Throughout my time at INBOUND 2017, I spent a lot of time listening about HubSpot’s (rightly so) ‘awesomeness’.  This is why it was almost refreshing to attend a presentation where HubSpot admitted to their mistakes, and presented to us a journey of how they overcame their challenges.

The presentation in question was held by HubSpot’s very own Senior Marketing Manager Laurie Aquilante, who discussed the challenges HubSpot faced within their marketing funnel, and how they re-invented their approach to overhaul lead nurturing and double their conversions.

Laurie explained how HubSpot were failing with their lead nurturing. They were overloading prospects with too much information and were not achieving the high number of conversions they were aiming for. To gain a greater sense of what they were doing wrong and how to improve, HubSpot narrowed down their problems to three main challenges to overcome:

  • HubSpot’s lead nurturing content was too educational. They were so busy promoting educational content, that most of their prospects didn’t realise that HubSpot sold software.
  • HubSpot were failing to move people along their buyer’s journey.
  • At no point in the funnel did HubSpot introduce a human connection.

With these challenges in mind, HubSpot decided the best way to move forward was to collect information about their prospects first. They formed a survey which asked their audience what they wanted, when they wanted to be approached in the funnel and what could help their experience.

By collecting this information, HubSpot essentially ‘got to know’ their prospects, and were finally equipped with the right information to attract their audience. The survey revealed that their prospects wanted to speak to a salesperson at the consideration stage of the buying process, while 61% of respondents believed their customer experience could be more positive if sale representatives provided more relevant information.

Equipped with these new insights, HubSpot made changes to not only overcome the challenges they were facing, but also their approach on how to nurture prospects through their marketing funnel.

HubSpot made three key changes to their approach:

  • They introduced a human connection. HubSpot introduced ‘Edward Gahr’ an Inbound Growth Specialist, an expert who answered questions and provided faster replies to prospects. This achieved an increase of an 40% conversion rate.
  • They personalized based on need. Rather than guessing what their prospects were interested in, HubSpot actually asked what marketing or sales challenges their prospects were facing. Through one simple email, which guided HubSpot to provide the right content to the right person; a 50% increase in workflow conversions was seen, and 172% increase in higher engagement.
  • They found new ways to connect with their audience. HubSpot offered their audience a chance to sign up to a webinar through Facebook messenger by their HubSpot chatbot. This saw an increase in engagement between HubSpot and their prospects, with many praising HubSpot for the original way they were connecting with their audience.

 

Conclusion: Even HubSpot can Improve Lead Nurturing:

It is comforting to realise that even HubSpot has made errors along the way, and that attaining the ‘perfect’ way to achieve successful lead nurturing, takes practise and hard work. From this presentation, I learnt that overhauling leading nurturing and doubling your conversions isn’t easy. But if you understand your buyer intent and fit, provide helpful education, and test, change, and test again; you’re definitely heading in the right direction to achieve it.

 

Why not take a look at other posts in our INBOUND 2017 Series?

 

Inbound Marketing for B2B Technology