with more relevant and targeted content that makes them more likely to continue their relationship with you.

In your lead nurturing emails, it’s important to call out why recipients are receiving the email. For example, you could say something like, “We noticed you’re into [topic x] since you downloaded our [Topic X] ebook, and we thought you might want to learn more about [topic x] …” Once you’ve addressed why recipients are getting email from you, you can format your lead nurturing emails similar to the way you’d set up your general marketing offer emails.

Other very important considerations to make when crafting your lead nurturing campaigns are the planning, setup, segmentation, and timing of your nurturing emails. 

(Example: HubSpot)

At the end of the day, your emails should not only be visually appealing, but they should also be valuable. Focus on sharing the key information in the most appropriate format depending on the type of email you’re sending – and the audience you’re sending it to.

After all, what’s the use of a crazy-beautiful email if it doesn’t provide any true value to the reader? 

Know of any other types of email that should be on this list? Share them in the comments section below.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

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6 Sneaky Places Brand Inconsistencies Hide (And How to Fix Them)

Most marketers and brand strategists understand the dangers of brand inconsistency: without a well-defined logo, color scheme, and brand voice, your brand won’t stand out in consumers’ minds. And if consumers can’t remember your brand, you haven’t a chance against competitors.

While brands are constantly trying to uphold a strong visual image, the internet is notorious for uncovering small inconsistencies, many of which reside in the most unexpected places. 

To make sure that you’re covering all the bases, we’ve outlined six sneaky places where brand inconsistencies tend to hide – from the depths of your product descriptions to that email you’re about to send. Alongside these sources you’ll find inspiring examples of world-class brands that are doing their due diligence to keep things consistent across the board. 

6 Unexpected Sources of Brand Inconsistency (And How to Fix Them)

1) Content Marketing Clarity: OpenTable’s Voice and Tone Guide

Whether your content team is made up of two or 20, you’re inevitably going to end up with different writing styles. Having a range of voices is a good way to keep your audience interested, but there’s a fine line between an interesting variation and writing that’s downright inconsistent. And when the writing styles and visual content across blog posts are too drastic, your readers will be confused about the message you’re trying to send.

How to Fix It

One way to achieve consistency on your blog is to create a detailed content style guide. This guide can include information such as what types of stock photos to use, whether or not to use oxford commas, and what language to avoid. In addition to sharing this guide with everyone on your internal team, you can also share it with contributors, partners, and press.

OpenTable’s style guide includes helpful guidelines for what tone their branded content should embody. These tips are used to inform blog content, so writers of all different backgrounds have a basic standard to follow.  

2) Search Engine Results: Slack’s Organized Brand Guidelines

Pop Quiz: If you need information, fast, where do you typically go to get it?

We’re going to take a gamble and say that your answer was Google. People looking for information about your brand probably have the same train of thought. After all, Google is seen as a trusted method for finding information. Trouble is, this can be bad news for brands. Since Google is so good at scouring the web, they’ll pull up anything and everything related to your brand – even outdated logos, old product shots, and inaccurate company descriptions.

How to Fix It

If you’re not keen on chasing people across the interwebs every single time your logo is used incorrectly, try taking a proactive approach. You can prevent brand misuse by showcasing your brand accurately in a single, public-facing location. You can adopt a cloud-based platform like Brandfolder to provide easy, immediate access to your brand assets and their usage guidelines.

Slack ensures proper use of their brand assets by linking to their Brandfolder directly from their website in the top left corner. They also have a “brand guidelines” page on their website where readers can access all asset usage instructions.

3) Website Product Descriptions: Warby Parker’s Consistent Copy

One of the biggest culprits of brand inconsistency resides in product descriptions and feature pages. This copywriting is especially notorious for being misaligned with your brand, and with one another, because they are extremely detailed and change often.

How to Fix It

The best way to keep your website up-to-date is to conduct a website audit. To ensure the process goes smoothly, be sure to involve leaders from every department. Your marketing team can help refine copy, your product team can ensure that it’s accurate, and your sales team can verify pricing information. Website audits can be especially challenging if you haven’t conducted one in over a year, so try getting into the habit of conducting one every six months or so.

Warby Parker is a great example of a brand that achieves consistency across hundreds of products. Each pair of glasses has a product description that is similar in length and language. Since people shopping for glasses are inevitably going to look through many different pairs, these consistent product descriptions help Warby Parker uphold the quality and perceived brand value of their product.

