BioMedGPS SmartTRAK Plays the Long Game With Content Marketing

How we helped a medical device research company increase traffic and grow leads

Overview

SaaS startup BioMedGPS SmartTRAK, a leading B2B provider of market data, advisory services, and analysis for the orthopedic, wound, and neuro therapies medical device markets, needed help to transition from traditional, outbound-only sales efforts, to an inbound marketing strategy, driving leads from content.

Background

Founded in 2010, BioMedGPS’ SmartTRAK Business Intelligence is the first-ever online medical device business research and analytics platform designed for the orthopedic, wound and neuro therapies markets. SmartTRAK is an all-in-one BI portal that combines real-time data and analysis, market trends and forecasts, and competitive revenues and shares. . 

Utilized by the top 15 Orthopedic/Spine implant manufacturers and 14 of the top 15 Wound Care companies, SmartTRAK transforms the delivery of healthcare business information into a cost-effective solution for life science corporations to increase proficiency, improve productivity and reduce cost.

The Problem

Growing Revenue Required Marketing Supplement Sales-Driven Lead Generation Efforts

To gain an understanding of the challenges BioMedGPS SmartTRAK faced, we performed a marketing assessment and gap analysis. The findings helped us create a report which established an inbound marketing plan. The study included an evaluation of the existing website, content marketing offers, website traffic growth activities, competitive positioning, keyword research, lead conversion, and lead nurture opportunities. We also took a look at how leads had been generated in the past and noticed nearly total reliance on sales outbound efforts.

“Interestingly enough, BioMedGPS was a completely online content company that had never marketed itself using its own content on the web, and certainly had not syndicated its content using social media. Initial analysis revealed what amounted to a greenfield opportunity where nearly zero leads were driven by organic traffic," said Rebecca Gonzalez, our co-founder.  "We established the inbound marketing opportunities to go after first, in addition to coordinating integration of marketing activities with the existing sales outbound efforts,” 

To start, we utilized the all-in-one marketing platform, HubSpot. “HubSpot has simple-to-use tools for blogging, landing pages, email and most importantly, data analytics so we could quickly understand what was performing, and optimize our strategy," said Gonzalez.

Our Solution

Inbound Marketing Combined Powerfully With Sales CRM

At the inception of SmartTRAK, there was almost no competition for their online business intelligence products. As time went on, competition entered, and the marketing team needed to support sales with increased lead generation efforts. The SmartTRAK subscription cost was five to six figures annually with a great deal of effort involved in the sales process. Getting new leads had become challenging for the marketing and sales teams who realized that their prospects researched their purchase options online and found very little information about the SmartTRAK product on the web. 

We worked with SmartTRAK to establish marketing goals:

• Increase organic traffic to the website consistently every month
• Increase the number of MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) by 5% a month

Based on the goals, we then recommended that SmartTRAK do the following to grow their business:

• Create a consistent inbound playbook with specific formulas and recipes for promoting the SmartTRAK content via blog posts, email, lead popups, and downloadable content offers.
• Train the entire analyst team on social media and encourage its utilization in promoting the unique analyst perspective in the analysts' particular specialty field
• Ensure keywords associated with SmartTRAK's areas of coverage and analysis were used consistently on the website, blog posts and landing pages
• A weekly email newsletter to both existing SmartTRAK Customers and to Prospects pushing content offers and events became a pillar tactic
• Use public relations and social media to syndicate content consistently
• Ensure anytime SmartTRAK was cited by key customers in studies or annual reports, that this too was promoted as part of the ongoing content syndication strategy (and ultimately link building)
• Increase ROI on event and trade show participation with pre- and post-show promotion via blog, email, social, and PR
• Implement HubSpot Sales CRM for MQL distribution, account assignment, and deal tracking

Because SmartTRAK was a paid subscription service containing extensive research and analysis, we were lucky in that content creation was never an issue. However, having a strategy to decide which content should be shared and used for downloadables was critical. And getting the BioMedGPS SmartTRAK leadership team to buy in to the inbound marketing philosophy of providing helpful information to prospects (e.g. giving away their paid content) was also key to long term success. 

We continually used the data in HubSpot to provide feedback to the team as to what content was proving to be the most valuable in generating views, downloads, and thus MQLs. We also moved the website over to HubSpot in order to gain even more efficiencies with changes and updates to content. Finally getting the sales team on board with HubSpot was the crucial final success strategy. 

The Results

MQLs Increased at a Rapid Rate

Through an inbound marketing solution, within six months, traffic from organic search had grown by 80%, and traffic from social media efforts went from zero to a substantial force almost instantly.  And, SmartTRAK saw their MQLs to the Sales team increase at a rapid rate which was truly the end game.

• Organic traffic doubled the first year and continues to grow 24% year over year
• There were only 7 keywords driving traffic when we started (all branded), compared to now at 682 organic keywords in the top 100 positions
• New contacts increased by 53% year over year
• Traffic from social media became an essential part of the marketing mix for content syndication
• Blog traffic (no blog to begin with), has grown to over 1,000 views a month with year-over-year growth of 85%
• MQLs which were not tracked before HubSpot implementation doubled after the first year, and continue to grow about 15% per year. 

All of this was accomplished without a substantial redesign to the website, although we did move it to HubSpot after the first year and continued to add pages as the need arose. Now, armed with our trove of data regarding which content and keywords drive traffic, we are undergoing a substantial website improvement, and will launch with key content pillar pages around SmartTRAK covered areas of orthopedics, wound care and neuro therapies to up SmartTRAK's SEO game even more. 

And finally, we had the very desirable problem of having more MQLs then sales resources to deal with them, so we implemented Lead Scoring in Hubspot to prioritize MQLs for the sales team's efforts. Tracking the Closed/Won Deals in HubSpot and tagging contact records as "Customers" closed the loop and gave the marketing team even more information with which to make decisions.

Hear directly from Lindsey Wolejko, Director of Marketing for SmartTRAK about her experience with Orange Marketing.

And from SmartTRAK's Found and CEO Sharon O'Reilly:

"Orange Marketing led a full HubSpot inbound marketing implementation which has taken our company to the next level in terms of marketing sophistication. Our team was led step-by-step in implementing our inbound marketing strategy including hands on help with the content creation process, significant site SEO updates, and full implementation of CTAs utilizing all of our content. Within months our website started generating inbound leads which ultimately turned into revenue by year-end."

Orange Marketing was proud to see BioMedGPS SmartTRAK make the Orange County Business Journal's List of Largest Women-Owned Firms this year, and we know their unfaltering commitment to inbound marketing and MQL creation and utilization definitely contributed.