Chapter 2 the time, HubSpot the product isn’t even mentioned; the conference is marketed as “Inbound” with no reference to the HubSpot product. Instead, HubSpot shares its knowledge — often gained via its products — to help improve the category. Think about it: You probably know marketers who attended HubSpot’s conference. Notice how they never talk about HubSpot the product. Instead, they come back filled with ideas about how to be better marketers, which usually involves better serving the customer. In short, they’ve become HubSpot advocates. Finally, HubSpot created a world-class education program for both aspiring inbound marketers and advanced content leaders. The program focuses on career betterment to develop true advocates and movement builders in its customers, and gives them the tools and forums to be influential. By training and certifying marketers through its HubSpot Academy, it helped create a community that constantly shares resources and updates, as well as provides further educational support and partnership creation. By focusing on education, HubSpot was able to surpass industry giants like SAP and Salesforce by achieving a disproportionate online social presence. HubSpot’s category marketing approach is a textbook example of how to build a genuine movement. It did this by vilifying outdated, interruptive marketing, running a category-focused conference, and creating strong educa - tion and certification programs. Mike Volpe, former CMO of HubSpot, explains, “Creating a movement can drive an irrational bias in your product’s favor. Customers will then make a buying decision due to their loyalty to your cause, and not because of a logical feature comparison against your competitors.” HubSpot was able to create a mutually reinforcing cycle of social proof that was founded on cus - tomer loyalty and advocacy. And it worked. 3838