Anyone who is familiar with the world of marketing today, would know that marketing is no longer what it used to be earlier. Today, marketing plays an extremely crucial role in developing a vast customer database, improving sales and establishing one’s business in an industry. Unlike a few decades or years ago, where the most common ways of marketing used were cold-calling and/ or direct advertising, today marketing has evolved into a rapidly moving field.
After the arrival of the information wave, customers today are oriented
towards fulfilling a need and finding a solution. This is where the birth of
inbound marketing comes in.
Inbound marketing refers to a business methodology that attracts
customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.
The term wasn’t born until 2005, when HubSpot’s founder, Brian Halligan
coined it for the first time. Its usage was still unexplored till 2012, when it
actually started to grow and become a common word in the marketing
world.
Inbound marketing follows a certain methodology which aims at targeting
the right audience by fulfilling their need with a solution. The methodology
of inbound marketing consists of three ways:
When it comes to implementation, these steps are multi-faceted and tough
to execute single-handedly. They involve further strategies that inbound
marketers have to consider and plan out. Typical Inbound Marketing
Tactics include SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Email marketing, Content
Creation, Lead Magnets etc.
CMS (Content Management System) is a software application that is used
to manage the creation and modification of digital content. A CMS is used
to perform all of these functions nowadays. Popular options of CMS in the
market are WordPress, HubSpot, Drupal, Joomla etc.
The two major players in the CMS world today are WordPress and
HubSpot. Both of them have their own set of perks and drawbacks.
Depending on what are the priorities of your business, the optimal choice
may wary. WordPress had become quite popular earlier, However, today
HubSpot is preferred by inbound marketers over any other CMS.
Before choosing a CMS, it is necessary to look at the features it offers and
examine what needs it fulfils for your business. So, let’s look at the two
most popular CMS Software’s, WordPress and HubSpot, and understand
how they are different:
WordPress was released back in 2003 and is by far the most popular open
source CMS. WordPress powers more than 35% of the web. It offers
Everything from simple websites, to blogs, to complex portals and
enterprise websites, and even applications, are built with WordPress. It has
a very large developer community and a cost-effective pricing plan as well.
HubSpot on the other hand, is the fit for all inbound marketing needs. It is
a marketing automation platform with CMS built in. It is the ideal CMS
choice for companies with a defined content marketing strategy.
Designing your website
WordPress provides its users with themes for this purpose; this can be
liberating for those who are not very well versed with programming
languages whereas, it can be limiting for those who plan to do further
customization with their website.
HubSpot allows more freedom when it comes to designing your website, it
provides the user with various templates which can be found in the
HubSpot Marketplace, and above that if a user is looking for further
advanced customizations HubSpot also has the HubSpot Design Manager
which lets you customize different elements, sections and pages of your
website.
HubSpot also has on-page editing which is easier to use and optimizes
pages according to certain On-page SEO factors for SEO rankings.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) features
In WordPress, a user needs to download external SEO Plugins such as
Yoast, in order to optimize one’s website for SEO rankings.
In HubSpot, when it was being developed there was a special focus on
digital marketers. Therefore, HubSpot has added a “SEO Strategy Tool”
which incorporates topic clusters to assist with SEO rankings. It is
considered to be easier to use than WordPress.
The Ultimate Responsibility of SEO, though, is in the ability of the person
undertaking the task. It can’t be fulfilled solely by a software or two.
Email Marketing Services
WordPress does not provide any in-built email marketing services.
Although, it does provide its users with the ability to integrate their website
with other email marketing platforms & services such as Mail Chimp.
On the other side, HubSpot has integrated email marketing in its basic
plan. This makes it easy for you to capture the user’s email information &
then add to email marketing automation strategies list. HubSpot’s email
marketing services are quite similar to the other email marketing services in the market. HubSpot assists its user by reducing the need of an additional
platform. It even consists of easy to customize email templates & simple
ways to segment the list of subscribers.
Analytics
When it comes Analytics, one would require additional analytics plugins
such as google analytics in both the software’s to get an optimal
experience. However, WordPress leans towards more basic analytics.
Whereas HubSpot provides its users with in-depth insights of marketing &
sales analytics, from web pages, landing pages, email marketing, social
media & CRM (Customer Relationship Management), HubSpot covers all
of these areas and makes it easier to make reports on campaigns.
Support Services
The Support Services of these two CMS’s differ surprisingly, HubSpot uses
a procedure of producing a ticket when issues are reported by users. There
are blogs too which are helpful on HubSpot. However, the response of the
team is quite quick and the issue is resolved withing a few hours.
Whereas for WordPress, if issues don’t pop up, everything will continue to
run smoothly. WordPress has a huge Support Community to assist it. But,
that’s not the case usually and when issues do come up it may take a while
before things get back on track. That’s why if you’re using WordPress it is
essential to have a backup developer in case of emergencies, to ensure
things don’t fall apart for you.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
WordPress doesn’t provide any CRM services as such; However, you can
integrate your website with popular CRM’s.
HubSpot, provides it users with free CRM services and is also very user
friendly. This benefit is notable as all contacts & leads are available in the
same platform as your website
WordPress doesn’t provide any CRM services as such However, you can
integrate your website with popular CRM’s.
Pricing
Finally, lets take a look at the most important aspect, the deciding factor for
some, The pricing of these two CMS’s
WordPress, is giving its users its basic plan for free. Which means one can
make a blog on WordPress for free and get access to certain features.
However, one does have to pay for domain registration, hosting, premium
themes, premium plugins, security services, storage & backup services.
There is also the requirement of keeping a developer ready in case of
emergencies & advanced custom designs. But still even after considering
all of these costs, WordPress is still cheaper than HubSpot.
HubSpot, is not free, when it comes to its most essential services. It does
provide its users with free CRM services though. The Basic Plan of
HubSpot starts at around $100 and goes on to $800 and further if the
number of your contacts in CRM increase and based on whether you add
additional sales software’s.
So, it really comes down to what are the goals of your business and what
can you afford at the moment.
Why inbound marketers preferred HubSpot over any other CMS?
For Inbound marketers though, HubSpot has become the buzzword and is
used extensively throughout the industry. This is majorly because of the list
of features and the easy to use functionality of HubSpot. Also, because
HubSpot was developed keeping in mind the needs of inbound marketing.
Today, HubSpot is the one stop place for all of your Inbound marketing
activities.
Inbound marketing is all about creating valuable content and optimizing
one’s website to reach customers and fulfil their needs. In order, to
optimize one’s website to appear on Search Engine Result Pages, posting
quality content and regularly updating content is key.
HubSpot made this process easier for inbound marketers by automating
the process. They could garner better marketing metrics, improve their
sales funnels, and nurture their leads toward sales. It covers most of
inbound marketing services. HubSpot also provides its own inbound
marketing strategies to add momentum, build credibility and reliance. Thus, fulfilling the need of most inbound marketers of attracting, engaging and delighting its customers.