Sydney, Australia – Following HubSpot’s recent announcement regarding Australia’s state of customer connection report, the latest data from market research company YouGov revealed the major challenges surrounding interactions between businesses and their customers, indicating the majority of Australian consumers cited unsolicited emails as a negative experience with the brand they engage with.

In particular, an average of 89% reported having encountered issues with low-quality products, inadequate customer service, and intrusive, irrelevant marketing (44%).

These repercussions indicated that 46% of the respondents expressed that receiving spam would weaken their relationship with a brand, and over a third (36%) said that they would unsubscribe from a business altogether due to such experiences.

In line with this, businesses face not only damage to their bottom line but also the risk of significant fines. These happened despite the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s intensified crackdown on unwanted emails, with recent cases citing Kmart’s $1.3 million fine for sending unwanted emails and Commonwealth Bank’s record $3.5 million penalty for spamming.

Furthermore, it was observed that the shift in consumer spending due to inflation has also influenced their preferences for interacting with brands. Such a lack of agility and tune-in from business resulted in decreased customer confidence, with half of Australian consumers (49%) agreeing that some brands have low staff competency (32%) and lack interest in improving their service (32%).

Another aspect contributing to negative customer experiences is the impact of unmet customer expectations. The findings revealed that this disconnection has affected half (51%) of surveyed business leaders in the past 12 months, emerging as a top-three pain point for 45% of Australian businesses.

Talking about these challenges, Kat Warboys, marketing director of APAC at HubSpot, said, “The bottom line is that effective connection is driven by quality communications, not quantity. The data suggests that brands aren’t routinely assessing their connection data and using this insight to inform their customer touch points. And it’s causing irreparable damage as consumers disassociate with the content.”

“Increasing unsubscription rates and decreased engagement metrics are important symptoms of poor customer connection, for example, social shares, email opens, and conversion rates. The first step is to look at the data and what it’s telling you while simultaneously reviewing how your brand is behaving across the business and its channels,” she continued.

Warboys also added, “Chances are, you’re not the only team trying to get customers’ attention, and the more communications businesses have, the more likely the audience is to switch off. The key here is alignment across the business and also with the customer, which means collaborating with customer-facing teams to understand the challenges and opportunities they’re observing from the front line.”

“Rather than relying on the same strategies as previous years, in 2024 marketers should reassess by testing, learning, and investing in the customer experience. Firstly, identify where your customers are happy to self-serve and ensure you’ve enabled them to do so, and where they expect a human touch. Secondly, look at where your target audience is spending their time and meet them there, which may mean pivoting away from email marketing if your audience prefers SMS,” Warboys explained.

With the recent results of their research, she further highlighted, “From our research, we know that declining customer spending and loyalty are keeping business leaders up at night. The good news is that technology is here to help businesses work smarter, not harder. It’s well documented that AI helps businesses save time, drive effectiveness, and increase productivity, leading to deeper and more scalable connections with customers.

“Instead of over-saturating communication channels in an attempt to win customers’ attention, invest in audience research, get laser-focused on segmentation and up-to-date targeting, and use the right channels to delight the right audiences. When backed up by personalisation and targeting, there’s no doubt that less is more,” Warboys concluded.

Sydney, Australia – HubSpot has unveiled their new ‘Hubspot AI’ as well as new Sales Hub capabilities during their annual ‘INBOUND’ conference, introducing a new set of platform-wide AI-powered products and features to help customer-facing teams unlock productivity, harness data for improved performance, and create connections with customers.

HubSpot AI, as well as the new Sales Hub features, will be aiming to leverage generative and predictive AI to assist clients on their own customer acquisition and communications journeys.

HubSpot AI’s features consists a combination of new and existing products and features available globally, such as generative AI Assistant tools to supercharge marketing, sales, and service teams, AI-enhanced agent tools that help SMBs automate, respond to, and elevate their customer service across live chats and emails, predictive AI features that unlock better analysis and recommendations, as well as ‘ChatSpot’ which  combines the power of ChatGPT with dozens of unique data sources. 

Talking about HubSpot AI, Andy Pitre, EVP of product at HubSpot, said, “With HubSpot AI, we’re taking the guesswork out of generative AI and giving all customer-facing teams across sales, marketing, and service the complete toolkit to help them accomplish even more.”

On the other hand, the new Sales Hub features will include a dedicated workspace for sales reps, advanced lead management and reporting, AI-powered intelligent deal management and forecasting, seamless scheduling and handoffs, and an expansion with LinkedIn across marketing and sales. 

