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We’ve recently won the HubSpot 2020 Impact Award for Integrations Innovation. What’s an Impact Award?
“The HubSpot Impact Awards acknowledge a company who has made a positive impact for a client by delivering exceptional HubSpot Marketing Hub services.”
OK, that’s enough of the formalities. Let’s get to the good stuff - the project.
Untangling a multi-system setup
For privacy, we’ve redacted our client’s name - but we will say that they’re part of the education sector, working to help mould young minds in our community. How good?
When the client approached us, they were in urgent need of new systems and processes - their current procedures were holding them back from flourishing after a rebrand. We noticed a couple of issues right off the bat.
For one, they were using several systems to run their day-to-day - none of which talked to each other and all of which needed to be updated manually. Next, they were working with an enterprise-level CRM which meant they had lots of power to handle data, but the system itself required a lot of attention from a developer.
Sounding all too familiar? Let’s chat!
So they needed a few things here.
First: they needed automated processes that actually communicated with one another, helping them to manage their daily procedures.
Second: they needed workflows that required little-to-no help from a developer.
And third: they needed a system that was going to grow with them. A system that could flex with a growing startup, allowing them to track leads all the way to purchase.
That’s where we came in.
The game plan
We put together a five-step game plan:
1.A deep systems and processes audit: Detectives hat on, we sought to uncover how the existing systems were attracting and retaining customers, and what processes were causing administrative pain. What we found was a total UX let-down. Potential customers weren’t overly enthused about their experience with the website. It provided a clunky experience if it didn’t scare them away entirely. And the business itself was struggling to scrape data together in order to do efficient marketing. So this led us to step two.
2. A total website restructure: We next worked with the client and their customers to understand what they needed from the website to A. get them on board, and B. keep them engaged. We took these crucial insights and went through the rebuild and testing phase. Did the new system resonate with the customers? Yes. Good. On to step three.
3. A new HubSpot configuration: This step was a matter of optimising the site’s pages to suit their campaigns and integrating with HubSpot to create better marketing workflows. We worked with an SEO agency to make sure everything was *chef’s kiss gesture*. Now on to step four.
4. A middleware build with integrations: Time to get everything talking. We devised a middleware program that translates data between all of the systems. It allows the customer data to pass into HubSpot so it can track the full customer journey. That same data was also fed to the other systems (like the customer’s personal portal and payments systems like Xero). No matter where the data was coming from, it was going to get to the right hands. Now that we’d passed Communication 101, it was on to our fifth and final step.
5. Building customised extensions for the middleware: There was no existing platform that could meet the specific needs of the business so we had to build it. With this custom build, we were able to bring all administrative tasks over into a single platform giving the client a single view of all their important data.
And results?
The business basically doubled. Form completion for lead generation increased 97% and the average hang time on the site increased from 41 seconds to 101 seconds. Free trial registrations increased by 162%. And the automated processes resulted in a savings of $60k.
This new system gives them a solid foundation to go forth and help their customers - you can’t ask for a better outcome than that!
Integrations Innovation Award aside, we’ve found that a project like this is not an abnormal one. If you’re struggling to get your systems to talk, we should talk! Get in touch and let’s see how we can help.