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As of January 2022, HubSpot has 5,900 global employees.

Such a large employee base equals a workforce of people with different identities, backgrounds, and cultures that are important to them.

HubSpot recognizes this and doesn’t want what makes every employee unique to be checked at the door before work begins. Instead, it champions differences and works to make sure that everyone feels represented, safe, welcome, and able to be themselves at work.

Let’s discuss how HubSpot does this.

Key Insights from HubSpot’s 2022 DI&B Report

HubSpot releases a yearly DI&B report to share progress on DI&B commitments. Here are some key insights about HubSpot employees from the most recent report:

The population of employees who identify as women or non-binary is 46.9%
13.7% of employees identify as Asian, 8.8% as Black or African American, 7.5% as Hispanic or Latino, .1% as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and .1% as American Indian or Alaska Native.
13.3% of employees are members of the LGBTQ+ community.
9.8% of employees are persons with disabilities.
44.9% of employees are first-generation.
Retention of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color employees in the U.S. is 2.2% lower than HubSpot’s overall U.S. employee retention rate.

Let’s go over how HubSpot can achieve these numbers.

1. Representation in leadership.

Representation at work looks like historically marginalized groups of people seeing people like themselves in their work community, whether in similar positions or higher-level positions like management and C-Suite.

In 2021, HubSpot became a company led by Yamini Rangan, a woman of color. In addition, the Company Executive Leadership Team (CELT) is made up of four women, and more than 50% of HubSpot leaders are women.

HubSpotters who share identities with Yamini and the other HubSpot leaders see themselves represented at work in higher-level positions, creating a sense of familiarity, community, and belonging in their day-to-day lives.

2. Active employee resource groups (ERGs).

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are communities where employees can join and interact with coworkers, talk about their experiences, and develop support networks. People of Color at HubSpot, PoCaH, is an ERG, and Harry Chiu is on its leadership council.

Chiu, a Senior Customer Onboarding Specialist, says, “In terms of representation at HubSpot, I think one of the biggest reasons is because we have so many internal resources to make everyone feel welcome…For myself, immediately after joining, I felt a connection with PoCaH — the programs they run, the people that are part of the ERG, and just what they stood for.”

Chiu says he attended a predominantly white Irish Catholic school for college. While he didn’t have trouble blending in, he still found himself hanging with people of color in campus organizations and took on roles to help create spaces that helped everyone feel comfortable.

He says, “I find that PoCaH does just that — bringing folks together, learning about one another’s cultures, building more empathy, and just helping everyone be more open-minded…As this group continues to grow and help facilitate inclusion in our organization, I find that it all goes back to the fact that HubSpot really cares about inclusion because, HubSpotters themselves, like me, care so much about it.”

3. Prioritizing employees’ mental health and safety.

Mental Health and safety are a big deal at HubSpot, as the goal is for everyone to perform to the best of their abilities while simultaneously maintaining a work-life balance and not experiencing burnout.

HubSpot has created various initiatives with this in mind for the sole purpose of helping employees relax, have fun, and prioritize their mental health, like cultural programming events, a global Week of Rest, and No Internal Meeting Fridays.

4. Opportunities for career growth and development.

HubSpot offers career growth and development opportunities for employees to flourish and develop their skills. Many of the programs are for communities that wouldn’t have access to the same experiences in different organizations.

The Charted Path is specifically for Black employees. In it, participants engage in 1:1 coaching sessions with a mentor that helps with skill-building and defining career paths, as well as larger group conversations with other participants to discuss and receive peer feedback.

Basha Coleman, a Historical Optimization Writer on the Blog Team, took part in the program and says, “The Charted Path program helped me build confidence as a professional and visualize my future self through each stage of my career. I love the focus that the facilitator put on the challenges women, especially Black women, can face in the workplace and held space for us to encourage each other to reach our career aspirations.”

5. Investing in social causes beyond HubSpot’s doors.

HubSpot cares about diversity, inclusion, and belonging beyond the screens of employees’ work computers. As such, it has committed to investments in social causes outside of HubSpot.

For example, its partnership with Howard University, a historically Black university, and the creation of the Center for Digital Business, where students participate in educational programming, collaborate with students and faculty and hone their business skills.

HubSpot has also committed to offsetting its historical environmental emissions through renewable energy carbon offset projects like the Blue Creek Salmon Conservation Project, and HubSpot Helps supports non-profit organizations across the globe where employees can get involved with local organizations and participate in different programs.

6. A commitment to follow-through.

Chester Pearce, a former member of PoCaH’s leadership council and current Team Lead on the Learning & Development team, says that HubSpot’s commitment to DI&B makes an impact through follow-through; or walking the walk.

