Questioning the value of HubSpot? Wondering when you’ll see ROI? Inbound marketing does produce results, but it takes work to get it right. HubSpot customers, especially those just getting started with an inbound approach, often leave money on the table. Here are the most common reasons:
1. No Content Engine
Content generation and promotion is the cornerstone of inbound marketing success. B2B companies need to blog at least once a week, with posts averaging 400-600 words, in order to see a significant impact on web traffic. Companies publishing 11+ posts per month with HubSpot see the biggest bang for their buck.
Many marketers in the high tech industries we serve find it difficult to consistently produce the quality educational content needed to generate leads. How do you solve this problem?
A. Ensure alignment with a content brainstorm and audit.
Get your subject matter experts (engineers, scientists, salespeople) and marketing team together and determine topics of interest. Ask:
- What questions do customers and prospects frequently ask?
- What new product developments or other news/events are happening at the company?
- What are the company’s main goals this year?
Choose three main themes to guide your content development for the year. Identify any existing content that can be reworked to fit your themes.
B. Create a blog planner and style guide.
Write out a schedule for blog posts and other content, and stick to it. Display it in a shared space such as a break room or intranet. Develop and document guidelines for writing, from general style and tone to specifics such as product name spelling, to ensure consistency.
C. Interview experts and hire ghostwriters.
Take the burden of content writing off of your busy engineers. A short interview with the subject matter expert can give you enough info to write a rough draft, which they can then approve or edit. To free up even more of your team’s time, consider hiring an intern or outsourced marketing team to interview and write this content.
When you have technical and marketing writers who are able to understand and properly communicate technical ideas, blogging frequency jumps—and so does its effectiveness.
2. No Conversion Path
It is important to use calls to action (CTAs) throughout your website. Every CTA should be relevant, specific, and deliver on its promise.
In working with companies who are struggling with HubSpot, we frequently see “Contact Us” on every web page, or an offer to download the same white paper regardless of page topic and relevance. CTA segmentation is vital to improving offer clicks and conversion rates.
Just as important as your content offer is what happens next. Lead ownership, lead qualification, and lead nurture (HubSpot automated workflows) are common areas of lost revenue.
A. Ownership: If everyone’s accountable, no one’s accountable.
Do you split leads by industry, geography, source, or other contact properties? If you’re CC-ing the whole sales team on leads instead of segmenting leads, it often means that no one is following up.
B. Qualification: Define clear criteria for qualifying an inbound lead.
Filter out automatically whenever possible. With HubSpot Smart Lists, you can filter and delete based on contact properties, such as particular countries that may not be a fit for your company. If you are a HubSpot Pro or Enterprise user, you can set up Lead Scoring criteria to further segment your contacts.
C. Nurture: Set up and customize your lead nurture workflows.
Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. HubSpot marketing automation helps you stay in front of prospects until they’re ready to buy. Workflows can also help improve current customer engagement and revenue.
3. No Phone Call
You must pick up the phone. It’s as simple as that. HubSpot Sales (formerly HubSpot Sidekick) will notify you when your leads are on your site—i.e. when they are thinking about you and near their phone. The biggest HubSpot failures come from a lack of lead follow-up.
For a complete list of tactics to improve your sales results with HubSpot, download our HubSpot ROI checklist.
Looking for specific ways to improve your HubSpot ROI? Request a free consultation.
Launch Team helps clients improve HubSpot ROI through technical content writing and ghostwriting, conversion optimization audit and change implementation, and sales process development. As a certified HubSpot partner, we work closely with your sales team, implement and train in the HubSpot CRM, and provide sales follow-up support. In some cases, we’ve even outsourced follow-up, ensuring that prospects are nurtured until an opportunity is ready for handoff to your sales team.
