The Inbound Marketing Experience At ‘Inbound 2014’

Last week, I attended HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 Conference in Boston and let me say - there was a LOT to take away from it. Whether it was the vision of David Meerman Scott, the ground-breaking announcements from Brian Halligan or the downright folksy slang from Marcus Sheridan, just about every session had some key takeaways.

But this conference was more than just sessions. It was the entire Inbound Marketing experience. The people, the sessions, the food, the ideas, the stories - all of it made Inbound 2014 an incredible conference to be at.

In this post, I’ll go through 3-5 takeaways from some of the sessions I attended. I’ll finish up with some overall takeaways and some discussion on the entire experience. Here we go.

John McTigue from Kuno Creative

One of HubSpot’s Platinum agency partners, Kuno Creative is a model agency in a lot of ways. You visit their website and you get the feeling that they know their stuff when it comes to Inbound marketing. It takes a strong leader to get to where they’re at and John McTigue’s talk about how agencies should be selling themselves was mighty interesting.

He broke down agencies into 3 groups: Lions, Tigers and Bears. Lions were Inbound Marketing agencies, like us. We’re ‘mean and lean’. Strategy is typically insourced and creative is outsourced. Tigers are boutique agencies that typically do 1 or 2 things really well. Bears are large agencies that manage BIG national brands. He brought these up because in some way, there are opportunities for these different classifications of marketing agencies to work together.

My Takeaways from John McTigue’s Presentation:

1. Over 45% of customers want more choice in agencies. Clients are learning. Over 50% rate agency specialty as important.
2. Customers want big ideas out of agencies. Pitch and sell ideas, not methods. Pitch new ideas each month.
3. Run a workshop so they can get to know you. Show your expertise in an easy-to-consume way. Prospective clients want to be able trust that you’ve got the latest industry knowledge. They also want to know what exactly you might be doing for them. Again, this helps build trust.

David Meerman Scott - The New Rules of Selling

I wasn’t at Inbound 2013 but I hear David Meerman Scott, as a keynote, was fantastic. He did not disappoint at Inbound 2014 - I can tell you that for sure. The main theme of his talk was that while the way people buy has changed, the way salespeople ought to sell should change as well.

The bottom line, and I’ve heard this from Sales Trainers, is that people love to buy and hate to be sold. We all know that to succeed with Inbound marketing, we ought to be educating and informing and David reinforced that.

An important question he posed was: How would you approach sales if you were trying to date the buyer instead of trying to sell them? Give that a thought for a few seconds.

Main Takeaways from David Meerman Scott’s Presentation:

1. “Big data” (he hates that word) enables a more scientific approach to sales. Sales signals can be buyers viewing your site, viewing shared content, opening an email.
2. Agile sales - news-jacking. David used examples like Ben and Jerry’s responding to the news of Colorado’s marijuana legalization. He also showed a screenshot of a Lawyer blogging about Ray Rice. These are good ways to get coverage (and links).
3. A salesperson’s web presence is important. 20% of HubSpot customers viewed Brian Halligan’s bio before or after becoming a customer.

Marcus Sheridan - Ask Me Anything

Simply meeting Marcus Sheridan was a goal of mine and after a year of corresponding with over email on content marketing matters, I finally got that chance. A Virginia-native, Marcus has that folksy, southern accent that adds life to every speech he gives and every presentation he makes. You can feel the passion in his voice and presence. He loves educating people and solving their problems. It’s what he practised and preached as a ‘Pool Guy’ at River Pools and Spas and what he does full-time for his own agency, The Sales Lion.

The talk of his that I attended was an “Ask Me Anything” where it was pure Q&A. And he was honest. He spoke from the heart. Questions ranged from website sliders to the future of Inbound to how to sell SEO.

Takeaways from Marcus Sheridan’s Ask Me Anything:

1. Ask yourself this: “When people come to our website, do we solve their problems better than anyone in the world?”
2. Definitions of “Inbound” or “SEO” or “Content Marketing” are irrelevant to most people. Speak to them in simple terms. Ask them if in 20 years from now, if it’ll be important to understand needs, fears and pain points of customers?
3. People want to find what they’re looking for - and find it quickly. Every business model out there delivers things to people faster and better. We should strive to do the same.
4. The best ‘link building’ tool: Talking about things that noone else will.
5. One thing that matters least: Fancy metrics. You get lost in stats and forget who you are.

Dan Moyle - 5 Tools For Boring Industries

There are ways to make any industry or product or service interesting. In Dan Moyle’s case, he has to make buying mortgages interesting. And let’s face it - the job of making the dullest of things can be tough. You have to turn up your creative juices (something that we at LocalTrifecta are experts at doing) and pump out ideas that are amazing.

But overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with the session. This is probably because I went in with high expectations, thinking I’d get a lot of actionable tips to go back and implement for our clients. But given the audience of a lot of in-house marketers and company executives, the 5 tools were simply overall Inbound channels/tips. It was way more ‘101’ than I was hoping for and his tips were more aimed at those looking to get started. He also showed HubSpot screenshots of his traffic and customers over time and boy, has Inbound marketing paid off for them!

My Takeaways from Dan Moyle’s Presentation:

1. 5 Tools are: Buyer Personas, Blogging, Email Marketing, Social Media and Video
2. Provide relevant content in a variety of ways. Be helpful and answer questions.
3. Video is huge. Get the right tools and get comfortable in front of camera.

