Introduction
Imagine spending thousands of pounds attracting potential customers to your business. Your website is getting visitors. People are downloading your information and making enquiries. Your marketing team is generating leads. So far, so good. But what happens next? Does your sales team know which prospects have shown interest? Can they see what those people have been looking at?
Do they know who's been contacted, what was discussed and who needs following up? Or is that information scattered across emails, spreadsheets and different software systems? Because getting someone's attention and turning that interest into a paying customer are two very different things. And that's something software company Talmundo discovered as it prepared to grow.
Its story offers a valuable lesson for any established business investing in marketing but struggling to turn enough enquiries into customers.
The challenge of disconnected tools
Talmundo was founded by Stijn De Groef, a former HR executive frustrated with how complicated employee onboarding had become. The company's software helped businesses introduce new employees to their organisations through a more engaging, mobile-friendly experience. By 2016, Talmundo had found a market for its product and was looking to expand. But there was a problem behind the scenes. Its marketing technology had become fragmented.
The company used Mailchimp for email marketing, Google Analytics for website reporting and WordPress for its website. It also had a custom-built customer relationship management system, or CRM. The trouble was that the CRM wasn't providing the information the team needed, so it wasn't being used effectively. Meanwhile, the marketing team struggled to update the website without technical assistance.
Each tool performed a particular function. But they weren't working together in a way that gave the business a clear picture of its potential customers. Talmundo had marketing tools. What it lacked was a connected process for managing the journey from initial interest to sale. And as the business grew, that became increasingly important. This situation is more common than many business owners realise.
Your marketing agency focuses on website traffic. Your advertising provider reports clicks and enquiries. Your salespeople concentrate on conversations and closing deals. Everyone has their own responsibilities. But who's looking at the entire process? Suppose someone visits your website and downloads a guide. They return a few days later and look at your pricing. Then they submit an enquiry.
By the time a salesperson contacts them, that prospect has already demonstrated considerable interest. But if your sales team doesn't know any of this, the conversation might begin as though the person has never heard of your business. They may ask questions the prospect has already answered. They may send information the prospect has already read. Worse still, nobody might follow up at all.
The marketing has done its job by creating interest, but the business hasn't made the most of that opportunity. Talmundo recognised that connecting its marketing and sales activities would become increasingly important if it wanted to scale.
Bringing marketing and sales together
Talmundo's Head of Marketing, Christina Chaplin, wanted the company to move away from its collection of disconnected tools. Her objective was to improve automation, reporting and coordination between departments. She evaluated several software options, including Pardot, Marketo and Salesforce. Eventually, Talmundo selected HubSpot. The company began using HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional in June 2016.
But the important part of this story isn't simply which software Talmundo bought. It's what the business changed in the way it attracted, managed and followed up with potential customers. Let's look at those changes. One of the first changes involved rebuilding the company's website using HubSpot's content management tools. Previously, the marketing team found it difficult to make changes independently.
With the new system, they had greater control over website content. That mattered because the team could make improvements without constantly depending on technical assistance. They introduced landing pages, calls to action and forms designed to capture enquiries. They also developed automated workflows to support those activities. In other words, the website became more closely connected to the wider customer acquisition process.
Instead of simply providing information, it could help identify interested prospects and support the next stage of communication. This was a particularly important change. Talmundo brought marketing and customer relationship information into a more connected environment. When prospects interacted with the business, those interactions could be recorded and made available to the sales team.
Salespeople could better understand which marketing activities a prospect had engaged with before starting a conversation. That meant they had more context. And context matters. Imagine two potential customers. One has just discovered your business. The other has visited your pricing page several times, downloaded information and attended a webinar. Would you approach them in exactly the same way? Probably not.
The second prospect has already demonstrated a different level of interest. Understanding that difference can help your team have more relevant conversations. The more you understand about a prospect's needs and previous interactions, the better prepared you are to help them make a decision. By mid-2018, Talmundo had expanded its sales team and upgraded to HubSpot's paid sales tools.
One feature the team found especially useful was automated email sequences. These allowed salespeople to create reusable follow-up messages and manage recurring communication more efficiently. Rather than relying entirely on individuals remembering every follow-up, the business had a more structured process. The results were meaningful operationally.
According to HubSpot's case study, Talmundo reported that its sales department could manage two to three times as many accounts as before. The company also reported that the new systems made it substantially easier to prevent leads from being overlooked. That's an important point.
Because a potential customer who never receives the right follow-up can become a missed sale, even when the marketing that attracted them worked perfectly well. Before these changes, much of the marketing team's time went towards carrying out activities rather than analysing their effectiveness. The improved reporting systems allowed Talmundo to examine what was happening across its marketing and sales processes.
The team could review performance, identify which activities were working and make decisions using more complete information. This reduced its dependence on assumptions. Instead of simply asking whether traffic or enquiries had increased, the company could connect more of its marketing activity to what happened afterwards. That's a crucial distinction for any business trying to improve customer acquisition.
