Hubspot

HubSpot

1. You do provide a good discussion of the advantages of inbound marketing. But for a balanced analysis, you should also discuss the disadvantages! The biggest disadvantage is that you can only reach customers who are already in the market for your general product/service with inbound marketing….you cannot interrupt customers and suggest to them that they might have a specific need. Thus, you could have linked this to the buying decision making process, as inbound marketing cannot help with the first step: need recognition. Other disadvantages are the high time and effort costs associated with inbound marketing, which make it difficult for start-ups and small firms – who ironically are also the ones who could theoretically benefit the most from inbound marketing, as it levels the playing field and enables them to compete with larger players. Another approach would have been to discuss the changes in the marketing environment using the PESTEL framework or something similar, as you did pick up on some of these changes at several points throughout your answer. Using these framework gives a structure to your answer and makes it more convincing.

1. The point of this question was to apply your newly acquired knowledge about segmentation. Unfortunately, you do not do that at all. You provide a description of the different segments and develop a number of good arguments with regards to what segments to target. But your answer is basically theory free, and your arguments are not supported by theory. You should have followed the segmentation process, described the possible segments using needs, behaviour, and firmographics, and used the criteria of “good” segments to evaluate the segments and make your targeting choice. So this is an example of an answer that is not factually incorrect, but you didn’t do what the point of the case study is: apply theory to practice.

1. You missed a trick here: positioning is done through adjusting the tactical marketing mix, the 4 Ps to the needs of the segment. Implicitly, you do kind of talk about how a number of Ps would have to change…it would have been better to explicitly apply this framework! It is good, however, that you note that it will be difficult for HubSpot to change to outbound marketing and might hurt their brand. You really carefully think about this issue and provide a number of good suggestions forward. So this is a good answer, just not a complete one, and again, one that lacks application of theory.