Want to stay ahead of the game in the evolving marketing landscape? You’re in the right place.
Named by Forbes as a "must-attend event for...marketing professionals", HubSpot’s INBOUND 2022 was packed with insights you won't want to miss.
Keep reading for exciting feature updates, industry trends, and actions you can take starting today to futureproof your business:
Ready? Let's blast off.
Do any of these apply to you?
Yes? Keep reading because this is SUPER important.
Parish Aggarwal from Google spoke about some BIG changes on the horizon: Chrome will no longer support third-party cookies beginning in 2024. What does this mean for marketers? In our new privacy-first world, capturing and measuring first-party data will be tough.
If HubSpot’s your website host, you’re in luck. Its tracking code automatically pulls analytics like clicks, page visits, and other data into your hub. But, to get additional insights from paid ads and other sources, you’ll want to cozy up with tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and a few others (keep reading for details).
And speaking of Google Analytics, GA3 will be sunset next year! Time to get familiar with GA4 if you’re not already.
While you’re getting started, keep this staggering statistic in mind:
Almost ⅔ of people today don’t trust companies to protect their data and privacy online.
Think about it: when was the last time you visited a website and saw a consent banner? Did you click “allow all cookies” or exit and continue browsing?
If you’re like 76% of today’s consumers, you ignored it. Why are these new privacy regulations an issue for marketers? Because they create gaps in our data.
Google offers Consent Mode as a solution. With its new modeling capabilities, Consent Mode will fill the data collection gaps to help you see trends in your website performance (so long as you’re using GA4. What’d I say? Time to get on it!).
Another Google feature you may not be using is Customer Match. It hashes first-party data to help you reach and retarget audience members across various channels.
Despite the challenges and new regulations we’re up against, this privacy-first world presents us with the opportunity to:
Create compelling offers that drive website visitors to give consent.
90% of consumers in the US and Canada would share their email for the right incentive (according to Google).
And…
2. Build more personalized website experiences and offers for our visitors.
HubSpot’s Smart Content is an underused feature that can give marketers a big leg up in this arena. Using segmented lists, we can direct customers back to an abandoned shopping cart, celebrate a milestone, recommend a product based on browsing history, and more.
Curious about leveraging smart content? Read this.
Metrics and models don’t tell the whole story, though. Ty Heath at LinkedIn suggests a novel approach to influence future buying behavior: the 95/5 rule.
95% of category buyers are out of the market at any moment. They won’t buy today, but they may down the road. So how can you generate future demand? Brainstorm Category Entry Points for your product.
What’s a Category Entry Point (CEP)? Cues that category buyers use to access their memories.
The idea is that memories (including brand memories) are situational. Think about it. What coffee brand comes to mind when you’re on your way to work? How about if you were getting together with a friend or sitting on the couch at home?
Which brands came to mind? Were they the same in each scenario?
Likely not. As marketers, we should consider when our customers are likely to buy and try to be top of mind in those situations.
The brand that gets remembered gets bought. What cues do buyers use to recall your brand?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what’s the trendiest problem of all?
Trends.co may just have the answer to this. If you don’t have a spare $300/year to drop on their newsletter, here are secrets you can use to research and discover the next big thing in the marketplace for 2023 and beyond.
Dig around in places like:
Key tactic: notice when something makes you go “huh”? Follow your curiosity.
Vet the big idea by asking:
Brainstorm solutions.
Pro-Tip: Look at 3-star reviews. They often include hidden opportunities. Take this Amazon review for a suitcase, for example:
Aside from testing a sturdier product, this manufacturer could change the game with the quality of their customer service.
I’d argue that excellent customer service is always trending and an expectation of most consumers today, but that’s a topic for another post. :)
HubSpot’s CEO, Yamini Rangan, emphasized that in a world of digital overwhelm, it’s harder than ever to reach your audience.
