HubSpot INBOUND Conference 2021: 5 Key Takeaways
What do new capabilities, hearth chats, advertising and marketing debates, virtual meetups, and Oprah have in prevalent?
They were being all at HubSpot’s INBOUND Conference 2021!
Hundreds of marketers joined HubSpot for its yearly INBOUND conference this calendar year. The content material and connection did not disappoint. After an occasion the size of INBOUND, it can be tricky to boil down the important learnings and themes – specifically when you weren’t equipped to go to every single solitary session.
Which is why we obtained with each other on the most recent episode of Marketing Unboxed to combine key takeaways. Verify out the dialogue underneath and then browse by our major five important takeaways from INBOUND 2021.
#1 Intentionality as the Main Ingredient
Important Takeaway: Be deliberate in your choice-building.
Who improved to provide a keynote than Oprah? In her INBOUND session, Classes Figured out on the Road to Success, Oprah talked about the big-photograph subjects only Oprah could efficiently tackle. For us, intentionality was a big topic of her concept. Intentionality is about deliberate decision-generating and accomplishing (or NOT doing) everything on purpose. Although we simply cannot relate to Oprah stating “no” to Stevie Wonder – a tale she cited at INBOUND – we could all advantage from expressing “no” a lot more typically. Sticking with the massive photograph, Oprah also talked about legacy and our interactions with the globe – citing a conversation with Maya Angelou and Newton’s third regulation of movement.
Considerably like the HubSpot platform, the INBOUND convention has a large amount of functions and relocating pieces. Our workforce concluded this sort of communicate by Oprah was the fantastic way to bring it all alongside one another with a pure, complete-person concept.
#2 Scaling Assumed Leadership
Important Takeaway: Consider considered leadership as a useful and measurable marketing and advertising system.
How to Scale Considered Management, introduced by Ashely Faus from Atlassian, was a obvious most loved among the Easy Strat staff users. We spend so significantly time as B2B marketers talking about “thought leadership” as a theme. But what if it ended up a scalable advertising and marketing technique? Spoiler inform: it is.
When we say Ashley’s INBOUND presentation was actionable, which is not just “marketing discuss.” Ashley gave attendees the literal framework with handouts for scaling assumed management. We’re not likely to share all the information offered inside Ashley’s 50+ internet pages of furnished resources, but here’s the entry position:
- Imagined leadership is confined to know-how workers, not celebrities.
- Thought leadership calls for a new or original believed.
- Considered leadership is exterior impact it does not imply being excellent at your position.
INBOUND speakers featured in this recap:

#3 The Rise of Marketing and advertising Operations
Important Takeaway: As your advertising and marketing business matures, the need for an functions technique will increase.
The HubSpot advertising earth has gone from mainly inbound in the early times to advertising operations now. And which is because it experienced to. As HubSpot’s platform expands, consumers are coming into their method from more and additional resources. As soon as those people consumers explore the capabilities of HubSpot, they typically get started piecing together the remedies they want. A lot more solutions can be a reward or a curse, and which just one they turn out to be is dependent on how they are managed. That’s exactly where promoting functions enters, to enable wrangle these in any other case-disparate alternatives into a unified procedure.
As groups incorporate new instruments and organizations increase, internet marketing operations gets a must-have purpose.
The rise of marketing and advertising functions is nothing new to most marketers. But our staff noted the INBOUND convention in 2021 shown a powerful shift with its speaking details and agenda. Not only were being there classes related to operations and alignment, this sort of as the scenario research with Seth Waite, Chief Knowledge Officer at United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit, but the variety of matters alone supported marketing operations’ location in approaches and budgets.
#4 Audience-Created Content Ideas for B2B Advertising
Critical Takeaway: The best content ideas dwell in your comments, thoughts, and conversations.
B2B content material does not have to be uninteresting, and most corporations overthink the ideation approach. If you attended INBOUND this yr, you recognized the chat section of every single session. In some classes, the conversations going on in the chat portion ended up goldmines for content material marketing thoughts. In truth, our team took screenshots during the LinkedIn Natural vs LinkedIn Adverts discussion. We uncovered the change in thoughts and each and every side’s supporting insights wildly important.
This takeaway serves as an critical reminder: the greatest written content ideas come from your viewers.
What issues do you get requested most typically? What are your customers’ biggest issues? What do they like? What are they talking about to just about every other? Immerse on your own in the opinions – like we did in the INBOUND chat sections – and you have a information notion equipment.
#5 Be The place Your Audience Is
Critical Takeaway: Satisfy your audience wherever they are.
In the Escalating Better With Audio session, John Lee Dumas (Founder of Business owners on Hearth) said the seemingly clear when he said, “Podcast listeners hear to podcasts.” As a group that makes podcasts, we immediately felt this level. When it comes to rising any channel, you should know your audience. For case in point, if you want to grow your podcast, endorse it on other podcasts – podcast listeners pay attention to podcasts.
This introduced up a further reminder along the line of knowing your audience. You really don’t have to be on every channel. You only have to be wherever your audience is. In John’s case in point, he cites the fact his podcast is audio only, for the reason that he knows his viewers doesn’t have time to sit and look at a YouTube variation of the episodes. Know your viewers, and then satisfy them where they are!
The Upcoming of B2B Promoting
As you’ll see on the INBOUND 2021 material library, the long run of marketing (specifically B2B advertising) covers a lot of topics. And the assortment of these topics is exciting. From information internet marketing and promoting operations to the metaverse and internet3, we have obtained a large amount to glance ahead to.

It could be tempting to soar into every new tool or tactic, but heed Oprah’s classes about intentionality. We simply cannot do it all at as soon as. We’re going to have to notify some shiny new prospects “no” for now.
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