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Case Studies

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Featured Case Studies

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WeightWatchers Completely Revamped their Enterprise Sales Process with HubSpot

  • Consumer Services
  • Increased Productivity

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How Sandler Transformed its Internal Go-to-Market Strategy with Sales Hub

  • Professional Services
  • Scaling Insightfully

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Ceros Achieved 180% Deal Generation Growth Through Smarter Prospecting

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  • Prospecting Smarter

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How Handled Scaled From Zero to 121 Locations with HubSpot

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Momentive Aligns Marketing Processes With HubSpot

  • Integrations
  • Shorten Deal Cycle

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ClassPass Uses CMS Hub to Increase Conversion Rates

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  • Increase Conversion Rates

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How WyreStorm Increased Revenue by $300K With HubSpot

  • Sales and Marketing Alignment

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Ving Increases Revenue by 96% With HubSpot

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Rock Content Increases Revenue by 650% with HubSpot

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7 B2B and B2C Case Study Examples to Model Your Content After

case study examples

In the pantheon of content types, the case study takes a special place. While blog posts and white papers are often for consumer education purposes, the case study is one of the best ways to shine a spotlight on your brand, services, differentiators and successes for any potential client.

It’s one of the more direct content marketing assets, and ideal for leads who are further down the funnel. The case study is used to explain exactly how you helped solve a problem for a client or customer, and thus tell your story and demonstrate your value or return on investment.

But while writing a case study may seem like a breeze, a lot of strategy and effort goes into producing a great one – the type that can help convince potential customers to do business with you.

A general case study format: overview; challenge or opportunity; solution; and outcome.

For any readers interested in case study examples, the internet is filled with customer case studies and plenty of opinions on what the best case study format is — illustrating how to craft an effective asset. But we’re going to save you some time and present a few tips on writing and designing case studies, as well as 7 examples you can use as models for content marketing and beyond. 

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What Is a Marketing Case Study?

A marketing case study is a narrative of how your business met a need, solved a problem or helped in a project. They act almost like customer reviews in that the case study relays what the product or service is, how it was used and what the impact was through methods like qualitative research and interviews. Case studies are effective in both B2B and B2C marketing.

b2c hubspot case study

The ultimate takeaway for readers should be an understanding of your business and the benefits you can deliver – and there’s no better source of that material than real-world wins. To start on the case study writing process, begin by:

  • Scouting for customer successes to share.
  • Reaching out to previous or existing clients.
  • Arranging a case study interview.
  • Tailoring interview questions with credible sources.
  • Identifying your target audience.
  • Thinking about case study design concepts.
  • Considering pairing other deliverables with relevant facts
  • Devising a case study distribution strategy.

When you sit down to write a case study, it’s important to know the general format. While there’s no hard-and-fast case study template, a commonly used format is: overview, challenge/opportunity, solution, outcome:

  • Overview : Paint the overall picture and explain what the scenario is, who is involved, what the parameters of a project were; provide any other needed contextual details.
  • Challenge/opportunity : Outline the key business challenge, consumer problem or market opportunity.
  • Solution : Talk about the product or service you provided and how you deployed tools or strategy.
  • Outcome : Describe the positive impact of your product or service, whether it was an improved customer experience or client return on investment.

Best practices include quotes from customers, client contacts or internal staff wherever possible so the real-world use case resonates with the reader, including any new potential customer. 

The end result should be a polished asset that answers any remaining questions that potential customers might have. And to give you some insight as to what that looks like, here are 7 B2B and B2C case study examples.

1. Aware – The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing

Aware is a leading global provider of software products and solutions for biometric identification and authentication — all of which may be difficult to understand in practical applications. But the company’s case study “The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing” is a primary study analysis example of what to do right when writing case studies

Aware case study example

This case study follows the generally recommended template of overview-problem-solution-outcome, and conveys Aware’s story in clear terms that expertly explain the product and benefits. Of course, having the world’s largest employer (the U.S. Department of Defense) as a case study subject lends credibility to Aware, which can explain how it succeeded on one of the highest levels, thereby creating a persuasive asset to be implemented into any scale of a marketing campaign.

2. HubSpot – Studio Proper Cuts Sales Cycle in Half and Increases Revenue by 35%

Right off the bat, HubSpot lets readers know the main benefits with data. The title doesn’t mess around, basically pulling the conclusion all the way up. The case study itself follows closely along the overview-problem-solution-outcome format, creating a natural progression for the story and the reader to follow along with.

HubSpot case study example

One of the best elements of this example is the case study design. The overview is set in a shaded box that draws the attention of the reader; functionally, this helps ensure they have context for what’s about to follow. From there, screenshots help add a visual touch that reinforces the product use case, and emphasis is added on tangible takeaways like “ saving up to 50 hours each quarter on manual processes .”

Another cue to take from HubSpot is building up a library of case studies. Armed with dozens of customer stories , HubSpot can share sector-specific content that plays well with a target audience.

3. Walmart Labs – Seamless Returns Experience

For an example from the B2C marketing world, we turn to Walmart Labs, a division of the retail multinational that incubates innovation. It also has quite a few handy case studies for how Walmart is using technology to drive better customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Its “Seamless Returns Experience” case study is a succinct examination of the issue at hand and what Walmart is doing to find a solution.

Wal-Mart case study example

Something this case study does particularly well is highlight the most important takeaways. It makes for an easy read, but also a compelling case study. Readers come away with direct knowledge of what Walmart is doing to solve pain points in the returns process, and how successful its initiatives have been at making for a more streamlined experience for any prospective client.

4. Consero – How private equity-backed AppleCare leveraged Finance as a Service to accelerate growth

You’ve likely heard of Software-as-a-Service, but have you heard of Finance-as-a-Service? After reading this case study from Consero, you’ll get a clear picture of exactly how outsourced finance and accounting can help businesses grow or seize opportunity. The table of contents helps set the stage for the journey and what readers should expect.

Consero Global case study example

The art in Consero’s case study is the narrative it creates using quotes from a client contact. They help bring personality to the piece, as well as authority. The design of the case study makes ample use of pull quotes, which pump up the effect even further. Combined with the linear progression of overview-challenge-solution-outcome, the artful storytelling provides insights as well as evidence.

5. Coca-Cola – Thirsty for More: Coca-Cola’s Shared Value Approach with Communities Across Brazil

Sometimes the case study challenge doesn’t have to be financial or operational; it can also be an exploration of a company’s efforts to advocate sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance.

That’s what Coca-Cola took the opportunity to do in producing this case study of the brand’s efforts to support and train workers in Brazil, as well as innovate solutions for underserved communities.

Coca-Cola case study example

While this B2C marketing example is a bit more long form, the depth and knowledge it provides are key for the reader, whose understanding of the material is helped along by graphical elements. The technical explanations don’t come at the sacrifice of personality, however, as the stories of Brazilian youth are documented with quotes and anecdotes to help humanize the piece, which is, after all, a case study in how Coca-Cola is pursuing social and economic growth for foreign communities.

6. Brafton – How Brafton transformed Custom Vault Corporation’s UX

Well hey, look who made the list. If you’re looking for a sample case study to model a first draft off, this example can help provide the roadmap you need to get started. All the elements of strong construction are here: straightforward structure that outlines the four core pillars (overview, challenge, solution, outcome), punchy quotes and sleek design.

Brafton case study example

Don’t be afraid to add emphasis to what plays well for you. You want readers to come away with an impression that your business is knowledgeable, has a track record of success and can deliver solutions that align with their personal pain points.

7. Slow Clap – “ Built In Slack” facilitating impact for Mask for Docs and Frontline Foods

Video content and multimedia elements set themselves apart in this case study from Slow Clap. 

A 2-minute, 30-second video – the ideal time length for the modern online reader – positioned at the top of the content is the perfect companion to the text. Prospects are beginning to engage with video content at seismic proportions .

What to Remember When Writing a Case Study

Each of these examples demonstrates the value of a case study as well as an asset’s value once it’s used. Once you get in a rhythm of case study research and further iteration, you’ll find yourself with a content marketing and sales collateral arsenal that’s highly effective at driving leads and potential customers further toward a purchase decision.

Use these tips on what makes great case studies to power your content ideation and production:

  • The exact structure doesn’t matter as long as the four cornerstones of overview, challenge, solution, outcome are addressed in some way.
  • Quotes are great if you can get them. When conducting a case study interview, ask questions that get to the heart of the problem and the impact the product or solution played.
  • Have a social media strategy for the rollout of the case study, as well as a follow-up plan for recirculation and repurposing. Ask participating partners to share the case study when it’s finished, too.
  • Use creative formatting so the case study design has clear takeaways and emphasizes key quotes.

Find out more by subscribing to our newsletter .

Editor’s Note: Updated August 2022.

Dominic Tortorice

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Dom, an English major and journalism enthusiast, was just happy to get a job out of college writing and editing professionally. That it turned out to be in the burgeoning content marketing industry with Brafton was all the better.

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HubSpot Content Marketing Case Study – What Makes HubSpot’s Content Marketing Strategy Unbeatable

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When you talk about a killer content marketing campaign, what is the first name that comes to your mind? For most of us in the content world, it is probably HubSpot . You run a quick Google search on anything content creation and marketing, and there is at least one HubSpot article among the top 10 results. This SaaS marketing company has become one of the most trusted sources of information and a well-known name for content marketers the world over. From in-depth B2B content marketing guides to their state of marketing reports, HubSpot has gradually grown into a go-to knowledge hub for both new and seasoned content marketing professionals. This HubSpot content marketing case study takes a closer look at HubSpot’s content marketing strategy over the years, how they took inbound marketing to a whole new level and what we can learn from this winning strategy.

A brief history of HubSpot

The inbound revolution, hubspot’s content marketing plan, types of content in the hubspot content marketing strategy, how does hubspot pull off such an elaborate content marketing strategy, what we learned from the hubspot content marketing strategy.

b2c hubspot case study

TL;DR Here’s a video on the HubSpot content marketing case study to give you a quick glimpse:

It was in 2004 that two fellow MIT graduates, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, noticed a changing trend. They noticed that modern consumers no longer wanted to be bothered by pushy sales calls and emails. They had, in fact, learned how to ignore these attention-seeking bids from businesses and do their own research to make well-informed purchase decisions. Thanks to the internet, they could learn a lot more themselves than what a salesperson could tell them about solving their problems. They wanted to see honest product reviews , compare products and get their hands on unbiased, genuine information.

Brian and Dharmesh saw this as an opportunity to change the course of marketing and make use of what is called the inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing does not sell a product but rather offers a solution to the consumer, and helps them discover the product on their own. No harassment from innumerable unsolicited calls and emails. This idea gave birth to HubSpot in 2006.

HubSpot’s intention was to create a level playing ground for smaller businesses and startups that did not have the means to spend on huge advertising and outbound campaigns. It started off as a small community offering consultation for inbound marketing to startups but began to grow rapidly, catering to bigger businesses as well. Gradually HubSpot’s solutions ventured into all aspects of inbound marketing including social media, website optimization, SEO, and more. By 2010, HubSpot’s revenue grew to $15.6 million and this was its first big step towards becoming the multinational company we know today. It released multiple free tools for inbound marketing and there was no stopping them from this point forward.

Well, if they were helping others win over customers with inbound marketing, HubSpot had to practice what they preach. So, like any other inbound marketing plan, they first needed to identify their target audience from among the masses. They had to decide whether their company caters to B2B customers, B2C customers, business owners, or individual marketers. They started off by focusing on small and mid-sized business owners and marketing managers.

Their aim was to offer a solution for inbound marketing which their software tools already did. But they realized that their customers can only implement inbound marketing effectively if they knew the fundamentals. This urged them to make the first move in their inbound content marketing plan – starting the HubSpot blog.

But that was not all that HubSpot did to add some real value for its prospects.

Blogging has been central to HubSpot’s content marketing plan, but with time they have diversified and included several other forms of content in their strategy too. In fact, the very reason why HubSpot content marketing has seen such immense success is because they did not just stop at blogging or rely on a single channel for creating brand awareness.

HubSpot content is presently categorized into the following sections on their website –

Newsletters

Social media content.

Let’s take a better look at what HubSpot has done with each of these categories of content.

HubSpot took its blog very seriously, right from the start. As a visitor to their site, you would be instantly impressed by the fact that they have categorically separated their blog content for different niches. There is a different set of posts each for –

  • Industry news

HubSpot blog

Apart from simplifying our search for relevant content on the blog, this segregation had its own benefits for HubSpot’s segmentation too. By separating their sales and marketing content, HubSpot was able to capture leads from different segments of their audience. People from marketing backgrounds who want to learn more about attracting an audience and generating leads would engage with the Marketing blog posts.

People from sales who are responsible for converting leads into qualified prospects and then into paying customers would go to the Sales blog to learn more about smart selling. The same goes for customer service and website optimization.

