Our team makes the pilgrimage to INBOUND every year. Normally it’s Boston. This year? San Francisco. Cue the avocado toast jokes. But the bigger shift wasn’t the city - it was the marketing reality/tempurature check we all got.
Spoiler: things are shifting faster than a marketer trying to explain “brand voice” to ChatGPT.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: HubSpot’s Loop marketing framework. This was the headliner of the entire conference, plastered across keynotes and sessions. The gist was:
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Express who you are - Define your tone and POV.
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Tailor your approach - Use AI to personalize.
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Amplify your reach - Repurpose across channels.
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Evolve in real-time - Test and iterate faster.
Sounds nice, right? The problem: there’s absolutely nothing new here. This isn’t a revolution - it’s just old fundamentals in fresh packaging. Write good copy. Know your audience. Use the tools at your disposal. Iterate. That’s not a breakthrough, that’s Marketing 101. "Loop" felt less like a framework and more like a branding exercise for stuff we’ve all been doing for years.
So instead of guzzling the Loop Kool-Aid, here’s what we actually found useful at INBOUND25. No jargon. No fluff.
Just survival tactics based on our notes.
1. SEO - AEO (Why You Can’t Just Keyword-Stuff Anymore)
Search isn’t about being found. It’s about being answered.
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Google’s slice of search is shrinking.
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AI-driven “answers” are growing like weeds.
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If you’re not showing up in AI overviews? You don’t exist.
Bottom line: Long-tail, question-driven content wins. Authority isn’t optional - it’s survival. SEO isn’t dead; it’s just mid-rebrand.
2. People Don’t Read (Ouch). They Watch.
The data:
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154 minutes/day on video
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16 minutes/day on articles
Unless your blog binge-reads like a Netflix show, you need more video.
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Long-form YouTube = trust builder
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Shorts/Reels = discovery engine
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TikTok = yes, even B2B buyers scroll (they just won’t admit it at happy hour)
3. Email: The Cockroach of Marketing
Email Still Prints Money
Here’s the stat that shut the room up: email is 11x more effective at driving both traffic and revenue than any other channel.
Read that again. Not social. Not paid ads. Not the shiny new platform your CMO asked about last week. Email.
Why?
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It’s personal - lands directly in someone’s inbox, not lost in a feed.
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It’s scalable - one click, thousands reached.
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It’s measurable - opens, clicks, conversions, all right there.
Sure, the inbox is noisy. But done right, email isn’t noise - it’s the one channel people still check religiously. They’ve been calling email “dead” for 20 years. Meanwhile, it’s still 11x more effective than social.
What works:
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Milestones (“Congrats, you hit 100 logins - here’s your bonus.”)
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Urgency (“Unlock your next level now.”)
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Fear (light): (“Don’t get left behind while AI eats your job.”)
Forget clever. Think trust, timing, and relevance.
Takeaway: If email isn’t your #1 revenue-driving channel, you’re leaving money on the table.
4. Fear Works. Just Don’t Be Creepy.
People act when they feel something: FOMO, irrelevance, becoming that marketer still doing banner ads in 2025.
But don’t go full doomsday. “Repent, the AI overlords are coming” is not a campaign.
5. Pick 4-5 Channels. Ignore the Rest.
Neil Patel’s mic-drop: stop trying to be everywhere.
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Max ROI = 4-5 focused channels.
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Experiment with emerging ones (Pinterest, Snap).
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Don’t spread your team thinner than a budget airline blanket.
Go where your users actually hang out - not where your CMO saw a case study.
TL;DR for Busy Marketers
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Content/SEO: Answer questions (focus on humans rather than algorithms. Build authority.
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Email: Segment + personalize.
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Video/Social: YouTube + micro-influencers.
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Paid/Creative: Mobile-first. Test with AI.
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Partnerships: Niche beats massive.
Final Thought
INBOUND25 wasn’t just another conference. It was a wake-up call.
The channels have changed (way too fast). The rules have changed. And the audience? They’ve already moved on.
Our job isn’t chasing shiny acronyms like "Loop". It’s doubling down on authority, staying human, and adapting faster than the algorithm.
Because if we don’t? At least we’ll have more time to write those long blogs nobody reads 😉