What the Heck Is HubSpot Loop Marketing?

Loop marketing. Big, shiny, new HubSpot concept. And if you’re anything like me, your first reaction might’ve been equal parts excitement and side-eye. Why? Well, the flywheel already “replaced” the funnel back in 2018, and now we’re talking about loops? In this episode, Chad, George, and I pull apart what loop marketing actually is, why HubSpot is pushing it so hard, and whether it’s solving a real problem—, or just rebranding old ones.

We walk through the four stages (Express, Tailor, Amplify, Evolve) and ask the tough questions. Is this truly a new way to think about marketing? Or is it simply a framework to make HubSpot’s ever-expanding toolset easier to digest? George lays out why loop marketing is more about internal process than customer journey, Chad brings receipts from how Marketing Studio is operationalizing marketers who never “got it” before, and I keep circling back to: real problem or imagined problem?

This conversation isn’t about dunking on HubSpot. If anything, it’s the opposite.

We all agree there’s power in clarity, structure, and language that helps marketers scale responsibly. But we also have to be honest about what’s new here versus what’s just getting re-packaged. And we wrestle with the bigger tension at play: in the AI era, are we creating frameworks that help marketers move faster and better—or just faster?

If you’ve been confused, skeptical, or maybe even a little overwhelmed by the loop marketing chatter, this episode is for you. You’ll hear our unfiltered take on what this framework actually means, why it matters (or doesn’t), and how to approach it with a clear head. And yes, we’re not stopping here; we’ll be digging deeper into each stage of loop marketing in future episodes, starting with Express. So take a deep breath, keep an open mind, and let’s get into it.

WHAT WE COVERED

• We break down what loop marketing actually is, why HubSpot is rolling it out, and how it differs (or doesn’t) from funnels and the flywheel.

• We outline the four stages of loop marketing—Express, Tailor, Amplify, Evolve—and what each one is supposed to mean in practice.

• We talk about how Express is really about brand clarity—your voice, tone, values—and making sure AI can mirror that consistently.

• Tailor gets into personalization at scale, with George pushing for “second smart questions” so marketers can connect with humans in a way that feels less like automation and more like a handwritten note.

• Amplify is about spreading your tailored message across the right channels and communities—not just websites and SEO, but wherever your buyers actually spend time.

• Evolve focuses on testing, measuring, and improving—not just content, but data cleanliness and processes—so each cycle makes you smarter.

• I challenge whether HubSpot is solving a real customer problem or just rebranding old concepts to keep people engaged with its software.

• We set the stage for future deep dives: upcoming episodes will go into Marketing Studio and then each individual loop marketing stage, starting with Express.

EPIsode transcript

George B. Thomas: I had to

Liz Moorehead: That was beautiful. No, that was beautiful. That was artwork.

Chad Hohn: It keeps me up every night, to be honest.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: Lord Lack haunts me. Haunts my nightmares. So we're back together again.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: I heard Inbound was a fricking blast. West Coast style.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. San Francisco, I, I'm, I may go back. I may never go back. I don't know. I'm, the jury's still out, but, but I will try a Waymo, uh, car again, without a doubt. Waymo. Waymo. Yeah.

Chad Hohn: Waymo. Yeah. Those are coming to Seattle at some point I hear. Mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas: car. Yeah. Without a doubt.

Liz Moorehead: I'm not sure how I feel

George B. Thomas: You know what isn't self-driving loop marketing that isn't self-driving?

Liz Moorehead: That was mine. That was my

George B. Thomas: I'm sorry.

Liz Moorehead: That was my

George B. Thomas: My bad.

Liz Moorehead: It's okay. No, uh, I was going back through and listening to all of the different things that you talked about, looking through all of the different product announcements. Yeah, loop marketing. I want to have what is likely the beginning of a number of conversations about this topic, because I gotta be perfectly honest, guys.

I have questions now for people at home who maybe missed the announcement or just need a little. Refresher Loop Marketing is this new fancy AI powered framework, which is the next rev evolution quote beyond the funnel. Okay. Um, and

Chad Hohn: My

Liz Moorehead: to a, it connects to like a thousand different things, right?

