.jpg?width=1920&height=1281&name=AutoStore%20Grid%20In%20Action%20(1).jpg)
In the beginning
What takes up the most room in a warehouse?
It was a question that had engaged AutoStore’s co-founder, Ingvar Hognaland, back in the 1990s, in the small village of Nedre Vats on Norway’s west coast. The answer, he realized, is empty space. It’s the air.
From that realization, the world’s first ‘cube storage automation system,’ AutoStore, was born. Instead of forklifts and pallets, picture robots and grids. By stacking stock less like dominoes and more like a Rubik’s cube, both space and time are maximized.
AutoStore’s Marketing Automation Manager in the US, Suzanne Delap, recognises that the company has an unusual offering. But the word has been steadily growing.
“There’s been an increase in understanding of what warehouse automation is,” says Suzanne. “More people are becoming educated about it. What we’re doing is heavy on brand awareness. You need people to understand who you are and what you do.”
HubSpot steps in
But how best to bring that awareness and understanding to others? HubSpot has helped with some of the answers.
When Suzanne joined AutoStore in 2018, she was already familiar with HubSpot - having used the platform at her previous company. But AutoStore wasn't using it. It was, says Suzanne, like stepping back three or four years.
“When I joined AutoStore there wasn't anything in place globally. AutoStore had recently implemented Salesforce. When I suggested HubSpot in 2018, my European co-workers had heard of HubSpot and were familiar with its reputation. They knew it was a good product.”
It was quickly implemented. And it went down well. “HubSpot is a goldmine,” says Suzanne. “For housing information and the customer journey, everything is there. People who are ready to talk. People on the edges. People who are accelerating the conversation. With other platforms you’re only seeing people who are already in the conversation.”
Right message, right person, right time
LinkedIn Ads has been another missing part of the AutoStore puzzle.
Suzanne says that AutoStore has an ‘non-traditional’ sales system. “The leads are generated internally,” she explains, “but ultimately the final sale is done by a network of integration partners.”
When it comes to generating leads, the focus is on ABM. AutoStore, says Suzanne, has broken down their marketing targets into five separate verticals: healthcare, retail, industrials, grocery and third-party logistics (3PL).
With LinkedIn ads you can get very specific. “So we can send out ads or messaging by vertical - targeting healthcare and grocery with specific messages for that audience. But we can also really target those we want to start conversations with - by specific region or job title. All of this helps us get the right message to the right person at the right time.”
HubSpot and LinkedIn Ads are also “perfect” for starting conversations.
“We tend to do very well when we’re in the room at the beginning of a conversation,” explains Suzanne. “HubSpot with LinkedIn Ads is extremely powerful and helps us get in that beginning conversation. It doesn’t just look at lists. We can see when people like an ad, say, or if they click on it. It gives us all the information we need in one spot - then our business development team can come in.”
Narrowing down the audience
Blanket campaigns targeting everyone? They just don’t work. In the space that AutoStore works in, you need to get personal.
“If you’re not sending the right message to the right person they’re going to ignore it,” says Suzanne. “If it’s not relevant, not contextual, if it doesn’t apply to them … it’s just not going to work.”
Whether AutoStore is building a list or nurture campaign or putting an email, they make sure they’re narrowing it down to the audience they want to talk to. “We’re not speaking to thousands - we’re speaking to a few people,” explains Suzanne. “The LinkedIn integration allows us to ensure we finetune an audience list for our target profiles, such as c-level, warehouse managers, e-commerce and fulfillment managers. We identify the companies we’re going after then determine the job title of the person we want to talk to. The ability to narrow down an audience segmentation is imperative when it comes to content shared and wording used.”
So, if they’re speaking directly with, say, CEOs or CFOs, they will want to tailor the wording and messages accordingly. “What’s it costing you by not being automated?” might be one such message that you would use when speaking with CFOs, says Suzanne.
“You can get personalized without necessarily knowing who the person is - but knowing their job title and role. With HubSpot’s LinkedIn integration we can be confident that we’re putting personal messages in front of the right people.”
Full marks for conversion rates and lead scoring
One example of putting the right messages in front of the right people happened earlier in 2023 when AutoStore released their ‘State of the Market’ report. In it, they identified the top challenges facing warehouse operations. It is one of the most popular reports they’ve ever produced - and thanks to HubSpot’s LinkedIn integration, it was able to get in front of the right people. “Of the form submissions we received, over half [55%] were generated through LinkedIn ads,” says Suzanne.
In fact, out of AutoStore’s top five performing forms, all five are LinkedIn lead generation forms. And when it comes to conversion rate, they trump industry standards. “One form targeted for Korea, for example, has almost an 8% conversion rate,” illustrates Suzanne.
Another signifier of the success of HubSpot’s LinkedIn integration is the lead scoring. It all comes down to the customer journey. “You can see if someone’s been reading our case studies, for example, or looking at the careers page,” explains Suzanne. “You can get a better sense of what their intent is. See what the person is doing and assign it a score.”
Once they’ve done that, they move forward.
“Does that score mean you notify your business development team to make a soft approach? Or do you put it in another nurture campaign that includes specific ads? So that they take this action on this ad - or do you move them out of this bit of the journey and into this one?”
Harnessing the full power of LinkedIn integration
AutoStore is clearly harnessing the power of the integration to get their key messages in front of the right audiences. And there’s plenty more to come.
“HubSpot with the LinkedIn integration gives us better oversight and insight into what people are doing,” says Suzanne. “With it, we get a much more well rounded picture of everything. It helps harmonize sales and marketing and makes everything work better. It’s extremely powerful.”
-Dec-20-2022-09-39-17-2283-AM.png)
-1.png)
.png)
