In an extract from his book Boost Your Creativity, Steve Brouwers argues why rest and relaxation are the creative’s best friend.
Today most people fill every spare moment with distractions.
Scroll. Swipe. Tap.
And this is killing our creativity.
Dr Nancy Andreasen, a neuroscientist and the author of The Creating Brain, studied the brains of highly creative people and identified a surprising and striking pattern in their lives.
They all took time to do nothing.
Einstein would stare out of the window for long stretches of time, letting his mind wander.
Mozart composed with astonishing speed, but that speed was likely made possible by long, quiet periods of internal processing – not visible ‘doing’.
It might feel like you’re doing nothing in these moments – but your brain is actually hard at work.
Doing nothing isn’t passive – it’s active recombination.
(Image credit: Boost Your Creativity, published by Luster)
Beneath the surface, a network of regions called the Default Mode Network (DMN) lights up. This is your brain’s backstage crew, quietly preparing the next act of inspiration while the spotlight is off. The DMN is activated when you’re not focused on a specific task.
It thrives in the in-between spaces when you’re daydreaming, reflecting, thinking about the past or future, or imagining someone else’s thoughts. It’s the engine of empathy, memory, and mental time travel. Most importantly, it’s where creativity begins to simmer.
When you’re solving a clear-cut problem, your brain switches to a different mode: focused, logical, linear. But when you loosen your grip and let your attention wander, the DMN kicks in. That’s why your best ideas often sneak up on you when you least expect them: mid-shampoo, on the toilet, while doodling, or as you’re drifting off to sleep.
You’re not trying – and that’s the point.
The DMN connects ideas, stirs memories, and forms new patterns in those quiet moments when you’re not looking directly at the problem.
This is why some of the most powerful creative tools are the simplest: rest, reflection, movement, play, and purposeful pauses.
When you stop pushing your brain and let your mind wander, you’re not wasting time – you’re opening the door to insight.
This isn’t just theory. Creatives across several disciplines have noticed it too.
It appears that I have my best ideas just as I wake up. When my mind is not thinking about daily stuff yet and I am still lingering in that twilight zone of wondering.
Paul McCartney wrote Yellow Submarine in that twilight zone, as he was drifting off to sleep.
Designer Massimo Vignelli explained that he gets his ideas while shaving, which he emphasises, is the reason why he doesn’t have a beard.
So remember: sometimes the best way to create is to stop creating – just for a moment – and let your backstage brain take over.
Isn’t it wonderful that some of your best works are created while you’re ‘not working’ at all?
Steve is a Belgian creative director, teacher, author and speaker with over 25 years experience in the media industry. In his inspiring talks, Steve shares his insights and experiences with audiences around the world. He is known for his candid stories about imposter syndrome and procrastination – topics that resonate deeply within the creative community. He is the author of Creatives on Creativity, published by Luster in 2021.
A couple of years ago I attended an excellent conference in Seattle by a well known firm that provides online search and marketing tools. They had a line up of top notch speakers who are experts in digital marketing from the largest corporations, brands and agencies in the country. The theme was Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how to drive the most clicks to a website, ecommerce store or content page.
The conference was basically all about Google. Why? Because, even in 2025, Google controls 90 percent of search in the world. To get found you need to please the Google Gods. So what advice did the greatest and smartest people in the online marketing world have for conquering Google search? They all pretty much said the same thing: “beats me.”
No one knows. That’s because Google’s search algorithm is a secret more closely guarded than the recipe for Coke or U.S. nuclear launch codes. Everyone there was trying to figure out what Google was going to do next, where Google may change its algorithm and how these changes would affect traffic to their site.
AI is now changing that. AI is already starting to save small business owners like me from Google’s monopoly on search. And it’s doing so in three ways.
More Options
For starters it’s giving our potential customers more choices to find us. Yes, studies show that Google still dominates search. But already you can see ChatGPT and others like it begin to make headway.
So far, even if ChatGPT’s 1 billion messages per day were search-related, its total share of the search market would be less than 1 percent. Google saw approximately 373 times as many searches as ChatGPT in 2024 and Google searches actually grew in 2024 compared to 2023.
But things are changing. Gartner predicts that by 2026, traditional search volume will drop by about 25 percent, with AI chatbots and virtual agents capturing a growing share of user attention and behaviour Others project that AI-powered searches will grow annually by up to 35 percent starting in 2025, reaching an estimated 14 percent of search market share by 2028, with Google declining modestly to about an 86 percent share. I’m betting that decline will be more pronounced. But regardless it’s heading in the right direction.
I’ve tried Google AdWords and for a small business like mine it’s useless. My company sells customer relationship management software and the big players in this industry already have search results locked up. They spend more money than me. They buy up all the good keywords. People searching for products I sell won’t find me unless they click through to page 8 of their search results and no one does that. Of course, that doesn’t stop Google – the fox guarding the henhouse – from drawing down on my ad budget with their dubious claims of “impressions” and clicks. How can I even verify this? I can’t. They have the monopoly.
AI is solving this problem. As other chatbots take away search market share from Google I’ll be offered more ways for customers to find me. I predict that many small businesses – equally frustrated with the Google monopoly – will gravitate to these chatbots. ChatGPT and Perplexity have already announced their own browsers to compete with Chrome and collect data. Good for them. More competition means more choices and less costs for small businesses like mine.
Less Clicks, Better Clicks
Most have noticed that Google has introduced an “AI View” into their results where search answers are summarized. Some believe that this will result in fewer clicks on links to websites and they’re right. Smart marketing people, like Jason Rose – senior vice president of digital sales and marketing at HR firm Paychex believes that this will have greater benefits for small businesses like mine.
“People are reading the AI summary and kind of getting what they need and moving off,” he said. “But it’s not all doom and gloom because these visitors actually convert at a much higher rate.”