4) Email Communications: Hamilton College's Efficient Style Guide

Consider this scenario: Your sales team is communicating with a customer about a possible feature upgrade. Your support team is communicating with that same customer to help fix a bug. Meanwhile, you’re crafting the perfect promotional email to send to all your customers. While all of the emails are from the same brand, none of the teams are aligning their email language. As a result, each email sends a radically different message, and the customer retrieves a mixed message about what your brand is about.

How to Fix It

Similar to the content style guide we suggested in tip one, an email style guide can serve as a helpful alignment tool. Your guide should include guidelines on how to respond to questions and concerns, and what specific language you should include (and avoid). Start by rounding up the most common questions each department receives, then work with your marketing team to craft on-brand answers. In addition to helping your brand be more consistent, this will also save your team time.

To make it even easier for writers to follow your brand’s editorial guidelines, simply make your style guide public.

Hamilton College sets a great example for brands looking to standardize their email writing styles – their Email Style Guide includes directions on everything from acceptable fonts and colors to imagery usage.

5) Social Media Profiles: Apple’s On-Brand Support Account

So your brand has an official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and – wait a minute, what other social platforms are you on? With so many options for marketing your brand on social media, it’s hard not to feel pressured to have a presence on all of them. However, trying to tackle all of these platforms is difficult – can you really maintain a consistent posting cadence on all of these sites? Even more problematic is that fact that each of these platforms have varying audiences – and not all of these audiences are aligned with your target market and brand strategy.

How to Fix It

The best way to stay consistent on social media is to choose a few platforms that make sense for your audience and your product – then master them. It’s also a good idea to do a cleanup of your social profiles and delete the ones you don’t use, or don’t plan on using in the near future. After all, you probably don’t want people looking up your brand on Twitter to find you’ve only tweeted once … three years ago.

Apple gets it: they’re one of the largest tech companies in the world, but they don’t even have a designated Twitter account. However, they do have an Apple Support account, which offers helpful tips and tricks on getting the most out of your Apple products.

This actually fits into the greater brand experience that Apple creates. Instead of reaching out to customers with promotional discounts and deals, Apple offers an online support community where people can go to find what they need – similar to their in-store experience.

6) Reviews and Ratings: Hotel Indigo’s Informative TripAdvisor Page

Since product review sites are regulated by people who know nothing about your brand, they often portray the wrong information. Whether your business has the wrong location, or is missing a proper company description, review sites can be a huge source of concern for potential customers. And while there’s not much you can do about the poor ratings and negative reviews on these types of sites, you can take steps to keep your fundamental brand information accurate.

How to Fix It

First, reach out to these sites and do whatever you can to correct your brand’s information. It’s the job of the review site to inform their users, so they’ll likely be receptive to your request. Another way to boost your presence on review sites is to reach out to your champion customers and ask them to leave a review (if they haven’t already). This will help filter out the not-so-positive reviews, so people visiting these sites understand both what your brand is about, and what people honestly think of it.

Nashville’s Hotel Indigo proves that a TripAdvisor profile can go a long way. Their page includes professional photography, accurate contact information, and TripAdvisor’s official “Seal of Excellence.” Nashville’s Hotel Indigo Staff can easily monitor this site to help customers gain knowledge and trust.

Now that you’re aware of six places brand inconsistency may be lurking, you can get started on creating your most consistent online brand presence yet.

Did we miss something? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Education Blogging 101: How to Attract More Students Online

Active blogging is a basic building block of any successful inbound marketing strategy - its hub, if you will. For schools and admissions offices struggling for resources, launching and maintaining a blog may seem like a daunting undertaking. But it’s one well worth taking. HubSpot research found that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to be able to show a return for their efforts.

Having a school blog (or two) can boost your student applications in a number of ways. First, good blogs are regularly updated with with entertaining, informative content. Google loves blogs with a steady flow of engaging content. If you’re writing around the right keywords, your blog will increase the flow of organic traffic to your blog and website. 

Learn other ways to increase traffic to your site in our ebook The Do’s andDon'ts of SEO for Schools >> 

Also, the more you blog, the more inbound links you get back to your site, which Google also loves. It sees inbound links as a sign of trust and authority for your content, so it bumps up your place in search results because it wants to serve up the most relevant, reliable content. Helpful, engaging blog content also gets shared on social media, which in turns drives more new visitors to your site. 

