How to Choose Marketing Fonts with Hubspot-Inspired Best Practices
Successful digital campaigns from tools like Hubspot often rely on more than great copy and offers. The right font choices strongly impact readability, brand perception, and conversion rates across your website, landing pages, and emails.
Below is a practical, step-by-step guide, inspired by high-performing marketing teams, to help you choose and combine fonts for any campaign or site.
Why Fonts Matter in Modern Marketing
Fonts do more than display text. They shape how people feel about your brand and whether they keep reading or bounce.
Strong font decisions can:
- Improve on-page readability and time on page
- Reinforce a consistent brand identity
- Guide visitors through headlines, body copy, and calls-to-action
- Support accessibility and mobile responsiveness
This is why leading platforms and teams invest time up front to define clear font rules before scaling content and campaigns.
Understanding the Main Font Categories
Before choosing specific typefaces, it helps to know the core categories that marketers use most frequently.
Serif Fonts
Serif fonts have small decorative strokes at the ends of letters. They often feel traditional, formal, or editorial.
- Great for: print materials, long-form reading, and brands that want a classic or premium look
- Examples: Times New Roman, Georgia, Baskerville
Sans Serif Fonts
Sans serif fonts remove those decorative strokes, creating a cleaner and more modern appearance.
- Great for: websites, apps, dashboards, and minimalist branding
- Examples: Arial, Helvetica, Open Sans, Montserrat
Display and Decorative Fonts
Display fonts are highly stylized and designed for impact, not long-form reading.
- Great for: hero headlines, posters, social graphics, or short promotional messages
- Use sparingly: they quickly become overwhelming in body text
Script Fonts
Script fonts mimic handwriting or calligraphy and communicate elegance, creativity, or personality.
- Great for: logos, special event promos, limited accent text
- Risk: can be hard to read at small sizes or on mobile devices
Step-by-Step Process to Select Marketing Fonts
Use this structured process to move from a blank slate to a clear, repeatable font system for your website and campaigns.
1. Define Your Brand Personality
Start by listing adjectives that describe your brand. For example: modern, playful, bold, classic, professional, friendly, or technical.
- Modern and simple: favor clean sans serif fonts
- Classic and trustworthy: consider serif fonts or a serif-sans combination
- Creative and bold: introduce a tasteful display or script accent font
Your brand traits should narrow the field before you explore endless font libraries.
2. Prioritize Readability First
Even the most stylish font fails if visitors cannot read it quickly.
- Choose fonts with clear letter shapes and good spacing
- Avoid overly condensed or ultra-thin styles for body text
- Test your fonts on both desktop and small mobile screens
For most websites, a neutral, highly legible sans serif or serif font works best for body copy.
3. Limit the Number of Fonts You Use
Too many fonts create visual noise and confuse the hierarchy of information.
- Ideal system: 2–3 fonts across your site
- One primary body font for paragraphs
- One headline font for titles and subheads
- Optional accent font for special callouts or CTAs
Consistent usage across pages makes your entire experience feel more professional and cohesive.
4. Match Fonts with a Clear Visual Hierarchy
Hierarchy helps readers understand what to read first, next, and last.
- Use size to signal importance: larger for H1, medium for H2, smaller for body
- Use weight: bold for key headings, regular for body, medium for subheads
- Use color sparingly to highlight CTAs or key phrases
Using the same pattern on every page trains visitors to scan your content quickly.
5. Choose Web-Safe or Hosted Fonts
Website fonts must load quickly and consistently across devices.
- Web-safe fonts (e.g., Arial, Georgia, Verdana) are reliably available
- Hosted fonts via services like Google Fonts give more variety
- Always include fallback fonts in your CSS font stack
Fast-loading fonts contribute to better user experience and SEO performance.
6. Check Contrast and Accessibility
High contrast between text and background boosts readability for all visitors, including those with visual impairments.
- Aim for a strong contrast ratio between text color and background
- Avoid light gray fonts on white backgrounds for core content
- Use online contrast checkers to validate your color combinations
Accessible font choices can directly affect engagement, bounce rate, and overall site usability.
Combining Fonts for a Cohesive Look
Once you have a shortlist, the next challenge is pairing fonts so they work well together instead of clashing.
Pairing a Serif with a Sans Serif
This is one of the most reliable combinations.
- Use a serif font for headlines to convey authority
- Use a sans serif for body copy to keep reading easy
- Ensure they share some visual qualities, such as similar x-height or stroke contrast
Using Font Superfamilies
Many type families include both serif and sans serif versions designed to work together.
- Look for superfamilies that offer multiple weights and styles
- Use different styles (light, regular, bold) instead of different typefaces
- This approach simplifies design and keeps branding consistent
Adding a Display or Script Accent
If your brand allows for more personality, you can introduce one accent font.
- Reserve it for short headlines, pull quotes, or hero images
- Never use it for long paragraphs or dense instructions
- Check that it still reads clearly at smaller sizes
Practical Rules for Font Sizes and Line Spacing
Even great font choices can fail when sizing and spacing are off.
- Body text: typically 16–18px on web for comfortable reading
- Headlines: 1.5–2.5 times the size of body text
- Line height: around 1.4–1.6 for paragraphs
- Paragraph spacing: clear separation between blocks of text
These guidelines help maintain rhythm and reduce eye strain, especially on longer articles or pillar pages.
Learn More from the Original Hubspot Resource
If you want to see a detailed example of how a leading marketing brand explains type choices, review the original guide at this font selection article. It walks through additional visual examples and considerations that complement the steps above.
Applying These Principles in Your Own Stack
Whether you use Hubspot, another CRM, or a custom tech stack, the same principles apply to every page and campaign.
- Document your chosen fonts, sizes, and weights in a simple style guide.
- Update your website CSS and email templates to match that guide.
- Test new layouts in multiple browsers and on mobile devices.
- Monitor engagement metrics like time on page and scroll depth after changes.
As you refine your design, keep an eye on how quickly visitors can scan content, understand key offers, and locate calls-to-action.
Next Steps for Improving Your Marketing Design
Strategic font choices are one part of a larger optimization plan that also includes layout, messaging, and technical SEO.
- Audit your current pages for inconsistent font usage
- Standardize headings, body text, and button styles
- Align your fonts with brand positioning and audience expectations
- Iterate based on analytics and user feedback
If you need help building a complete optimization roadmap, including font strategy, UX, and SEO, you can explore professional support at Consultevo.
By following these structured steps and grounding your choices in readability, hierarchy, and brand clarity, you can create marketing experiences that feel polished, trustworthy, and easy to navigate across every device.
Need Help With Hubspot?
If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your Hubspot , work with ConsultEvo, a team who has a decade of Hubspot experience.
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