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7 Biggest Takeaways from HubSpot’s 2023 Inbound Conference

by Robert Coles

HubSpot’s Inbound conference is a three-day event that features the latest product updates, innovative sessions on how to use the system in new and creative ways, inspirational sessions from the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Viola Davis, Jane Goodall, Former President Barak Obama, and many more. It’s the Lollapalooza of marketing events. The Coachella of sales conferences. The Burning Man of Customer Success.

And then, there’s the networking. With sessions focused on coding and development, women in marketing, customer retention strategies, and other hot topics, Inbound is the biggest networking and learning event of the year; it’s a mainstay on everyone’s out-of-office calendar every September.

Let’s Recap The Seven Biggest Takeaways That Happened at Inbound This Year

AI (Artificial Intelligence) Is Here to Stay, So Get Used to It

In recent years, HubSpot has invested heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks, personalize experiences, and drive insights.

At HubSpot’s Inbound 2023 conference, the company announced several new AI-powered features for its Marketing and Sales Hubs. These features include:

AI Assistants: These generative AI tools can help marketers and salespeople create content, images, and reports in minutes.
AI Agents: These AI-powered chatbots can automate customer service tasks, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex issues.
AI Insights: These predictive analytics tools can help businesses forecast sales, identify leads, and optimize marketing campaigns.

These new AI features are designed to help businesses of all sizes accelerate their growth. HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan said that AI is “the most important technology of our generation” and that it has the potential to “transform every aspect of business.”

Here are some specific examples of how businesses are using HubSpot AI to grow:
A marketing agency used AI Assistants to create 100 blog posts in a month. This saved the agency a significant amount of time and allowed them to focus on other marketing tasks.
A sales team used AI Agents to automate their customer service tasks. This freed up the sales team to spend more time with potential customers.
A SaaS (Software as a Service) company used AI Insights to forecast sales. This helped the company to better allocate resources and achieve its sales goals.

These are just a few examples. As AI continues to develop, it is likely that we will see even more innovative ways to use this technology to improve business performance.

2. Your Data Health Is Vital

HubSpot knows that clean, accurate data is essential for businesses to succeed. That’s why the company is constantly investing in new ways to improve data health. They announced several new features and resources to help businesses improve their data health. These include:

A new Data Quality Command Center provides businesses with a comprehensive view of their data health.
A new Data Health Scorecard that helps businesses track their progress in improving their data health.
A new Data Health Certification Program that helps businesses learn how to improve their data health.

In addition to these new features, there were several sessions this year on data health. These sessions included:

“How to Improve Your Data Health” by HubSpot’s Chief Data Officer, Brian Halligan
“The Data-Driven Organization” by HubSpot’s CMO (chief marketing officers), Dharmesh Shah
“Data Science for Marketers” by HubSpot’s Director of Data Science, Dan Schwartz

These sessions provided businesses with valuable insights on how to improve their data health and use data to drive growth.

HubSpot Product Updates from Inbound 2023

3. HubSpot’s Marketing Hub Integrates AI For Better Decision-making

These updates are especially great for organizations trying to improve marketing performance. The AI Assistants can help marketers save time and create better content, while the AI Insights can help businesses make better decisions about marketing campaigns. SMS for Marketers can reach customers more personally, and Commerce Hub can help businesses sell products online. CRM Customization can help businesses better understand their customers and improve their experience.

Key Updates:

AI Assistants and Insights: HubSpot AI Assistants can help marketers create content, images, and reports in minutes. They can also help marketers automate tasks like scheduling social media posts and sending email campaigns. AI Insights can help businesses forecast sales, identify leads, and optimize marketing campaigns.

SMS for Marketers: SMS for Marketers is a new tool that allows marketers to send and receive SMS messages from their customers. This can be used to send appointment reminders, deliver marketing offers, or provide customer support.

Commerce Hub: Commerce Hub is a new product that helps businesses sell their products online. It integrates with HubSpot Marketing Hub to provide a seamless experience for customers from awareness to purchase.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Customization: HubSpot is making it easier for businesses to customize their CRM data.

How You Can Use These Tools

A small business could use AI Assistants to create blog posts, social media posts, and email campaigns.
A mid-sized business could use AI Insights to forecast sales, identify leads, and optimize marketing campaigns.
A large enterprise could use SMS for Marketers to send appointment reminders, deliver marketing offers, or provide customer support.

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Provisions Group is a Gold Partner with HubSpot, and we can help you get started or get the most out of the platform. ___________________________________________________________________________

4. Take Sales Performance and Lead Management to the Next Level with Updated Sales Hub

These updates are great for businesses looking to improve sales performance. The AI Assistants can assist sales reps in saving time and being more productive, while AI Insights can help make better decisions about sales strategies. Lead Management can improve lead tracking and management, and the Centralized Audit Log of User Actions can help businesses improve security and compliance. SMS for Sales can help businesses reach prospects and customers more personally.

Key updates:

AI Assistants and Insights for Sales Hub: AI Assistants can help sales reps create personalized email outreach, qualify leads, and follow up with prospects. They can also help sales reps automate tasks like scheduling meetings and sending thank-you notes. AI Insights can help forecast sales, identify high-value leads, and optimize sales workflows.

Lead Management: HubSpot is adding a new leads object to Sales Hub. This will make it easier for sales reps to track and manage leads throughout the sales process.

Centralized Audit Log of User Actions: HubSpot is adding a new centralized audit log of user actions. This will help businesses track and audit all Sales Hub activity, including deals, notes, and activity changes.

