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Hypergrowth 2019 - Highlights from Drift's convention in London

4 mins read

Every year, conversational marketing giants Drift arrange the HyperGrowth convention. This year about 800 marketing enthusiasts, Drift partners and chatbot evangelists met at Old Billingsgate, London. Drift amazed us with an awesomely well-arranged event, an impressing lineup of key note speakers and a big portion of great vibes!  But what was the fuzz al about? We share our highlights.

It was the first time for HyperGrowth to be held in London, and all though the expectations were high, you didn't sense any premiere nerves at all. A strong list of key note speakers such as Brian Halligan (HubSpot), Ryan Deiss (DigitalMarketer.com), Sarah Kennedy (Marketo) and award winning film producer Jimmy Chin gathered over 800 marketing pro's to the large grafitti decorated locals at Old Billingsgate next to the Tower Bridge.

After only a few hours, there's no doubt anymore. We are in the middle of a shift in buyer's behaviour where word of mouth is the main reason people buy today. It's time to hand the microphone over to our customers, and keep "customer first" in mind - always. Almost all the speakers stressed that particular sentence. Here are our highlights and key takeaways from HyperGrowth, London:

Do you want to step out and put your customers first? Read what conversational marketing can do for your business here! 

Ryan Deiss, Founder and CEO at DigitalMarketer.com 

Drift never invites the same speaker twice to their events. But there is an exclamation, Ryan Deiss, founder and CEO at digitalmerketer.com. Ryan knows how to "wow" his audience and in London he did just that with his speech "How to become a 10X marketeer (the combination of ice cream and apple pie)". As a marketer today you're expected to know about everything from development,  SEO to product design and branding. This isn't ideal as a situation off course and Ryan made that clear with the quote: “don’t be a spork - spork sucks” - it's a good thought on the paper, but in reality it just doesn't work. In order to be a 10X marketer you have to be smart and the solution lies in focusing on building a team, where expertiser from different areas are represented. There is no such thing as full stack marketer - but there are full stack marketing teams and by knowing that you'll get a strong team with deeper knowledge and greater success. 

 

“As a 10X marketer you need to see what's in front of you - not what's in the future”

Ryan Deiss, CEO DigitalMarketeer.com 

Ryan went through all of the parts of the human body explaining how you as a marketer, by getting deeper understanding of the human brain,  could learn how to use them better. As important it is to keep up-to-date within all the digital trends, you need to see what's in front of you - and not focus on what's in the future, he says and by that meaning we as marketeers not should give too much effort in searching after the latest marketing trends, but focus on real people trends.

Ryan continued by telling the audience that content is everything  and that's exactly where our skills should be. Yet, in order to know what's making a great content you'll need to know your audience. As salesmen have continuous conversations with their clients and customers, marketers should do so as well. "10X marketers should always have at least 50 conversations with existing customers and prospects to get that right understanding" Ryan continues.

He finished off his speech by encourage the audience to “get your hands dirty” and stop chasing the perfectness. You'll need to love your customer and you'll need to want the customers to win. Empathy is crucial - and the only thing that cannot be taught!

 

Hypergrowth19_conversational wall

Charlotte Pearce, founder and CEO på Inkpact

If there was anybody who clarified the importance of daring to show their love and appreciation to their customers then it was Charlotte Pierce from Inkpact. Charlotte is one of the world’s 15 most influential women in technology today. With her presentation "What's love got to do with it?" she highlighted the importance of making our companies more human, which was made clear by all possible parallels between self-experienced dating experiences and today's market and sales organizations. The simplicity and the effect of giving that little extra, which doesn’t have to cost anything, but can mean everything gave a lesson.

Charlotte offered an excellent example of when she had given one of her new customers a gift. She had - by conversation, of course - found out that her customer had a dog that was placed on the highest throne and that she loved to surf. She had picked up these two things and then she let a friend draw these two things in a picture which she sent to the customer along with a handwritten greeting. A few days later she received a phone call from a very impressed customer and a couple of posts of the now framed work and an appreciation in social media as a thank you. There were a number of more examples and one could only leave the lecture hall with great inspiration and a dream of how to apply this to one’s own customers by listening to them more. Also, the conversation is something that forms the very basis of conversational marketing.

Peter Isaacson, CMO at Demandbase

Peter Isaacson of Demandbase has 25 years of experience in marketing, product marketing and branding. He told the audience that 90 percent of the market budget hit the wrong person. "Much of the data we have on our customers is wrong and that the cookie matching often does not match. It is no longer possible to target their campaigns by professional roles as we today see more and more self-composed titles such as "Sr. SEO Guru, "Inbound marketing evangelist" and so on.

Hypergrowth19_Peter Isaacson

Instead, the solution is to focus on reaching out specific target companies through ABM (account based marketing), where we see major trends in B2B companies today. Thanks to AI, we can get decision makers and influencers in the organizations to "raise their hands" by seeing the purchasing power based on past behavior. Peter also meant that it is important to reach out with the message early during the buyer's journey, keeping the eyes open to the visitors' behavior when they consume your content and then link the right behavior to the right degree of buying power. He also emphasized the importance of a clear SEO strategy on relevant keywords. 

Brian Halligan, HubSpot

HyperGrowth really was all about customer first and that became even more clear when Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot talked during his Q&A with the founder of Drift, David Cancel. The majority of the clients he's been having conversations with has bought the plaform after getting recommendations from a business colleague, got the tips from a friend or inspired by his or her thought leader. The whole idea of declaring the death of the sales funnel to favor of ”the flywheel” is based on the fact that our clients should be seen as the gas to the marketing engine AND it is the most pleased customers that makes the wheel spin even faster and faster.

Hypergrowth19_Brian Halligan

Although the conference practically had no speaker who explicitly talked about conversational marketing or chat bots, we came home with a lot of new insights - and that "customer first" is a must.

Do you want to step out and put your customers first? Read what conversational marketing can do for your business here!

Learn more about Conversational Marketing