Dan MoyleThe end of the year often means wrapping everything up in a bow. But it also means looking ahead. At least, it should.
As you take your business into 2020, it’s time to look at the latest HubSpot updates and a few marketing or sales definitions to prepare you to focus on success.
Fortunately, we have Sprocket Talk to look toward for inspiration and education.
Your Five HubSpot Updates for January
First, five HubSpot updates from this year we’re paying attention to in 2020. Let’s make January fire!
1) Create LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads Within HubSpot
This update makes it even easier to build Lead Gen Ads by bringing them into HubSpot’s ad tools. Now you can create, target, and publish Lead Gen Ads without leaving HubSpot!
All conversion data and contacts automatically sync back to your HubSpot reporting and contact database. Plus, with the pre-filled details from LinkedIn, you’re more likely to get detailed, accurate data for each lead.
Within the ads tool, click create campaign. Here, you’ll now see the option to create a LinkedIn lead gen campaign, in addition to Facebook lead ad.
The creation flow for LinkedIn lead gen ads is similar to the creation flow for Facebook lead ads. With LinkedIn lead gen ads, you’ll be able to leverage employment information in your ads targeting, like current employer, job title, and more.
This is now live to all users of HubSpot’s ads tool -- free through Marketing Hub Enterprise.
With LinkedIn Ads you can use data to target with information like employer, job title and more. Get laser-focused when you want to spend money on ads, not just the old “spray and pray” method.
2) HubSpot WordPress Plugin for Contacts, Lists and Reporting
If you’re using the HubSpot WordPress plugin, you can now have a dashboard that shows you the number of contacts you’ve generated on your site and gives you the ability to view your HubSpot contacts and lists without leaving WordPress!
Up until now, the plugin provided lead capture tools like forms and live chat but you had to leave WordPress and go into HubSpot to see how many contacts you’ve generated and who those contacts were.
Now, when you log into your WordPress portal and go to the HubSpot plugin, you’ll see your HubSpot dashboard. This gives you a quick and easy view of how many contacts you’ve generated from your WordPress site.
You can also navigate to see all your contacts and see who’s in your database. When you’re ready to segment your contacts, you can head over to the lists tool to begin creating segmented lists to use for email campaigns and workflows.
You can navigate to each of these tools using the left-hand side navigation in your WordPress admin dashboard.
This update is now live and available in all languages supported by HubSpot to anyone who uses the HubSpot WordPress plugin.
3) Service Hub Customer Experience Survey Web Delivery Feedback
If you’re a HubSpot Service Hub user, you can now deliver surveys to visitors via the website. These customer experience (CX) surveys are a newer option in the feedback tool inside of HubSpot’s Service hub. And they’re making life easier for a lot of users!
Feedback is the key ingredient for growth. As a service professional, you know this. Now you can make it happen with less friction.
In the Customer Experience tool you’ll find a great walk-through of the survey and how it works. You get to choose how you deliver the survey; email and web page tools are available.
The customization from who can see it to where it displays and beyond means you get to control the survey experience to ensure your branding and desired interaction match.
Users of HubSpot’s Service Hub Professional get this feature and it’s available in all languages!
4) Draft Only Permissions in the Social Tool
You can control your social presence as your team grows with the “draft only” permission setting in the HubSpot Social Tool.
Being able to review, edit and sign-off on social posts your team— specialists, interns, other team members and beyond— means one person can be the editor-in-chief for your social media marketing.
Don’t let your brand erode by haphazard posting and messages. Keep a central voice with a brand plan plus draft permissions in social.
This great tool is available to any Marketing Hub Enterprise users.
5) HubSpot Conversations on the go with HubSpot Mobile App
Your customers expect fast responses to their questions regardless of whether your team is at their desk or on the move.
In the past, when you used Conversations in HubSpot’s mobile app, you could only respond to live chats from your customers. That means you couldn’t respond to email or Messenger conversations on the mobile app like you could on your desktop, which added friction to your day if you’re someone who needs to get work done on the go.
Now you can respond to messages from any channel within your Conversations inbox on your iOS or Android mobile device. This includes live chat, email, Facebook Messenger, or any other channel that is added to the Conversations inbox in the future.
