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Hey there - it's Brian 👋

I Google a lot.

And every time I look up anything marketing related, I can’t avoid a HubSpot article.

That’s their strategy.

They make it easy to find their content (and it made them worth $22B).

So today we’ll talk about:
• The HubSpot story
• Why they chose to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• How you can find what to focus on to get customers raving about you

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

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How HubSpot dominates the internet

Quick background in case you’re not familiar with HubSpot:

HubSpot is an online tool that helps you keep information on your customers (a “CRM”). CRM’s aren’t anything new. But what made them stand out, is that they focused their tool on a category that didn’t exist at the time:
Inbound Marketing.

In 2004, founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah were bouncing ideas off each other at MIT, thinking:

“Hey - people hate being interrupted by sales calls and cold messages. There’s got to be a better way to get customers.”

So here’s what they came up with:

Create articles that answer people’s questions (content), make it easy for them to find their article on Google (SEO), and turn them into customers.

That’s inbound marketing! (Content marketing + SEO)

Customers come to you, instead of you interrupting them.

They made inbound marketing their niche, designed their business around it, and became the best at inbound marketing.

So here’s how they did it: 👇

1. Chose a way to stand out: Inbound Marketing

When HubSpot started out, they had a major decision to make:

Call their solution “internet marketing software” vs. create the “inbound marketing” category.

Creating a category has a higher risk that the business fails! Customers don’t understand what you’re selling at first.

So you need to spend most of your marketing dollars educating customers on your category (instead of marketing your product).

In this case, if no one believed in “Inbound Marketing” then no one would buy. HubSpot would fail.

They said “no” to the safer option: “Internet marketing software.”

And went on a mission to teach the world that inbound marketing is the best way to get customers:
• They wrote a book on inbound marketing
• Wrote an inbound marketing blog
• Held inbound conferences

Check out the resources section at the end for the 5-min interview with the HubSpot founder on the risks he took in creating the category.

2. Chose an enemy

Most people hesitate to “make enemies.”

It’s scary to “exclude” people from your business.

But when you call out an enemy it makes customers who support your side become more obsessed with you.

In HubSpot’s case, they made enemies with Outbound Marketers:

Because cold calls and messages are disruptive. Customers hate them.

So they went on the attack against outbound marketers with slogans like:
• “Stop interrupting. Start connecting.”
• “Stop cold calling. Start closing.”

People who prefer inbound became part of the HubSpot army and raving fans of the business.

3. Created lots of content, used SEO so customers find it

They had to prove their inbound marketing theory. So they 100xed their focus on inbound by…

1. Creating lots of content

2. Optimizing it for SEO so customers find their site through Google

Today, they’ve written over 41,000 articles. Their articles get them 4.8M visitors a month.

So here’s the summary (in 5 bullets)

HubSpot…

Found a pain: customers are annoyed by interruptions.

Solved the pain: helped customers get a better ROI on their marketing by creating value for their customers online so they reach out to them

Created a niche: called it “inbound marketing.”

Choose an enemy: “outbound marketing.”

100xed their focus on what makes them stand out:
They amplified their message by creating 41,000+ articles, and optimizing them for SEO so customers can find them.

So how do you choose where to focus to get customers excited about your business?

I’ve crafted a framework for you with a few questions to get you started:

1. What does your customer crave?

2. What do they value in a solution?

3. How are they missing that value today?

4. How can you give them that missing value?

To do that, I’m building out a guide to walk you through each step of the process for how I’ve helped clients stand out.

I’d love to make sure I don’t miss anything that’s valuable to you.

One ask: I’d love if you could reply to this email with your questions and topics you want to focus on:

What questions do you have on this process? What excites you the most?

Boom! That’s it.

A big thank you to this week’s sponsor who keeps this newsletter free for you. If you want to use SEO for your own business to get customers to find your website, try dofollow.io to get you found.

See you next Thursday 👋

Brian
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🛠️ Outlier Links

Hubspot Related:

YouTube: how Hubspot dominates the internet

The Hubspot back story

Interview with Hubspot founder: the pains of creating a category (Inbound Marketing)

Growth Stories:

Meet the 17 year old who built a business to $30M

The story of a bootstrapped company from a remote village in India crossed $1B in revenue:

Tips / Lessons:

How to use ChatGPT to 10x your SEO results:

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