13 Brilliant Marketing Growth Tactics

Editor’s note: As a SaaS company valued at $2.5 billion, with annual revenue exceeding $200 million and year-over-year growth of 60%, HubSpot has continuously shattered traditional marketing ceilings and redefined what innovative marketing can look like. The concepts we so often hear today — “pull marketing” and “Inbound Marketing” — were introduced and popularized by HubSpot. This article delivers an in-depth breakdown of 13 brilliant marketing growth tactics HubSpot has executed.

If you work in the SaaS industry, you’ve almost certainly heard of HubSpot — and been floored by the staggering growth it has achieved since its founding.

In the online martech space, HubSpot’s website ranks fifth in global traffic. That figure doesn’t even account for the additional sites and community forums HubSpot has built to cultivate its audience.

In the SMB (small and medium business) SaaS market, HubSpot has achieved genuine dominance. The company reported $271 million in revenue in 2016 — a 49% year-over-year increase.

If you’re in SaaS, what follows is a look at the real-world strategy and execution behind one of the industry’s giants — exactly how they have focused their entire organization around the goal of growth. What you’re about to read is not speculation or textbook theory. This is the real operating playbook of a major SaaS company: the marketing strategies it has adopted and the tactics it has put into practice.

HubSpot is a B2B SaaS company founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. In just eight years it grew from zero to more than $100 million in annual revenue, going public in 2014.

Before founding HubSpot, both Brian and Dharmesh had already made their mark in tech. Brian had been VP of Sales at Groove Networks (later acquired by Microsoft), while Dharmesh was the founder and CEO of Pyramid Digital Solutions (later acquired by SunGuard Data Systems).

In 2009, the two co-authored Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. In 2016, both Brian and Dharmesh were named to Inc.’s list of 40 top entrepreneurs.

According to HubSpot’s annual investor report, the company had accumulated over 6 million followers across its blog, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. That active audience is widely considered the largest of any software company in the world.

HubSpot has stated that subscription revenue accounted for 94% of its total 2017 revenue, with professional services contributing the remaining 6%.

What HubSpot is most celebrated for, of course, is its inbound marketing approach. The rocket-like growth trajectory it achieved made HubSpot the second-fastest-growing SMB SaaS company ever at the time of its IPO.

Although HubSpot has developed more than a dozen websites over the years, four in particular are central to its online marketing strategy:

HubSpot.com
WebsiteGrader.com
Inbound.org
ThinkGrowth.org

Below, I’ll walk you through the latest marketing tactics HubSpot has deployed on these sites to drive traffic — each currently delivering millions of monthly visitors.

Tactic 1

Co-create a chatbot ebook with a leading industry partner to drive traffic and grow your audience.

HubSpot has expanded its brand reach to entirely new audiences by partnering with other companies on content. One standout example is its content collaboration with Chatfuel, an AI-powered chatbot builder.

Three things about this partnership are worth noting and learning from:

(1) Two industry experts = compounded expertise.

Chatbots were one of the hottest topics around, and HubSpot leaned into that momentum by aligning with the leading expert in that exact space. The resulting ebook was so compelling it was nearly impossible to resist downloading immediately.

(2) The co-created ebook was hosted on Chatfuel’s website, giving HubSpot direct exposure to a completely new audience.

(3) HubSpot used a Facebook Messenger chatbot landing page to deliver the ebook, which they titled “BotBook.”

The funnel was elegantly designed. Here’s the Facebook Messenger chatbot landing page HubSpot and Chatfuel built:

After registering for the ebook, you were taken to a page prompting you to click into Facebook Messenger as the next step to access the content:

Once inside Messenger, you were greeted with a playful animated GIF and a choice button:

After clicking the chatbot button, HubSpot cleverly used the bot to gather key information about you:

The bot then asked a series of follow-up questions, and HubSpot used your answers to build a richer profile and serve you progressively more relevant content:

Clicking “Get Free Ebook” brought you to a co-branded HubSpot/Chatfuel landing page hosted on HubSpot’s website, where you could read the full HTML version of the ebook or download the PDF.

At the bottom of the page, two CTA buttons appeared — one linking to HubSpot’s contact page and one to Chatfuel’s homepage.

