Over the past few days, I had the opportunity to meet and ‘rock out’ with more than 2,000 marketers at HubSpot’s INBOUND 2012. The week was jam-packed with breakout sessions, keynote speakers, networking opportunities and an appearance by Cyndi Lauper. Yes, I will admit, my inner rock star took over when Cyndi sang “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” While the concert was fun and memorable, I am even more excited about the takeaways from the sessions and the new features available in HubSpot 3. (I encourage you to check out Dan’s post from Wednesday that provides greater detail about the rollout of HubSpot 3.)
The new features that I am most excited about are the custom contact form fields and smart calls to action. Both features empower us to create a more personalized experience for our customers. We all know content is king, but even the best-crafted content is not one-size-fits-all. Great content may bring people to your site, but personalized content is what pulls them though the sales funnel. With the rollout of HubSpot 3, I can now have up to 1,000 custom fields on my contact records. I see a lot of segmented lists in my future!
With smart CTA’s, visitors to my site will see different content based on where they fall within the sales funnel. Jerry Crane’s (Director of Product Management for HubSpot) presentation demonstrated how many of the biggest brands today do not match up their content with context. As marketers, we need to understand that content needs context. The stage of our relationship with a lead and their preferences should define the content a lead sees—whether it is on our website or in an email. “Marketing Love” is created when we deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
Bestselling author Susan Cain discussed how introverts are often misunderstood and undervalued in our culture. She shared tips for how companies can create an environment where both introverts and extroverts can thrive as individuals and in groups. In general, marketers are often classified as extroverts. But I was surprised to learn that close to half of the room considered themselves introverts based on a five-question survey Susan presented to the group. Overall, I found her presentation to be inspiring and am anxiously waiting for the Amazon box to arrive at my doorstep containing her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking.
As a bit of a germ freak, I was ecstatic that David Meerman Scott taught us about Charmin’s SitOrSquat app. The app locates nearby restrooms and rates them as a Sit (like) or a Squat (bathroom could do better) based on visitor reviews. For people like me, this is a really cool and helpful app. But what I really appreciate is how Charmin is able to offer a solution to a common problem without bombarding me with product focused content. Now that is great top-of-the-funnel content marketing!
If you have the opportunity to attend HubSpot’s INBOUND conference next year, I would highly recommend it. The HubSpot staff was top-notch and put on a great event!
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