Useful Tips from Inbound Marketing Summit and Hubspot User Group

I spent three days last week at the Inbound Marketing Summit and Hubspot User Group in Boston.  These featured a flock of first-rate speakers who presented more useful information than I can jam into a single blog post.  That said, here are highlights from my notes.

Youngme Moon, Harvard Business School

- when all competitors address the same customer problems, their products all seem the same
- to differentiate, embrace your negatives and make them into positives
- her examples:
  - the Mini Cooper highlighted that it was a small car, rather than trying to convince people it wasn’t really that small
  - IKEA reduces selection, service and sturdiness, and convinces people these are simplifying their choice, encouraging self-reliance, and making it easier to refresh your furnishings.  (Sorry Youngme, but I still detest IKEA.  Let's face it: the reason most people buy there is price.)

Web Content Management panel with leaders from Bridgeline, Sitecore, Percussion, and Ektron

- content management systems have evolved to deliver personalized customer experiences across all channles
- I only mention this because it supports my own view that Web content systems are candidates to encompass the marketing automation industry. 


Michael Damphousse, Green Leads

- 30% higher response rate to 3 sentence text email than HTML email
- 10x more likely to reach a lead by telephone if call within first hour of submission
- 15% higher chance of answering a call from a local phone number
- leave a voicemail that says you are sending an email and ask for a reply
- peak answering times are 7:30 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m.; these yield 20-40% more connections than calling at 10 a.m.
- people are most likely to answer their phone between 5 minutes before the hour and 10 minutes after the hour
- 23% of appointments are rescheduled; try to reschedule if someone asks to cancel

Guy Kawasaki, author, Enchantment

- keys to creating an “enchanting” product are likeability, trustworthiness, and quality
- a product must be complete, meaning it includes service and creates an entire ecosystem
- when launching something new, don’t try to convince people who reject you; instead, find people who agree with you

Dan Zarella, Hubspot

- ideas spread because they’re good at spreading, not because they’re good ideas
- social media success comes when people share your content, not when they engage with comments
- negative comments are shared less often than positive comments
- reaching influential individuals is less important than reaching large numbers of people
- people are more likely to read and share social media content on weekends
- Tweets that include “Please Retweet” are shared three times more often than those that don’t

David Skok, Matrix Partners

- viral marketing growth depends more on cycle time (how quickly people share with others) than the number of shares per person
- to attract influential followers, identify what they write about and write about it yourself
- offer rewards to both the person who shares your content and whomever they share it with, so it doesn’t seem like people are exploiting their friends

Rick Burnes, Hubspot

- be systematic about creating content that attracts the traffic you want
- check your blog analytics daily and use data to drive content decisions
- create blog posts in a mix of categories: how-to (most important, preferably daily); thought leadership, research projects, fun, controversial statements
- posts need to be useful; they don’t need to be great literature
- reuse old content
- have a big message