HubSpot and Help Scout approach to inbound marketing

Smart inbound marketing methods to reduce your marketing expenses & grow your sales

When a business needs to cut costs, advertisement expenses are usually the first to reduce. Thankfully today smart marketing does not have to involve expensive ads. The strategy can focus on attracting customers to business via search engine optimisation (SEO), blogging, easy to navigate and attractive website, social media and smart email marketing. It is called inbound marketing. In this essay, I would like to analyse inbound marketing methods used by HubSpot and Help Scout.

Each organisation’s approach to inbound marketing

              HubSpot’s approach to inbound marketing is complex and covers all elements of the inbound marketing methodology. First, potential customers find the business thanks to engaging content which solves their problems. Then visitors convert to leads by performing an action on the webpage (i.e. downloading gated content). HubSpot has then a great chance to convert leads into customers – for example by attractive email marketing. Those customers can then become HubSpot’s promoters.

Help Scout approach to inbound marketing is also holistic. The company attracts customers via inspiring and useful content closely related to their product (email support), which is focused on problem-solving. Visitors convert to leads by starting a free trial, downloading e-books or subscribing newsletter. Leads can then convert to customers.

Strengths and weaknesses of the inbound marketing approach used by each organisation

              It seems to me that both HubSpot and Help Scout use inbound marketing as a primary marketing strategy. The organisations have easy to navigate websites with blogs. The content is varied, well related to business, informative and educational for potential customers. Both companies use social proof on homepages. However, HubSpot’s is very basic. HubSpot offers various gated free marketing resources. Help Scout organises free training, webinars and has a dedicated educational section on the webpage. However, most resources are not gated. Both webpages have several calls to actions and live chat.

HubSpot is very active on social media and shares both educational & entertaining content. Social media is, however, a weak point of Help Scout. The content is monotonous (mostly company’s blog articles and guides) and posted irregularly.

HubSpot is well positioned in Google organic results for important business keywords, e.g. first for ‘marketing software’. Help Scout ranks well for long-tail keywords, e.g. first rank for ‘customer support skills’.

Which organisation was best at inbound marketing and why?

I think that HubSpot has an outstanding inbound strategy. It makes available a range of valuable and free content, in various forms. Thanks to this rich content and HubSpot Academy the company is perceived as an expert in marketing, sales and service software. What is more, the company provides tools that can be used for free and a few options of paid service that follow the client’s growth.

How each organisation could improve its inbound marketing?

Both businesses seem to be successful in their marketing strategies. In every marketing medium, they try first to build a relationship with potential customers, help them to find information rather than sell. That is an ideal approach to achieve above-average sales results. However, Help Scout can definitely improve social media, work on gated content and offer a free version of software to start with as trial is not as attractive and valuable for potential customers. HubSpot can work on product personalisation, for example by organising webinars for customers.