Speaking on HubSpot’s new Sales Hub features, Dan Bognar, VP & managing director, JAPAC at HubSpot, mentioned, “Sales Hub has been completely reimagined to enhance sales team productivity and foster stronger connections with both prospects and customers. From lead prospecting and reporting to deal management and forecasting, Sales Hub is the solution that sales teams need to drive growth today and in the future.”

Lastly, Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot, shared, “We are experiencing a transformative shift with generative AI. Customer expectations are changing, and businesses now have the opportunity to leverage AI to drive customer connection at scale. We introduced many powerful new features and capabilities at INBOUND 2023, and I’m excited by our progress in becoming the #1 customer platform for scaling companies.”

Singapore – Over nine in ten Singaporean business leaders say they are currently facing challenges or have experienced challenges in the last 12 months, with 47% of those saying it say they are challenged regarding their strategies in establishing connections with their customers. This was according to the latest study from global software company HubSpot.

According to the data, only around 41% feel that their sales and marketing teams and 38% of customer service teams can effectively connect with prospects. On top of that, close to half (43%) say that growth is slowing and the strategies that have worked in the past are becoming less effective. 

In addition, 28% of Singapore business leaders say that they are experiencing challenges related to data and systems. Some reasons cited are cobbled systems and data that doesn’t flow, too much data that are of poor quality and is inaccessible and finally, not having enough data.

Meanwhile, around 85% of Singaporean consumers have had a negative experience with brands they engaged with or purchased from since the start of 2023. From the research, the biggest pain points for consumer buyers are being inundated with irrelevant marketing materials (40%) and feeling like brands lack interest in improving their service (34%). 

B2B buyers are no different, with 30% also citing issues that brands show a lack of interest in improving services. Another issue B2B buyers are feeling is the fact that brands have poor expertise or low competency among staff (31%).

Kat Warboys, director for APAC at HubSpot, said, “Getting ghosted is never a good sign — it’s a symptom of a deeper misalignment between your GTM strategy and your current and prospective audience. And if it isn’t addressed, companies end up wasting time and money on campaigns that are falling on deaf ears.”

She also added that disconnection shows up in a brand’s ability to reach their audience — both prospective and existing customers alike in a meaningful and valuable way. For her Companies will not win by focusing on customer management, but by focusing on customer connection, and that businesses need a connected customer growth strategy to succeed.

“Consumers in Singapore have some of the highest expectations in the world. Superior customer service, communication channels that meet you where you are, and brands with seamless digital experiences are becoming the new differentiator. This is a business problem because the future, as determined by your customers, is connected experiences. The pendulum is swinging back. And like those societal shifts that came before, businesses must adapt and respond”, she concluded.

Singapore – Customer relationship management (CRM) platform HubSpot has announced the launch of new AI-powered tools to aid its customers in saving time whilst creating better connections with their audiences.

The introduction of content assistant and ChatSpot.ai builds on HubSpot’s earlier investments in AI including conversation intelligence, data quality tooling, data enrichment, predictive AI, content optimisation, and more. Powered by OpenAI, content assistant and ChatSpot.ai create efficiencies for marketing, sales, and customer service professionals. 

The content assistant helps marketing and sales teams ideate, create, and share quality content in a matter of minutes. Some features include suggesting and generating a blog post about a product or service, writing other content for the business such as social media posts and web copy, and streamlining content marketing workflows into one place.

Meanwhile, ChatSpot.ai will help HubSpot customers complete a variety of tasks using a natural language chat-based user experience. Features include adding contacts and companies to the HubSpot CRM, creating custom reports related to marketing, sales and customer service, as well as drafting professional and effective sales emails personalised to the recipient.

Andy Pitre, EVP of product at HubSpot, said that the new products’ goal is to help companies connect more deeply with their customers. In addition, their new AI-powered content assistant will help their clients create quality content faster and easier, to better serve their customers.

“Advances in AI also have the potential to change the way people use and interact with software. We’re excited to launch ChatSpot.ai to experiment with how we can make our software even easier to use, and we’re inviting our customers to come along with us as we learn together,” Pitre said.

Singapore – Global financial technology giant Paypal and customer relationship management (CRM) platform HubSpot are the newest companies to announce layoffs amidst a rising trend of company employee reductions.

In a public letter by PayPal CEO and president Dan Schulman, he said that approximately 2,000 employees will be affected by the layoff announcement. He further added that the move was made amidst drastic changes made to focus resources on core strategic priorities.

