HubSpot Landing Pages, Part II: Smart Content, Real Value, + New Best Practices
George B. Thomas, Liz, and Max discuss HubSpot landing page best practices, including smart content and personalization through personas and lifecycle stages. They argue for value-first conversion flows over dark patterns like hidden forms, and recommend real imagery, video, and mobile optimization. HubSpot Academy Certification Week runs April 28 to May 2.
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Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed apartments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack? Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt knowledge. Never fear, Hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask into action and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the League of Extraordinary Inbound Heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute Hub heroes. It's time to unite and activate your powers.
And we're back with another episode of Heroes. Guys, how y' all doing?
Hey. Hey. Doing great. Before we dive into the actual conversation, by the way, because I know we're. This is like part two, the Electric Boogaloo. You know, Lane, that was gonna be my joke. Yeah, well, you. You can. You can still use it. I'm old enough to have actually watched break into Electric Boogaloo anyway, but here. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I want to make sure, because I'm. I'm about to. Well, I already did one. I. I research recertified US HubSpot Academy certification last week, and I'm. I'm about to be on a kick to do a whole bunch more certifications because, yes, even though your boy has been in the ecosystem for 12 years, even though I've recertified these things, like four, if not six times, depending on the certification and how often you have to do it, I'm going to continue to do it. There's new videos. I was kind of going through ones to see, like, should I redo this? What's new? You can see the little orange dot for what you've watched. The ones you. There's a lot that I haven't watched since the last time I. So I'm. I'm glad it's up to all of this. All of this. Liz. Max listeners to say HubSpot Academy World Certification Week. A. We need to. We need to plan for a. A.
Is that already coming up?
No, no, no. I'm giving us a good lead in time. We probably need to have a episode closer to this. But if you're sitting here and you're like, yeah, George, I'm like, you. I need to research, too, or I need to get a certification that I've been wanting to get because I never got it. April 28th through May 2nd is when Worlds are. HubSpot Academy World Certification week is scheduled. So just put that on your calendar right now, everybody. So it's going to be like a time.
It's.
It's April 28th to May 2nd. No, it's in a month.
That's what I'm saying. It's in about a month.
Yeah, yeah, in about a month. So I'm trying to. The reason I'm bringing that up is because, like, if we schedule it, it can happen. And so many times in the past couple years we've been doing this, we get to it. I'm like, God, we're here already. Like, even Max. Like, is that coming up already? Listen, I'm giving you 30 days to block some time off on your calendar so that you can actually do some good in the world and get your certification says, well, okay, sorry, Liz, I had to throw that in this morning because it's important.
No, that is really important. I mean, the reality is, is that if you're not constantly flexing and strengthening your muscles as an inbound practitioner, no matter what your role is, like, there's no such thing as reaching a point where you can stop learning.
No.
And I think what's so challenging to me about it is. And I'm equally guilty of this too, right. I will always find ways to say, I have so much work to do. Oh, work is so much more important. But these are certifications that actually impact your work and your ability to affect more positive change within your role. Like, this isn't one of those things where it's like, we're going into an abstract experience where we're going to learn some high level concepts that might be. No, it'll actually teach you to use the tools you're using every day better, more effectively, and to get greater outputs.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, listen, if you, if you do the content certification and you do the SEO certification, and maybe if you do the digital advertising certification, I bet you have some beastie landing pages by the time you're done with all that knowledge.
I just also think, just like the thing that kind of always bugged me too is like how much of a emphasis was put on it for just straight up lead generation. Right. And not actually taking it as an opportunity to educate someone with that piece of content that you're getting behind that landing page. Right. Like, what I feel like people thought too much was that, oh, I'm making this landing page so I can get somebody's email so I can send them emails later. And I feel like that's the mode a lot of us were in. And maybe that's either how we Directly interpreted or maybe misinterpreted the bigger picture of what inbound was. Yeah. But, you know, I think what a lot of people forgot is like putting a lot of special care and attention into whatever it was that that person was giving up their information in order to get. Right. It's like, well, because you forget that you have that opportunity that when someone digests that piece of content, right. And actually gets their hands on it and starts to consume it, right? Their brain is in this mode of, oh, I'm really excited to learn this thing. And I just gave away some. Something valuable to me, which was like the means to interrupt my day and get in touch with me, right. And they're immediately going, was this worth that trade off? And they're deciding, like within 25 seconds if they're just going to go to their email and hit the unsubscribe from whatever you sent them. Right? Because if you were to supply them with that piece of content and then they start consuming it and then they go, oh, wait, this was a waste of time, or, oh, this isn't actually helping me. They feel duped. Right. So there's like a big, like, risk there, you know, that I think a lot of people didn't think about. They just kind of said, oh, we got the email. Mission accomplished. Not, all right, great, we got the email. We can keep talking to them. But like, let's hope this piece of content actually shifted their brain in the right direction that we wanted to or taught them something or made them look at us more favorably after they consumed it and didn't feel like they just got tricked. Right?
