Skip to content

Behind the Enterprise Marketing Curtain: Tactics to Learn From HubSpot

4 mins read

No enterprise company wants to be one that follows the crowd rather than blazing their own trail. We get it, it’s not the best way to emerge as a leader in any field, but that’s not to say that you can’t learn from the companies that went from small start-ups to incredible enterprise organisations.

If you want to succeed in enterprise marketing (we’re assuming that’s why you’re here reading this blog), then here are two big marketing lessons from HubSpot which saw them grow impressively and act as a great starting point.

content team

Do Inbound Marketing by Building an Inbound Sales Engine

HubSpot is a platform that’s used by many businesses of all sizes to help them grow using inbound tactics. So, does it really come as a surprise that HubSpot built its enterprise marketing business by literally using its own inbound marketing services?

That means just like HubSpot, get rid of the outdated and archaic outbound methods like cold calling and chasing leads that could be terrible fits. Instead, gain consumer trust by providing valuable blog content, videos, webinars and pretty much any other industry resources you know will provide great value to your audience.

HubSpot has produced content for free pretty much every day. The thought process behind this is that producing content and getting people to your website through the content you create generates more quality leads at a lower cost in comparison to those outbound methods we highlighted.

To put it into perspective, HubSpot highlighted that 75 percent of their leads come from inbound marketing efforts. This includes free tools like blogs, eBooks, webinars and more. Thanks to their own inbound efforts, HubSpot went from a revenue growth of $2.2 million in 2008 to over $77 million back in 2013 - and that’s on the up as we speak.

HubSpot HQImage Credit: HubSpot

Three customers in 2006 turned into over 10,000 in around seven years. In the same time period, the number of employees increased from three to almost 700. So, they’ve continued to thrive and grow which means they’re obviously doing something right.

It’s not just strictly blog content either.

Mike Volpe, Chief Marketing Officer at HubSpot, has previously explained that 45 minute to an hour-long webinar offers more detailed conversations on top a five-minute blog post. They do some paid advertising and email newsletters which makes up 25 percent of the lead generation they do, whereas the remaining 75 percent comes in the form of blogs, webinars and more.

To really grab more leads, HubSpot added calls-to-action (CTAs) at the bottom of every single blog post which triple the number of their leads from the blog alone. It might sound simple, but it’s clearly super effective.

That’s a great starting point and a huge lesson you can learn and implement from HubSpot. Create plenty of free, engaging and impactful content so that you draw in engaged customers to your turf to succeed in enterprise marketing.

This can help you generate higher quality leads at a much lower cost every time somebody engages with your posts or use one of your tools.

What You Need to do

  • Follow HubSpot’s footsteps and create an inbound marketing engine.

  • Create free tools like blogs, webinars and eBooks.

  • Market free content.

  • Put CTAs in your content.

  • Create content with your potential customer’s point of view in mind. Is it content they’d be interested in?

  • Test and look at data to see what kind of content brings in the right type of leads.

  • Research and invest in an effective CMS and CRM, like what you’ll find in the HubSpot Enterprise Growth Suite.

Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams

They might not be the best of friends, especially in huge enterprise companies where they probably don’t interact as much as teams in smaller businesses do. But, aligning your sales and marketing teams is important.

The business benefits greatly when both teams are aligned and working on the same page. A clear division of labour between both teams, combined with them having the right tools, can help them understand each team a lot better so they realise which leads convert best.

meeting room

There's proof that alignment works. A Wheelhouse Advisors infographic has shown that aligning both teams can generate companies a huge 208 percent increase in marketing revenue. A tightly aligned unit can achieve 24 percent faster three-year revenue growth, 27 percent three-year profit growth as well as 38 percent higher sales win rates.

So, what did HubSpot do (and still does) to make sure both teams are aligned? They take the idea to the extreme by giving their marketing team a lead quota that the team must meet each week. Through that, they can work with sales teams to find out what is and isn’t working so they can go back to amend content where needed.

There are challenges from both sides to overcome which is why it can be tricky to know where to start when it comes to aligning both teams.

Marketing Challenges

  • No way of knowing if outdated and off-brand content is being shared by sales.

  • No visibility into which content is resonating with prospects and which aren’t working.

  • Inefficiency through creating one-off pieces of content which won’t be used.

  • Finding out what sales are actually sharing, what they find is most successful and what helps to convert leads.

P1077103

Sales Challenges

  • No choice but to use outdated content, update it themselves or use what’s in the vault.

  • Content might not be exactly what sales need so might waste time creating their own.

  • Sales are involved in plenty of meetings and don’t believe a one-size-fits-all approach works.

  • Sales teams might also not know how successful the marketing content is in getting prospects’ attention, educating them or if it’s been viewed at all.

What You Need to do

  • Lead Scoring: Your teams will lose fewer opportunities with lead scoring. This helps your team focus on high-quality leads and saves valuable time which is lost chasing low-quality leads. For more information on how your sales and marketing teams can do lead scoring effectively, check out this blog.

  • Set Mutually Agreed Goals: Sit both teams down and make sure the goals have been clearly defined so they know what they’re working towards. By having aligned goals and working towards the same metrics, both teams will be able to support each other.

  • Encourage Communication: Have both your sales and marketing teams collaborate and communicate often.

  • Build a Sense of Connection Between Both Teams: Give opportunities for both teams to shadow each other so they know how both sides work. It’ll help them to better understand each others’ problems, opportunities and challenges. The more they understand each other, the more solutions they can come up with.

  • Get Sales Involved in Campaign Plans: Your sales team will know best as to what does and doesn’t work. To set your enterprise campaigns up for success, have your sales teams join brainstorm sessions so they can offer their input based on their experience.

  • Use Sales and Marketing Software: This is the big one when it comes to aligning your teams. You need enterprise software to eliminate the use of disparate systems so both sides can share and analyse data.

For your business to succeed in enterprise marketing, you need to rely on both your sales and marketing teams. By bringing them in together as one, you’re a lot likelier to succeed than you would be if both were focused on themselves and their own goals.

Start Your Enterprise for Inbound Journey With Our Free eBook

Now that you have two of HubSpot’s biggest marketing lessons under your belt, you can use them to take the next step to manage your enterprise campaigns at scale. Now is the perfect time to download our Inbound for Enterprise eBook so your business can achieve significant growth.

The eBook is packed full of useful content, ranging from the current enterprise landscape, strategies you should consider, how you can get buy-in from the senior team and so much more.

To get your free copy, click on the link below.