Episode 173: Inbound19 & the importance of having a 6-pack!

Welcome to Episode 173 of HubShots!

HubShots - APAC's number 1 HubSpot focussed podcast - where we discuss HubSpot tips & tricks, new features, and strategies for growing your marketing results.

This episode we chat about Inbound 2019 - some of the announcements and what we especially liked. Plus, why having a 6-pack is important.

Listen to the episode here: https://soundcloud.com/hubshots/173-inbound19-the-importance-of-having-a-6-pack/

HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers and sales professionals who use HubSpot, hosted by Ian Jacob from Search & Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

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Recorded: Tuesday 09 September 2019 | Published: Friday 20 September 2019

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Week

Thoughts on the product announcements...

https://www.hubspot.com/product-updates/inbound-2019-hubspot-updates-in-less-time-than-a-coffee-break

The awesome:

• Facebook Messenger integration with Conversations
• Forms integration with Conversations
• Buy now button coming on Products
• Landing pages coming to Starter
• Starter will have 3 follow up emails
• Workflow Go action
• Sales Quotes are getting better (and bringing some Enterprise features to Pro)

The other:

• App Marketplace experience
• Workflow folders

Dharmesh keynote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E82atOgbfj4

Brian keynote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTHw3QWiU4

Shot 2: HubSpot Marketing Feature of the Week

Connect Facebook Messenger with HubSpot Conversations

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/conversations/connect-a-facebook-messenger-account-to-the-conversations-inbox

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/conversations/create-a-facebook-messenger-chatflow

Shot 3: HubSpot Sales Feature of the Week

Removing friction.  How can we do that in sales?

In Brian’s keynote, he spoke about these 2 things in the 5 points he had.

1. Removing Friction
2. Personalising

How are we removing friction from our sales process?

Are we making it easy for people to deal with our business?  Can they find what they need and buy what they need without going through a long sales process?

He mentioned the companies that disrupt use data well to personalise.

Also with great data comes great power, but great responsibility comes with it too!

Shot 4: HubSpot Gotcha of the Week

Workflow Go action is not yet in Contact Workflows.

Shot 5: Marketing Tip of the Week

Make your home page URL clean

Eg

mydomain.com

Not

mydomain.com/my-main-keywords

If you don’t use just the clean URL you will confuse Google.

Often Google won’t give you a 6-pack for your brand term

You ideally want Google to show a 6-pack so it takes up more of the page:

Shot 6: Insight of the Week

The Group Chat trend

https://a16z.com/2019/09/06/china-is-cashing-in-on-group-chats/

https://www.craigbailey.net/group-chat-trends/

Interesting insights from Andreessen Horowitz around the rise of Group Chats as a path to transactions.

The article predominantly covers WeChat trends in China, but is applicable to many messenger apps including WhatsApp and FB Messenger, albeit with some privacy differences.

In a nutshell, the Group Chat approach involves dedicated ‘concierge’ admins who help members with questions. Often on a path to purchase.

A few key insights:

• groups are often small: 500 people max, and usually less than 200
• are often invite only (ie no public way of finding them)
• or are otherwise word of mouth (they aren’t promoted)
• they prioritise safety (often members are private, using aliases instead of real names/phone numbers, etc)
• history of messages is only available from the point of joining ie a new member can’t see the history of previous questions
• the groups grow relationships and trust
• product recommendations are highly likely to be followed
• products are added in the chats, with a link to purchase
• the groups also allow group buying options which result in cheaper per item prices based on increasing group purchase quantity
• the focus is on personal service, and not on technology to automate the chats

This is interesting from a number of points, and highlights that technology is still lagging in terms of delivering automated chat experiences. It is clear that embracing a conversational commerce approach requires more personal resources. Using automated technology actually destroys trust and value (at least currently).

All the bigger brands I interact with via chat, are definitely people driven (as opposed to chat bot). This requires significant resource, and is a factor to be weighed carefully when potentially adding to your marketing strategy.

Shot 7: Gold of the Week

How to turn blatant copying of your site into a promotion for your services:

https://medium.com/@zreitano/on-behalf-of-hims-patients-thank-you-for-copying-ro-aba99193d231

Shot 8: Tweet of the Week

When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result for your own brand name:

https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016

Shot 9: Quote of the Week

“How they sell that is how they win.”

• Brian Halligan (from 2019 Inbound keynote)

Shot 10: Bonus Links of the Week

https://www.coywolf.news/webmaster/wordpress-native-lazyload-plugin/

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