Yeah.
And I don't think people thought about that far.
Yeah, no, Max, it's interesting because when I think about, you know, I'll say the good old days, but even when I see things now, when I. When I see things now, it's like the email shouldn't be the goal.
No, that's fine.
Should be an outcome of, like, a larger goal. And so you're right. This whole idea of what I fell in love with Inbound was about it, you know, being human. And I think about, if you're, if you're even thinking about having landing pages, how your brain, of the person who's going to have the landing pages should probably have some type of value first, human centric, you know, adding value to the world, to the, to the reader, to the viewer, Whatever is behind that gate, it should be coming from a place where you're trying to help them be better, make a situation better, fix A problem that they might. And so many times it's like, hey, let's, let's create this seven step checklist so we can get an email. Yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's. The point isn't to get all. For a lot of people. The point is to get the email. Because that's all people think about. Right? The getting the email is. Or the point of getting the email is like, we got the email so we have a way to communicate with them. Should this piece of content made them actually want to continue doing that? Yeah, right. Like that, that's really kind of what it, what it should be. Right?
Because it's shameful if you're like creating more harm than good.
And that's the thing. You people opened up a lot of these opportunities to create a lot more harm. Not in like the esoteric sense of like, oh, they, they duped somebody and that was like morally incorrect from a marketing standpoint for them to do it. It's, it's. No, no, no. You, you turn someone into a detractor because of your content and that sucks.
Yeah, that's the exact opposite sucks. Like trying to build trust.
It's like, bro, someone, someone is already a detractor of your company and they didn't even get to buying your company yet. You just marketed them into being a detractor. You didn't even get to make any money off of them. They just hate you already. What? Dude. Yeah, Come on.
Liz. One of the things that's fun about this being like part two is I've had time to actually think about some, some of this and I want to. Oh yeah, in one. Yeah, I want to add in one that I didn't talk time because HubSpot does these really cool things for us, right? And, and it's subtle things and sometimes when they do them, people don't even know that they've done them. And so like, if you haven't gone into your files area of HubSpot and realized that you have a tab that says stock images and that there's literally a shutterstock system inside of your HubSpot file manager to be able to use in your emails and your landing pages, then, well, it's there for you. But here's the thing. I hate landing pages when you get to it and it just screams fake, like fake photos, like stock photography. Like, it doesn't feel like it's even connected to the thing. And so like this idea of like, can we just get some pictures of some real people? Can we just maybe Get a picture of like, maybe your real office. I don't even care if you're remote, like whatever the landing page is, can we get something that feels more like you, your brand, instead of again, slapping in that seven step checklist and slapping on a stock photo and being like, it's a day, ladies and gentlemen, thousands of people are going to give us their email so that we can spam the crap out of like, or, or even like video instead of image on landing pages would be. I would love that. But we'll talk about ab testing a little bit later and things like that. But, but stock photography, please, by all the tools. If you're listening to this, go back through all of your landing pages and look for where you've used stock photography and come up with a strategy to figure out how to replace that stuff.
I gotta throw in one more too, George, because I had a similar thing. You know, even though I was the one who prepared that episode, the more I sat with these, the more I sat with these questions. I actually went about my week last week and thought, you know, I'm just gonna start paying attention to the things that make me go when I'm looking at a landing page. And I remember one of the things that HubSpot rolled out a few years ago was you would end up on a landing page and then you would fill out what you thought was the form, but then you were taken to a separate second super secret form with way more information and cringe. Like, as a marketer, you're like, this is great because it reduces that first barrier of them, like wanting to give their information. But then I just feel duped. Hoodwinked, bamboozled. Let us dress.
That's the word. The word duped is the word for, for today's episode. You know, it's funny, but I mean.
That'S exactly what I'm talking about. Because, like, instead of you being like, oh, let me try their product or their product's not that great, you just go, oh, these people are scumbags before you even get there.
Yeah. And let me be completely honest though, because you say that and then I remember back in the day where I had this like, thing that I did and then I had a second form after it and the second form was like, I want to know you. It was positioned, by the way. This is me calling myself out on my own. Ish. Historically, I literally had a second form that was like, I want to get to know you better so we can be like buddies and like, add additional information. And in Hindsight. That was like, the dumbest ish that I ever attempted to do and not just how. Yeah, it didn't. It didn't last long. And it's just like, it's. If I take what Max was talking about and. Liz, what you're talking about, it's like, well, I wanted to be your friend on the first conversion, but I sure don't want to be your friend on the second. Like, I'm out. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, George. What was the intent of you gathering that data?