It's like Breeze AI agents, data hub marketing studio for content creation. Smart. CRM ai, C-P-Q-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-H-A-K-L-M-N-O-P. Like exactly. I was telling you this, I was telling you this earlier, George. It was one of those things where I always get excited when HubSpot pushes the envelope, gets us to think about things in bigger and different ways.

And this one, after I got through reading about all of it, I am like, I am excited, I am scared. I, there is so much happening. There are so many acronyms, there's so much AI flying around. I have a lot of more fundamental questions.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Yeah,

Liz Moorehead: what I wanna talk about.

George B. Thomas: I think everybody has fundamental questions. Um, I think it's, I think it's lightly defined, maybe, maybe heavily defined. If you go to like loop marketing.com, which takes you to a HubSpot page, but even that says like more resources coming soon. Like sign up for more loop marketing resources.

Um, I, I listen a, as we prepped for this show, I went and tried to watch and listen to some of the episodes and videos that people were creating and, um, it just left me with more questions. And, and to be honest with you, it's like. I feel like people are confused. I've heard everything from inbound is dead to loop.

Marketing is stupid to like what happened to the flywheel hashtag.

Liz Moorehead: right. 'cause they're saying.

George B. Thomas: like there's so much out there and, and by the way, this is not bad loop marketing is not bad, but, but there's fundamental definitions that have to occur for people to embrace this where and how it should be embraced.

Liz Moorehead: I agree. Like the whole, the concept of we're moving beyond the funnel. I'm like, didn't we do that in 2018 with a flywheel? Like, wait a minute, hold on a second. What's going on? So that's what

Chad Hohn: That was just the flywheel is just a 3D funnel.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. I mean, pretty, pretty dang much. So, so,

Liz Moorehead: God, it is.

George B. Thomas: here's the thing. Here's the thing, like, I think that's where we need to start is what is loop marketing, right?

Liz Moorehead: Yeah, that's where I wanna go.

George B. Thomas: So, so go ahead, Liz. Well.

Liz Moorehead: me. Yeah. Well, yeah.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Chad, do you wanna go first? Do you want me to go first?

Chad Hohn: Uh, you know, you give it a whirl. I mean, like the content thing is all you guys, like, you're, you know, you've been in the marketing thing. I think that,

George B. Thomas: There's the first problem. Oh my God. Okay. Um, marketing is not a content thing.

Chad Hohn: Right.

George B. Thomas: Content is part of a marketing thing. Okay. As we'll see as we'll talk about like literally this. I I love that you started there. So first of all, let me just, what is Loop Marketing? Um, loop Marketing is not a replacement for inbound loop Marketing is not a replacement for your funnel.

Loop marketing is not a replacement for the flywheel. Let me explain. Loop Marketing is a system for the things that you and your organization do internally. With a set of tools and an AI partner, assistant, whatever you call it, breeze. If you're using HubSpot, we'll talk about maybe where that falls apart if you're not a HubSpot user, by the way.

Um, but. It's an internal system. It's a way that we use a software and we used mindsets and mentalities to do the things that we're doing. If you even think about the words express, we express ourselves, we tailor our, uh, information and content. We amplify our message. We evolve based on our metrics, so.

What I want everybody to realize is inbound and the funnel and the flywheel has always been about journey and them, this is about process and us, and we just have to come out and say that. So that, that's where I'm gonna start is it's not a replacement. Um, these four things, there is a bunch that we could be talking about in each one of these four things, uh, as far as express, tailor, amplify and evolve, but like it, we gotta put it in its place.

It's not as big as everybody wants to make it, but it's huge in the place where it belongs.

Chad Hohn: Yeah, when I, um, uh, earlier I was kind of doing a little bit of prep for this episode and one of the places that I went as, as it be like it do, um, I saw HubSpot's YouTube channel and they had a YouTube short on

George B. Thomas: Oh

Chad Hohn: marketing and the YouTube short immediately said The flywheel is dead.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Chad Hohn: However, after that it said, well, just kidding.

This is summarized, not actually dead. Uh, but it's, it's being powered differently is what it said. Right. It's like the, so they were kinda like joking obviously at the beginning, like, oh, the flywheel's dead. You need to be using loop Marketing. Well, actually at the end, just kidding. It's just a differently powered flywheel, which jives with it.

What it sounds like you're saying, George.

