Marketing Automation
HubSpot Marketing Automation Puts Inbound Marketing Front and Center
HubSpot marketing automation software is standing out from the pack by providing an all-in-one solution for SMBs and enterprises alike, expounding an approach to marketing that actually goes beyond just marketing automation. Though they’re often put in that category for simplicity’s sake, it’s clear to anyone perusing their site that HubSpot puts a great deal of focus on inbound marketing and managing the entirety of the lead nurturing process from start to finish, which includes bringing in new leads in the first place with proper SEO techniques, content management, and social media.
With so much of their focus on inbound marketing, it’s no wonder that HubSpot puts such a heavy emphasis on SEO, social media, and blogging tools, which occupies about 30% of their feature list on the site. They even put out a report last year to show that blogs and social media are becoming more and more important to companies, most of which are starting to feel like those channels are absolutely critical to their business.
Does blog activity really equal higher customer acquisition?
While of course HubSpot’s data shouldn’t be taken at face value, that doesn’t negate the fact that putting a more human face on your company helps build a credible and trustworthy reputation, as well as connect more directly with potential customers. Whether it can actually increase your customer acquisition is not actually something I think you can measure, though they definitely try to draw that conclusion. In any case, what is true is that HubSpot is dedicated to providing an easy to use solution that assists even the most technologically insecure can setup their own site, apply proper SEO techniques, and start bringing in consistent and growing site traffic.
Over the past several years, HubSpot has been gradually re-positioning itself to tackle the middle of the funnel and thereby occupy the top spot in marketing software solutions, which is helped along by the fact that they’re touting an all-in-one solution that’s especially attractive to small businesses. However, HubSpot obviously wants to move beyond just the small business and single-owner business market into enterprise-level marketing, so it’ll be interesting to see how they overcome hurdles such as convincing entrenched marketing departments to change their ways.
A year ago, there was some talk that HubSpot was a little weak on the email automation side, which is somewhat ironic since it seems like there’s a lot of noise in the echo chamber about email marketing being dead because of spamming and social media (especially in reporting that covered HubSpot’s addition of email marketing to the mix). Of course, email marketing is still a large part of outbound marketing efforts, and clearly HubSpot took that to heart by building out their email automation tools.
To learn more, check out our HubSpot marketing software review, or head on over to our marketing automation resource page.
Amanda Andonian
Expert in Mobile, CMS, and Social Media
