In the almost one year long cooperation, we supported AlbertHR in the software architecture & development of their SaaS solution. In addition, we helped to set up the strategic marketing.
To the websiteIn its ruling of 14 May 2019, the European Court of Justice requires the implementation of a time recording system in all EU states. In the course of this fundamental change in the law, Commerzbank also asked itself what impact this would have on its many medium-sized corporate customers and how it could support them in the implementation.
After lengthy research into the existing offering and the need arising from the change in the law, the decision was made to develop our own HR solution under the auspices of the Main Incubator. The software was to cover the basics of HR software, include working time recording in line with the latest guidelines and be made available to Commerzbank customers at favourable conditions. Due to the great demand, the offer was later extended to non-Commerzbank customers.
A software solution without high acquisition costs that is available anytime and anywhere. Is that possible?
An important concern was the provision of easily accessible software without high initialisation and onboarding efforts. As a result, the Main Incubator started looking for an external software partner who had the necessary know-how for this project. Finally, twigbit was brought on board. In the following period, a long-term and extremely productive collaboration developed between us and the team around AlbertHR. At the beginning, we only worked on the conceptual software architecture and technical implementation, but in the course of the cooperation, which lasted almost a year, we later also supported AlbertHR in digital marketing and strategic sales.
After many intensive coding sessions, AlbertHR was finally ready for release. And already the next question arose? How do SMEs find out about this new intelligent HR solution? Since the AlbertHR marketing team was still being set up at that time, twigbit was also asked for support in this area. In the following weeks and months, we jointly developed a market entry strategy and implemented various measures to increase brand awareness and build a customer base.
With regard to our sales organisation, we at twigbit trust Hubspot completely. Based on our positive experiences, we decided to implement Hubspot for AlbertHR as well and organise the entire CRM through it. In addition to building an intuitive customer database, we developed a clearly defined sales pipeline that enabled a sales process that was as automated and structured as possible. In this way, the team, which was growing at an early stage, could be quickly unleashed on potential customers with fast onboardings.
LinkedIn and Google Ads offer optimal foundations for B2B marketing in the early phase of a SaaS product
With approximately 10 million users living in Germany and a rather educated, business-oriented target group,LinkedIn has enormous potential for B2B marketing. In the "Facebook for business", advertising companies can attract attention primarily with content-heavy posts. For AlbertHR, we decided to use the lead-gen form, which was still relatively new at the time. Here, the interested party can download the offered content piece (in our case an explanatory white paper on the ECJ ruling) by sending in their contact details. The big advantage, however, is that the contact details no longer have to be entered at all, but are fed in directly using the LinkedIn data. Furthermore, the user does not have to leave the LinkedIn page at any time, which prevents a significant obstacle to possible conversion.
For a better understanding of the actual target group, we divided the campaign according to various target group criteria, such as company size, age and position in the company. In addition, we designed different advertisements in order to be able to further optimise the image and text material in the course of the campaign.
In summary, the use of the lead-gen form proved to be very effective and scored with convincing cost-per-lead values.
For advertising with Google Ads, we started with extensive keyword research using the GA Keyword Planner, among other tools. We evaluated the organic search terms of our competitors as well as our own thoughts on keywords and more specific long-tail keywords. The campaigns were subsequently divided into different keyword segments in order to have a good overview of the success of the individual subject areas from the beginning. In the following, we developed different ad formats in order to be as broadly positioned as possible at the beginning. After the start of the campaigns, we began the continuous evaluation and optimisation process so that we could sustainably reduce CPC and CPL here as well. Important for this was the prior establishment of a reliable conversion measurement with the help of Google Ads and the Google Tag Manager.
In contrast to many competitors, AlbertHR was able to score from the beginning with a native app solution for iOS and Android, which provided the user with a simple and practical option for recording working hours, as well as other functions such as scanning documents. In order to ensure optimal findability of the app, we optimised the store entries in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store with the help of various ASO tools. As a basis, we carried out an initial keyword research to identify concise core terms and long-tail keywords that had not yet been used much. Based on this research, we were able to adjust the metadata, such as app name, description and keyword field (iOS), which leads to better organic findability over time. This means that in the long term, organic customers, who are therefore acquired without advertising costs, can also be acquired via the App Store. In the past, app stores were often underestimated in marketing, but today more and more companies are discovering the great potential that this area holds.
For almost a whole year, twigbit accompanied the Main Incubator in the development and market launch of AlbertHR. The technically stable framework of the SaaS solution forms a sustainable basis for continuous improvements and the introduction of new HR features. In addition, we were able to support our partner in the strategic orientation of marketing and the first campaign placements. AlbertHR and twigbit - it was definitely a good fit!
