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.

(If you are looking for the Content is King post by Bill Gates it is here)

I’m involved with three 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
  • The third is XEN Solar, where we help high quality solar companies (dealers, installers) with their sales and marketing processes.

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.

Craig Bailey presenting

Latest stories

HubShots update

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It’s been a little while since I mentioned HubShots, the podcast I co-host with Ian Jacob. Here’s a few recent items of interest you may have missed: in episode 32 we discussed chatbots in episode 31 we discussed the morality of ghostwriting in episode 30 we discussed going old school with Facebook page like campaigns in episode 29 we discussed inbound sales certification I’d...

On the whole ‘un-gate all the things’ trend going on at the moment

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You might have seen posts like this one from Drift where companies discuss their amazing new idea about un-gating content ie no more forms to be filled out in order to access ebooks and the like. There’s a follow up here, and then an Inbound.org discussion where other marketers chime in. A few thoughts: if this works for Drift, that’s great, but don’t assume it will work for you...

Facebook Custom Audiences just keep getting better and better

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If you haven’t yet implemented Custom Web Audiences in Facebook, then you continue to miss out on an amazing marketing opportunity. And the recent updates (starting to roll out now) are even more useful. Jon Loomer has an excellent hands-on overview of the new CWA enhancements. In particular the ability to create audiences based on the number of times a visitor has been to your site (or a...

Podcasting thoughts I agree with

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I liked Marco Arment’s thoughts about Apple’s dominant position in the podcast world. It was a response to this NYT article. Speaking about Apple’s role in podcasting Marco writes: Apple has only ever used its dominant position benevolently and benignly so far, and as the medium has diversified, Apple’s role has shrunk. The last thing podcasters need is for Apple to increase...

Giving blood

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I give blood every 12 weeks at my local Red Cross blood donation centre. According to Red Cross a blood donation could save up to 3 lives. Which makes me feel good about myself. Which is why I do it. And why you should consider doing it too. To feel good about your self. If that sounds selfish it’s because it is. Last year I was looking for ways to feel good about myself, that actually did...

Facebook News Curation Algorithm Training

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In this Gizmodo piece on Facebook’s trending news curation project we find out that:

Facebook hired a bunch of contractors (likely out-of-work journalists)
to do basic curation of trending news items
worked them really hard
replaced most of them with an algorithm

TL;DR Technology progress happened. As usual. No one is surprised.
See also John Gruber’s take.

Twitter’s Ad problem

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From a re/code article last week: But Twitter isn’t novel anymore, and brands and agencies who want to play with a new shiny object can go to Snapchat. and then: …sales on Twitter’s own properties — see how it’s dropping faster than the rest of Twitter’s revenue, which includes its third-party ad network? That’s brand advertisers pulling away from Twitter faster than direct...

Ghostwriting thought leadership

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A good piece by Lauren Ingram (at least I assume she wrote it :) on whether we need to start getting more transparent about the ghost writing that goes on in corporate content strategy. As you probably know much of the ‘thought leadership’ content produced by CEO and higher management in big enterprise is ghost written, often without any input or even signoff from them before it is...

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