Before adopting HubSpot, Babbel – founded in 2007 – had not used a CRM system or considered marketing automation. Babbel's expansion into the B2B market triggered a search for a suitable CRM provider. HubSpot's offering quickly impressed, delivering an easy-to-implement combination of CRM and marketing automation. Since the rollout, Babbel's sales team has already managed to generate 5,000 qualified leads.
Instantly impressed with HubSpot
Babbel decided to expand its product portfolio in 2017, when it entered the B2B market with the trademark "Babbel for Business". This expansion was predicated on increasing demand from businesses, and in particular from their employees, who were already private users of Babbel. "In order to make this work, we needed to find a suitable CRM – ideally one that also included marketing automation," recalls Marius Neuschwander, Pre-Sales Team Lead at Babbel for Business. The language experts found out about HubSpot through personal contact and were particularly impressed by the possibilities of inbound marketing. "Our products for B2B customers essentially comprised a start-up unit within Babbel. When we began, we had no inbound sales channels or contact management, we were unable to distinguish between lifestyle stages, and we interacted with our customers by means of long telephone calls and multi-threaded e-mails."
Babbel desperately needed a solution that would allow the company to easily integrate these processes into their workflows. Following a detailed comparison with other providers, they made the decision to implement HubSpot in early 2018. In the words of Marius Neuschwander: "The implementation was incredibly straightforward. We didn't need any developers or advanced IT skills since the HubSpot products are extremely user-friendly. In addition, the design is well thought-out and clear, which enabled us to roll out smoothly."
Our employees use the HubSpot Academy at regular intervals to familiarise themselves with the CRM process and stay up to date. They learn the basics of inbound marketing, sales enablement, and how to use the HubSpot sales software. Mr Neuschwander also raves about the HubSpot Community: "When we have questions, we can rely on getting competent, professional answers. The support teams are very responsive and handle our requests promptly."
Saves time and encourages creativity.
Shortly after implementation, Babbel employees noticed positive effects in their workflows. In particular, they were saving valuable time thanks to the automation features: “Now we hardly ever create manual e-mails. Instead, we use templates and sequences," explains Neuschwander. "This saves time, and frees up our employees for other creative endeavours. It's simply a form of empowerment for my team. And the e-mail tracking more or less takes care of itself."
Babbel has also been able to deploy sophisticated e-mail marketing strategies since implementing HubSpot. The marketing team uses various types of lead nurturing, for example assigning e-mails directly to the appropriate leads and redistributing these e-mails strategically. Once a mail flow has been implemented, it can easily be upscaled. With Marketing Hub, teams can launch regular marketing campaigns, send newsletters and organise webinars. "The integration of HubSpot with webinars really is fantastic. We can see exactly who participated, as well as which questions our guests asked. We've delivered five of these webinars with HubSpot over the past twelve months," states Marius Neuschwander.
With Sales Hub, the company gains practical insights, including logs that support close collaboration between the Pre-Sales and Sales departments. "Thanks to Sales Hub, we can link the two departments where it makes the most sense for our work processes, which allows us to provide our customers with the best possible sales advice." Prior to the initial consultation, customers typically don't know that much about foreign language learning within the company. Sales Hub allows the Babbel team to ascertain the needs of customers so that they can deliver personalised solutions that will lead to conversion. HubSpot’s Materials Requirement Planning and improved product recommendations have helped Babbel for Business triple its average deal size within a year. Since then, the B2B unit has signed around 800 new business clients, while the sales teams have generated more than 5,000 qualified leads. Moreover, the leads that Babbel for Business has acquired through the new HubSpot-based Live Chat feature now account for 30 per cent of all qualified leads and 10 per cent of the unit's overall revenue this year.
The journey continues.
Babbel's sales team has increased eightfold since they started using HubSpot, and collaboration within the teams and across the entire company has improved considerably.
Now that Babbel for Business has successfully established itself in the relevant EMEA markets, the company is setting its sights on expansion across the entire globe. "Since the processes are already in place, there is no limit to how and where we can scale up. Our long-term goal is to become the leading global provider of corporate language learning solutions. We think we can get there together with HubSpot."
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