Since the HubSpot Service Marketplace launched a year ago last August 2009, 332 businesses—most of which are HubSpot customers—have purchased inbound marketing services there. Nearly half of these businesses purchased more than one service, and 79% of buyers indicated high satisfaction with their purchases.
For a company whose mission is to empower anyone to do marketing themselves, what is HubSpot’s interest in offering a forum for outsourced services? Many business owners and marketers are simply pressed for time or want expert help to get started. Recognizing customers’ need for additional resources to quickly implement inbound marketing, HubSpot adds value by make the process of hiring marketing services easier and more transparent.
Recently interviewed Service Marketplace buyers indicated three reasons for buying services.
1. Quick and Easy to Find a Service Provider
Most buyers turned to the Service Marketplace because they lacked time or a specific skill. They expected that, by outsourcing to experts, they'd save time. But if the process of searching for and selecting a provider were extremely time-consuming, that would defeat the purpose. The Marketplace providers have already undergone many hours of inbound marketing training and are HubSpot certified, which implies that they understand challenges a business might face in adopting inbound marketing. In addition, all directories include evaluation metrics, such as the number of buyers a provider is working with, the average Customer Happiness Index (CHI) of those buyers that reflects the quality of a provider’s services, and performance metrics specific to a service. All buyers interviewed indicated that the process of finding a qualified provider was relatively quick, since all pieces of evaluation information are aggregated onto one page.
2. Reliable, On-Time Service and Division of Labor
Besides the ease of provider selection, buyers also gave positive feedback on the timeliness of service deliveries. Buyers remarked that providers often kept them updated and involved in the process and completed requested services ahead of schedule. This allowed business owners and marketers to focus on other aspects of their business or reduced their workload for inbound marketing when they didn’t have in-house resources. To quote Mari McCarthy of Create Write Now, “My Partner helps me with all the HubSpot inbound marketing activities (currently link building, blogging and social media networking) that will guarantee my online business success. The biggest benefit of working with Shari is the time she gives me to grow my business.”
3. High-Quality Service and Positive Results
Buyers were also happy with the quality of the services and ability to track results from their HubSpot accounts. Quality here refers to two characteristics: meeting expectations and yielding website traffic or lead conversion. MimosaPLANET, a buyer of Call-to-Action Design service, was happy with the look of the call-to-action button on his website. It met all of his expectations: eye-catching, simple and professional. Yet the design also met the second category of “quality”: it resulted in an increase in the number of downloads on the landing page that the button linked to, and it helped accomplish the business’ inbound marketing goals.
Debbie Page from The New Born Baby uses the Do-Inbound-Marketing-For-Me service and describes, “I am basically a one-person company, so I have been managing all aspects of the website myself… I have been thrilled with the personal attention and expertise [of my Partner] that has produced traffic and leads that I am able to view right in my HubSpot account.”
If interested, read more testimonials from HubSpot Service Marketplace buyers. If you find yourself short of time or skills needed to implement your inbound marketing campaigns, outsourcing might be a good way to get started. We hope the Service Marketplace serves as a resource hub that aids you in finding a responsible, skillful and dedicated service provider.
Image: Design Studio DataArt
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Originally published Aug 16, 2010 9:10:00 AM, updated January 17 2023