HubSpot Internet Marketing Case Studies

"It's like night and day. In the past three months, we've doubled our traffic and tripled our leads. All of our new business is coming through the web, thanks to HubSpot."

About Makana Solutions

Makana Solutions offers sales compensation solutions to small and medium sized businesses. Sales commissions and bonuses are often the second largest expense after salaries and Makana Solutions provides self-service online software to help businesses streamline the process of building more effective sales compensation plans to motivate the best sales behavior. Makana Solutions was founded in 2004 and Art Gehring joined in 2007 to oversee their marketing efforts.

Challenge

Makana Solutions offers a subscription to online software, so it was logical to find customers over the Internet. Their key goal was to generate more traffic and leads online and sign up more visitors for a free trial and then upgrade them to their paid product. I had found a lot of tools to help with different pieces of our Internet marketing strategy. "Before HubSpot, we were using a collection of tools to manage our search engine marketing. We had a keyword tool, we had a traffic measurement tool, we had an inbound link management tool, the list goes on and on. It was very inefficient in collecting all that information and with the small team that we have, it just wasn't effective."

Solution

"We found HubSpot on the Internet," Art described. "We noticed right away that this was the integrated tool that would enable us to execute successfully on our strategy. As a small marketing team, we really needed something that was fully integrated like HubSpot; it provided all the capabilities that we needed and then some." Art evaluated other products and services, but none of the others provided the education or the integration that HubSpot offered.

HubSpot is now the center of Makana Solutions' marketing strategy. Art uses every aspect of the software, from the content management tools to the integration with Salesforce.com included in HubSpot Professional. Art loves how HubSpot streamlines the process for managing the website: from the moment he wants to create a new page, he can do the keyword research to identify the best keywords to optimize around, easily edit the page content and metadata, and measure the effectiveness of his optimization. "I use the capabilities within the content management system to do all the key optimization, whether it be the title tag, the description tag, the keyword tag, it's all right there and I'm no longer dependent upon an outside resource or third party resource to do that for me." Art checks his HubSpot data every day to see the website traffic, leads, and sales they are getting from their website. HubSpot's event tracker also helps Art track which campaigns generate which results. "When we get a burst in traffic, we know what has caused that, so we can start to analyze which marketing vehicles and which marketing activities are most productive to us so we can repeat that and grow that business."

HubSpot also allows Art to monitor his competitors by allowing him to track their traffic rank, keyword rank, and other factors that contribute to their online presence, such as inbound links.

Art also frequently uses the landing page capability within HubSpot. "We're often creating very targeted campaigns that are based on a specific download document so HubSpot makes that process with their content management system very easy to create a new landing page. I can do that in less than an hour on my own without any outside help. The form builder is very intuitive... We're constantly tweaking the forms and I can modify the forms to request more important information really within minutes."

Art's HubSpot forms also automatically integrate with Salesforce.com, importing leads and lead intelligence data such as how the lead found the website, their browsing history, and more. "HubSpot has provided a lot of benefits to us in terms of not only providing targeted traffic much more cost-efficiently and effectively, but also it's helped us streamline our whole process since we are using the Salesforce integration. We now have the leads get directly delivered to our sales people within Salesforce. They have all the key information that they need to decide which of the leads they're going to call first. We're making our sales people much more productive." The Salesforce integration has also benefited his marketing efforts by allowing Art to leverage the HubSpot lead intelligence data within Salesforce to target campaigns to specific leads based on their activity. Art reports that their marketing campaigns have been far more effective. Art can easily analyze the effectiveness of his marketing campaigns within HubSpot. "One of the things that we're really excited about in the Salesforce integration is the fact that the sales that we do make will be reflected back in HubSpot so the marketing team can look at what campaigns and what activities were really effective and make sure that we repeat those because we can see not only the traffic and the leads, but also the actual sales that we made based on any specific activity."

Overall the implementation of HubSpot at Makana Solutions has been quick and easy for Gehring's small marketing department. "It's extremely easy to use," Art says. "I've basically been able to figure it all out by watching a few webinars and learning on my own. And when I can't figure something out, I find the HubSpot service excellent. They are never too busy to help me with a question. I never feel like I'm asking too many questions. They're a great team that really deliver."

Over the past 3 months, Makana Solutions doubled their website traffic and tripled their targeted leads. "It's like night and day," Art says. "Every month we're probably growing our traffic and leads by 20 or 30 percent." Art has also seen an increase in terms of organic search engine traffic, reporting that website visits from organic Google traffic has tripled in five months. "A good reason for that increase in Google traffic is that for the keywords that really matter to our audience and drive targeted leads for us - sales compensation plans, sales compensation plan, sales compensation planning - we're ranked in the top 10 in Google for all of those." HubSpot has really become the center of Makana Solutions' marketing, Art says that all of their new business is coming through the web, thanks to HubSpot.

Art's advice to those considering HubSpot: "Stop considering and start doing! HubSpot is the right tool for you so just get it because if marketing on the Internet is important to you, HubSpot will deliver the results that you need."