Tim Ash - Conversion ‘Hacking’ the Brain

SiteTuners CEO Tim Ash had arguably the best session out of all that I attended. His talk was a little deeper than most. By that, I mean his talk was the least ‘101’ of them all. He talked about the brain and how people function. Then, he transitioned into an application of those ideas into conversion rate optimization. I had the opportunity to meet Tim later on in the day and he’s very humble, in-person.

My Takeaways from Tim Ash’s Presentation:

1. People are lazy, automatic and impatient. Most of what we do is on auto-pilot. 95% of our actions are pre-conscious. We only remember novel stuff because there’s always new things coming up.
2. If you’re going to speak to someone, you have to speak their language. People are tribal and care generally more about people who are similar to them. Communicate your values through editorial tone. Don’t worry about alienating outsiders.
3. CRO. Everything should support the conversion action. If you choose to include a fancy image or graphic on a landing page, ask yourself if the image supports what you want the user to do (convert). Also be careful with video. While under the conversion ‘hierarchy’, video wipes out graphics and graphics wipe out text, videos can be distracting. Tim suggested Facebook-style small thumbnails with affirmative play action button.

The Inbound Experience

I have to really tip my hat off to HubSpot. I came in with somewhat high expectations of what the conference experience would be like - and they delivered big time. Talking to a lot of people, a big reason why so many love HubSpot is the way they brand themselves. Their competitors in the Inbound marketing software space are all serious (and that’s completely fair). But HubSpot likes to have fun with it. They were selling all kinds of paraphernalia like T-shirts with fun Inbound messaging on the front like “There’s An Inbound Method To My Madness”.

The Boston Convention and Exhibition Centre was colossal and it needed to be. There were over 9,000 attendees at Inbound. There was a large ballroom for most of the keynote speeches. The main area was called “Club Inbound” where there was a DJ pounding out tunes each day and evening. Inside “Club Inbound” were plenty sitting areas, many of which had outlets. HubSpot set up some unique, swanky “Recharging Stations” throughout the Convention Centre concourse where attendees could sit and work while their devices charged back up to full strength. 

HubSpot had a bunch of food trucks outside for catering. There were also lounging areas and a lifesize chess set!

The spirit of Inbound 2014 was full of life. The feel in the air of whatever room you were in was empowering. And the people...well the people were eager to learn from speakers and fellow marketers - so much so that it enhanced the experience of being at Inbound. That energy fed off onto me and that was truly an awesome experience, in and of itself!

Engaging With Fellow Inbound Marketing Enthusiasts

With over 9,000 people from across North America and even overseas, you’re bound to engage with plenty of fellow Inbound marketers. HubSpot even had “Happy Hour” networking sessions in the evenings where people could just chat, exchange business cards and share a laugh over a drink and appetizers.

During one of those sessions, I met a couple from Finland and they operate their own agency. They had been HubSpot partners for the last year - but their agency itself has been in business for 27 years, starting in traditional marketing. They moved into the digital space around 13 years ago. I wasn’t expecting too many coming from overseas but that just shows how far around the world HubSpot has touched. One of HubSpot’s biggest and most successful agency partners, Mktg Engine, is based out of Japan.

I had the chance to meet folks from all across North America - Iowa, Texas, Minnesota and so on. Inbound 2014 was a collection of energetic, enthusiastic marketers looking to improve themselves and their respective employers in practising Inbound marketing.

Keynote Speeches from HubSpot Co-Founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan

But here’s where things got downright earth-shattering: Every year, HubSpot usually makes product announcements. At Inbound 2013, they launched their own content management system, the “Content Optimization System” (COS). This time around, they geared us up for something big..

In Dharmesh’s keynote he announced that HubSpot’s Signals tool, which allows you to track email opens and clicks, would be upgraded to a new tool called Sidekick. Sidekick saves sales teams a lot of time by being able to do prospect research without the constant field input. He also announced a number of other upgrades that would allow HubSpot users to create custom campaigns, track revenue figures and much more.

Brian’s unveiling of what my colleague, Sam Araki had predicted all along, was ground-breaking. HubSpot had always relied on Salesforce.com as the CRM to connect with the HubSpot platform. Over the years, connecting HubSpot to other CRM systems was possible but often frustrating for many marketers. Now, HubSpot was launching its own CRM - HubSpot CRM. Working in connection with Sidekick, sales teams could do prospect research, have information ready without switching windows, place and record calls and so much more with the new CRM system.

HubSpot upgraded all partner agencies (by the looks of it) today so we’ll be playing around with it over the next few days (watch out for a blog post reviewing it!).

Finally…

The overall experience in Boston was incredible. It was my first trip there and Boston itself is a gorgeous city. Add 9,000 marketers to the mix and you’ve got an incredible environment! If you didn’t have the opportunity to go, I suggest you make plans for Inbound 2015!

If you did go, tell me what your experience was like in the comments section below. I’d love to hear what your own takeaways were and which speakers you enjoyed.

About the Author:

Ramesh Ranjan is the Inbound Marketing Specialist at LocalTrifecta Internet Marketing, where he helps businesses across Metro Vancouver increase sales and revenue through Inbound Marketing. His marketing heroes are Marcus Sheridan, John Caples and John Carlton. In his off time, he can be found playing roller hockey in Richmond, blogging on his personal website, and at the top of the office hockey pool. You can follow and connect with Ramesh over Twitter and Google+