George B. Thomas: Which by the way, as soon as you say it's a different type of thing, like, so like. Have you ever heard the human where they're like, oh man, I got a car just like that. But it's purple, bro. It's not just like, it then it's not, mine is red. Um, you can't have a loop and it be a flywheel, like it's a loop. It is fundamentally different.

So, so let me listen, let me, let me dive a little bit more into. Kind of this real quick, just so we get a, we get a, like a defined piece of, of what we're talking about. And then you can circle, we'll circle back around because you did ask me like what is, um, what is the loop marketing and like these, these stages and so let's just, let's just back up for a second.

So like

Liz Moorehead: It is like you were reading my mind. That's what I was gonna circle the wagons on.

George B. Thomas: right? Express. So. Express, uh, which by the way, I can't say that without thinking of the song. Express Yourself. Ugh. Like, you know, do you guys know that song anyway? Um, so express is where you define like who you are, uh, your tastes, your tone, uh, your point of view. Like this is historically what we've talked about when working with AI is like, this is all the context.

This is like our brand, our voice, our style guide. This is like, uh, you know, that kind of thing. So, so,

Chad Hohn: remember all those episodes we did on AI data sources? I mean, like this is what that evolved into. Legit.

Liz Moorehead: It feels like such a fancy pants. Name for like voice tone, style. Who you are what? Da da da. Like I get it.

George B. Thomas: but, but see, here's the thing is it even goes further than that. Like, we'll break down, like when we talk about express, like I broke down, like fundamentally in an organization, different things that we could be talking about or thinking about, but, but holistically, it's like, again, your taste, your tone, your point of view.

Um, and, and you, you make sure that AI in humans. Like, know what makes your brand unique. So the idea without express, without this kind of foundational piece, um, you don't have clarity and any of the other three things, as you've heard in some of the videos or trainings or if you inbound, everything else kind of falls flat.

Okay? So you've got an hey, hey, ladies and gentlemen, uh, in life to win you've gotta know who you are and what you're like, and how you.

Chad Hohn: Wow.

George B. Thomas: Uh, beliefs, mindsets, core values. Oh, how do you express yourself, a human and organization? Okay, so the next one is Taylor, once you know who you are, oh, self-awareness is a bi.

Okay. So once you know who you are. Then and only then can you shape your message so it lands with the people that you're trying to reach. Okay. Let's reverse engineer that. Personas ideal client profiles, uh, the different industries that you serve. Like, because now you can actually tailor it and personalize it at scale.

So you can use data and AI to make those touches that we've done historically, more personal and relevant so that folks that like. They feel seen. They feel heard. They feel understood. Instead of these generic blasts in my inbound talk, I said something along the lines of, when's the last time you sent a handwritten note?

Now, I don't mean an actual handwritten note, but when's the last time your message felt like it was a handwritten note? Like a card from your grandma? Right?

Chad Hohn: Mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas: And so this is the thing like Taylor, when you think about this, it is personalization at scale. What does X, Y, Z service look for? Accountants. What does XY, ZC service look like for churches?

What does X, y, Z service look for? Boom. Okay, so here's where my brain goes is like, this also comes down to like your data modeling, but unfortunately, uh, there are so many organizations when we think about this tailor that they're still in. First name, last name, job title, company name, okay. You gotta start to, like, I'm sitting here, I'm walking this morning, I did like an hour walk thinking about this subject to bring to the world, and I'm like, I wanna go in my CRM and I wanna ask completely different questions.

I wanna ask questions like, do you like dad jokes or not? Yes or no? What's your favorite color? Like, what's your favorite food? What's your, like, you know, do you believe in this or that is what's, what's your like, um. Broad, broad stuff like what's your favorite sport? Well, why do I wanna ask questions like that?

Because now I can use AI and data to compile this different type of segments That could be like these purple colored emails that talk about the Philadelphia Eagles that also embrace these dad jokes that are actually teaching marketing. Now, that is fricking tailored. That's personalization at scale, but you gotta ask better questions.

To be able to personalize that to the humans that okay. Right. So like you can't, you can't, well you live in a world now where if you are blasting out generic noise and nonsense, you will lose

Chad Hohn: Well, or even AI powered standard, uh, lookup non, you know, because like. We're gonna turn into, Hey, you know, thanks for reaching out. You have oh, uh, you know, a company of your size, blah, blah, blah. 'cause like AI can look that up without any extra smart questions that you've asked. But I think your second smart question philosophy really will always apply how you execute it, what you can do with those second smart questions to power your AI to stand out above everybody else's AI noise.