Results

• Increased website traffic by 200% in three months
• Organic search traffic tripled in five months
• Leads generated increased three-fold over the past three months, and percentage of website traffic that converts to leads has doubled in the same time
  
• Now ranking on the first page of organic Google search results for key search terms, including "sales compensation plan", "sales compensation planning", and "sales comp plans"

"Since starting with HubSpot, website traffic has more than doubled from 500 visitors per month to over 1000, and I have already generated a number of leads that pay for HubSpot 30 times over."

About Vocio

Vocio is a telecom expense management software company that helps enterprises select "Best of Breed" voice, data, Internet and wireless services from the major providers and manage their telecom expenses. Vocio was founded in 2001 by Noel Huelsenbeck, a telecommunications sales professional with over 15 years of experience.

Challenge

When the company first got started, they focused mainly on traditional "outbound" techniques like cold calling and direct mail. "I just duplicated exactly what I had done prior to get business, which was getting on the phone, networking, calling printers and asking about direct marketing campaigns," Noel said. But what Noel found was that more and more people were screening their calls, mail, and emails, and it was increasingly difficult to reach his market. "It was a matter of working harder for less results," he explained. "And I knew that there had to be a better way."

Solution

Noel knew he needed an Internet marketing strategy. He attended an Internet marketing conference and realized there were untapped opportunities to effectively market to his target audience online, in the world of social networks and web 2.0. Noel's web designer referred him to HubSpot as a possible solution. Noel researched the company and reviewed the website, "and it was basically saying exactly what I had learned at the conference, in addition to my sales experience of reduced success with outbound techniques." He immediately called in and signed up. "Within a few days, I had created a website that was better than my old website, got the keywords situated, and within a few weeks, got my first lead." Each lead represents tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for Noel, immediately paying for his yearly HubSpot subscription three times over.

"HubSpot has become the center of my business," Noel says. He uses HubSpot to identify which keywords his market is using to search for his products and services and then crafts his website to target those keywords. He checks his HubSpot marketing analytics on a daily basis, checking on the status of his website traffic and leads generated. Noel has seen traffic more than double in a matter of a few months, from 500 in November to over 1000 in January, and that continues to increase. Noel has not only seen an increase in website traffic, but also an increase in quality leads actually searching for his products and services. The Vocio blog, set up with HubSpot, also helps drive qualified traffic and leads through organic search. Posting fresh, targeted content helps improve their website's search engine rank as well as communicate with their market. Vocio now has 4 months worth of articles averaging about 100 views per post.

It's not only the software but also the people and resources HubSpot offers that Noel appreciates, often receiving support and advice via phone, email, or in the customer forums, even after regular business hours. "You might post a question after business hours and then 15 minutes later, someone's already posted the answer to it," Noel recalls. "HubSpot's not one of those companies that's sitting around 8 to 5 and then you can't get a hold of them. Everyone that I've spoken with has contacted me after business hours, whether it was in sales, marketing, technical support, etcetera, they've been really helpful."

Noel sees HubSpot as clearing up some of the "black magic" in the world of Internet marketing and giving him real, actionable items to grow his business. Noel is completely on board with an inbound marketing strategy and utilizes HubSpot to achieve his inbound marketing goals. Noel in particular sees the benefit of inbound marketing for a small business like his own. "Marketing is a huge part of our success or failure," Noel says. Having the ability to leverage marketing dollars against highly capitalized competitors provides a huge competitive advantage for Vocio. With HubSpot, "this puts us on par with companies that can outspend us 100 fold in marketing," and Vocio succeeds by focusing on more effective marketing activities.

Results

• Website traffic more than doubled in two months, from 500 in November to over 1000 visitors in January
• Traffic from organic search results has increased exponentially and now accounts for about half of overall traffic
  
• Posted over a dozen blog articles, averaging about 100 views per post
  
• Improved search engine rankings for few dozen relevant keywords, including "telecom audit software", "telecom cost control", and "telecom expense management software" and received many visits and leads from searches on these terms
  

Website traffic and leads increased dramatically within a few months

Traffic from organic Google search has increased exponentially

Visit Vocio on the web at www.Vocio.com

Learn more about the HubSpot inbound marketing system at www.HubSpot.com

"It was very important to us to get feedback from people who understood what a successful blog is and HubSpot helped us with that."

About Tizor

Tizor is a data auditing and protection company based in Maynard, Massachusetts. Tizor provides core data security and compliance solutions to large, Global 2000 companies. Founded in 2002, Tizor now has about 40 employees and is a front-runner in the data auditing industry. Joyce Bartlett has served as Director of Marketing Communications for the past four years.

Challenge

Prior to purchasing HubSpot, Tizor had been thinking about ramping up their Internet marketing efforts with a blog but had been concerned about the time commitment required. Their search engine optimization (SEO) firm as well as HubSpot founder and CEO, Brian Halligan, encouraged Tizor to make the commitment to start a blog, citing the benefits to SEO, PR, and lead generation.

