Scaling an Agency Through Free Tools
Six & Flow became a HubSpot partner in 2015. Since joining the program, they’ve been able to build a sustainable and scalable growth model for their agency by using HubSpot’s free tools as an entry point in their sales process. As of 2019, 25% of their total agency retainer business originated from free HubSpot tools which also accounts for 40% of their total HubSpot monthly recurring revenue.
Recently, Six & Flow identified an opportunity to use HubSpot’s CRM, sales and marketing tools as the first hook to show early value. By establishing quick wins at the free tier, they were able to quickly move their client, Inkpact, down the best-fit upgrade path: from free tools to Marketing Hub Professional and Sales Hub Professional.
The Challenge of Automating Personalized Notes at Scale
As their business grew, Inkpact faced many challenges such as
- - Not having a centralized source of customer information
- - Too many disparate marketing tools
- - No view
into the impact of sales and marketing efforts - - General lack of engagement with customers
- - Too much time wasted on sales administration and prospecting.
The Upgrade Path to Grow Better
In the first stages, Six & Flow focused on the alignment of marketing and sales but quickly saw added opportunities to enhance lead nurturing and sales using paid tools. Even though they saw larger opportunities, they started small with free tools to build trust. After introducing Inkpact to the free sales and marketing tools, Six & Flow waited about a month for the client to gain value from the tools, before exploring if they could benefit by expanding into paid tools and services.
The quick wins at the free product stage? Implementing HubSpot CRM, followed by a paid team workshop that demonstrated the benefits of email, automation, centralized activity and sales alignment. This led to the sale of Marketing Hub Professional on top of the HubSpot CRM.
Now that Inkpact realized the benefits they’d get from a paid marketing platform, Six & Flow narrowed in on the challenges that existed in sales. Six & Flow offered
The outcome of starting their client with free tools, then moving to paid workshops, paid Marketing Hub and eventually paid Sales Hub was ultimately a full retainer priced at the mid-range for their client and an introduction to a powerful tool for delight marketing.