With the power of a truly mobile Conversations inbox, your team can rest assured that important messages from your customers won’t slip through the cracks.
But wait -- there’s more. You can also now do the following with Conversations in the HubSpot iOS and Android apps:
- View image attachments for chat in-line
- See ticket events in related conversations
- Delete conversations
- Reopen closed conversations
To get started in the either the iOS or Android HubSpot mobile app, go to the “More” tab and click “Conversations”. Once in Conversations, you can view your full inbox and reply to any Conversation you’d like -- simple as that.
This update is available to all HubSpot users with the iOS or Android mobile app, and available in all languages supported by HubSpot.
Your Five Marketing and Sales Definitions for January
Now let’s dive into five definitions in the marketing and sales world you need to know for January and the rest of 2020.
1) Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-based marketing (ABM) s a strategic approach to marketing based on account awareness in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one.
ABM is a very popular marketing strategy among B2B marketers.
Basically you decide, through research, which businesses, or accounts, you want to do business with and you market to the decision makers in those companies.
How Can You Use Accounted Based Marketing for Your Company?
Account based marketing is a win-win-win for sales, marketing, and customers. Want to know what ABM can do for your business?
The whole strategy perfectly complements the account-based approach sales teams have embraced for years.
When marketing buys-in and dedicates its resources to an account based marketing strategy, sales teams can better personalize their outreach.
Targeted Leads with Account Based Marketing
Nurturing targeted members of the buying committee with appropriate marketing messages helps speed up the sales process, allowing sales to achieve better close rates while closing bigger deals... faster.
So get your marketing team to put ABM into play.
Better Return on Effort with Account Based Marketing
You can deliver better return on effort in the B2B world with account based marketing. When you implement ABM, marketing benefits because sales sees the marketing team as a trusted ally on a strategic mission. It brings the two teams together, creating a defined list that both teams agree make the most promising targets. Did you know that 84% of businesses using ABM say it delivers higher ROI than other marketing campaigns?
Deeper Understanding of Leads with Account Based Marketing
A third way you can use account based marketing at your company is to enrich the marketing team with a much deeper understanding of the company’s overall target audience.
Marketing can then apply their insight into what content and messages resonate to amp up the results of their efforts.
2) Content Marketing Versus Inbound Marketing
Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of online content like videos, blogs, and social media posts.
It does not explicitly promote a brand but aims to generate interest in its products or services.
Meanwhile, inbound marketing is the technique for drawing customers to products and services via content creation, social media engagement, search engine optimization and branding. Think of it like a magnet for customers.
The question now becomes - which is better? Inbound marketing or content marketing?
And how can you use the winner for your marketing?
It’s not an either-or situation!
Basically, you can’t do inbound without content. And content without inbound is just traditional advertising. Think of like this. Inbound marketing is the vehicle that gets you to your customers. Content marketing is the fuel!
Now that we have that down, here are three inbound marketing examples using content marketing… to help you grow your business!
Content & Inbound Marketing: Create Infographics
Maybe you have some deep insight into your industry, data points and examples that tell a story… Create an infographic!
Then you can take that content marketing and then put inbound marketing to work in the form of a guest blog post, snippets of the infographic for social media posts like Instagram and include an announcement in your company’s email signatures.
Content & Inbound Marketing: Create Video
Got something to say? Create a video!
Then you can optimize it for search, share it in social media, and email your supporters/fans/customers.
You could even ask people to share if they find value in it. Having others share your content is a great measurement of quality content.
Content & Inbound Marketing: Create an Industry Report
Finally… since you’re an expert in your niche, create an industry report.
Then you can break up the content into smaller pieces and blog about it. You can also take the information to other sites and guest blog.
You can also take the information on the digital road and go on podcasts as a subject matter expert. Of course, make sure the report is available as a download on your site, too! This could even help in the P-R world and bring the media to you!
Now that you know what content marketing and inbound marketing each is and why inbound marketing and content marketing are important to your business, make sure you are implementing them for your company’s success.
3) Inbound Sales
Inbound sales is a personalized, helpful, modern sales methodology. Inbound salespeople focus on their prospect's pain points, act as a trusted consultant, and adapt their sales process to the buyer journey.
