← Marketing Against The Grain
Marketing Against The Grain
Marketing is Broken - This is the Future of Conversions (Loop Framework)
00:26:34
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, if you're a business owner, if you're a marketer, you know that things have gotten really hard over the last year to two years. Marketing feels tougher than ever before. Well, today we are here to save the day. We are rolling out a brand new marketing playbook at HubSpot that we're going to break down for you on today's show. It's going to give you tactical frameworks and tactics to go and succeed in marketing in the AI world. I can't wait to get started and share it with you. All right, let's get into today's show.
- [00:31]
B
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A
Hey, everyone. On this episode of Marketing against the Grain, we have a very, and I mean very special episode because we are dropping a brand new marketing playbook for the AI world. I'm joined by the one and only asia Frost from HubSpot. Welcome to the show, Asia.
- [01:42]
C
Thanks, Kit. Excited to be here.
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A
And we are going to talk to you about something that I think Asia people talk to us about every day. And that subject is basically like, AI broke my marketing.
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C
Yeah.
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A
It's like things were going really well and then over the last year, things started going less well and less well and less well. And a lot of things have broken for the average marketer out there, which kind of precipitates the need to do marketing in a different way. But before we talk about that new wave, I want to break down to make sure we're all on the same page. It's like what is actually broken in marketing. So, Asia, I want to kick off with you to help us break down what are the parts of marketing that have actually just been broken by AI?
- [02:24]
C
Yeah, I think first, there is way less traffic going to websites than ever before. A stat that we've been talking about internally a lot is that 60% of Google searches now end without a click, which if you just take a second to reflect on, is actually Pretty bonkers. That means six in 10 people who make a search are stopping on Google as an all time high. And so a lot less traffic is going to what websites? We also see that a lot more people are going to places like ChatGPT and Claude to really begin their evaluation journey for products. So you have fewer people going to websites from Google, you have fewer people going to Google. And then I think on top of that, you have a bunch of people who are now spending a lot more time on places like Reddit and Quora and LinkedIn. They're starting their journey with AI and then they're turning to other people. And so the net is that if you're just relying on educational content to bring people to your website so they find out about your product, you're probably in a lot of pain right now.
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A
Asia, you're obviously a deep expert in traditional search. And now I think one of the best experts at AEO and AI search and the shifts search is the most pronounced one. Right. That's the one that people are really feeling that's broken. And the reason for that is the AI adoption. But it's also just that like answers are abundant now. We've moved to a world where answers are everywhere. And it used to be that you could provide an answer and bring traffic in from providing that answer. That's getting less and less true every day as AI just makes it very easy for people to get not just answers, but real personalized answers to them or to their business. Right. And that's a big part of what's happened here. There's a few other things that I think are happening and have happened with less people using traditional search. All of the business models around traditional search are starting to break, which means that people, one, they need to spend more on advertising to get the kind of same traffic to their website. And that advertising is getting more expensive because one, there's more competition, but also there's less eyeballs going onto those pages and more eyeballs into chatgpt and Perplexity and Claude, where there's not an ad sponsored experience yet, Right?
- [04:51]
C
Yep. You have the numerator and the denominator changing at the same time. Which if you're a marketer, is a. It's, it's a scary phenomenon.
- [05:00]
A
It's a terrifying phenomenon. And most of the marketers I'm talking to, they're spinning on advertising. At break Even, they're losing 10 to 20, 30, 40% of their website traffic largely to these search disruptions. But some of it's coming from, oh, well, now I'm just sending way more email. And so people are engaging with my email less, so my email referral traffic's less. You know, it's like all of these kind of cascading factors that are just, like, compounding on top of each other, right?
- [05:30]
C
Yeah, I think that that's exactly right, Kip. And it's what we've seen at HubSpot. There are fewer people coming to the website, but a, those people are higher intent, they're more qualified, they're more educated. And because of what we're able to accomplish with AI, we can personalize and tailor their experience on our site to a degree that has never been possible before. We have been able to do some really, really cool stuff with conversion, rate optimization and tailored content.
- [06:02]
A
And so if those are the problem statements, but we're seeing some glints of opportunity. Hey, there's this new AEO search thing. There's this ability to use AI to really do really amazing personalization. Then what I would posit to everybody watching the show today is that there is a path forward. There is a new hope for marketers who want to transform and want to evolve. And, you know, at HubSpot, we pioneered this notion of inbound marketing almost 20 years ago now. And inbound marketing was this very kind of linear process that involved really creating content, attracting people through search, and then using even richer content to convert those people into leads for your business. At its most basic level, that's what it was about. Now, I would posit to you that it's very important to still do those things, but. But it's no longer sufficient. It's no longer enough to do just the classic inbound marketing, and that the Internet and the world we live in is far more dynamic. It's not this linear path. It's very circuitous, and there's lots and ins and outs and loops and circles of how people behave online. And so Asia, what we want to do today is kind of set people up for a new way to think about growing through their marketing. And we. We think this new way, which we're going to talk to you about, has a few core benefits. And I'd love it if you could break down, like, if you're adopting the model that we're showing or any new marketing model, what are the core benefits that the average marketer or marketing leader should be out there looking to get?