“Change can be difficult – particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing. We will face this head-on together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of our global platform, the strategic investments we have made to strengthen our core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of our customers,” Schulman stated.

He further added that the reductions will take effect in the following weeks, with other organisations within the company having more impact than others, albeit he didn’t specify which of these will be affected.

Meanwhile, a public letter by HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan said that HubSpot will be laying off 500 employees or around 7% of its workforce. Rangan also added that US employees will be the first affected, followed by other countries, in accordance with local laws.

“We have to invest in our future. In order to do that, we need to reduce investments that are not aligned with our strategy. To help our customers grow better during this time, we need to double down on product innovation. For us to scale better, we need to double down on our own internal efficiencies. Both of these require investments that we cannot make if we don’t make changes now,” she said.

Rangan also added that inflation, volatile foreign exchange, tighter customer budgets, and longer decision-making cycles have been responsible for the company’s slow growth. In turn, they have also slowed hiring, minimised travel, cut discretionary spend, and repurposed teams with excess capacity.

The tech company layoffs continue to roll out across multiple companies, with Amazon, Meta, Oracle, Netflix, Snap, Twitter, as well as regional companies like Carsome, Shopee, and Tencent as some of those affected.

United States – Global customer relationship management (CRM) platform HubSpot has announced new features and updates to help businesses create deeper, more meaningful connections with their customers in its annual INBOUND event.

HubSpot said that fundamental shifts in buyer behaviours have made it increasingly challenging for organisations to create meaningful connections with their customers. In fact, research from Gartner found that when considering a purchase, B2B buyers spend only 17% of that time actually meeting with the potential suppliers. A major driver of that disconnection is the proliferation of new software and technology, making it hard for companies to connect with their data and systems, as well as with each other. HubSpot’s latest releases are a response to this current crisis of disconnection.

Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot, noted that they believe the businesses that will win in the future are the ones that focus on customer connection, not customer management, and they are committed to helping their customers grow in this new world by providing strategies, technology, and communities that foster deeper connections. 

“I’m excited about the product developments we announced today at INBOUND because they empower our customers to do even more to solve this crisis with HubSpot’s connected CRM platform,” said Rangan. 

According to HubSpot, when looking to connect with customers, companies need to look beyond the software, and focus on what customers actually want – ownership, flexible buying experiences and deeper connections with companies and one another. As a CRM platform, HubSpot addresses this need by enabling merchants to connect with their own customers when and where they want. 

With newly launched payment schedules, HubSpot merchants can customise their payments through a collection of dates and amounts. Additionally, HubSpot’s quote-to-cash solutions help teams save time through the quoting, billing and contracting process. Targeting operational efficiencies, these enhancements create a fast, seamless experience for customers.

Moreover, HubSpot also released new data management enhancements to provide customers with transparent and timely data insights through import error handling and enhanced automation. The newest data import experience flags and resolves data errors before they are ever published. Data quality automation recommendations also eliminate the manual burden of fixing data errors. Using the power of HubSpot AI assistance, customers can now set up automation to resolve issues as they surface. As a result, teams can now spend less time on manual work and reactive problem-solving, giving customers more time and confidence to level up their impact.

Additionally, having a comprehensive view of the entire customer journey is a key part of fostering customer connections, which is why HubSpot announced the upcoming launch of customer journey analytics at INBOUND. The new feature, available in public beta later this year, will provide marketers with detailed visualisations that make it easier to identify moments in the customer journey that can be optimised for better conversion and deeper insights into customer behaviours. HubSpot also announced enhancements to campaigns to provide marketers with a consolidated view of all initiatives together.

HubSpot also announced new features to help customer service teams create more connected experiences. Teams using Service Hub can now interact with their customers through a fully connected service desk, complete with a helpdesk, channels, and automation. Through the new WhatsApp integration, currently available through public beta, teams can connect a WhatsApp business account to their shared inbox to communicate with prospects and customers without leaving the HubSpot platform. With the introduction of inbound calling, customers can make and receive calls right from HubSpot without exposing their personal phone numbers.

The platform also addresses the need for connected customer data for sales organisations through new data quality features to keep customer data connected, clean, and secure. With the custom object builder, teams can now craft customised data models without code, and enforce consistent data entry with property validations. Prioritising data hygiene is easier than ever with HubSpot’s data quality command centre, where teams can get insights on the health of all data in one place.

Kat Warboys, HubSpot’s marketing director for APAC, said, “Creating meaningful, lasting connections is the future. HubSpot is on a mission to create a powerful and easy-to-use product that gives you the insights you need to drive growth in this changing landscape. At INBOUND, we announced a wide range of innovations all to this end – tools to identify and connect with your customers, and insights to drive growth.”