To date SEO has been all about getting visitors to your website. Websites are ranked based on their traffic. But how genuine is this traffic? In 2023, bots made up 49.60 percent of internet activity, almost catching up to human traffic, which was at 50.40 percent. Meanwhile we’re paying Google to send this nonsense to us. AI is fixing this too. It is changing the way people use the web for research, be it academia or shopping.
Rose is right. By reading an AI overview a visitor who clicks through to a website has given some thought to their action and is therefore a more qualified prospect, a better visitor. Google and others will likely charge more for this. I’ll pay. It’s worth it.
Content Creation Opportunities
To be included in an AI overview your content has to be relevant and useful. Unfortunately, a great deal of today’s content isn’t. At the Seattle conference I attended some of the sessions talked about SEO tricks and games you can play with content (keyword stuffing, hidden links, showing different content to search engines than what is shown to users) to get noticed by Google. AI will help to stop this. As it gets smarter it will be better able to root out this nonsense so that it’s displaying the best answers possible.
Which means that the best content will be included in AI overviews and the websites with the best answers will have a better chance of being found. No games. No tricks. Just good, valuable content. And not content generated by AI because AI will be able to figure that out too.
This will be an opportunity for quality content providers – writers, bloggers, creators, etc. – to step up their game and prove their value. The best ones will rise to the top, unburdened by the crawlers and spiders, that held them down. People worry that AI will replace content providers. It’s actually the opposite. It’s creating more opportunities for them.
“AI is reading the same content that the human would have and building summaries based off of that,” Rose said. “So again, you need great content. Content is still king.”
All of this is happening now. But we’re still early days. Google is still Google. ChatGPT and other chatbots are infants in the search world and still hallucinate too much. But you can easily see the future. And the future is a world where, thanks to AI, Google no longer monopolizes search. For a small business owner like me, that world can’t come soon enough.
Feature image credit: Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
At the close of 2025, a familiar story emerges from the data: consumers are living with contradiction, they want certainty from technology and comfort from humanity; they crave personalised routes to ease, yet they recoil when systems feel opaque, intrusive or overly engineered. This isn’t a phased fad. It’s a sustained behavioural shift that has defined the past few years and will define 2026. Across global studies, nearly every major insight framework points to the same underlying dynamic: people want progress, but they want it to feel like choice, not coercion.
This tension, between algorithmic convenience and human agency, frames the six forces below. Each already shows up in how people search, evaluate, buy, feel and remember. But in 2026, these forces will not just be trends; they will recalibrate value, trust, identity and the very purpose of brands.
1. The New Algorithmic Contract: Personalisation Demands Explanation
Last year, AI clearly moved from novelty to expectation. Hyper-personalisation ceased to be optional and became a competitive baseline, brands that failed here struggled to retain relevance. Studies suggest upwards of three-quarters of consumers now expect tailored experiences, yet a growing segment will only accept them with transparent choice and control.
Already, retailers like IKEA have pioneered AI-guided discovery that doesn’t just recommend, it enables co-creation. Their virtual room design tools let people experiment in real space before deciding, collapsing the gap between inspiration and execution.
At the same time, companies are embedding AI deeply into beauty journeys, offering personalised diagnostics and real-time product recommendations that feel less like automation and more like digital empathy.
The emerging insight here is clear: AI that replaces human judgement erodes trust; AI that enhances human choice builds it.
2. Unfiltered Authenticity: Because Polished Can Be Hollow
For the past decade, brand communication prized glossy perfection. But people are fatigued by imagery and messaging calibrated for algorithms rather than lived experience. Cultural patterns, from the shift away from fleeting micro-trends in fashion to the embrace of hyper-personal style, reveal a deeper longing for individuality, not conformity.
In experience design, this is visible in the way communities have rallied around offline gatherings, pop-ups and moments that feel un-curated and unscripted. Narrative frameworks that celebrate context over polish outperform formulaic storytelling, because they feel earned and recognisable.
3. Rewired Wellness: Relief, Function and Biological Agency
In food and nutrition, sensory experiences like the rise of “fibermaxxing” and textured meals reflect a deeper shift, nutritional choices that feel both joyful and functional. In beauty and health tech, AI-assisted diagnostics turn instinct into insight, giving consumers evidence they can act on right now. Getty
Wellness has shifted from future aspiration to present-tense utility. Across food, fitness, sleep science and emotional regulation, people are seeking interventions that deliver measurable relief now rather than a vague promises of “better later.” This is why trends such as enhanced sleep solutions, nervous-system support, and personalised nutritional approaches have traction: they speak directly to the lived experience of stress, fatigue and cognitive strain.
Concurrently, there’s a noticeable behavioural interest in biologically-oriented modalities that lie at the intersection of health, performance and longevity. Medically guided therapies such as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which alter appetite and glucose metabolism, have entered mainstream cultural awareness not just through clinical outcomes but through lifestyle dialogue.
Alongside these, NAD+ precursors and other metabolic support supplements are gaining attention for their potential roles in cellular energy and recovery pathways. These developments are not fads; they reflect a deeper consumer drive toward biological agency, the desire to understand and influence foundational aspects of well-being rather than merely treat symptoms. Getty
Alongside these, NAD+ precursors and other metabolic support supplements are gaining attention for their potential roles in cellular energy and recovery pathways. These developments reflect a deeper consumer drive toward biological agency, the desire to understand and influence foundational aspects of well-being rather than merely treat symptoms. What comes next may be less about chasing perfection and more about expanding the language of everyday health with tools that are scientifically credible, accessible, and ethically framed.
The implication for brands is profound: wellness is no longer a nice-to-have aesthetic overlay. It’s a domain where science, behaviour and emotional security intersect, and where people expect transparent explanation, measurable outcomes, and responsible framing.