He says, “HubSpot has focused on walking the walk. From establishing and building up Employee Resource Groups such as BlackHub and PoCaH, to establishing learning around understanding the cultural environment that surrounds us all. We have followed through on a Black Lives Matter action plan and have focused on recruiting diverse talent.”

He says that commitment to these programs helps HubSpotters see themselves truly represented in the community around them, in leadership to their team members, which helps people bring their whole selves to work.

Over To You

HubSpot’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging directly contributes to its diverse workforce, as it simply recognizes employees for who they are, independent of their jobs.

It doesn’t — and shouldn’t — end at just that, though, and Pearce agrees — “The progress we’ve made is just the start. HubSpot isn’t focused on just hiring diverse talent, the organization is focused on driving the success of diverse talent on a global level. This means having more conversations, developing our leaders, and continuing to provide opportunities for growth for all HubSpotters.”

Email marketing is an important strategy for marketers looking to reach new leads, stay top-of-mind with existing customers, and keep them aware of new products and services — but the practice isn’t always straightforward. Technology and consumers change, and keeping up can be challenging. However, the challenge is worth it.

47.5% of marketers said their email marketing strategy was very effective toward reaching their business goals, while 47.2% said it was only somewhat effective. Only 2.7% said it was somewhat ineffective, and less than 1% said it was very ineffective.

Now that you know a sound email marketing strategy can help you reach your broader marketing goals, how exactly can you strengthen your marketing tactics to see the best results? To improve your email marketing metrics, here are some useful email marketing benchmarks we gathered from a survey we conducted among hundreds of marketers.

Most Important Metrics for Effective Email Marketing

When we asked marketers which metrics were the most important in measuring the effectiveness of an email campaign, the majority included click-through rate, open rate, and conversion rate in their answers.

Click-Through Rate

In email marketing, click-through rate (CTR) is calculated by the number of subscribers that have clicked on at least one link in the email campaign. And 35.9% of the marketers we surveyed said improving it is one of the biggest challenges they face with their email marketing efforts.

If you’re struggling to boost your CTR, the following email marketing benchmarks will help refine your strategy:

30.7% of marketers said emails featuring new product/feature announcements have the highest CTR. Another 30.7% said the same about emails with special offers or promotions. This likely means consumers are more prone to click on emails that hold valuable information about what exactly your company can do for them — whether it’s providing in-demand offerings or enticing deals that could save them money.

Speaking of value, we also found 38.2% of marketers said providing value through their marketing emails is one the most effective strategies for increasing CTR. Other popular answers include:

Crafting effective subject lines (36.5%)
Optimizing emails for mobile (29.6%)
Including clear calls to action (28.6%)

Our data also suggests consumers respond to a more personalized approach to email marketing, particularly segmented emails. Our survey found 52.9% of marketers reported segmented emails have a better CTR than unsegmented, while only 23.8% said the opposite is true.

And as we mentioned before, changes in technology can also impact your email marketing metrics, including CTR. 39.9% of the marketers we surveyed said the Apple IOS 15’s privacy protection feature reduced CTR —and 34.7% of marketers said the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has reduced CTR as well.

Fortunately, there are ways to adjust your email marketing strategy to account for these privacy changes. 62% of marketers surveyed included prioritizing different KPIs to measure effectiveness in their method of adapting their strategy.

51.9% included leveraging user data from sources that are not affected by data privacy changes, like non-Apple users. And 36% included leveraging channels other than email marketing, like text message marketing.

Open Rate

In our survey, 32.9% of marketers included low open rates among the biggest challenges they face in email marketing. If open rates are a challenge for your company, the following statistics can help you make the right adjustments to your strategy.

About 31% of marketers said emails with special offers and promotions have the highest open rates, and 30% said the same about emails announcing new products and features.

You also need to consider subject lines when sending your marketing emails. About 65% of marketers said subject lines have the greatest impact on open rates.

More than half of the marketers we surveyed said subject lines that engage curiosity are the most effective in boosting open rates. About 36% said the same about emails with promotion offers, and 27.9% said expressing urgency in subject lines are most effective.

Similar to CTR, 65% of marketers say segmented emails have a better open rate than unsegmented —while 17.9% say unsegmented is better, and 17.1% say it’s about the same.

Privacy protection advancements also impact open rates, according to 34.1% of marketers who said Apple IOS 15’s privacy protection feature reduced their ability to see open rates. And 24.3% said it reduced open rates altogether. GDPR also impacts open rate. About 21% of marketers said the policy reduced their open rate, and about 34% said it reduced their ability to see open rates.

