As our partnership has grown, the Spitfire Inbound team has contributed our insights to the Databox blog. Here’s what we’ve done so far.
As an innovative, data-obsessed inbound agency, we’re always looking to partner with like-minded companies to offer our clients the best possible service. When we decided to start using Databox late last year, we started on a journey with a tool that we believed would allow us to spend less time pulling data and more time analysing that data, so we could offer our clients the insights they needed to succeed.
Once we started using the tool, we found that much like HubSpot, Databox was so much more than just a tool… it’s a partnership. We were given the opportunity to share our insights and give feedback on the use of the tool. We quickly grew to love everything about the tool and the partnership with the Databox team.
We were also asked to contribute to the insightful blogs that Databox was writing. Much like us, they understand that you can’t always be the expert in everything and asking other experts allows your audience to get a wide range of truly thought-provoking insights.
Here’s a round-up of the blogs we’ve featured in and what our team had to say on the topics:
Databox blog - 10 HubSpot Partner Impact Award Winners Share The Tactics That Helped Them Win
Here’s what Darren Leishman contributed:
Award Won: Impact Growth Story
Strategies: Marketing and Sales alignment – the marketing team made every effort to align the promotional efforts with the sales efforts. The drive from the internal marketing team to the internal sales team as well as the dealer body made a significant difference in the sales results.
Measurement – the accurate metrics and daily tracking have helped focus the efforts of both teams to ensure the best ROI.
Challenges We Overcame: With the dealers and sales teams aligned and the measurements in-place we are able to choose our media more effectively and respond to clients needs more proactively.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - 53 Digital Marketers Share Their Top-Performing Blog Posts from 2017
Here’s what Alison Leishman contributed:
Stay Curious: How continuous skills development will motivate your staff
Traction: 649 views
Article Summary: Create a culture of learning in your company and your employees will not only be enthusiastic knowledge seekers, but also bring enthusiasm and expertise to your day to day business.
Company Purpose: We’re a purpose-built inbound marketing agency that delivers focused and measurable results. We believe in helping companies attract visitors, convert leads and close customers.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - 49 Email Marketing Tips From Top Digital Marketers
Here’s what Alison Leishman contributed:
My Top Tip: We have successfully used lead scoring to understand how we should segment the list of prospects to receive the monthly special offer email from a client.
In the past, they were mailing all their Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) the same offer, but by using segmentation we were able to personalise the call to action to the segment. This personalisation allowed us to expand who we send the offer to - leads and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) with a higher lead score. This resulted in shortening the time that it took for people to move from lead or MQL straight to customer.
Although they were still researching a variety of products, by receiving a mail with special offers that were time sensitive in their research phase, they made the choice to buy faster.
Stats:
- Open rate of the special offer mail has improved 37%
- CTR has improved by 385%
- 7% of all contacts who have received this personalized special mail have converted to customers.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - How To Improve Sales & Marketing Alignment, According to 23 Inbound Marketing Experts
Here’s what Trevor van Rensburg contributed:
Tactic: We’ve implemented a unified, negotiated definition of MQLs and SQLs. This shortens the time between lead generation and closing deals. If marketing and sales don’t communicate about what a quality lead looks like, it becomes impossible for marketers to attract the right leads for the sales team.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - Improve Marketing Agency Efficiency with These 20 Software Tools
Here’s what Sarah Mills contributed:
Tool discussed: WorkFlowMax
How It Works: WorkflowMax is an all-in-one project management system. From tracking timesheets through to job profitability and resource capacity, the tool gives management a holistic view of staff billability, job health and overall business capacity.
How It Saves Time: It’s not so much what we did before, but more the way we’ve been using this tool since day one. We’ve found that over time, we use the tool to more of its capability.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - Client KPI Dashboards, Goals, Alerts + 8 More Features Your Agency’s Reporting Tool Needs
Here’s what Alison Leishman contributed:
Favourite Feature: Client Performance
Reason: As an agency, we have a number of clients for whom we deliver inbound and other digital marketing services. We have always been challenged by trying to have oversight of all accounts in the business in a snapshot view so we can monitor the health of the accounts through their metrics.
This feature allows us to, at a glance, have this oversight of all clients and how they are tracking on their unique five core metrics as set by client and agency together. We can use this to also identify trends that may be occurring across the business due to either internal or external reasons and apply these learnings to the benefit of all our clients. The metrics are simple to set in the tool, quick to review, and force us to identify the five core metrics that direct our strategic focus.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - The Best Time To Send Email, According to Marketing and Sales Experts
Here’s what Nicole Sengers contributed:
Does send time matter? I think it is important when you send an email. I have noticed with clients and people I have discussed this with- the time an email arrives can make a difference between an automatic “mark as read” or an open. If I get an email with an interesting headline while sitting waiting for a meeting to start and I’m 5 minutes early, I will use those 5 minutes to quickly check it out!
Our Most Common Send Time: I avoid sending marketing emails on the hour or half hour as most people schedule emails at these times and have started trying to send them at 8:50 rather than at 9. This tactic means that you could catch people as they are scrolling on their phones while waiting for a meeting.
How We Chose This Time: I observed the behaviour of checking your phone before a meeting and then started asking people what they do in those last few minutes before an appointment. Based on observation, we decided to give this a try. I always try and match the sending time with the buyer persona and their behaviour – so although sending time matters, it is dependant on the persona you are targeting with an email. For the client that I have tried this approach on, their personas spend a lot of times in meetings. This approach is unlikely to work for an email to get you to buy shoes online.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - How to Generate Leads & Sales from Your Blog
Here’s what Nicole Sengers contributed:
One Tactic: We have found that adding relevant CTAs throughout blog posts, rather than just at the end of a post, has improved conversion rates. This includes links to related blog posts or relevant downloads.
Read the full article here.
Databox blog - Marketing Agencies Share 3 Biggest Recruiting & Hiring Challenges [NEW DATA]
Here’s what Alison Leishman contributed:
One Challenge: Joining a specialist inbound agency requires that new employees are committed to learning new skills.
As a HubSpot agency, new recruits need to not only learn the inbound methodology and our internal processes at Spitfire Inbound, but also how to use HubSpot, Databox and other tools. The challenge that we face is the sheer volume of learning and understanding that is required of a new employee in a short period of time.
To manage this, we have a very structured onboarding process — and each new employee is given a buddy who is not their manager. This is their “go-to” person. As part of our recruitment process, new employees are also required to have the inbound certification before joining the business.
They then have an individualized training program based on their role in the business — and this training program has key milestones.
As a productivity tool, we use Basecamp, where these milestones are set up. The timing of these milestones is important. We know that learning is best retained when it is understood through implementation.
Obtaining the certifications is not about binge training. It’s about being able to put the learnings into practice with our clients. This is why they must shadow existing staff on current clients as well as the necessity to spread the training over the onboarding period. This gives new employees the ability to manage their milestones to suit their learning style.
Read the full article here.
As enthusiastic, talented inbound marketing specialists, our team are always creating useful resources for you to use to help you grow your business through successful marketing and sales. Check out our resources page to find all our latest downloads.
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