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I’m excited. I’m off to a conference this week and going to see how ‘back to normal’ things are in the B2B event world. I’ll report back next week, but it seems the tables have turned.

In the meantime, give this song by R.E.M. a listen as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Blame the HubSpot Data

I’ve been keeping an eye on the HubSpot data the past few months, and I’m disappointed that it hasn’t been updated since February! Why? No idea. This data has been an important part of many marketers’ planning process since the pandemic hit! I hope they continue to update the stats – as I think this aggregate data is invaluable and can really help us spot trends!

So far this year, we’ve seen:

  • Deals Closed took a dip early Q1, but increased again mid-quarter. I’d be interested to see which has continued: the up or the up-and-down?
  • Sales Email Sends continue to steadily increase, but Responses are still hovering below the pre-COVID benchmark.
  • Sales Calls and Conversations took an end-of-year drop (not that surprising), but have been working back up since.

What other trends are you seeing? Are you pining for the updates from HubSpot like me – or are you in the It’s not my thing so let it go camp?

Spotify Bangs Out Impressive Numbers

Whatever happened to #deletespotify?

Netflix stock tanked after the company revealed that it had lost subscribers for the first time. And some were predicting bad things for Spotify when it announced its financial results last week. Well – looks like the opposite happened. It seems Spotify was able to roll right over the Joe Rogan controversy on their ascent to top global streaming audio platform.

Spotify reported that it now has 422 million monthly active users (up 19% from a year ago) and 182 million people (up 15%) paying for the premium service. In Q1, Spotify added 16 million listeners – but only 2 million subscribers in the same period. Spotify blames that on the “wind-down of [their] Russian operations,” which resulted in 1.5 million disconnects.

Revenue was US$2.82 billion (up 24% year-over-year) thanks to increases of 23% in subscription revenue and 31% in ad revenue. There are also 4 million podcasts available on the platform, which is up from 3.6 million at the end of 2021.

And things look good for the future. Spotify believes it will have 428 million monthly users by the end of June.

Is this a platform you can leverage in your B2B efforts? According to Forrester Research, many marketers stuck with Spotify through all the turmoil. With this much reach and growth – I’d love to hear some of your strategies for leveraging streaming platforms for your marketing efforts.

Maybe it’s not your thing, or maybe you know it all too well. Either way, platforms like Spotify are on the up and up, and worth at least some consideration for your own marketing efforts.

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat