First time attendee of INBOUND23

So, I thoroughly enjoyed INBOUND ! Being new to the Inbound industry, there were so many key takeaways just from day 1, I wish I could've documented everything, but some of the things that stood out to me most was what I had written down.?

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch all of them, but here are some I watched, and what really stood out for me:

Marketing against the grain: The future of AI

- Now is the best time to be a marketer as we're in a time where we have all the necessary tools and technology to make the future a bright one

- Blog content has always been about the information, but never about who wrote the piece... The future is going to start becoming more and more about who created the content, rather than the content itself

Mark from HubSpot:

I absolutely loved watching Mark and everything he had to show us. The way he presented all the cool learnings, and in such a way that it was so easy to unpack and understand... He's been so great!

- I create quite a bit of blogs, and now that there is an AI generator for blog content that's fully optimised for SEO is unreal! And the fact that you can also use the AI tool to generate titles, content, headers... AI is going to become my best friend, potentially like a sibling almost?

- The website builder assistant also blew my mind! You can literally create everything on your website by answering a set of questions about your goals and style. This is revolutionary!

- There's also the reporting and content assistant options that can almost fully develop your reports, or draft your emails for you, just by answering a set of questions from the AI assistant! Convenience, creation, and innovation that will most definitely increase our productivity. So excited to use the tools!

Focus on the future: Navigating the next decade with Steven Bartlett

This was probably my favourite session of day 1 of Inbound! When I saw Steve walk onto the stage, I knew I had recognised him from Dragon's Den! And when he started speaking about his experience, and his successes, he also blew my mind!?

Steven's key takeaway for the audience was basically to "outfail your competitors". If you want a winning strategy, outfail your competition to the correct answer by conducting more experiments in a quicker way than your competitors do. Remember that your strategy and tactics come from your failure rate.

He said that the future of marketing lies in faster experimentation. Genius!?

A big stand out point in his discussion was that "expectation management is the controllable element of customer relations or client retention". He also mentioned the 5 buckets that you need to fulfil, and why it is important to "lean in" and force yourself to keep learning, rather than being dissonant to what's new and upcoming (dismissing)?

The 5 buckets are:

1. Knowledge

2. Skills

3. Network

4. Resources

5. Reputation

Another key takeaway for me was how he explained that it's the useless and absurd things that marketers do that actually make the biggest impact. He used an example of a gym that his girlfriend told him about. She told him he had to sign up to this gym as it had a 100 ft tall climbing wall, so he signed up. He then used the exact description to persuade his friend to join the same gym. But he never saw anyone using the wall in his 2 years of training there. Point being, that the knowledge of them having a 100ft climbing wall gave them the anticipation that the gym probably had 100 cycling machines, 100 treadmills etc.. Basically, it's about the perception you can create - Build absurdity into your product and it can become a huge selling point!

I have a few more points about Steven's session, like the Toyota and England cycling team example. Long-story short, it's the tiniest marginal gains that make the biggest differences. It might not seem like it in the moment, but if you're making a 1% increment everyday, then in 100 days, you have a 100% increase, and that's power!

Change the incentive, and you'll change the behaviour

As a first time attendee for Inbound, I thoroughly enjoyed taking part and learning as much as I did. There are so many key takeaways from every session, and I encourage everyone to do their research and learn as much as you can. The future is bright with Inbound and it’s so exciting to be a part of it.