FunnelBud is a marketing automation agency founded by former Hubspot and Pardot consultants who saw the need for a better marketing automation solution. The owners repeatedly found that after a business signed on with a marketing automation platform, it would often underestimate the time and effort needed to successfully implement the system. Because of this, businesses had to fully rely on agencies like FunnelBud to manage their marketing automation strategy.

This led the agency to seek out a Pardot and HubSpot alternative. FunnelBud decided to partner with SharpSpring to offer something truly unique: A marketing automation platform where agency services are included at no additional cost. This works both for large businesses who simply want to learn best practices and manage the system on their own, as well as smaller clients who can’t manage the platform without full agency support.

FunnelBud has clients that value marketing automation for different reasons. Some customers like to keep it simple and use it for single, self-contained tasks such as sending newsletters, capturing leads, or tracking sales opportunities. Others maximize every functionality and use it for tasks such as complex segmentation, automated workflows, individualized targeting, and aligning sales and marketing teams.

FunnelBud has found that regardless of the specific goals a client has, all clients want to increase sales and achieve a mind-blowing ROI. Throughout its prior experience with HubSpot and Pardot, FunnelBud saw time and time again how companies purchased these marketing automation solutions but were not able to make them profitable.

This is why FunnelBud was looking for a marketing automation game-changer.

Most marketing automation platforms do similar things: capture and track leads, segment those leads and automate communications appropriately, create internal allocation rules and processes, nurture leads through drip campaigns, and tie ROI back to specific campaigns. FunnelBud was familiar with all of these functionalities. It wanted something more.

Since all platforms are (relatively) similar feature-wise, the agency wanted to set itself apart from competitors by providing top-notch automation services at a more competitive price. At the same time, it wanted to use marketing automation as the foundation to exponentially grow its own business. Enter SharpSpring.

The agency wanted to give its clients a full-featured marketing automation platform and the services required to implement it successfully – all at a lower cost than they were used to paying for a platform alone. FunnelBud now bundles its own strategic support in with the software license fee as one marketing automation retainer package. FunnelBud then helps clients appropriately implement a strategy with complex campaign tracking, automated operations, and integration with other tools so they don’t waste valuable time and resources in the process of learning a new platform.

FunnelBud gained 12 new clients in its first six months of pitching this ‘all-in-one’ marketing automation package that exclusively featured SharpSpring. The agency saw its monthly recurring revenue ramp up quickly, and it was able to establish ongoing relationships with each business thanks to the retainer-based type of client that marketing automation attracts. In addition to instantly seeing ROI for itself from SharpSpring, FunnelBud was also able to provide its clients with some quick wins and real results.

The agency started to see great results once it rolled out this new package. The SharpSpring platform itself was super easy for clients to use, and with the help of FunnelBud’s hands-on professional services, clients started to reap the full potential that marketing automation has to offer.

A phone services provider implemented SharpSpring through FunnelBud to drive new business using an inbound webinar strategy. In three months, the client began seeing an ROI worth 10x the fee to FunnelBud – which includes the costs of both SharpSpring and the implementation services.

Another FunnelBud client, a software services company, implemented SharpSpring to generate new leads. Before using SharpSpring, the software client was only producing a handful of leads each month. Within six months of implementing a variety of inbound, web and social tactics, it has generated 90x more unique leads compared to its old, traditional tactics.

FunnelBud uses SharpSpring not only to make marketing automation available to more clients, but also to repeatedly demonstrate its value to these clients with real metrics.