When thinking about the fundamentals of marketing, one thing stays the same: customer journeys happen whether you architect them or not. This isn’t groundbreaking for most marketers, however the most successful ones recognize how critical it is. They’re deliberate about understanding their customers’ journeys — from the very first touchpoint with their brand, all the way to repeat business.

Now, the approach to this varies with experience. Newer marketers should be intentional about every single part of their planning, whereas more experienced marketers know their customers already and can anticipate their next move. Regardless of where they are in their career, one thing stays consistent — the importance of crafting the customer journey.

But why? Well, if you don’t, the hard truth is that your customers will leave to find someone who will. In fact, 32% of customers will stop doing business with a company they loved after a bad experience. And that’s during the best of times.

Shifting focus during macroeconomic uncertainty

In a macroeconomic boom, there is less concern for generating quality leads as there’s typically a larger surplus to choose from in the first place. This leaves a lot more wiggle room for process inefficiencies and band aid solutions — or to be frank, mediocre marketing. In these times, the only real benefit to personalized journeys for your customers is efficiency. Better quality leads equals a greater chance to close business, which ultimately means hitting goals faster.

Now, in times of macroeconomic uncertainty, all of those best practices are thrown out the window. Every single action marketers take with their customers matters and it is more important than ever to understand exactly what your customers need, and why they care about your brand specifically. Neglecting to nurture that opportunity because you didn’t prioritize a personalized and unique customer journey is not only a tragedy, but will ultimately result in your customers becoming your competition’s customers instead.

So, what now?

If you’ve read this far, you not only understand the power of architecting your customers’ journeys, but also believe it’s imperative to success. So, what now?

Data hygiene and personalized automation are two critical first steps in understanding your customers, their behaviors and what moves them through their buyer’s journey. But, success requires a step beyond clean living and efficient processes. Success happens when you leverage those insights through a different perspective.

A new perspective on marketing

Connecting with customers continues to be top of mind at HubSpot, and investing in more robust ways to leverage reporting and automation is our latest approach. Traditional marketing automation and reporting tools give marketers a siloed view into their customers’ journeys. I like to think about it like standing nose to nose with a massive painting — you see only a small piece of a larger vision. Now, imagine taking ten steps back from that painting, and the entirely new perspective that would be uncovered.

Marketers need a way to take those ten steps back, which is why we built Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). CJA offers marketers out-of-the-box tools to leverage data comprehensively, without requiring a team of technical consultants. Having the ability to identify gaps and optimize marketing efforts without changing existing day-to-day processes offers teams detailed insights that would otherwise be a blind spot.

CJA’s automation and reporting capabilities offer marketers the key to unlock strong, comprehensive marketing campaigns. In other words, marketers are able to see the whole picture into their campaigns. This enhances the journey that customers are having, and ultimately enhances the experience customers have with your brand.

I’ve been working in the sustainability space for two decades, with a number of companies looking to identify and take action on their commitments as a responsible business. As you can imagine, being in this work for so long, I’m unable to count the number of times when I’m asked — what does sustainability really mean? For many people, sustainability might bring to mind the environment. When companies like HubSpot talk about sustainability, it refers to all issues within the pillars of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG), including carbon emissions, waste, human rights, diversity, privacy, community engagement, and a lot more.

Today, 96% of G250 companies report on sustainability or ESG matters, showcasing the growing interest in sustainable practices from candidates, investors, customers, and employees. For us at HubSpot, we’ve worked hard in 2022 on making meaningful, long-term change and I’m excited to see these efforts come to life in 2023. Since joining in 2022 as the company’s first Director of ESG, I’ve spoken to many customers, partners, and employees about our sustainability journey and in the spirit of transparency (one of our values at HubSpot), I’m going to answer the top questions I’ve received. I hope these insights help you, whether you’re considering a career at HubSpot or navigating your own sustainability journey.

How does HubSpot approach sustainability/ESG?

There are a multitude of topics within ESG. In developing our strategy, we took a look at where we wanted to focus and invest our time, energy, and resources, knowing we couldn’t do everything. As part of this undertaking, we carried out what’s called a “materiality assessment.” What this means in practice is directly engaging with stakeholders in a thoughtful manner to understand what they see as priorities, and then narrowing those down to where we can have the greatest impact. Put more simply, we view ESG as a set of commitments that deliver on our purpose, which is to build a company future generations would be proud of. So we don’t pursue an ESG initiative unless we feel we can have an impact on our employees, customers, communities, and planet.

Where we landed is: energy and emissions; diversity, inclusion & belonging; and customer trust. These are our ESG priorities and how we’ll make progress on our purpose. We plan to repeat our materiality assessment in the not too distant future, to ensure we’re focusing on the right issues as we grow and scale.

What are HubSpot’s ESG focus areas?

As I mentioned above, our priority issues are energy and emissions; diversity, inclusion & belonging; and customer trust. Let me talk a bit more about each of these.

• Energy and emissions: Going back to our purpose, we can’t build a company that’s around for generations without doing our part for the planet. The environmental impact of tech companies might seem negligible when compared to other industries like oil and gas. But when you consider that we have over 7,400 employees and 150,000 customers globally, we have a responsibility to understand and address our footprint.
• Diversity, inclusion & belonging: The key to our success is our people, and we are deeply committed to creating a company that reflects the diversity of our customer base globally. That’s why company culture and investing in our people are core business priorities at HubSpot. We publish our diversity data annually which provides transparency into the steps we’ve taken to build an equitable company and where we need to push ourselves to drive lasting change. Embedding inclusion and equity doesn’t end internally, though. We also want to bring the best of HubSpot to grow our impact in the communities where we live and work.
• Customer trust: One of the core tenets of our Culture Code is to Solve for the Customer by delivering delightful experiences. We can’t do this without being responsible stewards of our customers’ data. That means being transparent about how data is used, building controls and choice, and keeping data safe and secure. Learn more and take a look at our self-serve resources here.

Does HubSpot report on its sustainability practices?

Yes. As a member of the United Nations Global Compact, we’ve committed to reporting on our sustainability practices and tracking our progress over time.