Pro tip: To track traffic flowing from this page to Chatfuel’s homepage, HubSpot appended a utm_source URL parameter to the Chatfuel CTA link. This allowed Chatfuel to search that URL in their Google Analytics and measure the performance of the content collaboration.

Five hours after a user registered for the ebook, HubSpot sent a follow-up Messenger message asking permission to deliver the ebook chapters directly through Facebook Messenger.

Once permission was granted, HubSpot shared a striking statistic to underscore why understanding chatbots was more urgent than ever — nudging readers to engage with more of the content.

HubSpot then delivered the first chapter of the ebook — but rather than dumping walls of text through the bot, it sent short, high-value bursts of content one piece at a time.

HubSpot even took the chatbot experience a step further with personalization — something simply impossible in a blog post or PDF:

The brilliance of this HubSpot–Chatfuel content partnership is that the entire ebook functioned as a large-scale native advertisement for Chatfuel, while simultaneously generating a steady stream of leads who had already begun to know, like, and trust HubSpot.

The collaboration also positioned HubSpot as a credible expert in chatbot marketing — a topic that was genuinely new to most readers at the time.

Key takeaway: Tap into another product’s existing audience. Find a leading player in a space adjacent to yours and co-create content that your prospective customers will genuinely value. Use a Facebook Messenger chatbot to automatically learn more about your leads and then deliver the co-created content to them through that same channel.

Tactic 2

Promote your content on these three social platforms to generate 1 million monthly visits.

While social media accounts for only 2.54% of HubSpot’s total traffic, that slice still translates to more than 1 million monthly visitors. The three platforms that matter most for traffic generation are Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

HubSpot’s Facebook video strategy has proven extraordinarily effective. Its native videos rack up jaw-dropping view counts, likes, and comments — and they generate valuable leads, because HubSpot includes links to relevant free tools in the video comments themselves.

Many of HubSpot’s Facebook videos accumulate tens of thousands of views.

HubSpot has replicated its Facebook success on YouTube. The company has published more than 1,000 videos on YouTube, amassing over 35,000 subscribers. Each video includes links to HubSpot’s free products, turning the channel into a lead-generation engine:

HubSpot’s second most important social platform is LinkedIn, where it has 191,000 followers. After analyzing all 400+ posts HubSpot has published on LinkedIn, I found that one content format consistently outperforms the rest — nearly every post of this type earns more than 100 likes.

The formula follows the same three-step pattern every time: a brief 1–2 sentence caption, a feature image, and a link to one of HubSpot’s Facebook videos:

HubSpot has over 1.5 million Facebook followers. To extend the reach of its Facebook content organically — without spending on ads — HubSpot strategically uses LinkedIn to drive traffic to its Facebook posts. For example, clicking the “hubs.ly” link in the LinkedIn post above takes you directly to this Facebook page:

Here are two more examples that confirm this is a deliberate, systematic strategy — using LinkedIn to drive engagement back to Facebook:

To generate leads directly from LinkedIn, HubSpot invests in LinkedIn Sponsored Content ads. Here are the results HubSpot achieved through paid LinkedIn promotion:

HubSpot’s CMO Kipp Bodnar commented: “LinkedIn Sponsored Content allows us to surface our content to the most relevant B2B prospects, effectively combining inbound marketing strategy with a cost-efficient lead acquisition approach.”

Here are two examples of HubSpot’s LinkedIn Sponsored Content ads used for lead generation:

Key takeaway: Identify which social channel has your largest, most engaged following, and find a way to grow organically on that platform. Then use paid promotion to amplify content that converts those followers into leads. HubSpot’s approach: embed Facebook links in LinkedIn posts to expose content to both audiences simultaneously, then boost the highest-converting content with ads.

Tactic 3

How to use “content stacking” to keep visitors on your site for more than 6 minutes.

HubSpot.com is HubSpot’s primary public-facing website, and it drives enormous volumes of organic search traffic. HubSpot has invested heavily in both content marketing and SEO.

HubSpot ranks on Google’s first page for thousands of high-volume, broad keywords — phrases like “website leads” and “grow email list.”