4. Value Reinterpreted: Confidence Over Accumulation
Economic pressure has not disappeared, but consumers are defining value in emotional and cognitive terms, not just monetary ones. This is why simplification matters as much as affordability.
Major consumer research underscores a split in behaviour: while people will pay more for alignment with their values, they still prioritise clear, tangible returns on spend.
In practice, this has elevated brands that make decisions easier, not just cheaper. For example, hospitality brands that tie premium experiences to restorative respite see disproportionate engagement because consumers feel they are not just buying a service, they are buying a pause from complexity.
Confidence, the sense that a purchase will do what it promises, is increasingly the card consumers are willing to spend.
5. The Experience Reset: Memory Beats Momentary Immediacy
The “experience economy” has evolved away from surface spectacle towards meaningful memory creation. People still want moments, but they want moments that truly matter, and memories that last past the social media post. Getty
The “experience economy” has evolved away from surface spectacle towards meaningful memory creation. People still want moments, but they want moments that truly matter, and memories that last past the social media post.
This shows up in how consumers allocate leisure spend, favouring premium culinary rituals, intentional travel segments, and culturally rich outings over mass entertainment or commoditised immersion. It is the difference between being transported and being performed to.
This shift matters because it reframes brand investment: it isn’t about being seen; it’s about being felt. Experiences that deepen emotional resonance, not just digital engagement, build the strongest brand loyalty.
6. Proof Over Promise: Sustainability as Verifiable Confidence
The language of sustainability is no longer enough. Across consumer research, people show clear expectations for evidence and not rhetoric. They want visibility, traceability, and material accountability.
Getty
The language of sustainability is no longer enough. Across consumer research, people show clear expectations for evidence and not rhetoric. They want visibility, traceability, and material accountability.
In 2026, tools such as Digital Product Passports are emerging as the new currency of trust, giving consumers documented confidence that a brand’s claims are reflected in a product’s lifecycle.
People are willing to accept imperfection, as long as it is shared transparently. They want to buy smarter and greener.
This turns sustainability from a marketing asset into a decision heuristic, one that defines whether someone chooses, trusts, or advocates for a brand.
Where This Leaves Brands
After years of acceleration, 2026 is not a step change, it is a recalibration. Consumers no longer want fewer choices or more convenience; they want clarity, presence, agency and trust.
• Technologies that explain rather than obscure will outperform those that optimise without accountability.
• Wellness offerings grounded in measurable relief will displace those that trade on vague aspiration.
• Human-scale authenticity will outlast polished mimicry.
• Confidence in choice will outweigh price savings.
• Meaningful experiences will eclipse transactional engagement.
• Proof-enabled sustainability will be the hallmark of credibility.
The brands that lead this year won’t just be efficient or innovative. They will be emotionally intelligent, transparent by design, and relentlessly human in how they connect technology to lived life.
B2B marketers are swimming in data, yet many still struggle to connect that data to measurable business growth. At the same time, the martech landscape continues to expand, with more than 15,000 solutions now available worldwide.
When data lives in silos across customer relationship management (CRM) systems, automation platforms, analytics tools and identity solutions, it creates confusion instead of clarity. As the founder and CEO of a performance marketing agency specializing in B2B2C data, my perspective is that the B2B leaders outperforming peers in ROI aren’t collecting more data; they’re building smarter, connected ecosystems where insights continuously inform action.
Here are seven core data principles that will shape how we define and achieve marketing ROI in the year ahead:
1. Audit and reset your marketing data ecosystem.
Before you can improve outcomes, you must first understand your current data reality. According to Ascend2’s 2024 Data-Driven Marketing Survey, just 15% of respondents said their data is completely integrated.Although an increasing number of marketers are focusing on centralizing data and removing silos, the ongoing challenge of turning information into clarity remains significant.
Unifying data across systems gives organizations a single source of truth that eliminates conflicting records and fragmented customer views. When teams operate from the same accurate, integrated dataset, they are better positioned to spot trends, understand behaviours and make decisions with confidence. Data unification also strengthens collaboration across sales, marketing and operations—reducing friction and enabling faster, more aligned execution.
To get started with data unification, map every platform that stores or touches customer data—your CRM, customer data platform (CDP), marketing-automation platform and analytics stack—and identify redundancies or blind spots. This will be more than just a technical exercise; it will be a full-on operational reset.
2. Integrate for visibility.
Your first ROI breakthrough often doesn’t come from acquiring new data, but from unifying and activating what you already have. Integration turns data fragments into a single, actionable view of your audience. By connecting systems, you eliminate duplicate records, streamline reporting and enable predictive insight across the funnel.
When CRM and automation data align, marketing and sales gain the same visibility into buying signals. Integration also enables performance benchmarking, so you can track which channels or segments drive actual business impact. With this knowledge, marketers are better able to achieve end-to-end visibility, which is widely believed to lead to shorter sales cycles and higher marketing efficiency.
3. Enrich for relevance.
Our agency leaders know from experience that data enrichmentensures campaigns are guided by context and relevance, not guesswork. Integration drives completeness, but enrichment delivers precision. Static data quickly becomes outdated, especially in B2B, where job and company changes are constant. Adding verified contact, firmographic, social, domain or intent data enhances accuracy, reach and ROI.
You can enrich your data by enhancing existing customer or prospect records with new, verified information that provides deeper context—such as updated firmographics, job role changes, digital behaviours or intent signals. Enrichment is typically achieved by matching internal records against high-quality third-party data sources or identity graphs. This process fills gaps, corrects inaccuracies and adds new attributes so that segmentation and targeting are always based on the most current and complete view of your audience.