We published our inaugural Sustainability Report in 2021, sharing our efforts in ESG. We released our second-annual report in June and are currently working on our 2023 report. We also disclose our efforts through filings with the SEC, and regularly participate in assessments by global raters and rankers, such as S&P Global’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment. As we continue to evolve our ESG efforts, we plan to respond to more ESG surveys and evaluate aligning with additional global reporting frameworks.

Does HubSpot publicly share its greenhouse gas emissions/environmental impact?

Our environmental progress and goals are detailed in our 2022 Sustainability Report, but I want to give a bit more context here on where our emissions come from and how we’re working to address our footprint.

Since we don’t manufacture a physical product, like many SaaS companies our emissions are concentrated in Scope 2 and 3, with the latter making up the majority due to our supply chain. There are two areas within our supply chain that we focus on. The first is our upstream supply chain, which encompasses our footprint in the cloud and the tech suppliers we use. And the second is our downstream supply chain, which refers to how our customers use HubSpot.

With upstream, we have a supplier code of conduct that we’ll be building on with a supplier engagement programme. In essence, it involves having a dialogue with our key cloud and tech suppliers and ensuring that they too are focusing on carbon reduction. Regarding downstream, that’s at a much earlier stage and we’re working with our customers to understand how we can support their decarbonisation journeys. If you’re a HubSpot customer and want to connect about this, I’d love to hear from you!

In terms of how we’re addressing our emissions in the long-term, we’re focusing our efforts on decarbonising through reduction measures rather than offsetting, in order to hold ourselves accountable to making meaningful change. This means setting science-based emissions reduction targets aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative and committing to net carbon zero. We’ll be sharing more about this soon, but it’s something I’m hugely excited about and a big milestone in our climate journey.

What opportunities do you provide for employees to get involved in sustainability?

HubSpotters play a huge role in sustainability and joining our employee groups is a fantastic way to be part of the conversation and contribute to our efforts. One of these groups is Eco@HubSpot, which was founded in 2018 by some of our employees in Dublin to support local sustainability projects. It has since expanded to almost 1,500 members across the globe and is one of our most active employee interest resource groups. As part of evolving our employee engagement work we’ll be encouraging all our employees to take collective action on the environment through programming and events and ensuring that it’s a pillar of our culture programming. We plan to run quarterly campaigns focused on specific topics, such as energy or travel, with the goal of educating employees and encouraging sustainable behaviours.

Another way for employees to get involved is through volunteering. HubSpotters are passionate people and it’s important that we help them grow better while harnessing their collective passion to invest in the communities that need it most. Through our dedicated employee volunteering platform, HubSpotters have eight hours in company time annually to give back to the causes and communities they care about. We also support our communities at a company level through other program initiatives — including fundraising campaigns and flagship events.

Lastly, we really do feel that sustainability is everyone’s job so it’s important that we’re continuously giving HubSpotters the right tools and education. Teams across the business have developed content and trainings that equip our employees with the skills they need to make an impact. We require all HubSpotters to undergo courses on corporate policies like our code of conduct as well as on Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. We’re also in the midst of developing ESG-focused courses for new and existing employees.

Can you share more about sustainability efforts in your offices?

With 88% of HubSpotters working remotely some or all of the time, there’s an opportunity to rethink how we design and maintain our buildings with sustainability in mind, while enabling our hybrid workforce to do their best work.

Our Facilities team has been hard at work understanding our electricity, waste, and water usage, and assessing how to move forward with a larger strategy. We actively pursue sustainability initiatives like space management, local sourcing, furniture donations, living walls, centralised waste management, and more. As a hybrid company, we also want to ensure an equitable meeting experience, no matter where you are. We offer digital whiteboards and video conferencing, and are experimenting with inclusive camera technology, new conference room layouts, and thoughtful acoustics to create meeting equity through technology and design.

One office I love to highlight for its achievements in sustainability is HubSpot House in Dublin. It’s a platinum certified building based on version 4 of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in Ireland. The programme is a four tiered credit based system that is awarded on points. Our certification is due to our sustainable design measures and the activities we’ve undertaken in emissions reduction, water efficiency, energy, materials, and more to make a positive environmental impact and contribute to employee wellbeing. For example, we harvest over 60,000 litres of rainwater each quarter. The rainwater is stored below the car park and pumped up the building to serve restroom facilities. The roof of HubSpot House features solar panels which produce 16,000 kWh annually. The array of PhotoVoltaic (PV) panels produce electricity from the UV radiation emitted from the sun so that even on a rainy day in Dublin, we generate a considerable amount of green electricity.

How should SMEs approach ESG now, given competing demands of economic pressure and increasing demands from corporate buyers to demonstrate ESG credentials?

Many aspects of ESG are gradually becoming baked-in when it comes to running a business large or small. This is partly a result of increased regulation across various geographies. It’s also being driven by changing customer/client preferences and expectations. Being part of a supply chain is now a key driver of ESG. As we move to mandatory disclosure particularly of greenhouse gas emissions, winning and retaining customers will no doubt be partly influenced by a company’s ESG strategy.

For SMEs this can initially seem like an extra and costly burden certainly in the short-term. However, ignoring ESG could well have a detrimental effect in the longer term. The challenge is that there are limited resources aimed at SMEs which are accessible and low or no cost. For that reason, there’s something to be said about focusing efforts on trying to do a few things well and concentrate on those which are material to your business. One of the risks of trying to do too much at once is that it often leads to “greenwashing.”

It’s important to understand that purpose can’t just be an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute. Purpose declares a company’s core reason for existence and its unique impact on the world. It’s not easy to nail down right away, and that’s why companies iterate on it for years, but actually sitting down and discussing purpose with your team and amongst each other is a great way to start.

I heard your founders are funding sustainability related startups. What’s that all about?

HubSpot’s co-founder and Executive Chairperson Brian Halligan co-founded a VC firm called Propeller focused on sustainability. Working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Propeller recently announced a $100 million fund to invest in ocean-based science and technology solutions. If you’re curious to learn more, check out the website here. It’s amazing to see Brian so involved in the future of our planet. He’s always championed HubSpot’s ESG work and it’s a real privilege to have his continued involvement in our sustainability journey!

How have you been thinking about financed emissions, especially with the BankFWD Carbon Bankroll Report as well as the CFA Institute’s report on 401k emissions?