HubSpot has software products for all of these categories. Based on which visitor engages with which category of content of their blog, HubSpot can generate an appropriate strategy for pursuing these leads. So they’re not only providing more purposeful content to the prospect but also recommending the right products, increasing their chances of conversions.

Categorization of blog content is a crucial step in audience segmentation and we’ve witnessed this in our Airtable content marketing case study as well.

The next category of content is their newsletter, The Hustle, which shares business and tech news to get you updated in just 5 minutes. But HubSpot has not left the newsletter’s content exclusively hidden behind a subscription. They also share news and updates on their site.

This again serves as a smart way of appearing in searches for recent industry news and events. People who are interested in industry updates may be potential customers, making this yet another opportunity for capturing leads for HubSpot. The news page has an opt-in form where readers can sign up for the daily 5-minute news roundup that is their newsletter.

HubSpot newsletter - The Hustle

HubSpot’s visionary content marketing strategy is evident from the fact that the company has not stuck to traditional content marketing and has adopted different content formats quite early on in their journey. Statistics show that textual content alone is no longer enough to engage your audience and other formats like video and audio content are quickly catching up. The demand for online video content has almost doubled since 2018. But as many other businesses were still contemplating the value of videos, HubSpot understood it more than a decade ago. The HubSpot Marketing YouTube channel was launched as early as 2007, and currently offers over 400 free marketing tutorials.

HubSpot Marketing YouTube channel

They have another YouTube channel for HubSpot that focuses on promoting HubSpot Academy and HubSpot’s software products. HubSpot Academy is the company’s educational hub for inbound marketing, sales, and service, offering both free courses and certification.

YouTube content seems to play a vital role in a company’s content marketing success. In our case study on Notion’s content marketing strategy , we found that Notion too shares a significant amount of educational and informational content on their YouTube channel, which audiences love. If your YouTube strategy is still in its early stages, these companies could serve as a great example.

HubSpot has also hopped onto the podcast bandwagon sooner than most other brands. Podcasts are the new rage in content marketing. Podcast listeners have grown by almost 29.5% in just 3 years between 2018 and 2021. And HubSpot is not letting this opportunity pass. Statistics from the U.S. show that more than half of podcast listeners in the country are between the age of 12 and 34 years . Though their podcast section is relatively new, HubSpot has made sure to connect with this younger section of their audience through a channel they have been increasingly engaging on.

HubSpot podcasts

Apart from creating highly authoritative blogs and articles filled with content marketing stats and data, HubSpot also invests considerable time and effort in creating other insightful resources for its audience. The Resources page lists everything that their customers could ask for, from free tools to templates, ebooks, guides, and more. So if you Google for a blog post template or an ebook template or a social media marketing guide on Google, there is every probability that you will land on Hubspot’s resources page.

HubSpot also conducts its own research on various areas of digital and content marketing each year and publishes the reports as gated content on its website.

HubSpot’s social media content strategy is on point as well. It has a widespread presence on almost all the popular social media channels, from Facebook to LinkedIn. The social media accounts are very active, making sure that they don’t just have a presence but are seen often by their followers.

Their social media content is rarely self-promotional and more educational, with lots of quick tips and valuable information for marketers, business leaders, and other prospects. Apart from the occasional event promotions and company news, they mostly share content that their audience would be drawn to because of its relevance and value. For instance, a common theme we noticed was sharing tidbits and quotes from HubSpot’s leadership. Here’s an example from their Facebook page.

Leadership tips from HubSpot

There are more from their CEO, Marketing Director, CPO, and others. This is certainly a discreet way of promoting their content (like the podcast in the post above) while also sharing these nuggets of information with people who can benefit from them.

HubSpot also banks on humor and wit to make its social media content more engaging. Here’s what we’re talking about.

Engaging social media content by HubSpot

This post from their Instagram feed is both funny and relatable to their audience, given the current remote work situation everyone is dealing with.

Overall, every different type of content that the company creates for every channel is very closely aligned to what they call the ‘ HubSpot Customer Code ‘. The tenets of their customer code always dictate them to put the customer’s interest ahead of the company’s.

HubSpot Customer Code

These principles that HubSpot lives by and advocates were formed after conducting extensive surveys to learn what their customers wanted. But bringing this customer-first approach into content marketing is not an easy task.

Here’s what we observed when researching their content across various channels for the purpose of this content marketing case study on HubSpot. HubSpot’s content marketing strategy relies heavily on the following content marketing tactics:

1. Thought leadership content

2. content repurposing, 3. updating existing content, 4. creating well-defined audience personas and segmentation, 5. creating high-quality, valuable, learning-focused content – hubspot academy.

HubSpot went head-on into building its image as a thought leader in the industry. Thought leadership is at the heart of HubSpot’s blog content strategy . Their content tries to explain complex concepts in a highly simplified way to marketers, irrespective of their industry. From detailed guides to how-to articles to articles based on their own experiences and internal strategies (like the one below), HubSpot has never failed to deliver something worthwhile and new to its audience.

HubSpot's content shares internal strategies and experiences

They have insightful and relevant content for each stage of their audience’s journey, be it for beginners or managers and leaders at an advanced stage in their careers.

Blog content for all stages of a customer's journey

HubSpot’s content tries to answer all their questions, share research and data that people find worth linking back to, and thus, build a loyal following for the brand.

Nothing can be achieved without hard work and effort, but HubSpot also does some smart work. The HubSpot blog is their biggest asset and it is managed by a big team. And they make good use of their blog content through content repurposing . A large part of the video content on the company’s YouTube channels, for instance, is repurposed from their high-authority, long-form blog posts or research reports.

Take this video on the Top 7 Email Marketing Tools on the HubSpot Marketing channel for example.

HubSpot YouTube channel

This video is repurposed to discuss the top 7 tools from a longer list they shared in one of their blog posts (refer image below).

Content repurposing

They have also been repurposing their research reports into various formats, including blog posts with engaging graphics, ebooks, and more. They also repurpose videos from their Inbound Marketing conferences into more easily accessible YouTube videos.

So, content repurposing takes a major load off their shoulders, especially when creating videos or social posts.

Another very important thing that HubSpot has realized over the years and implemented very effectively is the practice of updating old content . Search engine algorithms keep changing and what was good for SEO a few years or even a few months ago, may not be enough for ranking at the top today. Back in 2014 itself, HubSpot discovered that 76% of their blog’s page views are of their old posts. This means their old posts are ranking well but it is likely that most of the data and information in these posts are outdated. This could cause the post to drop in search rankings.

To prevent this, HubSpot carries out what they call ‘historical optimization’. Historical optimization is the practice of optimizing old posts to update all the information and generate more traffic and conversions from them. The post need not necessarily be years old. It could even be a month old, but if there is anything that can add more value to it, HubSpot doesn’t shy away from updating it.

Here’s an example.

How to update existing blog content

Take a look at the time stamp on the post below.

HubSpot's historical optimization strategy

The HubSpot blog team has been able to increase views of old posts from organic search by nearly 106% through historical optimization.

Every HubSpot content page that you look at, you are bound to notice how neatly segregated their content is for different audience personas. Be it the blog or the podcasts, there are well-defined categories for marketing, sales, leadership, startups, and more. This practice of having clear audience personas that the content marketing team can understand has paid off for HubSpot.

It has allowed them to create engaging, relevant content for each of their audience/customer segment. Their approach to creating content for marketers is different from that for salespeople, giving them more clarity on the kind of content they need to create. When the audience persona is well-understood, your content goals are clearer, and creating quality content that aligns with these goals becomes easier.

Lastly, a common theme that you will notice throughout HubSpot content on all channels is that they are rarely pushing their products. Content marketing for HubSpot is more about helping its audience learn. The free and paid certification courses that they offer through HubSpot Academy also work on this principle.

The purpose of the content is to educate the participants, and they are later required to practice what they have learned with the help of HubSpot tools. This way they are able to capture new users on their free tools, through valuable content alone. When users experience first-hand what the tools have to offer, they are more likely to trust the products and convert into paying customers.

This HubSpot content marketing case study was a learning effort and a fruitful one. The one crucial lesson that we learned from HubSpot’s content marketing strategy and its success, is that building credibility among your audience is the key. With honest, authoritative, and high-quality content it is only a matter of time before your brand earns a solid reputation among its audience. And for this, the first thing that you need to do is understand your prospective users. Knowing what your audience’s challenges are and creating content that can offer a solution, or help them find their own solutions, helps earn their trust.

Also, creating content that you can use and reuse saves you a lot of effort. HubSpot earns a major chunk of its traffic from repurposed and updated content. So when you are creating something authoritative, keeping it evergreen and having repurposing ideas ready will definitely help you gain more traction for the same amount of work.

HubSpot has also shown us the importance of breaking legacies and experimenting with new content formats. Even for an established brand like HubSpot, staying relevant in the eyes of an evolving audience is important, hence their efforts to include podcasts and interactive social media content in their strategy.

HubSpot shows other content marketers that, even if you start small, being found by the right audience and trusted by all is possible. All it takes is an investment of some effort, time, and the will to deliver an excellent experience to your audience above everything else.

If you liked this case study, check out our ClickUp content marketing case study and Marketo content marketing case study to learn how these SaaS companies became well-known names in the industry with product-led content marketing .

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Neelam Goswami is an engineer turned writer, currently working as a Content Specialist. She has always had an affinity to writing and loves creating simple-to-read pieces for everyone to enjoy.

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4 powerful HubSpot case studies of real-world inbound success

4 powerful HubSpot case studies of real-world inbound success

HubSpot makes a lot of promises as a powerful marketing automation platform that can deliver results and help you generate more revenue. 

But is the return of HubSpot worth your investment? Have companies like yours achieved inbound marketing success with HubSpot as the cornerstone of their marketing technology stack?

As one of HubSpot's top agency partners, we get those questions a lot.

On the one hand, HubSpot's marketing solution may or may not be the right choice for you, so it may not be the right place to invest your dollars. 

🔎 Related: Is HubSpot Marketing Right for Your Company?

On the other hand, companies around the world — across a wide range of industries (B2B and B2C) — have experienced documented success with HubSpot and inbound marketing, with the understanding, of course, that HubSpot alone is not their strategy.

We know this, because we've seen it first-hand with our clients , many of whom turned to inbound (and HubSpot) to position themselves as the most trusted voice in their space.

What follows are the HubSpot case studies of real companies like yours that, with the right strategy, were able to achieve remarkable growth, while using HubSpot for their marketing and sales automation needs. 

Aquila Commercial (commercial real estate company in Austin, Texas)

b2c hubspot case study

Watch Aquila's story

The Aquila commercial team was struggling. Their organic website traffic had plateaued, and the leads they were generating from their inbound marketing efforts weren't qualified enough for their sales team. 

In conjunction with creating the right inbound content, publishing revenue-generating marketing and sales videos, and learning how to maximize their investment in HubSpot, the Aquila team saw extraordinary results.

Thanks to using HubSpot, they were able to see that their new strategy increased their organic website traffic by 290%. Over the same period, they increased new contact conversions by 11,350%. (No, that's not a typo.) Most of all, they've closed 111 deals, as a result of their strategic use of HubSpot... and counting!

👉 Read Aquila Commercial's full HubSpot case study .

Yale Appliance (small retail appliance store in Massachusetts)

b2c hubspot case study

Watch Yale Appliance's story

Founded in 1923, Yale Appliance had a long history of success in the Boston area, selling and serving home appliance and lighting products. They even made it through the Great Depression.

How are they still open when other competitors have shuttered over the past almost 100 years? By adapting and evolving as the consumer landscape changed. And Yale Appliance CEO Steve Sheinkopf realized in 2007 that they needed to make a change. 

They had been spending a lot of money on traditional advertising options in the Yellow Pages and the Boston Globe newspaper. But, over the years, the returns on those investments were diminishing. Then, the recession hit, and something had to change.

Sheinkopf found HubSpot through his research and chose inbound marketing (through the principles of They Ask, You Answer ) as the pathway forward. His pivot paid off.

Since adopting HubSpot and inbound, Yale Appliance has seen $117 million in revenue from organic channels alone , and they're also now prepping to open a third location. (Before HubSpot and inbound, Yale Appliance only had one.)

👉 Read the full Yale Appliance HubSpot case study .

West Roofing Systems, Inc. (a commercial roofing company in Cleveland, Ohio)

b2c hubspot case study

Watch West Roofing Systems' story

West Roofing Systems CEO Jack Moore knew he had a problem on his hands when he realized that his website's organic website traffic had flat-lined. Moore knew he needed to do something. 

He had already begun to dabble in creating content the inbound marketing way and had made the investment in HubSpot for his marketing automation solution. But what really made the difference was realizing after a conversation with Marcus Sheridan that he needed to commit to becoming the most trusted voice in his space and hire the right people to be on his team. 

So, Moore hired a dedicated marketing manager who had experience with creating content and using HubSpot — a powerful combo. They also created a structured editorial calendar, where they were producing at least two blog posts a week. 

From there, the results took off. 

