HubSpot and Volvo

Last week we were treated to a talk by the CEO of Hubspot, Brian Halligan, who was a fantastic speaker. The one big takeaway from Brian's talk was to spend less of your marketing budget on google adwords/facebook display, and more budget on content that drives traffic to your site. While I thought his approach made sense, the only question I thought he didn't answer well was what to do if you are a new startup trying to get initial traction. Looking back through Techcrunch, their first big media pieces were often about Marketing Grader - the fantastic free software tool they developed that evaluates any sites SEO. Not every new company has the ability, resources or knowledge to create a tool like this (or any of the runaway successes such as DollarShaveClubs video). Brian's response was that in the early days he used to write blog posts and send it to friends of his. This seems like a reasonable approach for B2B businesses, but for anyone starting a consumer business, I would be interested in his advice. I would assume that he would admit that some adwords / facebook / display is always necessary, so I would have loved to have thought whether he had any measures or advice on what percentage of spend should go to these outbound marketing methods as he company progresses from startup to an established brand. For anyone not aware of what Hubspot can do - I would highly recomend it - the tools look fantastic and I will hopefully be trying them out in the near future.

Additionally, on the same night I say Brian speak, an awesome (and epic) advertisement that took Brian's suggested approach was released by volvo - see the Muscles from Brussels generate a load of advertising for volvo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10