During one of my periodic reviews of my full SEO traffic (this is a great source of material for a blog), something jumped out at me that relates to the darker side of Hubspot – Does it work? Some terms in my SEO results include Hubspot Sucks, Hubspot Not for Me, Hubspot Bad, Hubspot Fail, Hubspot Negative Reviews, Hubspot Overrated, Hubspot any good and Hubspot Termination. Some choice stuff and this generates traffic for me. Interesting. This can’t be a complete surprise since there are undoubtedly people who feel that way about Apple. But I’d like to use this as a jumping off point to shine a light on Hubspot and give the #1 reason Hubspot doesn’t work.
It’s not the technology. Nope. They’ve evolved the product considerably over the last 12 months and continue to do so. They offer a full automated marketing suite that in my opinion far exceeds that of other players in automated marketing such as Eloqua and Marketo . It’s not the price. Hubspot is favorably priced to their competitors. It’s not customer service. Those guys are rock stars. So helpful, nice and smart. It certainly isn’t the advice their marketers pass along. No way. These guys pump out practical and beneficial information every single hour of the day. Whitepapers, forums, webinars - these guys kill it. They de-mystify things not even on their platform such as Twitter and Facebook. Everyone at Hubspot has only one mission: Help you succeed. So what’s the big problem with Hubspot?
Here it is: The number one reason Hubspot doesn’t work: Content creation. While I’m not privy to why people terminate Hubspot or question how good is Hubspot, I’m pretty certain it’s those that don’t properly “feed the content beast.” This means they don’t blog consistently, don’t create whitepapers and don’t invest the time to make use of Hubspot’s bountiful tools. So who’s at fault here? Well, the blame needs to be shared equally. Certainly, those who purchase Hubspot need to understand what it takes to make inbound marketing work. Blogging is the key. More importantly, it’s blogging as Hubspot instructs. That means analyzing your clients and building buyer personas and make appealing content for all level of the sales cycle. Sourcing favorable keywords and structuring the blog properly right down to Title tags, URLs, Alt Text and Meta Description. Hubspot makes the process super easy. But it can’t force their users to commit time and resources to blog. So, possible Hubspot buyer (or those looking to terminate), go in with your eyes open. Build a content plan. Do not buy the service and expect to see visits, leads and sales flock in the door without a meaningful content commitment. Expect the process to take at least 4 to 6 months to see results.
Hubspot must share blame as well. They position their product as a bit too “automatic.” Almost like an amazing marketing diet pill. It’s not. It’s more akin to the best gym membership you’ll ever purchase. But it’s no good unless you actually go and use all of the equipment regularly. Without smart, insightful content for your potential customers you’re basically doomed. Yet, Hubspot can’t take on the content creation for their clients. They have created partnerships with companies that can blog on any topic (for a surprisingly small price). One of Hubspot’s founders, Dharmesh Shah, has even invested his own money in one such company. Pretty cool. But I’ve heard more than one Hubspot subscriber complain that the content piece is the most difficult.
All is not lost. There are folks who are practitioners of the “art of Hubspot” (Optimize 3.0 is one of those). Our job is to assist and leverage the Hubspot tool for the best results. The good ones know where Hubspot breaks down and can provide content planning and creation services to feed the ‘content beast.’ The good news is that if you feed that beast, you will see some really, really great returns on your investment in Hubspot.
Interested in how to do inbound marketing right?