MarketStar, a global leader in outsourced sales and marketing services, needed a website that could keep pace with a growing content library and a modern HubSpot setup, but freelance developers kept leaving the job half-finished. Hatchi stepped in to rebuild the site properly, connect it to HubSpot, and hand the MarketStar team the ability to run it themselves.
What Was the Challenge?
MarketStar's website had fallen behind. It was outdated, lacking the functionality and user experience a modern digital presence needs, and it wasn't integrated with HubSpot in any way that supported the sales and marketing team's day-to-day work. MarketStar had already tried to fix this themselves, hiring freelance developers through sites like Fiverr and Upwork, but after multiple attempts the work kept coming back insufficient or incomplete. What they actually needed wasn't just someone who could code, but a specialist who understood HubSpot deeply enough to build a custom integration tailored to how MarketStar's teams actually worked, and who could pick up a project already in motion and finish it properly. Underneath the surface-level design problems sat three specific issues: a vast content library with no real system for organising or surfacing it, no way to monitor online lead activity or segment contacts by interest, and a website the internal team couldn't maintain or update without going back to a developer every time.
Our Approach
Hatchi rebuilt the site around a custom theme made up of fully editable modules, so despite being custom-coded, the MarketStar team could create and maintain new pages independently going forward, without needing to contact Hatchi for routine changes. To solve the content problem, an intricate navigation system and a proper tagging and organisation framework were built so the right content could actually reach the right contacts. MarketStar's old "Resources" section was rebuilt entirely as a "Growth Hub." On the CRM side, every site button was converted into a HubSpot CTA to give the team real engagement tracking, and automations were put in place to categorise contacts based on the pages they viewed, grouping them into personas even where form data alone wouldn't have been enough. Engagement scoring based on website activity was layered on top, all website forms were updated with properly formatted fields to support reporting, automations, and list segmentation, and progressive profiling was introduced so each contact record built up richer information naturally as people moved through the site. As MarketStar's VP of Global Marketing, Philip Mickey, put it: "It was about finding a developer that could pick up something and help us finish it but also help us get better at what we do that is what Hatchi did from the beginning."
What Were the Results?
MarketStar now has a website its own team can run day to day, built on a HubSpot integration that actually tells them what's happening with their leads. The old Resources section, once just a static list, is now a structured Growth Hub that surfaces the right content to the right contacts. Every button click and page view feeds back into HubSpot as usable data, so contacts are segmented into personas based on real behaviour rather than guesswork from a form fill. And because the theme was built to be fully editable, the marketing team can create and update pages themselves, without waiting on a developer or an agency to make routine changes.
What MarketStar Said
"Collaborative, understanding, PATIENT, and very smart with what to do and what not to do. They took a pretty messy situation (old agency, bad website templates) and made it seamless. It's refreshing to have an agency TEACH you as they go. We could not be happier with them." — Philip Mickey, Vice President of Global Marketing, MarketStar
The Takeaway
Freelancers can be a reasonable way to get a project started, but finishing it, and building something your own team can actually maintain afterwards, is a different job entirely. If you've been through a few freelance developers already and still don't have a site or a CRM setup that holds up, it's worth asking whether what you actually need is a partner who can pick the project up mid-stream and get it right. If that sounds familiar, we'd like to hear about it.
"It was about finding a developer that could pick up something and help us finish it but also help us get better at what we do that that is what Baskey did from the beginning"
— Philip Mickey, Vice President of Global Marketing, MarketStar
Key Challenges + Solutions
Challenge: Organising a displaying their vast content library.
Solution :
We developed an intricate navigation system and created an efficient tagging and organization framework to ensure the right content reaches the appropriate contacts. Their old 'Resources' section became a 'Growth Hub'.
Challenge: Monitoring online lead activity and segmentation based on interests.
Solution:
We converted all site buttons to HubSpot CTAs for improved engagement tracking, implemented automations to categorize contacts based on their page views, allowing us to effectively group contacts into personas regardless of form data. We also introduced engagement scoring based on website activity.
All website forms were updated to include relevant data fields with the data formatted correctly for reporting, automations and list segmentation in HubSpot. We introduced progressive profiling to help build the information on each contact record as they navigated through the site.
Challenge: Difficulty in managing their own website content and lack of consistent support.
Solution:
We crafted a custom theme composed of modules that the MarketStar team can fully edit. This means that even though the site is custom-coded, new pages can be created and maintained without needing to contact Baskey. We empowered their marketing team to manage the site independently.
""We were working with some people on fiver but the work was ... spotty. When we finally made the connection with Baskey we were impressed with their credentials not only when it comes to HubSpot but with their ability to pick up a project mid-stream and not only finish it but really make it better""
— Philip Mickey, Vice President of Global Marketing, MarketStar
— Philip Mickey, Vice President of Global Marketing, MarketStar
