Posted by Pamela Seiple on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 @ 11:07 AM
"You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing" is now a four-time award winning video, thanks to its recent win as a gold recipient of the 28th Annual NEDMA Awards for Creative Excellence in the Interactive Viral/Word of Mouth Buzz Campaign (B2B) category.
"You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing" was written, produced and directed by HubSpot's singing inbound marketer, Rebecca Corliss, to the tune of Alanis Morissette's 90's hit song, "Oughta Know." The video features a disgruntled office employee (played by Rebecca) who sings her heart out about the horrible life of an outbound marketer.
Rebecca and HubSpot CEO and Co-Founder, Brian Halligan, were present at the June 10th awards ceremony at The Roxy in Boston to accept the award, which honors creative excellence and innovation in eight categories including print ads, direct mail, catalog, interactive, integrated media campaigns and DM on a shoestring. Award winners, selected from a pool of over 350 submissions, were judged on the creative elements as well as campaign results. Over 200 industry leaders attended the awards ceremony.
The New England Direct Marketing Association is a regional, professional non-profit association for all those interested in direct marketing. Membership is composed of leading area companies that use direct marketing, direct marketing agencies, independent professionals, educators and students. NEDMA sponsors an extensive series of events, including monthly business/dinner meetings, half-day seminars, an annual conference and an awards program.
Previous wins for "You Oughta Know..." include the 2009 Videographer Awards, the 2009 VMX Video Marketing Awards, and the 2009 Semmy Awards.
If you happened to miss the video the first few times, watch it below ...
Check out the song's full lyrics here.
View photos from the NEDMA awards ceremony at http://andrewbbutler.zenfolio.com/p181952886.
Find the other award winners at http://www.nedma.com/pdfs/NEDMA2009AwardWinners.pdf. (See page 41 for HubSpot's award recognition.)
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Mon, Jun 29, 2009 @ 10:59 AM
I never got a chance to publish a post about HubSpot's new game room, but now is as good a time as any, right? With the expansion of HubSpot's new office came the addition of the Brogan Game Room, dedicated to a new hockey dome, ping pong table, lounging area and foosball of course.
And with the completion of HubSpot's first annual March Madness foosball tournament, HubSpotters were hungry for even more competition (and more reason to hang out in the cool new game room).
Enter, "PongSpot," developed by HubSpotters Yoav Shapira and Sam Clemens.
Team Strangio (right - Vas Leckas & Ryan Gallo) defeat the Crazy83s (left - Dan Abdinoor & Stephen Huenneke) in Round 1
The tournament, featuring five rounds of competitive ping pong play, started off with 23 teams with unique names ranging from the Sphere Fear Ballers to Platypus Rex. Matches consist of 3 games each and end with the winners advancing to the next round.
The original 23 teams were narrowed down to the Sweet 16 and, last week, to the Elite 8. Unfortunately, the Sphere Fear Ballers were eliminated in the first round by the NSLOOKUPS; Platypus Rex's Yoav and Sam, however, are still alive.
By the end of this week, we should be down to the Final Four. Check out the brackets and stay abreast of the competition at http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=326913.
Stay tuned for winner announcements!
Posted by Karen Rubin on Mon, Jun 29, 2009 @ 06:06 AM
As an inbound marketer, you want to become an online hub for your industry. To do this, you need to share interesting and relevant content with your community on a regular basis.
We want to make it easy for you, so we're introducing the Social Media tool to our Inbound Marketing System, which will help you connect with your audience by finding relevant content and then making it easy for you to share that information with your network. You can find the Social Media tool under the Search Marketing heading.
Here's an example: The other day Pete was scrolling through the stories in the HubSpot Social Media tool. He found a great question on LinkedIn, and it already had a great answer. He used the Social Media tool to post a link to the question to Twitter. The question was quickly answered by one of our customers and one of our partners. Pete also saw that the individual asking the question was a HubSpot lead, and he was able to pass the information to the inbound marketing specialist.
This helped HubSpot because Pete was able to easily find an interesting question on LinkedIn and take different actions. By taking these actions, he continued to establish themselves and HubSpot as a hub for relevant, interesting information in our industry.
HubSpot customers should take a look at the new social media tool at least once a day to check for new content. Each of the items shown has been selected because it uses some of the keywords or brands that you have identified as important. As a result, the content generated should be relevant to you and your industry.
When you find an item related to your industry that you wish to share, you have a few options.
- Tweet It - You can re-tweet (RT) the item, or reply to the original tweet through the application.
- Post It to your Facebook Wall - You can post the article to your Facebook wall through this application
- Comment on it - You can go to the article and comment directly on the article, and then track the interactions with the social media tool.
Each of these actions (Tweet It, Post It, and Comment) counts as an interaction and will help you establish yourself as a hub for information about your industry. In order to build your reputation as a thought leader, you should try to post items on a daily basis so you are continually a part of the conversation.
In order to start using the Social Media tool, customers just have to do two things.
