Loyal readers of this blog won't be surprised to learn that we're big fans of HubSpot. The Massachusetts-based firm is the preeminent internet marketing company operating in the US today. The reason is simple: they "get" inbound marketing and the profound shift that's transforming the marketing role due to things like social media, content management and mobile computing. No longer can firms simply "sell" to prospects with classic "outbound" techniques like cold calls and pamphlets. Instead, firms must attract, convert, and delight (those are HubSpot's words) customers by rolling out great content, personalizing marketing plans and rigorously tracking results.
Today we'd like to look a bit more at HubSpot for your company and how it can optimize your marketing practices. Before we look at their specific offerings, let's first look at HubSpot's greatest selling point: the fact that they can do it all. Their "all-in-one" marketing software platform is an end-to-end solution that provides users with "less hassle" and "more control" (their words again.) Let's quickly see how this plays out in the real world.
The Benefits of an End-to-End Platform
Currently, many marketing organizations operate in a decentralized and uncoordinated environment. Marketers pull prospect data from their CRM system. They send emails from Microsoft Outlook. They write blogs on Wordpress. Their designers make web landing pages in a separate software program. And the list goes on. The result? Lots of moving parts, a heightened risk of error, data redundancies, and lots of time (and money) wasted. HubSpot's all-in-one solution puts all of these elements (and more) under one interface. That can make your life easier.
Select HubSpot Program Offerings
HubSpot's all-in-one solution encompasses 11 distinct components: blogging, SEO, social media, site builder, lead management, landing pages, calls-to-action, marketing automation, email, analytics, and Salesforce Sync. We don't have the time to go through them all today; rather we'll focus on five, which represent both new inbound marketing techniques and those that are traditionally outbound-oriented.
1. Blogging — You may currently manage your blog on a separate platform like Wordpress that links from your website. Further, you may optimize your Wordpress blog with various plug-ins like SEO and social media buttons. HubSpot incorporates all of these elements within their single interface. You write and publish blogs in HubSpot and can leverage their built-in SEO and social tools. Plug-ins not required.
2. Lead Management — Lead management is a classic "outbound" marketing technique, but HubSpot's platform gives it an "inbound" twist. All prospect information resides on one single database. Marketers can easily segment prospect scores and market to leads in a simplified manner. And marketers can also see every prospect touchpoint, including typical channels like email and Website visits as well as more "inbound" channels like social mentions.
3. Calls-to-Action (CTAs) — HubSpot helps you master the subtle art of creating compelling CTAs, all within their all-in-one platform. They do so by allowing users to create a cool CTA button using their own button or one provided by HubSpot. It lets users customize button style, font color, and size. It provides relevant prospect data to let users create "persona-based Smart CTAs" with targeted text based on the prospect's unique interests and challenges.
4. Analytics — All CRM platforms have some way to measure performance. The problem is that either users find the analytics confusing or simply inaccurate since, as previously noted, marketing departments are running different platforms simultaneously. HubSpot solves this problem by putting all analytics in a single local with a user-friendly interface.
5. Salesforce Sync — "But my department runs Salesforce," you may say. "We like it and we don't want to change." That's perfectly understandable and Hubspot gets it. If you want to keep Salesforce as your core CRM platform you can complement it with Hubspot's other aforementioned tools and functionalities. Their Salesforce integration offers real-time data syncing that allows marketers to, among other things, pull data from Salesforce and build effective analytical and lead scoring models.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. You can throw out your old, multi-system model and adopt HubSpot's all-in-one platform, or integrate components of your CRM environment, like Salesforce. Both are ways you can use HubSpot for your company while minimizing risk because as HubSpot makes abundantly clear on their site, they offer free trials. What's not to love?
Interested in taking the next step? Download our How to Hire an Inbound Marketing Agency ebook.