Organic website sessions increased by 5,252%. And West Roofing is able to attribute $14 million in revenue to their investment in inbound marketing (the right way) and to their use of HubSpot.

👉  Read the full West Roofing Systems HubSpot case study .

AIS (B2B technology provider in Las Vegas and California)

b2c hubspot case study

Watch AIS' story

It didn't take long for the AIS team to realize there was value in inbound marketing, so they invested in HubSpot. However, their initial strategy for content marketing didn't really deliver results for the first 16 months. 

They realized that they had the right tools, but their approach to inbound marketing was all wrong. They knew they needed to radically change how they went about inbound and their use of HubSpot. 

After working with a HubSpot agency who did the content marketing for them, they came to IMPACT, where the philosophy is to essentially work ourselves out of a job by teaching our clients how to do inbound in-house. AIS VP of Marketing Keven Ellison hired an inbound marketing strategist, a content producer and a videographer to take up this challenge.

And, as with the other case studies, the investment in the right tools (HubSpot) and people (content producer, strategist, videographer) paid off. In the first year of this new strategy with HubSpot, they were able to attribute $500,000 in revenue to their organic growth and increase website traffic by 1,100%.

👉  Read the full AIS HubSpot case study .

One final word about these HubSpot case studies

Without HubSpot, the above case studies would not have been possible. It's the platform these businesses each used to host their blog posts, landing pages, and (in some cases) website pages. They used HubSpot to set up email marketing campaigns, to score their leads, and to set up smart lists for targeting and nurturing. 

Most of all, HubSpot is what allowed them to measure the efficacy of their efforts , through its robust reporting and analytics tools .

🎧 Related: Stay up-to-date with the latest HubSpot news with The Hubcast

However, HubSpot itself is not a silver bullet. If you're struggling to see results with your digital sales and marketing, you should never turn to a marketing automation platform like HubSpot as the savior for all of your problems. 

HubSpot will only be as powerful as the inbound marketing strategy you put behind it. You either commit to being the most trusted voice in your space , or you don't.  You either commit to hiring the people you need on your team, or you don't. 

There is only so much HubSpot can do. The rest is up to you.

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Is HubSpot Good for B2C Businesses?

b2c hubspot case study

HubSpot is a fantastic tool - a CRM , fully integrated marketing suite, sales tools, and customer service tools- all in one package (depending on the hubs you choose). One question that often comes up is whether or not it's suitable for B2C businesses. After all, you may not need the sales enablement and sales automation tools, and those make it look quite B2B-focused. So, let's delve into what a B2C business can gain from HubSpot.

HubSpot for B2C - Does it Work?

As is always the case with this type of question, the answer depends on a couple of things: - The value and volume of your sales - Whether or not what you offer is a considered purchase These elements will influence whether or not HubSpot is a great investment for you because they affect whether or not inbound marketing is the best strategy.

HubSpot might not be the ideal option if inbound marketing isn't a suitable fit for your company (we'll discuss this in more detail soon). In any case, the free CRM is still a fantastic piece of software, and every company needs one. HubSpot offers a wide range of solutions that address sales funnels, marketing processes, and targeted outreach. The marketing hub can greatly improve your sales funnel and market strategy when used in conjunction with HubSpot's marketing automation.

Best B2C CRM

A CRM system is essential for any organisation as it stores data about clients and potential clients. It's easier to convert a previous customer into a new sale if they were satisfied with their purchase than it is to make a new one.

Because it combines all of the information you have on a client or prospects with their online behaviour, For B2C businesses, HubSpot is a fantastic CRM platform and B2C CRM software. As a result, you are aware of their purchases, website visits, blog post readings, and opened emails.

With the ability to segment your database based on who has viewed those interest pages and send targeted marketing emails catered to certain areas of interest, all of this makes it incredibly simple to get in touch with them once more.

The point here is that HubSpot isn't just a database of customer contact details, nor is it just a tool for sending emails or creating segments - it does all of those things and more as a complete CRM system. So, if you're looking for a powerful CRM for B2C, HubSpot is an excellent choice.

There are a few factors that determine whether you can benefit from every HubSpot feature, which we'll go over below. There's nothing to lose by giving the CRM a try, as the beginning level is completely free (not a free trial). What factors, then, influence whether the remainder of HubSpot is best for your organisation, B2C?

The Value and Volume of Sales

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Where does your product or service fit on the above grid?

If you have a high-cost and high-volume item, then HubSpot might be just right - you have access to the marketing automation tools that will help you get in front of even more people, engage with them, and nurture them into becoming your customers.

When you have a smaller market or lower volume of sales, but the value of those sales is high, HubSpot is also a fantastic choice - you might use an approach like Account Based Marketing (ABM), using the ABM tools in the HubSpot marketing platform, or focus on the engage and delight elements of the inbound journey.

If the answer is "bottom left", then HubSpot might not be the right investment for you, especially at the Professional and Enterprise level. If you sell a small number of low-cost items, achieving ROI might require a different b2b and b2c market strategy. You may evaluate the Starter suite and find that it does enough for what you need. You'd likely run this in-house, as the investment in a marketing retainer might need to be more viable.

If you're bottom right, low cost and high volume, what you need to look at is your margin and work out if HubSpot makes sense for you. Bear in mind that you now pay for marketing contacts, rather than all contacts, in HubSpot. If you have a very high volume but low-cost product, you may have lots of people in your marketing database - you'll need to evaluate which CRM platform is most cost-effective for you.

Considered purchases

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A considered purchase is one where people spend time considering before purchasing - simple enough. The reason it affects whether or not HubSpot is the best approach for you is that whether or not something is a considered purchase will influence whether it makes sense to run an inbound marketing strategy. With a considered purchase, people will do things like: - Research their options - Research different products - Look for reviews and case studies - Learn about the pros and cons of different solutions or ask a question - Read about specifications - Research pricing All this means that they're spending time online, researching and learning, at the first stage of the buyer's journey (the Awareness stage). Therefore an inbound approach, which includes creating content to appeal to buyers at different stages in their journey, will be valuable. Beyond the awareness stage, buyers do more research, again making inbound a good option. Types of considered purchase include: - Home improvements - new kitchens, renovations, etc - Technology products - Expensive items - high-end furniture, bespoke fashion - Vehicles And can also cover things as varied as plants, holidays, properties, and investments. For purchases that aren't considered - things that people decide upon without turning to internet research - inbound is much less effective. If no one is looking for content about your product, because it's an easy decision either way, then there's not a lot of point in spending all your time building it out. You might be better off focusing your budget on PPC. And while you can manage Ads through HubSpot's marketing hub, the investment in the platform is mostly worth it when you're using a variety of features rather than just one.

What specific features are good for B2C?

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When you've identified that HubSpot is good for your specific business, it's worth taking time to look at the specific tools that will be helpful. HubSpot contains a lot of features, but some of them are especially helpful in B2C settings.

Personalisation

You probably know about things like personalising emails with the recipient's name, but did you know that you can pull in any information you store in your CRM systems into the email? And that you can easily segment and personalise content for specific types of buyers. HubSpot is a great platform for personalisation.

Smart Content

Speaking of personalisation, if your website is hosted by HubSpot CMS, you can take advantage of Smart information, which allows you to modify the information on your pages according to a variety of criteria, such as the stage of the prospect's lifecycle or the device they are using. You can even customise a list you've created based on their past purchases if they're already in your database.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is one of those things that simply makes life easier. When someone does a particular thing, trigger an automation to send them emails, set tasks for your sales processes team, or update their contact record in HubSpot CRM. If you're using an external system and want that to trigger actions in HubSpot, you'll need to set up an integration to get the two systems to talk to one another (you can learn more about HubSpot integrations on our recent post).

If you have a full e-commerce B2C business, you might want to look at the Transactional Email add-on for HubSpot's marketing hub, too.

Integrated Data

As a B2C company, chances are you're using lots of different channels to generate leads - Google ads, social media ads, social media posts, email marketing, website, landing pages, and so on. HubSpot's CRM platform brings all of this together into one place, so you can track the impact of each channel on your marketing, sales and ROI.

You can dive in and see exactly what a customer has seen and done, and identify where your marketing is most successful - all of which is compelling data.

B2C HubSpot Integrations

integration rct

We've posted before about all the things HubSpot integrates with , but let's take a look at some B2C-specific integrations.

Now, there are so many integrations that we can't go into all of them here - we've just picked the top few we know are especially popular with B2C. But you can also find plenty of apps like call reporting, data sync, SMS sends, advertising and remarketing, and social media.

For eCommerce businesses on Shopify, this integration is a must.

- Connect your Shopify store to HubSpot

- Analyse your Shopify data in HubSpot (default reports include average order value, lifetime order value, abandoned cart recovery, and more)

- Automatically sync products, contacts, and orders (seen as “deals” in HubSpot) from Shopify to HubSpot

- Segment contacts based on products (Marketing Hub Starter, Professional, or Enterprise only)

- Automate e-commerce campaigns (Marketing Hub or HubSpot Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise only)

WooCommerce

Similarly, if you use WooCommerce for your online marketplace, this is the integration for you.

- Automatically sync real-time WooCommerce users, orders and products to HubSpot.

- One-click sync of historic customer data to HubSpot.

- The extension automatically creates best-practiced groups, properties, active lists, and workflows.

- Incorporates workflows for HubSpot with automated workflow conversion tactics.

Facebook Messenger

Many, many B2C businesses communicate with clients and prospects through Facebook Messenger - this integration means you can manage those messages through the Conversations inbox in HubSpot Service Hub. As a result, you can include Messenger in your HubSpot reporting and dashboards, create new contacts, and assign messages to different people in your HubSpot portal.

If you're already using Mailchimp and you don't want to move to HubSpot's email tool, this integration allows you to sync your HubSpot contacts into Mailchimp and see Mailchimp activity within HubSpot.

B2C HubSpot Considerations

If you're an e-commerce business, you may need to invest in the Transactional Email add-on for HubSpot - this doesn't come included in any of the main tiers (Starter, Pro, Enterprise). It's an extra cost, which you need to be prepared for.

You need this add-on for sending emails related to individuals' transactions - receipts, shipping info, etc.

If you have a bespoke commerce platform, you'll also need to integrate that with HubSpot using the APIs (Shopify and WooCommerce, as we see above, have ready-made integrations, but bespoke software won't so you'll need to have development time allocated to setting up those APIs).

If you don't integrate your system, you'll lose a huge amount of the value in HubSpot, your CRM and data won't be up to date, and you'll end up looking in two places every time you need information - not a great use of your time or investment.

Any system like HubSpot needs to be set up correctly so that it does what you need it to. Plus, you need to embed it in your organisation so that everyone is using the system properly and consistently. That's not specific to HubSpot, the same would be true if you had any other platform (even ones that aren't as powerfully integrated as HubSpot Sales Hub).

So, is HubSpot good for B2C?

In short, if everything is set up properly and your company is a good fit for inbound marketing, then the answer is definitely yes. And as always, if you utilise it and incorporate it into your company appropriately. 

If you still have questions about HubSpot get in contact with SpiderDigital , our team of HubSpot experts is here to help! We're a Diamond HubSpot Partner agency that can grow your B2C business, using the absolute best tools and strategies to achieve your targets. 

Download The Complete Guide to HubSpot Integration

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HubSpot: An Inbound Marketing Case Study

b2c hubspot case study

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) isn’t much unlike physical-fitness- robust builds, from physiques to web-apps, require steadfast discipline and maintenance in order to become attractive; incidentally, both fitness and marketing are in a state of flex: 38% of gym patrons attending group-fitness classes remain loyal for 1 to 5 years versus 29% for total-gym patrons- clearly, the “BigBox-gym” model yields to emergent fitness-class studios (Nielsen).

Concordantly, business-to-business (B2B) vendors are decreasing “BigBox-agency” outbound-marketing budgets to 30% while increasing marketing-allocations for SEM, search-engine optimization (SEO) and social-media to 37%- because on average, a lead generated by inbound-marketing costs five to seven times less than a lead generated by outbound marketing due to the former’s lower costs and increased efficiencies leveraged by search-engines and scaled with social-media (Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod).

Inbound-marketing is a collection of marketing strategies and techniques focused on “pulling” relevant prospects and customers towards a business and its product, whereas yesterday’s outbound-marketing tactics “interrupt” customers via television, newspaper and radio advertisements.  Results, both physical and marketable, require a cultural-mindset- like a lifestyle or strategy instead of provisional diets or tactical-solutions.

HubSpot has redefined the modern-model of marketing by becoming the “BigBox-boutique” of inbound-marketing but not without experiencing some paradoxical growing-pains before becoming a “good to great,” company (Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod).

Ironically, HubSpot, a customer relationship management system (CRM), struggled to accelerate growth while maintaining profitability as an inbound-marketing vendor- so if HubSpot couldn’t scale its business via inbound-marketing, how could they sell their core-competency to prospective clients?  At the end of the day, tremendous results demand cross-training with multiple disciplines.

