Chances are, if you are in the marketing world, you have heard of HubSpot. More than likely you’ve even ready a few articles or sat in on a webinar or two! But did you know that HubSpot is more than just marketing tips and tricks?
HubSpot is also a powerful tool that assists businesses with heir sales and inbound marketing. Using best practices that change constantly as new marketing techniques are discovered. To help you understand everything HubSpot has to offer, we’re going to cover a few topics.
During this article, we will discuss:
After reading this article you will be better equipped to decide if HubSpot is the right tool for you and your marketing plan, and how you can begin working with a HubSpot expert! Let’s get started.
As we discussed earlier, HubSpot is an online tool that assists businesses with their inbound marketing and sales. Founded in 2004, HubSpot was created when two friends realized that customers were becoming increasingly crafty with ignoring marketing tactics.
According to HubSpot data, TV commercials were being skipped, phone numbers were added to the no call list, and direct mail was going unopened. All of these methods that had proven success in the past had stopped working – so what was the next option for businesses to attract customers?
This is when HubSpot was born. Founders quickly realized that customers are sick of being bombarded by sales people. They don’t want to be SOLD – they want to be HELPED. That is what makes HubSpot’s marketing techniques different from other online tools on the market today.
HubSpot focuses on making the marketing process human. Treating customers like they’re people – not just another sales number to hit.
HubSpot is more than just an online marketing tool. Once launched, the founders of HubSpot created different marketing tools to allow users to personalize their HubSpot experience. Currently, HubSpot offers a CRM platform, Marketing software, Sales tools, and much more.
Let’s start with HubSpot’s CRM platform.
The best thing about HubSpot’s CRM is that it is completely free. Using this tool, you and your sales team have access to an online, cloud-based CRM where you can track your sales pipeline easily and effectively.
Your sales funnel is displayed clearly, and for all users to monitor. You get the ability to schedule appointments, track sales against quotes, and save the data of over 10,000 users – and all in one place!
HubSpot’s CRM tracks all your customer inner-actions through email, social media, or even a phone call. It also syncs with Gmail and Outlook – giving you the peace of mind that no sales activities are missed. This platform also allows you, and your sales team, to personalize email templates to maximize your sales results.
In addition to the free CRM, HubSpot provides software to maximize your Inbound Marketing results. This software will assist your team to grow your website and social traffic, convert any leads into sales, and to track your return on investment.
HubSpot’s marketing platform allows you to edit your website and social sites without needing a dedicated IT department – and without requiring you to get too technical with your website! HubSpot gives you the ability to create blog posts, landing pages, and email templates – so your message is always ready to go with the push of a button.
Using the HubSpot Inbound Marketing platform gives you real time SEO suggestions and shares your content with the right websites – always making sure that your product is sent to the right audience.
HubSpot will help you bring targeted traffic to your website – traffic that will bring you sales. HubSpot uses their expertise in marketing to bring content that people want to read and gives them a reason to visit your site – preparing them to buy your product.
Just like HubSpot’s CRM and Marketing tools, the Sales Software is easy to set up and even easier to use! The entire goal of HubSpot sales is to save YOU time at every stage in the sales funnel. You can quickly set up an outreach plan for your prospects and leads, but ALWAYS maintaining the personality of your sales team. Your sales queue is entirely personalized with emails and reminders ready to send at exactly the perfect time.
Your sales team can set up email templates to share among the team and will be notified immediately when a prospect opens an email, clicks on a link, or views an attachment. This real time data will prevent you from guessing about your marketing efforts.
The great thing about HubSpot’s sales software is that it syncs up perfectly with the HubSpot CRM, which means you never have to be worried about losing your client base or documenting any sales notes.
HubSpot will keep your sales flowing all while keeping your business personality intact and ready to show your clients.
At the heart of every business are the customers. With HubSpot’s service tools, it’s time to turn your customers into five-star fans and grow your business. HubSpot provides customer service software (different from their CRM) that makes it easy to manage and grow your customer base – keeping them coming back for more.
Here’s the thing – HubSpot realizes that the retail world has changed. Customers are now in control and know that if you can’t provide what they need – there are plenty of other places that will. HubSpot keeps the relationship between you and your customers personal, exactly how they expect it. If you are going to keep your customers, you must maintain a high level of customer service. According to Faveo, over 80% of customers have stopped doing business with a brand due to a poor customer experience.
With HubSpot’s customer service tool, you get to build a support system that works perfectly with your business model, business personality, and a way to keep your team productive and on task.
What are people saying about HubSpot? Well, since HubSpot is one of the largest marketing tools out there today, there are many people you can speak to about their experience with HubSpot. Diving right in – reviews speak for themselves.
Overall, the reviews are stellar. People love the way all platforms integrate within each other. You can use HubSpot for your sales, marketing, and customer service needs – and all platforms will work seamlessly within each other.
HubSpot will also work with your social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Google Analytics, keyword planner, Hootsuite, and other platforms will integrate – meaning you have one single dashboard to visit for all of your inbound marketing needs.
In addition to integration, HubSpot really takes the guess work out of inbound marketing. As small businesses, we know that inbound marketing is the best way to get in touch with your client base. It works – and you need to be competitive when building your plan.
That’s where HubSpot helps. Using their expertise and research (so you don’t have to waste your time finding out what works and what doesn’t), HubSpot will train your team on the importance of inbound marketing, and produce the results needed to keep them engaged and actively using the product.
HubSpot is also easily customizable to your business needs and prides itself on keeping the voice of your business at the forefront of every marketing piece you produce.
While the paid services are amazing, that isn’t the only thing that HubSpot offers the masses. When looking at the product in its entirety, it is incredibly important to consider the free services that HubSpot offers. We’re talking webinars, marketing certifications, blog posts, best practices for inbound marketing and much more.
HubSpot is not only for the large agencies or businesses – they truly want every reader to succeed and improve where necessary.
Since we’ve only focused on the good (or great) things about HubSpot, let’s be a little realistic and show you a few of the negative, just to give you a perspective on what HubSpot isn’t.
HubSpot will not work without your efforts. While most, if not all, of your campaigns are automated, HubSpot still needs you and your marketing team to set up your initial sales funnels, email templates and communication triggers.
As your email base grows, HubSpot can get a bit costly. However, increased pricing for larger email lists is not something completely unique to HubSpot alone. Email companies like GetReponse or Constant Contact increase in price exponentially the larger your email list becomes.
HubSpot works best with small to midsized corporations. Strictly speaking, inbound marketing just works differently for larger businesses. While concepts are the same, a large corporation requires more than HubSpot can provide, and your needs may not be met by the tools the HubSpot is known for.
The interfaces that trigger automatic emails and follow ups are based on yes or no propositions only. This can be a little bit cumbersome to set up initially, but once you’ve gotten the hang of it – you’re golden.
Overall, the pros far outweigh the cons of HubSpot.
First things first – when you are ready to purchase any type of marketing software, you are going to get sticker shock. It’s a given that happens to everyone. As long as you do your research and fully understand what is included in the cost that you’re paying monthly, making the right decision should feel a little less painful on your pocketbook.
Let’s look at the platforms offered by HubSpot and the costs associated with each.
As discussed, HubSpot is just one tool on the market today, but based on our discussion… there is no contest when it comes to free options, and inbound marketing expertise. Visit HubSpot to learn more about their products and to sign up for their free tools – who knows how your sales will increase!
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