Integrations are quickly becoming a mainstay in Inbound Marketing. Helping to make our jobs easier in so many ways, there are several marketing integrations we use here at Revenue River Marketing for a handful of our clients. One of the best success stories that hinged on integrations was with our client, iSIGHT Partners, where a fun and classy “sunset cruise” networking event at a conference helped shape a bigger marketing campaign.
Event Priority
The sunset cruise, which iSIGHT Partners executed for high-level executive guests, was meant to bring this select group together for a beautiful networking trip around San Francisco Bay. So, a beautiful sunset cruise with food and drink, around one of the prettiest settings in the United States, why does this sound too good to be true?...From the initial invitations and registration to the on-site experience, this event needed to be top notch quality for all attendees. The key goal to streamline these efforts to make a lasting memory for all of the guests was in the front of our minds. In the end, it was time to align our inbound marketing expertise with our outbound marketing prowess.
With ideas and expectations being shot around, it was time to go beyond the inbound methodology and bring a little bit more of a traditional mindset. We needed ways to help integrate this traditional networking event approach with the already developed inbound efforts to allow us to capture information. Luckily, HubSpot offers some “easy to implement” integrations for us to put our best foot forward to make a successful marketing campaign, allowing iSIGHT’s contact database to seamlessly collect rich information for an inbound campaign. Following is a timeline of how HubSpot integrations helped us maximize our inbound production at an event with limited Wi-Fi (unfortunately San Francisco Bay has yet to blanket a wireless internet connection throughout).
Action
The first tool we integrated, and possibly the biggest piece of the puzzle, was Zapier. Zapier allowed us to connect the dots through this entire process. This infographic will help paint the picture of everything that needed to happen for the entire campaign:
And voila. Piece of cake, right? If it weren’t for the integrations that HubSpot offers, this campaign would never have come to fruition. iSIGHT Partners came to us with the distinct question, “how can we capture these attendees with the little technology and communication tactics we have on this boat, and turn this into an inbound nurturing campaign?” It had the potential to mix a great amount of inbound methodology with the outbound experience at hand, all while running seamlessly through integrations. With three key HubSpot integrations, it worked in ways we didn’t foresee happening:
Salesforce
The 112 attendees ranged in lifecycle stages from prospect to current customer, which posed a wide range of opportunity to help move them further along in the inbound methodology. Salesforce set the precedent to begin the campaign, allowing iSIGHT’s internal sales team to define goals for these attendees. For prospects, we were then able to move them into a more defined nurturing email campaign, offering a wide variety of assets already available to us, post “sunset cruise”. For current customers, much like the prospects, we could get more specific with touches that helped them understand the care into solidifying a more structured relationship.
For every contact, a big piece to the puzzle was updating the contact in Salesforce to help kickoff our inbound campaign. When the contacts status in Salesforce was changed to “RSVP”, they were automatically enrolled in a HubSpot workflow, beginning an email campaign that helped send pertinent information about the event. Of the 112 attendees, 96 made it into the initial email nurturing campaign with event and registration details. With just over a week out, we set three emails within a 4 day period to help push a timely and accurate touch to the attendees, thus leading to a high conversion rate for the guests that registered online for the event. This took a great deal of pressure off of our client, knowing they were 100% focused on the conference as a whole.
Metrics for our RSA "RSVP" Workflow
Zapier
Where Salesforce helped the kickoff, Zapier made the campaign work. The Wi-Fi issue provided a concern once they were on the cruise, but being able to set up “zaps” from Salesforce to HubSpot, and Eventbrite to HubSpot, we were able to pinpoint and time an email campaign that helped set the tone for the intimate event. iSIGHT had a goal for this cruise, which was to take a select group that they could interact with in person, giving attendees the opportunity to get to know iSIGHT Partners on a new level. Zapier connected the gaps on what should have been a very manual, long process, turning it into an easy flowing, fluid processed email campaign.
Eventbrite
We never knew if there would be an integration for the “on site” check in. Once again, we originally thought this would be a “paper and pen, checkmark” type check in, which would then lead to a manual attendee HubSpot input that would create a delay in starting the pre/post event email campaign. With the Eventbrite integration, after the simple adding of the attendees, we let integrations do the work. iSIGHT was able to check the attendees in on an iPad with the Eventbrite app, which immediately sent real-time data to HubSpot, filtering the “attendees/Did not attend” into the correct bucket. This process began days before the event with an email asking the prospective group to “register to attend”. With an overwhelming number of the prospects registering, we were able to then create our “follow-up” email campaign to touch on both the event and news for the future.
Eventbrite showing 112 people checked in for the sunset cruise.
Results
In the end, this campaign would have had a different face if it weren’t for these three integral integrations. Using these integrations to help streamline our efforts to involve inbound processes in a traditional networking event, we were able to provide high-level content and workflow creation to the different attendees. When an event like this calls for a certain reliance on outbound actions, HubSpot has the tools to make every inbound/outbound integration fluid and smooth.
The sheer ease of the connection between Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, and Eventbrite allowed our marketing team to take a more focused approach on the content and pertinent information within the email campaign than we thought would be possible. The integrations worked like a well-oiled machine, needing very little babysitting to help bring a group of over 100 people closer to iSIGHT Partners. Our client could focus solely on their networking efforts while entrusting in an inbound campaign to help make the necessary touches, giving the event a more valuable and personal feel. This event gave iSIGHT a new look on what is possible when you mix a fun, once in a lifetime networking opportunity to life with HubSpot as the driving force.
