Ah, the age-old marketing question: what makes a brand stand out?

This, of course, is more than just literally standing out. Sure, those golden arches in the distance are doing their job, but the today’s Listen focuses on how brands stand out in a far more unique way — by caring.

Take Zappos, for example. How many of us could draw the company’s logo? But they thrive by having superhuman customer service.

This podcast is hella short — a hot 5 minutes, in fact — but serves up great perspective on how marketers should be thinking about what it means to actually “stand out”.

Here are some key points:

• Take care of your customers. That’s Branding 101.
• The way a brand interacts with their customers, via social media or through events, tells the brand’s personality and story.
• A brand stands out when it can connect with its customers.

Whatchu think? Join 10,000 other marketers and get this newsletter your inbox on the daily. Sign up riiiiiight here.

Very few, if any, B2B companies have had the explosive growth that Hubspot has had. They only started in 2006, and already have passed $250 million in annual revenue. And don’t even get us started on how much web traffic they get each month (it’s a sh*t load).

Growing a company from $0-$250 million in 10 years is a marketer’s dream. If you’re like us, you wanna steal some of their marketing magic. Today’s Read breaks down some of the marketing strategies and tactics behind the company that set the bar for B2B marketing.

• Content Partnerships. If you partner with other companies in your space, even competitors, it can help get you in front of a new audience.
• 3 Social Media Networks You Need To Promote Your Content On. Hubspot gets about a million visitors per month from 3 social media platforms. Two of them make sense – Facebook and LinkedIn. But the third is surprising – YouTube. Maybe time to rethink your video strategy.
• Create 1 Content Upgrade For Every Blog Post You Write. Relevant CTAs on blog posts are essential for new leads. Hubspot creates a content upgrade that pairs perfectly with nearly every blog post they publish.
• Partner With Micro-Influencers. Hubspot uses influencer marketing. Didn’t think it was right for a B2B company? Think again.
• Build a Free Tool to Shows Your Customers’ Problems. And then make the logical conclusion that you are the solution. Hubspot does this with Website Grader.

That’s only 5 tips. Still 8 more in today’s Read

Who woulda thunk that a cleaning product would create an ad with so much heart? In an effort to stand for a “higher purpose”, Clorox teamed up with FCB in a new ad campaign about all of life’s messes. 

But this striking campaign suggests a new direction for cleaning products. Whereas once promoted as the end of the story — cleaning up the spills, dirt, etc — this campaign is about cleaning as a new beginning, “with all the possibilities that it implies.” It’s pretty poetic when you think about it, right? We think Clorox really sold this new message with their beautifully-produced, heartwarming campaign.