What is HubSpot?
HubSpot is a renowned American inbound marketing and sales software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 2006, HubSpot helps organizations attract visitors, convert leads into customers, and close customer deals with its inbound marketing software, sales tools, and CRM platform. HubSpot’s inbound methodology is entirely different from traditional outbound marketing approaches as it focuses on attracting and delighting customers through useful, relevant, and helpful content rather than interrupting or spamming potential buyers.
HubSpot Content Marketing
Content marketing plays a vital role in any inbound marketing strategy. HubSpot provides robust content marketing tools as part of its inbound marketing platform to help brands educate, engage and delight their target audiences at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Some key features of HubSpot’s content marketing tools include:
Blog Publishing: HubSpot offers a blogging platform to publish high-quality articles, guides, case studies, videos and other long-form content types. Users can add images, hyperlinks, embed videos and more. Advanced features like author profiles, tags, and categories help optimize discoverability.
Content Calendar: The content calendar helps marketers plan, schedule and manage their editorial calendar. Teams can collaborate, assign tasks and get timely reminders. Admins have oversight on all upcoming content projects.
CMS Features: Features like version control, automatic image optimization, SEO meta data and tags allow easy content management. Advanced users can even code custom blocks and templates.
Content Analytics: Insights into content performance based on metrics like views, shares, likes and more help analyze what resonates. Teams can view top and bottom-performing pieces to optimize strategy.
Content Ideation: The content ideas tool provides prompts, samples and templates on popular topics and formats to spark new angles and get projects started.
Social Sharing: HubSpot simplifies syndicating content across social profiles with one-click publishing to channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
Lead Capture: Forms, polls and other lead capture tools can be embedded anywhere to generate qualified leads from published content.
HubSpot thus provides a one-stop platform to manage the entire content lifecycle from ideation to analytics with robust tools, collaboration features and integrated CRM.
Content Writing Process in HubSpot
Here are the typical steps involved in the HubSpot content writing process:
Content Planning
Content plans are made weeks or months in advance based on keyword research, customer personas, and marketing objectives. The editorial calendar schedules posts, guides the topic selection and ensures a steady content flow.
Content Ideation
The content hub’s idea generator tool is used to brainstorm fresh angles around topics. Relevant industry news, trending questions and template suggestions provide inspiration.
Research and Outlining
Research involves gathering insights from resources like customer conversations, seminars, industry publications etc. Detailed outlines organize the key points to be covered in the written piece.
Drafting the Content
The first draft is written based on the outline, ensuring proper formatting and following HubSpot content guidelines. Images, charts and other visual elements are added as needed.
Internal Review
Initial drafts undergo reviews from teammates, managers and subject matter experts. Feedback integrates additional perspectives to strengthen the content.
Editing and Polishing
The content is thoroughly edited and revised based on reviewer comments. Final checks ensure grammatical correctness, fluid readability and impactful calls-to-action.
Publishing
Ready content is published to the blog after assigning relevant metadata, categories and tags. Social sharing is also scheduled from this stage.
Promotion
Published content is promoted on social media and distributed through email campaigns to maximize outreach. SEO-optimized sharing increases organic reach and traffic.
Measurement and Optimization
Performance tracking provides insights to refine strategies. Underperforming or ineffective content may require reworks or be replaced based on learnings. The cycle then continues with fresh planning.
Content writing in HubSpot thus follows a well-defined process to create, optimize and distribute valuable resources that engage audiences and drive business goals. Its editing tools, version control and collaboration features make the workflow seamless for individual and cross-functional teams.
Example of Content Creation in HubSpot
Let’s go through a fictional example to understand the HubSpot content writing and publishing process:
The marketing team is planning content for the upcoming quarter. After reviewing business objectives and persona research, they schedule a 3-part guide on email marketing best practices in the editorial calendar for publishing weekly over March.
For the first guide, the team brainstorms topics in the content hub’s idea generator. Jen, the assigned writer, picks “Email Design Tips” and conducts research. She outlines key points around design fundamentals, formatting tips, common mistakes to avoid and calls-to-action.
In the first draft, Jen covers the outlined points and adds relevant screenshots and formatting examples. Her manager Sarah reviews it and suggests expanding a section. Jen incorporates the feedback and edits some wording based on Sarah’s comments.
They internally share the revised draft with a subject expert Mike for review. Mike’s input strengthens the guide’s structure and messaging. With the guide polished as per reviews, Jen publishes it to the company blog.
Jen then uses the blog post directly in an email campaign promoting the guide. She also shares it across social profiles and notifies influencers to help expand its reach. Performance is tracked through the content analytics dashboard.
With the first installment receiving good engagement, the team is motivated to create more impactful guides. Lessons learned are applied to continually improve processes and create better experiences for customers at each stage. This iterative cycle keeps the content pipeline fueled.
Benefits of Content Writing on HubSpot
There are numerous benefits for organizations that leverage HubSpot’s robust content marketing tools for their written content needs:
Streamlined workflow: Integrated tools eliminate disruptions across content planning, creation and distribution. Less time is wasted on manual tasks.
Increased output: Templates, automation and collaboration features boost team productivity and allow bigger content budgets for higher volume.
Consistent messaging: Enforcing style guidelines and review processes ensures all content aligns with brand voice for clear communication.
Audience insights: Gathering persona data and tracking metrics provides a deeper understanding of what resonates for tailored experiences.
Marketing alignment: Content directly supports other activities like social advertising, email campaigns, webinars etc. for seamless integration.
Performance optimization: Data-driven analysis identifies top-performing formats and topics to focus future efforts. Underperformers can also be improved.
Scalable process: Standardized processes maintain consistency as teams and output grow over time. Workload is also easier to redistribute or offshore.
Integrated experience: Creating, managing and sharing all content centrally through one CRM yields a better user experience compared to disjointed point solutions.
Overall, the HubSpot content platform empowers marketers with cohesive workflows and robust tools to produce high-quality written assets at scale – enhancing both customer experiences and business results.
Andrew Stroud