How to Optimize Your Content, Contacts, & Analytics


October 24, 2013

Inbound marketing provider HubSpot recently announced their Content Optimization System, the next generation of their web platform, with updates to how brands can interact with content, contacts, and analytics. As three key components of every marketing strategy, we knew we had to dive in to learn more. 

We interviewed Laura Fitton, Hubspot Inbound Marketing Evangelist, about this new product and what it means for marketers.

This is exciting news for HubSpot! Now of course, we have to ask: What is a Content Optimization System?

HubSpot’s Content Optimization System is the first integrated website, blog, and landing page system to offer personalized content to each visitor, responsive design, and optimization for the latest updates to SEO.

What does that mean for visitors to your website? Based on the information you have gathered about your leads and customers, the website will display content that focuses on them. This is called smart content which gives marketers the ability to create personalized content for their audience. For example, you can show different homepage content to people from different industries, and you don’t have to ask people to repeat themselves on forms. If they’ve ever completed a form field before, you can automatically have that field pulled from the form the next time they visit.

For marketers — what changes will they notice right away by using your COS?

It can be extremely challenging for marketers to edit the content on their website, especially if they’re stuck working through IT. The COS removes that challenge and gives the control back to the marketer with an easy-to-use interface, editable templates, and step-by-step instructions to help you get set up. You can make tremendous visual changes without having to understand HTML and CSS. And if you are very technical? The COS still offers flexibility for designers and others who want to dig into the code.

hubspot

Was there research or specific customer experiences that lead to this new and updated service?

When we started building the COS we did some research around what people look for in the websites they visit and found that for 79% of respondents, the top priority was a website that “makes it easy for me to find what I want.” The problem with most websites today is they treat everyone the same. They don’t adapt to elevate the most relevant content for each visitor the way large sites like Netflix and Amazon do. With the COS, companies of any size can do this.

We also knew that if we had the opportunity to rebuild the modern website software, we needed to do it in a way that reflects how search engine optimization has changed. In June 2012 Google announced that new algorithm changes would prioritize mobile optimized sites of their unoptimized counterparts. So we built the COS using responsive design (an approach recommended by Google) to automatically adapt content to fit whatever device is viewing it. Knowing that search is increasingly influenced by social, we also heavily integrated social media throughout the system, including author tags in our blogging tool and the ability to toggle on and off social sharing buttons throughout.

Smart marketers invest heavily in creating great content. It was long past time to help them advance beyond “content management” (CMS) and into full on content optimization, in order to make full use of those investments.

How does the COS continue to work toward inbound leads?

To this point, inbound marketing has helped companies attract prospective customers with relevant, search-friendly content. But what happens when that prospect hits your site? All too often, that’s where the customer-driven, relevant experience ends. The COS helps companies continue that personalized experience throughout the purchase process.

With the COS the entire online experience evolves and adapts with the customer reflecting the changing devices they use, the channels they frequent and the stages of their full customer lifecycle.

For more information from Laura, join us today from 2:30–3:15 when she takes the stage at Social Brand Forum 2013 for “Social, Context and Delightion: How Inbound Companies Solve for the Customer.”

Photo via Flickr user betsyweber
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is a strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World and Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. He is the Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, an educator at the University of Iowa, and host of the On Brand podcast. More about Nick.