We’re still early on in addressing our greenhouse gas emissions, so our main focus for the time being is on direct (sources we own or control) and indirect (sources resulting from our business, but owned by other entities) emissions, rather than financed emissions. Like most companies, we’re leaning towards phasing out fossil fuels in the long-term and a big part of this includes setting science-based targets and taking steps to achieve net zero. We need to make progress on our goals in this area before we consider other avenues for impact. That said, initiatives to help our economies transition to low carbon should be applauded, and I think there’s tremendous value in tech companies exploring this at an industry level.

What’s one challenge and one opportunity as you think about the future?

There is so much we’re working on, but one thing I’m most looking forward to is capturing the energy, goodwill, and engagement of our thousands of employees. HubSpotters are so passionate about doing good and making an impact. In one sense it’s a significant responsibility to turn that into action, but in a bigger sense, it’s an incredible opportunity.

How we grow sustainably while balancing our environmental footprint is a challenge that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about. Especially because there are many activities across the business that we have to take into account, like travel, electricity usage, our footprint in the cloud, how we engage with our suppliers, etc. However, I recently came across a quote from climate justice writer Mary Heglar that resonated with me: “The thing about climate is that you can either be overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem, or fall in love with the creativity of the solutions.” I love this perspective and it’s one I try to keep in mind along our journey.

Thank you to everyone who shared questions! If you’re reading this and want to get in touch with thoughts, comments, or feedback, feel free to reach out to sustainability@hubspot.com.

What does connection mean to you? As HubSpot continues to lean into flexibility with our hybrid work model, this is a question that continues to be top of mind.

Pre-pandemic, many of us might have given an answer about the importance of strong internet connectivity or how in-office happy hours helped bridge the gap between colleagues. But today, the challenges we face with connection run much deeper. In a recent study, almost 50% of US workers confirmed that they don’t feel a sense of connection to co-workers — a problem that, if left unresolved, can negatively impact not only your people, but your business.

We might not have it all figured out yet, but we know that hybrid work takes creativity, intentionality, and a bit of experimentation to get right. And, as HubSpot’s hybrid population has grown over the past few years, we’re lucky that our managers have had the courage to experiment with ways to bridge the connection gap across time zones and work preferences. Some of these experiments may have hit the mark on the first try and some might have taken a little time to get right. We’ve crowdsourced some of the most creative ideas HubSpotters have implemented on their own teams in hopes it sparks inspiration and a newfound focus on building better connections.

Promoting Psychological Safety and Inclusion

Feeling connected at work is deeply rooted in having a sense of belonging. To truly foster a culture of connection, teams must be really intentional about creating a psychologically safe workplace where everyone feels empowered to bring their whole self.

• “Our team holds monthly diversity, inclusion and belonging (DI&B) discussions in order to stay connected and foster an inclusive environment. We use the DI&B team’s monthly discussion kits as a guide, and we also encourage each team member to take turns hosting each session and sharing additional content that might be specific to their region so that we can continue learning more about each other. We’ve changed the meeting cadence over time based on feedback to ensure our approach is globally inclusive, and the process has evolved from there. As a team, we are all committed to these discussions and make sure they occur every month just like any other recurring meeting.” — Jaime Roberson, Payroll Analyst
• “To increase psychological safety and inclusivity, I added a footer to my email regarding working hours: ‘My work day may look different than your work day. Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your normal working hours.’” — Brian Garvey, VP, Partner Program
• “The Customer Training team has a weekly touch base where an X/Y access is used to plot your energy level and emotional state. It’s a great way to give a visual of where you are at. Your colleagues can keep this in mind as they interact over the week. A second great idea is to put a yellow, red, or green dot on your Slack profile so that you can see where your team is at a glance and use that information to approach conversations, offer support, or offer additional challenges.” — V Boykin, Senior Program Manager, Global Skills

Cultivating Connection Asynchronously

As a hybrid workforce with folks located around the world, not everyone is going to be online at the same time. That’s why we rely on asynchronous communication to keep team members connected. With the right tools and strategies, we’re able to stay aligned as a team, while also prioritizing inclusion for those in different time zones.

• “I automate prompts via Slack workflows in my team Slack channel. It gives us an asynchronous way to check in with each other each week with questions and prompts that promote engagement, without putting the burden on any one individual to start the conversation every time.” — Meaghan Williams, Manager, Hybrid Enablement & Operations
• “For meetings that are purely focused on updates, I use a slide deck to host the meeting asynchronously. Instead of attending live, folks are asked to update their slide by a certain deadline and then all attendees are asked to review and comment on the completed slides by a second deadline. It’s a lightweight, timezone-inclusive way to keep everyone in the loop!” — Kathryn Ahern, Team Lead, Global Culture Programs
• “In Slack, we have a ‘What we have done today, what we will do tomorrow, any roadblocks, and three things we are grateful for today.’ This allows us to keep updated on what other folks are working on, help if there are any roadblocks, and cheer on their grateful moments. We often acknowledge or reply with fancy emojis. As a manager, this allows me to be on track on how my team is without necessarily seeing them, chatting or talking to them constantly.” — Alessandra Conca, Manager, Services

Building Camaraderie

In a hybrid environment, it’s easy to lose those spontaneous interactions between colleagues that build trust and connection. But even for our in-office workers, spontaneous connection is largely a thing of the past. That’s why managers need to be really intentional about creating opportunities for people to connect on a more personal level. Because, even if we’re not all in the office together, we can’t lose sight of what makes a great company culture: the people.

• “I remove the need for ‘hallway’ chats by oversharing information in Slack and team meetings. This includes small tidbits and anecdotes. It all adds up to people feeling they know the same as anyone in the office, and are part of the same in-jokes.” — Louise Bernstein, Director, Product Management
• “We host a monthly “Little Saturday” which comes from a tradition in Sweden. Our team is keen on playing Scattegories but regardless of the game, we typically play virtual games as a part of our little Saturday.” — Ari Echt-Wilson, Manager, Retail and Conversations Strategy
• “A very simple thing I’ve been doing to meet new team members is in a big group meeting, I’ll pick someone I don’t know who’s contributing to the group chat, introduce myself on Slack, and suggest a 1:1 meet and greet. Usually, I do this with people who are commenting on things I’m really passionate about or who seem to have a POV about a thing I’m working on. I suppose it’s my version of a HubSpot Mixer, but instead of a completely random match, I’m connecting with someone who I already know I have something in common with. It’s my way of trying to recreate the random office/coffee bar interaction I don’t get in a hybrid world.” — Libby Maurer, VP, User Experience

We firmly believe that the future of work is flexible. And there are many benefits to this approach. But building a hybrid workplace that solves for connection is not without its challenges. I don’t know if we’ll ever reach a place where we can confidently say that we’ve mastered the art of connection in a hybrid world, but we’re making progress one experiment at a time.