- Add your Twitter and Facebook accounts to HubSpot under Settings > Social Media Accounts. This will allow you to Tweet items and post items to Facebook from within the tool.
- Complete the Brand Wizard by following these instructions. The terms you enter will be used to find relevant stories.
One those items are done, the Social Media tool will start collecting stories for you. All you have to do is start interacting!
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Thu, Jun 25, 2009 @ 01:41 PM
Ever wonder what goes through the mind of a HubSpot developer? Maybe you didn't before, but now that I've just piqued your curiosity, you should check out the HubSpot Dev Blog!
As VP Engineering Yoav Shapira notes in the blog's introductory post, "[The] blog is a place for HubSpot developers to riff about any technical topics of interest. You might find tech product reviews, coding tips, productivity tips, gotchas, complaints, and anything else a HubSpot developer writes about."
A couple of cool HubSpot developers, Dan Abdinoor & Karen Rubin.
An example of what you will find on the Dev Blog: developer Dan Milstein's thoughts about the pros and cons of getting back into the Java groove.
What won't you find there? Ramblings about HubSpot or updates about our Internet marketing software. We already have vehicles for that, as you've probably figured out from reading this blog.
So if you're into the exciting world of technology and coding and want to hear about what our talented developers have to say about it, I encourage you to mosey on over to the HubSpot Dev Blog and, of course, leave a comment or two!
Find the HubSpot Dev Blog at http://dev.hubspot.com.
Furthermore, follow them on Twitter @HubSpotTech!
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Wed, Jun 24, 2009 @ 03:05 PM
HubSpot CEO and Co-Founder Brian Halligan will be interviewed on Jennifer Lindsay's podcast, "Break through the Noise," this Friday at 12 p.m. PDT. That's 3 p.m. EDT for us right coast folks.
On "Break through the Noise," Jennifer interviews social media and journalism influencers and thought leaders about what they do, how they got there and the passions that fuel their journey.
In this week's episode, Brian and Lindsay will chat about HubSpot's online influence. They will discuss how HubSpot's
free marketing tools help people discover HubSpot as well as the industry influence HubSpot has garnered in a relatively short period of time.
In this week's episode, Brian and Lindsay will chat about HubSpot's online influence. They will discuss how HubSpot's free marketing tools help people discover HubSpot as well as the industry influence HubSpot has garnered in a relatively short period of time.
"Break through the Noise" has featured social media and journalism thought leaders such as Chris Heuer (Social Media Club), Mario Sundar (LinkedIn), Kristin Smith (WOMMA) and Peter Shankman (HARO).
Jennifer Lindsay is a social media strategist, speaker and pioneer. As Director of Digital Services for Eastwick Communications, she spearheads all aspects of social media functions and programs, and is committed to helping clients achieve maximum benefit from their social media investment. An Emmy-nominated traditional and new media veteran who has worked for the "Big Three" TV networks, Jennifer earned a Masters from Columbia School of Journalism.
Tune into the live podcast this Friday (12 p.m. PDT/3 p.m. EDT) or catch the archived show at http://bit.ly/OYr6q.
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 @ 08:37 AM
We're super excited about this one. Today we announced the launch of Action Grader, a tool that makes website call-to-action (CTA) optimization simple. Action Grader joins the likes of Website Grader, Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader as the newest of HubSpot's free marketing tools.
Action Grader's self-learning and -improving properties enable average small business and marketing website owners to optimize their sites' calls-to-action without the need for advanced mathematics or constant maintenance.
The tool provides a free, easy alternative to expensive and difficult services that increase the marketing effectiveness of a website's call-to-action campaign, which uses badges on a website to urge the visitor to perform lead-generating functions, such as registering for a webinar, free trial or event or downloading a report. The only other free website CTA optimization service is Google's Website Optimizer, which necessitates manual maintenance, months of testing and difficult math for even the most seasoned technology expert.
Action Grader's self-testing mechanism automatically chooses and displays the most effective call-to-action at the appropriate time, ensuring the most possible click-throughs for the best chances of customer conversion. Users are not required to perform any additional maintenance; the tool does all the work for you!
Still confused? Refer to the following visual explanation ...
This is the first version of Action Grader. HubSpot plans to make ongoing improvements to the tool for enhanced usability. Please tell us what you think about Action Grader in the comments below.
Start optimizing your website's CTA campaigns at http://action.grader.com.
Check out HubSpot's other free marketing tools at http://grader.com.
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 11:35 AM
If you were watching New England Cable News (NECN) last Friday night, you may have caught an interesting segment about HubSpot and inbound marketing. Our CEO and co-founder, Brian Halligan, was interviewed by anchor Chet Curtis to discuss HubSpot and how its inbound marketing methodology helps companies get found on the Web.
Brian chats about the difference between outbound and inbound marketing, why optimizing your website and creating content is critical, and how you can use Twitter and social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to promote your content. He explains how HubSpot helps marketers and small businesses take advantage of these modern marketing tactics, sharing the case study of how HubSpot customer, Objective Management Group has used inbound marketing to generate leads, get new customers and transform its brochureware website into a popular destination for resources about sales consulting services.
