Inbound 2021: Continuing Education Leads to Higher Sales

Let me let you in on a not-so-secret, secret: even experts need continuing education. It’s easy for any organization to get wrapped up in serving clients that they fail to make time to improve employee skills and for employees to stay up on industry trends. And nowhere is this more true than digital marketing. Our always full days make pushing that digital course back another week easy. TikTok trends, types of emojis to include (and not to include—the 😂 is dead) in social posts and email marketing, and evolving security standards for websites are only a few of the areas we’re constantly tracking. What Primitive found—making margin is key.

Why We Invest in Our Team’s Growth

We’ve seen—not just looking at other companies’ data and research—the actual results of employees who are given time and resources to grow, learn, and stay experts in their fields. Learning marketers, designers, strategists, and developers are innovative, connect the dots, and see solutions. These team members create tangible wins for clients. So, one of our new company-wide initiatives for ALL employees is time and financial resources to work on continuing education. 

We recently had team members across all services lines—web design, digital marketing, and software—attend Inbound 2021.

What is Inbound?

Inbound is an annual business marketing conference hosted by industry-leader HubSpot. Inbound 2021 was billed as:

“a fully immersive, online experience, that provided access to transformative business trends, proactive conversations, and key actionable takeaways.”

And did Inbound deliver. From sessions on email marketing, using narrative in content marketing, SEO strategy, and Google Ads, to breaks with the Boston Ballet. And Oprah. The actual Oprah.

What We Learned: B2C, B2B, Email Marketing, and More

At Primitive we have diverse service lines. Which means employees are experts—across fields. One of our favorite ways to debrief an event is to see what sessions resonated and why. These insights often show us where we’ve improved employee skills, where we can deliver even better products to clients, and places to find inspiration. 

Staff Favorite Inbound Moments

Morgan Reneau, Marketing Manager; Sydney Spiegel, Digital Marketing Strategist; and Dillon Clift, GDD Technical Lead, all raved about Jay Schwedelson’s Email Myths Busted! What’s Really Working Now.

“Jay gives practical tips that you can start implementing 

right away. His company goes deep with research and gives a lot of it out for free.”

-Morgan Reneau

“It offered fresh perspectives on email trends

 I will start using for my clients.”

-Sydney Spiegel

“This guy was such a character and delivered relevant, AMAZING information.”

-Dillon Clift

 

Lauren Pugh, a copywriter specializing in social media and email marketing was interested in metrics from post-session follower accounts.

“Never underestimate the power of meaningful brand engagement. My favorite thing was following the speakers on LinkedIn and seeing all of the engagement they got after!” -Lauren Pugh

Parker Brown, Digital Ad Specialist, resonated with Dallas Mavericks CEO, Cynt Marshall’s talk on Leaving a Legacy.

“It sounded like a talk on “what about me is so special that I can leave a lasting impact” or “what do I need to do to accomplish x,y,z.” Instead of being internally focused, Marshall delivered on leading with values. She was asked, “How do you not get overwhelmed as the leader of an organization with all of these things going on?” Her response was simple and profound.

She asks herself two questions: “God, what is it that you want me to do?” and “Who is it that I’m to touch?” And that’s it—that’s how she approaches each and every day as the CEO of this massive company. She leads with her core values everyday.” -Parker Brown

Danielle Holmes, a website copywriter and strategist, explored the neurological connection between metaphor and clear communication in Genein Letford’s session, Using Metaphors for Storytelling Success.

“I’ll be trying these methods to help me communicate complex client offerings with their customers. Storytelling is part of the human experience; harnessing that for web clients is the best part of my day!” -Danielle Holmes

Leisa Redmon, a copywriter specializing in social media, blogging, and all things Primitive, appreciated the holistic experience and diverse offerings. 

“I'm not much of a cat person, but like those little felines, I do love a good sandbox along with a rollout of new features equipped to help businesses scale their organization for sustainable growth.” -Leisa Redmon

Jake Heenehan, Business Development Lead, is moving to own transformational Go-To-Market strategy after listening to Sangram Vajre’s talk, It's not marketing. It's Go-To-Market.

“To take a product or service to market, you have to find its place in the market. And as you grow, you have to keep finding a bigger space to fit. That’s what I want to see for Primitive and our clients.” -Jake Heenehan

Top 5 Takeaways for Our Clients

These were only a few of our staff’s favorite sessions. Everyone came away with industry updates, applicable takeaways, and inspiration.

Going forward you will see us:

1. Continuing to lead and market ethically 
2. Dropping more emojis in email marketing—there are serious emojis for serious brands
3. Changing email analytic metrics with iOS 15 privacy updates
4. Working on follow up engagement across platforms
5. Developing clear brand narratives so your clients know the heart of your business

Feeling inspired? Check out our guide to Telling Your Brand’s Story Through Digital Marketing!