Market Assessment & Surveillance

Now, more than ten years after incorporation by MIT alumni Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah , HubSpot is the world’s leading inbound-marketing and sales platform boasting over 19,000 customers in more than 90 countries using customer-relationship management software, services, and support to transform the way businesses attract, engage, and delight customers as a turn-key, inbound-marketing platform to supplement or replace outbound-marketing “help[ing] businesses attract prospects, qualify their potential, and convert them into paying customers…to generate more qualified leads more efficiently, and to convert them into sales,” (Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod | Jantsch, John; Singleton, Phil).

According to the Harvard Business Review, inbound-marketing requires three distinct skills:

  • Writing compelling content that attracts customers to the business- which according to HubSpot had to be useful first, and secondly, discoverable via search (e.g. a blog-post about the benefits of personal-training workout groups based on high-intensity interval training that blends cardiovascular and strength training by a “ BigBox of boutique-fitness studio,” like Orangetheory Fitness , Barry’s Bootcamp or Dogpound ).
  • The ability to scale quality-content so that it’s easily found by prospective customers (e.g. a Orangetheory Fitness, Barry’s Bootcamp or Dogpound blog-post about a specific type of workout or training-day cited in a social-media post, which is later discoverable by a user-search for “interval-training studios.”)
  • Attract and maintain engagement with social-media followers who interacted with content via social-media and track user-behavior with JavaScript-analytics tools, such as Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel , enabling social-media managers to coordinate with webmasters in measuring the effectiveness of advertising by understanding user-behavior and website interactions (“Help Center.” Facebook pixel definition ).

HubSpot clientele is as diverse as the World-Wide-Web, from business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)- in house affectionately referred to as “Owner Ollie” for small-business owners and “Marketer Mary,” for (B2C) clients (Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod).

“Owner Ollie,” is monikered after the quintessential small-business-owner: the jack-of-all-trades too busy to be a master of none juxtaposed to the B2B “Marketer Mary,” a professional generally staffed with 26-100 employees and typically supported by a small marketing-team.

The CEB recently conducted a survey of over 2,200 B2B buyers discovering that 57% of purchase decisions are complete before a customer even calls a supplier (Jantsch, John; Singleton, Phil).  It is therefore incumbent upon SEM to influence the 57% of the sale that occurs mostly on the web negotiating three obstacles – incomplete digital integration, ineffective content, and a poorly-optimized channel mix – obstructing HubSpot’s customer-funnel distilling inbound-visitors into prospects yielding leads for growth.  ( Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod | “B2B’s Digital Evolution”).

Strategic Options

Upon reaching a critical-mass, co-founders Halligan and Shah identified three specific hurdles for a hamstrung HubSpot (Steenburgh, Thomas, Jill Avery, and Naseem Dahod):

  • Identifying which customers to target: the cursory “Owner Ollie,” with a low-cost average of on-boarding i/a/o $1,000.00 albeit with a higher-rate of attrition at first blush of an increasing productivity-pipeline (4.3% for Owner-Ollie vs. 3.2% Marketer-Mary) compared to Mary-Marketer’s proposition of a steady cash-flow at the expense of a high-maintenance, high-cost acquisition i/a/o $5,000.00 for increased attention and customer-support time.
  • HubSpot would need to make some decisions about their current pricing model to entice new customers to the company while maximizing the profitability of existing customers.
  • They would need to assess whether they could achieve sufficient scale through inbound-programs without traditional, interruptive outbound-marketing campaigns.

At the end of the day, tremendous results demand cross-training of disciplines- since 2011, HubSpot essentially outsourced their “outbound-dilemma” by partnering with over 3,100 digital and marketing affiliates that resell its offerings or provide associated services in 69 countries (Fletcher, Chris, Jason Daigler, and Ilona Hansen).

Tactical Plan

SEO for Growth : The Ultimate Guide for Marketers, Web Designers & Entrepreneurs maintains that the proliferation of Web 2.0 open-source frameworks and social-media position boutique web-development agencies for asymmetric-returns like never before:

Traditional creative agencies and advertising agencies still focus on selling big-dollar demand-creation services, while clever SEM’s use pennies to snatch away these purchases online; it drives big agencies crazy that nameless, brandless companies can leverage such a small budget to generate so much new business (Jantsch, John; Singleton, Phil).

Consequently, HubSpot should align their outbound strategies with a pivoted-focus from the dearth of small-caps to the bigly B2B customers, or “Mary Marketers-” resisting the threat of entrants is futile because boutiques can deliver world-class web-presence at a fraction of CRM-costs.

Moreover, it may behoove HubSpot to level-up system-architecture requirements as a scalable mid-cap solution- specifically their predictive lead-scoring functionality reportedly less satisfactory than officially claimed (Fletcher, Chris, Jason Daigler, and Ilona Hansen).

Lastly, interoperability via application program interface (API) is an emerging trend in application-development courting possibilities for integration with prospects formerly filtered-out by the HubSpot-funnel due to legacy-system contracts and service-agreements (Fletcher, Chris, Jason Daigler, and Ilona Hansen).

According to Forrester Research , 47% of organizations that embody analytics best practices reported that their marketing analytics work together efficiently, compared with only 9% of peers- clearly, a massive opportunity awaits (“Discover How Marketing Analytics Increases Business Performance: Invest in an Integrated Platform to Address Challenges of Device Proliferation and Data Complexity.”).

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HubSpot Implementation for B2B vs. B2C: Key Considerations

Table of contents.

Hubspot Implementation for b2bvsb2c

Get to know more about HubSpot CRM !

.css-l5xv05{position:relative;} .css-8p4q68{box-sizing:border-box;margin:0;min-width:0;display:block;color:var(--theme-ui-colors-heading);font-weight:bold;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;margin-bottom:1rem;font-size:1.25rem;position:relative;} HubSpot Implementation for B2B Companies: Crucial Aspects

In a B2B setting, decision-making processes are usually longer, complex, and involve multiple stakeholders. Thus, HubSpot implementation for B2B companies requires a thorough understanding of these unique characteristics.

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Drilling Down into CRM for B2B

In a B2B context, the CRM system becomes the lifeblood of an organisation. The CRM functionality in HubSpot allows B2B organisations to capture, organise, and track the various touchpoints in a customer's journey. These touchpoints may range from initial contact through marketing campaigns to the final deal closure and beyond.

The power of HubSpot's CRM also lies in its capacity for integration. It can synchronise data across different platforms and tools, such as email, sales, and marketing software, providing a holistic view of the customer.

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Leveraging CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) forms the backbone of any B2B organisation. The HubSpot CRM system is designed to manage and analyse customer interactions and data, making it an essential tool for B2B companies. The system allows businesses to store customer data, track interactions, manage leads, and analyse customer behaviour—all crucial for nurturing relationships and closing sales in a B2B setting.

Implementing Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a vital aspect of HubSpot implementation for B2B companies . It facilitates personalised communication with potential clients, helping businesses save time and improve efficiency. By implementing HubSpot's marketing automation tools, businesses can send automated emails based on behaviour triggers, track website visits, and nurture leads effectively.

Marketing automation is particularly beneficial in a B2B environment where nurturing leads can be a complex, time-consuming process. HubSpot's sophisticated automation tools help businesses maintain personalised communication with potential clients at scale, even as their customer base grows.

For instance, businesses can design workflows to send targeted emails based on specific triggers such as website visits, form submissions, or event registrations. These workflows, when well-executed, can significantly enhance lead nurturing efficiency and effectiveness, pushing leads further down the sales funnel.

Sales Pipeline Management Deep dive

With often complex and long sales cycles in B2B transactions, managing the sales pipeline efficiently is critical. HubSpot's sales pipeline management tools help businesses monitor deals, track communication, and forecast revenue, facilitating effective decision-making.

Related use case: Glycospot

HubSpot Implementation for B2C Companies: Essential Considerations

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On the other hand, HubSpot implementation for B2C companies focuses on engaging vast consumer bases. It should be designed to enhance customer experiences and boost conversions.

Focus on Customer Service

In the B2C realm, exceptional customer service is a cornerstone of success. HubSpot's Service Hub is equipped with a host of features to ensure businesses deliver superior customer experiences.

From automated routing of customer queries to the appropriate support representative, to knowledge base creation for self-service options, to survey tools for customer feedback - the Service Hub is designed to streamline and enhance customer service processes.

Utilising Social Media

B2C businesses thrive on social media, and HubSpot offers robust social media management tools. These tools allow businesses to schedule posts, monitor engagements, analyse performance, and manage all social media channels from a single dashboard, facilitating an effective social media marketing strategy.

Leveraging E-commerce Integrations

B2C businesses often operate on e-commerce platforms. HubSpot's e-commerce integrations can connect businesses with popular platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce , enabling seamless data syncing and automating marketing processes.

Harmonising HubSpot Implementation for B2B and B2C Models

While B2B and B2C businesses have distinct characteristics, HubSpot implementation should align with their common goal—growth. Therefore, HubSpot should be implemented with a focus on data analytics, content marketing, and SEO, as these are crucial for both business models.

Data Analytics

HubSpot's data analytics tools provide valuable insights into customer behaviour and marketing performance. They help businesses make informed decisions, improve strategies, and achieve growth.

Content Marketing

High-quality content is key to attract, engage, and convert leads for both B2B and B2C companies. HubSpot's content marketing tools, such as blog and SEO tools, assist businesses in creating, optimising, and promoting content effectively.

SEO plays an integral role in driving organic traffic to a business's website. HubSpot's SEO tools help businesses optimise their content for search engines, conduct keyword research, and monitor SEO performance. These tools provide both B2B and B2C businesses with valuable insights to build a strong online presence.

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In Conclusion

HubSpot implementation, whether for B2B or B2C companies, is not a one-size-fits-all process. Understanding the unique characteristics and needs of each business model is critical. While B2B companies need to focus on CRM, marketing automation, and sales pipeline management, B2C companies should prioritise customer service, social media, and e-commerce integrations.

Yet, it's essential to remember the common elements that both business models share. Implementing HubSpot's data analytics, content marketing, and SEO tools will help any business—be it B2B SEO Agency or B2C—optimise their operations, improve their marketing strategies, and ultimately, drive growth.

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Social media manager, related posts.

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7 B2B and B2C Case Study Examples to Model Your Content After

case study examples

In the pantheon of content types, the case study takes a special place. While blog posts and white papers are often for consumer education purposes, the case study is one of the best ways to shine a spotlight on your brand, services, differentiators and successes for any potential client.

It’s one of the more direct content marketing assets, and ideal for leads who are further down the funnel. The case study is used to explain exactly how you helped solve a problem for a client or customer, and thus tell your story and demonstrate your value or return on investment.

But while writing a case study may seem like a breeze, a lot of strategy and effort goes into producing a great one – the type that can help convince potential customers to do business with you.

A general case study format: overview; challenge or opportunity; solution; and outcome.

For any readers interested in case study examples, the internet is filled with customer case studies and plenty of opinions on what the best case study format is — illustrating how to craft an effective asset. But we’re going to save you some time and present a few tips on writing and designing case studies, as well as 7 examples you can use as models for content marketing and beyond. 

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What Is a Marketing Case Study?

A marketing case study is a narrative of how your business met a need, solved a problem or helped in a project. They act almost like customer reviews in that the case study relays what the product or service is, how it was used and what the impact was through methods like qualitative research and interviews. Case studies are effective in both B2B and B2C marketing.

b2c hubspot case study

The ultimate takeaway for readers should be an understanding of your business and the benefits you can deliver – and there’s no better source of that material than real-world wins. To start on the case study writing process, begin by:

  • Scouting for customer successes to share.
  • Reaching out to previous or existing clients.
  • Arranging a case study interview.
  • Tailoring interview questions with credible sources.
  • Identifying your target audience.
  • Thinking about case study design concepts.
  • Considering pairing other deliverables with relevant facts
  • Devising a case study distribution strategy.

When you sit down to write a case study, it’s important to know the general format. While there’s no hard-and-fast case study template, a commonly used format is: overview, challenge/opportunity, solution, outcome:

  • Overview : Paint the overall picture and explain what the scenario is, who is involved, what the parameters of a project were; provide any other needed contextual details.
  • Challenge/opportunity : Outline the key business challenge, consumer problem or market opportunity.
  • Solution : Talk about the product or service you provided and how you deployed tools or strategy.
  • Outcome : Describe the positive impact of your product or service, whether it was an improved customer experience or client return on investment.

Best practices include quotes from customers, client contacts or internal staff wherever possible so the real-world use case resonates with the reader, including any new potential customer. 

The end result should be a polished asset that answers any remaining questions that potential customers might have. And to give you some insight as to what that looks like, here are 7 B2B and B2C case study examples.