Great marketers don’t need convincing around the power of content marketing and the authentic connection it allows them to build with their audience, but despite that, many struggle to find the time to create dynamic and continuous content at scale. In 2020 Semrush reported that a majority of bloggers are spending six or more hours writing a blog and that is just one blog. To see the best results, companies should write two to four blogs a week and with that kind of demand, it is clear that content marketing is very time-consuming and challenging to keep up with. These challenges become even more difficult for small organizations as their teams are typically smaller and they wear multiple hats. This leaves teams scrambling to get content done and can often result in businesses either sharing content less often or abandoning content marketing altogether.

Our Investment in Jasper

That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that HubSpot Ventures is investing in Jasper, a company that uses AI to write blogs, social media posts, website copy, and more. The company’s purpose is not to eliminate writers but to turn them into editors. Jasper gives content marketers a great starting point so they can accelerate content production, building a pipeline of quality content. Matter of fact, Jasper helps content marketers write content 10x faster than starting from scratch.

Jasper is built on the inbound methodology of attracting and delighting customers with valuable content so HubSpot is a little biased, but you don’t need to take it from us –Jasper has great reviews. Sean V. from 7 Figure Marketing Copy said, “I seriously can’t recommend this software enough. I can do so much more so much faster because I’m cutting out a lot of the legwork in the copywriting, which is staring at the blank page and wondering what the heck I’m gonna write about.” Jasper has fifty ready-to-go templates that make creating new projects quick and easy so organizations can jump right into writing blogs, social posts, or email copy.

Making Content Marketing More Accessible

HubSpot Ventures invests in companies that share our mission to help organizations grow better and deliver unique value to HubSpot’s customers and the HubSpot ecosystem. Jasper will fill a gap for our customers and millions of other organizations, helping them to write quality, targeted content at scale, all while the AI in the background helps the content rank and perform better. We are excited to work with Jasper and can not wait to see organizations grow better, attracting customers with the amazing content they create with the help of Jasper.

Learn more about Jasper here or read the recent press release here.

On stage at INBOUND 2022, HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan made a dramatic declaration: “Companies are disconnected from their customers. You’re all sending emails like they’re going out of style, but you just can’t reach that prospect. Digital fatigue and distrust are at an all-time high. We are in a crisis of disconnection.”

HubSpot Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah suggested that he had the solution: community.

We believe strongly that businesses should be investing in community. But that starts with an understanding of what community is, how it can help your business, and how you should weigh an investment in community.

What is a community?

Put simply, a community is a group of people coming together over a shared interest, situation, or goal and gaining value out of interacting with each other.

A community can take many forms: an in-person event, online forums, chat rooms, conferences, etc. But the through-line is that a specific set of people with something in common are gaining value out of interacting. That word is crucial, as we’ve seen the word community co-opted to mean everything from being part of a read-only newsletter mailing list to living in a country. Interaction is where the magic happens, where people get value that might otherwise remain elusive.

The last crucial element of communities is that they are win-win. A community driven by a business cannot just extract value, it must create value for its members as well.

What benefits can a business get from community-building?

“That’s the power of community; all of us together can do something that none of us individually can.” — Dharmesh Shah

Scale

Many hands make light work. Community can help you get a group of people to each contribute a small amount that results in a big outcome for your business.

A common place to see this is open source, where many community members contribute small improvements to a codebase that results in a better overall piece of software. This, in turn, helps them grow their skills and reputation — a win-win.

While this might not be appropriate for your business if you only have 3 customers, you don’t need tens of thousands — even a few passionate community members can help you host events in new regions, or provide multiple eyes to proof-read your next blog post.

Perspective

People like, and benefit from, hearing from others like them. Community can help you provide those perspectives for your customers without having to hire all those perspectives internally.

Sephora is a great example of this, as makeup is incredibly subjective. Rather than trying to represent every perspective with internal staff, Sephora’s Beauty Insiders community brings together many thousands of fans to talk about what combos of product they’re using and how it works with their particular skin tone and style — all within a safe, supportive environment.

Passion

Connection often drives affinity and loyalty. Community allows you to harness and enhance that passion. By giving your customers a space to be supported, heard, and educated, you can deliver outsized impact.

This impact isn’t just touchy-feely; Brainshark, for example, found that attendees of their user groups used the product an average of 15% more and had renewal rates 10–15% higher than other customers.

Note that community takes many forms in the examples above. As long as that core of interaction and commonality is present, don’t get hung up on format. Your community should use whatever tools and venues are best for them. Check out the SPACES model for more details and examples.

So, should I organize my own community?

The choice between organizing a community of your own versus participating in an existing community is complex, and depends on the status, priorities, and resources of your organization.

Generally, you should organize your own community only if all of the following are true:

1. Your business would benefit from community
2. You can provide value to members of a community (support, belonging, insight, influence, assistance, etc) and that value isn’t already being sufficiently provided by someone else
3. You are able to invest time, people, money, and passion into a community

How much investment will this take?

Communities require time; relationships aren’t built in a day or a week or even usually a month.

Communities require people; to foster a successful community you need one or more people bringing humans together, encouraging conversations, solving problems, etc.

Communities require money; in addition to investing in staff, you will need to consider software, event budget, swag, etc.

Communities require passion; you need to be willing to take the good with the bad, to make time for your community even when you’re busy, to consistently engage, to build trust, and to put them at the center of everything you’re doing, including decision making.

Businesses have differing priorities. Community is a powerful tool and a valuable strategy, but whether building a community is a priority for your business truly depends on what your business’s current state and needs are. If you’re not ready to invest time, people, money, and passion, you should wait on building your own community.

What should I do if I’m not ready to organize my own community?

Fear not! Just because you are not the party host doesn’t mean you can’t participate in the party. There are many existing communities out there, and you can still gain value by participating in them.