Once you have all these new visitors to your blog and website, you have the opportunity to get their information into your marketing database. You want to include a call-to-action form on every blog post, and throughout your website. The call-to-action may be to sign up for your newsletter or blog, or to download a report. The blog visitor shares her email and other information with you in order to get this content.

Now you can push more content out to them overtime as you nurture them along the path to making an application. And the more they visit your blog, the more effectively you can personalize the content you send them.

As you can see, having a school blog gives you more opportunities and control over how and when to interact with prospective students and parents who’ve already shown interest in your school. It also provides a bigger platform to tell the school’s stories, instead of relying entirely on others to frame your stories for you.

Convinced you yet why your school needs a blog? Great. Here are the basics to put together when you plan it out.

Choosing the Right Content

Every successful blog shares content that its personas want to read about. The blog posts educate readers about the issues that concern or interest them. The posts don’t directly promote your school. Leave that for other types of content.

When you built your personas, you outlined each one’s goals, challenges, and concerns. Use that information to keep your blog content focused on topics they’ll read, share, and react to. If your personas need some sprucing, go back and ask with some current and prospective students what information would be most valuable to them. Ask the parents as well.

Refine your topic list by looking at all the content your school already creates. Your school already has tons of content. There are curricula, admissions FAQs, program brochures, career office reports, and campus organization descriptions. What questions are these pieces answering? How can a blog post dig deeper or provide a new perspective on them?

Finding Content Sources to Feed Your Blog

As you’re making your list of all your school’s existing content you want to use to spark blog post ideas, it probably occurred to you that you can use some of this existing content itself.

Great idea. Your existing content can be converted, with just a little tweaking, directly into blog posts.

In addition to the content sources listed in the previous section, also look at any newsletter or publication put out by a student group, program, even your alumni and development newsletters. Are any faculty or staff writing thought leadership pieces – see if you can reprint them on your school’s blog. If you can’t reprint them, you can craft your own post sharing the piece and linking to it.

When you convert existing content into a blog post, make sure to edit it so it works in a blog setting. Give it some context as a blog post. You’re not going to just reprint a program’s curriculum. You’ll rework that content into a post about the different areas of theoretical and practical knowledge the program provides, and why each is important – with a call-to-action linking to the full curriculum.

Creating a Stable of Writers

Repurposing existing content is a great tactic for finding meaningful, cost effective content for your blog. But you do want original work on the blog as well, in addition to people on your marketing team who can write.

Many of your student leaders would love having a platform on your blog, from formal student ambassadors to group leaders. Student voices are especially influential with prospective students, who want to know what life is really like at your school.

Have alumni who want to give back, but aren’t yet in a place where they can write a check? Ask them to write about their transition from student to the next phase of their life, whether its finding a job or getting another degree. Faculty and department staff also have stories to tell about what’s going on in their domains. Find a couple key people in each department who have an interesting voice to write posts occasionally.

Have a Distribution Plan 

Blogs without a distribution plan are the falling trees nobody hears. Regular posting of high quality content based on relevant keywords will build some SEO juice for your site. But there’s more to distribution than organic traffic.

Outline how you’ll use your social media profiles to promote your blog, and get others to share links to your blog via their own social profiles. Include links to blog posts in your newsletters and emails in other campaigns, where they add value.

Managing your blog will be much easier when you don’t have reinvent the distribution plan for each post. This doesn’t mean each post goes into each newsletter or gets its own promotional email. It means outline the different avenues for distribution and promotion and clarify which routes work for different types of blog posts. Then it’s easy to specify in your blog calendar how any given post will be promoted.

Attracting Sudents to Your Blog is the First Step to Getting Their Application

Every prospective student is on their own, personal enrollment journey. If you want your school to be part of that journey, a school blog is the best way to attract them early on in the process.

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33 Little Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communication Skills [Infographic]

As famed dancer and choreographer Martha Graham one said, “The body never lies.” And it turns out that this is as true in an office or boardroom as it is on a stage or dance floor.

Whether you realize it or not, your posture, your mannerisms, even how close you stand to someone can communicate something to the people around you. And yet, many of us don’t give a second thought to what our bodies are doing when we communicate – we’re too focused on what we’re saying.

But as an observer, you’ve likely noticed that when someone is saying one thing, but their body language seems to be saying another (e.g., when your boss says “that’s a great idea!” while sporting a frown and a furrowed brow) there’s often a breakdown in communication. To help you avoid such communication breakdowns, the team at Ethos3 put together the infographic below. Check out their 33 tips for mastering nonverbal communication.

