HubSpot Certified Partner = Shorter Sales Cycle, Better Quality Leads

Just one month after training software provider Area9 began working with HubSpot Certified Partner Tangible Words (now a Platinum HubSpot Agency Partner), Area9 experienced a rapid upswing in its website traffic (29%) and a dramatic increase in social media traffic (230%).

Every company starts inbound marketing with one major focus: get more sales! Area9 operates in an early adopter part of the market, and so Tangible Words' inbound marketing support services were vital in helping the fraction of the market in that category discover Area9. In 5 months of work with Tangible Words, Area9:

1. Advanced over 50% of existing contacts further through the buyer's journey via expert search engine optimized (SEO) copywritten content;

2. Grew their contact list by 8.7% from agency inbound marketing efforts; and

3. Helped close a total of $600,000 added business.

Tangible Words used inbound marketing to help former contacts - who Area9 was no longer communicating with - get back in touch and interested in Area9’s product again. Further, Area9 reached new quality contacts, using inbound marketing methods, at a cheaper, more rapid rate than traditional outbound means (such as trade shows or outbound advertising campaigns). The tally of new business closed proves that Tangible Words delivered the right content for the right person at the right time.

In addition to all these results, Area9 was able to save money by cancelling their paid ad campaigns and get better results more quickly with their HubSpot Agency Partner than they had achieved with paid ads.

Throughout the 5 months, online traffic continued to increase, and traffic from social media skyrocketed. This was accompanied by an impressive conversion rate on content offers, proving that the content offers met the needs and interests of Area9’s new and existing contacts.

1. Website Visits to Contacts = 3.19%, double the rate of HubSpot’s 1.6% benchmark.

2. Avg. Views to Clicks on all CTAs = 9.9%, well over HubSpot’s benchmark of 1-5%.

3. Avg. Clicks to Submission on all CTAs = 43%, well over HubSpot’s benchmark of 20%.

4. 68% increase in website traffic.

5. 345% increase in email marketing-generated site visitors.

6. 550% increase in social media-generated visitors, and 1140% new contacts created from social media.

The Backstory: HubSpot Certified Partner Tangible Words Began Running & Managing Area9’s HubSpot Inbound Marketing Pro Licence

Companies that use HubSpot have access to a variety of contact management, marketing, and sales tools. 

Area9 already had, and was using, HubSpot. This included a good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform and the marketing industry’s best inbound marketing software (HubSpot Marketing Pro). But Area9 realized they weren’t using these tools to their capacity, nor were they seeing the results they desired.

Area9 needed to expand its reach and connect with more of the right kind of buyers. To accomplish this, they needed to generate more traffic through well-crafted SEO content, strengthen their social media marketing to their networks, and rapidly create user-focused, valuable content offers using HubSpot’s landing page tool. Area9 knew hiring an inbound marketing specialist was the next positive step.

Area9 Feedback After One Month:

“Area9 is extremely pleased with the first month’s inbound marketing results obtained from hiring Tangible Words, an inbound marketing growth agency and HubSpot partner. Our goal was to increase website traffic, get more traffic on social media, and obtain better leads. Tangible Words has already delivered this and more in just the first month. With a 29% increase in website traffic and a 230% increase in social media traffic, we are obtaining more qualified leads each day. Social media and website engagement has also increased. We are so pleased with the results and are very excited about continued improvements each month. We look forward to a long term partnership with Tangible Words”
- Nick Howe, Chief Learning Officer, Area9

Area9 Feedback After 5 Months:

“We have been working with the Tangible Words team (TW) for five months now and have been very impressed. They have helped build and scale our implementation of HubSpot and continue to provide direction and advice to our team regarding inbound best practices. We are seeing the results in terms of new leads, contacts and customers as a result of our relationship with the TW team.”
- Joe Barrow, SVP, Business Development, Area9

HubSpot Certified Partner Tangible Words Gave Expert Guidance on All Aspects of HubSpot Inbound Marketing

Tangible Words added to the success of Area9’s marketing efforts by targeting niche audiences in their customer base. In order to find out who those audiences were, Tangible Words Studied Area9’s current clients and created Buyer Personas. The copywriting team then used this solid understanding of Area9’s clients to craft compelling and creative content that targeted the buyer persona’s specific needs and interests.

Tangible Words’ powerhouse created robust content, increasing Area9’s blog postings to 12 per month, and using SEO content to attract attention. Not only that, Tangible Words provided the external perspective to simplify the explanation of Area9’s products using approachable language and to further uncover product benefits.

