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Springer Nature has taken a crucial step towards digital transformation by introducing HubSpot. By integrating and automating central marketing and sales processes, the academic publishing company has significantly boosted the efficiency of its internal processes and made its customer communications much more relevant. The new structures have not only improved campaign performance, but also led to enhanced customer satisfaction and paved the way for data-driven cooperation between teams.
The challenge: Fragmented systems and isolated data sources
Springer Nature was faced with the challenge of appealing to an expanding and wide-ranging customer base in a targeted way, while also organising its internal processes more efficiently. The company’s fragmented systems and isolated data sources were proving a considerable obstacle. “Our previous solutions were often really static and unstandardised,” says Holly Williams, Senior Product Manager - Marketing Technology at Springer Nature. This outdated infrastructure limited the company’s ability to track the customer journey and made it difficult for them to create relevant content for its wide range of B2B audiences.
The lack of customer data integration was a particularly serious problem. Data was left in silos, leading to redundant datasets and duplicated work steps. “We had a lot of technical restrictions with our previous system”, explains Williams. “There was a separate approval list for each brand, and we had no central overview of our customers.” This had a direct impact on the relevance and consistency of the company’s communications. With no central customer platform, it was difficult for Springer Nature to gain valuable insights into customer requirements, track digital campaigns and explore the behaviour of users on the website.
As well as posing internal challenges, this fragmentation also had a negative effect on the company’s relationship with its customers. Important information was getting lost, and there was a lack of transparency along the customer journey. The publishing group realised that a comprehensive transformation would be needed to better meet the demands of its customers and enable more efficient internal cooperation.
The solution: Introduction of HubSpot for data integration and automation
Before HubSpot was introduced, Springer Nature had a clear idea of what the new solution should look like. The goal was to find a modular customer platform which offered flexibility and scalability along with user-friendliness. Comprehensive integration – bringing together data from various sources such as Salesforce, the company’s own website, webinar platforms and even tools such as WeChat – was a particularly important requirement. The aim of this was to create complete customer data transparency and lay the foundations for managing the customer journey more effectively.
Furthermore, Springer Nature wanted a customer platform that would offer advanced functions for target group analysis and segmentation. The ability to create dynamic and customised campaigns was also essential for meeting the needs of the wide range of B2B customer segments. In addition, the plan was for automation to play a key role in terms of streamlining internal processes while increasing efficiency.
With these requirements in mind, Springer Nature introduced HubSpot Marketing Hub in the first quarter of 2023. This was brought in to make marketing more efficient and develop tailored campaigns for the B2B customer base. The flexibility and automation functions offered by the Marketing Hub made it possible for the team to develop dynamic, customised campaigns and follow a more targeted approach. Williams described HubSpot as “a fresh opportunity without any technical ballast”, representing a significant improvement compared to Springer Nature’s previous, less flexible systems.
Springer Nature gradually introduced Operations Hub and an additional business unit to support the company’s growth and bolster its international presence. Operations Hub made it possible to create complex, tailored workflows and optimise internal processes, which made marketing, sales and customer service more straightforward over the long term. Then in 2024, Springer Nature launched a pilot project for Content Hub to test its potential for the company and further refine its content strategy.
By combining these HubSpot products, Springer Nature was able to set up a centralised and comprehensive customer platform that would enable it to manage its marketing, sales and customer service more efficiently and improve its customer communications on a sustainable basis. The option to combine different data sources on one customer platform gave the team a consistent view of the customer base and made it easier to design and organise communications.
“For the first time, we were able to visualise the entire customer journey and use this as a basis for deciding what measures to take.”
Transforming customer communications and enhancing internal efficiency
Since introducing HubSpot, Springer Nature has seen improvements across the board in terms of customer communications and internal efficiency. The automation and optimised data integration functions have enabled the marketing team to develop campaigns that are more tailored to customer needs. The e-mail click rate has shot from six to a remarkable nine per cent, significantly above the B2B industry average. “We thought that HubSpot could improve a few things, but it would still be a laborious process. But in fact, it has made many things run much more smoothly,” says Holly Williams. The new customer platform has also made it possible to carry out cross-channel campaigns and a detailed analysis of website interactions, so the entire customer journey can be tracked for the first time. “For the first time, we were able to understand users’ behaviour on the website,” adds Williams. These insights have considerably improved the cooperation between the marketing and sales teams, since leads can now be targeted with precisely tailored information, which in turn boosts conversion rates.
The introduction of the central contact dashboard, which clearly displays all interactions with and information about a person, was a significant step forward. “The most valuable functions for our team are the contact dashboard functions. We used to have complicated segmentation lists, but now we have a 360 degree view,” explains Williams. Relevant information could be provided quickly thanks to the AI module integrated into Sales Hub, and the sales processes could be organised more efficiently. The optimised lead nurturing strategy helped to qualify potential customers in a targeted way and guide them along the customer journey with relevant content.
“HubSpot standardises our processes extremely well and makes work easier for all of our teams.”
HubSpot also helped make it possible to offer customers comprehensive support through personalised training content and resources. These targeted materials have helped customers gain a clearer understanding of the products and services offered Springer Nature and make better use of them, which has significantly increased the levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. “The linked data sources have allowed us to steer customers towards suitable products, and guide them based on their interests,” says Williams. These new data-based approaches form the basis for continuous optimisation and a long-term digital transformation for the publishing company. “Now that we have integrated HubSpot in several areas, we are much better placed to adapt our strategy to the needs of our customers,” says Williams, summing up the benefits.
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