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A Publication of HubSpot’s Partner Program

ANALOGIES TO HELP EXPLAIN INBOUND MARKETING

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More like, who didn’t write this eBook?!? The analogies on the next 14 pages are sourced from many different people. Some are marketers. Some are consultants. Others are salespeople. All are master story tellers. Their names and Twitter handles accompany their words.

WHO WROTE THIS EBOOK?

Introduction / 4 Inbound Marketing is like Hunting / 6 Inbound Marketing is like Dating / 7 Blogging is like Jogging / 8 Keywords are like Applying to College / 9 The Internet is like a Popularity Contest / 10 Inbound Marketing is like the Discovery Channel / 10 Marketing Automation is like Air Travel / 11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

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ANALOGIES TO EXPLAIN INBOUND

Inbound marketing is the sum of lots of different parts. Whether you’re talking to a prospect or an existing client, you’ll need to be able to relate the big picture behind why its valuable and how it will he lp them genera te l eads and customers. Analogies can help you do this. This eBook is a compilation of analogies that will help you better explain inbound marketing and key concepts like keyword strategy, blogging and marketing automation.

w Enjoy!

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INBOUND ANALOGIES

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INBOUND MARKETING IS LIKE HUNTING

Some would say this is the analogy that started it all. Originally published back in 2008, Brian Halligan, HubSpot co-founder and CEO, used a blog post to liken inbound marketing to how lions hunt elephants in the jungle.

Traditional marketers looking to garner interest from new potential customers are like lions hunting in the jungle for elephants. The elephants used to be in the jungle in the '80s and '90s when they learned their trade, but they don't seem to be there anymore. They have all migrated to the watering holes on the savannah (the internet). So, rather than continuing to hunt in the jungle, I recommend setting up shop at the watering hole or turning your website into its own watering hole.

*Please note: No elephants were harmed in the creation of this analogy.

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Brian Halligan, Co-Founder & CEO, HubSpot @bhalligan

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INBOUND MARKETING IS LIKE DATING

You don't ask someone to marry you on the first date. People get kind of freaked out when you do that. You get to know each other first, then introduce the friends, then the family, and then, once you know the whole package looks good, you put a ring on it. k But if you're doing something like slapping 'Contact Us' as the only call-to-action on every page of your site, that's essentially what you're doing -- asking your leads to get too serious, too soon. Why would they commit to someone they just met? Play it cool, man. Let them get to know you first. Maybe through ohhh, I don't know ... an eBook? If they like the looks of you from your eBook, then they have a reason to actually want to get to know you better. That's when you can step it up a notch and offer them something a little more committed, like anything in that little blue circle in the diagram below.

Matthew Wainwright, Inbound Marketing Manager, HubSpot @mdwainwright

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BLOGGING IS LIKE JOGGING

You're going to see better results if you do it 30 minutes every other day than if you run like a total maniac just once a month. We often hear people say they've tried blogging, but "it doesn't work." When we dig a little deeper, however, we find that they blogged three days in a row last January and then gave up when their site traffic didn't jump. Big shock.

Business blogging requires consistent, long-term effort, not short sprints of intense activity. You'll see much better results blogging every other day for a year than blogging twice a day for two weeks, stopping, then starting again four months later. At that frequency, neither readers nor crawlers know when on earth to visit your site.

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Y Mike Ewing, Ecommerce Marketing Specialist, HubSpot, @inboundcommerce

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KEYWORDS ARE LIKE APPLYING TO COLLEGE

You're going to apply to reach, target, and safety schools. You might get into your reach school, your safety schools are a sure thing, and everything in between is what you're gunning for…and with hard work, you'll probably get in, too. L Approach your keyword selection the same way. There are really desirable keywords out there that you'd like to rank for, but they're also typically quite competitive -- think head terms like, say, "internet marketing." You should put some effort into ranking for these "ivy league" terms, sure, but you're going to see much quicker returns if you target some "community college" terms, or long-tail keywords. They still provide you great business results, but they're much easier to rank for.

Peter Caputa IV, Channel Sales & Marketing Director, HubSpot @pc4media

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g THE INTERNET IS LIKE A POPULARITY CONTEST

The more people that vote for you, the more likely it is you'll make prom queen. Or class president. Or chess club secretary.

T h i s a n a l o g y h e l p s p e o p l e understand how inbound links work. When content is really good, people want to link to it. That's how the "internet" knows your content is good -- lots of people have linked to, or "voted for" it. And since Google only wants to return the best results in the SERPs to make their searchers happy, the more times people have voted that your content is great via their inbound links, the more likely it is you'll show up in the top search results for a related term.

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Patrick Shea, Channel Marketing Manager, HubSpot @mpatrickshea

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LEAD CONVERSION IS LIKE THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL

The inbound conversion path is like a Discovery Channel documentary. You lure an animal in, capture it, tag it, then release it back into the wild. The conversion path refers to the process that turns site visitors into leads and customers -- the call-to-action, landing page, form submission, and thank-you page. Here's how this Discovery Channel analogy breaks down:

e Call-to-Action (The Bait): Lure them in with a compelling offer, promoted with some enticing messaging and an eye-catching design. Landing Page (The Capture): You've got them in your grips! You just need to make sure they don't escape -- remove your navigation, write clear copy, make sure your landing page is well optimized -- before you're able to get the information you need. Which leads us to ... Form (The Tag): They fill out their information so you know who they are. That way, when they leave your site to go back into that internet wild, you'll still be able to identify them among all the other visitors when they come back to your site. Thank-You Page (The Release): Once you've captured your lead intelligence, you can release them to explore other elements of your site, or even off-site elements like your social media accounts.

Alec Biedrzycki, Inbound Marketing Specialist, HubSpot @albiedrzycki

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A Cartoon by Alec Biedrzycki

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T MARKETING AUTOMATION IS LIKE AIR TRAVEL

You could get take three days to drive there in a car. Or you could hop on a plane and get there in 5 hours. That's the value of automating your marketing -- where you can, at least. Let's consider email automation, for example. You could spend time crafting a personalized email message for everyone on your email list -- like, every one of the hundreds of thousands of people on your email list -- and then take the time to individually email every single one of those people with your message. One. by. one. Oh, and then you can do the follow-up for all of them, too!

Or, you might realize after writing your tenth email that you're saying basically the same thing in every email, with maybe just a few exceptions -- because they've all been properly segmented, so they all have one specific thing in common. So instead of spending days or weeks sending out those emails manually, you could simply segment out that list of people in your marketing automation tool, insert some dynamic fields in the content to personalize it, and then nurture them further down the road based on their response to that email ... all of wh ich i s documen ted i n you r CRM. D o c u m e n t e d a n d f o l l o w e d - u p w i t h automatically, not manually.

Corey Eridon, Inbound Marketing Manager, HubSpot @Corey_bos

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MORE RESOURCES

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MORE RESOURCES / HUBSPOT

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