4. Accelerate the way you operationalize insights.
The gap between data collection and data action is where ROI is often lost. A recent survey found that 53% of marketers in North America view data analysis and insights as the top bottleneck in marketing cycles. You can operationalize insights by embedding analytics into workflows so teams can adapt campaigns, creative or audience segments in real time.
For example, analytics can be embedded directly into campaign workflows so teams receive automated alerts when key performance metrics shift—such as sudden increases in engagement from a specific audience segment or declines in conversion rates. These triggers can automatically prompt creative updates, audience refinements or budget reallocations, enabling teams to act in the moment rather than waiting for a reporting cycle.
5. Measure full-funnel impact.
Too many marketing dashboards still stop at lead volume. To prove true ROI, B2B organizations must measure across the entire funnel: awareness, engagement, opportunity creation and revenue contribution. Yet, an eMarketer article states that only 27% of marketers intend to adopt unified measurement platforms that provide end-to-end visibility into their data. Without unification, marketers work with disconnected systems that prevent their organizations from having one version of the truth linking awareness to conversion. In contrast, full-funnel measurement connects marketing activity directly to outcomes, giving leaders the confidence to invest where it matters most.
The importance of knowing what’s working and what isn’t brings up the topic of attribution. In B2B, sales rarely result from a single email or ad. More often, a prospect receives multiple touches—direct mail, programmatic impressions, an email—and only then do they convert. That’s why, for a more accurate view of ROI, it’s helpful to move away from last-touch attribution and embrace blended attribution that recognizes the full customer journey, rather than simply giving credit to the final click.
6. Prioritize trust and privacy (and account for bias) when embracing AI.
The rush to realize AI’s efficiency and performance advantages has put marketers face-to-face with issues such as bias and privacy. Regarding bias, AI models, especially those used in hyper-personalization, targeting and content generation, learn from the data they are fed. If that data reflects existing biases, the AI will as well.
AI governance requires marketers to perform ongoing auditing of their AI training data for representativeness and fairness. For example, actively check that data used for segmentation or targeting doesn’t unfairly disadvantage specific groups based on gender, race, age or location. When fairness and equity are prioritized, target audiences are more likely to trust the brand and remain loyal customers.
When it comes to privacy, many marketing systems that use AI are dependent on massive volumes of customer data, including highly personal information. AI governance provides the structure to comply with global regulations (such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and emerging AI-specific laws like the EU AI Act) while improving data quality and maintaining customer trust.
According to Gartner,responsible AI leadership builds trust with customers, employees and regulators. Further, LinkedIn reports that establishing trust with stakeholders is the key to B2B success.
7. Evolve continuously.
A connected data ecosystem is never done. Systems, standards and buyer behaviours evolve constantly. Marketers who treat their data environment as a living framework—auditing quarterly, updating integrations and refreshing sources—stay ready for what’s next. As I often tell clients, the most valuable database is a living one: dynamic, learning and aligned to business goals.
In 2026, the winners in B2B marketing won’t be those with the most data. They’ll be those who can make data work cohesively across every touchpoint. Clean, connected and continuously improving ecosystems will define the next generation of marketing ROI.
Salesforce is the ultimate sales CRM. Marketing folks swear by HubSpot. Is one truly better than the other? ZDNET put them to the test.
Salesforce and HubSpot are two of the most popular customer relationship management systems (CRM) giants, each promising the world when it comes to managing your customer relationships. Yet, they take wildly different approaches. Depending on your goals, choosing wrong could set you back months of setup and training costs.
Salesforce is the enterprise leader that’s been dominating CRM for decades. I’ve seen it handle insanely complex sales operations with little to no fuss. It’s also notorious for its steep learning curve and contractual lock-in clauses. It’s like a Swiss Army knife — powerful concept but complicated to make it work in practice.
On the other hand, HubSpot takes the opposite approach. I love that it feels like someone actually designed it for human beings to use. Their free tier is the real deal, plus the interface won’t make your sales team revolt. But as you grow, those costs can spiral quickly and customization hits walls you didn’t think of at the start.
This comparison will cut through all the marketing fluff and show you exactly which platform fits your team size, budget, and growth plans. I’ve tested both multiple times over the years and I’ll share what really matters when you’re making the call.
Specifications
Feature
Salesforce
HubSpot
Starting price
$25 per user per month (Starter)
Free (1M contacts) or $9 per user per month
Advanced plans
$75-$550 per user per month
$1,300 -$4,700 per month
Contact management
Unlimited on all plans
Free: 1M contacts; Paid: Unlimited
Sales automation
Complex workflows and Einstein AI
Simple drag-and-drop workflows
Marketing automation
Requires Marketing Cloud add-on
Included in core platform
Customization
Extensive via AppExchange & APIs
Limited to available modules
Reporting and analytics
Custom and predictive reporting
Standard dashboards
Email integration
Gmail, Outlook, advanced tracking
Gmail, Outlook, simple tracking
Mobile app
Robust offline capabilities
User-friendly but basic
Learning curve
Steep, requires training
Minimal training needed
Customer support
Poor reputation
Generally positive reviews
Integrations
3,000+ via AppExchange
1,000+ native integrations
Content management
Requires third-party tools
Built-in CMS & landing pages
Pipeline management
Highly customizable
Visual, easy-to-use dashboard
Lead scoring
Advanced with Einstein AI
Basic (paid plans)
Best for
Large enterprises, complex sales
SMBs, inbound marketing focus
You should choose Salesforce if…
Salesforce
1. You need enterprise-level customization and scalability
Salesforce shines when you need to build something complex. I’ve watched companies create completely custom sales processes that would be impossible elsewhere. It handles multi-tiered approval workflows, complex territory management, and industry-specific requirements that most CRMs can’t touch.
