Case Study
Pavilion
Pavilion is the leading global community for over 10,000 worldwide revenue professionals. Members enjoy access to 75 courses and immersive learning experiences, hundreds of in-person and virtual events worldwide annually, and a Knowledge Hub of more than 1,300 resources specifically designed for revenue leaders.
As an existing and tenured HubSpot customer and power user of HubSpot Marketing Hub, Pavilion approached Media Junction with aspirations to expand their use of HubSpot. They knew they needed to streamline redundancies on how they manage their large library of events, courses, and member resources. But exactly how, they were unsure.
Project Objectives:
- Display an events calendar on their website that automatically populates from their event system “Bizzabo”.
- Create a public filterable directory of their course catalog that would draw information from their Learning Management System (LMS) “Docebo”.
- Reduce the amount of cost needed to manage events and courses in 2 locations (public website and 3rd party platform).
- Make it easier for visitors to find resource information that is relevant to them.
Challenges
Hard To Find Available Resources
Resources were scattered across a public-facing website and were difficult for visitors to find. Once found, there was no easy way to search, sort, or filter results. Scrolling through pages of events and courses was preventing prospective members from seeing the full value the organization could offer.
Over Engineered Back End Management
The website was “headless”, powered by WordPress on the back end and React on the front end. This framework, which used custom coding to ensure modules were rendered appropriately on the front end, made the website difficult to work with while also enforcing an ongoing dependency on outside contractors for key updates. Every event and course had to be entered in 2 locations, both on the website and a 3rd party tool.
These challenges create an expensive situation, slow us down at a time when going fast is key to our ability to drive results, and prevent us from getting full use of the tools (such as HubSpot) that we are heavily invested in as core parts of our marketing tech stack. From a risk management standpoint, it also means that Pavilion is not in full control of our own website.”Kathleen Booth SVP Marketing & Growth @ Pavilion
Solutions
Events HubDB + Bizzabo Custom Integration
All Pavilion events were entered into Bizzabo, their events management system. This information was the most accurate and complete. Knowing that the maintenance of this information was already occurring Media Junction devised a 2 part solution:
Step 1: Database
HubSpot’s HubDB was leveraged to store event data so it could seamlessly be displayed on the website. This essentially recreated the process that Pavilion had in WordPress where administrators could enter event information to be displayed on the website. The problem with this solution is that it did not meet the goal of reducing costs in managing events. There were still duplicate entries occurring.
Step 2: Automatic data population
Bizzabo had no off-the-shelf integrations into HubSpot but they did have an open API. So a custom integration was developed to sync event data into HubDB rows. Each time a new event is published or an event is updated a daily sync overwrites the existing HubDB table with the most current event information.
Events HubDB + Bizzabo Custom Integration
Similar to our approach to solving for events management a HubDB table was created and an API would sync current course information via the HubDB API. But there was one additional step we implemented to save administrative time. Courses also had their very own page on the website that was critical to marketing and seo goals. So step 3 was developed:
Step 3: Dynamically created course pages
Since we were pulling in all available course details into a HubDB table, we were able to use the dynamic pages feature to allow pages to be created and all the information on them to come from HubDB. 75+ courses could now be displayed with no additional page creation on the website.
WordPress to HubSpot Enterprise CMS Migration
While we had developed solutions that met the operational cost savings for Pavilion staff, we still needed to solve for an effortless visitor experience when trying to find resources relevant to them.
We designed HubSpot templates that were populated directly from each HubDB database. In these templates, we took special care to develop searching, sorting, and filtering mechanisms for visitors so they could narrow down to their exact interests and not be overwhelmed by the vast amount of information. We even went beyond the scope of needs and developed 2 views of events, a list and a calendar view.
We took solving for our customer’s customers very seriously.”Kim Wilcox VP @ Media Junction
The Pavilion website is the “front door” for prospective and current members, corporate members, partners, instructors, investors, and other stakeholders. It is what sets the tone for our brand and plays a key role in driving revenue for the organization. This project required us to be highly selective when choosing an agency we could count on. After several projects with Media Junction, I know that I can count on them to deliver."Kathleen Booth SVP Marketing & Growth @ Pavilion
Results & Insights
IMPACT: Lower Costs
Time is money, and paying for people’s time is the most money. Since launching our multi-part solution for Pavilion, administrative efforts to manage events and courses on the website have been cut by over 95%. Virtually all management of these resources happens in their respective 3rd party tools.
IMPACT: More Traffic
Since launching the course catalog has almost 3xed in traffic with a meaningful reduction in bounce rate. Not only was SEO preserved, but proper coding of the website gave search traffic a hearty boost.
IMPACT: Higher Registrations
Bizzabo event registrations have increased by 470%. Needless to say, prospective members, current members, and Pavilion have all felt an enormous impact from these solutions.
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