HubSpot CRM

PROS:-

Each part of this tool is well structured, the login, browsing through each panel, user registration; denote the quality of this work tool. In what I use, it facilitates the process in areas such as communication and online billing.

CONS:-

The tool has some details of use that prevent doing quality work. It does not have a system for downloading reports in PDF format, as a tool that shows statistics up to date.  

HubSpot's effectiveness as a CRM really depends on the requirements of the business using it — though for startups and growing companies, I'd give HubSpot a 4 overall as it tends to be at the higher end of the price scale (although big discounts are available for startups) and reporting could be improved (albeit they’re moving in the right direction here too). It excels at bringing sales and marketing together in a system that improves efficiency and organisation, regardless of the type of businesses and industry.

Pros:

The pros of HubSpot include an ever improving user-friendly interface, resource hub and support system. Their library of design templates for building landing pages and emails, comprehensive integration options, and easy creation of forms and workflows allows for effective execution of various campaigns.

Cons:

For large teams or mature corporations with an established marketing and sales process, HubSpot might seem a bit lightweight. The reporting system while visually appealing doesn't always have the ability to go as deep as external reporting tools.

Overall Experience:

Overall the team at Digital Rhinos feels that HubSpot CRM is one that incorporates their Inbound philosophy into a set of versatile tools to improve sales and marketing funnels and contact management. For any company this is crucial for smooth growth.

Waster uses the Hubspot CRM for numerous reasons and has found it to be very good.

• It is very user friendly - and can be pretty much taught in half a day
• It is free!
• It requires no onboarding or configuration (at least for us) vs things like saleforce
• It integrates with our marketing - great if you also use Hubspot
• It link to company profiles and other users quite well.

Kettlebell Kings had a very positive experience using Hubspot CRM. The Hubspot mentality has helped us drive a ton of leads and sales to our e-commerce business. Understanding the methodology behind inbound marketing helped us rethink our strategy as simply a product seller to creating engaging content with experts and then driving prospects to that content for sign ups. By doing this we have been able to drive a large email list and engage them with content on a weekly basis that often times leads to product sales. More specifically, as opposed to just selling products.

Hubspot helped us frame the idea of building a community around kettlebells, exercises, tips, advice and more. This is something people can be interested whether they have bought from us or not and helps spread the word about our brand. By using this methodology we have more than doubled our e-commerce business every year.

If a prospect fills out a form for the first time and has not provided much information about their company we enroll them in the ‘Lead Workflow’ - a sector that is targetted with educational emails. Once a prospect fills out another form or shows buying interest (pricing page visit, for example) we enroll them in the 'Qualified Leads' cycle, and so on. We repeat this process for all of the lifecycle stages that our customers have.

The performance data for nurturing leads is readily available inside HubSpot, and at SEOYates , we use it to improve the existing campaigns of our clients.

We make adjustments to a clients lead nurturing campaign at least 3-4 times per month.

Co-Re Group, LLC believes that HubSpot is a great way to collaboratively use a CRM as there are many methods to work with your team members within the system. It’s extremely helpful to be able to assign tasks, as well as tag team members in notes throughout the CRM. One of the most helpful aspects is the “Lists” tool where you can make specific lists based on any number of contact properties or activities.

Note: if you want to make the best of this, you HAVE to make sure that your support is in place unless you can tackle this by yourself. Not that it's hard to learn but in order to use ALL of the applications that Hubspot offers, you need to be in it with both feet. 

If you’re a large company with a well-oiled marketing department it’s 4 out of 5. The price is a little steep considering the learning curve. On the other hand, if you’re a small company looking to start a sales campaign, then it’s 2 out of 5. So Maple Holistics would give an average rating of 3 out of 5.

The platform is saturated with features and would make a novice’s head spin. Not to mention, once more, it’s at least $200/month if you’re a small operation you may never see a return on such an investment before going belly up online.  

 Pros:

The biggest pros of HubSpot CRM is the built-in integration with its email marketing tool. Any clicks and opens by a contact can be tracked easily straight from the CRM. This can be tied into how active the lead is as well as lead scoring for MQL and SQL purposes.

Another advantage is the workflow tool. This is a very powerful automation tool. You can automate tasks based on any data points in your CRM system. For example, send email to only companies with over 20 employees, create task to Bob The Sales Rep if his client viewed this specific page on the website.

Cons:

CRM still can’t replace email. We would still need to use Outlook in conjunction with HubSpot. If we could put all our communication with our clients into one platform that would be a dream come true.

Overall experience:

HubSpot is a wonderful CRM tool for Selby’s. It is slowly becoming an all-in-one tool for sales and marketing.

Overall Experience of using HubSpot CRM:

For small to medium sized businesses that don’t have a CRM and have small marketing teams, I would rate Hubspot a 5.

