There doesn’t seem to be an obvious connection. What has space travel got to do with marketing a product? And yet, every marketing manager who has launched a product or even been involved with one knows exactly what this means.
The first thing a spacecraft has to clear is the earth’s atmosphere. It’s called escape velocity. It requires the rocket to fight against the forces of gravity and rise at a speed that allows it to go beyond the atmosphere. It’s not a trivial requirement.
Here are the statistics from a NASA document: The two Solid Rocket Boosters generate a combined thrust of 5.3 million pounds, equivalent to 44 million horsepower or 14,700 six-axle diesel locomotives or 400,000 sub-compact cars.
At lift off, the two Solid Rocket Boosters consume 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. That’s two million times the rate at which fuel is burned by the average family car.
It seems far beyond human capabilities. And yet, rocket launches have become commonplace. It defines how we track weather, communicate and travel across continents.
What has this got to do with marketing?
Everything. Getting consumer interest and attention is like breaking through the atmosphere. The effort involved is equivalent to building rocket thrust. You would think that Coca Cola, Nike, Facebook and Amazon are so well-known they don’t need to spend money on marketing at all. But they all have billion dollar budgets allocated every year. For one simple reason. Out of sight is out of mind.
No brand, big or small can afford to sit back and hope that customers will gravitate towards their products. It requires months, sometimes years of effort before there is some level of recognition – and that hard-won recognition must not be squandered. Brands live on the fringes of customer’s lives and they must do everything they can to continue to be a part of it.
That’s where HubSpot CMS comes into the picture. It’s the perfect vehicle to build brand velocity. It’s not enough to have great strategy. The message has to reach the maximum number of intended customers. And that’s where HubSpot helps to drive reach and aggregate your resources.
Instead of trying to reach large numbers of customers at one time, focus on those most likely to convert. They have to be reached consistently so they register the brand message and are favorably inclined. The only way to do this is by maintaining consistency.
Content is your brand’s rocket fuel
Brands don’t start out with big budgets – so smart thinking and identifying what customers value becomes the most important decision. It’s why content marketing has become so crucial to the continued success of brands. Think of content as rocket fuel. The more you produce, the better the thrust.
It’s what helps brands cut through the clutter in people’s minds. But that’s merely Stage 1. Stage 2 is to get them to consider the brand and tune in to the messaging. And Stage 3 is where they buy into the brand’s benefits and advance towards purchase.
Throughout this journey, they can drop off if they aren’t attended to at the right time and cultivated. So whether it’s going to be a series on emailers, or posts on social media, it’s like drip irrigation through as many digital channels as possible. Something that HubSpot CMS helps you manage and track with great ease.
You’ve seen shots of the rocket launch where there’s flame bursting from all the rocket’s engines. And yet, there is no movement at all. When it does lift, it seems slow, almost as if there is no movement with all the action. When it rises, the cameras are able to track it up to a point. Then, as it gathers momentum it takes on a life of its own.
Building the content engine
No matter which digital platform or social medium works best for your brand, what keeps it going is a steady stream of content. There is an experimental phase, the one that helps identify which of them work for you. As well as the content that gets consistent results. There are websites where a few articles and posts generate steady streams of traffic and revenue for years on end.
HubSpot helps by putting together the tools you require for marketing and content creation. If newsletters and emails work best, all content creation can be built around these primary activities. It follows a defined, logical arc.
Begin by identifying who your customers are. Create for them. Content works on simple principles. There are pockets of interest around every product and category. That should be the focus of creation. As the content created increases, the number of visitors rises – gradually at first and then in much larger numbers.
Keeping track of visitors, engaging with them over time and using marketing automation intelligently helps you build the content engine. One engine does not work for all brands. It’s uniquely built for that brand’s customers and their interests. But once the engine is built, it’s a revenue generator that keeps going.
If you’d like to understand how HubSpot CMS can be the launch vehicle for your brands, get in touch. Our consultants will be happy to take you through the success stories that thousands of brands have become the world over.