The AppExchange marketplace is honestly mind-blowing with over 3,000 third-party apps. Manufacturing companies use it for inventory management, while financial services firms build compliance tracking systems. You’ll never outgrow the platform, but lock-in contracts do make it impossible to change addons or seats mid-term. This can be a big problem if you sign for multiple years.
2. Your sales process involves long, complex deal cycles
When I ask business-to-business (B2B) companies handling six-figure deals over 12-month or longer cycles, Salesforce is what they swear by. The opportunity management features let you track every stakeholder interaction, document requirements, and forecast with scary accuracy. Einstein AI actually learns from your historical data to predict which deals will close and when.
The reporting capabilities here are unmatched. I can create dashboards showing pipeline velocity by product line, rep performance trends, and conversion rates at every stage. For complex sales organizations, this visibility is absolutely critical for hitting revenue targets.
3. You have dedicated admin resources and training budget
Here’s the reality: Salesforce requires investment in people and training. I’ve seen companies struggle because they underestimated this. But when you have a dedicated Salesforce admin or team, the platform becomes incredibly powerful. These experts can create custom fields, automate workflows, and ensure data quality standards are maintained.
The learning curve is steep, but the payoff is huge. I recommend budgeting ahead for formal training programs. Trailhead is excellent, but hands-on workshops make the biggest difference. Companies that invest properly see adoption rates above 90% with significant productivity gains.
4. Integration complexity is a major concern
Salesforce’s API capabilities are second to none. I’ve integrated it with everything from legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to modern marketing automation platforms. The platform handles complex data synchronization, real-time updates, and maintains data integrity across multiple systems.
This is perfect for enterprises with existing tech stacks. You’re not replacing everything; you’re connecting it all intelligently. The platform’s ability to serve as a central data hub while maintaining connections to specialized tools makes it very valuable for complex organizations.
You should choose HubSpot if…
Hubspot
1. You want marketing and sales alignment from day one
HubSpot gets this right in a way that amazes me every time. Marketing teams can create campaigns, track leads, and pass qualified prospects to sales all within the same platform. Companies can eliminate the typical marketing-sales friction because everyone sees the same data and customer journey.
The content management system is built right in, so you can create landing pages, track visitor behaviour, and nurture leads without jumping between tools. When a prospect downloads your whitepaper, attends a webinar, and requests a demo, your sales rep sees everything. This makes conversations so much more effective.
2. Ease of use and quick adoption matter most
You can get a team productive on HubSpot in days, not months. The interface feels intuitive, like someone actually tested it with real users. New hires can start logging activities and updating deals immediately without extensive training sessions.
The visual pipeline makes deal management simple. Drag and drop deals between stages, set automated follow-up tasks, and track progress at a glance. I’ve known sales teams to increase their activity rates by 40% just because the CRM doesn’t fight them every step of the way.
3. Budget constraints require proven return on investment
Starting free is huge for cash-strapped businesses. You get genuine CRM functionality for up to one million contacts without paying anything. I’ve helped startups build their entire sales process on the free tier before scaling up to paid features.
Even the paid tiers offer better value for smaller teams. At $50 per month for two users, you get marketing automation, advanced reporting, and email sequences. Compare that to Salesforce’s $150 per month minimum for similar functionality, and the math is clear.
4. You prioritize inbound marketing and lead generation
HubSpot invented inbound marketing, and it shows. The platform tracks every touchpoint from the initial blog visit to final purchase. I love seeing which content actually drives conversions versus what just generates vanity metrics.
The lead scoring happens automatically based on engagement patterns. Prospects who download multiple resources, visit pricing pages, and attend webinars get prioritized appropriately. Your sales team focuses on qualified leads instead of chasing cold prospects, making everyone more productive.
The final verdict
Salesforce wins for enterprise complexity and customization power, but HubSpot still dominates ease-of-use and marketing integration. I’ve seen Salesforce effortlessly support massive organizations with complex needs, but I’ve also watched teams abandon it due to poor adoption. HubSpot gets teams moving quickly but hits walls when you need advanced customization or industry-specific workflows. It can also get pretty expensive once you start looking for advanced features
For most growing businesses, I recommend starting with HubSpot and evaluating Salesforce once you hit more than 50 employees or complex sales processes. The switching costs aren’t trivial, but neither is choosing wrong from the start and struggling with adoption for months.
Which CRM is better for SMBs?
HubSpot clearly wins for small businesses and startups. The free tier provides genuine value for teams up to five people, with a learning curve that’s accessible to new users. Small teams can become productive within days rather than weeks.
Salesforce’s complexity and pricing make it overkill for most small businesses. Unless you have very specific enterprise needs or complex integration requirements, the investment rarely pays off until you reach significant scale.
Can you migrate data between Salesforce and HubSpot?
Yes, but it requires planning and often professional help. Both platforms offer migration tools, but I’ve seen data integrity issues when companies rush the process. Contact records, deal history, and custom fields need careful mapping to avoid losses.
HubSpot’s import tools are more user-friendly for smaller datasets. Salesforce migrations often require technical assistance. Budget two to four weeks for a proper migration and consider hiring specialists for complex data structures or large volumes.
Which platform offers better customer support?
HubSpot has a significantly better support reputation based on my knowledge. Their chat support is responsive and the knowledge base actually helps solve problems. People have rarely waited more than a few minutes for assistance.
Salesforce support is notoriously frustrating, slow response times and representatives who often can’t solve complex issues. Enterprise customers get better support, but standard plans often leave you searching community forums for answers.
In a bid to surface standout content, X launches Certified Bangers program to recognize engaging posts monthly. Limited details revealed.
Certified Bangers represent posts with high engagement levels, not just follower count, with winners receiving visible badges. English-only launch.
X’s Certified Bangers program raises questions about transparency and impact, with details on weighting and benefits still unclear.
