Engineering as Marketing
Build free tools and microsites that generate leads as long-term marketing assets
Engineering as Marketing is the practice of building free tools, calculators, widgets, and microsites that attract your target customers by solving a tangential problem. Unlike paid advertising that stops producing results the moment you stop paying, these tools function as long-term marketing assets that generate leads indefinitely with near-zero marginal cost after the initial build.
The framework is powerful because it is significantly underutilized. Most companies direct all engineering resources toward product features, even when the product is struggling to acquire customers. By redirecting a small amount of engineering time toward a marketing tool, companies can create a perpetual lead generation engine. HubSpot's Marketing Grader, built in just a few days, has been used by over 3 million websites and accounts for a large portion of their 50,000+ monthly leads.
The best engineering-as-marketing tools share three characteristics: they provide genuine value with no strings attached, they are extremely relevant to the core business, and they demonstrate that value as quickly as possible. The tools work best when placed on their own domains with search-friendly names, making them independently discoverable and shareable.
- Free tools function as marketing assets with compounding returns, unlike ads which stop when spending stops
- The tool should solve a real problem for your target customer, tangential to your main product
- Low friction is essential: users should get value within seconds, ideally by just entering a URL or email
- Place tools on their own domains with search-friendly names for independent discoverability
- A few days of engineering time can generate hundreds of leads per month indefinitely
- This channel is underutilized because companies resist diverting engineering time from product development
- Identify a Tangential Problem Your Customers HaveLook for a small but real problem that your target customers face that is related to but not identical to what your main product solves. HubSpot's Marketing Grader evaluates site marketing quality, which is tangential to their marketing automation product. The problem should be specific enough to solve with a simple tool.
- Build a Minimal Free Tool That Solves ItInvest a few days to a few weeks of engineering time building a simple, single-purpose tool. It should provide immediate value with minimal input from the user. Collect an email address in exchange for the output. Keep the tool focused: calculators, graders, analyzers, and generators work well.
- Deploy on Its Own Domain with a Search-Friendly NameRegister a domain that matches what people would search for when looking for the tool's functionality. This makes the tool independently discoverable through SEO and easy to share. RJMetrics used querymongo.com and cohortanalysis.com to capture search traffic from developers.
- Collect Contact Information and Nurture LeadsRequire an email address to receive results. Follow up with a personal email about your main product. Build an email drip sequence that provides additional value and ends with a pitch. WP Engine's speed test tool feeds into a free mini-course about site speed that ends with a hosting sales pitch.
- Promote and Let CompoundDo an initial push through social media, blog posts, and outreach. Then let the tool accumulate SEO authority and word-of-mouth referrals over time. Monitor lead flow and make improvements. Consider building additional tools that target different customer segments or search terms.
HubSpot built a free tool where you enter any website URL and receive a customized report on your online marketing performance across social media, SEO, and blogging. The tool was built in just a few days by founder Dharmesh Shah, initially as an internal tool to evaluate sales prospects. They added email collection and made it public.
After blog posts about search privacy generated strong reader response, Gabriel Weinberg built a microsite called DontTrack.us that visually demonstrated how Google tracks user searches and why that is harmful. The site was educational and issue-driven, with DuckDuckGo presented as the privacy-respecting alternative.
HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah created the original Marketing Grader tool out of personal frustration. His cofounder kept sending him websites to evaluate during the sales process, and Dharmesh got tired of manually checking Alexa rankings, page titles, and domain metrics. He automated the process in a few days, then realized the tool would be useful to others and made it publicly available. The tool generated millions of site evaluations and became one of HubSpot's most powerful lead generation channels, essentially by accident.