Surprising stat: according to the Trends.co team (Them again? Yep!), direct mail is making a comeback. Digital interactive direct mail campaigns (i.e., direct mail that sends folks online) have a 5 - 9% response rate (compared with the average email click-through rate of <2%).
Direct mail may not make sense for your audience, but think about where else they may be spending time. Are there other channels where you could experiment?
In Marcus Sheridan’s kick-butt session, he stated that 33% of all buyers today would prefer a seller-free buyer experience (according to Gartner).
What does seller-free look like? Self-selection is one piece of the puzzle.
Set aside a few minutes this month to take an honest look at your website. Are you missing any opportunities to help your visitors decide whether your product is (or isn’t) for them?
Try asking questions with a Typeform, providing answers to FAQs with a Knowledge Base, or integrating a chatbot.
Yale Appliance has a fascinating approach to self-selection. They gave their buyer control by letting them pick their salesperson before scheduling a showroom visit and increased their close rate by 62%.
How could you apply the same philosophy to your site?
HubSpot’s team introduced a ton of fancy features in the opening keynote. Some of these are still in Beta, but you can take a peek at them here. A few of the most buzzworthy include:
For the full list of new toys, click here.
According to Robert Chatwani of Atlassian, going through this process should be a regular priority. Is there friction or confusion? Where can you improve your customer’s experience?
It’s not enough to say thank you! Put a little gift inside your email to give your readers an incentive to open it. Jay Schwedelson at SubjectLine.com says that the first email open increases your chance of staying in the inbox by 85%.
Before we get to simple actions you can take TODAY to level up your business, here are a few of the tools, titles, and golden nuggets of wisdom mentioned at INBOUND 2022:
Common Room - An intelligent community growth platform
TRENDS.co: Predictions for the Future of Marketing
AI-Enabled Tools for SEO: from Dale Bertrand
BrightCove: The most powerful online video platform in the world (so they claim)
ZoomInfo: Out-of-the-box workflows for sales playbooks
Keywords Everywhere: The browser extension for keyword research
Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis
Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy by Phil Barden
Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses by Nancy Harhut
How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp
While Yamini drove home the importance of optimizing your business for customer connection, Dharmesh focused on the how. In his view, a business connection is a “growmance” where you can “gaze fondly into each other’s dashboards.” I’ll never get tired of his comic relief.
In all seriousness, Dharmesh also stressed the importance of copywriting, claiming that it’s the most underrated skill. Get good at it! Read this article to get started.
Robert Chatwani reminded us to be willing to evolve: “What got your business to where it is are not the same principles that will get you to where you need to be.”
Jay Schwedelson didn’t mince words when he stated: “When you're not known for something, you're known for nothing.” Focus on one core product and up or cross-sell from there.
Goodall reminded us to give people a chance. She didn’t have a formal education and wasn’t “qualified” in a traditional sense, which helped her see things with fresh eyes. Do you have employees or potential hires that could use an open door?
Dale Bertrand led a fascinating discussion on the future of AI in marketing, claiming that AI is an enabling technology in the same way fire, the wheel, electricity, and the internet inspired many innovations. Marketers must keep up with these changes to stay relevant as AI becomes more common. Want to learn which technologies are already out there? Grab Dale’s list of resources here.
Last but not least, Obama inspired us with his advice for connecting our divided world. He said our goal shouldn't be to agree on everything all the time but to respect a set of rules where we can sort through our differences. We need the humility to recognize that we’re imperfect and don't know everything.
Wise words, indeed.
If you’re still reading, congrats. You just digested a bunch of critical industry info and inspiration, and now it’s time to put all that knowledge to work. Here are some simple things you can do right now to get started.
Take 3 minutes to build a profile on HubSpot’s new community: connect.com.
Make Dharmesh proud and practice writing every day (including today!). Get started with these pointers.
Enough said.
Jane Goodall reminded us that hope is about action, not just wishful thinking.
Now you can either:
The choice is yours.