Inbound Marketing Summit 2008 Summary

Monday in Cambridge marked the first annual Inbound Marketing Summit, hosted by the local internet marketing firm HubSpot.

While last week's Business of Software conference focused on software entrepreneurs, the Inbound Marketing Summit presented speakers and sessions devoted to helping any type of organization, for-profit company or non-profit institution, attract interest and build community. Many attendees were interviewed and asked for their definition of inbound marketing, with most replying fairly closely to the lines that inbound marketing was the process to help people in your market/industry/subculture easily find you or your organization when they are interested in doing so via search engines, the blogosphere, and social media sites.

The show was kicked off by HubSpot CEO, Brian Halligan, who introduced keynote speaker, the author and strategist, David Meerman Scott. Scott is a cheerleader of viral marketing and a "publish your way" into consumer consciousness methodology. He espouses the idea that organizations that create the appropriate cultural and contextual references to their product or service are the ones that stand out. To do this, an ongoing effort to publish relevant content needs to be a part of the business strategy. "Nobody cares about your product and service, they care about their problems and the need to solve them", says Scott. "There are too many examples of companies that talk about their product specifications or service metrics instead of talking to a type of customer with a specific set of problems."

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot co-founder and author of OnStartups who did a great presentation at last week's Business of Software Conference, provided a great overview of search engine optimization basics for marketers. Not that the presentation stayed basic as the audience was very well informed and the questions became technical very quickly. Shah's "SEO Tips" provided a great summary of points, the most important being "make your users happy--if your users aren't happy with you, Google won't be happy with you either."

The second, and very much anticipated, keynote of the day was by marketing and entrepreneur guru Seth Godin. Whereas Godin last week tactfully connected to software developers, this week he deftly adjusted his presentation to his "base" of believers and fans. He expounded on the theme of "emotional marketing": "Do you love what you sell? If you don't then why should I?" His pronouncement of the death of the TV-industrial complex rings true and is well-supported. Godin is very good about asking listeners to self-examine: Are you yelling at people about problems they don't have? Are you dealing with clutter by making more clutter? Are you making something remarkable? He finished up with a list of 14 idea trends, any of which could be the basis of a new product, service, or business--as usual, very inspiring.

In addition to these highlighted speakers there were a dozen or so sessions that included "Website Redesign: When to Do it & How to Do it Right" by Mike Volpe from HubSpot, "Mathematical Marketing Tools for Customer Retention" by Mark Klein of Longbow, and the very funny Chris Brogan from Cross Tech Media who did a great presentation on "Social Media Strategy".

The Inbound Marketing Summit was a phenomenal inaugural show, and Boston is fortunate to have yet another great event like this. Next week we'll be going to the Web Innovators Group in Cambridge for more exposure to innovative ideas. The summer meeting was jam-packed with interested people, we'll see if's standing-room only again.

Pic of David Meerman Scott speaking at the Inbound Marketing Summit IMS08 via Tom Lewis