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Our Favorite Soundbites & Tweets from #INBOUND2020

October 02, 2020

There’s nothing like HubSpot’s enormous in-person annual INBOUND conference in Boston to get marketers excited for the year ahead, but hats off to them for producing an intricately sewn virtual experience that still left our team energized and frantically swapping notes.

Like every year, one of our favorite parts about INBOUND is seeing other marketers’ data and hearing their own insights and recommendations—especially when they align with our own advice and ideas for clients.

For instance, when Jay Schwedelson of Worldata (who has a lot of data) very enthusiastically encouraged the use of gifs and emojis in emails, our AVP of Content Strategy Melissa and Art Director Colleen were like:

The Office Thank You GIF

Some other INBOUND soundbites we liked:

“Subject line words that increased open rates in the last 30 days according to Worldata: Free; Today; Last chance; In stock; Month; Tomorrow; Available; Hours; Hurry; Curbside; Expires; Open; Job/Career; Deserve; Exclusive.”

“Address the pandemic in your content. This is not a normal year. Talk about it.”

“Write like you like talk. People know when you’re trying to sound too smart.”

“Make your content interesting and fun as much as you can. People are SO bored right now!”

“There’s no magic formula for email cadence and frequency. You have to test, observe, and adjust.”

“Emails that exaggerate spelling in the subject line have an increased open rate of 18% for BtoC and 14% for BtoB. Example: Our Open House is almost heeeeere!!!”

“Using acronyms like MBA and words like ‘free’ will NOT land you in the spam folder.”

“Stand out in your audiences’ inboxes by making the first 3 characters not letters. !:+#🤳10~[ 👉]”

“Exclusivity & urgency are key in subject lines but then need to be carried into the body copy as well. Personalization is a great way of doing this right off the bat.”

“ALWAYS link images. No one wants to download your image or see it in a lightbox (which most email clients default to if it is NOT linked). You’re missing out on a world of clicks by only linking your buttons.”

“TikTok is a platform that clients should start using if they aren’t already. There are 100M users as of April 2020 and you can reach an audience that isn’t on other social media platforms. Including parents.”

“TikTok’s creative tools/library is what drives its success. All editing can be done within the app itself: Templates, transitions, AR filters, voice effects. It’s easy to join but then you can add your own personal flare. It’s a place where creatives can THRIVE.”

“If you’re limited on time and budget for A/B testing, test messaging. It is an easy way to make small changes that can move you in the right direction. (Buttons, headlines).”

“Authenticity is at the core power of video, production value isn’t necessarily important. People want to see relevance more than anything.”

“Create a ‘Learning Center’ on your website, where all your content marketing assets are housed and organized.”

“It’s okay to try negative language (words like fail, mistakes, wrong). Try it. Test it. See what works for your audience.”

“What do customers most care about? 1) Cost. 2) Problems. 3) Comparisons. 4) Reviews. 5) Best.”

And here are some tweets we really liked:

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CCA is a higher education marketing agency that works exclusively with colleges & universities; we know what works and what doesn’t. Let’s chat.

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