When I began working at InfoTrust back in May 2012, I immediately took on the cumbersome task of promoting our monthly breakfast and digital marketing events. The process was tedious, to say the least: create an event description, post said event description on eventbrite, set up multiple parameters in eventbrite, post event description on our website with a link to eventbrite, email our subscribers using mailchimp, promote through every digital and traditional channel imaginable, email subscribers again a day before the event, host event, send seperate follow up emails to attendees and no-shows through mailchimp, the list went on and on. Speaking of chimps this accurately depicts how I felt throughout the process:
….then I started using Hubspot. I’d heard the term “marketing automation” before but the meaning never became deeply ingrained nor fully understood until I experienced an automated process firsthand. With Hubspot, I was easily able to host our entire event process on our website, using no third party software like mailchimp or eventbrite. Looking at Google Analytics or Hubspot Analytics the improvements were very apparent. I immediately saw an increase in pageviews and pages per visit, as well as a significant decrease in our bounce rate. But the biggest difference? People were signing up for our events and I was hardly even marketing them. Mind = Blown.
The best part about Hubspot is that it offers both the tools and the training to become an inbound marketing expert in practically no time at all. Within weeks of using Hubspot I was creating custom forms, custom landing pages, thank you pages, call to actions (CTAs), and automated and segmented emails. Now hardly a day goes by without an event registration, despite little or no marketing. Below I’ve summarized what I believe are the key reasons I’m now spending just 5-10 hours a month setting up and promoting events:
- People are turned off by registering for events on external web pages. Forms and landing pages should always be hosted on our site whenever possible
- Emails are segmented and automated, ensuring every registrant is reminded about our events with little work on my end
- Our blog, hosted on Hubspot, has seen an increase in traffic due to the SEO recommendations Hubspot provides. Our blog and events page send a lot of traffic to one another
- All forms on our site have been converted to Hubspot forms, and we’ve begun lead nurturing campaigns that include event invitations