Have any more tips for mastering nonverbal communication? Leave a comment below.

 

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10 Inspiring TED Talks That'll Boost Your Self-Confidence

Some days, you just feel … blah.

It happens to all of us. It can be short-term, like when we’re exhausted or bored, or we’re embarking on a new project but have no idea where to start. Other times, it’s a little more long-term, like when we feel like we’re tapped out of good ideas, or stuck in our careers.

Where should you go from there?

In times like these, we all have our own coping mechanisms. But if what you need is some words of wisdom and a little motivation, check out the 10 TED talks below. We’ve curated some of the best TED talks for when you’re feeling down and out, stuck, unmotivated, or generally in need of a confidence boost. Check ‘em out, and bookmark them for when you need a little encouragement. They could be just what you needed.

10 Inspiring TED Talks That’ll Boost Your Self-Confidence

1) “Success, Failure, & the Drive to Keep Creating” by Elizabeth Gilbert

Length: 7 min. 14 sec.

Before she authored the book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert was an “unpublished young diner waitress,” devastated by rejection letters. And even after she published the book and it became a huge success, she found herself identifying strongly with her former self and feeling the urge to quit the fame game and move to the country to raise corgis.

In this TED talk, Gilbert reflects on the strange and unlikely psychological connection between how we experience great failure and how we experience great success. She then offers simple (though hard) advice for making sure your creativity survives its own success.

2) “The Power of Believing You Can Improve” by Carol Dweck

Length: 10 min. 20 sec.

Carol Dweck starts her talk off with a short but powerful story about a high school in Chicago where students didn’t receive failing grades. Instead, they received the grade “Not Yet.” The grade implies that not passing the course doesn’t mean you’re going nowhere, but rather you’re on a learning curve.

Dweck uses this story to frame the rest of her TED talk, where she talks about her research on “growth mindset” – the idea that we can actually grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. She talks about two different ways to approach a problem that’s just a little too hard for you to solve: Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet?

3) “How to Live Passionately – No Matter Your Age” by Isabel Allende

Length: 8 min. 16 sec.

I’m a long-time fan of Isabel Allende, author of (among other wonderful books) The House of Spirits. She’s 71 years old, but says she’s still 17. Hey, why let society decide when you’re old?

In her TED talk, she talks about how we all experience age differently. She talks about her fears as she gets older, and shares how she plans to keep living passionately. Through aging, she says she’s gained freedom – mainly, the freedom from having to prove things to people anymore.

“My body may be falling apart, but my brain is not, yet,” she says. “I love my brain. I feel lighter. I don’t carry grudges, ambition, vanity, none of the deadly sins that are not even worth the trouble. It’s great to let go. And I should have started sooner. ”

4) “How to Build Your Creative Confidence” by David Kelley

Length: 11 min. 29 sec.

When have you, or others in your life, opted out of being creative? Many organizations divided people into categories: Either you’re a “creative,” or you’re not. But designer and educator David Kelley suggests that creativity is not limited to a chosen few.

In this TED talk, Kelley tells really interesting, touching stories from his legendary design career and his own life, and offers ways to build the confidence to create. He believes that when people gain this confidence, they start working on the things that are really important in their lives – and come up with more interesting ideas.

5) “The Day I Stood Up Alone” by Boniface Mwangi

Length: 7 min. 20 sec.

(Warning: NSFW. There are graphic images in this video.)

Boniface Mwangi is a photographer whose job was to document the horrific violence in his home country of Kenya – and watched as his government kept it silent. Finally, he made a plan to protest against the corruption: During a large public meeting where the Kenyan president was speaking, he and a few friends would stand up and heckle the president to get his attention.

But his friends never showed. “I was scared, but I knew very well that that particular day, I had to make a decision. Was I able to live as a coward, like everyone else, or was I going to make a stand?”

He says what he decided to do in that moment showed him who he truly was. As he says, “There are two most powerful days in your life. The day you are born, and the day you discover why.”

6) “How I Beat Stage Fright” by Joe Kowan

Length: 8 min. 3 sec.

Humans are fearful for a reason. It served us well as a species for thousands of years so we wouldn’t be killed off by predators. But, as Joe Kowan explains, it’s a little less wonderful when that same, visceral, body-hijacking sense of fear kicks in in front of 20 folk-music fans at an open mic night.

