Inbound Marketing Blog

A lot of inbound marketers  find themselves in this situation: They get notice of a new lead that makes them all excited. They can't wait to click the contact record and find out who it is. So, they go over to their HubSpot portal, pop open that record and then hang their head in disappointment seeing it’s someone not even remotely qualified. These kind of “junk leads” are common in inbound marketing and are often the bane of our existence -- but they don’t have to be.

If you’re a business owner or a CMO, you know how hectic work days can get. Back-to-back meetings, ensuring your team is on track to meet their goals for the quarter, double checking your new Facebook campaign (that’s going live in the next 20 minutes), and the list goes on. It can be difficult to balance everything you need to do while also making sure your marketing is hitting the right audience, at the right time, with the right message, to successfully generate new business. That’s why we’ve seen many companies turn to marketing automation.

When redesigning your website, you are often faced with the task of looking for a platform that is capable of the specific functionality of facilitating your marketing efforts. Researching the multitude of options can be a real pain. You may find yourself struggling to understand whether or not certain capabilities are supported/included, how secure the platform is, and how complex learning and using the software really is.

I’m a HUGE fan of Zapier. We’ve been using it for the past few years at IMPACT and it’s enabled us to maximize our usage of applications like HubSpot, Slack, Google Calendar, Eventbrite, and much more. Today, I’ll teach you to do the same (all without writing a line of code).

If you’ve been shopping around for marketing software, you’ve probably come across HubSpot, and it’s no secret that we are big fans of it.

When people ask who the best inbound or HubSpot Partner agency is, it’s easy to huff and say IMPACT -- but I’m not about those cliches. The HubSpot Partner Agency Program is rich with gifted inbound marketers who have taught us a thing or two over the years, and also vice versa. From content and strategy to design and development, our team is proud to be part of a community in which we can learn from and inspire one another; A network where we can have immense respect and admiration for each team’s talent both as competitors and colleagues.

If you didn’t know already, I worked at HubSpot for 4-1/2 years. During most of that time, I was what you would call “an Inbound Professor” at HubSpot Academy and under the leadership of the very awesome and hardworking, Mark Kilens, I was part of the team that published the first HubSpot certification and developed HubSpot Academy’s original mission. I even remember delivering the HubSpot certification at INBOUND 2013 with my colleague Sarah Bedrick to a room of about a hundred people so I’ve been there since the beginning.

HubSpot is our marketing software of choice, but that doesn't mean it's the only choice. In fact, there are more options than ever before, making the buying decision a bit of a Sophie's Choice. When we meet with prospective clients who aren't already using HubSpot, we get asked about a handful of different platforms and Marketo is one of the most common. Now, don't get us, wrong. Marketo has a solid reputation and is effective, but there is a lot more to consider when comparing marketing software than just price and features.