Solution

Once deciding to make the commitment to start a blog, Tizor did a lot of shopping around for different blogging solutions. What they noted is that what did not come with any of the technologies was the advice they needed to get their blog started on the right foot and to continue to optimize their blog. Tizor chose HubSpot because of the advice they received on how to use the blog to meet their SEO and other business goals.

"One of the things that we really liked about the HubSpot product is that it was very easy for us to go in and take care of things ourselves right away," explained Joyce Bartlett. In addition, the HubSpot team provided continuous coaching and tips along the way to make sure Tizor was taking advantage of their blog's full potential. "I felt at one point like HubSpot was definitely part of the blog," Joyce said. "It was actually a wonderful thing for us because there was a lot of advice along the way as we were getting the blog going," both technical and strategic advice, including what kind of content, timing of posts, and other tips for successful blogging. HubSpot's focus on measurable results appealed to Tizor and HubSpot continues to analyze Tizor's success and offer tips to better reach their business goals.

To date, Tizor has published over 50 well-received blog posts. The blog helps drive traffic to their main website, and these visitors come in with a more positive impression of the company and its products. The blog content is purely informational and does not promote Tizor's products. Starting the conversation without a product pitch, Joyce reports, helps predispose visitors to have a more positive reaction to the sales and marketing content on their corporate site. Plus, Tizor CTO and primary blog author receives emails directly from blog readers, initiating a dialogue. In addition, Joyce asserts their blog acts as a great PR tool, and they have received numerous positive comments from journalists and bloggers in their industry.

Results

• Written over 50 well-received articles for the blog
• Blog posts help educate potential customers and partners about data auditing protection
• Received positive comments on their blog from journalists and bloggers in the industry
• Blog posts instigate conversations between the CTO and potential customers

Visit Tizor on the web at www.tizor.com

More information on the HubSpot inbound marketing system can be found at www.HubSpot.com 

"I've seen traffic grow from about 800 visitors per month to over 5,000 per month and leads grew from about 15 per month in the second quarter to 70 per month in the third quarter."

About Objective Management Group

Objective Management Group (OMG) is the pioneer and industry leader in sales force evaluations and sales candidate screening. Dave Kurlan, CEO and Founder of OMG, is a sales strategy and management consultant and author of "Mindless Selling" and "Baseline Selling: How to Become a Sales Superstar By Using What Your Already Know About the Game of Baseball."

Challenge

Before moving to HubSpot, OMG had a traditional static website and a blog hosted on Blogger. The Internet was not a tremendous source of business for them; their blog was primarily an avenue to express thoughts and opinions and not used as a traffic or lead generation tool. When they did generate leads online, they only received their names and email addresses but rarely any more intelligence. Their primary source of new business was through their network of resellers, and so the company focused on finding new resellers, mostly by word of mouth, and generating a few leads for their resellers to follow-up on.

Solution

HubSpot helped optimize both OMG's company website and blog. "Since I began working with HubSpot," Dave Kurlan of OMG reports, "I've seen traffic grow from about 800 visitors per month to over 5,000 per month and leads grew from about 15 per month in the second quarter to 70 per month in the third quarter." Dave also reports that "the search traffic that we're getting from Google now has increased exponentially." Google search traffic now accounts for 1/3 of their overall traffic and the company site is positioned well for their key phrases, including "evaluating sales force," "sales force objectives," and "sales competencies."

HubSpot taught Dave about search engine optimization, how the search engines work, how to capture more leads and more intelligence around those leads, allowing OMG to leverage the Internet to generate more business. OMG learned how to optimize their blog in terms of titles, content, and how this tied into what attracted the prospects they wanted. Dave has published over 260 articles on his blog and received a total of over 500 comments, many of which turned into leads.

Overall OMG spends little time and money each month to generate a large quantity of website traffic and high quality leads. Dave spends thirty minutes every evening checking into his HubSpot tools to see how his website is progressing and to find what else he can learn and improve. He sees clear results in his HubSpot analytics graphs - "We not only can see the business that we're getting as a result of the small investment in HubSpot, but also as a result of the investment we make in other events," providing what Dave calls a "double return on investment."

Results

• Increased website traffic 6 fold in 8 months, from 800 to over 5,000 visitors/month
• Leads generated increased from 15 leads/month in March, April, May to 70 leads/month in August, September, October
• Google search traffic grew from 200-300 visitors/month to nearly 1500 visitors in October; organic Google search traffic now accounts for 25-40% of overall website traffic, versus only 10% in August-October 2006
• Now ranks on the first page in organic Google results for key search terms, including "evaluating sales force," "sales force objectives," and "sales competencies"
• Has over 120 RSS subscribers and 50 email subscribers for his blog, has written over 260 articles and received a total of over 500 comments on his blog articles

Number of leads generated increased, as did the conversion rate of website visitors to leads

Traffic from Google search increased and now accounts for 1/3 of overall traffic

Visit Objective Management Group online at www.objectivemanagement.com

Read the press release here: Objective Management Group Increases Internet Traffic and Leads More Than 350 Percent Using HubSpot

More information on the HubSpot inbound marketing system is available at www.hubspot.com.