George B. Thomas: Yes. And, and by the way, if you're listening to this and you're like, what is Chad talking about? Second to more questions, call me, uh, send up smoke signals. Uh, ship me to your office. I don't, whatever we gotta do, we can talk about what this looks like,

Chad Hohn: It's worth knowing and learning. I mean, like, it's gonna change the way that you think about just form submissions. Even let, let alone, you know. Yeah. Anyway, just knowing the people who are coming to you, identifying them, helping them, you know, being a resource to those people. Um, who, to those, you know, humans, George, uh.

As they come in, right. It's very important to, to keep them in mind and, and when you're doing it, you know, for you as a business obviously, but for them to make their lives better because you have something to offer that you can help people with. It's still the same thing. We're still doing the same thing.

We're just doing it with a different playbook.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. Nothing new under the sun. Nothing's really changed. Now we're putting it in four different buckets. I'm, I'm trying to paint that picture like through this episode and future episodes. But Chad, thank you. 'cause you know, I do love humans. Yes, I do. I do love me some humans.

Okay, so like, think about this, this Taylor thing, right? As I kind of end that piece up. Because again, it it, like Chad said, I want to ask different questions. I wanna ask second smart questions because in the tailoring what I'm doing is, am I focused as a marker on conversion rate? Sure. Maybe. But I like to call it conversation rate.

And if I can and, and if I can inject in the conversation rate a higher level of conversations and more conversations than we're winning. Okay. We're winning. So the next phase that HubSpot talks about is amplify. Um, and this is where marketers have lived, uh, either in a very yuck, terrible noise nonsense way, or a very happy, helpful, humble human way, right?

This is where you take that, uh, tailored message that you've created because you know who you are. You know how you wanna show up, you know who they are, you know their likes and needs, and you spread this message. And here's the thing. It used to just be kind of through like. Old channels, like I'm gonna do SEO and I might do a little email and maybe I'm gonna do SEO and a little bit of ads.

And, but we live in a world now, and I literally wrote an article, I'll have to put it in the, the show notes where it's like, there's like major five major areas that we should be paying attention to. But you, you've gotta think about this holistic, right, this holistic, uh, publishing. Amplifying broadcasting, uh, manner and like, it's, it's gotta be across communities.

It's like, listen. Everybody for years ago was like, well, everything should be on your website. Hey, website traffic is down like 60%. Should it be Now, maybe should it live there? Yes. But should there be branches into other communities? Should you be doing things with other creators? Like should you make sure that you're falling an AI search?

Like where are all the places that your buyers hang out? Like we had this cute thing when the inbound methodology came out that we were like, you gotta find their digital water cooler. Yo, that shit is important as all get out right now. Like it's, you don't even, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I got passionate.

Liz Moorehead: again, it was not

George B. Thomas: Uh, it was not you

Liz Moorehead: out.

George B. Thomas: Max is not

Chad Hohn: I would just like to point

George B. Thomas: but yeah. Yeah. So, so like, you know what I mean? You gotta know where they hang out. And you gotta be the guy, the gal, the human, the human, the, the human brand. That, that is trusted in those spaces. Okay, so like when you think of Amplify, I want you to think about, well, we're amplifying because we already have self-awareness.

We we're amplifying because we are empathetic and understand the humans we're serving. And now let's put the good juju out into the world. So now you've amplified it. Now we gotta talk about evolve and, and I think this is where again, some of the magic can happen because, and why they call it loop marketing.

Because this is where they're, they're trying to say, it doesn't stop. This is where the loop comes in. Like, because now what you're doing is you're gonna go ahead, and by the way, we've done this for years, ladies and gentlemen. The only thing of all this is test and measure. You test what you put out to the world and you measure, there's a raise hand in this platform.

Liz Moorehead: Yes, there is.

George B. Thomas: Hang on, hang on. So you, you test what

Chad Hohn: Liz's brain is breaking

George B. Thomas: you measure. You adjust, right? Because you wanna get smarter with every cycle of the thing that you're doing. And I'm purposely saying cycle of everything you're doing, because I don't want to drill this down to content like this.