For businesses that do have a CRM and have teams to support more complex campaigns, I would rate Hubspot a 1.5.

I lead both our internal marketing efforts as well as our marketing automation practice for MST Solutions. As head of the practice, I oversee a team of marketing automation consultants and have been directly involved in hundreds of MAP implementations which include Hubspot and other similar players in the market. Additionally, we used Hubspot internally for two years so my experience is of the platform comes from internal use, consulting and implementation of our clients Hubspot instances, as well as having extensive experience with HubSpot competitors.

Pros/Cons:

First two questions we always lead with when looking at platforms for our clients is do they already have a CRM setup followed by asking how many people are one their team to help support their marketing automation efforts. Here is the reason why:

If clients are already using a CRM, this limits the benefits of what Hubspot can offer. The biggest differentiator for Hubspot is that it can serve as its own CRM. For small to medium sized companies who have yet to invest in other similar CRM Software , Hubspot can be an excellent option and can often times mean a much quicker path to ROI on their Marketing Automation investment. However, if our clients are looking at expanding to a CRM or are already using one, Hubspot is not usually something we recommend as it has a clunky integration with SFDC and lacks some of the features that other marketing automation software offer (usually at the same price point depending on contacts and features).

The next question on the size of the team to support the initiative is also a key consideration. Hubspot’s platform has made it really easy for smaller teams looking to develop inbound nurture strategies with limited budgets. Once the initial setup is complete, a smaller team can easily setup inbound campaigns and manage them. There is little need for any integration work and basic designs can be created using the platform WYSIWYG. This ease of use comes at a cost though, any client that has a complex sales process or longer sales cycles will find it difficult to customize Hubspot to meet their unique needs. Fortunately, clients with these types of sales processes tend to already be using a CRM and need the increased functionality of other B2B & B2C marketing automation software available.

Ultimately what it comes down to is the organization's level of maturity in their sales and inbound marketing efforts and the resources available to help support their efforts. Low Maturity/Low Support organizations are typically perfectly suited for Hubspot.

Pros:

HubSpot is an all-in-one solution that makes the complexity of marketing in this digital age more simplified. Marketing currently requires clients to have email software, social media management software, a sales CRM, landing page software, etc. etc.  We have found that we can setup a client's instance of HubSpot, then train their key personnel, and they are immediately up and running with access to everything they need. HubSpot provides a strong, professional tool set (both Marketing and Sales), to companies of all levels.

We especially like the Sales CRM: the Deal Board, Templates and Sales Sequences, not to mention Meetings. This combination of items can cut sales personnel time spent on administrative tasks, and get them out selling, where they should be.

On the Marketing side, making professional landing pages, and sending emails are simple. We like the blog tools integrated with social media as well. The measurement and analytics capabilities, especially campaigns can't be beat. It is easy for any marketer to understand how their efforts are impacting sales.

We have just recently begun to use HubSpot's CMS tool for website design and page management. It is good as well, and contains the additional benefit of having the website management integrated directly with the marketing tools and sales CRM. Wonderful benefit of all-in-1 for any startup who wants a professional presence. Frankly, in the startup space,  HubSpot CMS is perfect!

Finally, the recent Hubspot conference in Boston, #inbound2018, announced some changes to the pricing model that are especially advantageous. The Starter tools now contain elements that people have always needed (e.g. email sending) and the enterprise tools have now truly been differentiated. 

We at Orange Marketing strongly feel that HubSpot is perfect in the B2B arena and we continually recommend for our SaaS B2B customers.

Cons:

Watch the pricing model. On the Marketing side, HubSpot charges per 1,000 contacts after a baseline has been met (usually the first 1,000). These contact charges can add up quickly making HubSpot seem unaffordable to some organizations. However, we have found that many companies have lots of contacts in their database that are old, out dated and non reachable. So we always recommend with HubSpot to keep close eye on your contacts so you don't sneak into up charges. 

These contact charges may make HubSpot not as appropriate for shops with large consumer databases. However, new Enterprise pricing has started to address this.

Eezee is a current free user of Hubspot. Prior to Hubspot, we have been using excel sheet to manage our customers and suppliers and it is super tedious and unmanageable as we scale.

Pros:

We realized in order to grow as a team, the single most effective way to grow is to improve communications within the team. A single point where everyone can access to all the information being communication from internal to external. What I really like about their system is that once we download the Hubspot outlook plug-in, we are able to track all the emails send in and out of the system. This way, we are able to know who have been communicating with the client and what stage it is at, when a person leaves the company or goes on a holiday, we are able to track with minimum effort. Best part of all these, is that it is free and they don’t force you to pay for the basic system. The longer we use, the more we want to explore the advance packages. 

Cons:

Can’t think of any for now.