Couldn’t make it to Inbound17? Shame on you! It was a wonderful event, full of insights, experiences, and inspiration. The sessions were valuable, the parties were lively, and everybody left tired but happy.
Plus, we got to see Michelle Obama.
But we were also there to meet people. Important people. We wanted to know what some of the leading presenters and minds at Inbound17 were planning for the near future. More importantly, we wanted to know how we could steal their ideas.
So we chased a range of successful marketers and sales pros around with a mobile phone, and created a series of Facebook Live videos. The video quality may be a little casual, but the ideas are first class.
[Image credit: @INBOUND on Twitter]
What the marketing experts at Inbound17 think you should know
Larry Kim, Mobile Monkey
Larry’s the founder of Wordstream, a PPC company that handles more than $1 billion in worldwide ad spend. These days, he’s the CEO of Mobile Monkey, a startup exploring artificial intelligence for mobile devices.
We’ve worked with Larry before on our Real Smart Marketing series, and it was a pleasure to see him again. More importantly, he’s a fountain of wisdom.
Larry told us all about…
How to get better results on any marketing channel
- Identify your “unicorn” content and turn it into unicorn babies.
- Stop doubling down on “donkey” content. You can’t make a bad idea good.
- Use Google Analytics to prove the value of your best content.
- Build brand affinity. People should think of you when they think about your industry.
Now hear it in his words:
“20% of your content marketing should be going after a broader audience. Let’s cast a wider net with our marketing efforts to try get in front of people before they decide to buy your stuff. Go after an adjacent topic that is substantially broader than the niche that you’re in. That way, later, when they do decide to buy, they’ll say ‘hey, I’ve heard of this company before,’ and your click-through rates will be higher.”
Daniel Waas, GoToWebinar
Daniel’s the Director of Marketing at GoToWebinar. Webinars are now a mainstay in brands’ marketing strategies, especially for B2B companies.
Luckily, Daniel knows everything there is to know about webinars. (It’s sort of his job). So we sat down with him to find out what works best for webinar marketing, and what to expect in the near future from GoToWebinar.
What marketers need to know about hosting webinars
- Webinars need to be fun!
- Make it personal. Webinars let you connect with people, so show some personality.
- Relax. If you mess up, it just makes you more relatable.
- Email, email, email. Drive a good list – it’s your prime way to pull people in.
- Co-marketing is essential.
Watch the full video:
“Two webinars ago, we tried going on the webinar. I wanted it to be perfect. We had a green screen behind me. I switched off the webcam, then put it back on, and it reset the settings. I looked like a white walker from Game of Thrones! But you have to just own it. Take it easy. It’s not a bad thing.”
Phil Nottingham, Wistia
Phil Nottingham is a video strategist at Wistia, the video marketing platform. We met Phil in the Wistia studio and he gave us some seriously expert advice about using video for marketing.
Video’s only getting more important, so now’s the time to listen to Phil and get started.
How to make video part of your marketing strategy
- Try to build an aesthetic that matches your brand identity.
- It’s not about the tools. It’s about creativity.
- You need to foster a creative attitude within the business.
- If you don’t start with video now, it’ll be like ignoring the web 20 years ago
Phil’s a great speaker. See for yourself:
“Think about when Twitter first came out. The majority of brands were quite scared about allowing junior marketing managers to be in control. We’ve now got to a point where everyone is fairly comfortable with the idea that brands can be represented by many people and many voices, and there’s a consistency that’s applied there. I think video’s going to go the same way.”
Ben Ratner, HubSpot
Ben’s a Senior Growth Marketer at HubSpot, and he works to attract new users through HubSpot’s free products. So he knows all about bringing customers onboard with product marketing.
He explained how marketing teams can use feedback about the product to improve the way they communicate with buyers.
How to use customer feedback to improve your marketing
- Zoom in & zoom out. You want big data but also specific feedback.
- Use surveys and study bounce rates, but also talk to customers directly.
- When you’re out of ideas, customer feedback can be incredibly helpful.
See what Ben had to say:
“Every growth marketer or growth engineer – every growth person I’ve ever known – gets to a scary point where they’ve run out of ideas. At that point, your greatest channel for coming up with new ideas is talking with your customers. Everyone wants to be that genius who comes up with ideas just by drinking scotch. But you always come up with bad ideas if your only trust yourself.”
Denise Chan, Bitly
Denise is the Senior Content and Community Manager at Bitly. Everything you see on Bitly’s social accounts has to go past Denise.
She spoke to us about the best ways to improve customer experience at your business.
How to improve your customer experience
- First, make it a priority
- Understand that customers are on different channels all over the web
- Track your links on the web and social media
Here’s what Denise had to say:
“Data is going to be really important. You need a clear picture across all your channels, and a clear benchmark for success.”
Terrance Kwok, Vidyard
Vidyard is a video platform that supports both marketing and sales teams to improve their efforts. It lets you incorporate video into email, and collect lead information about prospects who watch your content.
Terrance talked to us about how to enable sales teams to sell more easily using video.
How to leverage video in the sales process
- Create personal videos for customers and prospects
- Video is like a muscle. You have to practice to get better.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Watch the full video:
“A video doesn’t need to take a long time. As a sales person, a 30-second video for a prospect should only take 30 seconds to make. If you’re comfortable being on camera and comfortable with a few ums and ahs, you don’t have to make it perfect. It’s not scary.”
David Ly Khim, HubSpot
David’s a growth marketer at HubSpot, so he knows all about the tactics and strategies we should be using, rather than the ones we are.
We told about what he’s looking at in his work, and which channels we should think about as we market our brands.
How to identify new channels for your marketing
- 70% of your time should be spent doing things that are already working. 30% should be experimentation.
- Partnerships are essential. This channel is often under-utilized.
- Chatbots are the future.
Hear it from David:
“One of the trends that I pay a lot of attention to is messenger bots and chat bots. These mean that there’s someone who’s able to respond to messages without a human having to. You can scale acquisition. They’re actually extremely easy to make these days, but it does take some time.”
That’s all for now…
That was all the advice we could squeeze into one little phone. Thanks to all the generous experts who shared their knowledge.
So now it’s over to you. How will you change your marketing strategy for the next year? Either based on what you just saw, or because it’s time to mix it up.
Tell us all about it below.
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