COMMENTS
Good points! Automation rules!!! make it simple and they will come! :) Yes... internet is a Marketing tool now, in this day you shouldn't need a specialist to do this type of work. Put it in the hands of the masses, so that any Marketing Professional can do it. Thats what computers and automation are for... takes the sting out of the overwhelming stuff and makes it fast, dependable and easy!
-Cholly Nachman
Mike,
Tools that allow companies to make changes to their web site and marketing messages faster and easier are sure to be appreciated by most any company, small or large.
Internet Marketing is now just another line item for many mediaum to large companies, that have broad campaigns such as traditional print and media, press releases and trade-shows.
The smaller companies may rely more heavily on internet marketing techniques as they can be lower cost and more dynamic, perhaps a better fit for the simple tools that HubSpot is offering.
Rich Allen
Whilst online marketing is becoming more mainstream, there is always room for specialists. This isn't just true for online marketing. I'm sure you'd get a better result from a DM campaign from someone who specialised in that area who has read all of the books and latest research in the field and has much more practical experience.
Yes, it's a good idea for generalist marketers to understand things like PPC, but are they really likely to get as good as someone who does it every day? I doubt it.
Disclaimer: I would say this because I run an online marketing firm :)
Ah - an internet marketer marketing to other internet marketers by saying that internet marketing is dead - now that is marketing!
What a load of techie rubbish! :)
Online marketing is not a technical art - it is a specialist mix of traditional marketing, technical tools and the black magic knowledge of visitor behaviour.
Online marketing is not about getting visitors to your website - its about helping businesses make money though the internet. Geting the visitors is only a part of the equation, and the simple tools will help. However, if everyone is using the same tools - where is the advantage of marketing?
A very interesting article, but one that is pointing the wrong way!
Internet marketing can increaasingly become part of the toolset for the general marketeer however there will also be a place for the speciialist as the internet itself is continually evolving and the specialist is required to identfy and exploit these changes.
Internet marketing can increaasingly become part of the toolset for the general marketeer however there will also be a place for the speciialist as the internet itself is continually evolving and the specialist is required to identfy and exploit these changes.
More posts like this, please. The more we can convince small biz owners that automated tools and general marketers can take care of all their online marketing needs, the easier it'll be for me to help my clients with their special needs. :-)
This is kinda like telling a small biz retailer that she's dead, because all we need is Wal-Mart, isn't it?
Mike, could you describe a scenario how HubSpot tools would help my web site
www.postjobfree.com to get more users?
On the role of specialists in the future (to Tom Nixon, Oli Rhys, Steven Forsythe, Matt McGee) : Of course there will always be room for specialists. And of course the article was written to be provocative to stimulate comments and opinions. But specialists should want to focus on truly value add activities, not just plain bread and butter projects. Think about the 80/20 "rule"... you should be able to do 80% of Internet Marketing yourself within your company (even if it is a small company), and for the extra 20% of special activities with a short time span, or that require very unique skills, etc., of course you should outsource. A different way to think about it... A rich person with lots of stock transactions and complicated trusts should use a professional accountant and pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, and it will be worth it. A middle class person with only ordinary income and simple deductions should use TurboTax for $30. And the specialist will be happy because he can focus on his higher margin business where he adds the most value. (Summary: I agree with Steven Forsythe.)
To Dennis Gorelik: I ran
www.postjobfree.com through our free WebSite Grader tool and you scored a 28 (out of 100). I would encourage you to do the same to see the whole report, and you can also do it for your competitors or partners. I think some tools could help make it easy for you to get a higher score, which would mean more traffic and more people posting jobs and viewing your postings. Some examples would be adding Meta-Keywords to the pages on your site, adding a Page Description, and adding more content to your site so people using search engines have a better chance of finding you. Without going into detail, what we want to do at HubSpot is make it easy for you to correct these things without becoming a web or HTML expert, and hopefully without you even needing to know what "Meta-Keywords" are.
To Rich Allen: Having done marketing at both big and small companies, I agree completely. And HubSpot is focused on small business Internet marketing for that reason.
Mike,
http://www.websitegrader.com/ is a nice tool, but have you tried to run it against
www.google.com?:-)
Google has neither meta-keywords nor site description.
:-)
You begin with the assumption that marketing is somehow a technical issue..... IT ISN'T. It is like saying that nowadays ATL advertiing is dead because anyone can create a movie clip on their PC and post it on YouTube.
Please search for marketing definition .... you got it all wrong!!!
You begin with the assumption that marketing is somehow a technical issue..... IT ISN'T. It is like saying that nowadays ATL advertiing is dead because anyone can create a movie clip on their PC and post it on YouTube.
Please search for marketing definition .... you got it all wrong!!!
You begin with the assumption that marketing is somehow a technical issue..... IT ISN'T. It is like saying that nowadays ATL advertiing is dead because anyone can create a movie clip on their PC and post it on YouTube.
Please search for marketing definition .... you got it all wrong!!!
You begin with the assumption that marketing is somehow a technical issue..... IT ISN'T. It is like saying that nowadays ATL advertiing is dead because anyone can create a movie clip on their PC and post it on YouTube.
Please search for marketing definition .... you got it all wrong!!!
Mike, interesting topic. Sounds like the need is to find the next great marketing tool. Maybe marketing to Blackberrys, Treos, and iPods?
Every black art is eventually revealed through data and automation. For a look at another approach to simplifying the process of building and managing a web presence, pre-built SEO optimization, and then having 'just the right amount' of marketing data, see BT Tradespace at http://www.bttradespace.com. That said, Steve F's comment is spot on. I would expect this community of Tradespaces to generate an ecosystem of 'next level up' specialists around it...to customize and optimize the sites. That's why the 'sell my stuff on eBay' storefronts exist. eBay was dog simple....but people are always looking for experts.
I've taken look at BTTradespace. Just because you get an automated site it doesn't mean marketing is dead. There's still a lot of work to do.
Marketing never dead but it change the phases or trend of communicating according to present situation. So keep on updating yourself with new marketing trend.
Halfway through this article I thought to myself, "This is a promotional piece, I wonder who/what product he'll be pushing", and voila! Hubspot at the end. I've tested Hubspot and they haven't quite reached reliablility yet. Good tool, not worth investing my money into. Sure, it looks good to the layman, non-marketer, but I've been in the biz since 99 - online and offline, direct mail to PPC and to me, the 'tool' just doesn't prove itself just yet. It's on it's way, I don't want to totally slam Hubspot, it's got some value.
But their data sources are skewed and provide differing results. Case in point, we had 3 individuals measure the same website/client at nearly the same moment and we all got different results/grades. And when trying to validate their information sources, even Hubspot admits that their measurement tools come from specific sources and (IMO) don't provide objective web-wide results.
In response to the article, my clients are in the business of running their business. They have the $$ resources to invest in marketing but not the know-how or time to become fluent in marketing, offline or online. They don't know what they don't know and rely on my expertise and industry knowledge. Having technical knowledge or black-voodoo-magic doesn't matter, it's purchasing my time and the time I invest in being the SME and providing those services to them that makes a marketer/specialist or technical guru still worthile.