Marketing your business online takes a lot more than just a blog and being active on social. Companies that succeed do so by creating relationships and then nurturing those relationships into customers. This shift in consumer behavior has led to the rise of what we call “inbound marketing.” Unlike traditional marketing which pushes people toward products and services, inbound seeks to pull people towards their services by educating and engaging people where they are. Inbound is comprised of a number of tactics and strategies such as SEO, social media marketing, SEM, blogging, lead nurturing, and more. The power of inbound comes through connecting all your efforts and focusing them on a single goal. This is why using an all-in-one automation software is crucial for your success and delivering the best ROI.
Thanks to the internet, there are tons of marketing tools that will help you market smarter. Free tools like Google Analytics, MailChimp, and Hootsuite are great for helping companies on a budget deliver the best content to their audience. While these tools are great, jumping back and forth between them can be time-consuming and result in lost data and opportunities. This is why we recommend using an all-in-one marketing platform like HubSpot. Not only do you get all the tools you need, but they are also connected with one another. This allows you to see the big picture more clearly and to know in greater detail what works and what doesn’t. For the purpose of this post, we will show you how HubSpot, our automation tool of choice, can help your business deliver better results with Inbound.
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Why are the tools necessary?
Time is money. When you or the agency you are working with has to jump from tool to tool it takes more time. But that’s not the only thing that takes more time. If you choose not to use an all-in-one software, comparing metrics and data is much more time-consuming and oftentimes less accurate. If you or the agency you’ve hired has to do this manually it will take hours just to run a report. HubSpot’s tools track your users as they interact with your business across a variety of channels. This helps you see how they are actually interacting with your brand and which mediums are most effective. The best part, it’s done for you in real-time. No need to run multiple reports and try to piece them together. HubSpot saves you time and money.
The cost of automation software is usually the biggest hurdle for business owners. I get it. When I took the leap with HubSpot it was truly a leap of faith. But after being in the online marketing industry for more than 6 years at that time, I knew I needed better tools if I was going to reach my full potential. The tools won’t do the work for you, but they do help you work smarter. When you purchase HubSpot, you are making an investment. You are buying some of the smartest marketing tools on the web and you’re actually getting a great deal. If you went out and paid separately for all the insights you get from HubSpot you’d be paying well over $10k a month.
Ok, so it can save you time and money, but what about results? After all, if the ROI is not significantly better why buy in? In my own business, we’ve seen our revenue increase by over 540% in the past 18 months using the Hubspot platform. Our clients have seen on average a 140% increase in traffic and a 432% increase in the number of leads generated through their website since partnering with us and using HubSpot. We aren’t the only agency seeing these types of results.
In a case study done by overgovideo.com, companies not using HubSpot saw an average increase of 170% in organic traffic after one year, whereas those using HubSpot saw an average organic traffic increase of 590%. B2B clients not using HubSpot saw an average of 8 leads per month, whereas those using HubSpot averaged 18 leads per month. B2C clients not using HubSpot saw an average of 18 leads per month, whereas those using HubSpot received an average of 71 leads per month.
Can it be done without the tool?
This is a question I get asked often and the simple answer is yes. But if you look at the reasons above you may want to rethink trying without an all-in-one automation tool. HubSpot put together a great piece of content called “Frankenspot.” It gives you a detailed explanation of how to build an inbound marketing platform using WordPress. You can read the full post here.
After all is said and done, if you shoot for the middle-of-the-road products you can pull off a “kind of like” HubSpot system for a little more than $600 a month. But you also aren’t getting all of the tools with that option. So sure, you can do it for a lower software cost, but you will also end up with subpar results.
How to choose the right solution?
Choosing the right automation solution for your business is a pretty in-depth decision. Every business is different in more ways than one. Factors like industry, leadership, goals, and customer base all need to be factored in. Most automation software comes with the basics. The common feature set in marketing automation includes:
- Email marketing
- Landing pages
- Lead management
- CRM integration
- Social marketing
- Analytics and reporting
What sets the major automation platforms apart is price, industries, and customized internal tools. Here are a few links where you can compare HubSpot against its top competition.
The easiest thing to see is that HubSpot is recommended by its users 98% of the time compared to Marketo’s 79% and Pardot’s 80%. Of all the major players, HubSpot is also the most affordable. What I enjoy as a marketer and agency owner is that HubSpot is easy to use. My clients can get in there and learn what they need to know with relative ease. By far what sets them apart is their ecosystem. With over 18,000 customers, 2,900 Agency Partners, 145k members on Inbound.org, and the annual INBOUND conference – there is an abundance of people and resources to seek out when looking for help or just to find out more about HubSpot.
When it comes to having success when marketing your business online, you must have a good strategy and the passion to keep going when things get murky. Inbound marketing is about long-term growth and building brand equity over time. In order to see better results faster, having the right tools in your toolbox can really help. This is why we’ve invested in and used automation software. No, it can’t do you work for you, but it can help you work smarter.