I mean, I did want to know more about the humans so that I could communicate with them in a better way. A lot of it was like, how long have you been using HubSpot? What? HubSpot. Hubs are you using? Like, so there was a. There was a positive intent on the other side. But I can understand how it might have felt like, bro, bro, I just filled out a form. Why are you asking me to fill out another one?
Well, did you get additional stuff from that?
No, no. It was just trying to get to know them better. You know what I mean? I gave them the thing that I said I would give them.
Okay, there you go. See, I think that's okay because you don't.
I don't feel bad about myself now.
What was there. What was the obligation of them filling up? What did they have to do?
No obligation on the second one. Just, I wanted to know more. So I was a curious human being.
That's okay, because what you didn't do was. Here's the. Here's a little thing. Oh, you got to be quicker. That's different. See, that's different to me. Right. You know, it's like the worst thing. The way I see people do it, like a really bad worst practice, I guess, in that scenario is like, you get email. Like, the form looks like just email, okay. And you're like, oh, easy, just email. But they're doing it because they want to capture the email if the rest of the form turns you off. Right? Because then they've at least got your email. Right. And so even when you see the next part of the form and you're like, no, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you my Social Security number and my boss's email address, my credit card number. Yeah. I'm not going to, like, tell you how many. You know, when my company buys stuff, like, you know, and before I actually get the thing I want to get, well, they go, oh, that's fine. We got your Email, it's all you want. Anyway, that's the worst. I think it's a dark pattern is what people call it.
Yeah, the dark, like, it's, it's like the dark side of conversion rate. It's the opposite of conversion rate optimization. Right.
Well, I mean, if you think about it from a raw, like conversion optimization, it's, it's nearly perfect, right? Because you're getting the most valuable thing, which is, to me, a very subjective idea of value there. Right? You're getting what, what you interpret as the most valuable thing, which is the email address, which, let's be honest, you didn't want to educate somebody. You just wanted that the entire time. If you're pulling a scumbag move like this, right? But you're, you're, you're eliminating all the stuff that would get in the way of that conversion happening. So, like, from conversion optimization standpoint, great. From actually doing something useful for that person who's, who's, you know, trying to get your content and learn something, you've done absolutely zero, buddy. You've, you've duped them.
It's interesting because we're literally having a selfishness versus servanthood fundamental basis, right? Conversion rate optimization in a selfish way. What can I get out of it? Vs Conversion Rate Optimization of a servanthood. Like, what can I give them? What can they get out of it?
But, so, yes, I agree. The moral marketer says yes, right? The moral marketer says yes, I want to serve people with content, I want to teach them. But here, here's the other thing. That's not your job. Your job is to make the business money, right? And what I'm trying to say is, like, sure, that kind of feels good and you should do that. And yeah, you should. You do the right thing. Absolutely right. But there are reasons beyond just doing the right thing that makes a lot of these tactics really dumb. You know what I mean? A lot of that, I hear you. A lot of that comes down to the little micro experiences you're creating for people when they're interacting with your comment that either makes them hate you before they even hate your product. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Right. And so it's just one of those things. It's like, yeah, should you, should you focus on educating people? Yes. Not because it feels good, though, because that's good for your business. Like that. That's the thing. But, but yeah, I mean, again, I am super down with doing the right thing and creating content that actually educates people. That makes me feel good. And it makes me want to do my job.
Yeah.
And it makes me feel like I'm doing more than just selling a product. I'm. I'm educating people and getting without. A lot of people operate that way.
Right. Yeah.
You know, which is sad.
Which is sad because let's be honest, like, one of my emails over the weekend literally had a playlist to your quote happily playlist on YouTube. Because I was like, hey, you need to check this out. Because at least you can without getting in the sales funnel. You can at least see if it's going to be a right fit for what you're trying to do. Same thing, by the way. Same thing with. Oh, dang on it. My friend. My friend with, wow, I'm having a senior moment. I literally am. Pixel Compress. My goodness, how did I forget the name of that? So it's like, talk about a service or value. And by the way, and I'm bringing this up because landing pages and I just brought up stock photography too. The other thing that needs to die is your landing pages don't load quickly, especially if they don't load quickly on like a mobile device. Because I'm on my phone a lot, but I'm also on my desktop a lot. But like something like, quote happily or something like Pixel Compress, where they're like adding value by interviews or by tutorial or by just making it your life better because it's like streamlining and optimizing. By the way, they are sponsoring the podcast right now for the next, I think it's like 30 or 60 days. So you might hear a little ad in here if you listen listeners to the very ending, or it might even hit you in the middle. But Pixel Compressed is amazing. It's definitely something you should be looking at in your HubSpot portal for optimized images, landing pages, website pages, even your emails. By the way, if your emails are loading slow, come on, like it's 2025 anyway, let's, let's keep moving forward.
