If you’ve been following Channel Maven for a while, you know that HubSpot’s INBOUND conference is one of our favorite events of the year. Now hosted virtually, INBOUND brings together leaders from the sales, marketing, and customer success worlds for inspirational keynotes, educational breakout sessions and networking.
We’re excited to share lessons learned from the event earlier this month and implement these best-practices with our clients. Here's our recap of the latest in sales, marketing and customer success strategy!
Email for Sales and Marketing:
As a salesperson or marketer, you know how difficult it can be to keep up with email best practices. Between various data privacy regulations and new SPAM filters, strategies are constantly changing. In fact, Jay Schwedelson, Founder of SubjectLine.com kicked off his session Email Myths Busted! What’s Really Working Now, by reiterating exactly that. Email trends that worked 6 months ago don’t necessarily work today, and today’s best practices might not work 6 months from now. That said, there are a number of current “Do’s and Don'ts” that have a proven impact on email open rates and engagement. Here’s a quick overview of what’s working (and NOT working) right now.
What Works:
What Doesn’t Work:
B2B Thought Leadership
In her session, How to Scale Thought Leadership, Atlassian’s Ashley Faus offered strategic ways to approach and execute thought leadership. According to Ashley, most companies have “1%” of influencers who are the main spokespeople for the company. These are often C-Suite executives or leaders who act as faces of the organization. Then, there’s a bottom 10% who are not spokespeople, and 89% remaining in the middle. By implementing the right framework, you can build an army of thought leaders who represent your brand and amplify overall reach. To get started, it’s important to define the goals of the framework which include:
But, what actually makes a thought leader a thought leader? According to Ashley, it’s confined to knowledge workers (rather than celebrities or famous people) who have relevant ideas and external influence. The 4 pillars of thought leadership are:
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
It’s imperative that B2B companies looking to drive revenue and grow focus on larger customers and landing bigger deal sizes. In her session, How B2B Marketing Are Using Inbound and ABM to Drive Growth and Move Upmarket, Rollwork’s Devon Watts offered tips for using account-based marketing strategies alongside inbound efforts. To get started, define your ideal upmarket customer by looking at company size, industry, location, growth rate, etc. Once your target persona is set, build a list of target accounts by identifying any existing contacts in your current CRM who match your persona. Then, use ABM platforms like Rollworks or social media like LinkedIn to gain new account information and grow your list of targets.
It’s also important to understand the customer journey for new and larger companies and use the proper strategies to engage upmarket accounts. Tactics include:
LinkedIn Organic and Advertising
Linkedin is an undeniably powerful tool when it comes to sales and marketing. But navigating LinkedIn organic content and advertising isn’t always easy. During their debate, AJ Wilcox and Michaela Alexis discussed the intricacies and use-cases for LinkedIn organic content and LinkedIn paid advertising.
Tips for Getting Started with LinkedIn Advertising:
Tips for Companies with Low Budgets::
Video and Podcasting:
We also heard from Lindsay Tjepkema, co-founder of Casted who discussed Video VS. Podcasting for Engagement. Here are some key takeaways for harnessing the power of podcasts and videos for demand generation:
Phew! As you can there’s plenty of food for thought from Inbound and this is just a summary! If you have any questions or would like to chat more about any of these topics, contact us anytime! We’re here to help.
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