1. Aware – The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing

Aware is a leading global provider of software products and solutions for biometric identification and authentication — all of which may be difficult to understand in practical applications. But the company’s case study „The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing“ is a primary study analysis example of what to do right when writing case studies

Aware case study example

This case study follows the generally recommended template of overview-problem-solution-outcome, and conveys Aware’s story in clear terms that expertly explain the product and benefits. Of course, having the world’s largest employer (the U.S. Department of Defense) as a case study subject lends credibility to Aware, which can explain how it succeeded on one of the highest levels, thereby creating a persuasive asset to be implemented into any scale of a marketing campaign.

2. HubSpot – Studio Proper Cuts Sales Cycle in Half and Increases Revenue by 35%

Right off the bat, HubSpot lets readers know the main benefits with data. The title doesn’t mess around, basically pulling the conclusion all the way up. The case study itself follows closely along the overview-problem-solution-outcome format, creating a natural progression for the story and the reader to follow along with.

HubSpot case study example

One of the best elements of this example is the case study design. The overview is set in a shaded box that draws the attention of the reader; functionally, this helps ensure they have context for what’s about to follow. From there, screenshots help add a visual touch that reinforces the product use case, and emphasis is added on tangible takeaways like „ saving up to 50 hours each quarter on manual processes .“

Another cue to take from HubSpot is building up a library of case studies. Armed with dozens of customer stories , HubSpot can share sector-specific content that plays well with a target audience.

3. Walmart Labs – Seamless Returns Experience

For an example from the B2C marketing world, we turn to Walmart Labs, a division of the retail multinational that incubates innovation. It also has quite a few handy case studies for how Walmart is using technology to drive better customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Its „Seamless Returns Experience“ case study is a succinct examination of the issue at hand and what Walmart is doing to find a solution.

Wal-Mart case study example

Something this case study does particularly well is highlight the most important takeaways. It makes for an easy read, but also a compelling case study. Readers come away with direct knowledge of what Walmart is doing to solve pain points in the returns process, and how successful its initiatives have been at making for a more streamlined experience for any prospective client.

4. Consero – How private equity-backed AppleCare leveraged Finance as a Service to accelerate growth

You’ve likely heard of Software-as-a-Service, but have you heard of Finance-as-a-Service? After reading this case study from Consero, you’ll get a clear picture of exactly how outsourced finance and accounting can help businesses grow or seize opportunity. The table of contents helps set the stage for the journey and what readers should expect.

Consero Global case study example

The art in Consero’s case study is the narrative it creates using quotes from a client contact. They help bring personality to the piece, as well as authority. The design of the case study makes ample use of pull quotes, which pump up the effect even further. Combined with the linear progression of overview-challenge-solution-outcome, the artful storytelling provides insights as well as evidence.

5. Coca-Cola – Thirsty for More: Coca-Cola’s Shared Value Approach with Communities Across Brazil

Sometimes the case study challenge doesn’t have to be financial or operational; it can also be an exploration of a company’s efforts to advocate sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance.

That’s what Coca-Cola took the opportunity to do in producing this case study of the brand’s efforts to support and train workers in Brazil, as well as innovate solutions for underserved communities.

Coca-Cola case study example

While this B2C marketing example is a bit more long form, the depth and knowledge it provides are key for the reader, whose understanding of the material is helped along by graphical elements. The technical explanations don’t come at the sacrifice of personality, however, as the stories of Brazilian youth are documented with quotes and anecdotes to help humanize the piece, which is, after all, a case study in how Coca-Cola is pursuing social and economic growth for foreign communities.

6. Brafton – How Brafton transformed Custom Vault Corporation’s UX

Well hey, look who made the list. If you’re looking for a sample case study to model a first draft off, this example can help provide the roadmap you need to get started. All the elements of strong construction are here: straightforward structure that outlines the four core pillars (overview, challenge, solution, outcome), punchy quotes and sleek design.

Brafton case study example

Don’t be afraid to add emphasis to what plays well for you. You want readers to come away with an impression that your business is knowledgeable, has a track record of success and can deliver solutions that align with their personal pain points.

7. Slow Clap – “ Built In Slack” facilitating impact for Mask for Docs and Frontline Foods

Video content and multimedia elements set themselves apart in this case study from Slow Clap. 

A 2-minute, 30-second video – the ideal time length for the modern online reader – positioned at the top of the content is the perfect companion to the text. Prospects are beginning to engage with video content at seismic proportions .

What to Remember When Writing a Case Study

Each of these examples demonstrates the value of a case study as well as an asset’s value once it’s used. Once you get in a rhythm of case study research and further iteration, you’ll find yourself with a content marketing and sales collateral arsenal that’s highly effective at driving leads and potential customers further toward a purchase decision.

Use these tips on what makes great case studies to power your content ideation and production:

  • The exact structure doesn’t matter as long as the four cornerstones of overview, challenge, solution, outcome are addressed in some way.
  • Quotes are great if you can get them. When conducting a case study interview, ask questions that get to the heart of the problem and the impact the product or solution played.
  • Have a social media strategy for the rollout of the case study, as well as a follow-up plan for recirculation and repurposing. Ask participating partners to share the case study when it’s finished, too.
  • Use creative formatting so the case study design has clear takeaways and emphasizes key quotes.

Find out more by subscribing to our newsletter .

Editor’s Note: Updated August 2022.

Dominic Tortorice

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b2c hubspot case study

Dom, an English major and journalism enthusiast, was just happy to get a job out of college writing and editing professionally. That it turned out to be in the burgeoning content marketing industry with Brafton was all the better.

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9 LinkedIn Ad Case Studies That Marketers Can Learn From

Kayla Carmicheal

Updated: July 01, 2020

Published: June 29, 2020

When you think about social media marketing, what's the first platform that comes to mind? For many marketers, it's probably Facebook or Instagram. But if I were to pick one, I'd go with LinkedIn.

linkedin ad case studies: image shows people sitting at a table discussing with a linkedin icon nearby

Why? Well, first, LinkedIn is an amazing platform to use for brand awareness. Their Business Solutions offer a variety of ad types, like photo or video. Ads are visible to the platform's 630 million users , and the unique optimization tools, like audience targeting, ensure Ads reach qualified leads.

Second, LinkedIn's Business Solutions are expansive . There's a lot of opportunity for ad customization and budgeting — which is helpful if you’re not quite sure which ad is right for your strategy.

Download Now: How to Run LinkedIn Ads

That's where my third reason for loving LinkedIn comes in: case studies.

Case studies often explain the thinking, process, and analysis behind how a team or business uses a product or solution. Marketing case studies usually focus on specific verticals, industries, or solutions.

Want to learn more about LinkedIn Ads ? Their case studies are a good place to start. Let’s walk through a few.

LinkedIn Ads Case Studies

These case studies will dive into every ad type LinkedIn has to offer and what those corresponding campaigns look like. LinkedIn offers four ad types: Dynamic, Sponsored, Text, and Message.

Dynamic Ads change based on the interests of LinkedIn members. They come in four formats and offer the most opportunity for personalization. Use this ad type, if you want to create highly stylized Ads for your campaign.

While Dynamic Ads can be shown in a variety of places on LinkedIn, Sponsored Ads are shown only in the main feed. They're similar to other channels in which ads blend into a user's main screen.

Text and Message Ads live on users’ main screens too — just in less obvious places. A Text Ad shows up in a member's right column, where other promoted content lives, while Message Ads are sent directly to inboxes.

Let’s look at a few companies that are at all levels of LinkedIn advertising expertise as well as companies with a variety of budgets.

Are you ready to see them in action?

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads Case Studies

Dynamic Ads use data about LinkedIn member interests to show them personalized Ads. The content of the ad, like copy or photos, changes based on that data. LinkedIn members can configure what's collected by LinkedIn to personalize the Dynamic Ad experience from the main feed.

LinkedIn's Dynamic Ads come in four formats:

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

It's likely that you've come across one of these ads on LinkedIn before. With so many versions, it's almost impossible not to see a job ad to your right, or a spotlight ad in the middle of the homepage.

If you've always wondered if those ads were successful, here are a few examples.

1. NerdWallet's Follower Ads

Finding top technology talent isn't an easy task — with so many qualified applicants, and even more competition, Companies like NerdWallet , which gives customers personalized financial advice, need help finding prospects.

In 2019, NerdWallet used LinkedIn Pages as a recruiting tool. LinkedIn's emphasis on professional content makes Pages the perfect place for them to promote its company culture.

Follower Ads about the company's self-proclaimed "nerdy" company culture would bring interested LinkedIn members to their Careers Page, where jobs are posted.

Example of NerdWallet's LinkedIn Dynamic Ad

Image Source

“We're building recognition of our company and talent brand among industry peers. Through LinkedIn, we've even been able to reach VP-level members. That's not easy to do anywhere else," says Vivian Chen of NerdWallet's Brand Marketing team.

Results: NerdWallet's most popular posts usually center around company culture. One of NerdWallet's communication managers notes that employee-centric posts provide a genuine depiction of working there. Visible representatives can recruit those who can see themselves joining a team like NerdWallet's.

Takeaways: LinkedIn allows marketers to use the platform differently from other social media channels. If none of your other social pages allow for work-related content. Consider using Company Pages to spotlight company culture, and Promote them using Follower Ads just like NerdWallet did. These Dynamic Ads will change based on audience interest, so your transparent, company-related content will reach potential talent and followers.

2. ESCP Europe's Spotlight Ads

The World's First Business School, ESCP Europe , wanted to generate applicants for their Masters Degree in European Business in addition to building a global leads pipeline. They used Spotlight Ads, like the one below, to engage prospective students:

ESCP's LinkedIn Spotlight Ad

Spotlight Ads offer valuable content with which to target audiences. This ad, giving scholarship information, is perfect for gaining leads from a landing page. ESCP used LinkedIn Spotlight Ads because they’re a great platform for reaching higher education students.

"Precise profile targeting has led to quality results, which have converted in record time," says Rachel Maguer , the Director of Marketing and business Development at ESCP Europe. The company wanted to see a conversation rate of one completed application per 100 leads, in addition to generating at least 250 high-quality leads for their degree program.

Results: So, did ESCP make the grade? As a result of this campaign, ESCP Europe saw over two million impressions from potential students. Additionally, the ads led to a conversion rate of almost 14% — almost twice as much as the intended goal.

In total, ESCP generated 40 more leads over goal and found three countries that topped their qualified leads, solidifying the plan for a global lead pipeline.

Takeaways: Staying customer-focused with ads helped ESCP Europe secure almost 300 applicants. Ads showed images of current students enjoying the beautiful campus. Spotlight Ads accrued the leads, and ESCP Europe nurtured them through to conversion with follow-up calls and interview next steps.

Use Spotlight Ads to identify quality leads in global markets, and nurture them by providing valuable content to audiences in a Dynamic Ad format.

3. Snagajob's Job Ads

Snagajob , formerly known as Snag, is a source for finding hourly work. Because the platform is for job discovery, it's not hard to guess that when opportunities open, Snagajob's team wants people to know. To help, the company turned to LinkedIn for lead generation and ads to capture the attention of their target audience.

The company's ideal customers — business owners and managers — are on LinkedIn. The Job and Video Ads showcased Snagajob's deep understanding of customer behavior: that decision makers often don't have enough time. As a result, ads are short, explain the service's value, and are visually stunning:

Results: Snagajob's marketers had a hunch that Job and Video Ads would be successful for compelling busy professionals, and they were correct. Their campaign saw an 84% rise in converted leads. They earned more applicants and gained quality leads, all while lowering their cost of ad spend.

Takeaways: When targeted Ads are used in a calculated way, like Snagajob's, they're not a waste in ad spend. Additionally, Job Ads let people outside of a member's network know that companies in their industry are hiring.

4. Noodle's Content Ads

Noodle.ai provides artificial intelligence services to businesses, helping them become more efficient. To build brand awareness, Noodle.ai's marketers decided to use Content Ads to connect with their target audience of C-level executives.

In 2018, Noodle used LinkedIn's ad tools to solidify a lead pipeline. Content Ads, which promote downloadable content that automatically generate leads, were an excellent method to reach supply chain executives.

Noodle.ai's LinkedIn Content Ad

The Content Ad above promotes an ebook about supply chain management. Noodle.ai's team found that their target audience responds to content that helps executives understand their expertise.

Results: Noodle.ai saw three times better ROI than other marketing methods. In addition, CTR soared to up to three times higher on Noodle.ai's paid content and obtained 40% of qualified leads from the channel overall.

Takeaways: LinkedIn has now become a prime tool for identifying Noodle.ai's leads. By using Content Ads, Noodle.ai's marketing strategy is now a refined, reliable process for team cohesion.

Use Content Ads as a scalable marketing choice — as Noodle.ai grows, their marketing efforts with LinkedIn can grow as well. Remember, Content Ads are only available by contacting a LinkedIn representative .

LinkedIn Sponsored Ads Case Studies

Sponsored Ads appear in the news feed of LinkedIn members. They blend into feeds, but are notated by a supporting headline. Sponsored content includes single image ads, video ads, and carousel ads. Let's look at examples of each.