Across its 69,087 organic keywords, 5,905 appear on the first page of Google results, and 10,440 appear on the first page of Bing/Yahoo.

HubSpot’s website is packed with high-quality content, which I believe is a key driver of its low bounce rate and long average session duration.

Within HubSpot’s blog posts alone, the company offers hundreds of distinct lead magnets.

Take the blog post “7 Digital Marketing Strategies That Work: A Complete Guide” as an example. The CTAs and inline banners within that post direct visitors to a landing page with a clean, minimal design, concise copy, and a full lead capture form:

Once you choose to download and complete the form, you instantly receive the guide — and HubSpot immediately presents an invitation to sign up for its free CRM:

HubSpot also cleverly uses its free downloadable guides as lead-nurturing tools, embedding links to additional related resources throughout each guide. The goal is to meet readers wherever they are in the funnel and pull them to the next stage.

Through this approach, HubSpot establishes itself as a genuine industry authority — building trust that makes readers far more likely to convert into paying customers.

Key takeaway: Use “content stacking” to keep visitors engaged on your site for more than 6 minutes — a threshold above which conversion probability rises significantly. HubSpot’s three-layer content stack works like this:

Layer 1: Blog content
Layer 2: Downloadable PDF guides
Layer 3: Resource-based content such as courses and webinars

Tactic 4

Build a content upgrade machine — create one content upgrade for every blog post you publish.

It’s worth noting that not all of HubSpot’s blog posts look like the typical content you’d expect from a company selling inbound marketing software.

HubSpot’s most widely shared blog post is “The 5 Whys of Feature Bloat”:

The second most shared post is “How To Use Excel”:

You might be wondering: why is a marketing software company writing tutorials on Excel? Trust me — this wasn’t an accident. HubSpot’s team researched the data and found that more than 27,000 people search for “how to use Excel” every single month:

Search “how to use Excel” in Google and you’ll find HubSpot’s post — “How to Use Excel: 14 Simple Excel Shortcuts, Tips & Tricks” — ranking number one in organic results.

So how does HubSpot use this post to generate leads?

That single blog post contains three CTAs, all linking to a downloadable “How to Use Excel” complete guide:

An inline CTA near the top of the post
A slide-in scroll box CTA that appears in the lower right after you’ve scrolled 20% of the way down
An image-based CTA at the bottom of the post

Browse HubSpot’s blog and you’ll see this same three-CTA structure built into the vast majority of posts.

Sometimes all three CTAs point to the same content upgrade (as in the Excel example). Other times, each CTA links to a different landing page with a distinct content upgrade.

HubSpot maintains thousands of these owned-media content upgrades, each with its own dedicated landing page.

Here’s a look at five HubSpot marketing blog posts and their corresponding content upgrades, which HubSpot uses to fill the top of its marketing funnel:

As you can see, HubSpot is a true inbound content and lead generation machine.

One more thing HubSpot does particularly well: it regularly refreshes older blog posts to keep them relevant today, and it adds an editor’s note at the top of each updated post to let readers know what has changed — like this:

This is an excellent strategy for squeezing additional leads from evergreen content that has already proven its traffic-driving value.

Once a reader has engaged with a content upgrade, HubSpot activates its own email marketing product to continue the conversation.

What kind of open rates does HubSpot’s email marketing produce? I reached out to Justin Brooke of AdSkills — a power HubSpot user and a friend — and he shared his own email open rate data:

Pull up your own company’s email open rates and compare. If yours aren’t quite in that range, HubSpot’s platform might be worth a look.

Key takeaway: Research the topics that already drive organic traffic, then build a content calendar around them. For every blog post you publish, create a matching content upgrade. Then use an email marketing tool with strong deliverability and list hygiene to activate those leads. HubSpot’s approach: research high-volume marketing keywords, write a comprehensive post for each, embed three CTAs per post each linking to a content upgrade, and follow up via their own email marketing platform.

Tactic 5

Recruit Silicon Valley serial entrepreneurs and industry thought leaders as guest contributors — and give them a compelling reason to say yes.

ThinkGrowth.org is HubSpot’s blog on Medium, launched on April 17, 2015. Today it generates 333,000 monthly visitors for HubSpot.

