An Inbound Marketing Case Study: Earning 756% ROI From A SaaS Webinar Campaign

J Turner Research is a nationwide multifamily industry research firm offering real customer insights to empower multifamily owners and management companies.With the firm’s data, software, and services, they help their clients enhance customer satisfaction, increase closing ratios, improve online reputation, and optimize resources.



As a research firm, J Turner naturally has a lot of valuable content and resources. Every month, the firm surveys more than 120,000 residents and prospects, and tracks the online reputation of more than 55,000 properties across the nation.

With this data, the firm publishes industry-trusted research papers, formal whitepapers, and presentations at major industry conferences somewhere between 2-4 times annually. Yet, despite their well-crafted content assets and presentations, J Turner was unable to generate leads from any of these pursuits.

 The Diagnosis

Based on our observations, we found the following root issues:

	There were no strategies in place to capture and nurture leads.	While they were producing content that is valued by their buyer personas, they were simply sending them to their contact list and offering them as direct downloads via trade publications.  There were no campaigns built around these content pieces to help push prospects and leads further down the purchase funnel.
	The reach is limited.	By sending whitepapers and research papers solely to those already on their list, the firm was drastically limiting the reach of their content and in turn, diminishing the top of their funnel.  Similarly, presenting at an industry conference, although highly respectable, only limits that transfer of information to those in attendance at that session at that particular industry conference if there are no means in place to share it with a wider audience.

The diagnosis? Well, it’s not Lupus (points for getting the reference).

What we found is that we needed to implement strategies to reach more people and generate form-based leads in exchange for their access to the research paper and develop a logical flow for pushing those most engaged towards a sales call for purchasing J Turner’s software, Ratings Tracker.

Our Inbound Strategies:

1. Turn J Turner's presentation into a webinar.
   
   We transformed J Turner’s industry conference presentation into a live webinar (and later on-demand) to broaden the audience for it.
   
2. Promote the webinar on various channels.
   
   The webinar was promoted not just to their list of 15,000+ active contacts with workflows but through targeted Facebook and LinkedIn Ads as well, consequently increasing J Turner’s reach and putting their content in front of the people that mattered — their buyer personas.
   
   Supplemental forms of promotional content including blog articles and infographics surrounding the topic were also crafted and shared as part of the promotional strategy.
   
3. Put content offerings behind forms.
   
   We placed J Turner’s content offerings behind a form to generate new leads and re-convert old ones. We optimized this form to be seamless and smart so J Turner’s audience who are used to accessing these resources without a form won’t find the change intrusive or annoying. 
4. Implement lead nurturing.
   
   We took the top of funnel leads and created meaningful nurturing points. After accessing the research study, the leads were pushed through a logical sequence towards setting up a demo of the Ratings Tracker software with a sales rep, ultimately turning them into customers.
   
   As part of the nurturing strategy,  we took advantage of J Turner's Free ORA Score Request offering from their Ratings Tracker software and directed leads towards the offering.
   
   We then produced an animated video (seen below) explaining the value of an ORA Score which leads are pushed to see next. In the explainer video, leads get to see the Ratings Tracker in action, piquing their curiosity and interest in the software. Additionally, the explainer video served as a highly engaging social media ad for J Turner.
   
   Finally, they were pushed to another landing page specifically to speak with the sales team about getting Ratings Tracker set up for their property.
   
   
   

Results

The inbound campaign was a success! The webinar generated 502 new leads, out of which 55 requested the free offering (ORA SCORE) which pushes them down the purchase funnel.