Hitting Platinum | ContentNinja became a Platinum Tier HubSpot Partner this year

The title’s obvious enough – ContentNinja became a platinum-tier solutions partner on HubSpot this year!?

We reworked the intro about 17 times, shuffling between “started from the bottom, now we’re here” lyrics and speeches that go “I’d like to thank my parents, amazing team, fantastic clients, Dharmesh Shah, and my phenomenal sense of sarcasm”.?

So here’s a short piece on our journey so far – the good and the bad. But first, some context.?

A word for the uninitiated – what’s HubSpot anyway?

HubSpot, a market leader in CRM and marketing automation, works with agency partners from around the globe to drive the adoption of the product and its methodologies. The HubSpot ecosystem is?currently valued at $4.8 billion?and is scheduled to reach $12.5 billion by 2024.

From Silver to Platinum:?the journey?

Back in 2018, when we first heard of the partner program, we were excited but equally apprehensive. We were a young agency, and the idea of spending about $1000 per month on one software that we had not really personally used was scary. We didn’t have a ton of big clients.?

We personally didn’t know any other agency who had been through the program, and if it ended up not working out, we were tied to that $1000/mo bill for at least a year. For essentially a brand new business, it was a big gamble.

However, after speaking to the HubSpot team, and learning more about other agencies who had grown through the ecosystem, we decided some gambles are worth taking. We were competing in a cost-sensitive, crowded market and?something?had to give if we were to build the agency we had to set out to build.

HubSpot was that edge.?

Getting listed on the partners’ page almost overnight started getting us great leads from the US and Europe, where clients focused more on value and less on costs. Along the way, we also grew our team of dedicated inbound marketing specialists, from 10 folks to a 50+ people community that loves working with HubSpot.

Reaching the platinum tier guarantees our clients that they’re getting service from some of the most highly trained digital experts in India. One of the privileges of being a platinum partner is gaining exclusive access to the latest HubSpot products. It gives ContentNinja the ability to provide your team with the best tools and technology to help you reach your goals.

It was a leap of faith, and it paid off.?

Along the way, we also rebranded ourselves and worked further on our positioning: we decided to play in a niche – and own it. Now, ContentNinja almost exclusively works with B2B SaaS startups and mid-market companies in deep-tech and finance – in India, Singapore, Europe, and North America. Almost 70% of our revenue comes from outside India, up from 20% pre-HubSpot.?

Another bonus to being a platinum-tier agency is getting invited to the top inbound conferences in the world and meeting marketing influencers. This ensures we bring our clients only the latest and most cutting-edge tools, strategies, and insights.?

The road ahead

(L-R: Apoorv Singh, Hubspot Practice Leader; Mayank Gulati, Co-founder and Marketing Director; Shriya Garg, Co-founder and CEO)

Our?entire team is HubSpot certified, and we regularly hold boot camps to raise the bar even further.?

Now, as we focus on what’s ahead – the diamond tier – we are doubling down on the following growth avenues:?

1. HubSpot Center of Excellence?– We are working on building a HubSpot Center of Excellence where we hold rigorous boot camps to turn marketing professionals into expert HubSpot specialists. We then match these experts with great full-time opportunities in the US.
2. CMS Hub –?The new CMS Hub has emerged as a strong competitor to traditional platforms like WordPress and Drupal. With its foundation in the HubSpot CRM and drag-and-drop builder, it’s fast becoming a popular pick with marketers. We have finished 6 HubSpot CMS projects across 3 continents in the last quarter, and are working on building capacity to scale even further.?

We are grateful to HubSpot and the ecosystem that it has built that has allowed businesses like ours to thrive in a competitive landscape.?

Onwards and upwards!