View the full TV interview below and find out why Brian Halligan says "inbound marketing is about the thickness of your brain, not the thickness of your wallet."
Find the segment online here.
NECN also featured HubSpot's June 2009 State of the Twittersphere report last week. Check out the segment here.
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 @ 08:00 AM
HubSpot's veteran free marketing tool, Website Grader, has recently achieved an impressive milestone, grading over 1 million website and blog URLs...and still counting!
Website Grader was HubSpot's first free diagnostic tool. It measures the marketing effectiveness of a website and provides an inbound marketing score (on a scale of zero to 100) that incorporates website traffic, SEO, the blogosphere, social media and other inbound marketing factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective and helps people understand how their site is faring against their competition.
Website Grader was built in the early days of HubSpot, launching in February, 2007. The tool was initially created as a way to generate buzz, organic/viral traffic, inbound links and leads for HubSpot's inbound marketing software, thus creating a useful tool for the sales process.
Today, Website Grader still proves to be a valuable tool for HubSpot, potential customers, small to midsized businesses and marketers alike. Since Website Grader's launch, several other free marketing tools have been added to what is now a whole family of HubSpot graders, including Twitter Grader, Facebook Grader and Gobbledygook Grader, which can be found at http://grader.com.
Website Grader has been featured on a number of popular blogs and websites, including TechCrunch, BNET and the Boston Globe. Website Grader was named as one of PC Magazine's Top 100 Undiscovered Websites in 2007 and has also been honored with a number of awards, which include the 2008 W3 Awards, the 2007 and 2008 Interactive Media Awards, the 2008 and 2009 Webby Awards, as well as finalist for a number of other marketing awards. It is also currently a finalist in the computer software category of the 2009 American Business Awards (The Stevies), whose winners will be announced on June 22.
How is your website doing? Grade yours and your competition's at http://website.grader.com!
Posted by Rick Burnes on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 @ 08:30 PM
Ever since MC Hammer stopped by our office for a surprise appearance on HubSpot.tv, I've been getting a hard time from my friends:
"Where are the Hammer pants?"
"What are you doing here, isn't it Hammer time?"
Basically, they're jealous. Their employers aren't as cool as mine.
Given this history, I was a little skeptical last week when I got an urgent email from my friend Andy Chang with the following subject line:
"Rick -- I'm on a plane sitting next to MC Hammer."
Then, in the body, it said:
"We just made the connection about his visit to Hubspot.
He wants you to tweet and he'll tweet back."
Unlike me, my friends are not above cruel practical jokes.
But I didn't have much to lose, so I sent off the following tweet:
Lo-and-behold, five minutes later, I got the following reply:
Andy was vindicated.
In his next email he filled me in on the details:
"I didn't know who he was, just thought some actor talking about using social media. I asked him if he'd ever heard of HubSpot, and that's when i realized ..."
"He's a nice guy and really unassuming. He's teaching all of business class how to Twitter."
Awesome. Keep teachin' Hammer!
Posted by Pamela Seiple on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 @ 06:44 AM
That's right! HubSpot's June 2009 State of the Twittersphere report is here. We let it loose this morning, and you can read all about it on the HubSpot Inbound Internet Marketing blog at http://bit.ly/SOTblog0609.
HubSpot's June '09 State of the Twittersphere analyzes data from more than 4.5 million Twitter accounts over a nine month period to measure Twitter growth and report statistics on tweets, the Twitter user base and user geography. The study finds that despite obvious growth in the number of Twitter accounts, over nine percent of Twitter users are inactive.
While the Wall Street Journal reports that the number of Twitter accounts has grown to 32.1 million from 1.6 million a year ago, the HubSpot State of the Twittersphere study reports low activity levels for a significant number of users. Specifically:
- 55.5% of users are not following anyone
- 54.9% have never tweeted
- 52.7% have no followers
This is HubSpot's second State of the Twittersphere report and is based on data gathered from Twitter Grader, one of HubSpot's free marketing tools that measures the power and authority of Twitter accounts based on factors such as number of followers, reach and frequency of updates. The study uses data from the past nine months on a pool of over 4.5 million users who have evaluated their accounts using Twitter Grader.
"Recently, there has been a lot of buzz from mainstream media about the growth of Twitter," said Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot. "However, the June 2009 State of the Twittersphere points out that people may not be using Twitter to its full potential. If new users aren't really engaged, should it really be considered growth?"
Please use hashtag #SOTwitter if you plan to tweet about the report.
We encourage feedback and comments about #SOTwitter on the HubSpot Inbound Internet Marketing Blog at http://bit.ly/SOTblog0609.
Download the PDF version of the report directly at http://bit.ly/sotwitter.
Find HubSpot's first, Q4 2008 State of the Twittersphere report at http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4439/State-of-the-Twittersphere-Q4-2008-Report.aspx.