Today, HubSpot raised a $35 million mezzanine round of financing, giving us more capital to invest in our product and team, to bring more value to our customers, and to continue to help transform the world’s marketing to become more inbound and, therefore, more lovable. When we closed our second round of financing over four years ago, I published a humorous list of 10 ways we wouldn’t be spending the money. So what better time to revisit some crazy ideas of how to waste marketing budget than now?
How HubSpot Will NOT Spend the $35 Million We Just Raised
1) Buy 30,000 hours of TV infomercials, send 50 million pieces of direct mail, or make 140 million cold calls.
We could give up on making marketing that people love and just get in your face -- and with $35 million, we could get in your face big time! This would ensure every business has heard of HubSpot. Unless of course they fast forwarded through our ads and ignored our calls. Plus those who did get interrupted by our advertising probably wouldn't have a great opinion of us. Hmmm ... maybe move on to some other ideas?
2) Purchase an island and rename it “Inbound Island."
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle recently purchased the island of Lanai in Hawaii for about $500 million. We can’t afford that, but we could purchase a smaller island easily (my research is showing quite a few options in the $10-$35 million range), rename it “Inbound Island,” and elicit a series of updates to Wikipedia, Google Maps, and other services that would spread the concept of inbound marketing to even more people. Another benefit? We'd have a built in venue to host our INBOUND conference for years to come.
3) Wrap 20,000 cars in the HubSpot logo.
You can wrap a car in your company colors and logo for about $1,800 (check out car wrap pricing from this HubSpot customer), and with this new infusion of cash, we could do that to 20,000 cars -- more than enough to fill all the spots at your local sports stadium.
4) Send every HubSpot employee to outer space.
On the new Spaceship X, you can buy a ticket for a short flight into space and experience weightlessness. With $35 million (and the hope of nailing a big discount for buying in bulk), we could send everyone on that trip as an employee incentive, helping us recruit to fill all the open jobs we have.
5) Buy 35 billion Twitter followers.
Never mind that there aren't even that many users on Twitter -- or even that many people alive today -- we would immediately be the most popular account on Twitter. Many “black hat” online services will sell you Twitter followers as cheap at $5 for 5,000 of them, so we could rack up billions and still have money left over. Don’t rain on my parade and tell me they are fake accounts created by software -- I want to be more popular! Read about Seth Stevenson’s purchasing of Twitter followers in this Slate article.
6) Send 35 million orange balloons into the sky.
You can buy balloons and helium for about $1 each. What if we got 35 million orange balloons and released them all up into the sky at the same time? We would certainly set some sort of new world record, but we'd also probably block out the sun for a while, and the broken balloons would probably choke every single dolphin and sea turtle once they came back to the ground. Scratch that. I don’t want to be known as the company that killed all the dolphins and sea turtles.
7) Start a reality TV show.
If people watch the Kardashians, why not a show about HubSpotters? At an estimated cost of $200,000 per episode, we could film 175 shows for about 15 seasons of material. Of course we wouldn't sell any ads to run during the show, because that wouldn't be inbound, right?
8) Shower major cities with 2 billion business cards.
You can order basic business cards for about 1.5 cents each, and if you get 2 billion of them, you have plenty of money left over to rent airplanes. Then we could do an airdrop of the business cards over major cities, making it easy for people to just grab our contact information out of the air ... literally.
9) Put HubSpot in the sky using skywriting.
We could pick the 17 biggest cities and hire a skywriting company to write “HubSpot” in the sky above all these cities every day for an entire year. Imagine having the brand recognition of the sun or the moon? Powerful!
10) Give away 500,000 HubSpot tattoos.
At an average cost of $70, we could give 500,000 lucky people a free tattoo of the HubSpot logo. Imagine the brand recognition that would come from having half a million people with HubSpot logo tattoos?
What do you think? What are some other ways we could waste our $35 million? Leave your ideas in the comments!
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Eugene 9:07 AM on November 05, 2012
How about getting a movie star to be your spokesperson ?
Chris Horton 9:10 AM on November 05, 2012
As a Hubspot VAR Partner, we wholeheartedly support option #2;I suppose our clients would rather have Hubspot spend its resources providing more useful services/online content.
Great post, Mike!
Pablo M. Povarchik 9:20 AM on November 05, 2012
Hire a modern sculptor to make a monument to HubSpot and put it next to the Statue of Liberty
Onsel Akin 9:20 AM on November 05, 2012
How about a HubSpot Stratos project? :-)
Dev 9:20 AM on November 05, 2012
Go for option 4. Do it!
I'm apply for a job right now!
