The world of the SMB marketer can be a challenging one: breaking through the clutter with relevant and effective content using only modest budgets and limited resources. This is why the partnerships between LinkedIn and companies like HubSpot are so exciting.
Last week, I attended and spoke at INBOUND 2015, HubSpot’s annual event held in Boston. With more than 14,000 marketing and sales professionals in attendance I was able to soak in all of the great energy from the attendees and learn how we at LinkedIn can be more effective partners in helping SMB companies reach their marketing goals.
Here are some of my highlights from INBOUND...
Fireside Chat with Mike Gamson
HubSpot Integrates Sponsored Updates to its Ads Ad-On Platform
HubSpot announced that LinkedIn Sponsored Updates can now be managed through HubSpot. This new integration allows marketers, especially SMBs, to create their Sponsored Updates campaigns directly within HubSpot. Through this experience, these companies can also easily measure the success of their ad campaigns and build relationships with prospects through compelling content on LinkedIn. I am very excited about the potential of this partnership to help small business take advantage of what LinkedIn has to offer.
The Relevance Imperative: B2B The Way It Should Be
I also had the opportunity to speak at INBOUND about creating great customer experiences and maintaining relevance to the buyer throughout the highly complex B2B buyer’s journey. Quality content that reaches the right professionals at the right time is crucial as they make their way through the purchase decision process. For SMBs looking to navigate the waters of content marketing, it is important to define your business’ “persona” by asking questions such as, who’s the ideal target customer, what are their characteristics, and what are their needs. Then, testing and measuring the audience engagement to determine just how successful you have been at helping them. Only then can businesses become more relevant to the right people, much earlier in the process.
After a great week at INBOUND, here’s what I took back to LinkedIn:
- The SMB marketer is alive and well…and integrations like the HubSpot/LinkedIn partnership are here to help their content-centric marketing campaigns be even more successful.
- Relevance is key. This rang true not only in Mike and my sessions, but also across the entire event. Telling a great story through content is key to increasing your brand relevance and building quality relationships with your audience.
- The growing connection of marketing and sales. While this is by no means a new idea, the sharing of data between the marketing and sales organization is becoming even more important as customers increasingly look for answers online.
Did you attend INBOUND? I would love to hear your takeaways from the event. To learn more about LinkedIn’s content marketing and SMB initiatives, check out our website.
