HubSpot INBOUND 2022

The TFD team attended virtual sessions, listened to powerful presentations, and kept a running commentary on new product releases, industry trends, and evolving strategies at hubspot’s annual inbound conference last week.

Every year at INBOUND, HubSpot delivers the goods on new product releases, additional features, and the general direction of the product, which has made leaps and bounds of growth in functionality in the last three years. Last year at INBOUND, HubSpot officially revealed its new Payments feature, allowing users to capture payments for single issues, subscriptions, event tickets, advertising sales, and more directly through HubSpot forms and pages. This year HubSpot doubled down on the impact of Payments declaring it a “commerce-powered CRM platform” and adding features that allow full customization around dates, amounts, and recurring payment schedules allowing for unprecedented flexibility in how you charge and bill your customers. Plus, distinctly improved integration with Quickbooks allows users to leverage the power functionality inside the Sales Hub while keeping internal books in-line and up to date using HubSpot workflows. 

Beyond Payments, HubSpot is rolling out advanced ad conversion events that clearly show the immediate and long-term impact of advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, or LinkedIn. Not only can you identify the individual email addresses acquired through your campaign but you can also track their journey to understand how that investment delivers over time. 

The majority of product updates centered around HubSpot’s declaration that we are experiencing a ‘crisis of disconnection’ (beyond the crisis of disconnection we are already experiencing as a society) with disconnected consumer experiences and disconnected data. By delivering best-in-class connectivity, HubSpot continues to position itself as the product that can grow with you and most importantly, keep your consumers, data, and marketing efforts clean, connected and converting. 

A Few of our Key Takeaways:

The Future of Customer Privacy with Google

Even Google’s head of measurement and privacy, Parish Aggarwal, joked that many of us may be experiencing ‘privacy fatigue’. But rest assured, this topic isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But there is some good news. Google is here to help combat some data gaps we may be experiencing with recent industry changes and regulations. Those data gaps we’re experiencing are seen in exact measurements, audience lists, and automated bidding. 

And the push for privacy is now coming from our audience, too. A whopping 75% of people don’t trust companies to protect their data. What would your audience say about your data privacy measures? 

It’s important to remember that privacy and performance are not at odds. As marketers, we have to adapt to the new playground rules. 3 ways to do that? Enhanced conversions and consent mode via Google Tag Manager – and Google’s biggest weapon for combating and leveraging privacy changes? Google Analytics 4. 

Parish also reminded us that First Party Data will be the king of marketing for the next decade. And while many of us understand the value, very few are taking action. 30% are collecting and integrating data across channels. And 1% are actually using data to deliver cross-channel experiences. It’s time to leverage Google Tag Manager (and HubSpot!!!) to help collect first-party data and get your hands on more observable conversions. 

Marketing Rules of Thumb: Trust It or Bust It

If you have been in the marketing field for even a few years, chances are you’ve run across a few rules of thumb. In this conversation, panelists outlined the pros and cons of commonly held marketing best practices. 

1. Copy should be short

Yes— short and punchy copy is powerful. Concise language can keep users informed at a glance and move them towards your desired action. As marketers, it may seem counterintuitive to be so brief, but keeping copy to 2-3 sentences can hold tremendous benefits. 

No—short copy doesn’t work in all situations. Sometimes, we want to be more explicit and benefit from a longer character count (Blog posts, FAQs). 

2. Marketing Messages Should Include Social Proof

Yes—some of the most impactful ways that we can influence people is by using social proof tactics: celeb endorsements, testimonials, and case studies. 

No–social proof can backfire. If you’re a new company or have recently launched a new product and don't have a substantial amount of reviews, social proof is not the tool to reach for. If used incorrectly, you can actually create social proof on the opposite side of your CTA.

3. Marketers Should Focus on Benefits 

Yes–tout your benefits. Customers are self-interested and are interested in what will happen to them. 

No–people are 2x as motivated to avoid the feeling of loss as opposed to experience gain. Sometimes, it can be more powerful to lead with loss aversion. 

The Logic of Emotion: How to Make Inaction Impossible 

Marketing is all about making action irresistible by creating a brand story your customer believes. With every decision we make, we tell ourselves a story about why the decision is right for us. Aristotle observed that stories have 3 parts - a setup, a conflict, and an ending.  Story arcs also exist in real life and are pivotal to marketing psychology. Through surfacing assumptions and speaking directly to your audience about their desires, you can create a messaging moment of truth and convince your customer you are right for them.

Category Entry Points in a B2B World: Buying Situations to Brand Sales

Most purchases start by not searching Google, but by searching our memory. Our job as marketers is not necessarily to generate clicks but to generate memories. Modern marketing is not exclusively ads and campaigns, but building a brand people remember. By identifying key category entry points and developing distinctive, branded assets, you can stand out in even the most competitive landscape.

Quick tips that will make a difference in your email campaigns now.

🏆 Highlighting ‘Most Popular’ or ‘Most Downloaded’ in subject lines drives up engagement by over 20%

☝️ Animated GIFS improve click rates

🧑‍💻 Segmented emails outperform non-segmented emails, with the highest engagement coming from your new subscribers

🤝 Your welcome email is more than just a confirmation page. It’s an opportunity for you to establish a good sending reputation with your customers’ mail server. New contacts who open the first email you send are 225% more likely to become a customer than those that don’t

🔢 20% of all email sent ends up in the junk/spam folder because of a poor sending reputation

🍪 Whether it’s National Cookie Day, Best Friends Day, or something else, consumers are eager to celebrate as special holiday emails generate a 29% increase in engagement

🏢 Your landing page is not a mall. Remove extra noise and competing CTA’s to increase conversions by 240%

📅 ’Tomorrow’ beats a specific day call out like ‘Tuesday’ or ‘Wednesday’ in subject lines by 28%. We don’t know what day it is, but we know tomorrow is tomorrow.

💰 Post registration landing pages have a click rate above 13%, so post sale/registration is a great time to upsell or highlight a new offering

💌 Spam filters don’t care about words like ‘Free’ anymore, and Free beats Complimentary

◼️ Black Friday emails beat Cyber Monday emails in opens by 31%, so don’t gloss over the consumer event in your marketing efforts this year

⏰ 80% of emails are sent on the HOUR. Increase engagement by merely changing your time sent 10 minutes, show up 10 minutes late to the party

📣 Pages with testimonials outperform those that don’t by more than 22%

💣 Test email pages in an incognito browser. Pages that take longer than three seconds to load have a 37% higher abandon rate

🔍 ’Watch Now’ outperforms ‘On Demand’

😄 Emoji’s work in subject lines. Always place them as the first character. The most effective emoji in subject lines for business and consumer products is the clock

💔 Reengagement starts sooner than six months. If a contact goes 30 days without opening any of your emails, 70% of those contacts will never open anything from you again

📪 Subject line words that are working right now: ‘Best Sellers’ ‘Almost Gone’ ‘Actual’

📈 Personalization tactics that are increasing opens ‘Life Event’ (ie, Homeowner), ‘Company Name’, ‘Job Function’

We’d love to hear what you learned from this year’s event. Drop us a line at ashley@twentyfirstdigital.com to discuss your thoughts!