Today, consumers are smarter than ever and know when they’re being marketed to. It’s for this reason that we’ve seen a transformation of the industry in the last decade. 

Now, marketers are looking to inbound marketing tactics to help draw in new customers. Today, it’s not enough to have a great product and sharp taglines. Companies must now become industry knowledge epicenters for everything customers need to know. 

Articulate Marketing, a content-driven inbound digital marketing agency for B2B tech companies, is one of the examples that this is possible.

Recently, we sat down with Articulate’s CEO and Founder, Matthew Stibbe, to learn more about the challenges leading up to investing in a solution like Databox, how it overcame those challenges, and of course, the results.

The Challenge

The main mission for Articulate’s customers is to get found, drive conversions, and make sales. Over the years, they had the pleasure of working with big companies like Google and Microsoft, but they also worked with Mom and Pop sized companies, too. 

From the beginning, Stibbe knew the Articulate team needed a single point of view of their integrated digital marketing efforts. Stibbe looked at countless companies but soon became jaded, skeptical, and frustrated at the whole demo process. 

It wasn’t until Stibbe hired analysts a few years back that Databox was put at the forefront of data analytics dashboards. Stibbe didn’t only want to use Databox for internal purposes but also to improve the reporting for Articulate’s clients.

Here are the challenges Articulate faced before Databox: 

• Client Reporting: Manual process of copying and pasting was not consistent or reliable. Clients weren’t as informed as they could be, which resulted in a few leaving.

“Before using Databox, it was a frustrating, manual process of going to the HubSpot dashboard, taking screenshots, and pasting those into PowerPoint,” Stibbe said. 

• Time: Prior to using Databox agency reporting Articulate was spending at least two full workdays compiling reports.

“It took us up to an hour per month per client to complete each of these reports,” said Stibbe. “All of the time put into these reports really impacted our team’s main tasks.”

• Opportunity Cost: Two workdays per month are taken away from Articulate’s everyday work. The monotonous task of copying and pasting screenshots into monthly reports drained the staff and company morale.

“If you’ve got a high powered, highly expensive, highly trained analyst and you tell them they’re going to spend at least two days a month pasting into PowerPoints, it’s demotivating,” Stibbe said. “This all makes our reports not done as well or as often or as diligently as it should be which resulted in a deeper cost which was demotivated staff and unenthusiastic clients who weren’t getting good reporting. Time spent doing these reports is time taken away from examining the data to see where the dips are and where we can dive into a bit further to change it.”

The Solution

Finding the right solution wasn’t an easy process. After countless demos and frustrations, the team never ended up selecting a Databoard analytics system. 

Once a new analyst familiar with Databox was brought on and shared how much time it would save the company, Articulate’s minds were made up. The Articulate Marketing team uses Databox in two capacities – for agency reporting dashboards and client reporting.

Articulate’s Top Integrations

Stibbe’s team began integrating its own account into Databox from Xero, Instagram Business, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn Company Pages, Ahrefs, Twitter, HubSpot CRM, and HubSpot Marketing. When it comes to dashboards, the team built out dashboards for sales activity, marketing, new business deals, financials, social media, and SEO. From there, Articulate was able to set Goals and notifications through Scorecards, Alerts, and Slack. 

Here’s how Databox solved Articulate’s challenges:

• Client Reporting: Upon connecting HubSpot CRM/Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Twitter, Facebook Pages, Ahrefs, and LinkedIn. Articulate also was able to set up goals and alerts to ensure all KPIs were met. Clients now have access to create custom dashboards if desired outside of Articulate’s ready-made Databox templates.

“We deliver reports through Databox’ agency reporting software for all our retained clients,” said Stibbe. “Clients have a set of dashboards we deliver. What’s even more valuable for them is the email dashboard versions. Articulate’s Account Managers get these emails daily for all our clients.”

• Time: Having all software integrated into one system drastically decreased the amount of time spent on building out reports.

• Opportunity Cost: Articulate’s internal use of Databox to bring all aspects of its business into one system allowed it to pinpoint any issues and regularly improve upon them.

“Internally, we use it for dashboarding for ourselves, which includes marketing, social media, sales activity,” shared Stibbe. “I’ve also set up an integration with our finances. Not only do we have a full-funnel dashboard of marketing into sales but also marketing into revenue and profit. I can see across all my screens the KPIs for my business at one time.”

The Results

Streamlining any service when dealing with multiple clients is never an easy feat. With Databox, Articulate was able to significantly improve its reporting efforts and its internal day-to-day management of those reports.

Articulate started using this custom dashboard software a year and a half ago and uses Databox for 10 clients right now. As each account is onboarded, they are presented with Databox as part of its included services.

Here are Articulate’s Databox results:

• Client Reporting: Manual process of copying and pasting was not consistent or reliable. 

“Databox dashboard reporting has had a significant contribution to reducing client loss for the last year and a half or so,” said Stibbe.

• Time: Articulate teams’ time spent building out reports went from two full days each month down to an hour or two.

“The payoff was time-saving for the consultants reporting to clients,”  Stibbe commented. 

• Opportunity Cost: In addition to boosting employee morale and improving its own service offerings, Articulate was able to enhance its client analytics and reporting consistency.

“The real saving is the opportunity cost – the poor reporting, poor analysis, and occasional lapse or absence of it gets expensive quick,” said Stibbe. “With Databox, Articulate saved £100s per month and helped with client retention.”