HubSpot used this year’s Inbound conference to unveil “The Loop,” their shiny new take on customer engagement. The big idea? Stop treating marketing like a funnel that ends at a closed deal and start treating it like a continuous cycle.
Sounds groundbreaking, right? Except…it’s not.
Marketers have been talking about this for decades. Flywheels, lifecycle marketing, continuous engagement-they’re all just different names for the same truth: your customer journey doesn’t end when the contract is signed.
So why does HubSpot get to put a new label on it and suddenly make it sound like the next revolution? Because most businesses still aren’t doing it.
“The Loop” is just a dressed-up way of saying:
Know your customer. Actually listen to what they need instead of guessing.
Make content that matters. Not fluff, not filler-stuff they’ll actually use.
Get it in front of them. Right channel, right time.
Learn and adjust. Use the feedback to refine, then repeat.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
But here’s the catch: most SMBs don’t fail because they don’t know these steps. They fail because they don’t have the discipline to do them consistently.
If you’re a small or mid-sized business, chances are you’ve been burned by the “funnel-first” mindset:
Marketing generates leads, throws them over the wall.
Sales closes the deals, moves on.
Service is stuck handling the fallout when things go sideways.
Everyone’s moving in their own lane, and customers feel it. The cycle breaks down.
The Loop (or Flywheel, or whatever you want to call it) only works if you’ve got systems that connect the dots across marketing, sales, and service. And that’s where most SMBs come up short. Not because they don’t care, but because the structure isn’t there.
Here’s the no-BS version: don’t get hung up on HubSpot’s branding.
The real question is: does your team actually have the systems in place to run this cycle week after week?
Do your marketers know what happens after a lead closes?
Do your sales reps know what service is hearing from customers?
Does anyone have a clear view of customer health after the sale?
If the answer is no, “The Loop” won’t save you. It’ll just become another slide in a deck that gets forgotten.
Forget the buzzwords. Focus on execution:
Get your data connected. No more scattered spreadsheets and shadow CRMs. Your marketing, sales, and service data need to live in the same place.
Agree on definitions. What does “qualified” mean? What does a “renewal risk” look like? If your teams don’t agree, your loop breaks.
Build feedback loops. Use surveys, NPS, and real customer conversations to bring insights back into the system.
Commit to discipline. Systems don’t run themselves. Your people have to use them, update them, and stick to the process.
HubSpot can absolutely help here-but only if you use it as a system of discipline, not just a collection of features.
At Huntscape, we see this all the time. SMBs chase the latest trend or buzzword, but the fundamentals are missing. That’s why “The Loop” sounds sexy on stage but falls flat in practice.
The truth? You don’t need a new framework. You need consistency. You need systems that make discipline the default.
👉 That’s the hard work—and the work we do with our clients every day.
If you want to cut through the noise and actually build systems that turn customers into long-term revenue, we should talk.
Check out more no-fluff takes on HubSpot here: Huntscape Ops.