Marketing performance shouldn't stop being measured when someone fills in an enquiry form. The business also needs to understand what happens to those enquiries. Are they suitable prospects? Are they contacted? Do they progress through the sales process? And how many eventually become paying customers? Those questions reveal whether marketing activity is contributing to meaningful commercial outcomes.
The reported results
The results reported in HubSpot's published Talmundo case study were substantial. After expanding its use of the platform and improving coordination between sales and marketing, Talmundo reported the following increases over a 12-month period: New leads increased by 313%, and sales conversions increased by 73%.
The company attributed an important part of this progress to improving marketing automation, analytics and cooperation between departments. But these numbers need interpreting carefully. A 313% increase in new leads means the number of leads grew substantially. The reported 73% increase concerns sales conversions, but the published case study doesn't establish that the percentage of leads becoming customers improved by 73%.
Those are different measurements. Nor does the case study independently prove which individual change produced each result. Talmundo had made several improvements over time, including rebuilding its website, introducing conversion tools, improving automation and expanding its sales operation. And these were company-reported results published by HubSpot, the software provider.
Nevertheless, the case demonstrates something commercially relevant. Talmundo invested in making marketing and sales work together, and subsequently reported substantial improvements in its customer acquisition performance. There's another interesting detail. In 2019, Talmundo became part of Talentech, a wider HR technology group.
The growth story discussed here relates to Talmundo's earlier development, particularly the changes implemented between 2016 and 2018.
What businesses can learn
You don't have to sell software or employ a large sales team to recognise the underlying problem. Consider a professional services company generating 40 qualified enquiries every month. Its marketing agency reports that enquiry numbers are improving. The business owner is pleased with the increased interest. But only a handful of those enquiries become customers.
The natural reaction might be to ask the marketing agency to generate even more leads. Before spending more money, though, there are three questions worth investigating. Who receives the enquiry? How quickly do they respond? Is someone clearly responsible for making contact? And if the prospect doesn't answer, what happens next?
A business can spend considerable money attracting people and still have no consistent process for managing their interest. That's an obvious place to investigate before increasing marketing expenditure. When someone makes an enquiry, do you know what they're interested in? Do you know where they came from? Can you see previous conversations and relevant information? Or does every salesperson have to start from scratch?
A properly maintained CRM can help organise this information. But a CRM alone isn't the solution. People still need clear responsibilities, appropriate processes and the discipline to use the system correctly. Technology supports a good sales process. It doesn't automatically create one. Website traffic is useful information. So are advertising clicks and enquiry numbers.
But those figures don't tell you whether you're winning enough business. You also need to understand how many suitable enquiries become customers and what those customers are worth. Otherwise, you can end up optimising marketing activity without understanding its commercial results. That's why lead quality, follow-up and sales conversion deserve attention alongside traffic generation.
Win Customers and the GROW Framework
Talmundo's story illustrates the fourth pillar of the GrowthBoost GROW Framework. W: Win Customers. This pillar focuses on what happens after someone becomes interested in your business. It examines how effectively your website, sales process, enquiry handling and follow-up turn potential customers into paying customers. Talmundo's experience shows why these activities need to work together.
Marketing can attract attention. Your website can generate enquiries. But somebody still needs to understand those prospects, communicate effectively and help them make a buying decision. The story also reinforces another important principle. Every stage of customer acquisition affects the others. If you're attracting unsuitable prospects, your sales team will struggle.
If your offer isn't compelling, stronger follow-up won't automatically make people buy. And if your sales process is disorganised, increasing advertising expenditure can simply generate more opportunities for the business to lose. That's why GrowthBoost examines four connected areas: Get Clarity: Understand your ideal customers. Refine Value: Give them a compelling reason to choose you.
Opportunity Generation: Reach suitable prospects and generate genuine interest. Win Customers: Convert that interest into paying customers. Talmundo didn't use the GrowthBoost framework. Its published case study illustrates the established business principles behind the Win Customers pillar.
Make your customer acquisition process work
Here's the question every business owner should be asking. How many potential customers are you already attracting but failing to convert? Not because your service is poor. Not necessarily because your advertising is ineffective. But because enquiries aren't being handled consistently, customers aren't receiving the right information or opportunities are disappearing between marketing and sales. You won't know until you investigate.
Talmundo's story is a reminder that improving customer acquisition isn't always about getting more people into the process. Sometimes it's about making the existing process work properly. And that can be a much more sensible place to start. GrowthBoost helps established businesses examine how they attract prospects and turn them into paying customers.
Our free GrowthBoost Business Audit examines seven important areas of customer acquisition, including enquiry handling, sales conversion and follow-up. You'll receive an initial assessment score, personalised findings and practical recommendations highlighting potential weaknesses worth investigating. Take Your Free Business Audit