In a bid to surface standout content, X has launched a new program called Certified Bangers, which, each month, identifies posts that generate strong, authentic engagement and awards those creators with a visible badge on their profile. While the initiative is clear in its broad strokes, the company has released only limited details on its underlying mechanics.
According to an official Help Centre entry, Certified Bangers represent posts that have achieved high levels of “verified impressions, likes, bookmarks, reposts, and replies.” The description emphasizes that these are not strictly follower-based contests: any original post from a personal account in good standing is eligible so long as it complies with the platform’s policies. At launch, the feature is available in English only.
Industry coverage confirms that X’s newly launched @Bangers account published the first certified posts covering October and signalled that winning creators receive a “Certified Banger” badge for the relevant month. One report described how the initial list included five posts that displayed very strong bookmark and repost counts—a reflection of deeper engagement rather than simply headline-level impressions.
That said, several key details remain unclear. X has not publicly disclosed how each of the five engagement signals is weighted against the others. It also has not tied the badge to any specific monetization benefit, such as bonus payments or revenue sharing. Some creators featured in the first list have questioned what additional value the badge will bring beyond the recognition itself.
From a strategic standpoint, the Certified Bangers program fits into X’s wider effort to highlight content that encourages genuine interaction and builds a culture where engagement signals status. For creators, it suggests that visibility grows through posts that start conversations, earn reposts and bookmarks, and follow platform rules. For others watching, it raises questions about how transparent and fair the system will be, and what the badge will actually mean over time.
Most people’s inboxes are graveyards of unopened promotions and cookie-cutter corporate newsletters. To truly grab and keep consumers’ attention, brands need more than clever email subject lines—originality, authenticity and a spark of delight and surprise are among the elements that drive a successful email marketing campaign.
From interactive “community mosaics” to personalized AI-powered storytelling that unfolds like a bingeworthy series, email marketing is being reinvented in bold new ways. Here, Forbes Agency Council members share innovative and unique ideas for email campaigns that recipients will actually look forward to engaging with.
1. One-Question Emails
Send a simple one-question email. Instead of a newsletter or a promo that they’ve learned to expect, send one short question your audience actually wants to answer. Let them vent. For example, “What’s your biggest challenge right now?” It works perfectly for service and B2B brands because it starts conversations and gives you insights that may drive business and help fuel future campaigns, too. – Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design
2. Post-Purchase Emails
The post-purchase email is totally underappreciated and underleveraged. The vast majority of brands miss the opportunity to tell their customers how to get the most out of the product they just bought, how to care for it or what makes it better than the rest. Most brands go straight for asking customers for a review or to buy something else. Few see it as the educational and brand-building opportunity it really is. – Stratton Cherouny, The Office of Experience
3. Thank-You Emails
Find unexpected ways to thank anyone and everyone—employees, customers, partners and colleagues. Done in meaningful, memorable and surprising ways, the perfect experience of appreciation and gratitude pays off immediately and over time in terms of building trust and loyalty. – Abigail Hirschhorn, Human Intelligence | H.I.
4. Recipient-Focused Emails
Send information that is useful to the recipient. This shouldn’t be innovative, but it is, as almost all email campaigns are self-serving and help the sender, not the recipient. Give useful information that will help your audience do their jobs better, build a relationship, and only then, consider (occasional) promotional emails. – Mike Maynard, Napier Partnership Limited
5. ‘Choose Your Path’ Emails
Consider how you could leverage an interactive “Choose Your Path” email program that invites subscribers to select their top challenge or goal, instantly unlocking content tailored to their choice. For a SaaS company, this could guide prospects to relevant case studies, product demos or ROI insights, turning a standard campaign into a personalized experience that drives engagement and conversion. – Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions
6. Micro-Story Drip Sequences
One innovative email marketing idea is to create micro-story drip sequences by breaking a larger story into a series of tiny, compelling chapters sent out over several emails. Ideal for creators, personal brands or niche audience education, this builds anticipation and emotional investment, so by the time you reveal an offer, the audience is already engaged, trusting and ready to act. – Sun Yi, Night Owls
7. ‘Community Mosaic’ Campaigns
If you have a community-driven brand or non-profit, try a “community mosaic.” Each subscriber contributes a small response: a word, a quote or a photo. Selected responses are featured in a mosaic or word cloud in future emails. The mosaic evolves, visually representing the community’s shared mission. In the process, you’ll gamify email marketing and transform passive readers into active participants. – Dennis Consorte, Consorte Marketing
8. Adaptive Emails
An innovative approach is using AI-generated micro-segments that adapt in real time based on user behaviour. Instead of static lists, emails evolve—content, timing and tone shift dynamically as engagement data changes. This works best for e-commerce and lifestyle brands where personalization drives conversions and timing and emotional relevance matter more than frequency. – Boris Dzhingarov, ESBO Ltd
9. Nine-Word Emails
One great email marketing trend to reengage old leads is the nine-word email. This simple email starts with the person’s name in the subject, followed by three dots. The body of the email is short and sweet. It greets them by their name, followed by, “Are you still interested in more leads?” for example. You obviously can customize the product or service accordingly, but it works great! – Adrian Falk, Believe Advertising & PR
10. Behaviour-Driven Storytelling Emails
I love it when email becomes a living story. When fashion, travel or lifestyle brands use behaviour-driven storytelling, each message feels like a personal chapter written just for the recipient. Done right, email becomes less of a marketing tool and more of a relationship that can deepen with every interaction. – Jacquelyn LaMar Berney, VI Marketing and Branding
11. Emails With Interactive Visuals
