5 Takeaways from the August Chicago HubSpot User Group Meetup

Our team gets so much value from attending the monthly Chicago HubSpot User Group (HUG) meetups. Whether it’s through guest speakers or content workshops, these events are the perfect opportunity to meet other HubSpot users and learn even more about the platform.

On Wednesday, a group of Diagramers traveled to Google’s Chicago headquarters for August’s meetup. HubSpot’s Director of Product Marketing, Jeffrey Russo, shared how to improve the impact of marketing using data. He also gave us a sneak peek into new tools that HubSpot will be releasing soon! What did we learn?

Dan Sitton, Solution Analyst, says, "I learned that lack of attribution reporting and marketing reporting, in general, is a common issue. Technology alone will not solve this problem, so there needs to be a general culture shift around 'smarketing' [sales and marketing] and reporting."

Doug Miller, Senior Marketing Strategist, explains: "From his (Jeffrey's) point of view, a campaign is any time-bound initiative around driving conversion. He discussed the value of determining the backstory when reporting on attribution in revenue. I liked that concept."

Nicole Osterhout, Traffic Manager, shares, "This was my first time going to a HUG meetup! I really appreciated the camaraderie of the whole event. Since I work in the production department, it was great to learn more about the HubSpot platform and its capabilities. Plus, the location was pretty cool too."

Britney Na, Interaction Designer, adds, "I have used Hubspot and know a lot about Hubspot design features, but never knew much about the Hubspot marketing side. It was insightful to see what Hubspot offered and hear them address what marketers are trying to measure and how their new platform feature can help."

Jeffrey had this great nugget that will stick with me. With the ease of search on the internet, you can search for a product, learn everything about it, and then purchase it online before even talking to a salesperson. In fact, most buyers are 90% of the way through the buying process before they contact a vendor or sales person. Therefore, it’s imperative marketing and sales work together, and attribution reporting is a great way to measure effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts.

Thanks to leaders, Stephanie Casstevens and Debra Monkman for organizing this event. This was the last meetup before HubSpot’s Inbound 2017 conference in Boston. Several of our team members will be headed there. Are you going? If so, we'd love to meet you!