Takeaways and Random Thoughts from Inbound 2019

At the beginning of September a few of us from the adWhite team packed our suitcases and headed to Boston for Inbound 2019 + Partner Day. It was a jam-packed week full of informative sessions, talks, and a few fun meals in between. I always leave Inbound feeling refreshed and encouraged to shake things up a bit! Which is good - change is good!

It’s almost overwhelming all the information that is put in front of you that week, but a few things really stuck out to me and I’m excited to implement them into some upcoming projects.

Email Subject Lines

You can’t just willy nilly throw up a subject when building out an email campaign. This is your potential clients first glimpse of what you are offering, and you need to be strategic.

• Use brackets or parenthesis in the Subject Line - this helps catch the eye! [It works!] You want to bracket words that will entice an open/action. For example, [Ends Today] Fall Sale. This can boost your email open rate by 30%!!! You better believe I’ll be doing this STAT! 
• Don’t EVER use this. "Shhhh…it’s". It looks like you are using profanity. Once you see it like that you can’t unsee it. I catch it all the time in my inbox now!
• Don’t forget your pre-header! You know that little snippet you see in your email list right under the email subject? Yea – that little line can super sway your open rate. The biggest faux pas is when a web link populates into that. That just sends an alert to everyone that this is SPAM – delete now – do not proceed!!!!! So, pay attention and make sure you fill in those pre-headers!

Newsletters

I struggle with newsletters. I struggle because I fall into the pattern of doing the same thing over and over. Well that becomes bland and blah. With the amount of emails people get in a day you really have to make your newsletter stand out to get a reader to look forward to receiving an email from you. A best practice that really stood out to me at inbound was writing newsletter emails as if you and the recipients are best friends. Don’t be scared to include inside jokes or topic specific slang. After all, that person signed up for your newsletter, they must be somewhat familiar with what you are talking about. I get really focused on sharing the information in the email that I lose the fun factor.

Reporting to clients

Now this wasn’t a new thing to me. My boss is all about reports and making sure our clients know what we are doing for them. BUT one thing that was discussed at inbound was, do your clients know how you use HubSpot? Well, I'm pretty sure we have some clients out there that we send reports to each month and they have zero clue what we are telling them, but when their HubSpot renewal comes up they start to question this HubSpot thing they signed up for. It is the marketer’s responsibility to make sure these clients see the value in using HubSpot and why it is imperative to their marketing efforts every year. Once they see the value and benefits you won’t have to defend that cost every renewal – it’ll be an automatic YES! Be ahead of the renewal game and include how you use HubSpot to support their marketing needs when reporting.

Random Thoughts

Here are a few more random tidbits that made an impression on my mind over the week:

• Dharmesh is an amazing speaker. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak don’t miss it. I always love his message and delivery. This year didn’t disappoint.
• I loved the Katie Couric talk! I’ve always liked her. I love her positive outlook. She spoke about her time on the CBS evening news and how the online world tore her apart for such minute things – her white (winter white!) suit she chose for her first night did not go over well. She was funny, poignant, and informative – I liked it!
• Roxy’s grilled cheese + tomato soup is hands down the best Food Truck ever.
• I could easily make a pretty dollar if I set up a stand that sold Coke, Dr. Pepper, and band aids.
• Make sure your home printer works and you have a full stock of poster board when you leave for a week and your kid gets assigned a project while you are away. Pre-bought poster board saves marriages. :) 
• Video is still king and it’s not going away.
• Margo from That Seems Important is hilarious. Her website + newsletter is a must read!
• It is BRUTAL going from Boston weather back to Houston weather.

All in all, I would say Inbound 2019 was a great success. I walked away feeling excited to try out new things for my clients. The sessions I attended were relevant and for the most part entertaining. Looking forward to tracking all the little tips and tricks I learned that week!