ThinkGrowth.org consistently publishes high-engagement, highly relevant content that resonates strongly with its readership. Here are a few reader comments on HubSpot posts published there:

The reason HubSpot chose to open a blog on Medium is straightforward: more and more readers are consuming content natively on platforms like Medium, Facebook, and podcasts. HubSpot wanted to be present wherever its audience was spending time.

HubSpot initially seeded ThinkGrowth.org by republishing content from its own blog — but it quickly discovered that posts optimized for SEO on HubSpot.com didn’t perform particularly well in Medium’s native content environment.

So HubSpot pivoted. It identified popular, highly-followed writers on Medium and partnered with them — authors like marketing legend Seth Godin, behavioral design expert and bestselling author Nir Eyal, innovation guru Steve Blank, and Mattermark founder Danielle Morrill — syndicating their work through ThinkGrowth.org. This arrangement gave both the featured authors and HubSpot access to an entirely new set of readers.

By publishing posts from top-tier thought leaders and industry influencers on Medium, HubSpot found that this content consistently outperformed its own repurposed blog content in the Medium environment.

How did HubSpot identify and recruit these influential voices? Primarily through two channels:

(1) Internal referrals from HubSpot team members.

(2) Relationships cultivated through HubSpot’s podcast, The Growth Show. (Steve Blank appeared on The Growth Show on June 20, 2017; two months later, Blank’s Medium article was published on ThinkGrowth.org.)

Pro tip: Start an interview-based podcast or video series. Then, when a conversation touches on a topic that resonates particularly strongly with your audience, ask whether the guest would be willing to write a post about it.

Here’s how HubSpot’s Medium traffic grew in its first year after implementing this strategy:

HubSpot didn’t just push through a plateau — it surpassed 160,000 monthly views and broke into the top 19 publications on all of Medium.

Buoyed by this success, HubSpot built an entirely new team dedicated exclusively to its “off-platform” content strategy. Today, HubSpot has more than 150 regular contributors and also accepts unsolicited submissions.

Key takeaway: Invite influential figures in your industry to contribute to your blog, and give them a real incentive to do so. HubSpot’s incentive is simple: access to its audience. Find your version of that and make the ask.

Tactic 6

Community marketing: how to build a 170,000-member community that generates $100 million in annual revenue.

Inbound.org is an online community for marketers to connect, learn, and find jobs. It was funded by HubSpot Labs — HubSpot’s internal R&D arm — and drives more than 300,000 monthly visitors to HubSpot.

HubSpot drives traffic to Inbound.org through three main channels:

(1) 170,000 community members who visit directly to log in.

(2) Organic search traffic.

(3) Social traffic (80% of which comes from Facebook and Twitter).

Among the 1,605 keywords HubSpot targets for Inbound.org, the top-performing organic keyword is “remote working jobs,” which alone drives more than 3,000 monthly visitors.

Here’s what the landing page for that keyword looks like:

This page serves as an excellent example of how to structure a blog category page for maximum organic SEO value:

(1) Keywords in the URL.

(2) Keywords in the headline.

(3) Brief, informative descriptions of each article or listing.

To grow Inbound.org’s social traffic, HubSpot executes well on two fronts:

(1) Featuring original articles from Inbound community experts on the site’s homepage and distributing them on Facebook.

(2) Placing a sharing widget at the bottom of every article.

Original community-contributed articles are consistently the most-read content on Inbound each month. By giving community experts a platform to share their inbound marketing perspectives, HubSpot gives marketers a genuine reason to belong.

The high quality of this content is no accident — HubSpot’s inbound team applies strict editorial standards to everything published on the site.

To make the community even more engaging, HubSpot also built a chatbot called “GrowthBot” — accessible from the lower right corner of every Inbound page — that answers marketing and sales questions in real time.

GrowthBot is another distinctive value-add that sets HubSpot’s community apart from every other online marketing forum.

Why does HubSpot invest so heavily in building a vibrant community? Because one of its largest revenue streams is its agency partner network — which contributes 40% of HubSpot’s total revenue.

The Inbound community is HubSpot’s most powerful vehicle for supporting those agency partners. It keeps them informed on the latest marketing trends, helps them recruit top marketing talent, and gives them exclusive access to content they simply cannot find anywhere else.

