Insightful Marketing with HubSpot
Based in Houston, Combined Arms aims to reach the over 5,000 new veterans that move to the area each year in the hope of connecting them to the camaraderie and opportunities the region offers. At the same time, they need to nurture and expand their donor base. Prior to HubSpot, the team was using MailChimp as their primary marketing platform and lacked focus around their digital campaigns. Fortunately, they received major funding to expand their marketing and around this time Combined Arms connected with Bayard Bradford, a growth agency that specializes in optimizing HubSpot implementation and results. With their training and encouragement, the investment in HubSpot started producing significant results across the board.
Connecting it All
The first step towards success with HubSpot was to go all-in on using it as a central software platform. They connected their WordPress website, LinkedIn advertising, Google Ads, Facebook ads, YouTube ads, and Drift’s conversational marketing tool to attract, engage, and delight the transitioning military community. They were then able to leverage the HubSpot Academy free training and certifications to level up their content marketing and social media savvy.
An initial assessment by Bayard Bradford uncovered a critical issue for lead generation. The primary route for the target audience to engage with Combined Arms online was a non-intuitive and lengthy SalesForce form that had an 80% drop-off rate. An inbound strategy was generating plenty of traffic to the website, but then visitors had no simple means of indicating interest in more information or services; they could either click to donate or complete an exhaustive (and exhausting) form. They were asking for a commitment before getting a first date, and it was unclear what would happen after the form was submitted.
A new HubSpot landing page was designed to clarify what the veteran’s journey with Combined Arms would look like, and a simple CTA was created to encourage a user to create a profile. Strategic and data-driven marketing campaigns led veterans to this landing page and the easier access point resulted in a 1,017% increase in new website contacts that could then be nurtured to complete the more in-depth survey of needs and interests.
Expanding Reach and Impact
Thanks to increased usage of HubSpot and their team taking the initiative to grow with HubSpot, Combined Arms is now able to reach further upstream with inbound and outbound marketing to engage veterans before they start having transition issues.
Chief Development Officer Mike Hutchings shares, “I’ve never seen such significant percentage increases in an organization’s metrics before. It was so staggering that I had to double- and triple-check our numbers. How often do you see an 11,000% increase in emails opened, or a 29,000% increase in emails sent, or a 1,500% increase in Twitter followers – all in one year? That’s the power of HubSpot, and we’re using this power for social good.”
Having seen remarkable success in just one year, Combined Arms is planning on going even further with HubSpot and Bayard Bradford in 2020 – starting with transitioning their website from WordPress to HubSpot. Expanding from Houston to multiple locations across the country, they are prioritizing implementation of HubSpot and staff training in each new office to increase the impact of veterans in every city.
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