We need to start doing funny ad reads, I think.
Oh, that would be fun. That would be fun.
Well, you already brought this up, George, so I want to bring this right back to you. So over the years, HubSpot has rolled out so many different tools in regards to how you create more personalized experiences or deeper content experiences. So for example, AI driven tools or as you mentioned earlier, smart content features. Now, as someone who has a lot of experiences with these tools, George, I would love to hear you talk to our audience for a bit about how we should be leveraging those tools today to optimize landing pages in ways that weren't possible five years ago. Because I know you and I still both encounter landing pages where we're like, you guys, is this, is, is this 2018? What are we doing here?
Well, well. And some of this. What's funny, I, I'd like to go back to. By the way, I can't move forward without saying if there's not a book called the Moral Marketer, somebody needs to write the dang book. The Moral Marketer. I'm just saying.
Anyway, but somebody said not be me because I can't write a book.
Well, you know, but maybe it should be you, but with a ghostwriter. Anyway, like Liz, here's the thing, what's funny, I'd like to go back and see when the contextual marketing certification came out, because it might have been five years ago, you might have been able to do some of the things that I'm about to talk about five years ago. However, like, people don't watch that certification. They don't understand that the thing lives in a left hand sidebar. They don't realize exactly what they can do. Maybe they're just trying to get a landing page out and they're not focused on experience. Right? And that's the thing, like you have to have, and I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but if you're doing value first human centric user experiences and the things are being birthed out of trying to create those experiences now you realize that you've got smart content, that you can do some really cool things. And I'll just tell you, like this. One of the clients that we get a privilege to work with, they help solopreneurs, right? That's their sole focus, is to help people either go from being in a job to being a solopreneur or having a solopreneur business, that isn't the greatest, but they're, they want to make it great. And just being like this community for solopreneurs, they literally have used what, two pieces of HubSpot in a magical way. Number one, they use Persona the property, and they use it properly. They've got positive and negative Personas. They're using the IMA statements and, and they're leveraging it for better communication, segmentation and smart content. Because instead of just having a landing page, they actually have multiple landing pages per Persona. And so now what they do is they can literally go and send that human to the landing page for the right conversation, for who they are and what they know about them. So they're creating a one to one instead of a one to many experience at a per human level based on a conversion and understanding of who they are. And so, like, I want you to think about what you currently have as for, and this is for the listeners, the viewers, what you currently have as a landing page, and ask yourself, how much more effective would it be not only if we were going to a B test it that can be. We'll talk about that later. I get. I know I keep kind of pushing it back, but how effective could it be if we actually had five, four, three different landing pages and we were using images and video and text that actually resonated with who they were. We talked to them like, we know who they are. We talk about the problems that they're actually facing. Like Ricky, the researcher wants it to come to them different than the actual Charlie, the CEO. And I'm just making up Persona names because it helps tell the story. And so that's, that's the thing. If you're not looking at list segmentation for smart content, if you're not looking at life cycle stage for smart content, like, and there's so many other things that you could be doing with this to just create a better user experience and what might be considered your most important area conversion, because that starts the conversation to which then equals the cash flow. And so taking the extra time to understand, hey, there's a contextual marketing certification. Let's take that. Let's look at our existing landing pages. Let's look at how we're using Persona, let's look at how we're using Lifecycle stage. Let's look how we're using list segmentation, and let's actually build a real conversion strategy around the tools that HubSpot has given us.
So I want to take it a step deeper, actually, George, if you'll bear with me for a moment. So I remember when Smart for Content first came out, everybody was excited, right? They were like, oh, I can change it. So it says like, if I have two different Personas, right? One is an IT manager in an organization, one is a CTO at an organization. And they have different thoughts and opinions about a certain topic that we want them to convert on. I can change the introductory paragraph. My understanding is that the capacity and capabilities of smart content are much deeper than like, well, you could put a different paragraph here.
Oh, my God. You can have a different form, you can have a different video, you can have a different image, you can have different copy. Like now, especially if you're using the content hub, like almost every module or every section can be smart if you're like, and by the way, we're talking about landing pages. But this in email is amazing as well, because now not only have you created a dope experience where the form, the module, the copy, the video, the image is smart to them, but when you, they get the communication, the communication in the email is smart as well. With the right image, the right verbiage, the right subject line, because you can have smart subject lines. Like, again, this is one place where I don't think enough marketers, enough business owners dive in and take the time to understand the power that they have with smart content inside of their HubSpot ecosystem.
