Modern marketing tactics have changed the way we do business forever. Businesses can no longer rely on traditional outbound methods to succeed in today’s competitive landscape.
Enter: inbound marketing.
In this article, we’re taking a look at how inbound marketing can transform businesses of all shapes and sizes. We’ll delve into a Hubspot case study of Australian company Brauer to see first-hand how businesses can use Hubspot’s inbound marketing software to achieve their goals.
Let’s jump right in.
What is inbound?
In short, inbound marketing refers to a business methodology focused on growing a customer base by sharing valuable content and strategic experiences tailored to their needs.
It emphasizes building long-lasting relationships with customers and prospects by providing value throughout their customer journey. There are three main stages associated with inbound marketing —attract, engage, and delight— which can be seen in the image below.
When each of these stages is implemented effectively, the wheel starts turning. When that happens, marketers create a self-sustaining loop that attracts and retains customers.
We can consider the inbound methodology as the opposite of outbound marketing strategies. Where outbound marketing techniques aim to interrupt the audience, inbound techniques focus on building trust through providing the right audience with the right content.
Tip: We wrote this glossary of inbound marketing terms, which provides a great foundation for understanding the most important concepts and strategies involved in inbound.
What are the benefits of inbound marketing for businesses?
There are many ways inbound marketing helps grow businesses. Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages of inbound.
1. It’s cost-efficient.
According to Hubspot, inbound leads cost 62% less than outbound leads. Inbound focuses on delivering content online in the form of blogs, videos, white papers, social media, etc. These are significantly cheaper than traditional outbound tactics like TV commercials, radio, print advertisements, etc.
2. Boosts brand awareness and visibility
Sharing content that is valuable and aligns with your audience’s interests means your target audience will be able to find you much easier. Moreover, they’re more likely to share your content on their social media channels, increasing your visibility and helping to establish your brand as a credible source of information. It’s a win-win!
3. Generates quality leads.
Valuable content that’s targeted towards your audience is a great way to generate relationships with valuable leads that are more likely to engage with your brand and become paying customers.
When you produce regular content, you’re giving prospects the chance to engage with your website, where you’ll be poised and waiting with top-notch calls-to-action, content, and landing pages that drive them towards the end goal: Conversion.
Now, let’s dive into today’s inbound marketing case study to find out how inbound marketing helped to grow one of Australia’s largest eCommerce and natural medicine companies.
Case Study: How Brauer grew their eCommerce customer database with Hubspot.
What is Brauer?
Brauer is one of Australia’s leading retailers of natural medicine. With a rich history that dates back to 1929, Brauer has grown from a small one-man pharmacy to a global business.
Founded by pharmacist Hermann Brauer, who, in 1929, started his venture into natural medicine by selling natural remedies in a small pharmacy in Australia.
The company has expanded since then. Now Brauer produces natural, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, nutritional supplements, and skincare products that are sold throughout the country and the world.
Nowadays, you’ll find Brauer products in over 4500 pharmacies and health food shops around Australia and on their eCommerce websites.
Sounds like Brauer was on track to success, doesn’t it? Not quite.
What was the problem?
The main thing holding Brauer back from achieving their full potential was their WordPress and Shoppe eCommerce websites.
The clever team at Brauer knew that their target audience would be interested in the brand’s story of how they came to be. Moreover, they had plenty of ideas about how content marketing could be used to tell the fascinating history of homeopathic medicines while providing answers to their customers’ questions.
Essentially, there was plenty of scope for Brauer to use content marketing strategies to their advantage.
One of the main problems Brauer faced was how to effectively manage their eCommerce storefront. Despite offering a wide range of products, their online storefront told a different story.
Why? Because the software combination they used resulted in huge amounts of data that required Brauer to manually manage it. Moreover, their contacts database was growing quickly, but they didn’t have the tools to segment it effectively.
Seeing as none of the systems Brauer used interacted with each other, they couldn’t access the real-time reporting that’s so important to determining eCommerce marketing success. Moreover, the inability to unify their systems meant Brauer had to rely on a web of expensive software solutions that resulted in huge headaches all-round.
So, what could be done about it?
With all of this, it was clear to see that Brauer needed a unified software solution that would help them to streamline their operations and achieve their business goals. Those goals were to:
- Grow traffic and improve customer engagement.
- Generate a profitable stream of revenue from their eCommerce.
- Streamline operations with an integrated solution.
Hubspot to the rescue!
Brauer reached out to The Kingdom, their local Hubspot partner, to ask for advice. They were introduced to Hubspot, and they’ve never looked back since.
Hubspot was deployed and integrated with Shopify to bring together all of Brauer’s customer information across their various platforms and enable them to launch an eCommerce storefront.
By combining HubSpot’s Content Management System and Customer Relationship Management tools with Shopify’s eCommerce solutions, Brauer launched a professional and easy-to-use online store that customers loved. So what exactly did they do?
- Transformed their WordPress website with Hubspot’s website platform.
- Created a huge amount of new content that improved their SEO rankings.
- Launched two blogs aimed at educating their customers to live healthily and naturally.
Armed with Hubspot, Brauer can easily manage their contact lists with the Lead Management Tool. This allowed them to seamlessly segment their audience based on their buying behaviors. Moreover, Hubspot’s workflow tool allowed Brauer to nurture their customers and keep their back-end data clean and organized by easily tracking purchases.
One of the biggest areas of improvement Brauer saw was in their social media engagement levels. By implementing Hubspot’s social media tool, Brauer increased their website traffic from social media by an incredible 573% in less than a year!
Since implementing Hubspot software into their tech stack, Brauer has been able to transform their business with inbound marketing. They plan to continue on their journey of inbound enlightenment to expand their online store with remarketing tactics and focused campaigns.
Brauer is keen to adapt its web presence and content creation strategies to the inbound methodology to continue building relationships with prospects and sharing their holistic beliefs and products with the world.
Of course, we know that data speaks louder than words. Here are some of the results that Brauer experienced once they embraced the inbound methodology with Hubspot:
- 325% growth in their database.
- 573% increase in website traffic from social networking profiles.
- 175% increase in email click-throughs
Final Thoughts
In today’s competitive business landscape, digital marketing tactics that focus on providing value to customers’ lives through content creation work to encourage interaction, shape brand identities, and generate quality leads. By creating meaningful interactions with customers, businesses can develop inbound strategies that yield results in the long term.
By integrating Hubspot software and the inbound marketing methodology into their business operations, Brauer saw huge growth in their eCommerce platform and overall customer engagement. If it worked for them, it can work for you!
Want to know more about how inbound marketing can impact your business?
Book a consultation today, let’s chat!