In addition to new product updates, HubSpot also announced the launch of connect.com, a newly connected community for growth professionals that helps them build strong relationships with their peers and community.

Singapore – Prasana William, former regional marketing manager of HubSpot for Asia, has been named as the new head of APAC marketing at Sprout Social, the US-headquartered company that provides cloud-based social media management software. 

Based in Singapore, William will be responsible for growing the brand awareness of the company within the region, as well as running end-to-end marketing activities to expand its customer base and enable brands to maximise the power of social.

William is a seasoned marketer who brings with her seven years of hands-on experience in the Asia B2B tech space. She worked previously for fintech platform FAVE and email marketing platform GetResponse Malaysia. Prior to HubSpot, she also held the position of regional marketing manager for SEA at Singapore-based Ematic Solutions, a marketing and technology consultancy. 

On the appointment, William commented, “Sprout Social recognises and is committed to its growth across international markets. So when the opportunity to co-create their journey in APAC was presented, I couldn’t say no. Social media touches every part of our lives today and the impact it is having on businesses is invaluable, which is why I am thrilled to be at the helm of the company’s strategy and culture in APAC and have a seat on this rocket ship.” 

Sprout Social offers deep social media listening and analytics, social management, customer care, commerce and advocacy solutions to brands and agencies worldwide. As she steps into the new role, William shared that her main priority is to partner with General Manager for APAC, Amrita De La Pena to align Sprout Social’s sales and marketing functions. This is in line with the company’s goal to accelerate its international expansion. 

According to William, Sprout Social is further increasing its pace of hiring with a strong emphasis on international markets. The company also continues to expand its product roadmap and partnerships, including the announcement of its most recent integration with TikTok. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Prasana William to Sprout Social as Head of Marketing, APAC, based in Singapore. She brings incredible expertise and experience to her role and will have a meaningful impact on Sprout’s growth in the region,” said Marino Fresch, VP of acquisition & revenue marketing at Sprout Social.

Sydney, Australia – Global customer relationship management (CRM) platform HubSpot has announced joining forces with ticketing platform Humanitix to reimagine how marketers and event organisers manage their customers’ ticketing journeys. 

HubSpot users can synchronise their contacts and ticketing information via the new Humanitix integration with HubSpot. The new feature leverages HubSpot’s custom objects to enable event organisers to collect leads and track existing registrations throughout the customer journey, all within the HubSpot CRM platform.

“The partnership will significantly streamline the ticketing process by providing a single source of truth across the attendee and guest experience. Not only will this save event organisers and marketers valuable time, but it will also provide them with access to key customer data to help inform future customer communications and marketing efforts,” HubSpot said in a press statement.

Kat Warboys, APAC marketing director at HubSpot said that with the events industry emerging from the pandemic as one of the hardest hit, streamlined processes are no longer just a ‘nice-to-have’ but critical for the revival of the events sector.

“Just as the pandemic changed the face of the events circuit in Australia, it also altered customer expectations. As a customer relationship management platform, HubSpot is committed to providing event organisers and marketers with the tools they need to surpass these expectations at every stage of the customer journey through thoughtful communications, value alignment and human touch,” Warboys said.

Meanwhile, Adam McCurdie, CEO and co-founder of Humanitix, commented, “Selling tickets to help support disadvantaged children around the world is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Empowering our event partners to maximise that social impact at scale comes part and parcel.”

He added, “The integration with HubSpot is game changing for us. Not only will it allow our partners to seamlessly synchronise customer data across both platforms, but it will also free them up to provide a level of customer service unmatched in the event ticketing industry – not just in Australia, but globally.”

With the fast-paced digital world, marketers and communicators have a bigger challenge in their hands to deliver communications that would truly snare consumers’ attention – and in a sustained manner. The boulder becomes even bigger as communication strategies differ per each industry. One such industry that is often perplexed in resonating seamlessly with consumers is tech.

With its intricacy, tech providers are continuously improving their own solutions and as part of the process to promote new offerings, they must rely on effective marketing communications. Being able to hit this area of the business right is vital, allowing existing and prospective consumers to see how their services work and to create an impact on their purchasing decisions. 

But the biggest question remains: in spite of all these ways of communication, how do tech companies actually communicate their services to clients, way beyond their technicalities? In an age where numerous tech brands are all vying for consumers’ attention, effective technological communication becomes the crucial element to win over clients–and create a difference for their respective customers.