Yeah, I mean, most of them still think it's, it's, it's witchcraft to even just say hi first name on a page. I think. Well, I think the other thing that's interesting too is like, you know, thinking outside the box there. It's like, wow, if, if, if, if you're using like smart content, like, keep in mind, you can make like entire sections of the page totally different. Right? And you know, sure, maybe you can show a different form or maybe if you have everyone's information and they're already on a list, don't even show a form at all. Just replace it with a section that lets them download the piece of content immediately without having to wait for an email or take an unnecessary step. Right? Because again, like, I think we still, you know, when we, when we don't think about how can it, how can I make my content delivery even easier? Right? Like, we're, we're still like, forgetting the fact that like, someone actually consuming the content is important so long as you're making, like, so long as, like, whatever that thing is, so long as that ebook is actually valuable and not just some garbage, whatever. Right? Yeah. You know, like you, you do want people to consume the content if it's good content. If it's not good content, you probably shouldn't be putting it out there, right? Because you're, you're just increasing the likelihood that someone's gonna have a bad experience with you. Right. You know, and so, like, I'd say, like, with the smart content piece, like, think about ways where you can make it not a landing page and just like, give someone what they need. Like, if you already have any information.
You'D be collecting, I mean, that's, that's such a good value piece there because, I mean, listen, you could have it be smart. And it could just be a cta. Because I know even the moralist of marketers out there is like, but I, but, but how do I track success? Like, listen, if they're in an XYZ list, you could have a cta. And when they click that cta, they could be downloading it without needing to fill out a form. And by the way, then your measurement of successes, you know, every click on that CT is a download. So you can now have the conversation of. Well, this piece was downloaded by people in our database a hundred times this month.
Sure.
The people who click the CTA, 27 of them. Also we have deals that have been created in the pipeline and, and the human never had to fill out another form ever.
Yes. Funny way to track stuff without like forcing a conversion.
Yeah, yeah.
I say, like, I used to have a really, really good talk track about this and I definitely have forgotten it because I'm not repeating it every two weeks to a bunch of new hires. But I think the big thing that I always try to like, get across, like, okay, if you are making a landing page, or for that matter, any sort of page with a form on it, which I guess is always going to be some kind of product, could be service. Sure.
Like so much, so much in this last week and this week we're talking about ebooks, guides, checklists, but let's be honest.
Yeah, yeah. I guess if we think about, I think, I guess if we think about like, you know, a form in the marketing sense, Right? Because, like, let's be honest, the only piece of information you probably think you need is email. Right. But you know, the, the thing that I always tell people is when you're deciding what questions to put on a form on a landing page, you have to play the risk and reward game. Right. I think I've talked about this before in the show, like a long time ago, but like, every single time you put another question on a form, right? And I still think this holds true to today, right. You are risking that someone is going to go, that's too much information to give away or it's going to take me too long to fill the form out or I'm not comfortable giving that away. Right. So like every single time you add anything else onto that form, you're increasing that chance a little bit that you're going to turn someone away from it.
Right.
So what you need to do is you need to say, hey, if I'm going to risk putting this question on this form, is there a big reward for Me as a marketer. And so the question is true. Yeah. Yeah. But still, it's. It's. You know, if it helps your sales team, I guess it helps you. Right?
Yes.
So the reward is. What would be. Reward is like, can I use this piece of information to market to this person more effectively and create a better experience for them? Right. Creating a better experience for them is not ready. Is not. Let me get their phone number super fast so I can have a BDR go interrupt their day. No. Right. But a good example is asking that Persona question, getting a general idea of who this person is. So, like, yeah. Getting their phone number and having someone call them way before may appear as a valuable piece of information for your sales team, who. Sorry, guys. All they know is just how to just incessantly pester people until they say, go away. Right. But again, maybe ask that Persona question so I can at least get a slight understanding of what might be relevant to send to you in the future. Just because I want to be a moral marketer, so I don't send you stuff that makes you go, wow, these people are annoying. Right. And immediately lose credibility with you. Okay.
I try to look at it as, like, what information can I ask for? The value I'm giving. That is a snapshot of understanding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean? The rest of the journey, I can get more, but I at least see that initial snapshot to. To provide better pathways in the future. We'll say.
Correct. Yeah. And, you know, just making it so that, like, the product, because the product that you provide to them before they actually buy, the thing that you sell, the product that your company provides is a marketing experience.
Yep.
Right. And so you got to say, what questions can I ask to deliver that product in the meantime? Much better. Right. I think a lot of it comes down even to just, like, the same conversation we have around why we do these things or why we think about these things in this way is the same reason why we talk about why customer service is so important. It's another one of those things where it feels really good to do it. And, sure, you have a lot of opportunities to do the morally good business thing in a lot of customer service situations. And you have a lot of opportunity to do the right thing.
Right.
But it's not just doing the right thing because it feels good. It's doing the right thing because that's good for business. Right.
Yeah.