- [07:37]
C
Yeah, and before I do that, Kip, I think you said something really important, which is there are these glints of hope. We talked about this on the last episode I was on. But we both feel that this is the most exciting and opportunity filled era of marketing that we have had in a long time. And that is because change breeds opportunity. So if you heard Armageddon and you're like WTF is happening? Just know that this is where it gets good. Like this is the montage in the movie where interesting, cool stuff starts happening.
- [08:08]
A
Asia. I will say though, you and I have already been through the trough of despair.
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C
Yes.
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A
Like we've been through the dark place and we're out the other side to optimism. I understand if people are watching this, are still down in the dark place that haven't fully gotten out with us yet.
- [08:22]
C
Yeah, we are speaking to you from the other side. We have clasped hands and made it through the trough of sorrow. And rest assured, there is a green meadow beckoning from the other side. So yeah, so let's talk about some of those things. I mean, faster go to market. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone listening to this. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone listening to this. If you're not using AI to accelerate how quickly you, you bring assets, campaigns, ideas, live, that is where you should be starting new marketing methodology or not to the point that we are just making conversion rates. We are seeing huge, huge improvements here.
- [08:59]
A
Hundreds of percents improvements in conversion.
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C
Right. And we've been investing in a lot of these programs, our email, our webpage content for decades, literally since we had a website. So to see that level of conversion rate improvements at this stage of the game is. It's absolutely bananas. We are also seeing obviously as we are getting content to market faster and bringing campaigns to market faster, that, yes, that is reducing costs. In addition, as we diversify through channels, we are able to bring those costs down because obviously if you're super reliant on one or two channels, you're going to be spending in less efficient territory. The more you diversify, the more you'll be able to reduce spend across those channels. And then last, this is this kind of like abstract idea, but this idea of continuous optimization that the more you do, the smarter the system becomes. I think that this is an area where AI really shines and it's very much something that we've been able to see. Like those conversion rates, those actually compound. Yes, because the more we do experimentation, the better all of our systems become. So that was like a speedrun through some of the main benefits. But Kip, what are you most excited about?
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A
Well, first of all, I think you were really right to call out that we were entering a period of extreme optimism for marketing. It just doesn't feel like it yet. One of the things I've learned in life is you don't get to the good fun optimism side of things without some pain first. And we're in that pain period of time for sure.
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D
Look, we are living in a prime time where marketing is fundamentally changing. The funnel has completely flipped on its head. L and M Traffic is converting 4.4 times better than traditional search traffic. We had a customer ask us, how are we supposed to market when AI is consuming all of our traffic? Now here's the answer. We're introducing a new way to market where growth happens in continuous loops, not linear funnels. We just dropped a prompt library from our new way of marketing. We call it loop marketing. That's loop marketing. We're including over 100 AI prompts designed to help you discover growth opportunities using each state of the loop marketing method. This isn't just another collection of prompts. It will guide you into the new era of marketing. Get it right now. Click the link in the description. Now let's get back to the show.
- [11:33]
A
Here's what I'm excited about. Great marketing has always and will always be. Do I have a compelling story that I can share and tell through a method or channel that's not super crowded and saturated? And can I do that over and over and over again to get better and better at it, to compound how good the results I get are? And what's great with loop marketing, which is the new playbook that we are rolling out today, is it makes it easier than ever before to do those things. Right. And it helps you take advantage and compound faster. Like, I remember Asia, when inbound marketing started, one of the things I tell people is like, hey, you gotta trust us. You gotta do this for like six months and then you'll start getting a lot of great results.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Now, in the loop marketing era, you can do things and get results in minutes, hours, days, not weeks and months. Right. And that is a massive point of optimism for me.
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C
That is such a good call out. Yeah. That used to be a real hurdle. You'd have to say, trust me for six months. That's a really long time to trust someone.
