3 Media Web’s Favorite Takeaways from Inbound 2022
Last month, 3 Media Web attended Hubspot’s Inbound conference. Inbound began as a marketing conference and has grown much more since its inception in 2012. Featuring thought leaders from over 161 countries in marketing, sales, customer success, and revenue operations; there is something for everyone.
Inbound 2022 Goes Virtual
Inbound 2022 was the first ever hybrid event, allowing attendees to attend in person or virtually. 3 Media Web took advantage of the new virtual component, with employees across multiple departments joining sessions to learn new approaches, trends, and strategies to help us better serve our clients.
Attendees from 3 Media Web included team members from Digital Marketing, Account Management, Project Management, Sales, and Leadership. Here are some favorite employee takeaways from the conference.
Digital Marketing Takeaways from Inbound 2022
Inbound 2022 was a great opportunity to learn more about the future of digital marketing. All of our attending strategists well represented 3 Media Web.
The Future of Customer Privacy – Enter GA4
First up, our Digital Strategists came away from Inbound 2022 excited and ready for the next phase of analytics – GA4. We’re no strangers to GA4; check out Ben Duchesney’s post to understand how critical GA4 is for your business.
Senior Digital Strategists Tom Broadwater and Adrian Aguirre attended The Future of Customer Privacy with Google, which focused on the fact that online privacy policies are becoming more stringent. Google is moving to first-party data collection via GA4 and other first-party measurement tools. Tom noted the impact of users denying consent to track and what this could mean for digital marketers.
Are you ready for 2023? Contact 3 Media Web today to start a Digital Marketing Audit for 2023 planning today!
Exciting Ways to Market – Video and Artificial Intelligence
Adrian took interest in a new and interesting way to market – Artificial Intelligence. He shares that “AI will continue to be a valuable tool in the marketing world, for prediction, data collection, and advertising personalization. It’s important to stay up to date with emerging AI skills and tools, to stay relevant and competitive in the field.”
His learning didn’t stop there! Adrian is also excited about the importance of video content. He shares that individuals and businesses are 97% more receptive to sales communication after consuming that business’s video content. Additionally, 81% of users prefer video content when learning to use a new product or service.
Watch Now – Email Marketing with Video is on the Rise
Digital Strategist Ben Duchesney found the most helpful session was on email marketing, where he learned the latest trends in subject lines and email content types. The metric he found most interesting was that adding the phrase “Watch Now” in an email subject line increases opens by a staggering 34%! Ben looks forward to putting this tip to the test in future emails. Between this tip and the session, Adrian attended on video content, we know that users are willing and eager to consume video content. If you aren’t using video in your business, consider adding video content to your marketing strategy.
Navigating the Algorithm
Senior Digital Strategist Kevin Caragher found Neil Patel’s session What’s Next: How to Navigate Marketing Around Search and Social Algorithms to be a great focal point. Kevin is excited to test Neil’s practical guidance on what’s working on each platform with his clients.
Kevin found the most significant takeaway from Neil Patel was the rule of 7: “If someone sees you seven times, they are more likely to engage with you.” In addition, knowing what’s performing now on all social platforms helps increase engagement across 3 Media Web’s clients.
Creativity is Powerful
Kevin also shares a fun stat from What’s Next: The Power of Creativity in B2B Marketing: “Brands with emotional connections see 198% more success” – a mind-bending number! The session broke down the Principles for Brand Marketing.
Make sure your message is:
Clear – Would my mom understand this?
- Persuasive – Do I know why this brand/product is better?
- Engaging – Does it give me goosebumps or giggles?
- Actionable – Do I know where I can go from here?
Kevin enjoyed this session because “Creativity” should be thinking outside the box and this framework lays a straightforward way to accomplish just that.
Management and Sales Takeaways
Inbound is no longer just for marketers. With sessions on customer success, sales, and revenue 3 Media Web found plenty of opportunities to attend various helpful sessions across multiple departments. Attendees are looking forward to putting what they’ve learned into action to create better client experiences, grow our business, and think outside of the box.
Building Awareness
Project Manager Kim Carr Brache found it interesting that 95% of buyers are actually out of market. To be successful, you need to focus messaging and marketing efforts on those not in the funnel.
She also learned that in B2B there are an average of 8.6 decision makers on the buying committee. Don’t let this scare you. You don’t need all of them to say “yes”; you just need them not to say “no.” It’s important to build awareness; if people know who you are, it’s one less hurdle to overcome.
Don’t be Afraid to Have Fun and Use the Emoji
If you’ve received emails from Account Manager Jenny Mills, you know she is a big fan of adding emojis to email subject lines. She attended some sessions with Jay Schwedelson and says his presentations are the absolute best! He makes everything exciting, engaging, and humorous. He is also an advocate for adding emojis to email subject lines.
Don’t be afraid to have fun! This will help you stand out from the competition. 🙂
Get to the Meeting, or be Radically Different?
Sales Director Sean Greene is no stranger to Virtual Selling but was blown away by the session led by the engaging Kim Orlesky of ConvergentIS. Sean found Marcus Sheridan from IMPACT of equal enthusiasm in his presentation on The Future of Sales & Marketing as we know it.
Sean found the two presentations were interesting counterpoints to each other.
Kim Orlesky promoted what Sean considered a very old-school, tried-and-true, by-the-numbers approach to sales excellence. She cuts to the chase and isn’t afraid to get to the meeting!
By contrast, Marcus Sherdian promoted the idea that to stand out, you need to be bold enough to attempt to sell in a radically different way from your competitors. This approach will scare off 99% of the people in the room but can be the key differentiator to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Marcus Sheridan champions:
- 80% of your prospects are through the buyer’s journey before they talk to Sales and 33% of buyers prefer a “seller-free experience” – Millenials in particular account for 44%. More than 3/4 prefer digital self-serve & remote buying in favor of the alternative. The key here is that the buyer is in control.
- Letting your prospects pick who they’ll talk to as not everyone wants to speak to a “salesperson”
- Putting a pricing tool front and center on the site and letting your prospects price out a plan based on their needs. This will allow the prospect to research in a way that’s most comfortable for them before opening talks with a sales consultant.
- The key takeaway is that to stand out, you have to try things (selling) in a radically different way. You can’t be afraid to fail. If you fail, you go back to the drawing board and try something new but continuing to do things the same way that all your competitors are is a recipe for non-distinction
Sean is excited to explore and adapt his sales technique. He’s looking forward to figuring out how to marry the tried-and-true approach represented by Kim Orlesky, better leverage LinkedIn, get the meeting, and fuel consistent transactions while equally thinking outside the box and making a clear distinction within a competitive marketplace.
Looking To the Future
3 Media Web is always growing and learning. One of our core values is “Always be learning.” Hubspot’s Inbound 2022 was a great way to do just that. The 3 Media Web team is excited about the future and can’t wait to put what our attendees have learned into practice.