Vanity Studios - Business Automation Case Study

Vanity Studios is a top photography studio based in London. The company offers innovative photoshoots for individuals and groups. It also provides marketing for clients across multiple industries.

The Challenge for Vanity Studios

Vanity Studios had a CRM system that was serving the company’s niche. However, as the company grew, its CRM system became limited. The company also wanted to have a better relationship with its clients and improve customer service.

It was also crucial that the new solution considered Vanity Studio’s niche area of business. The system had to match the company itself and its business processes. Due to the ongoing limitations of the CRM, a solution was becoming more urgent.

The Automated Solution With Versatile HubSpot

Emeka Ikechi, the CEO and Founder of Vanity Studios, had looked at HubSpot for about two years. Whenever he looked on the internet to see how to do something, he would find HubSpot’s blog posts.

The blogs always appeared first in the results. Over time, these search results from HubSpot had built trust and authority. Emeka realised he could use HubSpot to help him automate many of the business processes.

Before HubSpot, staff performed manual tasks that did not make sense business-wise or financially. PlusYourBusiness! (PYB) used their HubSpot expertise to help Vanity Studios automate the necessary processes.

Using a collaborative approach, Emeka could explain to PYB what he needed to do for the business. The PYB team then advised on HubSpot's capabilities and how the automation would work.

The original business model for Vanity Studios was as follows:

• Vanity Studios would put an advert on Google
• A customer reads the advert and calls into the studio
• The company books the photo shoot with the customer
• An order form for each customer to make a record
• The photo shoot then takes place at the studio

After this slow manual process, there was no follow-up with the customer. It would rely on Emeka to start an internal process manually. He would have to ask the sales team to search for the customer details and then call them.

Vanity Studios wanted leads to go into their system immediately. The leads could then work their way through an automated process. This process would be far more efficient than relying on people to make the follow-ups.

Plus Your Business! helped Vanity Studios to automate many of the manual processes using the HubSpot platform. The customer journey is now smoother and easier for the company to manage.

The automated sequence of emails in HubSpot guides each customer through the steps. The customers will receive an email or two, depending on their stage in the sales funnel process. Vanity Studios can now automate practically anything.

For example, the company can:

• Automate order forms
• Automate images
• Send automated emails to customers to leave a review
• Manage repeat bookings quickly

Because the company was dealing with many customers, automation made everything easier. For example, PYB recommended automating customer service reviews and surveys.

Automating this area has helped Emeka eliminate the manual process of asking somebody to follow up with the customer. The automated email can go in a few hours or days. The customer can then leave a review on Trustpilot or Google.

The Results Since Using HubSpot

The company has managed to achieve one of its primary goals. Vanity Studios now has greater oversight over its customers. The automated sales funnel gives far more clarity. Communication is more responsive and professional.

Business processes are quicker, and information is in real-time. Emeka said, “I feel like I can be away from my business instead of being close to it. Because of the pipelines, I can even be at home and see in real-time what is happening.”

Before HubSpot, the company used spreadsheets to manage their reporting requirements. Using spreadsheets was very cumbersome as there were “data heavy.” The company had to rely on staff inputting the correct data.

The reporting process is a lot quicker than it used to be. Because of the automated processes, Vanity Studio has access to detailed reporting capabilities. Emeka said, “The reporting in HubSpot is a massive timesaver”.

When a client fills in a form at the front end, most information goes straight into the right place. At the end of the month, Emeka has granular data. It helps him see what is making the business money and losing it.

Emeka can create a list by using one of the HubSpot features. For example, all clients between point A and point B in the year spent a certain amount of money and came from a particular lead source.

Emeka said, “I don’t have to rely on linear data anymore. I can be a lot more dynamic.” It also does not matter what data Emeka needs. Because the data points have been input correctly, he has data month to month quickly at his fingertips.

When Emeka was doing quarterly reports manually. He would have had to go through several spreadsheets and check that the data was correct. This process would have taken, on average, about eight hours.

Using HubSpot for reporting has drastically reduced the time spent creating reports. On average, it takes 30 minutes to create the same report, as everything is already in HubSpot.

Emeka said, “I now have a better handle on my business. Because I can see which areas are performing better.” He can quickly see how many leads there were per month for the sales team and the associated bookings and contacts.

Vanity Studio has more data than ever before. This extra data means meetings are far more productive. Because the information is “in black and white,” you cannot argue with accurate data. HubSpot is “like having an extra person in the business.”