Evolve is bigger than content. It's evolved. Data cleanliness, evolve, you know, any marketing process that you have and, and it's like these learnings, they need to compound and get you better results over time because. Well, okay, Liz, you raised your hand.

Liz Moorehead: Yes. Hi.

George B. Thomas: Hi.

Liz Moorehead: been listening very patiently. I have been listening to every step of the way that you have mapped out, and I am going to ask a question from a genuine place of curiosity. I'm gonna ask the question and then I'm gonna explain why I have the question, and then I'm going to listen.

George B. Thomas: sure.

Liz Moorehead: Did they solve a real problem or an imagined one with loop marketing? Because here's where I'm getting a little stuck. Everything that you've laid out feels like we are relabeling things. That already had stages. That already had steps. Like typically speaking, when HubSpot has rolled out something wholly new like this.

Even if I chafed, like I had a problem with the flywheel, but I got it. They were introducing a new way of thinking about

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: and this is the first time where it's like express, tailor, amplify, evolve. These terms don't feel grounded. It feels like we're making labels around a product thing to bring the product together as opposed to introducing a new strategy, but they're positioning it from a marketing perspective

George B. Thomas: Well think.

Liz Moorehead: as a new strategy.

Like I don't understand. So my question is real problem or imagined? One. What did we actually solve with loop marketing here?

George B. Thomas: So I'm gonna say two, two things to this, and I love that. That's where your brain went. One, I had somebody say this to me the other day. They have had people asking what loop marketing is, and this person literally says, have you been watching George B.

Thomas for the last 10 years? That's loop marketing. First of all, I, I, I take the compliment. Um, thank you very much. However, um, the second thing that I'm gonna say is that not everybody has been in the ecosystem or the ether of what we have been doing. And Liz, not everybody thinks like the way we think when it comes to the things that we have been doing from a happy, helpful, humble, human perspective.

Liz, you do, Chad, you do. I know Max does. I know happily does. I know we do at Sidekick Strategy. HubSpot has a massive amount of data and they realize not everybody is playing that game. Not everybody can translate the inbound marketing methodology and the flywheel into what we've been doing along the way.

And I say this very humbly. So is it a problem for us? No. Is it a problem out in the world? Obviously. So I don't think they made it up, but I think there's a subsection of humans that are confused or haven't been doing it and need to go into this new way. Because if you were just using the old playbook, it's not working anymore.

Guess what?

Chad Hohn: Well, some people would distill.

George B. Thomas: go ahead Chad. Go ahead.

Chad Hohn: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, some people would distill, attract, engage to light. To be like, oh, three simple steps. I'm going to create a landing page, make an ad, send out an email, you know, and there was what it was before that, you know, had worked in mass and they just did enough of it.

But literally, the number one thing that it says on the loop marketing homepage is marketing funnels aren't flowing and old tactics aren't working right. Your playbook needs some love, and it's like. You know, when you're starting to talk about that, I mean, I guess my brain just goes to, a lot of people aren't natively visionary.

They don't natively see into how things work, right? I mean, some people are great at it, some people are okay at it, but like it's, it's not a normal skill to like hear one thing and then in your brain ideate and come up with how something would function. Out of that. Right. Uh, and how you would execute on it.

So I think is, would you say that this is an attempt, uh, of HubSpot to, uh, operationalize people? I mean, obviously to use their tool, but operationalize them to do better?

George B. Thomas: So, so two things based on where you just led my brain, Chad. One. Uh, and going back to kind of Liz's question and combining your two questions. One, if you think about what I said at the very beginning of this, of like, um, external process funnels and flywheels around the humans internal system and process loop marketing for marketers to do the things that they need to do in a way that they need to do them.

Um, boom. So that's, I think it's, yes, they're trying to opera. Opera well, whatever. Thanks, um, people into that. Now here's, here's the other thing where my brain goes on. This is, um, but that's only half the story, right? That's only half the thing that people should be paying attention to. Um, I literally wrote another article about loop marketing and the superhuman framework and how they combine.

I'll put that in the show notes as well. You can dig into that if you want to in the future. But, but here's, here's the thing. We have to understand that this year of all years 2025, it definitely was. Liz, back to kind of your question, and again, bridging Chad's question in there too is historically it was this methodology that drove a culture to show up to do business in a certain way. This year's loop marketing, by the way, let me back up before I even go to this year.