You know, same thing goes for a lot of the stuff that we're talking about. Yeah.
You. You have said do the Right thing so many times in this episode. It makes me want to go back and watch the movie, do the right thing. I haven't watched it in.
I just hope it makes people want to actually do the right thing.
Yeah, right. The right thing is always the right thing. Liz, what's next? Hurt us. We're. We're having a good conversation, but. No, I want to cover.
No, I wanted conversation for a reason.
No, Heard.
Heard.
Not hurt.
Heard. Hurt us. Hurt us, please.
What?
Ask us a painful question.
No, I don't want a painful question. I don't like needles.
Well, I'm going to call out a painfully obvious point that we need to address. Right. So one of the things that we've been talking about over the past, this episode and the last episode about landing pages is how so much of the content has become transactional, flimsy. You're not really digging into the depth of what it is that's being offered, things like that. But we also have to contend with the fact that people's attention spans are getting shorter. So how do we check both of those boxes? Right? Because I think we can all close our eyes and imagine a circa 2014 landing page. Would you like this ebook download? Now you will learn blank, blank, blank, and more. Please give us your name, your phone number, your firstborn's child. Like, all of these different things, right? But still, the meat of that landing page was pretty weak sauce. But today, people have shorter attention spans, but they want more value and they want more substance. So how do we. How, how and why do you like that?
We stop using landing pages. We just start creating content where people actually want to get it.
Like, that's the thing, George.
You and I did that with content. Like, we, like, just don't. Here's the whole thing. If you would like it for later, you can still also download it. Yeah.
See, the thing. The thing is, is like, where. So before people were, okay, I think getting their value by going, let me go find the thing, and let me go fill out this form so I can then get the thing. And then let me go into my email address and open up the file and read it. But now we're in the zero attention span. Swipe, swipe.
I agree with that.
No, no, no. What I'm saying is lean into that stuff. Right? Like, and, and, and here's the question. Okay, hold on. Ready? I think if you were to sit somebody down and say, is it more important to you? Well, actually, George, let me ask you.
Oh, God, here we go.
Yeah. Is it more important to you that somebody consumes a piece of content and then in their, in their brain feels better about you and better about your brand and maybe learn something or you get an email address. What would you rather have happen?
I would rather have the human consume the content, but I'll add a caveat. And they would feel better about themselves or the situation that they're in.
Sure.
Because of the content that we've created.
Way, way more valuable than an email. Getting an email. Right. So my question would be if you want to create more opportunities for that to happen. Right. You're probably going to go the route that puts the least, you know, in front of that as possible and gets people there quicker. Right. And I would think you do what, George, you want to do this. You create an insane amount of content that's ungated. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And I think like, that's in. When we talk about the, the age, the age of shortened attention span. I was saying this back when I was, you know, doing marketing onboarding. So I was like, we're in the age where people want to watch, not read. So like, go. Instead of writing this frigging giant ebook, dude, go start the YouTube channel, right? Go like, get the content out there. It's going to change the hearts and minds and like put 100% of your focus into that. Then hyper fixating on getting email address.
I mean, listen, like, landing pages have their place like they do, without a doubt, for sure.
But like when we talk about short attention stuff, short attention span stuff and how to combat that, I mean, if it's in the, if it's in the context of landing pages and shirts, like minimal questions on the form, Right. Maybe you do limit distractions in ways that aren't super sketchy. Right. But I think also make it like abundantly clear what someone's getting if they do fill the form out. Right. So there isn't any ambiguity, Right. Because the last thing you want someone doing when they're going, like, do I really want to fill this form out? Is them going, I don't really know what I'm getting if I fill this out. Right.
I'm not filling it out if I don't know exactly.
Right? So be super clear on what the offer is or whatever it is that someone's happening or what's happening.
Don't, don't be fluffy with like, download our ebook. Just shut the. No, actually, like, anyway, so here's the thing though. My brain is battling with this because I don't know if we have a Short attention span. And let me explain. I think we do when it's when things might be like, crappy or when we're trying to escape, right? Like we're just trying to escape. And so we'll go on Facebook or we'll go on YouTube and we'll watch the shorts and we'll, you know, get thumb cramps because we're just like, we're just, we're checking out, we're escaping. When I. When it comes to what's important, though, I think, or what's good, I don't think that we have a short attention span. Like, listen, I. I've sat and watched both Avatar movies back to back, right? I didn't have a short attention span shoot this weekend. I made it a point to have some downtime. I watched almost a season and a half of the chosen. That was not a short attention span. A season and a half of the chosen, right? And so. But it was something good. And here's the key that I want people to think about. It's the journey. You're on a journey. And if your content, whether it be landing page, because now you're using it as a pillar page, but if your content can put them on a journey. And so maybe you do have a couple micro videos that are actually in some copy and maybe you have some other media elements, like a podcast that happens to be embedded in like whatever it is you're trying to create a journey, a good journey of valuable information that may eventually lead to a conversion. Listen, I want to circle back around on the second one.