Fernando 9:28 AM on November 05, 2012
Plan a countryside trip for some lucky costumers! Add some bbq's + tropical weather and you have a winner!
Ellen 9:33 AM on November 05, 2012
This is hilarious. You could hire me (I don't cost $35 million)!
Matt Schofield 9:46 AM on November 05, 2012
Return it to your shareholders, if you really don't have a plan. Better than wasting it on cloud mapping services that don't work like Apple http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/31/hey-big-spender/
Miroslav Saracevic 9:47 AM on November 05, 2012
Buying an island is a nice idea ;)
Jazz 9:55 AM on November 05, 2012
Buy the first satellite to crash against the moon on purpose. It'll hit the media big time.
Taryn 10:35 AM on November 05, 2012
TV Show. Definitely.
Thanks for the Monday morning laugh - this was great!
Bill Edwards 10:38 AM on November 05, 2012
Buy $35M worth of your clients' products. Resell them at 90% online/ebay/etc. Take the $31.5M and buy that amount of your clients' products again. Resell @ 90%, repeat about 34 more times until your about out of money. Client sales will be through the roof and you'll have one helluva case study to a. keep the clients you have, and b. win new clients.
Dan 11:03 AM on November 05, 2012
Give it to the Obama Campaign
Osayi 11:06 AM on November 05, 2012
Buy 35 million email addresses and send them emails of how wonderful Hubspot is.
Gordon Robinson 11:15 AM on November 05, 2012
Have to admit dropping 2 Billion business cards would get some great pr ... ~ Gordon
Jim 11:16 AM on November 05, 2012
How about you give Curt Schilling the $35M to make an MMORPG about inbound marketing? It worked for Rhode Island!
...what? Oh... Never mind... *looks down & kicks an empty can across the sidewalk*
Jim 11:17 AM on November 05, 2012
How about you give Curt Schilling the $35M to make an MMORPG about inbound marketing? It worked for Rhode Island!
...
What? Oh, never mind... *looks down & kicks an empty can across the sidewalk*
Mark 12:35 PM on November 05, 2012
http://markdig29.wordpress.com/
Different channels will help narrow our target market and reaching them. Love the article.
Mike Schmitt 1:38 PM on November 05, 2012
OK, now how will you spend it? Let me know if you are looking for suggestions...
Wendy Merron 2:21 PM on November 05, 2012
Stake a claim on one of our moon's craters. Plunk a large orange and grey banner indicating your ownership of "HUB SPOT"!
Simple.
easy.
Permanent.
Kristen Sands 2:49 PM on November 05, 2012
You could buy out all the political TV ad space. Create parody ads about how Hubspot gives it's employees the right to choose (which type of beer they want from the fridge), how 47% of the people you send direct emails to will delete without reading so you'll never reach them, and how inbound marketing can cut your (marketing) deficit.
Great PR and TV viewers would be forever grateful.
It would also be extremly interesting to see how many write in votes you'd get.
If this had come out sooner you might have topped Big Bird this year.
Danielle Spinks 4:23 PM on November 05, 2012
I like the idea of sending everyone to outer space on Spaceship X. Hang on... Red Bull just did something similar. :)
Brecht 8:28 PM on November 05, 2012
Don't be too quick to write off number 7
Mrunmayee 8:26 AM on November 06, 2012
Hi! I am your regular reader and subscriber of your blog. I loved the underlying message of this article. It is definitely strategic yet entertaining way to convey it. However, the best part is that a simple objective is converted into an excellent post without pompous celebrations or overdose of research. Wonderfully designed post, guys. Loved it.
David Dewhirst 10:40 AM on November 06, 2012
Why am I reminded of the WKRP in Cincinnati episode where they decided to run a Thanksgiving promotion involving dropping live turkeys out of a helicopter? Only to discover mid-promotion that turkeys can't fly...
John McTigue 12:19 PM on November 06, 2012
Sponsor a PGA Tour Golf Tournament. On the other hand, having a Golf Tournament sponsored by other folks would be a great idea.
Rick Roberge 1:42 PM on November 06, 2012
Wouldn't it be great if political advertising were made illegal? Think about it! 2016, the year of the first, totally inbound, opt-in presidential campaign!
If anyone can do it, you guys can!
Congratulations! And all you US citizens, don't forget to vote!
Trang 2:29 AM on November 07, 2012
Funny ideas. With that much money we should invest in quality products/services and quality contents to make people love us.
Athena Catedral 9:49 PM on November 07, 2012
Awesome article.