5. Kate Spade New York's Single Image Ads

Before 2019, designer brand Kate Spade New York (KSNY) never had ad campaigns on LinkedIn.

It wasn't until the company's team identified customers for their smartwatch on the platform that LinkedIn was considered for advertising. Krista Neuhas , senior director of global digital marketing for KSNY, says, "It’s important to us that the message we are sharing with consumers fits on the platform we are using."

Initially, the goal of the campaign was to drive traffic. The team decided to run a single image ad that featured actress Busy Philipps wearing the watch. The supporting copy tells the busy working woman that the new watch does everything they need:

KSNY LinkedIn Ad

The single image ad was used to spread brand awareness and showcase the new launch. It was part of a strategy that aimed to reach the right type of professional with the right messaging, and a simple image did the trick. Let's see how the ad campaign went for KSNY.

Results: The Busy Philipps ad made impressions with 143,000 audience members. It also earned a 2.44% engagement rate and 1.78% CTR. Total engagement numbers reached 5,000. Kate Spade New York hit a home run with their smartwatch ad — In fact, out of four platforms used for the campaign, LinkedIn members produced the highest CTR.

Takeaways: B2C content has a place on LinkedIn . Most audiences are part of the professional landscape in some way, so engaging them on LinkedIn can be useful. Start with a single brand awareness ad, like KSNY, to gauge engagement.

Ultimately though, remember that if framing marketing in the right context, like the smartwatch and its copy, the right customers can be reached.

6. Corporate Visions' Carousel Ads

If you've seen Carousel Ads on other platforms, they're similar on LinkedIn. These Ads allow for multiple images to appear in the same post. Carousel Ads are great for lead generation because target customers see multiple iterations of offerings which helps to pique their interest.

B2B training company Corporate Visions had a large audience on LinkedIn. Their ideal customer is a decision-maker in customer service, sales, or marketing. Even so, the leads they were earning weren’t qualified, and they quickly identified they had a content problem.

To make content their audience would enjoy, Corporate Visions' marketing team used LinkedIn's targeting tools to research their target market's demographics. They identified previous ads that performed well and produced the most high-quality leads: carousels.

With this information, the team moved forward with a carousel campaign. Carousel Ads from Corporate Visions give quick, actionable tips to their audience about the B2B industry, like this one below.

Corporate Visions' Carousel Ad

This campaign was optimized with LinkedIn's Conversion Tracker . This function tracks audience behavior and allows small changes to be made. Advertisers on LinkedIn can target members based on job title, seniority, and company size, so Corporate Visions was able to get very specific with who was seeing their ad.

Results: Corporate Visions saw a doubled increase in ROI after optimizing their Ads and reaching the right customers. The company has also seen a 116% increase in qualified leads year-over-year, making the new carousel strategy a success.

Takeaways: Companies could be leveraging LinkedIn Ads but not optimizing them or tracking conversions. When Corporate Visions learned about customer behavior on LinkedIn, they were able to identify how to earn the most leads with the platform. Look at campaign performance and study the reactions of your audience — is there a way to better reach them?

7. Automation Anywhere's Video Ads

Automation Anywhere builds software bots that do repetitive tasks so humans can spend time in other places. When the time came to advertise the biggest launch in the history of their company, Automation Anywhere sought to use LinkedIn's live broadcasting feature to announce their product.

The goal for the campaign was to build the most awareness possible. Automation Anywhere's Company Page had over 100,000 followers and an active community, so they posted a teaser to test video ROI. Two minutes later, the video had over 300 comments . Their marketers knew they'd made a great choice.

Automation's Anywhere's LinkedIn Live Ad

Automation Anywhere's official LinkedIn Live broadcast included repurposed content, drawing clips from previous videos to attract leads. But how did the broadcast perform?

Results: When the broadcast went live, the response was almost immediate. Within a few minutes, they had 400 comments from interested viewers. At the end of the broadcast, there were one thousand.

Though the product launch announcement ran across multiple platforms, 78% of viewers came from LinkedIn Live.

The team at Automation Anywhere engaged with their community and had meaningful conversations about the product. Having a team of product marketers talk to followers was big for building customer relationships and providing valuable messaging.

Takeaways: Consider hosting a broadcast similar to Automation Anywhere’s. Maybe there's no launch coming up, but consider producing a live Q&A or webinar. Automation Anywhere's team was blown away by the response from their community with a video; Maybe yours will be just as active.

LinkedIn Text and Message Ads

LinkedIn Text Ads show up in the right module of the main feed and give members a bolded CTA as a headline and a supporting sentence. They're easy to create, pick a target audience, and track leads.

Message Ads are a bit different — they're sent to a LinkedIn member's inbox. This gives advertisers the ability to communicate directly with leads, without a character limit. There are also tools to beef up a message's impact, like adding a form into the message.

Instead of a busy email inbox, LinkedIn Messages are less cluttered, leaving messages more room to be seen. And with the Conversion Tracker, keep track of who's engaging with and converting from your Ads.

8. Design Pickle's Text Ads

Let's see how graphic design company, Design Pickle , earned over $1 million in revenue with Text Ads. The company is a subscription service, but instead of food or makeup, customers are set up with professional graphic designers.

As part of a small business that aimed to increase plan subscriptions, Design Pickle's marketers had to keep their strategy cost-effective. The team decided to use Message Ads to retarget website visitors.

Example of LinkedIn Text Ads

LinkedIn's tools identified a target audience closely matching the company's persona, so the marketers were able to personalize ads for a specific, ideal market.

The emphasis on targeting proved to be effective. Message Ads addressed company stakeholders making buying decisions. Copy like, "Save $37,000 On Design" is eye-catching and grabs a user's attention.

So, did the low-key ads bring high-yield results for Design Pickle?

Results: This campaign led to 463 new signups, 64 of them for premium subscription plans, leading to an estimated $1.8 million in revenue . As for cost effectiveness, LinkedIn provided the lowest average cost per signup by 19% when looking at the campaign across platforms.

Takeaways: Sometimes, it doesn't take a big, flashy ad to make an impact. Design Pickle is a graphic design company and earned over a million dollars with two-sentence ads. When audience targeting and retargeting happens on LinkedIn, companies can reach a large audience and re-engage leads.

9. VistaVu Solutions' Message Ads

VistaVu Solutions is a B2B company that was struggling with brand awareness. We've seen how LinkedIn's unique audience targeting tools impacts visibility for companies, so let's see if that rings true for this company.

In addition to boosting brand awareness, VistaVu's marketers aimed to generate leads and increase brand credibility with compelling Ads. VistaVu's team chose LinkedIn because their niche audience — oilfield industry leaders — was active on the platform.

To make their brand stand out from the competition, VistaVu's marketing managers decided to use Message Ads to amplify their unique company and its value. To make sure the team was targeting the right audience within the oilfield industry, LinkedIn's tools filtered audiences to make that happen.

The message itself was an ebook offer, and included a CTA with a download link. Because there's no character limit, the body text was able to properly introduce the company, its area of expertise, and the ebook.

Example of a LinkedIn Message Ad

Results: As a result of the messages campaign, VistaVu earned a 23.8% conversion rate , and cut ad spend by 75%. Using LinkedIn as opposed to other platforms earned the company five times more generated leads and led to twice as many conversions.

Takeaways: LinkedIn as an advertising platform doesn't limit efforts to just main feeds. Building brand awareness by using Message Ads allows for ample text to introduce a company to prospects.

Case studies can be extremely helpful for a real-life example of strategies you've never tried. You can visualize how a campaign looks and the tools to help you get there.

Be sure to pick a case study that's recent and comes with both qualitative and quantitative data. When it comes to ads, numbers and percentages are important, but so are strategy details. Recent studies will give you the most accurate numbers and processes for advertising.

If I want a relevant case study about social media, I start with the website itself. Every social media platform I've used has a section for case studies. For those that don't, I look at other articles, like this one about Facebook case studies .

Now that you know how to pick out a case study, and what a LinkedIn Ad strategy can look like, maybe for your next LinkedIn campaign, you can conduct your own case study. Try it, and see what you learn.

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21+ B2B Marketing Examples and Case Studies

  • December 8, 2020

It’s tough to create B2B marketing strategies from scratch.

There are thousands of articles on the web about how to craft a B2B marketing strategy – many written by those who have never done it successfully.

You could spend a ton of time reading all of them, but sometimes seeing real-life examples is far more useful.

In this article, we’re going to cover 25 successful B2B marketing examples to inspire your own marketing strategy and growth:

  • How HubSpot Generates $271 Million Annually With Inbound Marketing
  • How Shopify Increased Their Revenue by 90% in 365 Days
  • The Exact Strategy Apollo Digital Used to Grow a BPM SaaS from 0 to 200,000 Monthly Organic Traffic
  • Slack’s Secret Sauce for Driving 100,000,000 Website Visitors per Month

And so much more!

So, let’s get started!

#1. HubSpot: $271 Million Inbound Lead Generation Machine

b2c hubspot case study

HubSpot is a B2B marketing powerhouse. You can’t be in B2B marketing and not be familiar with them.

HubSpot began as a CRM and marketing automation software but has quickly grown into an all-in-one marketing solution. Not only is their software impressive, but they’ve also become a thought leader in all things inbound marketing.

They quickly grew from 6.6 million to 271 million in annual revenue in seven short years. How did they do it?

  • Category Creation: HubSpot essentially created the inbound marketing category. Their co-founder coined it for the first time in 2005 , paving the way for Hubspot to become the ultimate thought leader. This catapulted their brand recognition.
  • Community Marketing: HubSpot created Inbound.org, an online hub for marketers to connect, learn, and find jobs. It quickly grew to over 170,000 members within just a few years.
  • Content Marketing: HubSpot wrote the book on content marketing. Not only do they dominate SERPs with content that ranks, but they have an insane library of downloads as well.
  • Micro-Influencers: HubSpot has nearly 300k followers on Instagram, thanks in large part to their partnerships with micro-influencers. They encouraged HubSpot partners to post original content promoting their software, which skyrocketed their following.

Read the full case study on Hubspot’s market takeover.

#2. Shopify: Increased Revenue 90% in 365 Days

Shopify Marketing Example: Increased Revenue 90% in 365 Days

In 2018, they almost doubled their product revenues from $7.7 billion to $15.4 billion. Here’s how they did it:

  • Top of Funnel Content: Shopify dominates the top of the funnel on search engines, with over two million ranking keywords (like “ecommerce” and “online store”). Not only do they create great content, they also build awesome free tools.
  • A Sticky Free Trial Offer : Their bread and butter is the free trial. Once they have you on the site, they push the free trial hard. Shopify is such an impressive software, it’s nearly impossible for prospects to opt-out after using it for two weeks.
  • A Killer Onboarding Sequence: Once you’ve started your free trial, they convert like crazy through persuasive microcopy, timely CTAs, and great subject lines.

Read the full case study on Shopify’s massive revenue growth.

#3 Apollo Digital: 0 to 200K Monthly Organic Traffic

b2c hubspot case study

Apollo Digital has worked with many SaaS and B2B companies to achieve huge results through SEO and content marketing .

Last year we catapulted a business process management software from zero to nearly 200,000 monthly organic traffic in just two short years. Here’s how we did it:

  • Revamped Content Strategy: Completely revamped their content strategy by identifying content suffering from keyword cannibalization and proposing improvements.
  • Fresh Keyword Research : Performed additional keyword research to pinpoint our client’s highest priority keywords and phrases.
  • Thorough Outlines: Created thorough and detailed content outlines to ensure writers were creating relevant and optimized content every time.
  • Prioritizing User Experience: Optimized all content not just for search engines, but for users as well. Easy-to-read content always wins.

You can find the full SEO case study here.

#4. Slack: 100,000,000 Website Visitors per Month

Slack Marketing Example: 100,000,000 Website Visitors per Month

Slack needs no introduction. They are one of the fastest-growing SaaS platforms of all time, thanks to some brilliant SaaS marketing strategies and tactics. Here’s how they did it:

  • Ranking on Review Sites: Instead of trying to rank for competitive terms like “collaboration software,” Slack earned high rankings on the sites that do dominate these keywords like G2 and Capterra.
  • Integrations: Much of Slack’s traffic is referral traffic from sites that integrate with Slack.
  • Powerful Landing Pages: Slack put heavy emphasis on their landing pages, using persuasive copy and social proof to convert visitors.

Check out the full case study on Slack’s growth here.

#5. Intercom: $50 Million Annual Recurring Revenue

b2c hubspot case study

Intercom is a massive software company dedicated to customer experience. It has grown rapidly over the last seven years and boasts more than $50 million in ARR. Not only that, but Intercom continues to grow without spending loads on sales and advertising.

Here’s how they do it:

  • Dynamic Landing Pages: Intercom thrives on personalized content catered incredibly well to the user. Their landing pages convert.
  • Competitor Analysis: Intercom relies heavily on digging into their competitors’ SEO rankings, strategies, and tactics.
  • Semantic SEO: Many of their pages and posts rank for loads of keyphrases rather than just a single target keyword. They achieve this through thorough, semantic B2B SEO efforts.

