HubSpot
Driving growth and acquisition through HubSpot’s free tools
Year: 2024
Role: Senior Product Designer
Platform: Web & Mobile
Overview
HubSpot's free tools (internally known as micro-apps)—Campaign Assistant, Guide Creator, and Clip Creator—were created to simplify marketing for small business owners and drive user acquisition. These tools not only solve user pain points but also act as entry points into HubSpot's ecosystem, promoting sign-ups, activation, and monetization. This case study explores the design, impact, and strategy behind these tools.
results
HubSpot’s micro-apps. Campaign Assistant, Guide Creator, and Clip Creator have delivered measurable results:
+2.5%
Net Revenue
+2.6%
Order rate
+14%
App adoption
These outcomes show the success of integrating free, user-focused tools with strategic acquisition and monetization goals.
Understanding the growth challenge
Marketing is constantly evolving, and businesses need simple, effective ways to attract new customers. HubSpot’s tools: Campaign Assistant, Guide Creator, and Clip Creator were designed to help users solve key challenges while driving growth and user acquisition.
These AI-powered tools are free to use, making them accessible to marketers and small business owners. By requiring a HubSpot account to access these tools, they also act as an entry point to explore HubSpot’s ecosystem. As a senior product designer, I focused on creating tools that were easy to use, delivered real value, and aligned with business growth goals.
Who are these tools for? understanding our audience
HubSpot’s free tools were created for small business owners who handle marketing, operations, and customer service all at once. They are small teams and entrepreneurs seeking simple tools to help them grow without needing a lot of time or expertise.
These small business owners are:
Time-Starved: They have limited bandwidth to dedicate to marketing but recognize its critical importance.
Resource-Limited: They often lack in-house marketing expertise or budget to outsource professional services.
Growth-Focused: They are eager for tools that allow them to scale their efforts and reach broader audiences.
Now, let’s explore each of HubSpot’s free tools in detail
Guide creator: automating how-to guide creation
Guide Creator is a Chrome web extension designed to help users create step-by-step how-to guides effortlessly. The tool captures screenshots automatically as users navigate through a process, making documentation intuitive and efficient.
Steps Taken:
Scope Workshop: Organized a collaborative workshop with stakeholders to define the key functionalities of the tool and prioritize features for development.
User Research: Interviewed potential users, including small business owners and internal teams, to understand their documentation challenges.
UX Design: Developed a seamless Chrome extension experience that captures actions and organizes them into a visually clear, editable guide.
Guide Editor Development: Created an editor that automatically labels steps, allows cropping and annotating screenshots, and offers customization for target audiences.
Flexible Sharing Options: Built secure sharing features, including public links for external audiences and restricted access for internal use.
Impact:
Sign-Ups: Increased user registrations by 20% as users signed up to access the extension (placeholder metric).
Usage: 60% of users completed and shared their first guide within two days of signing up.
Activation: 30% of Guide Creator users transitioned to using HubSpot's knowledge base tools, demonstrating deeper engagement.
+2.5%
Net Revenue
+2.6%
Order rate
+14%
App adoption
Campaign assistant: empowering agile campaign creation
Campaign Assistant helps users generate multi-channel campaign content effortlessly with AI-powered suggestions. It simplifies campaign creation by reducing the time and expertise needed to develop impactful marketing materials.
Steps Taken:
User Research: I Conducted interviews and surveys to understand pain points in campaign creation.
Design Sprint: Collaborated with cross-functional teams to ideate and prototype solutions.
Onboarding Enhancements: Developed guided walkthroughs and interactive tutorials to streamline user adoption.
Iterative Testing: Conducted usability tests to refine the experience based on feedback.
Impact:
Reduced campaign launch time by 40%.
Increased user satisfaction with onboarding by 30% (placeholder metric).
Drove sign-ups as a key acquisition tool, with 35% of new users activating within the first month (placeholder metric).
+2.5%
Net Revenue
+2.6%
Order rate
+14%
App adoption
Clip creator: streamlined video content creation
Clip Creator is HubSpot's video editing tool designed to help users create professional-looking videos with ease. It began as an MVP focused on simplicity and gradually evolved into an advanced AI-powered editor.
Core features of the two versions:
Version 1 (MVP):
A basic editor supporting static images and simple transitions.
Text overlays for minimal customization.
Focused on validating the concept and attracting early adopters.
Version 2 (Advanced):
AI-powered voice-over generation and script creation from user prompts.
Interactive timeline editor with advanced, customizable transitions.
Contextual video sourcing based on user inputs to enhance storytelling.
Steps taken to evolve Clip Creator:
MVP Launch: Released a minimal viable product with basic functionality to test market interest and collect feedback.
User Feedback Collection: Interviewed users and analyzed data to identify gaps and improvement opportunities.
Advanced Feature Development: Introduced AI-driven capabilities like voice-over, script generation, and contextual video sourcing.
Usability Testing: Iterated on the advanced version based on feedback from multiple rounds of testing to ensure user satisfaction.
Impact:
Sign-Ups: Drove 25% of new user registrations during the MVP phase and sustained engagement with advanced features (placeholder metric).
Usage: 70% of users exported at least one video within their first week.
Activation: 35% of Clip Creator users adopted HubSpot's social media scheduling tools for distribution.
+2.5%
Net Revenue
+2.6%
Order rate
+14%
App adoption
Bridging users into HubSpot
HubSpot's free tools not only solve immediate user needs but also act as a "product bridge"—a strategic entry point that introduces users to the wider HubSpot ecosystem. Key UI elements, such as banners, modals, and contextual prompts, were integrated to guide users from tool usage to deeper engagement within HubSpot's offerings. These elements ensured a seamless transition and maximized user exposure to relevant features.
Examples of product bridging with UI elements:
Campaign Assistant: After creating campaigns, banners and modals suggested exploring email automation and CRM tools for managing outreach, with direct call-to-action buttons.
Guide Creator: Contextual prompts, displayed as non-intrusive tooltips and inline notifications within the editor, introduced users to HubSpot’s knowledge base tools. These prompts were strategically placed to appear at key moments in the user journey, encouraging adoption of team collaboration features.
Clip Creator: Interactive modals highlighted HubSpot’s social media scheduling and analytics tools after video exports, linking directly to relevant features.
Challenges in driving adoption and growth
Building and scaling these free toolscame with its own set of challenges:
Targeting the right users:
The primary challenge was reaching and attracting users who were ready to adopt a CRM and could be successfully bridged from single-point solutions into HubSpot's broader ecosystem.
Ensuring the tools appealed to small business owners at the right stage of growth required constant iteration in messaging and outreach strategies.
Bridging single-point solutions to the ecosystem:
Users often viewed the tools as standalone solutions, which meant we needed to create seamless entry points and clear pathways to introduce them to HubSpot's broader functionalities, ensuring activation and monetization.
Managing complexity with small teams:
Each tool operated like a mini start-up, requiring the team to juggle fast-paced development, stakeholder alignment, and multiple moving parts.
Balancing competing priorities while ensuring product quality under tight timelines added significant pressure.
Despite these challenges, focused teamwork, clear prioritization, and iterative development helped overcome these hurdles, ensuring that each tool delivered both user and business value.
Let’s talk!
If you have a project in mind or are simply interested in finding out more, get in touch and let’s get things moving.