Participating in a community can:

• Build up your reputation
• Provide you with valuable insights
• Inform and equip you to eventually build your own community

You can find communities to participate in by asking your customers where they spend time, searching on Twitter/LinkedIn/Reddit for people talking about your subject area, and attending local events. You can, and probably should, participate in more than one.

The key thing to remember when participating in communities that you don’t own is that you are a guest. Much like a guest at a party, you want to make sure that you prove yourself to have been worth inviting:

• Be authentic; focus on helping instead of selling.
• Give more than you take; don’t worry about immediate ROI.
• Focus on relationships over conversions; people don’t want to be sold to in a social setting.
• Be a connector; the most valued people in a community are those who bring people together.

In other words, leave the community better than how you found it.

Community is a powerful long-term investment for your business. Instead of chasing short-term wins, community invests in long-term loyalty and network effects. Take the time to assess how your business should approach community, but don’t let the long-term nature of it scare you off. As with any investment, patience is rewarded!

Let’s go back in time to 2019. Most of us were working in an office, traveling a daily commute to a day full of in-person meetings. It’s safe to say things aren’t how they used to be. Although we’ve found new ways to meet, connecting with colleagues in-person regularly is a thing of the past.

Just as we’ve had to adapt to only seeing our co-workers on Zoom, businesses are also grappling with that feeling of disconnection. Today’s marketers are battling the trend of digital anonymity, both in identity privacy online and physical work location, hours, and preferences. I’m not saying that privacy is a bad thing — as a consumer myself, I’ve welcomed the decrease in spam emails and calls. But unfortunately, well-intentioned growth teams have also been impacted by these shifts. The outdated methods marketers used to use to spark conversations with potential new customers are no longer effective. We’re experiencing firsthand the chaos of disconnection, and for most, it means throwing your pre-pandemic playbook out the window for good.

Adapting during times of uncertainty can be painful. But with record inflation threatening the bottom line for businesses, agnostic of audience, vertical, or sector, the time to act is now. By rethinking organizational use of technology, growth teams can stay one step ahead of the curve and establish connections — and grow revenue — in a disconnected world.

Disconnected technology leads to disconnected experiences

The majority of disconnection today is driven by your tech stack. Disconnected technology operates independently, creating silos between important data and tools that can’t communicate with each other. That lack of communication creates inefficiencies, slowing teams down and forcing them to work in silos. Just as your systems aren’t communicating with each other, neither are your teams, which can trickle down to their interactions with customers. During a time when communication is more important than ever, this is a major problem. Disjointed customer relationships threaten your company’s reputation and your bottom line. In today’s economy, the old adage “If you don’t give your customers a good experience, a competitor will” are words to live by.

As I mentioned before, today’s customers are more privy to exactly how much data is being taken from them on the internet. This new understanding has further widened the disconnection as consumers have become more skeptical of the companies with which they interact. Rather than seeking resources and help from the companies themselves, buyers are sourcing that information from peers and other third-parties instead. This makes it even more difficult to establish new relationships with customers and foster trust.

The playbook for creating connection

Creating connections must start with equipping your internal teams with the technology they need to better understand and engage with your customers.

With a connected platform, you can collect actionable first-party data that your teams can use to create experiences that are tailored to the needs of each customer.

Once you have your tech stack in place, here are the guiding principles you can follow to make the most of your systems and create better connections with your customers :

1. Understand and respect your customers: In order to engage with customers, you have to understand them. By measuring customer behavior — like how your customers engage with you — you can start to develop an understanding of their habits and preferences to reach them on their terms. It’s also important to align your priorities with those of your customers. In this case, that means respecting their privacy and putting policies in place to make sure all of your teams understand that that’s a priority.
2. Align the back-end tools with front-end goals: Developing a well-crafted connected customer journey means that your data and systems are working seamlessly in the back-end to deliver a solid front-end experience to your customers. Platform solutions can give your teams visibility into all of the interactions a customer has with your company — such as page views, email opens, and ad engagement — to create a more holistic view of their activity. That connected data gives you valuable insight into how your customers are interacting with your brand to help you identify what’s keeping them engaged. Tapping into that data will help you better understand their habits so you can deliver a stronger experience.
3. Empathize with the customer journey: It’s no secret that marketing has a reputation for engaging in one-sided conversations, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Marketing is truly impactful when companies focus on creating authentic interactions with their customers, rather than talking at them and telling them what they need. To create a truly remarkable experience, you have to empathize with your customers at every phase of their journey — from awareness to advocacy.

Following these principles will help strengthen both your internal processes and the interactions that customers have with your business. By aligning your internal teams on the same platform of tools with access to the same data, you’ll create deeper alignment. This alignment translates into a stronger, more connected experience for your customers.

In times of uncertainty, it’s always helpful to go back to the basics. Forming strong connections has always been at the heart of all great marketing, even if we’ve gotten off course in the last couple of years. Marketers are the architects of the customer journey. With that comes an unparalleled opportunity to end the crisis of disconnection and spark a connected flame over time, ultimately gaining trust, rather than losing it.

Growing a business has never been easy. But these days, it feels impossible.

Companies are trying to predict growth in an unpredictable macro environment. The economy is down, the market is volatile, socio-political issues are raging, and the dust is still settling on hybrid work. Every week, there’s a new twist or turn.

In case navigating all this uncertainty isn’t hard enough, companies are dealing with another major shift. Over the past year, the strategies that businesses rely on to attract, engage, and delight customers have started to break. It’s harder to generate demand, drive leads, reach prospects, and meet customers’ high expectations. At the height of the pandemic, many businesses thrived in a digital-first world, but now that momentum is slowing and it’s harder than ever to connect with customers.

The flywheel feels frozen. But why?

This question keeps me up at night. Helping organizations grow better is our mission at HubSpot. We’re passionate about helping scaling companies get ahead and navigate periods of uncertainty. That’s why we went on a listening tour to understand what’s standing in the way of our customers’ growth, and how we can help solve it.

Across hundreds of conversations with customers, there was one word that kept coming up: disconnected. We discovered that companies are in a crisis of disconnection today, caused by three major disconnects. They’re struggling with disconnected systems, disconnected people, and disconnected customers. I want to share what we’ve learned about each disconnect, and how we believe companies can solve this crisis.