Check out the full Intercom case study here.

#6. Mailchimp: $400 Million in ARR

Mailchimp Marketing Example: $400 Million in ARR

Mailchimp has been an email marketing leader for around ten years, but their growth hasn’t always been as rapid as some of our other examples. They spent years experimenting and testing different tactics and strategies.

Now they sit as a marketing automation leader with over $400,000,000 in revenue each year. Here’s how they did it:

  • Custom Audiences: A lot of Mailchimp’s traffic comes from Facebook advertising where they use well-targeted custom audiences and personalized funnels.
  • Creative Campaigns: A few years ago Mailchimp launched a campaign playing on their funny name. Their multichannel approach resulted in a ton of new brand awareness.
  • Effective Landing Pages: Their creative landing pages lead with curiosity and end with a low friction CTA.

View Mailchimp’s full case study here.

#7. GrooveHQ: $5M/Year Business in 3 Years With Content Marketing

b2c hubspot case study

GrooveHQ is a customer support and service platform helping businesses deliver standout customer experiences to their client base.

Over the last three years, Groove has become a $5 million per year business by investing exclusively in content marketing. Here’s how they did it:

  • Listening to Customers: Questions from customers and prospects is one of the only things that fueled their content calendar early on. They wrote content based on common questions and topics their customers wanted more information on.
  • Smart Outreach: Rather than generic link outreach, Groove asked well-known leaders in the space for feedback on their content. This proved extremely effective in earning links and shares.
  • Storytelling: Rather than jumping straight into the practicalities of each post, they learned their audience wanted a story. So they lengthened their intros which increased the average time on page by around 300%.

Check out the full case study on how GrooveHQ grew their business with content marketing.

#8. OptiMonk - How iSpionage Increased Blog Referral Traffic by 58% in 1 Month Using Onsite Retargeting

b2c hubspot case study

iSpionage is an awesome tool that allows you to download AdWords competitor keywords with the click of a button and monitor competitor PPC landing pages. With the help of Optimonk, they increased blog referral Traffic by 58% in one month using onsite retargeting.

  • Exit Intent Popups: They used an OptiMonk exit-intent popup to entice users to check out their main homepage.
  • Personalized Engagement: The popup only appeared for readers who had spent a minimum of ten seconds on the blog. And for a better visitor experience, they limited the popup to appear a maximum of five times for repeat visitors.

Check out the full iSpionage case study by OptiMonk here.

#9. G2: 50k to 1 Million Monthly Organic Visitors in a Year

b2c hubspot case study

Most people in the world of SaaS are familiar with G2, one of the leaders in the business software review space. Businesses all over the world use G2 to help them choose software for their business.

Starting in 2017, they began investing heavily in content generation, taking their blog traffic from around 50,000 sessions in March of 2018 to nearly 1 million sessions in March of 2019. Here’s how they did it:

  • Keyword Research: G2 dug deep into direct competitors’ ranking keywords as well as some non-competitors to get keyword insights (like Hubspot).
  • Everyone Does Outreach: Not only did their link building team distribute content, but their writers as well. All hands were on deck for building links.
  • A Sound Process: G2 produced a lot of content thanks to solid systems and processes that spanned across the SEO and writing teams.

Check out G2’s full case study here.

#10. SEMRush - 71 Upsells from a Game

b2c hubspot case study

SEMRush has been an SEO tool market leader for a few years now. One B2B marketing tactic that skyrocketed their growth was a not-so-standard one: games.

In 2017, they created an Easter-themed game that encouraged users to expand what SEMRush features they used, leading to 71 upsells. Here’s how they did it:

  • Familiar Design: The games they designed didn’t only look good, they were familiar. There was no learning curve to play them, which led to high engagement and shares.
  • Holiday-jacking: You may be familiar with newsjacking (creating content around big news stories). SEMRush created their game around the Easter season, increasing their chances of going viral.
  • Post-Campaign Nurturing: After the game launched, they created email sequences to follow-up with customers who played the game. This led to further engagement and some conversions.

View SEMRush’s full case study .

#11. Stanley Black and Decker - 30% reduction in sales cycle length

Stanley Black and Decker Marketing Example

Stanley Black & Decker is an 11-billion dollar global provider of diversified tools, storage, and security. In addition to selling tools directly to customers, they also sell franchises. But unlike the B2C side of their company, they lacked customer data and strategy to engage with their end-users.

Implementing Pardot (a B2B marketing automation platform) helped them grow their market share and reduce the length of their sales cycle by 30% within one year. Here’s how they did it:

  • List Segmentation: Stanley Black & Decker had a lot of customer email addresses. But instead of sending out generic mass emails, they segmented their lists for personalized messaging.
  • Dynamic Content: They used dynamic content on their landing pages to extend the personalization of their email workflows.
  • Blending Sales and Marketing: A single platform for sales and marketing automation allowed them to align their teams for better collaboration and more closed deals.

Read Stanley Black and Decker’s full case study .

#12. BrightEdge - 994% Organic Lead Growth for Payroll Software

b2c hubspot case study

Paycor, a payroll and human resources software, needed help scaling their SEO efforts. Their small team didn’t have the resources to make the huge leaps they wanted.

During a big site migration, Paycor got help from Brightedge’s toolset to increase their site visits by 308% year-over-year. Here’s how they did it:

  • On-Page and Technical Optimization: The Paycor team started with foundational optimizations to set the stage for serious growth.
  • Updating Content: The team evaluated high performing content to identify new opportunities post-migration.
  • Focus on UX: Paycor used Brightedge’s Autopilot tool to assist in offering users an overall better UX when finding relevant content.

Read the full Paycor case study here.

#13. BuzzSumo: $2.5m Annual Revenue in its First Year

b2c hubspot case study

Buzzsumo is a platform that helps marketers discover content ideas, uncover platform insights, identify relevant influencers, and much more.

They launched in 2015 and posted $2.5 million in revenue that first year. Here’s how they did it:

  • The Freemium Model: BuzzSumo mastered the freemium model in its first year, ending it with over 160k free users.
  • First Class Influencers: They gained respect and publicity from some big marketing names (like Rand Fishkin, Larry Kim, and Neil Patel) very early on.
  • Unique Content: They generated a lot of compelling content in their first year. And it wasn’t just any type of content either, they shared industry-leading research and told compelling stories through data.

Check out BuzzSumo’s full case study .

#14. Document360: $20k MRR Through SEO

Document360 Marketing Example: $20k MRR Through SEO

Document360 is a knowledge base software that helps growing companies create support documentation for users.

The company was founded in 2017 and has already grown to $20k MRR. Here’s how they did it:

  • Sales-Focused Content: When you read Document360’s blog, you won’t find content with a few CTA’s here and there. They speak about their products’ features and benefits all throughout their blogs – even those that are more generic and top-of-funnel focused.
  • Seamless Onboarding: The product’s new user onboarding experience is incredibly smooth, which proves the product’s value immediately and increases the chances of converting free trial users.
  • An Authority Podcast: Document360 hosts a niche podcast on knowledge bases and regularly hosts other leaders in the field. This expands their reach and increases their brand authority.

Check out the complete case study here.

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#15. Buffer: 3x Reach and Engagement on Facebook

b2c hubspot case study

Buffer is one of the most popular social media scheduling and engagement tools on the market. In late 2016, their marketing team dramatically changed its Facebook posting strategy.

Their change resulted in tripling their monthly reach and engagement. Here’s what they did:

  • Less Posting: They began focusing less on frequency and more on quality, only posting entertaining or educational content.
  • Curated Content: Instead of constantly posting original content, Buffer found that curated content from other publishers can perform just as well.
  • Boosted Posts: It doesn’t cost a ton to give your posts a little bump and see huge increases in reach. Buffer spent around $40/day on boosting their posts.

Check out the full case study from Buffer.

#16. ActiveCampaign: How They Grew to Over 50,000 Customers

b2c hubspot case study

ActiveCampaign has emerged over the past few years as a market leader in the email and marketing automation space. But this hasn’t always been the case.

They grew rapidly in 2016 and 2017, taking them over 50,000 customers by early 2018. Here’s how they did it:

  • Clear Target Personas: ActiveCampaign is very clear on who they’re targeting. They have fantastic landing pages for each vertical they’re going after.
  • An Effective Conversion Funnel: Not only do they have a free trial to get users in the door, but the next step in the funnel after a free trial is a $9/month subscription. There’s no big jump to hundreds per month, allowing users to move through the conversion funnel with little friction.
  • Software Review Pages: Their pages on software review sites like G2 and Capterra rank really well thanks to loads of positive reviews – a reflection of their great product.

Check out the full case study here.

#17. MeetEdgar: $144k MRR After 11 Months in Business

MeetEdgar Marketing Example

MeetEdgar offers automated social media marketing solutions to businesses of all shapes and sizes. After only 11 months in business, they grew to $144k MRR.

Here’s how they did it:

  • Low Commitment CTA’s: Their primary CTA’s early on were built around free trials and used low commitment copy like “Get Your Invitation” as opposed to those that required a little more work like “Start Your Free Trial.”
  • Consistent Content: It’s not the sexiest tactic, but they’ve focused on publishing consistently, resulting in solid organic traffic.
  • Leading with Story: Much of MeetEdgar’s sales content focuses on their story, making their company more personable and relatable to prospects.

Read the full case study here.

#18. Zapier: Zero to 600,000+ Users in Just Three Years

b2c hubspot case study

Zapier is a major player in the automation world, allowing marketers to easily integrate apps and software without being familiar with APIs.

Zapier grew to over 600,000 users within three years of its launch. Here’s how they did it:

  • Paid Beta: To get their first users, Zapier charged $100 for access to their first beta. They didn’t necessarily need the money but wanted their users to commit to using the product.
  • App-to-App Landing Pages: Their marketing team created landing pages for every integration Zapier offered, capturing a ton of search traffic and often converting.
  • Co-Marketing: Zapier took advantage of their 100+ integration partners to get help promoting their product through their partners’ marketing channels.

Read the full Zapier case study here.

#19. ConvertKit: A Long Road to $1.7m MRR

b2c hubspot case study

ConvertKit is a SaaS web application helping creators build audiences and market to them. Founder Nathan Barry had a slow start in building his product, but it took off in 2016.

ConvertKit now boasts $1.7 million in MRR. Here’s how they got there:

  • A Narrow Niche: In the early days, the software was trying to do too much. In 2015, they narrowed their niche and began focusing primarily on bloggers.
  • Partner Webinars: ConvertKit reached out to many of their partners pitching co-marketed webinars. Many took them up on it, expanding their audience big time.
  • Adding a Freemium Model: They added a freemium model to their plans, not only to upsell these users but also to earn referrals and exposure through them.

#20. Drift: A Multi Million Dollar Brand Built on Content Strategy

b2c hubspot case study

Drift revolutionized B2B marketing with the invention of a new category: conversational marketing. Their vision is to end forms for lead generation and replace them with conversations through chatbots.

Since their founding in 2016, they’ve been trusted by over 50,000 businesses to help them align sales and marketing through their product. This is largely in part due to their content marketing strategy. Here’s how they did it:

  • 6 Star Content: Many in the marketing world are familiar with “10x content,” but Drift’s marketing team went after 6 star content. They sought to create content significantly better than everyone else’s in the market.
  • Diverse Content Mix: Although most of their content is focused on top-of-funnel topics, they also have a healthy amount of case studies, product features, branded content, transcripted podcasts, and more.
  • Co-marketing: Drift regularly features other companies in their content, giving them a healthy boost of exposure and brand awareness thanks to the reach of their partner companies.

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#21. Bonjoro: How They Grew To Over 40,000 Users With Earned Media

b2c hubspot case study

Bonjoro is a platform dedicated to helping users improve customer engagement with personal videos.

Their focus on earned media helped them grow to over 40,000 users. Here’s how they did it:

  • Podcasts: Bonjoro pitched hundreds of podcast hosts on having members of Bonjoro’s team on, leading to being featured on over 100 podcasts.
  • PR Outreach: Bonjoro earned a ton of press through releases and pitching queries on Help a Reporter Out.
  • Webinars: Bonjoro’s CMO partnered with companies in similar niches and earned exposure through many co-marketed webinar events.

Read Bonjoro’s full case study here.

#22. Chris Von Wilpert - The Ski Slope Strategy for $100,000 Per Month

b2c hubspot case study

Chris Von Wilpert wanted to create a system of compounding traffic in order to scale a small startup. To achieve this, he used a tactic he coined himself called The Ski Slope Strategy.

