So What's HubSpot's Partner Day Really All About?

Steve Brown Jun 2, 2016 11:17:32 AM

Every spring, HubSpot hosts its annual Partner Day, a full day dedicated to marketing. Open to HubSpot’s Diamond, Platinum, and Gold Agency Partners, the event is stacked with engaging Q&A panels, informative breakout sessions, stimulating keynotes and last, but not least, HubSpot’s big party.

What Is HubSpot Partner Day?

The goal of Partner Day is for HubSpot to grow their relationships with their top VAR agencies, update them on the latest upgrades and improvements and to also get feedback from the agencies on how HubSpot could improve.

For the past three years, ROI Online has been one of the invited HubSpot partners and agencies in attendance seeking to learn about insights into the industry, emerging trends and new HubSpot tools. ROI is a HubSpot Platinum partner.

What Went Down At Partner Day 2016?

This year, Partner Day primarily revolved around the future of marketing automation and the shift toward sales enablement tools, such as the software’s CRM and HubSpot Sales Platform.

Most sessions focused on growing value within the existing relationships VARs have with their clients and how to use the new tools HubSpot is rolling out in order to garner new areas of service and revenue.

As mentioned earlier, one of HubSpot’s main talking points was sales enablement. If you haven’t heard the industry’s latest buzzword, it basically boils down to bridging the gap between sales and marketing, and setting your agency’s sales team up for success by leveraging HubSpot’s tools.

Here’s a great infographic by Demand Metric if you want to a easy-to-digest synopsis of sales enablement.

What Did ROI Online Learn?

My main takeaway was how our agency needs to plan to grow our capabilities to better position us for the future and to take advantage of the new opportunities being presented to us.

One truth that has become evident is, for the most part, our clients lack systems and processes to take advantage of the leads we generate for them. HubSpot’s CRM is an excellent opportunity for our marketing team to help our client design, implement, and successfully close the opportunities we reveal for them.

What’s On The Horizon For Marketing in 2016 And Beyond?

Artificial intelligence continues to impact and overall change our daily lives.

The Amazon Echo, a hands-free speaker controlled by voice, is a compelling illustration of the direction our world is taking. We now expect to find answers to our questions by asking a device with our voice. We now shop with our voice. We now play music or watch programs by asking a device while we cook or perform other tasks with our hands and eyes.

Private networks are solutions to email as we know it.

Mobile phones, which were initially designed for talking, have transformed into devices that offer augmented intelligence and a place we expect to connect to data that goes far beyond basic communication. The expectation of email as a business solution is going the way of the mobile phone. Examples are Slack, HipChat, Google for Business. A business version of Facebook Messenger is rumored to be introduced in the near future. These platforms are referred to as “closed networks,” “members only” areas of communication and data-sharing that block unwanted interruptions from spammy marketers. These types of solutions will revolutionize business communication and productivity just like mobile phones have done for individuals.

Facebook, Amazon, Medium, and many other platforms are origination points for search other than Google.

The fragmentation of information search is exploding. Remember when network TV or cable was the only place we watched programming? Now many people are perfectly happy without ever watching either. These cord cutters get their programming from thousands of digital sources, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, podcasts, and thousands of other apps and channels. The same is happening in search and information gathering efforts. We now go to so many other platforms to acquire new information, expand our knowledge and develop our skills.

Because of these trends, the future usefulness of leading marketing agencies like ROI Online lies in the ability to position our clients to clearly communicate the value they offer to the niches they serve in the right platforms their prospects expect to find them — to help them improve their communications with these prospects and customers, to help them enhance their sales processes, and to help them to collect better data. As a result, our clients will be positioned to make superior business decisions based on the data we collect from the platforms we establish.

This is why being a HubSpot partner is so valuable to us as an agency and our clients. Marketing automation offers a big competitive advantage for a business if it is implemented in a way that complements a strategic marketing plan. To partner with HubSpot offers us rich industry insights, in-depth training, and modern tools that allow us to deliver a higher level of in-demand services, services that are going to be more in demand as our future in technology rapidly unveils itself.

What To Do With Your Spare Time In Boston

HubSpot is headquartered in Cambridge, right outside of Boston. And when in Boston, one must experience the city.

I’ve visited Boston more times than I can count, and I consider myself to be well-acquainted with its restaurants. After a full day of learning and networking, you deserve a delectable dish and beverage, courtesy of Boston’s creative, vibrant dining scene.

Here’s Steve’s ‘Go Here And Eat This’ Guide: The Boston Edition.

The Abbey Brookline

At this top-notch New American eatery, you can indulge in:

Crispy pork belly with chili orange sauce, toasted spiced cashews
Sautéed mussels with jalapeño in a cilantro broth and curried crème Fraiche crostini
Roasted cod with potato scallion pancake in shallot cream sauce
Truffle fries with roasted garlic mayo

The Barking Crab

This seafood joint boasts a grand view of the Boston Harbor and an even grander selection of coastal cuisine, including: