We talk to Elaine Lewis, MD of Cadventure, a leading software provider, to explore how Struto implemented accelerated onboarding and data migration for them as their chosen UK HubSpot partner.
Estee: Hi there, I am Estee from Struto and today I'm talking to Elaine Lewis, Managing Director of Cadventure, a leading solutions provider to the Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industry. Hi Elaine, thanks for taking the time to chat with me today.
Elaine: Good morning, Estee.
Estee: A few months ago, we migrated your marketing, sales and service onto the HubSpot platform. Can you tell me why you decided to make the move onto the HubSpot platform?
[00:34] Elaine: Okay, so we were using a number of different disparate systems to manage our enquiry-to-cash process and we reached the conclusion that we were double-handling a lot of information. We had duplication and missing information and it was quite a labour intensive process. We were looking for a platform that would enable us to manage our CRM system, do all our marketing, manage our sales activity, our technical support system and link through to our finance system, converting quotations into invoices. We chose HubSpot because we looked at a number of different solutions and it really seemed to offer that single source-of-truth.
Estee: Yeah, it definitely does. We helped you with your onboarding and data migration – can you tell us a bit more about what you were looking to achieve before we started?
[01:33] Elaine: HubSpot is a very powerful and fully-featured system and we took the decision to partner with Struto because we were looking for some best-practice support in rolling out our system. Like with any new system, you don't know that you aren't using it correctly unless you work with someone who uses it on a daily basis. We chose Struto because we felt that there was a good understanding of our business. There was a lot of time spent discovering what our needs were, looking at our previous systems, helping us organise our data and structuring the HubSpot environment so that it works for our business. One-size-does not fit all, so it was very much a custom solution that meets our processes and our requirements.
Estee: Can you walk us through the onboarding experience from your perspective?
[02:39] Elaine: I found it very helpful. It did a number of things for us. First of all, it enabled us to take a step back and look at how we were handling this enquiry-to-cash process and what information was mission critical to that endeavour. There was a lot of time spent understanding who we were and what we did. At each step of the implementation, we were discussing what would be the best way to set things up and then we were trained. I felt it wasn't being done to us, it was being done with us. And that was really, really powerful as a way to work. The idea being that now that we have had HubSpot for six months, we are broadly self-sufficient. There was no suggestion that we would always have to go back to Struto to do things. We were actually empowered to look after it ourselves. It's always nice to know that Estee is there in the background if we do get stuck, but we've been able to take what was set up and develop it. It was also good to understand what was baked into the solution, in terms of the way HubSpot works and what we could configure and know having used HubSpot for, probably more like eight to nine months now, I think we've learned a lot about our business. We've seen some things we need to modify, some things we need to improve and the biggest thing for us was the sheer effort and energy that Struto put in to bring in all our data. Data is the liquid gold of any organisation. It was very carefully curated, supported and looked after and managed in a way which is exactly the way we would have done it ourselves. That was very reassuring to know our data was sacrosanct and safe.
Estee: Definitely! As you say, you guys have been using HubSpot for a couple of months: how are you finding it? Is it everything yo thought it would be?
[04:51] Elaine: We love it, in fact, I spent part of my time telling other people how great it is. I think it's becoming viral: as soon as you confess to someone that you're using HubSpot, they'll tell you they're using it, looking at it or thinking about it. So I'm finding that a solution that I had only vaguely heard about this time last year, now everybody is talking about it. So that's really good!
In terms of our business processes, we do all our marketing through it. I'm finding the visibility of how things are working, what's working for us, we're experimenting with different types of emails. For example, instead of just doing a newsletter-style, we've now started doing a very personal one. So it's from Claire, to Elaine and it's written more like a personal email. We have got a lot more metrics and data that we can analyse to see what's working and what's not. Also, we have a chat on our website, so we can see that infomration go straight into HubSpot. We can see if someone touches one of our social media posts. We have a high-level of engagement and we can make sure our messaging is correctly tailored to the needs of our audience.
Our next stage of development is really to develop some nurturing campaigns whereby instead of sending individual emails to people, we will trigger a sequence of activities and enroll people in a sequence. We'll take them on a journey and recognise that digital marketing is sharing the right information with the right prospect at the right time, even before they talk to you. So it's about understanding those journeys. And I'm excited, because I've been doing marketing for many years and I've learned some new things and it feels like it's very fresh, very current and the right way to treat individuals - everyone is treated as an individual. They can say what they want to hear about and when they want to hear from us. That improves our connections with our clients.
Estee: Definitely - sequences and lead nurturing are both really powerful tools within HubSpot that you can do a lot with. Do you have any tips for businesses looking to migrate to HubSpot?
[07:27] Elaine: Well, quite apart from using Struto, which would be my top tip, I would say that getting your data ready is the key. I think we didn't quite realise just how much data we had until we started pulling it all together. Some data we had full client record and we knew everything about them, or everything we needed to know, and in some cases we only had the name, email address and phone number. We spent quite a lot of time cleansing that data. That would be my number one tip.
My second tip would be to really think about what fields you are going to want to work with. We have discovered that we have certain data fields we'd like to add. We sell software and annual subscriptions and we want to be able to automate a campaign to talk to our subscribers. So we need to make sure we've captured their renewal dates effectively.
It also uncovered, for the salespeople, the importance of the information they collect and store. There's a lot more emphasis on how the salespeople use the system and the importance for all of us to keep the information current and clean.
Estee: Great! Thanks for joining me today, I think that's all. I hope you have a great day!
Elaine: Thanks, Estee - nice to see you.
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