The inbound methodology is really important here at HubSpot. I think you could go so far as to say that it’s more or less our “main thing” — like almost everything we push, preach, and practice as a brand hinges upon it.

In the interest of keeping this post focused and practical, I won’t go into a holistic, thorough, “pay attention because I’m going to quiz you on this later” exploration of inbound marketing. I’ll just cover where blogging stands in the process.

Successful inbound marketing starts with attracting prospects — a step where you put out thoughtful content that provides value for your audience — and a blog is one of the better, more traditional vehicles for that.

As you can probably tell, the operative phrase in that last sentence is “provides value for your audience.” That’s why I made it bold and put it in italics, so you know I mean business.

This article is going to cover how The HubSpot Sales Blog team leveraged data to determine what “value for our audience” means, the strides we took to capitalize on that understanding, and the stellar results we saw.

Let’s dive in! Yeah!

“Boy oh boy! This sure sounds like it’s going to be interesting! But before you ‘dive in’ … who are you?”

Good question, make-believe reader who‘s going to ask about all of the things I need to address throughout this post! My name is Jay Fuchs, and I’ve been the editor of and principal content strategist for The HubSpot Sales Blog since July 2021.

Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s get to it.

“It’s so great to meet you, Jay! Your credentials are so impressive! You mentioned that the process was data-driven. Where did that data come from?”

Another great question, reader who exists solely for the purpose of giving this article some kind of rhythm! This process was rooted in hard data. Let me get into how we sourced it.

I’ll start by taking this as an opportunity to shout out the good people at Glimpse. It’s an AI-driven research platform that enabled us to gather the kind of insight we needed. It lets you survey virtually every kind of audience and turns around results in a couple of days. We leaned on it to source our data.

We also really lucked out because “sales professionals” is one of the bases the platform can put you in touch with — so with a resource that allowed us to pull data directly from our target audience at our disposal, we started what would ultimately become our value definition exercise.

“That’s so cool! But what is a ‘value definition exercise’? Is that actually a thing, or did you make that up?”

I’m honestly not sure if value definition exercise was a term I heard professionally, a phrase I made up on the fly, or something that came to me in a dream. Regardless, it was the best way to describe what I wound up doing for The HubSpot Sales Blog.

Here’s a look at how the process progressed:

• We ran a survey to see what other outlets our audience reads, so we could conduct a competitive analysis of similar publications.
• Once we got a sense of who we were really up against, we decided to look into what subject matter and content formats our audience was most receptive to.
• Then, we tied everything together by asking why our audience read sales-related content in the first place. That was the value we defined … in our value definition exercise.

“I see! How neat! What did that all look like?”

As I mentioned, we started by asking which sales-related publications our respondents read regularly. A significant portion of our target audience reads more exploratory journalistic outlets that we don’t directly compete with (like Forbes and Business Insider), so we kind of put those on the back burner.

Instead of digging into their strategies, we took a closer look at the publications that align with what we do on The HubSpot Blog.

I’m not sure whether we can say the names of the outlets we took a particularly close look at, so the big ones shall remain nameless — but the first thing we noticed about our main competitor was how tactical and direct its content was. Its editors also structured virtually all of its content as quantifiable lists of steps or tips.

With that in mind, we ran another survey about the subject matter the audience was most receptive to. The responses looked like a mixed bag at first glance.

When we took a closer look, we noticed that the most popular choices generally revolved around self-driven responsibilities, pursuits, and aspirations — like sales calls, leadership, and sales pitches.

Our next survey built upon those previous points. We wanted to see what content formats were going to resonate most with our audience. We asked, “Which of the following types of articles would you be interested in reading?” Here’s how they responded.

The findings pretty much confirmed that the competitor’s editorial strategy had some legs. The sales audience wanted tactical, direct content that was presented digestibly. That finding prompted the “value definition” question — the one that got to the core of the whole shebang.

We asked, “What kind of value do you look for out of the sales-related material you read?” Here’s how the audience responded.