The opposite would be outbound sales, which mostly involves cold outreach like unsolicited emails, cold calls, surprise office visits and other interruptive sales and business development techniques.
How can you use inbound sales for your company?
Better Buyers with Inbound Sales
Identify the right buyers.
In the B2B space, this is called account based marketing.
Whether you’re in sales to other businesses or directly to consumers, identifying the right buyers from the start (working with marketing most likely - and teaching them about your ideal buyer) will get you off on the right inbound sales journey.
Better Connections with Inbound Sales
Next, connect.
Anyone focused on inbound sales will connect with leads to help them decide how to progress through the buyer’s journey.
This should include the communication tools they choose - it might be texting, social messaging, email… be ready to communicate in the way your prospects do.
Better Sales Exploration with Inbound Sales
Also, explore. Inbound salespeople explore their qualified leads' goals or challenges to see whether their offering is a good fit for them, the customer.
Focus on their challenges, not your product or service. Show empathy and connect over those challenges, then share how your business can help.
Inbound Sales: Be an Advisor
Which brings us to our last point: Advise!
Inbound salespeople advise prospects on why their solution is uniquely positioned to address the buyer's needs.
Skip the script and position your product or service in a way that highlights how it solves their unique needs.
Now that you know what Inbound Sales is and why Inbound Sales is important, make sure you are implementing it for your company’s success.
4) HubSpot Academy
HubSpot Academy is the platform where HubSpot teaches the world all about inbound marketing, inbound sales, business growth, modern communications, and more. HubSpot calls it the worldwide leader in inbound marketing, sales, and customer service/support training.
Think of it as a roadmap to success to always learning.
Sure it’s a platform for learning this massive tool called HubSpot. But it’s more of a mindset. Always be learning. And for HubSpot, that means always be teaching.
With this free education platform, you get to learn at your own pace, diving into everything from the HubSpot platforms - the Sales Hub, the Marketing Hub and the Service Hub - to more general ideas like social media marketing, inbound sales, growth-driven design, content marketing, and so much more.
Here’s what it means for your business.
Best of all, it’s free. So not only do you have HubSpot tools - many of which are free - but you have this powerful educational platform where you can learn a ton for free.
So whether you’re an executive or a manager looking for great people to staff your modern marketing team, or you’re looking for opportunities in the modern marketing, sales and service fields, HubSpot Academy helps. The certifications highlight people willing to put the work in to learn all about these current trends and growth-driven marketing and sales tactics.
5) Lifecycle Stage
Also called customer lifecycle stages we’re talking about the designations people interacting with your brand fall into. It shows where they are in the buyer’s journey.
HubSpot lifecycle stages look like this:
- Subscribers are contacts who know of your business and have opted in to hear more from your team. They’ve probably signed up for your blog or newsletter.
- Leads are people who have shown interest beyond being a subscriber. An example of a lead is a contact who signs up for a content offer from your business.
- Marketing Qualified Lead are those contacts who have engaged with your marketing efforts, but are still not ready to receive a sales call… like someone who responded to a specific form in a marketing campaign.
- Sales Qualified Lead have indicated through their actions that they’re ready for a direct sales follow up. For example, they submitted a question about your product through a contact form.
- An Opportunity is a contact who is a real sales opportunity. They’re highly likely to close.
- Customer… that seems pretty obvious right? These are contacts with closed deals.
- An Evangelist is a customer who advocates for your business and whose networks may be leveraged for further leads.
The lifecycle stage is important because it helps you segment your audience, or your contact base.
This helps make your CRM a powerful tool.
You don’t want to send a customer the same message you’re sending someone who just heard about your company. That’s an introductory email that your customer is thinking, “No kidding! I know who your are, I just bought from you!”
Want to know how your business can utilize this tool to the best of its ability? Check out the full article and video What is a Lifecycle Stage here.
What’s Next: Sprocket Talk
Sprocket Talk is the ultimate HubSpot community. The mission of this community is to help friends with HubSpot sales, marketing and service tools.
The free membership comes with benefits like tutorials, updates, interviews and access to the community via Slack.