To further extend the community’s value, HubSpot also hosts the in-person Inbound conference in Boston.

The Inbound community has been extraordinarily successful: HubSpot now has more than 3,400 agency partners serving tens of thousands of clients, and those partners collectively generate more than $100 million in annual revenue for HubSpot.

Key takeaway: Build a community around your brand that delivers value members simply cannot get anywhere else. Keep the focus on helping community members succeed. HubSpot does this through Inbound.org original content, a remote marketing job board, a chatbot, and the annual in-person Inbound conference.

Tactic 7

The three paid search funnels that make HubSpot rich.

HubSpot runs paid search advertising at a measured, disciplined pace each month.

When I analyzed HubSpot’s paid search strategy, the central finding was clear: HubSpot primarily advertises its free CRM. The free CRM is the gateway to its broader product suite — once customers experience the value HubSpot delivers through the free product, they naturally upgrade to paid tiers.

HubSpot runs 587 PPC keyword campaigns, and nearly every ad falls into one of the following display formats:

Here is the full paid search funnel for HubSpot’s free CRM:

There are also ads with headlines like “Free Lead Capture Tool — Start Capturing Leads Today,” which target users searching for HubSpot Marketing’s free features.

But the three core paid search funnels — each driving traffic to a distinct landing page — are as follows:

Pro tip: Use “search intent ad groups” to match searcher intent to the right product offer. For non-branded CRM searches, HubSpot shows a low-friction, easy-to-sign-up free CRM offer — because the searcher may not know who HubSpot is yet. For branded searches, HubSpot shows a high-touch, consultative offering — because the searcher already knows HubSpot and is more likely to want to speak with a salesperson.

Key takeaway: Map the keyword categories that apply to your product or service. For each category, identify the offer that best matches searcher intent and build a dedicated “search intent ad group.” HubSpot uses three: non-branded CRM keywords, branded inbound marketing keywords, and branded company keywords.

Tactic 8

The 9-part landing page framework that converts new traffic into real customers.

Here is the above-the-fold view of HubSpot’s free CRM landing page. Note that anyone landing on this page can make a confident, informed decision based solely on the first section.

After a visitor clicks the “Get Started” CTA, they reach a brief form requesting their email address, company name, and website URL.

The elements HubSpot uses to convert visitors on this page include:

(1) A Google Partner certification badge — associating HubSpot with a recognizable brand name and instantly building credibility.

(2) A headline that speaks directly to the single biggest pain point of the target market — a broken or chaotic sales process.

(3) A subheadline that gives visitors a quick mental model of what the CRM does, using language that resonates with the audience.

(4) A bold CTA button with strong color contrast against the background — making the next step obvious for anyone interested.

(5) A 2-minute product video alongside the CTA button — because some people prefer to read, others prefer to watch. The video features customer testimonials.

For visitors who need more information before deciding, scrolling reveals four additional elements:

(6) Key differentiators clearly called out — the CRM market is intensely competitive, and HubSpot knows it. Highlighting the platform’s unique selling points (such as powerful data enrichment and a single customer view pulled directly from your inbox) helps visitors determine whether the tool is right for them.

(7) Benefit statements that overcome the most common objections — “10-second install,” “100% free” — reducing friction for anyone still on the fence.

With visitors now clear on HubSpot’s differentiation and the four core benefits, HubSpot shows them exactly how simple it is to get started in just three steps:

(8) An in-product screenshot that gives visitors a preview of exactly what they’ll see when they use the software.

At the very bottom of the page, a final CTA button:

(9) A short social proof quote placed directly above or below the CTA button — a consistently proven conversion booster.

Key takeaway: Follow this 9-part landing page framework to turn new traffic into real customers.

Tactic 9

Partner with micro-influencers on Instagram to generate social buzz and grow your following.

HubSpot has built a substantial following on Instagram.

The method HubSpot uses to grow on Instagram is actually straightforward: micro-influencer partnerships. Micro-influencer marketing is an emerging concept in social media: brands partner with individuals who have smaller, highly engaged followings on social platforms, and those partners create authentic, image-driven posts promoting the brand — replacing traditional sponsored ads.