SMS for Sales: HubSpot is adding SMS capabilities to Sales Hub. This will allow sales reps to send and receive SMS messages to prospects and customers.

How You Can Use These Tools

A small business could use the AI Assistants to create personalized email outreach and qualify leads.
A mid-sized business could use AI Insights to forecast sales and identify high-value leads.
A large enterprise could use Lead Management to track and manage leads throughout the sales process.

5. Updated Service Hub Makes It Easy to Serve Customers in Different Ways

These updates will help businesses increase customer service capabilities. AI Assistants can help customer service agents save time and be more productive, while AI Insights help make better decisions about customer service strategies. The Self-Service Portal’s goal is to reduce the volume of tickets and improve customer satisfaction, and Live Chat can help provide customer service 24/7. The Knowledge Base can also improve the self-service experience for customers and reduce the number of tickets.

Key updates:

AI Assistants and Insights: AI Assistants can help customer service agents create personalized responses to customer inquiries, resolve tickets more quickly, and improve customer satisfaction. While insights can help identify customer pain points, predict customer churn, and optimize customer service workflows.

Self-Service Portal: HubSpot is adding a new self-service portal to Service Hub. This will allow customers to find answers to their questions, resolve issues independently, and get help from customer service agents when needed.

Live Chat: HubSpot is adding live chat capabilities to Service Hub allowing customers to chat with customer service agents in real-time.

Knowledge Base: HubSpot is adding a new knowledge base to Service Hub. This will allow businesses to create and store articles that customers can use to find answers to their questions.

How You Can Use These Tools

A small business could use AI Assistants to create personalized responses to customer inquiries.
A mid-sized business could use AI Insights to identify customer pain points and predict customer churn.
A large enterprise could use the Self-Service Portal to reduce the volume of tickets and improve customer satisfaction.

In addition to the updates mentioned above, HubSpot also announced several other new features for Service Hub, including:

A new Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) widget allows businesses to track customer satisfaction in real time.
A new Customer Journey Map tool that helps visualize the customer journey and identify opportunities to improve the customer experience.
A new Customer Feedback Portal that allows businesses to collect feedback from customers and use it to improve their products and services.

6. Create Better Websites or Add More Pages With Updated CMS Features

These updated features are helpful to businesses of all sizes that want to create better websites and improve content marketing. These features are especially helpful for teams that don’t want to deal with the hassle of complex coding, building “from scratch” websites, and improving overall SEO and search engine visibility.

Key updates:

HubSpot CMS Hub Extensions: HubSpot is adding a new marketplace for CMS Hub Extensions. This will allow businesses to find and install extensions that add new features and functionality to their websites.
HubSpot CMS Hub Themes: HubSpot is adding a new library of CMS Hub Themes. This will allow businesses to choose from a variety of pre-designed themes to create a website that looks and feels professional.
HubSpot CMS Hub Layout Builder: HubSpot is adding a new Layout Builder to CMS Hub. This will allow businesses to create custom layouts for their websites without having to code.
HubSpot CMS Hub Content Staging: HubSpot is adding a new Content Staging feature to CMS Hub. This will allow businesses to test changes to their websites before they go live.
HubSpot CMS Hub SEO Tools: HubSpot is adding new SEO tools to CMS Hub. These tools will help businesses improve the search engine visibility of their websites.

How You Can Use These Tools

A small business could use the HubSpot CMS Hub Extensions marketplace to find an extension that adds e-commerce capabilities to its website.
A mid-sized business could use the HubSpot CMS Hub Themes library to choose a theme that matches its brand and industry.
A large enterprise could use the HubSpot CMS Hub Layout Builder to create a custom layout for its website that highlights its products and services.

7. Streamline Operations With Updated Automation and Integrations

The workflow automation capabilities can help businesses save time and improve efficiency. Data quality tools are made to improve data accuracy, leading to better decision-making. The data insights tools can help gain insights, which can help improve marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. The integrations can help businesses connect Operations Hub with other applications, which can help streamline operations.

Key updates:

Workflow Automation: HubSpot is adding new capabilities to Operations Hub. This will allow businesses to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending email sequences or updating customer records.
Data Quality: These tools will help businesses identify and fix data errors, such as duplicate records or missing values.
Data Insights: HubSpot is adding new data insights tools to Operations Hub. These tools will help businesses gain insights from their data, such as trends and patterns.
Integrations: These new integrations will allow businesses to connect Operations Hub with other applications, such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

How You Can Use These Tools

A small business could use the workflow automation capabilities to automate the process of sending welcome emails to new customers.
A mid-sized business could use the data quality tools to identify and fix data errors in its customer database.
A large enterprise could use the data insights tools to gain insights into customer behavior and trends.

Closing Thoughts

As the sun sets on another year of HubSpot’s Inbound Conference, I can’t help but feel inspired. Whether it was seeing Reese Witherspoon talk about leadership skills and her own struggles and triumphs (while also being the literal live personification of Elle Woods) or learning about ways to enhance the customer experience through HubSpot’s new tools, it’s always my favorite time of the year.

Sure, Thanksgiving is great. The food is wonderful and it’s nice to remember how blessed we are. New Year is awesome because it’s like new beginnings, and don’t even get me started on the significance of Arbor Day in my family (we go all out…), but Inbound, to me, is all those days combined.

Provisions Group is a Gold Partner with HubSpot, and we can help you get started or get the most out of the platform.

Not sure which CRM is right for you? Chat with our team and we can help you decide if HubSpot or another CRM is what your business needs.