Rejuvenated, inspired, and re-energized. Those three words best describe how I felt leaving INBOUND 2017. And, what perfect timing for a new gust of wind in my marketing sails! Every year in June and July we see a burst of new energy in our industry as Cisco releases new technologies at Cisco Live, and as they close their fiscal year. As that momentum begins to slow a fresh burst of energy and new marketing initiatives centered around customer delight is an ideal way to round out 2017.
This year I noticed a few prominent themes throughout the entire conference: inspiration, creativity, overcoming fears, and focusing on the customer. Each keynote touched on these themes.
- Brenē Brown shared her thoughts about how true belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are – it requires us to be who we are.
- Piera Gelardi taught attendees about courageous creativity. She shared her approach to create a safe creative environment for her team, and encouraged everyone to leave their inhibitions “at the door”, and to utilize their unique talents and qualities to bring strength to what you do.
- Darmesh Shah shared tips about how to grow your business better. He noted that to make optimal impact your team must be moving in the same direction, and emphasized the importance of helping your customers and focusing on quality over quantity.
- Brian Halligan shared the growth struggles companies face as they transition from startup to scale-up. He categorized the three areas of focus to build up for scale-up:
- Management
- Hiring
- Customer experience
- Michelle Obama discussed the goals she had as first lady, the biggest lesson being the first lady taught her (that she can do anything), and some insights about her time in the White House. She also shared with the audience that “she and Barack are both working on books”.
- Ed Catmull talked about his successes and failures at Pixar. He enlightened the audience on the struggles of each Pixar film, and shared two key lessons he has learned at Pixar
- Ego must be removed for creativity “magic” to happen
- “It is easier to correct errors than to try and prevent them altogether”.
- John Cena talked about inspiration, application, fear, failure, loving what you do, and about embracing failure to appreciate success. Fun fact: John Cena is the most requested person for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
- SEO is knowing which levers to pull and when.
- The message you provide to your audience is more important than the type of content you provide
- Long form content (3,000-10,000 words) performs higher on LinkedIn than short form content (500 words).
- Messaging is a preferred communication method for more and more customers.
- Messaging and customer conversations are becoming so important HubSpot is releasing a “Conversations” platform in 2018.
- Starting a company is easier than ever, but scaling a company is harder than ever.
- The way to succeed in today’s trust economy is to build a relationship with influencers, who are the proxy for brands to access their buying communities.
- The curse of knowledge is being able to explain your product in simple enough terms that an outsider can understand.
- Backlinks and uniformity are the key to Google rankings and snippets.
- B2B buyers want a seller who fully answers their questions and provides relevant, timely, and useful information over all other seller qualities.
As this year’s third quarter comes to a close and we dive into Q4 it’s great to have a head-start on new, exciting strategies, and to be coming back with a fresh perspective.
Written By: Eden Penman, LookingPoint Marketing Manager