By 2015, fast-growing startup Critizr had realised that it needed to get much more strategic about its marketing. It hired Fabien Dutrieux to build an effective marketing strategy, and he immediately decided that the company needed to rethink its lead generation approach by embracing the inbound methodology. The next step was to choose the right marketing software.
“I knew that we needed an all-in-one marketing platform rather than a collection of point solutions because that would allow us to produce more cohesive marketing campaigns. In my previous experience in another company, I had used a big range of tools, but I hadn’t found it that effective.”
Fabien was already a regular reader of the HubSpot blog, and after evaluating the HubSpot Marketing Platform, he felt that it would be the perfect match for Critizr.
“It had everything we needed to execute our strategy in an effective and scalable way. Our management team agreed, and we signed up with HubSpot in 2015."
Critizr targets SMBs and enterprise-level clients – existing customers include the retail giants Carrefour and Total – and it got started with the HubSpot Marketing Platform by creating personas.
“We set up several; they range from the small business owner to the CEO of a major company. Every persona has 3 to 5 key challenges, and this allows us to create highly-targeted marketing campaigns,” says Fabien.
The company kicked off its first campaign with ten blog posts, which is posted through the Blog App, and an ebook that it placed on a dedicated Landing Page. It added Calls-to-Action and Forms and used the Social Inbox to promote its content across platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Within weeks, leads were flowing in.
“After that, the nurturing process could begin. We set up Workflows for our different personas and drew them through the funnel with automated emails tailored to their needs. We have continued this process with our subsequent campaigns, and we make sure that our work is effective with the Marketing Analytics Dashboard and the Reporting Add-on.”
Critizr started using the HubSpot growth stack – a combination of the Marketing, CRM and Sales software – in 2016.
“There was some initial resistance from our salespeople, who saw the HubSpot software as more of a marketing tool. However, the CRM that they were using was limited, and we were having problems with both lead transfer and lead management. We convinced them to make the switch, and now they have a complete view on their prospects, from how they came to us to what they are interested in. They also use HubSpot Sales to streamline and automate lead communications, which has made a big difference to our close rates.”
Fabien is convinced that the HubSpot Growth Stack is the way forward for Critizr. Every member of the marketing department is HubSpot certified, and new hires are required to take the course when they start with the company.
“Moving to the HubSpot Growth Stack was a great decision for us. It’s helped us to align our sales and marketing functions, and we are now connecting with potential customers in a much more meaningful way. The Lead Scoring and Workflows tools help us to send internal notifications and tasks to the sales team based on the lead's behavior. In the last 12 months, we sent more than 6K notifications to the sales team. As a result, the sales team has become more efficient by focusing their efforts on the most qualified and engaged leads.”
Critizr’s partnership with HubSpot is certainly paying dividends. Since 2015, it increased its revenue by 3X each year, making it one of the fastest-growing startup in Europe.
The company is achieving lead numbers that have gone far beyond its initial targets, says Fabien.
“We started from zero, intending to collect inbound leads for the sales team. We’ve done a lot better than that! We collect hundreds of leads every month, nurture them and give the very best qualified leads to the sales team daily. Our sales team is more confident because they have all the data and tools they needed to close the deals.”
Critizr wants to keep building momentum, as evidenced by its plans for future growth.
“Over the next two to three years, we want to become the leading customer feedback platform in Europe and after that, in the world. The HubSpot software is going to be a critical asset to that. Everything is tracked into HubSpot witch allow us to monitor our Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) by channel and campaign. We know exactly how much money and how long its take to have new customers and this information is the key to achieve our long-term goal.”