More options:
1) Buy your own cable channel to feature all your webinars and what-not
2) Give away $35M worth of services. One company announced that they'd give leads whether they bought or not free services but they'd sell to you hardcore before you can get it though
3) Dress all the homeless people in Hubspot clothing and house them in a Hubspot mansion - talk about corporate social responsibility + marketing
Adam Sokoloff 11:12 PM on November 08, 2012
Mike,
As you know I am a huge proponent of Inbound Marketing and fan of Hubspot. Being a long term customer I am very excited by your latest round of funding. Congratulations!
At the same time I have to take exception with your article, and as you put it "some crazy ideas of how to waste marketing budget than now".
While I can't speak for renaming islands and sending employees into outer space, I can speak for the wrapping of 20,000 hubspot vehicles. While 20,000 may be a bit far fetched, could you imagine the publicity and spectacle of all those cars driving down the Mass Pike. It would be on every news station locally, nationally, and would spread virally on Youtube.
Once again while 20,000 may be a stretch, I do have customers who are wrapping over 1000 vehicles! To those customers, marketing is more than internet search, it's about brand identity and awareness. With a greater than 90% recall rate, vehicle wraps are largely effective in that realm. In fact outbound marketing and branding can also be very effectively used in conjunction with inbound. Imagine all those wrapped Hubspot cars, with a strong call to action plastered on each. The CTA's lead to a highly optimized landing page that generates leads. Now that is the kind of marketing that gets me pumped up to help our clients every day!
Again, I don't know much about sending employees into outer space, but just let me know when you are ready to spend some of your budget on wrapping their vehicles in orange and white.
Best,
Adam
Adam Sokoloff 11:34 PM on November 08, 2012
As an addendum to the points I made in my comments above, here is a recent vehicle wraps testimonial from the president of a large commercial cleaning company in Delaware.
"The second day the vehicles were out on the road. I answered the phone that morning and there was a lady calling who had seen our vehicle in her next door neighbor’s driveway. She wanted a proposal for services in her home. We closed the Client and she became an every two week cleaning Customer. This past weekend we were fundraising sponsors for the DHA – Delaware Humane Association. We also had a booth set up on the grounds introducing prospective Clients to our Company. We got to Rockford Park early to setup, however most importantly we had 4 wrapped vehicles in the parking lot screaming Markatos Services. The vehicles are stationery and mobile advertising billboards."
They client also received three additional calls in the next couple weeks due to the wrapped vehicles. Now that is ROI in my books!
Here is the project I spoke of:
http://www.sunrisesigns.com/projects/bid/55764/Markatos-Services-Shines-With-Kia-Sorrento-Fleet-Vehicle-Wraps-in-New-Castle-County-Delaware
We later added QR codes with calls to action on vehicle to even further enhance the lead gen.
Adam Sokoloff
Sunrise Signs
Mike Volpe 1:01 PM on November 10, 2012
Adam -
Obviously this post is meant to be funny, and truthfully when I was writing it I struggled to find more humorous things that did not repeat the original post from a few years back. Some of these ideas are actually not wastful - the car wraps and the reality TV show and maybe even buying an island all could be done in a way that makes them effective. And I have actually asked our CEO about wrapping his car before...
I know a lot of companies that use car wraps and they make a lot of sense. Anyone that sells to the broader population, especially b2c companies, car wraps can be great. Also, any company that uses vehicles as part of their business could gain a lot from car wraps too.
I think the funny part is that while we might do some car wraps, or a TV show, spending all $35m on one of those things would not be the smartest move. I could have also said something like give away 3 million t-shirts, which would be crazy too. But of course we buy t-shirts with our logo on them.
I hope that the link to your website is a positive thing and drives some more traffic and SEO authority. By the way, I found you by searching for "car wrap pricing" so your inbound marketing is clearly working! Whenever we figure out a cool stunt to do using car wraps, you are my guy!
Thanks!
Yingying 4:41 AM on November 12, 2012
As Online Manager for a Swedish cosmetics company based in Shanghai, I strongly advise you to invest in the Chinese market where Social Media and e-commerce has taken an entirely unique shape compared to the Western world. There is a clear need for industry experts like Hubspot to help companies make sense of the wildly unstructured online market that is China.
In the meantime, keep up the awesome blogging! My favorite time of the workday is the 20-minute reading time I've allotted for myself each morning to go through your posts :)
Cheers,
Yingying
Paul M 7:12 AM on November 12, 2012
How about Hubspot spent their loot on soliciting movie producers to put Hubspot logo in back drop in upcoming movies or TV shows http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/-/2013/
Movies & TV shows are seen over and over , continuing ROI, netflix,smart-phones,tablets, TVs, something that is etched, not like search engine which changes continously.
Perfect example- Modern Family on TVLand in 2035 maybe a HubSpot tee shirt on pregnant Gloria