HubSpot is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider for
inbound marketing and sales automation, especially for small and medium
businesses (SMBs) with up to 2,000 employees. Founded in 2006, HubSpot started
out as a platform for creating website content in the Amazon Web Services (AWS)
cloud (using Python). Today it serves over 48,000 clients in over 100
countries. HubSpot is a global public company with over 2,400 employees in 7
offices around the world: Cambridge, Massachusetts (headquarters); Dublin;
Singapore; Sydney; Tokyo; Sedan; and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The office will
open in Bogota at the end of 2018. HubSpot defines inbound marketing as a way
of doing business based on empathy and approaching each customer in a more
rewarding and personal way. Instead of a one-sided outbound "push" of
traditional marketing that potential customers may find intrusive, annoying, or
simply dismiss as "noise", the idea behind inbound marketing is to
attract potential customers by offering useful content. For example, the
content could be educational articles about some products and services tied to
a well thought out search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. This gives
customers and potential customers a relevant and rewarding experience when they
need it instead of being interrupted. HubSpot Input Methodology
Figure 1. HubSpot Data Entry Methodology
On fig. Figure 1 shows how HubSpot software, services, and
support help customers engage, engage, and delight customers.
HubSpot also works with thousands of marketing agency
partners around the world, as well as nearly 200 integration partners through
its HubSpot Connect program (about half of HubSpot's customers participate in
these partnerships). By 2017, the HubSpot Connect affiliate program has
expanded to offer over 100 integrations from new partners such as Hootsuite's
AdEspresso, Terminus, AdRoll and Brightcove. Previously, the Zapier integration
allowed organizations to connect to approximately 300 workflow automation apps.
Marketing Automation Improvements
Despite its apparent success (it currently has around $400
million in annual revenue), at INBOUND 2017 HubSpot was quite candid about its
shortcomings and how to fix them. For example, the provider's own survey found
that 60% of HubSpot customers built their websites using WordPress or Wix. The
reason for this situation was that the HubSpot website builder was missing some
basic features.
To this end, during 2017, HubSpot significantly accelerated
the creation of websites, made them more stable and secure in terms of speed
and uptime. HubSpot's website builder is now aimed at marketers and includes
native site search capabilities, integration with Google Docs and HubSpot
Collect, a Chrome browser extension where users can save ideas and turn them
into content.
HubSpot now positions itself as a content management system
(CMS) for marketers that is flexible, scalable and easy to use. There are many
custom modules available, an integrated development environment (IDE), HubDB
relational data store pages, and other modules. The latest tool in the HubSpot
Marketing product allows users to create tables to easily add or remove data on
their website or landing pages.
Marketing users have also told HubSpot that they need better
targeting tools. So in 2017, HubSpot improved the social tools in the HubSpot
marketing hub. For example, the new Facebook Ads Audience Sync allows HubSpot
Ads users to retarget, grow, and convert Facebook users based on HubSpot
customer relationship management (CRM) data (see Figure 2).
HubSpot Facebook Audience
Figure 2. Facebook Audience Sync Tool from HubSpot
With this integration, businesses can sync their HubSpot
listings with their Facebook audience and retarget those users who spend the
most time online (to Facebook). Built for B2B marketers, the Terminus
integration will drive the right people to targeted accounts with an
account-based targeted marketing (ABM) approach to specific accounts, providing
a 1:1 experience that takes information from the company. , stakeholders take
into account the information and interests of stakeholders at a particular
time.
Lookalike Audiences, Facebook's machine learning feature