Just.
I wanted to know more. I was a curious human being.
That's okay. Because what you didn't do was, oh, here's the. Here's a little thing that's different. See, that's different to me. Right? You know, it's like the, the worst.
Thing on something else here. Max, you said you've. You've created a lot of ungated.
The way I see people do it. Like a really bad worst practice, I guess in that scenario is like you get email.
Like, the form looks like content me, right? Brother, I've been creating content since 2013, and I've given a lot of it away. And let's be honest with you, I'm still kind of giving it away. And I'm realizing that it's less about any type of conversion and it's more email.
Okay. And you're like, oh, easy, just email.
But they're doing it about maximizing conversations and it's about scaling who I am.
And because they want to capture the email if the rest of the form turns you off. Right. Because then they've at least got your email. Right. And so even when you see the next part of the form and you're.
Like, this is literally we're talking about one of the reasons why I've created helper.georgebthomas.com, which is the HubSpot slash human helper, the clone that has all of that free content that has trained it in to be what it needs to be or what it can be.
No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you my Social Security number and my boss's email address, credit card number. Yeah. I'm not going to like tell you how many, you know, when my company buys stuff like, you know what I mean, for people.
And now you can go in and you can extract whatever value you need out of all of that content at any given point in time. 24, 7.
Yeah. And, and, and before I actually get the thing I want to get, well, they go, oh, that's fine. We got your email.
So scaling helpfulness, forgetting about conversion, by the way, there's only, there's, you can use it for free or you can get unlimited access for 25 bucks a month. 24, 7 HubSpot help no matter what. And if you go to the landing.
Page, that's all you want anyway. That's the worst. I think it's a dark pattern is.
What people call it.
Thanks for it, by the way. It's georgebthomas.com helper. There's not a freaking form on it. It's a button that takes you to the clone so that you can start a conversation with it. Because again, you got to start now. The darks, like it's, it's like the dark side of conversion rate. It's the opposite of conversion rate optimization. Right.
Well, I mean if you think about.
It, from thinking about the experience, you got to start thinking about the journey. You've got to start thinking about the human A raw like conversion optimization.
It's, it's nearly perfect.
And, and if you're going to be a moral marketer, what does that mean that you might have to change over time? By the way, in the last two episodes we've given you an ish ton of things that you need to go back, right.
Because you're getting the most valuable thing.
And look at, see about changing your landing pages.
You know, you said something, George, in your answer there that I want to point out. I think sometimes we have A very reductive thought process which is to me.
A very subjective idea of value there. Right.
You're getting what when we hear someone say, well, our audiences have shorter attention spans, they will commit to deep, lengthy content if they see the value in it.
Yes.
So you, what you interpret as the most valuable thing, which is the email address, which, let's be honest, you didn't want to educate. And if they're looking for it, attention span short.
Is it the overall attention span that's shortening or is it the window you have to demonstrate the value that is short?
Yes.
And part of the reason why somebody.
You just wanted that the entire time. If you're pulling a scumbag move like this. Right. But you're, you're, you're eliminating all the stuff that would get in the way of that conversion happening.
So I, I think it's getting shorter is because historically marketers have not done.
A very good job from conversion optimization standpoint. Great. From actually doing something useful job of demonstrating value.
We either believe that it. What we are trying to give them is obvious or quite frankly that you should just understand that you owe us.
Well, for that person who's, who's, you know, trying to get your content and learn something, you've done absolutely.
Your information before we show you what is actually valuable.
Listen, I was. Oh God. I was on. It's been a while since I've made.
George that I'm very proud.
Oh my God. I was on a. So I love all of the humans.
All right?
I love all of the humans. I was on a marketing profs. Webinar.
Zero, buddy, you've duped them.
It's interesting because we're literally having a selfishness versus servanthood fundamental basis. Right? Conversion rate optimization in a selfish way. What can I get out of it? Vs Conversion Rate Optimization of. If you happen to be the person who was on the webinar and said this and you're listening to this podcast, I apologize, I don't know your name. I can't use your name. I won't use your name. But I literally got a question at the end of a 40, 35, 40 minute session about all the strategy and tactics B2B marketers should be using when it comes to video Nowadays in 2020 servanthood, like, what can I give them? What can they get out of it?
But so yes, I agree. The moral marketer says yes, right?
The moral five. And the question came to me of yes, but how do I do this without giving away the secret sauce? And I about lost My dang mind. Because the value is in the secret sauce.
