The following article is an excerpt from “The State of Partner Sales: Studies in Excellence” from HubSpot, Crossbeam, and Partnership Leaders with a foreword from Bobby Morrison, CRO, and Ritu Khanna, VP of Global Partnerships at Shopify. 

The State of Partner Sales is a collection of stories from key players in the industry who are finding success selling with their ecosystem partners. These case studies show how unifying motions between companies and their partners, as well as partnership teams and their sales counterparts, can drive more revenue.

We’re now seeing more HubSpot-sourced customers than ever before. Our dedication to the HubSpot ecosystem, and better visibility into our overlapping ecosystem with Crossbeam, has driven real impact.” — Jenn Keepes, Strategic Partner Marketing Manager at CallRail

CallRail’s key results: 

• Increased adoption of their HubSpot integration by 167%
• Drove 3x HubSpot-sourced opportunities YoY
• Increased the free trial-to-customer conversion rate by 42% for customers who activate the HubSpot integration

Results reported by CallRail

The challenge

CallRail, the award-winning AI-powered lead intelligence platform, needed to enhance their strategic partnership with HubSpot to drive growth and customer satisfaction. Jenn Keepes, who joined CallRail in April 2022 as their Strategic Partner Marketing Manager, spearheaded efforts to evolve their integration from a basic data-sharing partnership to a robust, two-way data collaboration. 

Keepes knew from the beginning that she needed to work shoulder-to-shoulder with her team, her HubSpot App Partner Manager, and other GTM stakeholders to develop a solid strategy for the HubSpot ecosystem that drove significant impact for CallRail.

The challenge in front of her was three-fold: 

• Keepes and CallRail leadership needed additional support for the partnerships team. 
• CallRail knew that she needed to get HubSpot’s attention in a big way to move from a one-way to a two-way data sharing partner. 
• Keepes and her team needed to get the CallRail sales team bought in and enabled to create champions and glean the most value from the ecosystem data. 

The solution: CallRail’s 6 strategies for success

CallRail’s story is multi-layered, with many initiatives happening simultaneously. However, there are 6 key decisions that she and her team made that drove their ultimate success. 

1. Strategic hiring: In 2023, CallRail decided to make a significant investment in their partnerships function by hiring VP of Partnerships Mike Stocker. Stocker brought an increased focus on partner data, with the goal of driving increased partner engagement and ultimately partner-sourced revenue. 

2. Demonstrating value to HubSpot: CallRail focused on showcasing the value of their partnership by releasing significant improvements to the integration and running strategic co-marketing campaigns like the "3 lessons from 3,000 Users," which marked the milestone of 3,000 CallRail users in HubSpot and garnered attention and credibility within HubSpot. They also invested in having a big presence at INBOUND. 

3. Leveraging two-way data sharing: After participating in HubSpot’s additional partner benefit of leveraging account mapping with Crossbeam, CallRail was able to access the data needed to run several campaign iterations to maximize its value. Three use cases stood out:  

• Utilize the customer overlap data to inform their mutual customer base who have the integration of updates. They also targeted this group for case studies and utilization in co-marketing with HubSpot.
• Run campaigns that target mutual customers who did not use CallRail’s free integration, both programmatically in-app and through targeted outreach.
• Impact the co-sell and co-servicing programs. CallRail developed CRM reports and set up Slack notifications through their Ecosystem Revenue Platform as the primary pillars of their strategy. Keepes can find opportunities, get granular information, and share them with HubSpot, all in one place. 

4. Internal enablement and sales training: CallRail created turnkey materials that allow sales reps on both teams to seamlessly speak to the benefits of the partnership between CallRail and HubSpot without interrupting key workflows.

Here’s how:  

• They created a host of training assets for internal and external enablement and delivered them in a way that met customers and sales reps where they are. 
• CallRail aligned sales compensation with the goal of integration adoption to drive customer satisfaction and retention.
• They partnered with RevOps behind the scenes to import and create the integration between their Ecosystem Revenue Platform and their CRM, as well as with Pendo, Marketo, and Zendesk. This allows them to see ecosystem data on customer calls the moment they come in, empowering their sellers to direct the conversation based on their status with HubSpot. 

But CallRail’s success didn’t come overnight. It was a trial and error process that eventually opened up their understanding of the importance of internal collaboration and how other teams were using CRM data. 

As a partner marketer, Keepes had an idea about how the data would best serve her sales team and how to deliver it. However, two months after implementing the reports from the ERP and her CRM, she saw no activity.  

‍“I asked myself, why is no one using this? So we had to iterate. Then I iterated again. I brought in RevOps, I brought in sales leadership, and I brought in our support team from Reveal. I have to make sure we are putting the [ecosystem] data where the sales reps are. I don't want them to have to look anywhere else.” 

This was a key strategy for CallRail to get sales team buy-in. Jenn ensured that the right data was getting to the right people at the right time and in the places their sellers were already working.  

“Interrupting workflows and saying, “This will help you,” doesn’t work. It’s one thing to say it, it’s another thing to get inside their workflows and prove value.” 

In addition, Keepes has taken the time to offer one-on-one support to her sellers. In these meetings, she identifies mutual opportunities, stalled deals, and offers to reach out to HubSpot for intel, influence, and introductions. This has resulted in more wins for her sales team, which in turn, allows her to have more internal buy-in.

5. Finding internal Sales Champions: CallRail’s partnerships team prioritized getting those early wins for sales to demonstrate value and make those sellers champions so others buy-in on the value of partner data.

6. Continuous evangelism: CallRail constantly evangelizes their and HubSpot’s products together, sharing their "better together" story and values, generating momentum, and pushing success further.

These strategies have enabled CallRail to enhance its strategic partnerships, drive growth, and improve customer satisfaction within the HubSpot ecosystem.

__________________________________________

The results 

By leveraging HubSpot’s two-way data sharing, their co-sell and co-service programs, and an Ecosystem-Led Growth strategy in Crossbeam, the CallRail team has reported the following results: 

• Increased adoption of their HubSpot integration by 167%
• 3x HubSpot-sourced opportunities YoY
• 42% higher free trial-to-customer conversion rate for customers who activate the HubSpot integration 

About CallRail 

CallRail makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to turn more leads into better customers. Serving more than 200,000 businesses and integrating with leading marketing and sales software, their marketing analytics and business communications solutions deliver real-time insights that help our customers market with confidence.