Enonic’s Inbound Marketing Journey
Why a digital platform company chose inbound marketing, and what we actually do with it.
Written by Vegard Ottervig on
Enonic is a cloud and software company offering the open source composable Enonic platform. With Enonic developers get started fast to build solutions without friction, and content editors get a user friendly and flexible content management system.
But how does one market such a complex product? How do we reach out to the world when we’re dealing with advanced conceptual issues like JavaScript, cloud hosting, security architecture, and headless CMS?
We are selective and use smart and modern marketing principles—namely inbound marketing. Read on and see how we have made our inbound journey up until present day.
Why Inbound Marketing?
As you can imagine, Enonic’s product is directed toward other businesses, making us a B2B company. And unlike B2C, the sales cycle in B2B is long. Researching, testing, considering, and buying a new digital platform for an organization is not like buying a drink or even a car. Multiple stakeholders are involved, sizeable budgets are required, and one is expected to deal with the new solution for several years to come.
Inbound marketing is a superior method to nurture leads when the buyer’s cycle is lengthy, the sales process is complex, and many stakeholders are involved. In addition, Enonic wanted international awareness and a firm structure to all our marketing efforts.
Old marketing methods like cold calling and advertising just don’t work anymore. And luckily, we discovered inbound marketing and the marketing automation suite HubSpot.
Editorial Process
While marketing automation is helpful, it’s worthless without quality content at the core. That's why we decided to create a thorough editorial process. The following describes a cyclical process that’s repeated when we’re out of new content or will start marketing toward a new target group.
As a preparation, we first build a persona—a semi fictional representation of our ideal customer in a given segment. Then we arrange a content workshop, where we brainstorm ideas for blog posts and premium content. After this we plot all the proposed blog titles into a publishing calendar, complete with author, funnel stage, and associated premium content.
See also: HubSpot CMS vs. Enonic »
After having set the general course, the time is ripe for fleshing out the individual blog posts with order forms. An order form is like a recipe, a blueprint for the future real life blog post. In an order form we outline the structure and essential information we want to include, and then it’s time for the actual copywriting, the making of the blog posts.
After a process of reviewing from internal experts, the blog post is ready. Following the publishing calendar, one finished blog post after the other is published through Enonic. We also use HubSpot to distribute via social media.
Enonic and HubSpot
As you might know, HubSpot features a CMS in addition to its CRM, marketing automation, and sales process capabilities. But in Enonic we take our own medicine and consequently publishes all content on our own platform. So what function goes where? Here’s an essential overview:
Enonic | HubSpot |
CMS | Campaigns |
Blog posts | CRM |
Landing pages | Lead scoring |
Thank you pages | |
Integrations (forms, CTAs) | RSS |
Asset repository | Social media hub |
APIs | Sales process |
Sales Process
HubSpot replaced our old CRM, and we use the platform to support and help our sales department. Sales get handed qualified leads through lead scoring in HubSpot CRM, where points are given based on defined actions like visiting a page or opening an email.
When people reach SQL (sales qualified lead) status, a deal is created automatically in HubSpot. This supports our sales process tremendously, and all SQLs are followed up systematically by sales and in weekly meetings.
Learn more about our CMS: Short introduction to Enonic Content Studio »
Delighting Customers
One of the central tenets of inbound marketing is that you’re not done with marketing once you have acquired a customer. Delighting existing customers and making brand ambassadors are essential to grow the existing relationship as well as acquiring new ones. Several efforts are undertaken in Enonic to ensure this.
Every month we send two manually curated newsletters, one for developers and one for content editors. Both open and click rates are above industry averages, showcasing the engagement of our customers.
In addition, we have a weekly and monthly blog email digest, quarterly meetups with our community, and several workflow and nurture campaigns. All are aimed at providing our readership with helpful content.
Read more about our awesomeness: What Makes Enonic Awesome »
Results
The result of inbound marketing, of all these efforts?
- An increase in leads
- An increase in pipeline value and revenue
- An increase in subscribers
- An increase in organic traffic
- An increase in general visibility on the web and on the market
- Helping existing customers
- Supporting sales processes
Overall, things are looking good and we’re quite happy we chose the inbound path to grow better.
First published 25 December 2019, updated 12 January 2024.
