ASSIGNMENT 3: Inbound and Social Media Marketing

For this assignment I have chosen to build my understanding of inbound marketing by reviewing and evaluating ‘Hubspot’ (Hubspot, 2018) and ‘Help Scout’ (HelpScout, 2018) websites.

Each organisation’s approach to inbound marketing:

Hubspot’s approach to inbound marketing has a strong focus on social media, the awareness (attract) stage of the buyer process. This is evident by their strong presence on all popular forms of social media (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, linkedIn etc). In addition to presence, Hubspot have a strong following and high levels of consumer engagement on social media (in particular on twitter and facebook) making it evident that they have a well-tailored buyer persona strategy. Hubspot also score highly on the conversion aspect (Hubspot, n.d) of the buyer process, with online chat a highlight of their website. Help Scout on the other hand have a strong focus on ensuring their website is inbound friendly. Their website boasts a high level of content variety and caters for all 3 stages of the buyer process (as outlined by Kukesh in the buyer’s journey and related content) (Kukesh, 2016). Help Scout also do a great job of leveraging content through the use of CTA (call to action) throughout the website.

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

From website analysis it is clear that Hubspot have strength in the ‘attract’ and ‘convert’ aspects of the website via a strong presence and following on social, and the incorporation of online chat on to their website. In my opinion their weakness lies in their website content. When put in direct comparison with Help Scout, Hubspot have a lot less content variety on their website and it is text heavy (although this may be a consequence of buyer persona preference).

Help Scout website is well designed. When put in comparison with Hubspot, their website was heavy on content variety and light on text while still conveying information well. Their weakness however is in their social media presence.  When compared with Hubspot they had less of a presence on social media channels (i.e. a poor Instagram campaign), lower numbers of followers and less interaction through comments. This could be indicative of buyer persona preference or of a less thoroughly researched and understood buyer persona.

Which organisation was best at inbound marketing and why:

Hubspot were the best with regard to overall inbound marketing strategy. They had researched and understood their buyer persona well (evident from the strong social media following) and had addressed all aspects of the buyer process through their website. This was evident by their use of links to case studies, customer reviews, e-books, and free products that add value, build relationships and increase leverage through CAT.

Give examples of how each organisation could improve its inbound marketing:

Help Scout could improve their inbound marketing through greater presence on social media channels with more interactive posts to engage the audience (I.e improve on Instagram content and presence/following). They could also incorporate Live helpdesk/online chat to optimise consumer conversion. A higher use of keywords for SEO optimisation would also be beneficial as I struggled to find them through Search.

Hubspot could introduce a FAQ page to optimise their website and direct consumers to the page with the most relevant information to them. In my opinion, Hubspot could also benefit from more variety in their website content to further increase consumer engagement.

Reference List:
 
Hubspot. (n.d.) ‘What is inbound marketing’ (online)(n.d.), Available at: https://www.hubspot.com/inboundmarketing [Accessed 23 May 2017]

Kukesh, J. (2016) ‘3 steps to creating a content inventory for the buyers journey’[online] , March 15, Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/customers/creating-a-content-inventory [Accessed 23 May 2017]

Hubspot (2018). Hubspot  [online]. Available at: https://www.hubspot.com/ [Accessed on 21 April 2018]

HelpScout (2018). Helpscout [online]. Available at: https://www.helpscout.net/ [Accessed on 21 April 2018]