An
inboard marketing review of the following 3 organisation’s websites:
Each
organisation’s approach to inbound marketing
Each
of the website’s are professional in look and feel, and well laid out, making
them easy to use and navigate. The
content is also relevant, helpful and informative.
There
are blogs on all three of the websites, offering helpful information, all related
to the nature of their businesses and updated regularly.
Both
HubSpot and HelpScout make good use of gated offers, forcing users to sign-up
before providing the means of a free trail, while Sage doesn’t appear to
utilise this.
Each
also has a strong social media presence, complementing the websites with their
messaging and regularly engaging with, and answering, their audiences.
Strengths
and Weaknesses of the inbound marketing approach used by each organisation
In
terms of SEO, when searching for ‘inbound marketing’, Hubspot is the top
organic result, suggesting great SEO, with pages such as https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing demonstrating this
with good repetitive, but natural, use of keywords.
However,
when searching for ‘customer service software’, HelpScout is not listed anywhere
on the first page, suggesting poor SEO. This may be due to using the term ‘HelpDesk’
instead of what I regard the more default term ‘customer service’.
When
searching for ‘accounting software’, Sage is top due to paid advertising, so
this is well optimised in their choice of paid keywords, and their product also
appears in the shopping suggestions, but there are no other organic search
results. There is constant use of the
keyword ‘accounting’, but ‘software’ doesn’t look to be used much in the
content, and there is also a lot of worldwide competition for these keywords.
HelpScout
has a good array of helpful resources, helping to support their reputation as a
credible provider of help desk tools, and they also make good use of video
content. https://www.helpscout.net/classes/
Which
organisation was best at inbound marketing, and why?
As
you would expect from an organisation specialising in inbound marketing, Hubspot
excels in it.
The
website is well laid out, is available in different languages, the blog has an informative
feel and appears to be regularly updated, has lots of free resources, is well
targeted and relevant to their buyer personas, has an approachable tone, has case
studies, a handy pop-up box for asking questions, a strong social media
presence, and an interactive training course, all designed to engage with the
customer and guide them through the sales funnel.
Examples
of how each organisation can improve its inbound marketing
I
feel the Sage blog is hidden on the website, and it is labelled as an ‘Advice
Blog’ under the header ‘Support and Training’, which I feel gives the
impression it isn’t a great way of engaging with potential customers. This is not helped by what I feel is a formal
tone across the whole site that I didn’t warm to.
I
feel Hubspot could benefit from more video content, as aside from some brief
product walkthroughs, video content doesn’t appear to be fully utilised.
However,
the Hubspot blog provides a handy indication of how long each article will take
to read, and they also have social sharing icons to assist the easy sharing of
content, as do each of the other blogs.
Sage
could make better use of SEO, as well as adding more video and engaging
content.