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A
Exactly. So there's less of, like, going out on a limb and trust, and it's more about, can I get clarity of what I'm doing. One of the reasons Asia, we wanted to roll out loop marketing today, and we were doing that at HubSpot's. Inbound event that is happening today in San Francisco is that it is a transformational opportunity and that every marketer I talk to Asia is the same thing. My CEO wants me to do AI marketing. I don't know what stuff to do and what tools to do it with. And we want to solve that problem, and we want to help the world solve that problem so we can all be in a better place. And so, Asia, I've got up here on the screen for Everybody watching on YouTube, our loop. And this is like our very simple playbook framework for how you actually do marketing in this post AI world. You can go to loopmarketing.com and get a very detailed version. Asia and I are also going to record an incredibly tactical version of the loop live at Inbound that we'll be publishing on the channel next week. So that's going to go into each of these stages in real detail. But today we wanted to define the problem and really give you kind of the baseline framework so that you can start to think about it, start to absorb it. So, Asia, maybe you can walk through the core stages of the Loop with everybody and give folks that are watching kind of a practical example of what they would do at each one of these stages of the framework.
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C
Yeah, that sounds great. So there are four phases of the loop. Express, Tailor, amplify, and evolve. I've spent a lot of time thinking about which phase is my favorite, and it might be Express.
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A
Ooh, that's a hot take.
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C
I know, I know. Very provocative.
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A
Very hot take.
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C
I want to hear yours, Kip. But Express is where you bring your brand identity and voice and taste to life. Now, we talk a lot about how taste is the great differentiator in the age of AI, because that's what makes your brand feel authentic and resonant. And so this is where you really express that taste before you start to add AI to the picture and start to really amplify and optimize. And so a tactical thing that you might do in this phase is put together a stage style guide for your brand. Or, you know, if I'm thinking about Kieran's personal brand, I know he's built a ChatGPT project that is very trained on how he talks, what he believes, and that helps him develop LinkedIn content and substack content up the wazoo. So that's an example from Express. Anything you'd add there, Kip?
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A
I think what's magic about Express, to me, it's not just your brand, it's also the flip side of it. It's like your customers and what they want to hear. And you know, at HubSpot we have our ChatGPT and Claude connectors and you just connect your HubSpot and ask it a bunch of questions about like, hey, I've got this idea. What would my customers think about it? How would I need to word it, frame it, design it for it to resonate with them? And the fact that you can do that without like a big expensive focus group and you can do that in minutes is literally transformational to where we were like just even like two years ago.
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C
Yeah, that's such a good call out. I just used our connector yesterday, the ChatGPT connector.
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A
So good. Wow.
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C
Is it so good?
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A
So good.
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C
Okay, that brings us to Taylor, which I think builds on what you were just talking about, kip. And we're going to keep coming back to, I think this idea of compounding, like every phase is building on the subsequent phases. And so in the tailor phase, you are really personalizing that content and those assets for your audience. And with the power of AI, you can make this content feel one to one at scale. So when we're talking about those bonkers conversion rate increases that's coming from using AI powered personalization to make an email feel like it could have been written for no one but Kit Bodnar, CMO at HubSpot, lover of Napa Wine country.
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A
Exactly. But that's the magic of the world we live in. The thing I always am telling people about kind of personalization and tailoring what we can do now makes the old email personalizations token seem archaic, first of all. And second of all, AI is bad at a lot of things. One of the things it's great at is, is being good at taking educated guesses at problems that don't require a super, super precise answer. Right. One of the best things that fits that bill is like email or text communication.
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C
Yeah.
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A
It's like, hey, I have this thing that I want this person to know about and I just want it to be kind of packaged in a way that they're going to like more so than these other hundred people. And AI, it turns out, is just really remarkable at doing that.
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C
Yeah. And writing those lines that are kind of cheesy, that take a little nugget of information about someone and make it feel kind of special and funny. A great AI use case.
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A
So, yeah, I would just say on Taylor Asia, we have seen, like we said earlier, 100%, 200%, 3, 400% email engagement, landing page conversion rates like, just really great results with using AI. We actually just rolled out a really amazing email personalization product in HubSpot to do a lot of this tailoring stuff. It's going to be awesome.
- [18:20]
C
Yeah. And one of the questions that we've been getting is, well, how do you know the loop works? And we know the loop works because we've been practicing it internally at HubSpot. So after seeing these great results, we obviously have been sharing those learnings with our product team and that has led to the development of this dynamic AI email tool. And that is, I think, the loop in motion.
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A
Totally. We've been grinding on this for a while. It's. This has been a couple of years in the making and really deep sprint the last six months to really codify and package everything together in a way that can be really easily understood and applied to any business.
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C
Yeah.
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A
That being said, Asia, you asked a few minutes ago what my favorite stage is. I'm an Amplify guy. I love getting a message out. I love nothing more than getting a message out. And Amplify is all about taking your really quickly and well created and then personalized content and getting it out to the world. Obviously the biggest disruption in Amplify is what we talked about early on in the show, the complete change of search and the rise of artificial intelligence engine optimization. But there's a whole host influencers events, social media, Reddit, Quora. There's a whole transformation of channels and distribution that is happening in Amplify that is super exciting for marketers.