This content marketing strategy helped him grow to over $100,000 in MRR fairly quickly. Here’s how he did it:

  • Build Topic Clusters: The first step to the ski slope strategy is to create topic clusters to capture new organic opportunities. Rather than one-off blog posts, he created clusters of related posts for each topic.
  • Marketing Promotion: Once he captured traffic with topic clusters, he ran promotions to convert his traffic and capture emails. These included giveaways, discount offers, courses, and tools.
  • Case Studies: Once he began driving traffic and capturing emails, he heavily pushed case studies in order to push leads over the edge and convert them to customers.

Read more about Chris Von Wilpert’s case study here.

Work with a B2B Marketing Agency

Hopefully these B2B marketing examples have inspired you to accelerate your own business’ growth!

But rest assured, most of these tactics and strategies are not quick fixes or easy hacks. They require time and effort.

And unless you’re a B2B digital marketing expert, it’s going to take you a while to get your growth marketing to work for you.

Want to partner with a company that’s been there, done that?

Apollo Digital is a full-service B2B digital marketing company. We’ve worked with over a dozen B2B companies spread through multiple industries, and we can help you too!

Touch base with us today for a free consultation call.

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  • B2B social media case studies
  • Social Media Management
  • Social Media Marketing

b2b social media case studies

B2B Social Media Marketing Case Studies to Inspire You

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Written by Anna Sonnenberg

Published Apr. 18 2022

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Table of Contents

Managing social media for business-to-business (B2B) companies or agency clients often seems more challenging than marketing directly to consumers. From choosing the most effective channels to deciding on the right tone of voice to creating compelling content, B2B social media marketing requires a unique approach.

So how can you successfully market a B2B company using channels like Facebook , LinkedIn, and Twitter? Check out three B2B social media case studies to inspire your strategy—no matter what stage of the sales funnel you need to target.

What Is B2B Social Media Marketing?

Strictly speaking, social media marketing for B2B companies isn’t too different from promoting business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations. Both types of companies use a variety of social channels to publish content, engage customers, and aim to get conversions. And both B2B and B2C companies tend to leverage a mix of paid and organic social media.

Even so, as you’ll see in the B2B case studies, social media marketing strategies require a few important adjustments for targeting a B2B buyer.

Let’s look at a few of the key differences.

Social channels

There’s no definitive list of social channels that B2B organizations can or can’t use. Choosing the right channels for your company is generally a case-by-case situation that requires audience and market research.

But some social channels naturally work better for B2B businesses because of their user base and native tools. For years, LinkedIn and Facebook have stood out as the most popular B2B marketing channels . However, many businesses also use Twitter to connect with customers and YouTube for long-form video.

Target customers

When marketing their products and services, B2C companies generally speak directly to individual customers. These target customers can make their own decisions for themselves or their families.

In contrast, B2B companies target other businesses. To get buy-in from companies or departments, marketers typically have to target decision makers with various levels of authority.

Tone of voice

Don’t assume that B2B marketing has to sound stiff or formal. After all, B2B marketing material often targets chief executive officers (CEOs) and other powerful decision makers.

But there’s no rule that B2B content has to sound stuffy—or that it can’t include emojis. Instead, B2B content should use a brand voice that fits your company’s image and values. And keep in mind that conversational content is almost always the best way to connect with the human decision makers you’re targeting.

Content tools

As a social media manager, you can access the same set of tools whether you’re working with a B2B or a B2C company. However, some tools are much more valuable for B2B marketers because of the sales cycles and decision-making processes involved.

Some of these B2B content tools include the following:

  • Lead magnets that encourage prospects to provide their contact details in exchange for a high-value asset. For example, you may offer case studies or white papers.
  • Webinars and product demos that require prospects to register to access exclusive knowledge or a closer look at your product.
  • Native lead forms that allow prospects to request more information about your products and services without leaving the social media platform.

Use Cases for B2B Social Media Marketing

Now you’ve got an idea of how B2B content often looks and sounds. But what are the most effective ways to use it? Before we delve into social media B2B case studies, let’s look at how to align this content with your sales funnel.

Boost awareness

Is your business new to the market or seeking to expand its customer base? In either case, increasing awareness is essential for growth.

With awareness-focused social content, you can introduce your business to new products. You can also put your products and services on potential customers’ radar. Over time, you can highlight features and benefits to make prospects aware of the value your business offers.

Clickup Facebook ad

Take a look at the ClickUp Facebook ad above, which is great for brand awareness. The eye-catching creative uses a succinct tagline to tell prospects exactly what the app does. The subheading lists three key aspects of the productivity app, so people instantly understand how it works.

The caption uses a CTA that encourages prospects to use the app to boost productivity. And it seals the deal with a pretty impressive takeaway: The app can help you “save one day a week.”

Establish trust

Most B2B companies aren’t selling frivolous items. Instead, the products and services that these companies offer can make a measurable impact on their customers—helping them work more efficiently, produce better results, reach higher goals, and grow their own businesses.

That’s why establishing trust should be a key part of any B2B company’s marketing strategy. You can use channels like Facebook and LinkedIn to share social proof, publish thought leadership, and communicate your company values.

Outreach Facebook ad

The Outreach Facebook ad above seamlessly handles credibility. The creative boldly confirms the company’s status as an industry leader. The caption quotes a well-known third-party source to communicate the company’s position in the industry, effectively building on preexisting trust.

The ad points to a third-party report prospects can download learn more about Outreach. By offering this report in exchange for prospects’ contact details, the company can begin collecting and qualifying leads.

Generate leads

Once prospects trust your business and understand what it offers, they may be ready to take the next step. When you turn prospects into qualified leads, you can start nurturing your relationship with more targeted content.

Social channels offer countless opportunities for organic lead generation . After all, you can easily post links to lead magnets and webinars on your social profiles. But these channels are particularly effective at paid lead generation. For example, channels like LinkedIn and Facebook offer high-performing native lead ads.

IT Glue Facebook ad

Above, the Facebook ad by IT Glue offers a helpful checklist to prospects seeking to automate IT processes. This simple lead magnet is great for helping prospects solve a problem while learning more about the company.

Below, the Miva, Inc. LinkedIn ad takes a similar approach. In exchange for prospects’ contact information, it offers a downloadable five-step assessment designed to guide people through problem-solving.

Miva LinkedIn ad

Convert prospects

In many cases, you can use social media content to give prospects that final nudge from qualified lead to happy customer. Depending on the nature of your product or service, linking to a free trial, a paid subscription, an e-commerce page, or a sales page could drive conversions.

When you want prospects to convert, you need to think about creative ways to incentivize them. Free add-ons, limited-time offers, and limited-quantity discounts can all prompt qualified leads to take that final step.

Cardata LinkedIn ad

Above, the Cardata LinkedIn ad captures prospects’ attention with a promise to streamline vehicle reimbursement calculations. The copy and creative both feature social proof that inspires trust, and the CTA prompts prospects to give the app a try.

Below, the Shopify Facebook ad catches prospects’ eyes with a promise to help scale their businesses. The caption lists several features e-commerce business owners are likely to need, and the creative prompts them to get started with a free trial.

Shopify Facebook ad

Support customers

Once you convert customers, you can use social media to help them maximize the value from their purchase. It’s a good idea to think beyond customer support and brainstorm ways to help customers use your product or service more effectively.

For example, you can share advanced tips to help customers get more out of your product or service—and pique the interest of prospects at the same time. You might also discuss your loyalty program or spotlight longtime clients. These tactics allow you to give clients the accolades they deserve while also turning them into advocates for your business.

Elementor LinkedIn ad

Above, the LinkedIn ad by Elementor targets people who are already familiar with the company’s website builder. By introducing a new product, the company can upsell to existing customers and deepen the relationship.

Three B2B Social Media Case Studies to Inspire You

Wondering how real-life B2B companies have applied these tactics on social media? Take a look at three B2B social media marketing case studies to get ideas for your business’s own strategy.

1. Turface Athletics and Profile Golf

Turface Athletics and Profile Golf, two brands under the Profile Products umbrella, worked with Elevation Marketing to address social media engagement for their B2B profiles. Take a look at what they achieved.

Both brands are well-established in their respective niches. Turface Athletics provides field maintenance products for athletic fields, and Profile Golf specializes in golf course maintenance solutions.

Despite their strong positions in their respective markets, both brands were experiencing low engagement across social media channels. Although the brands published social media content consistently, they did so from a single company profile on a limited range of channels.

As a result, the B2B company struggled to increase awareness or drive consideration among new potential customers. That meant they weren’t leveraging social media marketing effectively or using available tools to reach business goals successfully.

First, the agency conducted market research to get up to speed on industry trends and competitor strategies. The agency also performed a social media audit to review past performance and assess best practices for positioning the brands going forward.

After the preliminary research and audit phase, the agency determined that the brands would benefit most from a full-scale social media strategy across major channels. The agency proposed to plan engaging content designed to attract the brands’ target audiences.

In addition, the agency proposed to create distinct brand presences for Turface Athletics and Profile Golf on Twitter and Facebook. Doing so would allow the two brands to differentiate themselves, reach more relevant audiences, and (periodically) share or distribute each other’s content to increase reach and engagement.

The agency also designed an influencer marketing program to improve the brands’ Instagram presence. Ideally, partnering with influencers would give the brands access to more lifestyle photography while improving brand loyalty.

Over a six-month period, both brands saw impressive growth across all social media channels. The Turface Athletics Facebook page saw a 268% increase in engagement and a 44% increase in impressions, which suggests that the content truly resonated with the target audience. The strategy also drove 74% more web visits, a significant increase to the brand’s web  traffic.

During the same period, content for the new Facebook page and Twitter profile for Profile Golf generated nearly 35,000 impressions. It also drives a 253% increase in web visitors.

Ultimately, building out new B2B social profiles and attracting followers can be resource intensive. But this case study shows that creating content that truly resonates can build brands and reach marketing goals effectively.

Semrush, a software as a service (SaaS) company specializing in search engine optimization (SEO) tools, worked with Walker Sands to improve its Twitter presence.

As a long-established brand in the SEO space, Semrush already had a presence on Twitter. However, the SaaS company had struggled to differentiate itself from its many competitors. As a result, brand recognition, product awareness, and conversions weren’t as high as they could be.

By partnering with Walker Sands, Semrush aimed to improve engagement and increase brand loyalty. The SaaS company also wanted to set itself apart from competitors.

First, the agency used a combination of social listening and competitive research to pinpoint industry trends and understand how similar brands were using Twitter. Using this research, the agency recommended that Semrush adjust its brand guidelines for this social channel, essentially creating a separate, humor-focused persona for its Twitter profile.

To fine-tune this new brand voice, the agency developed Twitter content based on product and industry topics and recurring themes. The agency balanced content that promoted Semrush products with tweets that appealed to the brand’s audience of experienced digital marketers.

In addition, the agency used social listening tools to monitor and chime in on trending topics. This tactic allowed Semrush to join viral conversations and discuss relevant news in a timely fashion—further increasing the brand’s reach.

Semrush began to realize results quickly. In the first month, the social media marketing plan generated over 250,000 impressions and nearly 18,000 engagements. The engagement rate exceeded 7%, demonstrating how well the content resonated with the target audience.

Although Semrush is in a crowded space with numerous well-established competitors, the brand was able to distinguish itself on Twitter. As a result, Semrush improved brand sentiment and gained share of voice.

3. Collective Data

Collective Data, a fleet management SaaS company, worked with Sculpt to streamline its lead generation process and improve its lead conversion rate.

The SaaS company aimed to expand its presence in a specific market and secure more qualified leads across the nation. However, the marketing team’s activities didn’t necessarily align with the sales team’s ambitious goals.

First, Sculpt worked with Collective Data to outline buyer personas for the newly expanded market. The agency also mapped out the customer journey to identify key points to target or remarket to the new audience. To establish goals, the agency set cost-per-lead and cost-per-demo targets for the company’s campaigns.

To reach the company’s target audience of law enforcement professionals, the agency worked with Collective Data to build LinkedIn ad campaigns. The company focused on LinkedIn’s native lead forms, which allow prospects to provide contact information without leaving the platform.

To get more value from their efforts, the agency launched paid search and display remarketing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns using Google Ads. The SaaS company also invested in conversational marketing tools to engage potential customers on other channels and guide them through the sales funnel.

As a result of these combined efforts, Collective Data achieved an 8-12% lead conversion rate from online advertising. Compared to the SaaS company’s previous lead acquisition methods, these efforts decreased the average cost-per-lead by 70%. In addition to helping the B2B company expand into a new market, this outcome contributed to a significant cost savings.

Aligning marketing and sales isn’t always a smooth process. By clarifying customer personas and journey maps from the beginning and setting up complementary cross-channel campaigns, the agency successfully partnered with Collective Data to improve leads and conversions.

Wrapping Up What We’ve Learned About B2B Social Media Marketing

From boosting brand awareness to generating leads, these B2B social media case studies illustrate how businesses can reach target audiences and get results using the right channels. Use these case studies and use cases to guide your team in developing an effective social media strategy for your B2B company or agency clients.

B2B Social Media Marketing Case Studies to Inspire You

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