'Authenticity, speed and the human touch'. These were the words used by Ryan Reynolds as he closed out Inbound - defining what's needed in the new era of marketing. But what does all this mean for B2B companies using HubSpot?
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In true Reynold's style, HubSpot bought a huge dose of positivity at this year’s Inbound. And it was a refreshing break from all the doom and gloom of slow growth and a tough macro. Unsurprisingly, the challenging economy was a part of their narrative, as was the message that the way to grow today has changed.
In short, the story goes something like this. Less traffic. Fewer MQLs. Reduced pipeline. Slower growth. AI is transforming search and social channels are harder to leverage. You can't be held back by complex tools and disconnected data. To be successful today, you need quality data to make full use of AI to personalise and scale. You need systems that are easy, fast and unified. But human creativity will remain central.
It's hard to argue with any of that.
HubSpot gives a huge nod towards AI
It’s clear that AI is absolutely central to HubSpot’s strategy. But as is the challenge with AI, there’s always the danger of bigging things up too much, while at the same time being called out for putting humans out of a job. Only time will tell if HubSpot has got this balance right and whether the product will live up to its billing.
If a measured perspective on this is helpful, then it’s to be found within the analyst and investor community. This is one of the best ways to judge how well a company’s announcements have been received by the market.
On the opening day of Inbound, HubSpot’s senior team held an analyst briefing, where they went deep into their strategy and the numbers behind it. It was convincing. So much so that analysts subsequently slapped a ‘buy’ rating on HubSpot. Prior to Inbound it had a ‘hold’ rating.
The analysts were mainly impressed by the early success of HubSpot’s new seat model, but they were also onboard with HubSpot’s strategy and its innovation around Breeze AI.
This leads us nicely into what we think were the most notable updates for B2Bs, and indeed most of it sits within Breeze.
What is Breeze?
The centrepiece of HubSpot's announcements was Breeze, a suite of AI tools embedded in the platform. We’ve been saying for a while now that GTM teams don’t need to become full-on prompt engineers or data scientists to take advantage of AI. It will be built into the platforms we already use. Breeze proves that point.
Breeze comes in four different flavours:
- Breeze Copilot
- Breeze Agents
- Breeze Features
- Breeze Intelligence
Breeze Intelligence
As this is a blog about what's most significant for B2B firms, we're going to skip straight to Breeze Intelligence, which is a standout toolset for B2B companies. It leverages the B2B intelligence and data solutions that were developed by Clearbit, which HubSpot acquired in November 2023.
Breeze Intelligence provides three new capabilities:
- Data enrichment: Enabling you to automatically populate and update CRM records with over 40 critical data points across contacts and companies. This ensures that sales and marketing teams always have the most current and comprehensive information at their fingertips.
- Buyer intent signals: Now you can identify high-potential accounts based on their online behaviour. This allows sales teams to prioritise outreach to companies showing genuine interest in your offerings, improving efficiency and conversion rates.
- Form shortening: This welcome addition enables you to boost conversion rates by dynamically adjusting form fields based on existing data. This creates a frictionless experience for prospects, while still capturing essential information - addressing the perennial B2B challenge of balancing data collection with user experience.
New lead gen. and qualification developments
Aside from Breeze, HubSpot's announcements also included significant upgrades to its lead generation and qualification functionality:
- AI-powered lead scoring: Now you can automatically qualify and score leads based on enriched data and behaviour patterns, allowing marketing teams to pass only the most promising leads to sales.
- Personalisation at scale: The new AI tools also enable hyper-personalised outreach campaigns, addressing the growing demand for tailored experiences in the B2B space. But obviously this will only be effective in the right hands, and with high quality data.
- Dynamic content: Another enhancement is 'Adaptive' landing pages, which change in real-time based on visitor characteristics, significantly boosting engagement and conversion rates.
Empowering sales with AI Insights
Sales professionals weren't forgotten as HubSpot unveiled several AI-based features designed to increase sales effectiveness too:
- Prioritised lead lists: Which are AI-driven intent signals and lead scores to help sales reps focus on their most promising opportunities.
- Enriched prospect profiles: A more comprehensive view of potential clients, including firmographic and technographic data, enabling more informed and personalised conversations.
- AI-assisted task management: You've guessed it, this is automated task creation with next-best-action recommendations, streamlining the sales process and reducing time-to-close.
The unified customer platform
We think the most significant theme of Inbound 2024 was the emphasis on consolidation and unification - although this was somewhat overshadowed by Breeze and AI. To be fair, HubSpot's strategy to build a comprehensive platform to manage all customer interactions, is nothing new. So arguably it wanted to use Inbound for a different purpose.
Nevertheless, most B2B companies have significant gaps across marketing, sales and service - as a result of too many tools and data siloes. So while it might not be anything new, the need for tech consolidation is paramount.
While Breeze AI will have caught the eye, B2B firms should look first at the advantages of a unified platform.
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