Use HubSpot Better

Hi, I’m Craig Bailey and this is my personal blog where I write about technology, business systems, HubSpot, marketing strategy and general life experiences. You can read my posts here.

I’m involved with two agencies in Sydney:

  • The first is XEN Systems. We help government departments and mid-large B2B technology companies with their sales and marketing strategy, including implementation and training in HubSpot 
  • The second is XEN Create. We provide premium graphic design services to companies, with a focus on using the latest AI tools, including Midjourney

I also co-host HubShots, the podcast and YouTube show focussed on getting the most out of HubSpot. We are the creators of the HubShots Framework.

Latest stories

Social infrastructure – phrase of the year 2017

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I’m pretty sure the term ‘social infrastructure’ is going to be used to death now, given that Mark Zuckerberg used it at least 14 times in his latest Facebook manifesto. It’s a good post, or at least I think it is – I haven’t actually read it all, since it comes in at almost 6000 words. But thankfully Recode has a nice summary here. Would love to know how many...

IoT and Watson

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Think of two key trends and join them together. For example: 1. Artificial Intelligence 2. Internet of Things (IoT) Ta-da: IBM is working with VISA to enable it’s Watson AI technology to make purchases on your behalf. And in particular, by connecting with your devices. Here’s the vision: IBM’s Watson IoT unit is aiming to provide access to as many as 20 billion devices for Visa...

Machine learning hype

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Is machine learning overhyped?
Not yet IMO – from a marketing perspective, it’s just getting started.
Tomasz Tunguz outlines why it’s possible to get fatigued by the constant references to ML being the next wonder of the world (hint: it’s been providing enormous value for decades already).
Useful reading – especially some of the examples he mentions.

20 years

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Today is Michele and my 20th Wedding anniversary. Time flies.
We won’t be doing anything ‘traditionally’ special to mark the occasion. Instead we’ll just do what we love doing.
For example, here’s what we did for our 10th anniversary. Yes, really.
I’m a lucky guy.

Russell Conjugation

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Quite possibly the most interesting read I’ve had so far this year – a fascinating consideration of internet filter bubbles, trolling and the future of humanity. Keeping one’s attention in this age of web snacking is hard, but this one had me transfixed. Read it if for no other reason than to understand Russell Conjugation: The basic principle of Russell Conjugation is that the...

Content repurposing

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Episode 71 of HubShots is up – in it we chat about content repurposing, and in particular:

three HubSpot tips for identifying content on  your site that is working well
an overview of different formats to repurpose to
two key ideas for syndicating repurposed content on

Plus I have a rant about popups.

The Daily Hub

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A big thank you to Samantha Alford for having Ian and me on her wonderful podcast – The Daily Hub. She interviews us on how we got into marketing, what our key pieces of advice for marketing managers are, and some general thoughts on where the industry is going. Listen to it here. Make sure you sign up – you’ll get access to some bonus bits not included in the final interview...

Setting HubSpot Owner on contact records

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The HubSpot Owner field on a contact is quite important – with it in place you can trigger workflows, set notifications and include personalised signatures in emails, amongst other things. But what if your database has a ton of contacts without the Owner set. Here’s a few quick ways to get them updated. From the Marketing side, make a smart list of all the contacts who don’t...

#growthbotwisdom

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Thanks to Justin Theng for this idea – it’s fun to play with HubSpot’s GrowthBot.
Here he/she is being all coy:

UPDATE: you can play along on Instagram too:

#growthbotwisdom
A photo posted by Hubshots (@hubshotspodcast) on Feb 9, 2017 at 9:09pm PST

HubSpot CRM now supports parent-child relationships

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This is a biggy, because I know a lot of companies have been asking for this. HubSpot CRM now supports parent-child company relationships. The full announcement is here. Note: a parent can have many children, but a child can only be attached to one parent ie there’s no many-to-many relationships allowed. Also, there’s no data rollup – ie deals against a child company won’t...

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