Also it was, um, inbound methodology, marketing, inbound methodology, sales inbound methodology service. Like it was a broad. Now I want you to think about that this year. Loop marketing specificity one, one just segment. Now is next year gonna be sales and the year after that gonna be service? I don't know, but I need everybody to realize that we were just talking about marketing.

So. What the heck happens to express and, uh, you know, amplifying all of this in sales and service, and nobody's even talking about how this should be, maybe Opera. Opera. Say it again, Chad.

Liz Moorehead: Operationalized.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Geez. I'm having a hard time with that word. Uh, it,

Liz Moorehead: Maybe if you say it with the human voice, it'll, it'll sound better.

George B. Thomas: No, no, it won't. Okay, so, so here's the thing.

That word is kicking my butt today anyway, so nobody's talking about that, right? Like, this needs to be extrapolated through like the different, anyway, anyway,

Chad Hohn: extrapolated.

George B. Thomas: yeah. It, it, it does. So, so here's, here's the thing, like this year it was a tool or felt like a tool that we need to figure out how to, you know, take it.

Make it so people could operate in it in a way with all the cool tools that we had and tools that are coming to be able to do things faster, better at scale to get over some of the hurdles that HubSpot had felt. And they knew a large portion of their, uh, organizations that were using their tool felt.

Because what happens if all of a sudden you aren't seeing success with the tools that you're supposed to get success with, you cancel your tool. What does HubSpot care about? Uh, people not canceling their tools. So we need to give them

Chad Hohn: him to use Marketing Hub.

George B. Thomas: So if HubSpot sees some things that are working, we've gotta build a framework, a system or like they call it a playbook to help people keep things working In this, what I'll call sort of a chaotic time and period when, at least when it comes to marketing.

Now for most, I go back and I'm gonna humbly say this one. Chad, you used the word visionary. I don't feel like I'm a visionary. I just feel like I'm a guy who like has these ways that he's gonna do things and I stuck to those things and it's, it's long term and it's human and it's core values. And so like I can tell you that this loop marketing will work if you apply it in the way that needs to be applied.

Because listen, I didn't care and don't care that search traffic is down 60%. Why do you say that, George? Because 60 to 70% of my business is referrals. Well, why is that, George? Because I've been doing human based loop marketing for the last 10 years. Now, that's not visionary. That maybe I'm lucky. I hate the word lucky, but maybe there's like, anyway, I,

Liz Moorehead: I gotta jump in here. I gotta jump in here. I already put this in the chat. Chad saw it. I'm having a lot of feelings about this guys, and this may be a situation and it's part of the reason why I am going to say before I tee it up for the last question to you, George. It's why I'm glad we're having a more extended conversation about this because.

I will admit, I can sometimes be a, who moved my cheese kind of girly. Like I get that. But I am also a big advocate for change. I'm a big advocate for moving things forward. There is something about this change that makes me feel like HubSpot was solving a HubSpot problem and not solving a customer problem, which is kinda antithetical to the way they've always presented themselves. And that like, 'cause I'm hearing you describe it like again. They're not introducing anything new. Now, to be fair, it may be something where I sit with this and maybe we needed new language, new architecture in order to bring all of these pieces together because. To do inbound, to do marketing, to do a holistic marketing and sales together where they're aligned.

It is a much more complex piece than it was in 2015. I'm not gonna lie about that, but I even remember like when I would hear terms like in chat, attract, engage, convert, delight, all of the things that we used to use, and even when the funnel was introduced, like, I got it and this is the first time like I get it.

But it doesn't feel like we're moving anything forward. It feels like we're solving a problem for software and attrition

Chad Hohn: Well,

Liz Moorehead: and adoption.

Chad Hohn: a question too. Do you think that we're solving for a. Future problem that people are gonna be in if they don't get it. And that I think might be a little bit more, 'cause like if, you know, remember your journey with AI Liz, right? You've talked about it on the podcast before. Like, me,

George B. Thomas: welcome, Liz. You're

Chad Hohn: me, you know, like, I don't know how I

Liz Moorehead: I'll own that.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Chad Hohn: things.

