Handbid is a company that helps non-profits and charitable organizations raise money for their cause. Often times, fundraising events have a silent auction that contributes to the overall fundraising efforts of that organization.
Handbid helps these event managers plan out and host their auction to engage with bidders and drive additional donations. Through their iOS and Android-friendly app, it's much easier to collect donations, create and manage your auction, and manage ticket sales.
As you can see, we didn't change much of the content on this page. This new form asks for two things: more information overall and specific information relevant to the sales cycle. Including this essential information on the front end allows Handbid's sales team to have all the information they need to further qualify and prepare leads for the hand-off.
After making these changes to Handbid's BOFU landing page, we've seen a 146% increase in new contacts generated.
This strategy falls nicely within Revenue River's recommended changes to Handbids sales qualification processes, which is detailed in the next section.
Handbid's old sales system was good, but it wasn't great. This is because Handbid's salespeople were tasked with managing leads from their initial conversion on Handbid's website to their eventual purchase of the mobile bidding technology. We found that the distribution of roles and expectations was causing these salespeople to be spread thin. But it's not their fault.
Originally, these salespeople were tasked with prospecting, qualifying leads, closing the deal, and fulfillment. That's a lot!
We pivoted from this old system to one that helped them work smarter, not harder.
It's important to understand that we didn't revolutionize their sales system. Rather, we optimized and consolidated aspects of their sales follow-up activity. This paradigm shift helped to clarify exactly when a lead was considered 'qualified' and ready for sales follow-up.
We empowered one member on their sales team to own the qualifying process and to loop in the next salesperson at the right time. He would be responsible for initially communicating with the prospect and, when the prospect was determined to be qualified, handing off the prospect to another salesperson to close and fulfill.
This marriage of Handbid's salespeople with an updated sales process has been successful. We know this because the salespeople are confident that the prospect is qualified, and are more willing to engage with that prospect to determine their needs.
This revised sales process has generated 30% more customers per month in 2018 than in 2017. In 2017, Handbid generated 117 total customers. In the first half of 2018, we've generated 73 customers, and are on track to break a Handbid record.
Content marketers have a tough job to be 'industry experts' in a world where they're most likely not the expert. This was the case with Handbid.
Handbid has been helping non-profits, charities, and other organizations drive more engagement and profits from their silent auction for nearly a decade. This means that they're strategically poised to create high-quality content about mobile bidding and fundraising events. It also means that it is much more of a content partnership, in that Revenue River puts together topics and succinct outlines that Handbid then turns into valuable blog posts.
Through Handbid's creative firepower and Revenue River's strategic direction, we've improved the overall content creation process. Their content is always created with SEO best practices in mind, they have started to collaborate with guest authors, and they've started to update old articles according to historical blog optimization best practices.
We started by developing a best practice pillar page, complete with cluster blog articles based on high search volume keywords. These cluster articles aim to answer key questions that Handbid's target audience has about silent auctions and mobile bidding.
Through Handbid and Revenue River's partnership, we've seen noticeable growth in blog visits and subscribers. Check out the screenshots below to see blog analytics from January through June of 2018, compared to July through December of 2017.
We've seen a 31% increase in blog traffic, and a 55% increase in blog subscribers in that time.
In all, we've seen a 29% increase in monthly blog traffic from 2017's averages to 2018's. Additionally, Handbid has witnessed a 59% increase in blog subscribers. Check out the tables below to see more stats from Handbid's blogging efforts:
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Blog Traffic
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Conversions from Blog Articles
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It's important to note that Handbid has been able to achieve all of this success in the less-than-6-months that they've been working with Revenue River. Here's a list of metrics that we've been able to positively affect:
Revenue River not only helps us get the most of HubSpot, but they work with me to do the things that matter the most for my company. They're great to collaborate with, they work their butts off, and they're always willing to hop on something urgent if it's needed. I have been able to trust that we're on the same team and really look forward to seeing what's in store for the future of our partnership.