Systems are Disconnected

The first theme we heard loud and clear is that companies are struggling with disconnected systems. This has always been a problem, but it’s gotten worse over the past few years. We recently ran a pulse survey to understand the biggest challenges businesses are facing, and the #1 pain point was disconnected systems (HubSpot Market Research, 2022).

It makes sense when you think about it. During the pandemic, companies shifted to fully-digital overnight and there was a frenzy of buying point solutions. They bought a tool for every task, every team, and every department. As a result, the average scaling company has 242 SaaS tools today. The problem isn’t that companies have a lot of tools, though — it’s that too few are connected. Each has its own data and processes but there’s no one place tying it all together.

As a result, companies are spending more time connecting data than connecting with their customers. They have to spend hours cleaning data and trying to cobble insights together from different systems. What’s worse is that their go-to-market teams don’t have a unified view of the customer’s journey, so they’re working in silos and their customer experience is suffering.

It’s a total mess.

That’s why, when it comes to growth, it’s time to accept that disconnected point solutions are not the solution.

People are Disconnected

The second disconnect is that people have become more disconnected from each other. From quarantining, to social-distancing, to working remotely, isolation has become part of our daily lives. The problem is, we’re human. We rely on each other for support and connection.

When I need advice at work, do you know what I do first? I lean on my peers. I reach out to a mentor, a co-worker, or my network for support. But it’s become harder to tap into one another; we aren’t bumping into each other at the office or meeting up at networking events like we used to. In fact, 45% of workers say that the number of people they interact with at work decreased, and 57% of people say that they engage in fewer social activities these days (O.C. Tanner Global Culture Report, 2022). No wonder Peloton became so popular during the pandemic. For me, it wasn’t just about exercise, it was about being part of a community.

And I know I’m not alone. When I talk to our customers, I hear the same theme loud and clear: They crave community. They want to build deeper relationships with their co-workers, their customers, and their network, but it’s not as easy as it once was.

Companies are Disconnected from Customers

The third and final disconnect is that companies are more disconnected from their customers than ever. They’re writing blogs at a frenzied pace but still can’t drive traffic. They’re emailing prospects but can’t get a response. The channels and strategies that used to work for companies now seem to be working against them. So, what changed?

We dug into this and found that there are two major shifts happening. The first is that people are digitally drained. From our social feeds, to our inboxes, to our text messages, we are bombarded at every turn. As a result, buyers aren’t engaging with companies like they used to, and you can see it in the data. In 2020, 65% of Google searches ended without a click and the average blog shrunk by -1.64% in 2021. According to HubSpot data, sales email response rates have plummeted by 40% compared to pre-pandemic rates. The channels companies have relied on to attract and engage customers are now overly saturated, pushing people out and ad costs up.

The second change is that we are now living in a privacy-first world. People are more protective of their data than ever. Apple’s recent ad campaign is a great example of this shift; they’re positioning privacy as the iPhone’s core value proposition. When one of the most valuable companies on the planet comes out that strongly on a value, we should all take notice. What this means for businesses is that the cookies, tracking, and consent they’ve depended on are now being cut off in a privacy-first world.

Buyers today are digitally drained and distrusting of companies with their data. Both of these shifts lead to companies being more disconnected from their customers than ever. And that’s exactly what I hear from our customers. They’re struggling to cut through the noise, to reach prospects, and to build relationships with customers the same way they used to. They’re coming to terms with a hard truth which is that old go-to-market strategies won’t work in this new world.

Based on our research and conversations with customers, these three disconnects are clear. Systems are disconnected. People are disconnected. Companies and customers are disconnected.

This all leads to a crisis of disconnection.

Companies are struggling with unprecedented disconnection from their customers and each other, compounded by disconnected systems. They’re grasping for growth. Their revenue is unpredictable. Their flywheel is stalled. Their teams are burnt out.

That’s why it’s time to evolve. Companies can’t continue relying on broken data, broken processes, and broken strategies. The only way to solve this crisis is to adapt and find new ways to grow in the Age of the Connected Customer.

Introducing the Age of the Connected Customer

For years, companies have relied on legacy CRMs to ‘manage’ their customer relationships. But that won’t cut it in this new world. We believe the companies who will win in the future are the ones that focus on customer connection, not customer management. That means you need more than data, you need context. You need more than leads, you need connection. You need more than contacts, you need community.

You need a connected customer growth strategy. Connected customer growth is about optimizing every stage of your customer’s journey to boost connection. It’s about evolving your Attract, Engage, and Delight strategies to provide more value and relevance. You can start by asking yourself questions like: What 20% of content creates 80% of value for our customers? How can I use data to bring more context to my customer conversations? How can I make it easier for customers to buy? These types of questions will help you identify easy ways to optimize your flywheel for customer connection.

But evolving your strategy alone isn’t enough. You need the right technology to make connection possible — connection with your data, your teams, and your community. That’s why we’re bringing three powerful parts of HubSpot’s solution together:

• Connected Applications: Our Hubs — Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations — are designed to connect your entire front-office. They give go-to-market teams a single, unified view of the customer journey.
• Connected Platform: Our CRM platform powers the Hubs with connected data — including commerce data — and extensibility. The platform is customizable and has over 1,100 app integration partners to give companies flexibility at scale.
• Connected Community: Companies need more than software to grow, so we’re bringing together educational content through our Academy, as well as assets and expertise through our partner networks.

The combination of all three is our connected customer platform. To learn more about what we’re building at HubSpot and some exciting new features to help boost connection, visit hubspot.com/new.

You can expect to learn much more from us over the next year on how to put customer connection into action, optimize your strategies, and how HubSpot’s platform is evolving to connect data, strategies, and people. As we step into the Age of the Connected Customer, I am confident that scaling companies can emerge stronger from this crisis.

And we’re here to help you grow better, connected.

At HubSpot, we have a hybrid-work hypothesis. We believe that for hybrid work to be sustainable, companies need to rethink how office space is used and designed.

In 2020, HubSpot went all in on hybrid because we believe that flexibility allows people to do their best work. Since then, there’s been no shortage of chatter about the future of the office and the role it plays in the hybrid world. While focusing on extremes, we miss the broader takeaway: the office isn’t dead, it’s different. Employees returning to the office shouldn’t be walking into a time capsule from 2020. The way we work, communicate and collaborate is vastly different than it was 2 years ago — and where we work should reflect that.

