As I interviewed for my next position in the wonderful world of marketing, I wondered if I would have to leave my golden days with the glitz and glamor of Marketo behind. I felt a strong connection with the marketing automation system that I had spent so much time with. It was my baby, as I implemented the system and married it to Salesforce, and what helped to create sales ready leads for my “client,” the sales team. First lesson learned, once you choose a marketing automation system, you have blinders on for all other solutions.
The Role of Marketing Automation Software
Marketing automation systems are just that, solutions. They will help to answer the age-old question of how to get more traffic, leads, and turn those leads into customers. The marketing automation space is getting crowded with experts in the field of content and email-based marketing. Companies have to quiet the noise pollution and flash of the email marketing tactics and determine which solution will be right for their team and their business.
It’s a good thing that my fellow Inbound Marketing Agents are experts in HubSpot’s tools. HubSpot’s main competitor is Marketo; they are neck in neck for the best marketing automation systems on the market. So, as a newbie, what are my thoughts so far? Glad you asked.
Metrics-Based Marketing
I am pleasantly surprised by all of the features HubSpot has to offer. Right off the bat, when you login to HubSpot, you are presented with a snapshot of your data. This is a major pro for HubSpot. HubSpot’s competitor, Marketo, does not have a main data display. If you want to see data, you have to delve into the analytics portion of the tool. Oftentimes, the analytics are very timely to run a full report. HubSpot presents you with stats from leads, conversions, landing pages, and even your blog post.
My next initial impression of HubSpot is it’s all-in-one marketing solution-ness (yeah, I am a marketer and we make up words). Marketo is about leads, nurturing those leads, and closing the loop. HubSpot aids you in not only generating leads, but optimizing your website, and even deciding what you should blog about. HubSpot gives you so many tools of the trade. It truly is an all-in-one system to lead you to be a rock star marketer even without Marketo.
Another great aspect of HubSpot is its simple, step-by-step tutorials that live on almost every page of the interface. Here is a sample from the email section of the interface:
For a newbie, this is a critical aspect of learning a new system while on the job at a fast-paced inbound marketing agency. You cannot be the new girl bugging everyone with your questions!
My Favorite HubSpot Features
One of the coolest features I have been working with over the past couple of days is the keyword tool. After adding keywords that are relevant to your business to the keyword tool (a lot like adding keywords to a PPC campaign), HubSpot spits out stats like where your site ranks on the search engine results page (SERP) for that search term, the search volume within a given month, and difficulty score of getting ranked for that term. You can use all of these data points to determine if your website is doing your business justice. Then, you can angle blog posts and on-page SEO towards these keywords to boost your website visitors and in turn future customers.
The last major feature I would like to point out about HubSpot is its free marketing training and certification program. After 18 Internet marketing webinars, led by industry experts, you can take a marketing certification exam to become an Inbound Marketing Certified Expert. Marketo is just now opening the registration for their Marketo certification program and it will not only cost you time, but a hefty penny!
As you can tell by my short raves about HubSpot, that so far, I really like the tool! HubSpot is an intuitive tool for modern content marketer. I think I will settle into my HubSpot advocate shoes very well.
image credit: hin255 