In our newest The Inner State feature, we roped in three marketing leaders from various industries; namely Kat Warboys, marketing director for APAC at HubSpot; Kyra Kuik, global head of content at Siteimprove; and Azadeh Williams, founder and managing director of AZK Media–to learn more about their insights, leadership takes and advises in executing the ideal and impactful communications for their clients.

On the principle of storytelling: How one marketing software company uses its ‘flywheel model’ concept

In reality, there is this thing called a flywheel, where it is a spinning wheel that is extremely energy-efficient, pushing something into higher speeds while maintaining a constant source of energy. This is what HubSpot, a marketing software company, utilises through its “flywheel model”. For the company, their business model uses the momentum of happy customers to drive referrals and repeat business. In addition, this model is applied to their products and solutions, which is then adopted by their marketing teams when it comes to bringing product launches to life.

This is what the ‘flywheel model’ does across their organisation, according to Kat Warboys, marketing director for APAC at HubSpot. When asked about their key methodology in their tech communication, she explained the importance of their business model, noting that we are now in an era where customers hold all the power: they’re informed and have higher expectations from businesses and marketing teams than ever before.

“The flywheel model also helps to identify and eliminate any friction, which will act as something that slows down the speed of the flywheel. This could be poor internal processes, lack of effective communication between teams or misalignment with customers. The more marketers increase speed and decrease friction, the more they’ll create promoters of the businesses, and those promoters become the force that keeps the flywheel spinning,” Warboys said.

However, Warboys noted that as much as the “flywheel model” is ideal, bringing it to life requires cross-functional teams to be in unison and aligned every step of the way, ranging from website updates to product pages, running webinars to highlight the product and its benefit.

“At the core of powerful storytelling is identifying a common enemy – in the case of a technology or product story, that’s often a pain point, a barrier to growth or a cause of friction – and the role of the hero. For any new product to be successful in the market, it must solve for the customer. Tapping into customer pain and leveraging effective storytelling ensures your audience feels as though they are being heard and as a result, the messaging will resonate,” she added.

When asked their preferred communication channels to deliver their tech-related messaging, Warboys said that more and more people are leaning towards preference of visual content.

“They’re also shifting where they’re reading content, opting for social media platforms over more traditional or long-form outlets. When it comes to communicating with your audience, we must meet them on the platforms and channels that they’re accessing, if that means visual content or social media, then those should be the preferred channels of engagement,” she explained.

Despite this, Warboys noted from their ‘State of Marketing’ report that traditional channels are still being used, such as blogs, infographics, case studies, interviews, eBooks, white papers and checklists. In other words, there is still a hybrid approach for the company to communicate their tech-related messaging.

“When launching a single product, we lean into specific content such as thought leadership, social channels, public relations and webinars to address both the pain point that the technology solves and also share insights from research,” she stated.

In regards to their key performance indicators (KPIs), they have their so-called ‘Customer Code’ philosophy, where the success of a tech-related messaging is determined when a built campaign that customers love has the customer at the forefront of their decisions.

“It’s not about what you sell, but how you sell. It’s about making your customers more successful, building relationships by doing the right thing and focusing on the long-term even if it’s not always the easiest path,” she stated.

In addition, a more metric-driven approach is measuring demand, where for example, if it’s a well-known product and there is already strong market awareness, they can look at metrics like free trial sign-ups, sales demo requests and opportunities with their sales team.

However, Warboys notes that when they launch a brand new product, they need to consider a much heavier content and education strategy over the long term. She added that this is when they really lean into thought leadership and market surveys to help validate a new concept.

“In these instances, the metrics would be more interest and awareness based, such as webinar registrations or attendance rates, podcast downloads and listen-through figures, and or resource downloads. These metrics give us an insight into how effectively we’re communicating our messaging and help us understand how engaged our audience is,” she stated.

A mix of a multi-pronged approach and understanding of technical differences: How a SaaS company does their communication

Meanwhile, for global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Siteimprove that specialises on website governance and optimisation, a multi-pronged approach in communicating their brand message and service lineup is vital, as stated by Kyra Kuik, global head of content at Siteimprove.

“We create an overall messaging map for each audience who might want to learn about the product (e.g. customers, prospects, media, etc.). From there, we assess what each of those audiences needs and wants to know about the product. Then we create content and communications that address those needs while maintaining consistent messaging for that audience,” Kuik stated.

