For those seasoned marketers, we know that marketing strategies evolve relentlessly. Comparing marketing outreach strategies from a decade ago to now would yield vastly different results. What's behind this change?
The evolution of inbound marketing has contributed greatly to the drastic change in the outreach approach for marketers. But, more specifically, the evolution of HubSpot has contributed greatly to the way marketers market their products. In this blog post, we'll deep dive into the evolution of HubSpot, what has made their SaaS marketing strategy so effective, and how your company can mimic their strategy to promote your own growth.
The HubSpot Story
Back in 2004, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah met at MIT. Little did they know that their meeting would set in motion a revolution in marketing.
Halligan, then aiding venture-backed startups with their go-to-market strategy, and Shah, managing a growing blog "OnStartups", combined their insights to craft a groundbreaking idea. They aimed to humanize marketing, focusing on treating buyers like real people. This ideology birthed the inbound methodology and the HubSpot platform.
Initially an email marketing platform, HubSpot gradually evolved into a comprehensive solution for marketing, sales, and service needs. With each passing year, the platform integrated additional features - a content management system in 2013, a CRM software, and more recently, an extensive suite of tools including HubSpot Video, Enterprise Enhancements, Growth Suite Software Bundle, Standalone CMS, and a Conversations tool.
This is only the beginning of HubSpot's growth story. As Halligan and Shah indicate, there is more to come!
HubSpot's Updated Product Suite
HubSpot continues to evolve, introducing fresh updates across its Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations, and CMS Hubs. Key enhancements include:
- Marketing Hub: Improved customer journey analytics, enhanced data quality, refined campaign targeting, and event tracking.
- Sales Hub: Customized record creation, improved 'Import' feature, and instant meeting notifications.
- Service Hub: Inbound calling feature, custom goals, streamlined conversations, and new Service Playbook templates.
- Operations Hub: Revamped data model overview, efficient workflow management, and re-syncing of deleted records.
- CMS Hub: Drag-and-drop blog editor, VS Code Extension for developers, and improved SEO toolkit.
- New AI Tools: Content Assistant for effortless content creation and ChatSpot AI Bot for faster task completion using chat-based commands.
HubSpot's continuous innovation aims to empower teams to achieve operational efficiency and drive revenue growth.
Replicating HubSpot's SaaS Marketing Strategy
There is no doubt that if you are working in the SaaS industry and trying to grow your business, HubSpot is a great source for your inspiration. Here are a few key components that have led to HubSpot's success and how you can leverage them to grow your business.
Strategy & Product Alignment
One of the biggest reasons HubSpot has been so successful is because they have leveraged their own product for their growth. They created the concept of inbound marketing, they sell an inbound marketing platform, and their business model revolves around the concept of inbound marketing.
While they might be one of the most obvious, HubSpot isn't the only company that's seen massive success from aligning business model with product:
- Drift, a conversational marketing company, has seen rapid growth by aligning their marketing strategy with their platform.
- Vidyard, a video marketing company, has seen similar results by exclusively creating content through their platform to reach their buyer personas.
Your company created your SaaS product for a reason! Obviously, it's a valuable resource. What better way to engage your audience and create credibility for your brand than by leveraging a marketing strategy that works in alignment with the purpose of your product?
Constant Innovation
We mentioned that one of the reasons HubSpot has been so successful is because they keep up with the current trends and innovate their product to meet their buyers' needs. Your product is at the core of your business, and constantly working to improve it is one of the best ways to promote growth for your company.
The buyer's journey is always changing, and in order for you to scale your business, you've got to keep up with your consumers and their buying habits. This means asking yourself questions like:
- What new challenges are my buyer personas facing, and how can I improve my product to account for these challenges?
- What new industry trends are currently gaining traction, and how could I incorporate these trends into my product?
These types of customer-focused questions will help you to discover new ways you can accommodate the needs of your current customer base and engage new leads for your business.
The Power of Partnerships
While HubSpot has a great product, the company has also found success through creating a robust partner program with other companies who have complementary services to their own. And we've done the same. Here at New Breed, our relationship with HubSpot has been one of the driving forces of our growth, and we are continuing to develop more partnerships with other companies, as well.
Creating relationships through marketing is a great way to generate new leads for your business, increase your exposure and establish a sense of trust in your brand. There are so many great opportunities to leverage other companies as a part of your growth strategy (especially in the SaaS industry) and we highly encourage you to select partnership opportunities that will be mutually beneficial and productive.
Key Takeaway
HubSpot is a clear standout in the SaaS industry as far as companies who have experienced substantial growth. While many factors that have led to HubSpot's evolution, the main reason HubSpot has seen such great success is that they are hyper-focused on having a customer-centric business strategy.
HubSpot's creation of the flywheel is the perfect example of how the customer journey doesn't end after the purchase. Instead, you should constantly be working to delight your customers post-purchase.
If you can create a business strategy that is developed around your product, continuously innovate, build a robust partner program, and, of course, always remember your customer comes first, you'll be on the fast track to rapid growth for your business.