It’s not a new idea, but it’s often overlooked: Make email visuals interactive. A subtle, well-designed animated GIF can bring life to dense text and guide the reader’s attention naturally. It works especially well for lifestyle, fashion or product-driven brands where motion can showcase texture, form or use. This turns a simple email into a small experience worth engaging with. – Goran Paun, ArtVersion
12. Hyperlocal ‘Two-Hour Solve’ Emails
Run a hyperlocal “two-hour solve” email: Each send assembles in-stock kits from the subscriber’s nearest store, tuned to weekend plans, weather and local events, with a one-tap add-to-cart function, curbside time slots and a 90-minute hold. This is best for home improvement, grocery and party goods. Use geofenced catalogues and store-match controls to prove lift on pickup orders when timing and distance matter most. – Vaibhav Kakkar, Digital Web Solutions
13. Quick-Insight Emails
Use emails to share quick insights from real client results, such as, “One change that improved site speed by 40%.” Add a short video or link to let recipients see how it was done. This approach works well for agencies or B2B services because it builds credibility, shows proof of value and opens the door to follow-up conversations. – Meeky Hwang, Ndevr, Inc
14. Cold Emails With Free Offers
Using cold email to get clients still works well, and the things that work best are counterintuitive. Everyone thinks the more personalized the better, but this has become so easy to do that it doesn’t stand out anymore. For any B2B, what will work and provide the best results are short, informal emails (subject not even capitalized) with a free or complimentary offer that’s hard to say “no” to. – Landon Murie, Goodjuju Marketing
15. GenAI-Automated Campaigns
With generative AI for marketing automation, A/B testing, optimizing and segmenting are transitioning from remedial tasks into automated gold mines. The value here spans across all campaigns, audiences and industries, making it a true game-changer for email marketing efficiency. – Bernard May, National Positions
Every year, millions of leadership hours are poured into what companies call “strategy.” Yet months later, those same organizations often find themselves no closer to clarity or competitive edge. The uncomfortable truth: What passes for strategy is actually often nothing more than management theatre. It looks important, it feels productive, but it changes nothing.
In two decades of watching executive teams wrestle with direction, I’ve noticed recurring patterns that lead to strategy failure. They’re seductive because they look like progress. But in reality, they trap organizations in cycles of motion without momentum. Here’s how to spot them and what to do instead.
Planning Replaces Direction
Does your company have an “Annual Strategic Plan” with dozens of initiatives, metrics and milestones? It feels structured. It feels disciplined. It’s also not strategy.
Real strategy doesn’t fit into fiscal years. It answers existential questions: “Where will we play? How will we win? What must we become to do that?” If your “strategy” process starts with budget spreadsheets, you’re managing activity. Planning—as in “who does what by when, and how do we pay for it”—is not direction. Separate the two. Design strategy to clarify direction. Let planning follow, not lead.
Big Goals Replace Coherent Choices
Ambitious goals sound inspiring: “Double our market share.” “Triple our revenue.” “Be the leader in our space.” But without an underlying logic for how that’s achieved, these ambitions are empty calories. They create hype instead of focus. Strategy isn’t about how much you’ll grow but about how you’ll win. The question every leadership team should wrestle with isn’t “How big can we get?” It’s “What position can we own that others can’t easily copy?”
Agility Becomes An Excuse For Drift
In volatile markets, “being agile” has become a mantra. But agility can easily become addiction. Constant pivoting may look dynamic, but it’s often a symptom of strategic drift. A truly strategic organization knows when not to move. It operates from clear principles that define what’s worth responding to and what’s just noise.
Take Nvidia: Before they became a $4 trillion company, they almost went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. Instead of pivoting away from chips, they stayed the course, learned, improved and broke through with GPUs.
Alignment Exists Only On Slides
Ask 10 executives in the same company to describe the strategy, and you’ll often hear 10 different stories. Yet those same leaders proudly declare they’re “aligned.” Misalignment doesn’t always show up as disagreement. Sometimes it hides in language, the subtle differences in what “innovation,” “growth” or “value” mean to different people. Those gaps compound as decisions cascade through the organization. You can’t execute what you can’t articulate.
If your team can’t explain the strategy in plain language, consistently, you’re confusing those around you.Define what you mean in your business when you use certain terms, instead of leaving it to everyone’s interpretation. There is a reason companies like Roche have terminology experts who define key terms. It avoids confusion by making sure they use the appropriate terms in the right situation, ensuring everyone has the same understanding.
Customers Set The Strategy
Being customer-focused sounds noble, and it often is. But it’s not the same as being strategic. Customers can tell you what they want today. They can’t tell you what will create value tomorrow. When leaders over-index on current customer feedback, they risk becoming a mirror of today’s demands instead of an architect of tomorrow’s advantage.
The real art lies in balancing insight and foresight. Listen deeply to your customers, and also scan the horizon: emerging technologies, cultural shifts and regulatory trends that could reshape your playing field. Strategy lives in that intersection between what customers value now and what they’ll need next.
Execution Is Treated As Someone Else’s Job
One of the most persistent myths in strategy is that executives design it and managers execute it. That’s pretty much nonsense and guarantees disappointment. Strategy lives or dies in the daily choices of everyone. It’s in these everyday situations that you recognize whether your ideas were ever viable.
You can’t design strategy at the top and implement it “down there.” Strategy needs to become everyone’s job, every day. Help everyone understand how their daily work needs to evolve and how that supports strategy and success.
Assess the capabilities, structures and systems, and ask where they need to be updated, tweaked or replaced by something new to support everyone in driving the strategy into action and results.
Updating Replaces Rethinking
When a strategy loses relevance, many companies don’t rebuild it. They take what’s already there and update it. A few new initiatives here, a KPI adjustment there, maybe a new buzzword about AI or “transformation.” It’s the corporate equivalent of a coat of paint on a collapsing wall. Refreshing feels responsible. Reinvention feels dangerous. So, many play it safe. Every few years, you need to ask: “If we were starting from scratch today, would we design the same strategy?” Because the answer is most likely no, it’s time for reinvention.