She further explains, “For example, we might need to create in-depth tutorials with technical specifications for super-user customers, whereas prospects might only need a light explanation of why our new product brings them value. Overall, this approach ensures we give each person all the information they need without anything irrelevant or overwhelming.”

Meanwhile, on the subject of balancing their messaging to their expert and non-expert audience, Kuik notes that they have carried out extensive personal research, so that they have a good understanding of how technical different audience segments are.

“We always make sure our communications are tailored to their level of expertise and their overall interests. Overall, our tone of voice and brand personality are very approachable and personable. We believe in making things as simple as possible,” she stated.

Meanwhile, regarding their form of communicating, she said, “If we have an important technical update for customers, then we use email or in-product messaging. For more public-facing channels, we use our blog, the website, our social media channels, webinars, emails, and we regularly distribute press releases about significant updates.”

Lastly, on the subject of how they measure KPIs, Kuik says, “We always ask ourselves what success looks like when we embark on a new campaign or launch. We clarify who we want to reach, how, and what we want them to think, feel, and do afterwards. This helps us adapt our KPIs to each project, so we’re measuring the things that actually drive value for us.” 

An understanding of how others digest information: How an integrated marketing agency relays tech-related information

From tech vendors themselves, we move to marketing agencies that have a similar issue when crafting communications for their tech-related clients. 

For Azadeh Williams, founder and managing director of AZK Media, they believe that everyone digests information in different ways, as some people prefer to read a press release or article, while others watch a video or listen to a podcast, and some just prefer to see a one-page slide or infographic.

“When we help our technology clients scale their go-to-market strategy, we ensure the campaign integrates a product launch video with great messaging, all on a beautifully designed and SEO rich web landing page. We then amplify that content with a press campaign, and scale inbound activity with a mix of paid and organic digital, creative and social marketing campaigns,” Williams said.

Williams further added that when it comes to communicating the tech message, they often see technology companies struggle when marketing a new product. To fix this issue, they aim at making complex technical concepts easily understandable, digestible and ‘attractive’ to their prospects and a broader audience.

“So what we do is first deep dive and understand what critical problems or pain points the technology solves for customers at a micro level, along with the wider economic, social and industry benefits of the innovation at a macro level,” she stated.

She added, “We then take a look at what emotions the product evokes: is it trust, confidence or peace of mind? Is it empowerment or excitement? Once we connect the product solution to those key emotive elements, the message resonates at a deeper level with both experts and non-expert audiences.”

Meanwhile, from her eyes as a public relations person, they amplify their client’s press releases and thought leadership content across the thousands of publications in their global media network. In addition, they also have strategic partnerships with key publishers, technology institutes and industry organisations where they further syndicate and scale their client’s messaging.

“On top of this, we leverage powerful inbound marketing strategies, email marketing and social media amplification methods to really amplify all the messaging at scale. From a social media platform perspective, we’ve found LinkedIn as a highly powerful platform for B2B technology message ‘stickiness,” Williams added.

On the topic of business KPIs, she further explained that there are many measurement tools now that can show exactly what revenue can be attributed to inbound marketing efforts, versus other marketing and sales activities.

“We suggest technology marketers measure social media engagement (not just ‘reach and impressions), site traffic increase, click through rates, inbound sales inquiries (leads), number of demos booked and share of voice against competitors. Now this list is not exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point to make more data-driven decisions to help further refine your marketing messaging,” Williams concluded.

Sydney, Australia – Customer relationship management (CRM) platform HubSpot has relaunched its software service ‘Service Hub’, a customer service software enabling companies to prioritise their customer experience. Through the revamped software, it allows companies to deepen customer relationships while driving team efficiency and connecting to the front office.

First introduced in 2018, Service Hub allows teams to transform feedback insights into actionable customer journey improvements, while customisable tools and views help drive team efficiency.

Sabina Sobinina, director of success for JAPAC at HubSpot, said, “Consumers tolerate poor customer experiences and end up feeling overlooked and disappointed far too frequently. Combatting this is why we originally launched Service Hub, which has since evolved to include all new features that strengthen the customer experience and provide authentic interactions that not just satisfy the customers’ needs, but delight them too.”

Some of the features of Service Hub include customer portals for ticket conversations going between customers and reps, service level agreement (SLA) management tools that help companies prioritise incoming requests, mobile inboxes to keep teams productive on the go, and beta offering of inbound calling.

Sobinina added, “We know almost every customer is more likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service, which is why it’s so important that teams have a unified understanding of customers. We’re genuinely delighted to further empower businesses to deliver genuine, connected, customer-centric experience.”