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Kirsten Knipp

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Director, Product Evangelism, HubSpot

566 points

Experienced B2B product marketer & manager using inbound marketing to help businesses increase leads & sales. Foodie, wino and travel lover ...

Sept. 20, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 3 other people answered this question

How does marketing automation factor in to your inbound marketing strategy?

Marketing automation as most marketers perceive it today is simply the use of technology to prioritize and communicate with prospects and customers in a somewhat more tailored fashion. This can play into an inbound strategy quite nicely, especially if marketers use personalization to create one ... more

Inbound Marketing

Marketing Automation

July 26, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 2 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Expert Best Practices in Content Marketing [7/14 @ 1 pm]

What are the steps in starting a content marketing program?

Using valuable content to attract potential customers to your business is a huge component of inbound marketing - and we think, one of the most cost effective ways to generate new prospects and leads based on today's modern shopping & research behavior.
In order to leverage ... more

General Management

B2B Marketing Week

July 21, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Ardath Albee

What is the first steps in building an online presence for a company that only has a website?

Where does the audience they need to engage spend their time online? People/prospects first - then tools/technology. I'd recommend the following:
1. Target market definition and personas + online listening to determine where they engage online and what they're interested in discussing or learning - or ... more

Blog Best Practices

Internet Marketing

July 17, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 1 other person answered this question

What is your favorite inbound marketing success story?

Inbound Marketing Success - great question.
First, I'd like to define what I think that means ... to me, and HubSpot (the company I work for), that means someone is generating not just traffic, but leads and sales (ie revenue) from their inbound marketing efforts. I'll ... more

Inbound Marketing

July 15, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 9 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Modern B2B Marketing Strategies [7/12 @ 1 pm]

When should a company NOT invest in marketing automation software?

Phenomenal question!
Before I respond, full disclosure, some of the capabilities HubSpot (who I work for) provides could be considered marketing automation (MA).
First: there is at least one scenario when marketing automation is NOT the right tool/tactic to consider. That's when a business isn't generating enough ... more

B2B Marketing Week

Content Marketing

July 13, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 1 other person answered this question

How has your organization utilized research to incorporate thought leadership?

Research is one of the keys to interesting data - and it turns out that interesting data is one of the content types that gets shared most online (email & social media) - expanding your reach and influence (just ask Dan Zarrella - social media ... more

Market Research

Thought Leadership

July 11, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 1 other person answered this question at this roundtable

Expert Best Practices in Content Marketing [7/14 @ 1 pm]

Have any companies been able to show a causal relationship between content marketing and revenue?

Here at HubSpot not only do we generate the bulk of our revenue either directly via or as an 'influenced' result of content for lead generation. Our top sources of organic traffic & leads that close to customers are our blog and we've found that ... more

General Management

B2B Marketing Week

July 10, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 3 other people answered this question

Is the data sheet dead?

The same question can be asked of the 'compeitor matrix' (which I believe should be dead:))
Carmen, Dave and Matt are all correct: different people consume content in different ways. So, though I cringe at the classic data sheet, have I created a few 1-2 page ... more

Content Marketing

July 10, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 9 other people answered this question

Is it possible to have inbound marketing without some kind of marketing outreach?

So many phenomenal answers exist already - that I'll just share a quote (from an avid inbound marketer, Ilya Mirman) that underscores the need for BOTH inbound & outbound marketing.
"If you're trying to do marketing solely using outbound tactics, it's like you are trying to ... more

Inbound Marketing

Outbound Marketing

July 10, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Andrew Rudin

POLL: Blogs are marketers' most valuable content type. Agree or Disagree?

I could answer this question if I had more detail on the mission and the objective of the marketer's company. Blogs are valuable and effective for doing all the things Stephanie mentioned. From a sales perspective, they're valuable for building trust, rapport, credibility, and engagement ... more

Content Marketing

June 9, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Mark Wechsler

Which is more costly for a company: inbound or outbound marketing?

One estimate put the cost of outbound marketing at $332 per lead versus $134 per lead for inbound. The study was commissioned by Hubspot, an inbound marketing firm, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. I do think it's fair to say ... more

Inbound Marketing

June 6, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 7 other people answered this question

What is the best for small business exposure and marketing SEO, SEM, or SMM?

John there are pros & cons to each - but the ideal strategy would be to test out a mix and then adapt it to get the results you want.
SEO - not immediate but has a much longer term effect than SEM ... so investing ... more

June 1, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Jennifer Wing

How does a flash site SEO differently than a site that uses simple linked navigation?

Hi Emma,
Hoping you didn't build a site using flash animation? Search engines don't read flash. As such when you build a site using flash what often happens is the text or HTML that is readable to search engines never gets found for various reasons. Several ... more

Online Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

May 23, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 9 other people answered this question

How long should your registration forms be? How many fields should you make people fill out?

All of the above make relevant points - the only other to add is: TESTING.
If you think your offer will convert better with a short form - do some A/B testing until you find the optimal balance of high conversion with an amount of data ... more

Content Marketing

May 16, 2011

Kirsten Knipp is now following Sam Wee and 2 other people

May 16, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 7 other people answered this question

Facebook "likes" vs Tweets: which is more profitable for business?

Echoing a few of Lewis's comments & adding some more depth on how to measure:
-We use social media quite a bit at HubSpot ... and we have seen it generate leads and customers, though it isn't our 'TOP' channel ... it is actually meaningful.
-We can ... more

May 16, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Gloria Rand

Should a small business blog or just set up a Facebook page?

I also agree with others here that ideally, you should have both. (Although, if your target audience isn't on Facebook, then the blog will be good enough).
Just make sure you post to your blog first, and then to Facebook. I just read an excellent ... more

May 11, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 2 other people answered this question

How can we leverage Webinar programs as a tool to improve sales?

Candyce asks a good question - and to her point the type of content you provide will differ depending on your goal.
Another thing to think about is ... what do you do with that content once you are executing on a webinar program?
Don't 'just' do ... more

May 11, 2011

Kirsten Knipp recommends this answer by Candyce Edelen

When blogging, what's more important to you: tweets or comments?

I agree with all of these responses. Comments are great, but without readers, you'll never get comments, and RTs can help build readership. more

Content Marketing

Online Marketing

May 11, 2011

Kirsten Knipp and 14 other people answered this question

For SEO what is more Important ...title of a web page or meta tags?

Concur with the above.
Page title is more important than meta tags, in fact, meta tags hold very little value in most search engines anymore.
What most folks don't know is that many search engines rely only 25% on on-page factors for SEO (think title, URL, H1/H2, ... more

Online Marketing

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