The conversion marketer says, yes, I want to serve people with content. I want to teach them. But here, here's the other thing. That's not your job. Your job is to make the business money. Right? And what I'm trying to say is, like, sure, that kind of feels good and you should do that. And, yeah, you should. You do the right thing. Absolutely.
Is in the secret sauce. The conversation is in the secret sauce. The cash flow, the roi, the revenue is in the secret sauce. Share it. That's what you do. I might need a minute.
I mean, it's. There's. There's a lot of truth behind that, right? Like, I think you got to remember when you go and share the secret sauce, right? But there are reasons beyond just doing the right thing that makes a lot of these. Right. There's. I think it was, what, one of. One of two or one of three things that happen, Right. Tactics. Really dumb. You know what I mean? A lot of that. I hear you. A lot of that comes down to the little micro experiences you're creating for people when they're interacting with your comment that either makes them hate you before they even hate your product. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Right. And so actually, yeah, it's one of three things that happen, right. The majority of people. It's just one of those things. It's like, yeah. Should you focus on educating people? Yes. Not are going to just read it and go and not do anything. Then there's going to be two people left, right? The folks that take the advice that the secret sauce offers and goes and solves their problem or hits their goal or challenge or does whatever with that. And then you've created a really great, you know, promoter of your content, which is something that you want. So you want other people going, this content's good. It helped me do this thing. Right? And they're going to share it out to other people, and then other people are going to see it and it's going to have a compounding effect, right? And then the other people are going to go, oh, that's an interesting way to solve my goal or challenge. Thank you for the secret sauce. They're going to slurp the secret sauce, and then they're going to go, oh, this is actually way too hard. But you guys seem to know what you're doing. Let me hire you. That's literally all that can happen.
Right?
What a lot of people think is they're gonna. Is, it feels good. Though, because that's good for your business. Like, that their competitor is gonna go, oh, that is their secret sauce. We are going to then steal their idea and do. Exactly. That's the thing. But. But yeah, I mean, again, I am super down with doing the right thing and creating content that actually educates people. That makes me feel good and it makes me want to do my job.
Yeah.
And it makes me feel like I'm doing more than just selling a product. I'm magically what they do. No, no, dude, no. That's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is those two things. Right. It's again, physics of content, physics of. Physics of marketing. But yeah, I mean, give away your educating people and getting without. Here's the thing. Not a lot of people operate that way. Secret sauce. That's the whole point. Guess what? If you don't put any secret sauce in your content, your content's going to suck.
Imagine a Big Mac without secret sauce.
Exactly.
That's not a Big Mac. It's just.
Right.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Which is sad.
Which is sad because let's be honest, like one of my emails over the week, bun and some burgers.
Sad me.
That's right there. That's just a.
Literally had a playlist to your quote, happily playlist on YouTube. Nobody wants landing pages that are sad meat. Just going to throw that out.
Yo. Sad meat is wild, dude.
Thank you.
Because I was like, hey, you need to check this out because at least you can without getting in the sales funnel.
Thank you. I try to have at least one good punchline per quarter.
See, on Q2, you can least see if it's going to be a right fit for what you're trying to do. Same thing, by the way.
All right, so, George, I want you to take us home.
Yeah, we've had a Same thing with. Dang on it. My friend.
My friend with really interesting, expansive discussion today about the nature of quality content in landing pages and how we actually create that. What are the. Between 1 and 75,000 things.
Wow. I'm having a senior moment. I literally am.
You would like our listeners to walk away from today's episode with no.
One thing.
Oh, my God. Are you serious?
One thing, one thing, one thing. Here's the deal. Pixel compression. Whoo. My goodness. How did I forget the name of that? So it's like, talk about a service or value, by the way. And I'm bringing this up because landing pages. And I just brought up stock photography, too. The other thing that needs to die is your land. This is what I want you to do. I want you to go look at your landing page or landing pages. Landing pages don't load quickly, especially if they don't load quickly on like a mobile device. Because and I want you to ask your question yourself. A question. Is this landing page all about the humans or all about us? If it's not about the humans and the experience and the value that you can give them, fix it now. Today. Okay Hub Heroes, I'm on my phone a lot, but I'm also on my desktop a lot. But like something like quote happily or something like Pixel Compress where they're like adding value by interviews or by tutorial or by just making it your life better because we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes? It's like streamlining and optimizing. By the way, they are sponsoring the podcast right now. Podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make make sure you head over to thehubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in here for the next I think it's like 30 or 60 days so you might hear a little ad in here inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share if you listen listeners to the very ending or it might even hit you in the middle. But share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to and use. The pixel compressed is amazing. It's definitely something you should be looking at in your HubSpot portal. First tag hashtag Hub Heroes podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course always be looking for a way to be someone optimized. Images of landing pages, website pages, even your emails. By the way, if your emails are load and slow, come on like it's 2025.
