Loop Marketing, But More Human: Introducing The Advocacy Loop

For more than 15 years, inbound marketing shaped how brands grew online.

Attract, engage, delight: that was the formula.

And it worked beautifully… when Google was the internet’s front door.

But buyer behavior has changed faster in the last two years than in the previous fifteen combined.

Now, 58% of Google searches end with zero clicks, as audiences find answers directly in search results, AI Overviews, or tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

People discover brands through YouTube videos, Substack newsletters, TikTok creators, Reddit threads, and podcasts, often long before they ever reach your website.

Inbound marketing isn’t dead, but the linear funnel it relied on is no longer fit for purpose.

That’s why HubSpot, the original champion of inbound marketing, has introduced a new framework: Loop Marketing. 

Today we’re going to deep-dive into HubSpot’s Loop framework, and reveal how employee advocacy takes this even further.

We call it The Advocacy Loop: the evolution of Loop Marketing powered by real relationships.

The classic inbound playbook followed a predictable journey:

1. Attract strangers with valuable content.
2. Engage them with offers and lead magnets.
3. Delight them post-purchase to build loyalty.

It worked when search discovery was linear. Search, click, learn, decide.

But today’s customer journey isn’t linear; it’s decentralized and fast-moving.

Consumers don’t just visit websites. They absorb snippets from search results, creator posts, podcasts, AI-generated answers, and LinkedIn thought leaders.

They trust people more than brands.

To stay relevant, marketers need a new model that reflects how discovery and trust now operate.

That’s where the Loop comes in.

Loop Marketing replaces the straight-line funnel with a dynamic, self-improving system.

Instead of leading customers down a narrow path, the Loop meets them where they are, across every platform and every stage of their journey.

Hubspot defines the stages of the Loop as: Express, Tailor, Amplify, Evolve.

It’s all about compounding growth through constant learning. Every campaign makes the next smarter.

Loop Marketing explains how brands can use AI and automation to drive growth.

But there’s a missing variable: the human one.

At DSMN8, we believe compounding growth happens when employees become the connective tissue between automation and authenticity.

That’s The Advocacy Loop.

Every post shared, every comment replied to, and every relationship built by employees adds momentum to the system, multiplying reach, trust, and long-term brand equity.

Where inbound once compounded traffic, and Loop Marketing compounds data, The Advocacy Loop compounds relationships.

Every time an employee shares, comments, or connects, it expands your network of trust.

• Over weeks, your employees’ influence builds visibility.
• Over months, it builds reputation.
• Over years, it builds brand gravity — the kind of recognition that no algorithm update can undo.

Let’s dive deeper into each stage and how advocacy supports the strategy:

In the Express stage, brands clarify identity, tone, and positioning.

AI can help with this, for example, by analyzing top customer reviews to surface unique value propositions or by generating brand positioning statements.

But once that foundation is set, employees become the most powerful way to express it.

They’re the ones who embody your values every day.

Their voices make your mission relatable, credible, and memorable.

When COSMO Consult empowered their consultants to share insights in their own tone using DSMN8, the results were striking:

• 1.57M impressions in 8 months.
  
• 2.5x ROI.
  
• A cultural shift where social media became part of everyday work.

AI can define your tone, but only your people can make it human.

The Tailor stage is about making every message feel relevant.

AI tools like HubSpot Breeze can segment customer data by persona, engagement, or behavior. 

This is where employee advocacy adds depth.

Employees bring context. They understand their clients’ challenges, the nuances of their industries, and the cultural moments shaping conversations.

Awin mastered this through localized advocacy.

By segmenting content for departments and regions, they gave employees relevant material, empowering them to speak authentically to their audiences.

The outcome?

Higher engagement, stronger relationships, and measurable business impact 🤝

AI scales personalization; advocacy makes it believable.

How active are your employees on social media? Get a free Competitor Analysis Review to find out.

The Amplify stage focuses on visibility. It’s all about ensuring your message reaches audiences across both traditional and emerging channels.

Marketers now optimize not just for Google, but for AI search: reformatting content into Q&As and short summaries designed to surface in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

But even as AI reshapes discovery, one channel remains unbeatable: people.

When General Motors launched its DSMN8-powered advocacy program, Sharefluence, thousands of employees joined. 

Within six months, they’d reached 20 million people 👏

The secret? Leadership buy-in.

GM’s President personally endorsed the program, showing that advocacy wasn’t just a marketing tactic; it became part of their company culture.

Your employees already have networks.

Advocacy turns those networks into powerful, human distribution engines that outperform algorithms. 

Traditional campaigns operate on fixed cycles. 

You run, report, and adjust months later.

Loop Marketing and employee advocacy both break that pattern.

AI tools can analyze live campaign data to identify top-performing content or trends that predict engagement. And advocacy adds a new layer of feedback: real human reactions.

When employees share content, you don’t just see metrics: you see conversations, comments, and questions that reveal why people engage.

AkzoNobel used these insights to tie employee advocacy directly to $100,000 in earned media value.

Each share became both a story and a signal, feeding back valuable learnings.

AI helps you react faster 🤖

Advocacy helps you respond smarter 🧠

When AI and advocacy work together, marketing becomes self-sustaining:

• AI enhances advocacy through automation, data insights, and optimized campaigns.
• Advocacy strengthens AI with human data: real-world engagement, emotional context, and trust building.

Every post shared, every comment received, every conversion recorded feeds back into the system.

The key to Loop Marketing is consistency.

Start small, measure the right metrics, and iterate.

Track each stage:

Apply small improvements, and watch the impact compound.

The beauty of the Loop is that it never ends; it just gets stronger 💪

Inbound marketing taught us to attract and nurture customers.

The Loop teaches us to listen, learn, and adapt continuously.

AI can help you analyze faster, personalize deeper, and reach further.

But your employees make it real.

They ground your message in trust, credibility, and shared humanity.

When your people express your brand’s values, personalize their message, amplify your story, and evolve through real-world feedback, they don’t just close the loop; they create a new one.

That’s The Advocacy Loop, where AI meets authenticity, and growth compounds through people.

They make marketing not just automated, but alive.

As Alex Her emphasizes in a recent episode of our podcast, the best results come when AI acts as a behind-the-scenes partner, helping employees refine and speed up their content creation while keeping their personality and lived experience front and centre.

The future of marketing won’t belong to the brands that shout the loudest, but to the ones that learn the fastest and sound the most human.

And the people who make that happen?

They already work for you!

Ready to see what’s possible for your organization?

More on AI and Employee Advocacy for Modern Marketing:

• Employee Advocacy for AI SEO: Your Secret Weapon in the Age of ChatGPT.
• How Employee Advocacy Humanizes AI GTM Strategies.
• How to Automate Employee Advocacy (And Why You Should!).