Kowan used to just write songs, but at some point, that wasn’t enough anymore. He had all these stories and ideas he wanted to share with people, but his stage fright was keeping him from doing it. The week of his 30th birthday, he decided to put that fear behind him, a process he describes in this talk.

7) “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” by Amy Cuddy

Length: 20 min. 55 sec.

Body language can have profound effects on how others see us. We make sweeping judgments and inferences from body language, and those judgments can predict really meaningful life outcomes – like whom we hire or promote, whom we ask out on a date, and so on. But, even more importantly, body language can affect how we see ourselves.

Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy’s research on body language proves that we can actually change other people’s perceptions of us (and even our own body chemistry) simply by changing body positions. In this TED talk, Cuddy specifically talks about how “power posing” – i.e., standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident – can affect testosterone and cortisone levels in the brain. If we do it for even two minutes at a time, it can have profound positive impacts on how we feel and whether we succeed.

8) “The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life” by Jane McGonigal

Length: 19 min. 23 sec.

Now here’s a wild story: Two years prior to giving this TED talk, game designer Jane McGonigal suffered a severe concussion and became bedridden and suicidal. Suicidal ideation is common following traumatic brain injuries, and hers became so bad that she began to fear for her life. At one point – and she says she’ll never forget this moment – she said to herself, “I’m either going to kill myself, or I’m going to turn this into a game.”

That was her ticket to getting better: turning it into a game. She dove into scientific research and created the healing game she called SuperBetter. In this moving talk, she explains how a game like hers can help boost resilience. (And she promises watching the talk will add 7 ½ minutes to your life.)

9) “Where Does Creativity Hide?” by Amy Tan

Length: 22 min. 42 sec.

Where does creativity come from? Are some people born with it? Is creativity a function of some other neurological quirk, like psychosis or depression? Are some people equipped with certain skills that enable creativity, like artistic ability? Or is creativity developed mostly through experience?

You may know Amy Tan as the author of The Joy Luck Club, or one of her other well known books. In this TED talk, she dives into her own creative process and stories of her life that could lend a clue to where it comes from. She reminds us that, in our moments of doubt, even if there is an answer, there is uncertainty in everything – and that’s a good thing. In fact, that space where the uncertainty is can be the birthplace of creativity: She finds that by filling those holes with her own imagining, she can find particles of truth and discover new possibilities she’d never considered before.

10) “The Career Advice You Probably Didn’t Get” by Susan Colantuono

Length: 13 min. 57 sec.

Some people, Susan Colantuono included, believe that leadership manifests at every level of management. There’s a tremendous number of awesome leaders in middle management, and many of them are women. But for Colantuono, this raises the question: Why are there so many women stuck in the middle – even when they’re doing everything right at work and taking all the right advice?

In this TED talk, Colantuono shares a simple and surprising piece of advice. The talk’s aimed primarily at women, but there are universal takeaways in here for men, too, as well as for new graduates and mid-career workers.

Which TED talks would you add to this list? Share with us in the comments.

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The New Manager's Guide to Effective Leadership

Congratulations! You’ve recently been promoted to a new position as a manager.

You now have a team, perhaps the opportunity to hire, and the chance to guide and grow your new direct reports. Are you ready for this?

You may be feeling excited, afraid, nervous, or empowered. You may also be experiencing the very common imposture syndrome: the fear of getting caught as a “fraud” due to not being competent or fully prepared to deserve your new position. But here you are, and the best thing you can do is to lean in to this experience as an opportunity for your own development. 

To start, here are a few recommendations that I learned from my mentors when I began as a new manager. From finding your leadership style to learning how to navigate a working relationship, these tips are meant to help you get off on the right foot. 

(Not sure if management is right for you? Register now for HubSpot’s new career growth assessmentand we’ll notify you when it’s ready.)

Find Your Leadership Style

One of the biggest challenges when going from individual contributor to people manager is having to change the way you value your own impact. Every day prior to this promotion you were evaluated on the impact you personally had on the business. From here on out, you’re evaluated on the impact driven by your collective team.

This comes with some good news and some “bad” news:

• The good news - You and your team combined can most likely have a larger impact on the business than you previously were able to alone.
• The “bad” news - The impact your team has is not entirely in your direct control – it’s in the control of the individual team members and their efforts. Your new role is to inspire, guide, coach, and most importantly, lead.