Yeah. You know? And like if people don't get on board with the AI functions in their lives. To, uh, allow them to do more. I mean, like, you know, GDP is growing because the amount of unit work that a single human can do with an AI assistant is growing exponentially, right? Like, you can get so much more done and like the people who are not doing that, you know, to improve what they're doing are, are going to fall woefully

George B. Thomas: See, I think, I think I wanna,

Liz Moorehead: that. Hold on. Let

George B. Thomas: Hold on. Liz. One, one second, one second. And then just hold onto your, 'cause I'll lose mine. I'm getting old. I literally am 54. I'll lose my train of thought. Like, just hold on, hold onto your thought. 'cause mine will be like, I don't remember what I was thinking. What am I eating for dinner?

I don't know. Okay. What was I thinking? Oh, yeah. Uh, Chad, here's, here's the deal. Um, yes, faster, but I want to double triple 10 x what you said in the middle of that. Um, faster, better. Better. Creating better.

Chad Hohn: mm-hmm.

George B. Thomas: 'cause that's the thing, like when you think about taste tone point of view, when you think of personas and ideal client profiles, again things that we've talked about for years now, you can do it faster, better, or the way that I'd like to say it, you can do it better.

Faster. Here's the thing. I said something the other day on another podcast, and I think it, uh, I think it needs to be said when we're thinking about ai, we're thinking about HubSpot, we're thinking about marketing, we're thinking about humans, is that right now we live in a world where intelligence is not the issue.

We, we have lived in a world where intelligence was the issue. Intelligence no longer is the issue. We have all the intelligence that we'll ever want or ever need. We just gotta go and get it. The problem that we're having right now is the wisdom. The wisdom into do what with that intelligence. Can we, can we blast out a bunch of crap?

Can we totally destroy a data model? Can we burn humans out? Absolutely. But that's not better.

Chad Hohn: Yeah. What to do and when to do

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Go ahead Liz. Sorry.

Chad Hohn: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, Liz, sorry.

Liz Moorehead: Yeah, but, oh, excuse me, Noah. Cut this out. Sorry. I have so many feels I'm coughing

George B. Thomas: we got her. We got her all like, no. Anyway.

Liz Moorehead: I'm for CL talk amongst yourselves. Um. But here's the thing, I don't necessarily disagree with anything that you're saying.

Chad Hohn: Right.

Liz Moorehead: My problem, and again, maybe I just need to sit with this a little more, is was a confusing rebrand slash not rebrand of the inbound marketing methodology, the answer.

To everything that we're talking about it. That's where I am struggling a little bit. Nothing we're talking about is really new and it feels like instead of like when I think about what we loved about the inbound methodology when it first came on, even when it was iterated, even when it turned into the flywheel, e flywheel, even when it turned into all of these other things, it was all about solving for the customer journey.

It was focused on how we show up and serve as humans, and this feels very uniquely like, well, we now have a big unwieldy piece of software and we need to make it easier for people to use, which I don't disagree with. That can be something very, hold on, George. That can be something very valid. That can be something that definitely needs to be done, because I don't disagree with anything that you just said, but I think to your point earlier, George, part of the reason we're even having this discussion is.

This is now what, the second or third year in a row. After inbound, we say, wow, this could be really great, but the messaging strategy is way outta whack.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, so let me, let me just say a couple things. One, marketers are two. Um, we're not solving the same problem. We're solving a different problem. We're solving the problem of the marketers and what to do with a platform and a process. And by the way, the funnel was never really new. It was a package. People understood.

The flywheel was never really new. It was a package. People understood. Um, those two things and the inbound methodology wasn't anything new, but it was a structure that could be repeatable. Loop Marketing is HubSpot's 2025 version of creating a specificity around marketing to a structure that they can repeat inside of a platform so they can see success.

It's a com. It's a different problem, and the problem that we're facing is it's people are calling into the same problem. It's not a journey problem, it's an implementation problem. Okay.

Chad Hohn: Yeah. And what I'll say too is like, ever since Marketing Studio came out, and you know, I've, like, I've never successfully gotten my, any of the companies I've worked with to properly use HubSpot campaigns until marketing Studio and Marketing Studio is so simple. For people to make their campaigns and visualize it, because people aren't naturally visionary.

