GNG: INBOUND ‘22 Recap - Crisis of Disconnection & What To Do About It

INBOUND ‘22

INBOUND is an annual conference hosted by HubSpot. It’s a hub for professionals working in sales, marketing, customer experience and revenue operations looking for new trends and tactics, different innovative approaches to grow their expertise and to stay ahead of the curve.

This event attracts more than 70,000+ attendees from around the world. I don’t know about you but the numbers don’t lie – and it is saying that this is one of the world's largest marketing conferences.

HIGHLIGHTS

Yamini nailed her spotlight session. Everything she said is SO relatable..

She explained that companies are in a crisis of disconnection today, caused by three major disconnects. They’re struggling with disconnected systems, disconnected people, and disconnected customers.

• Systems are Disconnected

Humans are so smart that there's software for every problem – for every task and every department. The problem isn’t that companies have a lot of tools, though — it’s that too few are connected. Each has its own data and processes but there’s no one place tying it all together.

• People are Disconnected

This all started from the pandemic, quarantine, isolation, working remotely – we’ve all been disconnected more than ever. People crave community. They want to build deeper relationships with their co-workers, their customers, and their network, but it’s not as easy as it once was.

• Companies are Disconnected from Customers

The channels and strategies that used to work for companies in reaching their customers now seem to be working against them. But why?

The first reason is that people are digitally drained. 

Drained!

The second reason is that we are now living in a privacy-first world. People are more protective of their data than ever.

All of these combined,  leads to a crisis of disconnection.

And they have answers to these problems. They are bringing together three powerful parts of HubSpot’s solution together: Connected Applications, Connected Platform and Connected Community.

“A community whispers to you with a quiet confidence, you belong, you have value, you matter. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are.” - Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh Shah spoke about community especially as an introvert. He made us realise how community connects the dots and that we can be part of each other’s growth.

Forming a community can feel overwhelming. But the community doesn’t have to be huge to bring value, it just has to create community.

Dharmesh shared a framework he came up with for crafting I.D.E.A.L. communities.

Everything at INBOUND 2022 linked back to the core message of the conference which is the connected community. There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from this conference depending on what’s applicable for your business. But overall, it is a great place to learn and connect with like-minded individuals.

What’s New-ish In HubSpot?

For more information on HubSpot Product updates, visit their community page.

• Customer Journey Analytics
  This new feature allows you to see where customers continue their journey, where they drop off, and the different channels they’ve interacted with. It enables marketers to assess which channels are working best and which aren’t. 
  
  By having access to a customer’s entire end-to-end journey, you’ll know what moments to optimise that matter most for increased conversion. 

• Ad Conversion Events
  There are different ways a person can be harmed by the revelation of personal information which is why customers are protective of their data.
   
  Some predict that we might live in a cookie-less world in a few years, making it impossible for companies to reach and build relationships with customers.
  
  With HubSpot’s ad conversion events, if you run your ads across different major ad networks, HubSpot will be able to fully understand their first-party data by the end of 2022.
  
  Which is why CRM is so important so you can store this information so you can better target, report and optimise your campaigns.
  Google Offline Events, Facebook CAPI for Pageviews, Facebook offline events for Instant forms,  and LinkedIn offline events are all available in the HubSpot CRM.

• Product Recommendations in Marketing Emails 
  Who says HubSpot can’t be used for eCommerce?
  
  A detailed product recommendation email strategy is often used in eCommerce to help optimise the online customer experience – and now, HubSpot has this feature!
  
  HubSpot offers ways to sort products to hit the sweet spot of interest with customers. 
  
  The new product recommendations feature provides marketers with a simple method to incorporate customer-relevant products into marketing emails.

• Data Quality Command Centre
  Incorrect or bad data can lead to any number of problems from bad decision making to bad business which is why data’s accuracy is crucial.
  
  With the data quality command centre, you can gauge the health of your data in one place. In an all-in-one dashboard, you can pinpoint duplicates, formatting issues, unused properties and data sync bottlenecks — and you can fix the errors right there – in the command centre! HubSpot’s making life easier for you.

• B2B eCommerce
  Customers are more demanding with their buying experience and the question is, can you deliver?
  
  HubSpot now offers more ways to accept payment — in forms, meetings, marketing emails, and more. It also supports an open amount field where customers can input the amount they want to pay.

These are just some of the amazing and helpful updates HubSpot is serving us. HubSpot’s making life easier for us so how will you use these updates to connect with your customers? Online and offline. 
CRM and first-party data has never been more important. Invest today & reach out to us to get your HubSpot audit or HubSpot implementation.