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C
Oh my God. So exciting. I also, I could have pegged you as an amplified guy, obviously. But the silver lining of this fragmentation that we started the episode discussing is that there are so many more places for your brand to play. And I think one idea that everyone can try is, is asking our ChatGPT or Cloud Connector, hey, where are some places that my buyers are likely hanging out that I'm not already invested in?
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A
Yes.
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C
Are there some really niche discord servers that you can be on that no other brand is on? Are there subreddits where you can have a voice where no other brands are having a voice? Like, there are so many new ways and places to get your brand message out that didn't really exist in the past.
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A
My hot take Asia is that the Amplify stage is where the real ones are. If you're a real marketer, you're creative and you really have that marketing brain. Amplify is the hardest, but it's the people who do it well are going to be 10x more successful than everybody else. It's super, super interesting.
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C
I think you just complimented yourself.
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A
Did I? Well, no, I said I liked it. I didn't say I was good at it. I'm saying I'm trying to get good at the thing that I think is the most important. But I'll take a self compliment too.
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C
Comment below. If you're an amplified person too. Kip thinks you're a real one.
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A
You're a real one. You're a real one like me. I'm just trying to be a real one. Eventually, hopefully one day we'll get there. We're going to get there.
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C
And that brings us to evolve. Yeah, evolve is all about taking your learnings and feeding them back into the system. So making sure that at every stage, with every tactics, you're not taking those steps, static learnings and not doing anything with them, you are making sure that every part of your system gets smarter.
- [21:28]
A
Yeah, I mean if you think about it, Asia, you and I for many years have been doing marketing for a long time. How many like campaign retrospectives, campaign like readouts? You know, I ran this six week campaign and now I'm doing like a month later. I'm giving everybody the summary of it. Right. That's what we're saying is gone. Like that's the old way. When we say evolve, what we mean is like AI enables us to get insights in near real time from the data using natural language to basically like again, ChatGPT integration, our Breeze assistant. There's tons of different ways to do it, but to query, ask questions in real time so that one, I can make improvements as my campaign is live, so I can get better compounding results in the moment and so that I can, as soon as it's done, get all those insights instantly instead of taking, you know, days, weeks, months to really collect and get all the information. And that allows you to start a new loop, go to the next thing, go to the next asset, the next campaign, much faster with better insights so that you're going to compound and get even better results the next time you go to express a new campaign or idea.
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C
Yeah. If you're having a retro two weeks, let alone two months after something has.
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A
Concluded, you're not looping, you're done now you're done. In the new world, it's just not going to work.
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C
You're done.
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A
Things move at AI speed now and that's much faster than the old world.
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C
Things move at AI speed, things move in loops, not lines.
- [22:58]
A
I think that is completely True. This is our framework. We spent a lot of time working on it. We're really excited to share it with you. Like I said, we're going to be back next week with a deep, deep dive into tactical plays for each of these. If you want a preview of some of what we're going to cover, as well as some prompts you can go use, go check out loopmarketing.com we've got a really awesome page set up that breaks down how to do this, but hopefully the context we provided you on today's show will be helpful in kind of learning and getting started here. And drop your questions, drop your comments in the YouTube comments below. We'd love to hear what you think. What are you confused about? What are you excited to get going? We'd love to hear from you, Asia. Anything else that you want the viewers to take away from the loop before we jump?
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C
I think that this is the playbook that takes us into the next era and I think we're both pretty frickin excited about it.
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A
Yeah, I think this is how really good marketing, especially digital marketing, is going to get done over the next decade and we couldn't be more excited. And if you are watching this, you are on the very front end of the opportunity opportunity. And if you simply just take action and build and do marketing in this new way, you are going to be far more successful than most other marketers out there. And that's what you should take away. There's a massive opportunity. We're gonna be back with tons of loop marketing content and guides and shows over the next few months. But thank you Asia for stepping in and joining me today and thanks everybody. We'll see you real soon. On Marketing it's the greatest.
- [24:47]
B
The old playbook is slowing you down. AI broke the funnel. Loop marketing fixes it. It's a new era for marketers. AI is capturing search traffic, channels are fragmented and generating leads feels less predictable than ever before. HubSpot's loop marketing playbook will guide you through this unprecedented disruption. It's the system your marketing team should use to move faster, connect deeper and grow smarter. The modern Growth playbook for the AI era built by HubSpot, designed for today's marketer. Get the Loop marketing playbook@HubSpot.com loop marketing to find out more and leave your competition behind.