They're not building the blocks in their brain of how the human's gonna go through the journey from the ad to the landing page, to the CTA button, to the popup form, to the form, to the meeting or whatever, right? However that journey's gonna go. The marketing studio tool operationalized people who never got it before, and they're running with it like gangbusters at my current organization, so,

George B. Thomas: here's what I love, Chad. We're gonna be doing an episode on Marketing Studio, um, and it's gonna be one of those where we'll, we'll talk, but show where we'll show the episode now. Now, here's what I gotta kind of go behind the scenes for a second, for the audience who's listening to this. Um, we had defined this before we hit the mics of, we're gonna do an episode on Loop Marketing.

Um, you got guys, you see how far we got? We, we, we

Chad Hohn: we just, uh, said the words.

George B. Thomas: We said, we said the word, we said the

Liz Moorehead: And then Liz had a lot of

George B. Thomas: and this had

Chad Hohn: And then feels

George B. Thomas: but I wanna give people the understanding, like what I wanna build here, which I think eventually ends up being like the ultimate resource, like sidekick strategies, guide to loop marketing.

Is it because I want, I wanna give a window into where we're gonna go now. The next episode we do might actually be Marketing Studio, and then we might circle back around and then do an episode on Loop Marketing, the express stage, because here's where my brain goes to the level of granularity that we need to be talking about as we kind of wrap this bad boy up.

When I think of all of these stages, like Express, I think that there has to be a conversation around human tasks and skills. That have to be true in the express stage. I think there's a conversation where we have to talk about business objectives that are, are there for the express stage. I think there's a conversation that we have to have around tools and technology for the express stage.

I think there's even a conversation around design and content. You know, the conversation we love so much. Around the express phase. I think there's also the need to talk about data and metrics in the express stage. And I think there's even additional considerations for the express stage. And by the way, rinse and repeat what I just said for every one of the four stages.

And so I really wanna have conversations where we dig in and get super granular on what does this ish really mean so that humans. Aren't confused, they are able to scale. It is able to be repeatable. It is a system, and they have it at a deeper level than what they might be thinking of. Like, oh, inbound marketing's dead.

Liz Moorehead: Look, they've been saying blogging is dead for years. We all know that's not like, come on, every, nothing's dead. We just, what do marketers do if we don't like it? We just rebrand it.

George B. Thomas: yeah. Yeah.

Chad Hohn: Well, you gotta get the information out there for the AI to consume. Like that's also important. I mean, there's so many different considerations, you know, when it comes to this, a EO, the things like, you know, so there, there's gonna be plenty of more episodes coming about all of this, you know, really important stuff, right?

George B. Thomas: don't even get me started, Chad, because you say a EO. Another person I get on a meeting says GEO. When you say a EO, you might be saying AI engine optimization. This other human I'm talking to might be saying, answer engine optimization. Good God,

Chad Hohn: Right. Yeah.

George B. Thomas: Anyway,

Chad Hohn: Right. Well, it's all growing so

George B. Thomas: heard these cats help. Help me wrap up here.

Liz Moorehead: George, instead of landing the plane in the traditional way of telling us the one thing you want us to walk away from.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: With this conversation with this is you've just teed up the fact that we're gonna be having lots of conversations around a lot of the new pieces that have come out and including going deeper into loop marketing.

Right? So what is, if my feelings or any indication as well as the feelings that you shared that other people had told you, we might have a lot of squirrely folks in the audience, what is your one piece of advice going into our future episodes as we dive deeper into this?

George B. Thomas: Take a deep breath.

Liz Moorehead: No,

George B. Thomas: mind. Yeah. D

Liz Moorehead: absolutely not.

George B. Thomas: I refuse.

Chad Hohn: got all the feels that are amped up right now.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. No, seriously though. Take a deep breath. Um, put on your growth mindset cap. Um, look at what you're currently doing. Start to map that out, because then what you'll be able to do is take what you've mapped out and what we talk about in the future and see what is right for you to change or not right for you to change.

Because not everything needs to change. Nobody said loop marketing meant that you curl up it in a ball, throw it in the waist basket and start over. Nobody said that. But if you look on the Internets, that's kind of how some people are acting. So take a deep breath, put your growth mindset brain on, and start mapping out what you're doing and we'll see you in the next episode.