Too often, businesses embark on an inbound marketing campaign with the full power of the HubSpot platform but no idea where to focus that power.
They flit from tactic to tactic — blogging, creating landing pages and calls-to-action, building social media campaigns, tracking keywords — hoping to gain traction by chance.
Or they put on their blinders, narrowly zeroing in on an arbitrary tactic with no plan to pivot away if it doesn’t work.
The results rarely make a convincing case to re-up that costly HubSpot subscription. But as the five case studies here show, inbound marketing can be worth it. It can generate quality sales leads and new customers. But you can’t get there with either the tunnel vision or shotgun approach.
What it takes is a plan to tie all of these tactics together into a measurable, improvable process. What we’re talking about, of course, is an inbound marketing strategy.
A Blueprint for Inbound Results
The five organizations represented in these case studies pulled themselves out of the marketing doldrums with the Content Marketer’s Blueprint, one of the most well-developed inbound marketing strategies in use today. As its name implies, the Content Marketer’s Blueprint is a plan for building a fully-functioning inbound marketing engine for any organization.
The Blueprint provides structure and direction. Each organization’s unique value proposition provides the energy that moves the engine forward.
Here are the stories of five different organizations, in five different industries, that made inbound marketing work with a strategy based on the Content Marketer’s Blueprint.
1. A For-Profit University Increases Organic Traffic 233 Percent
Organization Type
A for-profit higher education provider focused on the medical industry.
The Problem
This school was not achieving steady growth of new website traffic coming from organic search.
After spending years contracting with traditional SEO vendors, repeatedly budgeting six figures on paid search traffic with little return, the school was ready to give content marketing a try. The school’s main goal was to see a steady increase in organic traffic from its primary target market: high school graduates pursuing a career in the medical field.
The Inbound Marketing Strategy
Following the strategy prescribed by its Content Marketer’s Blueprint, the school:
- Published two blog articles per week.
- Made minor monthly website updates.
- Offered a premium whitepaper download to capture lead information.
The Results
Organic search traffic grew from an average of 15,000 per month to almost 50,000 per month.
Organic Traffic Visits.
2. A Small Manufacturer Quadruples Lead Volume From Online Sources
Organization Type
A pest control supplies manufacturer with an indirect sales model targeting pest control business owners.
The Problem
The owner wanted to diversify the sources of growth for his business. The business had been using an outbound direct sales force and the owner was not confident that content marketing could attract his target buyers.
The primary goal for this company was to identify the potential for content and inbound marketing for its business model and grow sales without increasing its investment in the direct sales force.
The Inbound Marketing Strategy
With our agency’s help, this manufacturer implemented the Content Marketer's Blueprint framework to:
- Identify the most valuable website leads and sources of traffic.
- Create more targeted content campaigns based on that information to grow the volume of sales-qualified leads.
The Results
Website visits from organic, referral, social media, and email marketing grew from an average of 400 visits per month to 700 visits per month. Lead volume from these traffic sources grew from an average of five per month to 20 per month.
Lead volume (HubSpot Analytics Dashboard).
3. A Regional Sales Business Boosts Website Traffic 220 Percent
Organization Type
Residential and commercial alarm company selling to New England home and business owners.
The Problem
This company had been using HubSpot and inbound marketing tactics for about a year. Its marketing team knew that they could be doing more to get results from inbound marketing but lacked the internal bandwidth and expertise to design and implement a more robust inbound marketing engine.
The Inbound Marketing Strategy
We helped this company implement the Content Marketer's Blueprint framework to:
- Identify the most valuable website leads and sources of traffic.
- Create more targeted content campaigns based on that information to grow the volume of sales qualified leads.
The goal was to use content to attract New England homeowners to the company’s website at the point when they were thinking about installing a security system for their new home or office.
The Results
In less than a year, traffic from organic search, referral websites, and social media grew from less than 500 monthly visits to over 1,600. The company’s website went from generating no sales leads to generating over 30 per month.
Visitor volume from organic search, referral, social media and email marketing (HubSpot Analytics Dashboard).
4. An Apparel Dealer Grows Monthly Leads From Two to 40
Organization Type
A custom team athletic apparel dealer.
The Problem
A custom team athletic apparel dealer that caters to youth, high school, and college sports teams wanted to increase its web presence and grow more leads online.
The Inbound Marketing Strategy
Based on the Content Marketer’s Blueprint, this company:
- Created and published downloadable whitepapers.
- Set up an automated email campaigns using HubSpot.
- Launched a blogging campaign.
The Results
Over the course of eight months, organic site visits almost doubled from 1,700 organic visits per month to 3,000. Organic leads grew from two or less per month to 40 per month.
The dealer found that organic traffic and lead growth were both directly proportional to the number of blog articles posted that month – an important motivation to reprioritize content creation efforts after a busy holiday season.
5. An Enterprise Software Company Turns Growth Plateau Into a Mountain
Organization Type
An enterprise software company with a customer lifetime value of $5,000.
The Problem
This company had already been executing inbound marketing and content marketing campaigns internally for two years. After lead growth had plateaued, the company’s marketing team needed structured agency help to better understand the quality of their leads and implement more targeted content campaigns.
Their primary goals were to increase the visibility of their online sales pipeline and grow the volume of sales qualified leads.
The Inbound Marketing Strategy
The company used the Content Marketer’s Blueprint to:
- Identify the most valuable website leads and sources of traffic.
- Create more targeted content campaigns based on that information to grow the volume of sales-qualified leads.
The Results
Total leads from organic traffic, referral traffic, and social media (the company’s best lead sources) grew from an average of 50 leads per month to 80 leads per month.
Lead quality across traffic sources (Content Marketer’s Blueprint Lead Quality Reporting Tool).
Have You Found an Inbound Marketing Strategy That Works?
If you’ve found a good way to tie all the different tactics of inbound marketing together to generate leads, grow your business, and get your money’s worth out of HubSpot, we’d love to hear your ideas. Share them in the comments section below.
If you’re searching for an inbound marketing strategy, click below to set up a time to talk about it with us.