To help yourself enter this mindset, you have the opportunity to define how you will be as a leader. What your personal style will be? To start, visualize what your interactions with your teammates will be like, how you’ll carry yourself, and how you’ll communicate. For example, you can ask yourself:

• What will you, the new manager, want to look like to your team?
• What kind of manager style do you naturally have or want?
• What attributes have you seen your previous managers demonstrate, and which will you try to emulate?

By answering these questions for yourself, you’ll be able to develop your leadership persona or the best portrait of yourself as a leader. Write it down, reread it from time to time, and do your best to encompass this new state.

Get to Know Your New Team

The next step is to decide how you’ll work with each of your employees, and I believe the best relationships are driven by clarity and curiosity. Let’s first dig into the latter.

If you’ve inherited a team you used to work with laterally, or were promoted within your current team, you most likely already know your new direct reports pretty well. However, do you know them enough? What don’t you know? What else can you learn? 

I suggest one of the first things you do is to have a second interview with each of your direct reports. Grab coffee, go for a walk, and use that time to really get to know that person. If it helps, here are a few things you can ask:

• What do they like about their job today? What don’t they like?
• What do they do for fun?
• What other work experience do they have?
• What are some of their goals, personal and professional?
• Have they ever had a manager they really disliked, and if so why? What happened?

The best favor you can do for yourself now, and onward, is to never assume anything about another person. Instead ask. For example, imagine you were giving an employee a brand new project. Perhaps your instinct is to walk them through how to do it step-by-step. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve never given her this type of project before.

But how do you know if that’s really the amount of support they need? Before deciding how you can best help, ask them if they’ve done something like this before and gauge their true comfort level. That way you’ll know to be hands-on or hands-off with your direction.

Set Up Your Working Relationship

Now let’s talk about clarity. Think back to a prior boss that never seemed happy with your work. Why do you think that was? Perhaps it’s because you never really knew what she was looking for, or you didn’t have a full understanding of her expectations. (Or worse, maybe she hadn’t decided what her expectations of you actually were.)

One of the best things you can do as a new manager is set context and goals as clearly as possible. And that might begin with taking the time to make a bunch of decisions on your own first. For example:

• How will you know when your employee is successful?
• How will you communicate what that success looks like to him/her so you’re on the same page?
• What expectations will you set in regards to your style and how you can work together best?
• How will you use one-on-one time?
• How will you explain your expectation for one-on-one meetings so you’re on the same page?

Communicating your expectations clearly will remove ambiguity and set up your employee for success.

Create More Leaders

Most likely when you get promoted, you’ll need to figure out how to move all the work you used to do off your plate. And you may do that by delegating those projects to your new team. That’s great! The question is if you can do this in a way that supports you and them.

Delegating projects is a great opportunity to help someone grow into your old shoes. See if you can help someone reach the role you were previously in. If you do, it will free up your time to make higher-level decisions and support the team as a whole. It also means the person receiving the project can stretch and learn work they may not have done before.

Sounds like a win-win? It absolutely can be, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. In order to solve for a person’s long-term growth, you need to delegate a project in a way that helps him become a decision maker versus a task do-er.

How do you know which is happening? It depends on the way you teach. Are you helping someone memorize a series of actions (most likely to execute a project in the same way you used to do it), or are you taking the time to explain your judgment around the project? The latter requires you to share context for why you take different actions this way.

Note: There’s nothing wrong with teaching someone how to do something step-by-step. Just make sure you’re explaining your decision-making behind it, so a teammate walks away with the same judgment you have. That very judgment hopefully can be applied to similar projects. Now they’re a decision maker. 

Plan for the Long Term 

Being a new manager is hard – and that’s to be expected. The best thing you can do for yourself is communicate clearly and frequently, make yourself open to feedback from your team and your boss, and use your resources.

Perhaps you can get a group of other new managers together and grab lunch. It’s great to talk with folks who are in a similar scenario to reflect on your experiences – if only to know you’re not alone.

You can also look into trainings in your area. Would your boss support you going to a one-day training here and there? 

You could also suggest setting up skip-level reviews, meaning your direct reports meet with your boss every so often to share their feedback on you. This can be extremely helpful. Perhaps there’s a small thing you could change or improve that would make all the difference. Wouldn’t you like to know that? 

Most importantly – and my favorite – find a mentor. It could be someone inside or outside of your company, as long as it’s someone you really trust. Nothing beats one-to-one guidance. 

Remember: Being a good manager doesn’t require knowing all the answers. Stay open minded and confident in yourself. You’ll be great.