HubSpot uses its HubSpot Partners program to build a micro-influencer community. On Instagram alone, more than 1,600 posts carry the #hubspotpartner hashtag. These posts create genuine organic buzz for HubSpot:

HubSpot cites research from Markerly that uncovered a clear pattern in influencer engagement rates by audience size:

(1) Instagram users with fewer than 1,000 followers average a like rate of 8%.

(2) Instagram users with 1,000–10,000 followers average a like rate of 4%.

(3) Instagram users with 10,000–100,000 followers average a like rate of 2.4%.

(4) Instagram users with 1–10 million followers average a like rate of 1.7%.

The data confirms it: micro-influencers drive engagement rates that dramatically outperform those of mega-celebrities.

Key takeaway: Identify micro-influencers in your industry on Instagram and partner with them. Have them include a branded hashtag in their posts to build social buzz organically around your brand. HubSpot activates its partner community: every time a partner creates and shares authentic content on Instagram, they tag it with #hubspotpartner.

Tactic 10

Reward salespeople for retaining customers over time — not just for closing deals — to maximize customer lifetime value.

While HubSpot is renowned for inbound marketing, a common question I get is whether HubSpot’s growth is driven primarily by outbound sales or inbound marketing.

What many outsiders may not realize is that HubSpot operates a team of more than 200 outbound sales representatives.

With over 2,500 employees total, that means roughly 10% of HubSpot’s headcount sits in outbound sales.

The combination of outbound sales and inbound marketing is the real engine of HubSpot’s success. After all, any software contract north of $800/month requires human follow-through to close.

David Skok, a HubSpot investor and board member, has described HubSpot’s approach to promoting its outbound sales team this way: “The key is to keep things simple and align sales behaviors with the company’s top-line goals. In our portfolio, the fastest-growing companies are the ones that experiment with every part of their business — just as the HubSpot team does.”

One of the most important ways HubSpot differs from many other tech companies is how it structures sales incentives. Rather than simply rewarding salespeople for landing new contracts, HubSpot places equal — or greater — emphasis on retaining customers over the long term. This directly maximizes each customer’s LTV (lifetime value). The approach involves three specific mechanisms:

(1) No commission if the customer cancels within 3 months. If a new client churns in the first three months, the salesperson receives no commission on that deal.

(2) Ongoing commissions tied to monthly customer spend. Salespeople earn a small percentage of each customer’s recurring monthly payment, creating a continuous incentive to support retention and grow LTV.

(3) Non-cash team incentives for hitting milestones. HubSpot runs internal competitions with rewards like limousine outings for the whole team when a target is hit. Prizes are typically tied to team-level goals, encouraging collaboration rather than individual competition.

These three levers directly motivate salespeople to minimize churn and maximize revenue.

The approach has been so successful that HubSpot eventually productized the very processes its own sales team was using to organize, track, and nurture leads and customers — releasing them as HubSpot’s free CRM tool for smaller companies.

Key takeaway: If you sell a high-value product, combine outbound sales with inbound marketing. Make salespeople stakeholders in customer lifetime value by tying their commissions to retention, not just new deal closings. HubSpot’s approach: no commission if the customer churns within 3 months; ongoing commissions as long as the customer stays; and team-wide non-cash rewards for achieving collective targets.

Tactic 11

Calculate a Customer Happiness Index (CHI) from behavioral data to proactively reduce churn.

HubSpot’s Customer Happiness Index (CHI) was developed by Jonah Lopin, HubSpot’s former VP of Customer Success.

The metric uses behavioral data from within the product to assign each customer a CHI score — and it has since become HubSpot’s single most powerful tool for reducing churn.

HubSpot focuses on collecting as many in-product behavioral data points as possible for each customer — tracking the specific actions they take within the platform.

The team then runs regression analysis on that data to identify customers showing early signs of churn — before those customers actually leave. Here’s how that analysis works:

Using CHI, co-founder Dharmesh can determine whether a specific customer is likely to churn within 1 month, 2 months, or 4 months — and then dispatch team members to proactively reach out before that window closes.