Now, you may be wondering — why is a CFO talking about the future of the office? In addition to the financial and investor relations world, my team also manages global facilities and business technology, which includes ensuring HubSpot employees are able to do their best work — whether they’re in one of our office locations or in a home office.

The office continues to play an important role — for hybrid meetings, in-person connection, and for those who do their best work in that setting. Knowing that simply providing that space is no longer enough, our facilities and collaboration teams are testing our hypothesis by reimagining the office and how it can power a hybrid workforce. As with any good experiment, it’s going to take some trial and error. We are learning as we go, but here are five things we’re currently testing against our hybrid-work hypothesis:

Creating meeting equity through technology and design

A recent study found that while the majority of workers (80%) prefer the hybrid model, 71% still struggle with the friction and technical challenges that come with hybrid engagement. For successful hybrid collaboration, we need to create a meeting experience where every participant, regardless of where they are, has an equal seat at the table. That means that everyone should be clearly seen, heard and able to participate in the same way.

We’ve designated new hybrid meeting rooms across four offices (Cambridge, Dublin, Sydney, Bogota) that will have some of the following features:

• Camera technology that automatically frames each in-room participant so they can be clearly seen by the remote audience
• Thoughtful acoustics that allows everyone’s voice to be heard
• Digital whiteboards that allow all audiences to see and participate in brainstorming sessions
• Revised furniture and screen setup to ensure all in-room participants can be clearly seen at all times and avoid in-office side conversations

Solving for sustainability

From our 2022 work preferences survey, we know that about half of our workforce will work from the office at least some of the time in 2022. Based on that, we have an opportunity to be more thoughtful around how we maximize the physical office space we need across our existing locations.

In an effort to foster a collaborative office experience and ensure we are meeting our sustainability commitments as an organization, we’re scaling back energy usage and spend in unused office space across our offices. We’re optimizing our overall global facilities footprint by exploring subleasing opportunities where possible and reducing electricity usage and waste.

Designing the office to be a social anchor

There’s no doubt that for many, returning to an office is driven by opportunities to socially connect. In order to design the office as a social anchor, we need to create spaces that facilitate serendipitous connections and team collaboration. This includes open nomad tables, lounge areas with digital whiteboards, and booths to grab coffee or share meals.

Building off this theme of connection, our Culture team is also piloting “Connect For” tables, which are dedicated community areas that act as an open invitation for anyone to join, strike up a conversation, and connect. The team provides talking points, questions, activities, or games to help get the conversation flowing because we all know it can be tough to break the ice after 2+ years of having pets, partners, and roommates as our officemates.

Accommodating for privacy and focus

While social connections may bring folks in, they still need spaces to focus, rooms for private 1:1 discussions, and quiet areas. We implemented ‘no internal meeting Fridays’ in 2021, ensuring people not only have time, but also the physical space for deep work, prep or time to recharge. To continue to make this a priority, we’re experimenting with designated spaces for these use cases, with a focus on improved acoustics, phone booths, and 1:1 meeting pods along with quiet spaces for focus work and meditation.

Promoting healthy hybrid norms

While technology and office space design can bring us close to a remarkable hybrid experience, thoughtful behaviors from employees will truly create an inclusive experience for everyone. We’re investing in enabling and educating employees to adopt communication best practices, playbooks for managers in fostering psychologically safe spaces, and opportunities to connect across offices and home offices.

We recognize that none of these hybrid office experiments will be successful without feedback from our employees. That’s why we’re also prioritizing gathering data as our pilot spaces open and collecting feedback from our employees through our quarterly eNPS (employee net promoter score) survey. We may not have a conclusion for our hybrid-work hypothesis today nor a perfect playbook for running a hybrid company, but we’re building stronger convictions about what our employees need to do their best work — one experiment at a time.

Consumers these days can make most of their everyday purchases online with only a few clicks. The ease of online B2C transactions lends itself to an uninterrupted payment flow between a company and its consumer. This means consumers can move through the process of adding an item to their cart and checking out in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for B2B payments. Although the B2B eCommerce marketplace is valued at more than 5x of the B2C market, most B2B commerce still happens offline, which means the payments systems are a couple of decades behind.

So, what’s caused the delay in bringing more B2B payments online? Simply put, it’s a complex, time-consuming, and fragmented process.

A lot of B2B transactions are set on terms and are relationship-based, requiring a high level of trust and security to help mitigate risk. Merchants spend lots of time making phone calls to clients. Invoice factoring is costly and the merchant bears the risk of payments. Wires are sent and reconciled manually. This process means it can take weeks or months for transactions to settle.

Savvy companies are beginning to realize the power of bringing a B2C checkout experience to B2B buying — HubSpot included. We built HubSpot Payments as part of our CRM platform to allow companies to accept payments quickly and seamlessly. We’ve seen how the B2B eCommerce space has rapidly expanded and believe that the B2B payments experience should operate with the same ease and security that people expect from B2C transactions.

Our Investment in Balance

This is why we’ve invested in Balance, a leader in B2B eCommerce payments helping to remove the friction from the traditional B2B buying process. Balance gives merchants an integrated buyer account experience, behind-the-scenes buyer risk scoring, monitoring, and selective extension of terms all through a hosted, embeddable checkout process that meets buyers’ expectations and needs.

Like HubSpot, Balance recognizes the importance of having well-crafted solutions in a digital-first world. While working on the risk team at PayPal, Balance co-founders Bar Geron and Yoni Shuster recognized that companies needed a way to offer their buyers a wide array of payment methods and flexible payment terms, while getting paid easily and instantly on an all-in-one platform — without having to build the solution in-house.

Today, Balance gives tech-forward B2B merchants and marketplaces ownership of the complete B2B checkout experience through flexible payment methods, terms-based credit, marketplace compliance, instant payouts, and reconciliation.

Bringing Global Trade Online

Balance’s mission is to bring B2B global trade online by giving businesses the tools they need to do B2B eCommerce well and at HubSpot, we’re dedicated to helping our customers succeed. By working with Balance to support customers through B2B eCommerce, we can enable businesses to run more efficiently, secure additional monetization options, and spend less time managing disjointed payments experiences and more time focusing on their core products and services. We’re confident that Balance will be the trusted payments infrastructure partner for digital transforming B2B businesses and we’re thrilled to partner with them on that journey.