What tips do you have for new managers? Share them below.

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How to Tackle Your Most Ambitious Goals: A 5-Step Process From NBA Legend Bill Walton

For many, goal-setting can feel like a daunting process.

You want to be sure that whatever you’re working towards is measurable, impactful, and challenging enough to keep you on your toes. Trouble is, the planning process is only half the battle. 

When it actually comes time to achieve said goal, it’s easy for things to fall apart. Think back to those New Year’s resolutions you set. Does the phrase grossly overestimated come to mind?

NBA legend Bill Walton, knows the intricacies of both setting and achieving goals all too well. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he was coached by one of the best coaches in history – John Wooden – who was committed to helping him succeed both on and off the court. 

On this week’s episode of The Growth Show, we sat down with Walton to learn more about how Wooden’s influence helped him devise a process for successfully tackling even his most ambitious goals.

How to Hit Your Ambitious Goals: A 5-Step Process

While there are plenty of strategies out there for setting goals, the process of actually hitting those goals can seem like a much more ambiguous path. How do we solidify the path to the hit our goals?

“Ask somebody who is on their way back,“ suggests Walton.

Walton is on his way back, so we asked him on your behalf. Let’s take a look at his process below. 

Step 1: Define Your Goal

What’s the key to getting started? “Have a dream,” Walton told us. 

When you have a dream in mind, it becomes much easier to define a measurable goal – or set of goals – to get you there. Once you have a defined goal, you can use it to determine where to devote your focus and what to prioritize. 

Need help defining your goal? This free goal-setting template should make it a bit easier. 

Step 2: Get a Mentor

The next step? “Choose a teacher, a leader, or a coach,” suggests Walton. 

Even the most successful leaders have had mentors along the way. And the words of the ideal mentor will resonate years beyond their physical presence. In fact, if they’ve done their due diligence, you should walk away from the relationship with a toolbox full of lessons to carry with you. 

The hard part? Finding the right person. When searching for a trusted advisor, you want to look for someone who has achieved something that you can learn from. While it’s possible that this person might be a peer, mentors tend to be senior to their mentees. 

If you’re having trouble determining what to look for in a mentor, check out this post on mentorship tips from my colleague Lindsay. 

Step 3: Assemble or Join a Team

Ready to tackle the third step? Walton says you need to, “Join a team and immerse yourself in [that] positive culture.”

Creating a team gives you the advantage of approaching your goal with a diverse perspective. For example, I played on a collegiate hockey team and one of our biggest strengths was knowing how to leverage our unique skills to perform as a strong, cohesive unit.

This type of approach allows everyone to bring something different to the table while encouraging each individual to expand their perspective. Besides the individual growth value, you will be able to hit your goal faster.

Need advice on putting together a team? Here’s a free kit to help you build your inbound team.

Step 4: Sharpen Your Foundation

By now, you’re on the right track. To keep moving forward, Walton suggests that you, “Develop the individual foundation – assuming and understanding that the strength of the team is the strength of the individual.“

In other words, now that you have reinforcement to help you accomplish your goal, you need to leverage it. But this doesn’t mean that you should delegate every task on your own plate. In fact, you’ll benefit from keeping busy yourself: According to Yerkes Dodson Law, increased mental arousal can help you improve your performance.

Instead, lean on your teammates to help you sharpen your breadth of skills. Try to soak up bits of knowledge from each of their areas of expertise to help you devise a well-rounded plan for accomplishing your goal.

Step 5: Be Prepared to Sacrifice and Self-Discipline

Walton’s final tip? “Have the willingness to sacrifice and discipline.”

This one may fall under the category of easier said than done. It can be difficult to get yourself in the zone – especially if it’s 3 p.m. on a Friday – but this is where you can save yourself some serious time. The better you are at finding your “flow,” the easier it will be to enter that space when you need it most.

The other half of this is being comfortable saying “no.” No to leaving work early, no to taking on that extra project, and no to staying up late to watch Netflix. Trust me, learning how and when to say "no” will save you a ton of time and energy. 

The lesson? Define not only your goal, but also the path to achieve said goal. And as you build out that path, don’t hesitate to look for opportunities to pick up support from mentors or teammates – it’ll make all the difference. 

Want more advice on how to hit your goals? Check out the rest of our conversation with Walton on The Growth Show on iTunes.

(P.S. Don’t hesitate to leave a review! We are always looking to hear from listeners.)

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