Ultimately, all of our findings amounted to this conclusion: Sales professionals are primarily interested in straightforwardly packaged, tactical, advice-oriented content that will help support their professional development.

That makes a lot of sense. Sales is a self-driven, mostly technical practice supplemented by finesse and creativity. It involves repeatable processes, strategies, and methodologies that have parameters for how they‘re supposed to be executed. That means there’s less room for more abstract factors like inspiration.

Advancing in the field is, in large part, a matter of how well you can deliver on those repeatable elements — so it checks out that concrete advice on doing exactly that would resonate with this audience.

“Geez Louise! What incredible insight! What did you do with this revelatory wisdom?”

I’ll tell you what we did, absurdly convenient, purely hypothetical reader.

We used the insight we gathered to inform a lot of elements of our broader content strategy, but for the sake of this article, we’ll talk about one of the main ones: the creation of The Pipeline — the most successful non-organic initiative in The HubSpot Sales Blog’s storied, decade-plus-long history.

For readers unfamiliar with the series, The Pipeline is a weekly column (supported by a complementary newsletter) featuring actionable insight from sales leaders. All of the articles are structured as lists of tips or steps, and the topics are tailored to support sales professionals’ professional development.

Here’s a look at a popular post in the series:

A lot of the organic content on The HubSpot Sales Blog is more encyclopedic and tailored to help salespeople familiarize themselves with sales’ underlying fundamentals. The Pipeline’s content is more straightforward and tactical — specifically created to help individual reps get better at selling day-to-day and advance their careers.

And boy howdy, it has done a lot for us.

“Dang! This column is sweet! I can’t wait to read every installment! But what have the results been on your end, Jay?”

In short? The results have been awesome. We’ve sourced quotes or full contributions from over 100 sales leaders as part of the initiative. The column has generated over 250k non-organic views on its own since launching in 2023 — along with hundreds of leads.

“Wowee! Good for you! But what can I do to incorporate all of this insight into my content strategy?”

I’m glad you asked. Here are the main tips, tactics, and takeaways you can pull from this article:

1. Consider using Glimpse. I swear on my future children‘s lives that Glimpse isn’t paying me to plug them this hard in this article. I really feel this way. Look into the service, and see if they have a base that covers your target audience. If they do, consider leveraging the platform to conduct the kind of exercise I covered in this post.
2. Be willing to borrow from the competition. A well-executed competitive analysis is a major asset when crafting a successful content strategy. It can help you distinguish yourself from your peers, but differentiation shouldn‘t be the only endgame when you conduct one. You also need to try to find elements you can emulate. That doesn’t mean you need to flagrantly rip your competitors off — just be willing to give them credit where credit is due, and borrow bits and pieces that can help you refine your unique content strategy.
3. Continue to experiment and iterate as you execute. This might sound obvious, but understanding your audience doesn‘t end with your initial research. It’s an ongoing process. You‘re going to identify more nuances in their preferences as you put more content in front of them. For instance, if your goal is lead generation, you’ll find that certain topics convert better than others. You might also see that your content’s formatting might influence how it registers with your readership. Regardless of what you notice, keep tabs on those kinds of factors and refine your strategy accordingly.
4. Be aware that you probably (definitely) cater to more than one persona. This article speaks to how we tried to appeal to “sales professionals” as a single group, but we’re well aware that the term “sales professionals” is extremely broad. Luckily, Glimpse gave us the option to filter responses by qualities like seniority and industry. We were able to glean more specific insight into the kinds of content salespeople at the executive, management, and associate levels are most receptive to. When you conduct your research, be mindful of the audiences within your audience. Having those kinds of focused reader personas can go a long way in shaping how your content resonates and converts.

“Holy cow! You just blew my mind. Thank you so much for all of your help here. I can’t wait to leverage all of the wonderful tactics you’ve laid out to support my own content strategy! Bless your heart!”

No problem, unreasonably enthusiastic reader who doesn’t exist on this plane of reality. No problem at all.