Conversion Rates

A little over 30% of marketers said low conversion rates are among the biggest challenges facing their email marketing strategy, according to our survey. However, if you refine your email marketing strategy to boost open rates and CTR, then you’ll likely see boosts in conversions as well.

Another method that can potentially lead to better conversion rates is to optimize your emails to be readable and engaging on the devices most used to read them. We found that 41% of email views come from mobile devices. The second most popular device is desktop with 39%. Coming in third place are tablets, where 19% of email views come from.

The right email marketing strategy will keep you consumers in the know about your company’s exciting new products and services, and will keep your brand in their mind when they’re in between purchases.

Now that you know what kind of email tactics will make your audience open and click through your emails to become new leads, you’re ready to craft the best email marketing strategy for your organization.

Are you thinking of launching an ecommerce business? Before you start, learn everything you need about ecommerce with these 8 podcasts.

This list of ecommerce podcasts offers it all – education, inspiration, and entertainment. Check them out below.

Shopify Masters

If you’re getting into ecommerce, what better way to learn than from one of the biggest ecommerce platforms?

On Shopify Masters, the hosts invite successful entrepreneurs and ecommerce experts to discuss the tools needed to build a thriving online business. This includes everything from ads and crowdfunding to market research and ambassador programs.

Standout episodes:

The One Data Insight That Doubled This Brand’s Sales
How This Menswear Company Worked Past Major Breaking Points to Scale
How to Grow Your DTC Business on a Budget

Ecommerce Playbook

If you’re a beginner in the ecommerce space and looking for straightforward, tactical advice, this podcast is for you.

Host Andrew Faris, former CEO of an ecommerce aggregator and now the VP of Growth for an ecommerce growth agency, shares his journey with listeners, from recent wins to big failures. He also brings in entrepreneurs to talk about their ecommerce journey.

Standout episodes:

How Much Should I Spend on Ads?
21 AntiFragile Ecommerce Tactics
Know Your Numbers (No, Your Real Numbers)

DTC Pod

Are you launching a direct-to-consumer ecommerce business? If so, listen to this podcast.

It was specifically created with this audience in mind to help them with all aspects of running a successful DTC business, such as website conversion, paid media, brand awareness, influencer marketing, ads, and more.

Standout episodes:

Marketing Fyre Festival, The Viral Campaign of The Decade
Kevin Wong, Lunar: Breaking into Big Box Retailers with Hard Seltzer CPG
Shaun Brandt, Oddit: Conversion as a Service, Optimize DTC like a PM

The 6 Figure Product Business Podcast

Using a workshop-style approach, this podcast does deep dives on all aspects of running a successful ecommerce business.

Its host, Kerrie A. Fitzgerald, is an ecommerce business coach and digital marketing expert who build her own six-figure business and now wants to help listeners replicate it for themselves.

Standout episodes:

Why Free Facebook Groups May Be Hurting Your Ecommerce Business
How to Create a Cult-Like Following for Your E-Commerce Brand
Key Elements for a Strong Ecommerce Brand with Duo Collective

​​Female Startup Club

As their name suggests, The Female Startup Club was created with women in mind – specifically female entrepreneurs.

One thing this podcast does well is balancing its educational content with inspirational content. One episode might focus on the tactical steps to organic marketing while another may focus on a founder’s journey to $100 million in revenue.

While ecommerce isn’t the focus, it is something they discuss a lot with founders and experts.

Standout episodes:

3 Lessons That Turned This Failing Fashion Entrepreneur into an 8-Figure Founder
7 Women Pioneers Changing The Future of Feminine Health
My 7 Worst Business Mistakes That Cost Me Thousands of Dollars

My First Million

Ever wish you could be in a room with successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists while they brainstorm business ideas? This podcast allows you to do just that.

On the My First Million podcast, co-hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri discuss current trends in the market and the growth opportunities they identify. They also interview other successful business owners about their success.

While this podcast doesn’t focus solely on ecommerce, it can serve as inspiration for listeners looking to launch their business soon.

Standout episodes:

Billion Dollar Business Philosophies with HubSpot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah
How to Reverse Engineer Any Business
How to Recruit A-Players to Small Companies

The Glossy Podcast

If you’re a DTC ecommerce fashion brand and want to stay on top of industry trends and news, listen to The Glossy Podcast.

This podcast explores the impact of technology on the fashion and luxury industries. However, they also cover topics like greenwashing, executive team changes, and the metaverse.

Standout episodes:

LVMH’s Earnings, Lulumenon’s New Resale Program, Paris’ NFT Day
Google Shopping’s Stephanie Horton: ‘Servicing the customer at every point of the journey is the goal’
The Yes Founder Julie Bornstein on Building an ‘Industry-Changing’ Retail Platform