For years, we've all been taught the same story: attract, nurture, convert, close. I myself have followed it for years to help clients augment their visibility. It's the classic Flywheel approach with clear, circular actions. But as time passes and my conversations shift with clients, it's become clearer that this isn't exactly how clients buy anymore, at least not in such a rigid way.
Buyers these days (again, myself included) tend to jump between channels, binge content at midnight, leave eCommerce carts abandoned, come back through a YouTube video, and then finally pull the trigger after a demo or a TikTok. The flywheel didn't break, it just stopped describing reality.
That's where The Loop comes in. HubSpot's Loop isn't just a new diagram, it's a shift in how we think about growth; from a one-way journey to a continuous, data-driven system that compounds over time. And if you're running your GTM motion inside HubSpot, it has real operational implications.
The traditional HubSpot Flywheel approach assumes a start and an end. We start by generating awareness, convert a meaningful interaction to a lead, close a deal, and move on to the next prospect. Of course, we do what we can to keep that customer happy, interested, and engaged, but it essentially becomes shampoo bottle rhetoric: rinse and repeat.
But we've learned from years of interactions and information gathering that this isn't quite right, at least not completely. Instead, customers don't just buy into something, be it a product or a service, they serve as fuel for our next level of growth. It's an emphasis on that segment itself which creates its own undercurrent of opportunity. We're seeing more and more that customers become more than customers or consumers, they become ambassadors, champions, evangelists, cheerleaders, and a plethora of other excited consumers of Us. Our customers generate referrals, send reactions to content, and engage with us more directly and personally, and feed performance data back into campaigns that weren't seen in previous years marketing approaches. Marketing informs sales, sales informs product, product informs marketing, and the cycle keeps tightening, it's a whole newly shaped and better informed system.
HubSpot frames The Loop around continuous learning and optimization, using real customer data to refine messaging, targeting, and channel strategy in real time rather than relying on static personas and quarterly planning decks. As someone who lives in dashboards and data more than is probably healthy, this is the part that matters. Because the companies winning right now aren't the ones with the biggest budgets, they're the ones with the fastest feedback loops.
Define your brand identity before you scale it, it's about knowing who you are, what you serve, and why you're different. This focuses on a real ICP based on CRM data and real, organically captured insights on your product or service. This is often best done by analyzing your high-value segments, documenting your tone of voice, style guide, point of view, and taking a hard look at opportunities that you've won…and lost. It may not sound sexy but it's worth the effort from the start. And I'll be honest, relying on AI to generate this for you can be done, but maybe it shouldn't. It may make perfectly contextualized content that makes you feel like you've cracked the code on success, but it's probably gas-lighting you into taking away your actual, key differentiator in the market. And this brings us to the next step:
"stop shotgun-blasting generic campaigns to an audience that you'd genuinely like to connect with"
Once you know what actually drives revenue, you can stop shotgun-blasting generic campaigns to an audience that you'd genuinely like to connect with and help drive lifecycle change. No more "Hi {FirstName}" fillers, you can approach your audience with a real conversation based on data in your own CRM and give them an authentic experience to help drive engagement and interest. This slowly becomes the main pillar approach for everything in your GTM strategy. Emails, landing pages, blogs, newsletters, YouTube video addresses can all be focused on your audience with authenticity and purity. Content can of course be adapted to industries and roles that you know interact with you most. And segmentation can be established to focus based on revenue contribution, not just demographics or anyone with a pulse. When your campaigns are properly tailored to your audience, you'll see a sizeable boost in conversion and have more meaningful connections. Which leads to the next curve of the loop, Amplify
"our audience doesn't just live and breathe in a simple merry-go-round, they have access to a whole playground of tools that didn't exist a few years ago"
With increased visibility and authenticity comes resonance, and resonating within a community or ICP absolutely amplifies your messaging, to become discoverable in places where decisions actually take place, and sometimes in areas you didn't have previous exposure. As we've mentioned, our audience doesn't just live and breathe in a simple merry-go-round, they have access to a whole playground of tools that didn't exist a few years ago, let alone a decade ago. AI correlates and summarizes information, YouTube Shorts give personalized recommendations and connect with an audience, G2 and the like provide peer reviews and feedback for buyers doing their research, even creators like me have loyal audiences that take our perspectives at face value or help reinforce their decision. The Amplify stage is about turning core insight into multiple high-value formats and strategically placing yourself across the channels that most deeply impact and influence decisions. It's not necessarily about being everywhere, it's about being discoverable in the moments that matter. And if you can successfully implement all three of these, you're primed for the last step of the Loop: Evolve.
This is where the rubber hits the road. Where the sausage is made. Where "nailing it" feels oh-so-smooth. The Evolve part of the loop is crucial for summing up everything else and driving real-time, intentional success. When we learn faster than our competitors and evolve our approach, our messaging, our intentions based on all the insights we've captured up to this point, we hit the market faster. I'm always secretly amused at the way Ryanair's social media responds to criticism and jokes, they're quick and witty and always relevant. That didn't just happen overnight, it happened with the help of extremely well timed and calculated data insights that taught them exactly how to engage with their audience. They don't rely solely on email open rates and click-throughs of their websites, they're succeeding because they're quickly, continuously executing on quick, authentic engagements (experiments) and interactions with their audience. That's why I wholeheartedly believe that the companies winning right now aren't the ones with perfect campaigns, they're the ones running the most relevant ones and quickly adapt to changing trends.
We all know that AI has significantly lowered the cost and barriers of entry to content creation over the years. Writing content of all shapes and sizes is easier these days than grocery shopping, and even that can be done via click-and-collect. This means that cutting through the AI generated, smoothed over and shined up noise with a cultivated, competitive advantage is no longer an edgy tactic, it's a MUST in order to succeed and actually be heard over the same "great first draft" it delivers to everyone else.
It's not like you need to tear up the Flywheel and implement all 4 stages of the Loop tomorrow, but if you need help with your research, or maybe a bit of confirmation bias, let's have a chat. We can take some time to map out your current flywheel into the Loop stages, start some deep dive into your customer feedback signals, or check out that one report you're afraid to open…because that's the one you should probably open. The one thing I can say for sure is the Loop will cast favor on those who put in the work and keep evolving, not just moving.
Image credit: HubSpot, Inc.