Optimize 3.0 Inbound Marketing Blog

We are often asked to evaluate websites, particularly sites using marketing automation, particularly Hubspot.  Over time, we’ve gotten fairly good at determining if a site is getting most from their Hubspot investment.  Granted, we recognize that it’s not easy for everyone to know all of the ins and outs of the inbound marketing tools-- especially when they are constantly adding and updating features.  But every "check up" starts by looking at to see if it has a full inbound strategy in place. 

Here are some critical components that make up a successful inbound marketing:

In the five years of running an inbound marketing agency, I’ve been afforded a close up view of what works and what doesn’t.  At this point, I’m prepared to answer the tough question often posed to me in one of the following forms:

Sales of marketing automation software have exploded over the last several years.  In addition, there are many new players in the market – almost 20 different providers.  Yet, if you’re looking to purchase marketing automation, knowing how they differ is important.  To help you, we’ve created the Marketing Automation Comparison Chart.  If you have narrowed your choices to just a few, you may be asking how can I evaluate each of these to determine which is best?

As a follow up to one of our most popular blog posts ever about Hubspot Competitors we felt compelled to provide an update to our popular inbound marketing software comparison chart.  Much has happened since that blog back in 2013.  Hubspot and Marketo have gone public and Pardot and Eloqua have each been purchased by Salesforce and Oracle respectively.  There has been an explosion in the use of this software.  So much so, they've even come up with a term called "marketing automation stack."  This is the array of software a website uses to market their goods and services. 

Here are two interesting yet somewhat contradictory statistics about marketing automation adoption and usage:

Call to action buttons (CTAs) are a critical component of inbound marketing. My guess is that you if you're like me you look at a website and think “those are really cool, if only I knew Photoshop I could build that.”  I used to do that until I figured out a way to create great call to action buttons without using Photoshop.

Here’s a question I hear frequently: “what is funnel marketing?” and how does it relate to inbound marketing.

If you’ve been trying to get your head around funnel marketing, I want to help solve this little marketing mystery. In doing so, provide a clear and simple example of the funnel marketing. Moreover, explain that if used properly a sales funnel will unlock the unique powers of inbound marketing automation.