Resource Category: hubspot marketing

HubSpot is one of the most popular platforms for marketing, sales, customer service, and even CRM software available today, but it isn’t without its caveats. Understanding these issues – and especially the biggest problem of them all – will help you get more out of HubSpot, and it may even help you choose a better platform for your needs.

Understanding the Major Issues with HubSpot

When trying to understand the problems that people face when using HubSpot for their marketing, taking a look at the most frequently reported issues is a great place to start. With HubSpot, this comes down to the following:

• Difficulty with reports. Many users have said that in order to use HubSpot’s reporting tools, you’ll need to have far more than just a basic understanding of data structure if you want to see valuable trends. Due to the complexity, data analytics can be difficult for those who don’t have an above-average level of knowledge.
• Cookie-cutter design. Though most of HubSpot offers simple usability (minus reporting as described above), there’s a big trade-off in that the platform offers little in terms of customization, which means there’s an incredibly good chance it isn’t going to do the things other systems can.
• It’s comparatively new and it shows. Whereas some of the sales and marketing solutions out there have been around for decades, which gave them time to evolve and suit the complexities of even the most intricate processes, HubSpot is a newcomer. It simply isn’t the best choice if you need to incorporate dozens of tiny details.
• Bad revenue projections. Many companies get on board with HubSpot thinking they can finally ditch their revenue spreadsheets, but later find that they need to keep those spreadsheets in addition to HubSpot, instead. That means it isn’t an all-in-one solution, which means it just isn’t a good fit for many.
• Difficult integration. It’s true that there’s not a sales, marketing, and CRM software system in existence that you can integrate overnight, but many HubSpot users note that despite being marketed as a fast, simple solution, it requires an exceptional amount of planning to make integration relatively smooth.

The Biggest Issue with HubSpot Marketing

Though the above issues are certainly disheartening, and they can be disappointing for companies who truly expected HubSpot to be the simple, user-friendly all-in-one solution that it’s advertised as, the biggest problem of them all still exists: the price. It’s sold at a competitive price point for what it offers, but many users say it just isn’t worth the price after all the caveats have been considered. There are two ways to fix the issue with HubSpot pricing. First, companies can simply opt to use a different platform with a price point that better fits their budgets. The other option is to take a look at all the tools and options HubSpot provides – not just the marketing tools – to determine the platform’s value.

Though HubSpot does have a few problems, it isn’t exactly plagued by software-breaking issues that make it impossible for you to run your business, either. As long as you understand the limitations going in, you will be able to navigate the platform just fine – and you may even disagree that the price is the biggest problem.

Anyone who knows anything at all about marketing has heard the name HubSpot multiple times, and there’s a good chance it may even be your sales and marketing platform of choice. Below, we’ve provided some valuable real-life lessons about HubSpot marketing that might help you decide whether it’s the right platform for your company’s unique needs.

#1 – Companies View it as the Leader in Content Marketing

In today’s world, and especially with the coronavirus pandemic, digital marketing is more important than television and radio advertising was back in the 80s and early 90s. When most marketers think of digital marketing, the first phrase that comes to mind is content marketing. Content is still king, and when it comes to platforms designed to make every aspect of content marketing simpler and more effective, more companies flock to HubSpot than to any of its competitors.

#2 – It’s Really Good at Picking its Own Market

Salespeople know just how important it is to have a solid target demographic, and while HubSpot is designed to help marketers do just that, it’s also really good at choosing its own market. Rather than trying to fight it out with bigger, older, and better-established competitors that marketed their services toward massive corporations, HubSpot chose to target small and medium businesses, instead. The market was huge, and it certainly paid off for the HubSpot team.

#3 – They Were the First Truly All-in-One Solution for SMBs

HubSpot sets itself apart from its competitors by advertising their product as an “all-in-one solution”, and in many ways, it is. Before HubSpot arrived, companies were forced to use completely different platforms for their CRMs and inbound marketing, and they needed several apps and pieces of software in between to create the perfect ensemble of tools. HubSpot made that process obsolete by creating a solution that combined content management and inbound marketing – and they still continue to do it better than most of the competition.

#4 – They Stand for Inbound Marketing Above All Else

The debate between inbound and outbound marketing rages on, and there’s a good possibility it will never end. In outbound marketing, your goal is to show the right people the right ads at the right times and cross your fingers. With inbound marketing, the goal involves getting people to contact you. In other words, whereas outbound marketing is like going fishing in the traditional way – tossing out some bait on a hook and waiting for something to bite – inbound marketing is like putting irresistible bait in the bottom of your boat, then watching them jump right out of the pond and into your hands. The latter tactic is what HubSpot stands for, and it’s also where they excel.

#5 – There’s Even a HubSpot Community

How many software companies have an entire community to call their own? HubSpot certainly does, and they even have an annual conference – INBOUND – for that community to come together. More than 1900 marketing agencies help to resell its products, and they regularly have prominent writers as guest bloggers on their site. Each and every month, more than 1.5 million unique visitors come to check out HubSpot’s website, which is a testament to the sense of community the company has built.

HubSpot marketing is by far one of the best and most well-known sales and marketing platforms in existence today, and it’s an insanely popular content destinations for professionals, small business owners, and even freelancers. Thanks to the unique sense of community, it comes across as fun, helpful, and valuable – not just another corporate sales platform.

HubSpot is a popular platform that combines marketing, sales, and service software that is designed to help your business grow. It was designed to be affordable and easy to use, so it comes as no real surprise that many people rely on it for their business data. Below are a few tips from HubSpot veterans to help you grow your business, whether or not you choose to use the HubSpot software. 

Don’t Hold on to Old Contacts

If your business is still fairly small, it can be tempting to hang on to contacts. After all, what if they decide to come back to your website and make a purchase? More often than not, all of those old contacts just taking up space in your system is a waste of precious resources. Make sure you’re taking the time to delete old contacts at least every few weeks. If their emails bounce, or if they haven’t interacted with your company or website in more than a year, it’s time to let those contacts go and focus your attention elsewhere. Keeping your contact list clean can even help you get a better overall picture of the number of people who are interacting with your company within a certain timeframe. 

Capture Email Addresses 

Email marketing is still a powerful tool, so if you aren’t giving your visitors every opportunity to sign up for a newsletter or to receive special offers, you’re missing out on excellent opportunities. Give your visitors the ability to exchange their email address for a first-time buyer’s coupon or a series of helpful how-to emails that are relevant to them. You might choose to do this with a landing page, or you might ask for their email addresses when they check out or attempt to back out of their shopping carts without making a purchase. 

Personalize Your Email Messages

A huge part of growing your business involves reaching out to the right people at the right times – and with the right messages, too. For example, you wouldn’t want to send everyone in your email contact list a special offer for new customers, and you certainly wouldn’t want to offer someone who hasn’t purchased anything from you yet a loyalty discount, either. Make sure that you’re using your marketing automation software to your advantage and sending the appropriate messages. Some examples include:

• Welcome messages to those who input their email addresses on the landing page;
• Special thanks to first-time buyers;
• Discounts to those who have purchased from you more than once in succession (loyalty discounts);
• Free shipping messages for those who have spent a certain amount of money with you in a specific timeframe; and
• Post-purchase surveys so that you can better understand what your company is doing right as well as what it can improve upon. 

HubSpot makes email marketing, sales, and service incredibly simple, but it’s only effective when its users maximize its features and use them to their advantage. Deleting old contacts, capturing leads’ email addresses, and personalizing email messages can truly go a long way toward helping you grow your business without putting in a ton of extra time or effort.