Learn more about Balance here or read the recent press release here.

Looming recession. Climbing interest rates. Ballooning inflation.

It’s become pretty impossible to escape those themes, particularly if you’re a small business owner. Companies around the world are trying to figure out how to address these challenges while continuing to grow their business.

Over the past two years, we’ve talked a lot about how the pandemic has sped up the rate of digital transformation, particularly in the shift to selling online. It feels like we’re reaching another inflection point as businesses try to figure out how to do more with less in the face of macroeconomic headwinds.

In today’s economic climate, companies that aren’t adapting to selling online are missing out on a massive opportunity to better meet customer needs and generate more revenue while still cutting costs.

Need convincing? Take a look at the data — Gartner found that 44% of millennials prefer interactions online with no sales representative in business to business (B2B) purchase settings (and 100% of authors of this post). This stat may be easy to brush aside in economic expansions, but in a time when every dollar of sales and marketing expense should be scrutinized, it’s impossible to ignore.

Recessions often accelerate existing trends, increasing the likelihood that companies that fail to adapt are left behind. Take Blockbuster, for example. Despite having a stronghold on the brick and mortar video rental business, they were quickly left behind when Netflix started selling online in the early 2000s. Their inability and unwillingness to adapt to changing consumer demand was accelerated by the 2008 recession, and by 2010, they had filed for bankruptcy.

At this point, you might be thinking, “okay, totally hear you, but we don’t have a product that our customers will buy online.” To which I’d say, “did you read the Blockbuster example?”

I know that shift can feel daunting. But at HubSpot, we truly believe that anyone can sell online. It can be as simple as turning the channels that you already use to interact with your customers, such as your website, chat, and forms, into a channel that directly contributes to revenue. That’s a win for you in the form of increased revenue, and a win for customers in the form of a streamlined and simple buying experience.

Adapting to Customer Needs by Scrutinizing Your Products

We’ve talked about why you should sell online, but let’s switch gears to what you should sell online. Figuring that out starts with thinking about how your products and services impact your customers. We love a 2x2 grid at HubSpot, so we’ve put this one together to get your gears turning:

Thinking about your products this way, instead of thinking of them as one-size-fits all, is a key part of getting started with selling online. There’s great precedent for how we shop and buy in our personal lives — B2C companies figured this out a long time ago:

While this trend originated in the B2C world, its effects can be felt in B2B as modern buyers come to expect the same great experiences they get as consumers in the B2B buying process. In fact, a recent PYMNTS study found that 67% of B2B buyers report having switched to purchasing from vendors that offer a “more consumer-like” experience. That means that by offering the digital-first, online experience that your buyers have come to expect, you’ll automatically be setting yourself apart from the competition that’s stuck in their old ways.

So what could this look like for your business?

1. Low Price, Low Change: This is likely re-ordering or purchasing additional products. Here you should consider those simple, time-consuming invoices you’re sending out to clients and turn them into a page on your website.
2. Low Price, High Change: These are the products you have that you don’t sell enough of because the price doesn’t justify the effort. To help buyers mitigate risk, consider offering a recurring subscription to your clients with little to no commitment.
3. High Price, Low Change: These are the products where you really need to go the extra mile to make sure your buyer has all of their questions answered. Before hopping on a Zoom, consider leaning into live chat, a knowledge base, and customer testimonials as a way to answer buyer questions in a low-touch way.
4. High Price, High Change: Keep on keepin’ on — these are the products where you want to double down on a great human-led buying experience.

Plotting your products along this 2x2 is an extremely helpful exercise in determining what to start selling online. The last question becomes how to start selling online. It’s unfortunately common for B2B companies, particularly SMBs, to be stuck beneath a stack of disparate tools that create too much friction to experiment with new go-to-market motions. This can be particularly painful when it comes to payment tools, which are historically siloed from the rest of the stack and don’t integrate with front-office tools.

Creating Better Buying Experiences with HubSpot Payments

That’s where we come in. At HubSpot, we see a huge opportunity to bridge the gap between B2B sellers’ aspirations and their buyers’ expectations by helping our customers sell online, which is why we’re continuing to invest in HubSpot Payments, our native payment tool for B2B businesses.

Originally launched in November of last year, HubSpot Payments gives B2B businesses the tools they need to grow their revenue by embracing new ways of selling online. With Payments, we’re connecting commerce with the CRM, empowering businesses to turn the channels they already use to interact with their customers into drivers of revenue.

Our first iteration of HubSpot Payments included the tools a business needs to get started selling online — things like payment links, recurring payments, and the option to streamline selling by collecting payments in quotes. We recently launched a handful of new features that will help customers take their online selling to the next level. HubSpot Payments now equips users with the ability to:

• Associate a payment with a meeting scheduling page, creating a seamless transaction whenever time is scheduled with merchants
• Add a payments CTA to emails easily
• Collect payment upon completion of a form
• Store buyers’ transactional information with a payments object
• Harness the power of automation and reporting in HubSpot on payments data

It’s only been a few months, but the success stories are already rolling in. Those use cases are music to my ears as a product leader. Take the International Car Wash Association, who has grown their ecommerce revenue by five times since implementing our tools. With HubSpot Payments, the entire customer buying journey takes place on the HubSpot CRM Platform, including customer and purchase information. That 360-degree view gives sales, marketing, and service the context they need to create more customer-centric buyer experiences. Looking for more sources of inspiration? We’ve gathered examples of other innovative ways our customers are selling online in our Payments Hall of Fame.

In times of uncertainty, it can often be hard to know where to start. But with that uncertainty also comes opportunity. After all, digital transformation isn’t going away — it’s only going to accelerate from here. This is the time to figure out how to set yourself apart from the competition, and one simple way to do that is to sell online. HubSpot Payments gives you the tools you need to make that happen, but it’s up to you to embrace change and commit to crafting the experience that your customers deserve.

It’s hard times, and we’re all looking for easy ways to grow. Selling online is one of them…just ask Blockbuster.

For more information, please visit our Payments product page and see how other HubSpot customers are using Payments in our Payments Hall of Fame.