Social media posts, written by Tangible Words’ expert copywriting team, rounded out Tangible Words’ strategy of parading Area9’s valuable product in front of actual and potential customers with increased frequency and meaning. As well, since the content was good quality and relevant, it was also shareworthy. The first month’s 29% rise in website traffic and 230% leap in social media traffic testifies to the success of that strategy, as does the fact that hiring Tangible Words led to a 1140%  increase in the number of new contacts created from social media.

But even content delivered to the right audience is not enough. There can be plenty of eyes on the product, but the end result must still be qualified leads for the sales team to turn into new customers.

Tangible Words Made It Easy for Potential Buyers to Move From Interest to Action

They accomplished this by creating:

1. Helpful content for blog and content offers. Because Tangible Words studied the Area9 target audience (and created Buyer Personas), they knew how to craft the right content. Blogs were hosted on the HubSpot Blog Tool and drove traffic to Content Offers, which offered more detailed information to the audience at the right time. These critical CTAs were hosted on:
   

2. Landing pages. HubSpot’s Landing Pages tool allowed Tangible Words to include HubSpot Forms, which build up the contact’s profile in the HubSpot CRM with every user submission. This allowed the sales team to learn more about the interests and pain points of their engaged audience, making follow-up more meaningful for both sides: customer and company. Tangible Words created dynamic landing pages for each of the Calls To Action on the content offers. The pages were copywritten in such a way that the reader would be enticed to fill out the form and provide their email address. With this list of email addresses, Tangible Words then created a workflow series using:

3. Targeted emails designed to engage and nurture the target audience. This resulted in a list of already-interested contacts that Area9 could follow up with and move along the buyer’s journey. As contacts were nurtured from Lead to MQL, and then MQL to SQL, the email open rates and click rates dramatically increased (over 46% average open rate, 10% average click rate).

More eyes-on-product, more qualified leads, more conversions to customer: these were vast improvements for Area9. But Tangible Words didn’t stop there.

Analytics Guidance: Area9 Gained a Clear Picture of Marketing and Sales

HubSpot inbound marketing software provides useful data, but most company staff wouldn’t have the time or the expertise to analyze the data and then tweak and refine their messaging accordingly. Tangible Words made full use of more HubSpot tools and analytics to help Area9 accomplish this. They set up three HubSpot tools to work together:

1. Lead Scoring in order to identify hot leads. The HubSpot Lead Score tool on the Area9 platform has been refined over and over with the Area9 SVP of Business Development and the Tangible Words team so that the sales team can be most efficient in who they spend time with.  This also allows Tangible Words to make...
   
   

2. Lists of who has engaged with content. Tangible Words uses these lists each month to prove success and analyse areas that need improvement. Tangible Words also uses these lists to set up additional...
   
   

3. Workflows that alert the sales teams to new contacts - specifically those “hot” contacts that are more likely to be converted from potential customers to actual customers. By focusing on promising leads, the sales team can more efficiently manage their time and do their job more effectively.

“These HubSpot tools allow us to follow management 101 practices of ‘measure to improve’ with our clients. Now that we have these HubSpot tools we wouldn’t run a marketing business without them.”
- Alysha Dominico, COO, Tangible Words

In Summary: Area9 Gained a Stronger Reputation Online and Generated More Qualified Leads That Generated New Revenue

Area9 provides and supports corporate training software driven by the use of data. Their software focuses on increasing learner mastery in 50% less time than traditional training methods. Millions of companies are currently investing in inefficient and frustrating training systems (thus wasting time and money, and possibly compromising compliance and safety standards). Helping more of these companies learn about Area9’s unique and improved approach to corporate e-learning had an ethical importance to Tangible Words, whose founders are also trained and experienced educators.

Unlike unproductive training systems, Area9’s training software tailors the training to the learner, making it more effective and meaningful for the learner; at the same time, the training can scale to an infinite number of employees and still provide individualized training similar to one-on-one tutoring. The product also provides data to demonstrate the success of this training to the company, as well as to the individual.

Area9 saw the effect of the great work the HubSpot Certified Partner was doing and three months into their partnership with inbound marketing specialists Tangible Words, Area9 decided to use Tangible Words’ capacity even more, and doubled their contract.

Tangible Words, an inbound marketing agency, will continue to use HubSpot tools to provide Area9 with inbound sales and marketing support, high quality user-focused SEO content, and the ability to attract and more efficiently and effectively nurture qualified leads; in other words, they’ll continue to turn Area9’s solid business goals into reality, and bring a return on the company’s investment into HubSpot inbound marketing software.

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