Allow yourself to clean the slate and reimagine your business. Shape a new ambition, and detail it in a vision statement that makes your teams go, “I want to be a part of bringing this to life.” Then make the choices that will get you there. It’s a great opportunity to let go of things that were right in the past but don’t serve you anymore.
The Courage To Lead Strategically
None of these patterns comes from incompetence. They come from good intentions, discipline, ambition, responsiveness, customer care. But together, they create a fog that obscures what strategy actually is: the discipline of making choices, sometimes painful ones, about the future you’re willing to build.
Real strategy forces trade-offs. It demands saying “no” more than “yes.” It replaces wishful goals with coherent choices, not plans and budget numbers. If you find yourself leading a team that’s somehow lost, you’re likely stuck in the loop of false strategy. Breaking that loop starts with reframing what “strategic” really means.
New Trustpilot data shows Americans want real world feedback before buying.
Forget influencers and glossy magazines—this holiday season, Americans are turning to each other for shopping advice.
New data from Trustpilot’s National Write a Review Week campaign shows a 76% YoY spike in consumer reviews. The initiative, which ran October 20–24, attracted ~4 million visitors nationwide—a 63% jump from the same period in 2024—signalling how heavily shoppers are relying on feedback from real buyers.
Trustpilot’s AI and Black Friday shopping analysis reinforced the trend as 86% of shoppers checked reviews before making a holiday purchase. And in the lead-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, 40% of respondents said they waited for others to post reviews before deciding what to buy.
Even as AI-driven content and influencer campaigns grow, shoppers are still prioritizing “genuine human experiences,” according to Trustpilot’s report. Top consumer complaints this season included delivery delays, technical issues, and subpar customer service.
“[Consumers] are making purchasing decisions based on delivery reliability, product quality, and customer service,” Alicia Skubick, chief customer officer at Trustpilot, said in a statement. “The data also reveals what consumers need to know to make their holiday shopping experience the best one yet. The bottom line is simple—when people share their experiences, everyone shops smarter.”
The findings arrive as new government data shows US retail sales saw only modest growth in September, and consumer confidence continues to soften amid ongoing economic pressure.
That dip is reflected in holiday spending behaviors. A joint survey from Rocket Mortgage and Redfin found that 28% of Americans plan to spend less on decorations, and 26% expect to cut back on gifts compared to last year.
When I first started in marketing, my observation was that often, a breath-taking ad was the hallmark of a successful brand launch. But in my experience, nowadays, that’s changed—that ad, that hook, that viral clip—they’re just moments.
Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Talk to a social media creator, and chances are, they can generate a good idea for a brand. As a result, I believe that recreating the “great ad” model is a high-cost gamble, especially in an age where many people say they’re dealing with information overload. Moreover, I’ve observed that the old metrics we marketers celebrated often don’t deliver predictable results, and more and more clients are looking beyond fleeting numbers and demanding something more durable: sustainable results.
The way I see it, the old model overvalued the spark when the real worth was in the strategy.
A viral moment doesn’t fix a broken purchase path; an optimized funnel does. A clever ad campaign doesn’t solve a talent acquisition crisis; a long-term recruitment strategy paired with a good campaign does. For us marketers, the goal should be to create an overarching plan of attack, not just a billboard that advertises hype that may or may not be able to be backed up. Marketing initiatives can successfully deliver business outcomes when there’s a strong strategic foundation behind them.
Collaborate, Create, Connect
So, what does this all mean for marketers?
In my experience, the old creative model of the “big idea” is eroding—it was a process filled with risks, because so much of its success arguably depended on a hunt for a single viral moment. In marketing, it’s paramount to rely on the intersection of good ideas and good data and to align what we do with the goals of the business we’re serving.
I see the most successful marketing campaigns of the modern age as following a three-phase framework. The first phase is to collaborate: to align business goals with audience news and authentic brand DNA. This flows into the create phase, which is the building of the permanent solution or operational asset. Finally, there’s the connect phase, which is the launch of that solution to build a loyal, measurable community.
If you’re a creative in this day and age, my advice to you is: Don’t just rely on your instincts, aesthetics or a single “big idea” to carry a campaign. Modern creatives should shift from being purely creative playmakers to being strategic problem-solvers. That means designing with data, grounding concepts in business objectives and building assets that can be measured, iterated and scaled. Whether you’re a graphic designer or a content strategist, you should understand concepts such as the definition of a customer funnel and UX best practices.
Instead of chasing ideas and rolling the dice, build a system where your designers can thrive. The pipeline from business alignment to decision-making to launching is, I’ve found, straightforward but effective. Turn creativity into a disciplined, repeatable system, aligning the client’s mission with the creative strategy of the agency. Ensure that every campaign outcome is traceable to business intent and customer insight rather than fleeting virality.
Additionally, think in systems, not one-offs. Think of solutions that can evolve with the brand you’re working with instead of peaking in a moment of virality. You should collaborate earlier, validate assumptions with real audience insight and treat every design as part of a repeatable framework.
As a modern creative, you shouldn’t just be an artist. You should be an architect of outcomes.
Strategic Design Ethos
Now, this is where we come to the new role of the modern creative. It goes beyond a new process or a different way to track success. This is a “strategy design and execute ethos” that redefines the creative director from a peripheral artist who is there to “make things look attractive” to an essential partner who is at the table every step of the way.
In my view, the creatives who thrive in this new landscape will be the ones who transcend their “art” to their clients’ success. They’ll have the courage to ask the hard questions before they start creating, and they’ll have the business acumen to understand the answers.
We must be as fluent in business as we are in aesthetics. To be anything less is, in my view, to misunderstand the job entirely. We are not just artists; we are strategic creative partners.