Most companies measure customer sentiment through Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys — NPS is a widely used loyalty metric that measures how likely a customer is to recommend your company or product to others, and is designed to gauge how customer advocacy affects company growth. But NPS only captures qualitative sentiment, and a customer’s NPS score today can be radically different from where it stands next month, depending on how they’re actually interacting with the product:

Rather than relying on NPS to measure customer satisfaction, HubSpot uses CHI to track actual product usage patterns — comparing each customer’s engagement against a defined behavioral baseline to assess whether they’re trending better or worse.

Customer success managers use CHI daily to monitor whether their clients are on track to achieve their goals.

Key takeaway: Don’t ask customers what they think — watch what they actually do. That’s HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh’s advice to any company trying to predict and prevent churn. HubSpot calculates a CHI score based on each customer’s in-product behavioral data, enabling proactive outreach to at-risk customers before they decide to leave.

Tactic 12

Build a free tool that surfaces your customer’s problem for them — then show them that you’re the solution.

HubSpot’s free Website Grader tool was the very first project launched by HubSpot Labs, back in 2007. Users enter their website URL and email address to receive a score from 0 to 100 reflecting their site’s overall performance:

The tool then breaks down specific areas for improvement across four scoring categories:

(1) Performance (30 points)

(2) Mobile (30 points)

(3) SEO (30 points)

(4) Security (10 points)

What makes this brilliant: beneath each scoring category, HubSpot places a “Learn More” CTA that links directly to a blog post explaining exactly how to fix that issue.

And it doesn’t stop there. At the bottom of the results page, HubSpot provides a summary of recommended next steps — and for users who don’t want to tackle those improvements themselves, it recommends its own software as the easiest path forward:

Pro tip: Once you’ve surfaced a customer’s problem, position yourself as the best solution. HubSpot diagnoses what’s wrong with a visitor’s website, then presents its tools as the streamlined path to a faster, more mobile-responsive, and more secure site.

Beyond its obvious utility for small business owners, Website Grader is a masterclass in how a free tool can funnel millions of top-of-funnel leads at scale.

HubSpot’s co-founders explained its strategic importance in a post on Inbound.org: “A simple little tool designed to help millions of people improve their websites ultimately helped HubSpot grow into a public company valued at over $1.6 billion with more than 15,000 customers.”

The majority of Website Grader’s traffic comes from HubSpot’s blog — demonstrating that pairing educational content with a high-intent free tool is a powerful formula for generating massive top-of-funnel volume.

Key takeaway: Build a free software tool that reveals your customer’s core problem, then give them a clear path to resolve it — either on their own or with the help of your product. HubSpot offered the Website Grader for free, surfaced the problems, and then positioned its own software as the obvious solution.

Tactic 13

Use a chatbot on your Facebook Page to capture leads automatically.

HubSpot’s marketing machine is relentless about capturing lead opportunities wherever they exist. Using a Facebook Messenger chatbot on its Facebook Page is one of the methods it uses to capture new leads:

Clicking the blue “Get Started” button takes you to:

After clicking “Get Started” on that page, HubSpot’s Facebook Messenger chatbot sends you a welcome message:

From within the chatbot, selecting “Find Resources” presents three CTA options: Browse Blog, Browse Ebooks, and Subscribe to HubSpot Content:

The two most powerful options are “Browse Ebooks” and “Subscribe to Content.” Subscribing is how HubSpot grows its Facebook Messenger contact list.

Why Messenger instead of email? Because the average open rate for Facebook Messenger messages exceeds 80%, compared to just over 20% for email.

Choosing “Browse Ebooks” lets you search HubSpot’s entire ebook library by any marketing topic you can think of:

You’re then directed to the relevant free ebook resource:

Which then functions as a lead capture mechanism:

Key takeaway: Use a Facebook Messenger chatbot on your Facebook Page to build a Messenger subscriber list, then deliver free resources through that channel to capture leads. HubSpot uses multi-channel communication to engage and capture leads — leveraging Messenger’s 80%+ open rates to maximum effect.

Original article: https://sumo.com/stories/hubspot-marketing

Source: 人人都是产品经理. Translated and compiled by 36Kr.

Translation reference: http://36kr.com/p/5114270.html