According to Kieran Flanagan — SVP of marketing at HubSpot: ”For many customers, their first introduction to HubSpot is through our educational blog, Academy, and YouTube content, not our software. More recently, our customers have started to seek out news and trends-based content across new forms of media like podcasts, newsletters, and research.”
Together with the other team members, Kieran Flanagan built HubSpot on the belief that you earn attention by being of value. That belief is at the very heart of its success — creating remarkable content is what makes a remarkable brand. It’s why they’ve invested in publishing blogs, courses, eBooks, templates, and videos that help generate millions of visits every month.
And, of course, they can’t just stop there, though. Similar to the way product requirements of growing companies have changed over time, so have their content needs. Newsletters, podcasts, premium content, and other media have exploded in popularity for startups and scaleups looking for best practices and tech news. So, how can you adapt to this change?
What HubSpot Is All About
HubSpot is a CRM Software Platform that brings everything scaling companies need to deliver a best-in-class customer experience into one place. Their crafted, not cobbled solution helps teams grow with tools that are powerful alone, but better together. With HubSpot, customers come first, customization is simple, and teams are connected through a unified CRM.
Learn More: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | Uses Plus Best Toolkits
Create a delightful customer experience with HubSpot. It was made to meet your business needs without adding unnecessary complexity. HubSpot believes that the next generation of software companies will invest in media that earn the attention of their audience. Instead of the traditional model of having a software company embedded inside a media company.
It predicts that the next generation of techno companies will have the opposite — a media company embedded inside a software company. For this reason, they’re taking the first steps in that direction today! Perse, with an acquisition that they believe will help HubSpot deliver on the diverse content needs of everyone.
May it be entrepreneurs or even startups, as they scale up across the mediums they love. Simply put, when people talk about CRM software such as HubSpot, they might mean any of three fundamental elements and principles.
Consider the following things:
- CRM As Technology: Also called a CRM System or a CRM solution, this is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyze interactions between the company and users.
- CRM As A Strategy: This is a business’ philosophy about how to manage relationships with potential customers.
- CRM As A Process: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.
The HubSpot CRM enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners, and suppliers. Forging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard.
Something that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy. Let’s first learn more about how you can utilize HubSpot:
(A). CRM Software
On one hand, gain access to the foundational tools you need to grow better — whichever plan you choose. Think CRM software is just about contact management? Think again. HubSpot CRM has free tools for everyone on your team, and it’s 100% free. On the other hand, with the easy-to-use HubSpot CRM, you’ll never have to manually update reports or wonder how your team is tracking toward the quota. Obviously, because you have more important things to do. Learn more about their CRM Platform.
(B). Marketing Hub
In this case, you’ll get marketing automation software with everything you need. Such as attracting the attention of your target audience, converting that attention into customers, and analyzing and reporting on your efforts. They’ve got everything you need to capture leads and turn them into customers. Their Starter CRM Suite includes all the marketing, sales, content management, operations, and customer service tools your growing business needs. Learn more about their Marketing Hub.
(C). Sales Hub
A powerful sales CRM that gives you deeper insight into your prospects, automates busywork, and helps you close more deals faster. The sales CRM software you need to organize your data and close more deals, fast. Start closing deals faster with time-saving sales CRM tools you can use for free. May it be contact management, email scheduling, deal pipeline, meeting scheduling, or even live chat (see all features).
(D). Service Hub
Customer service tools to help you deliver authentic service and grow better by putting the customer first. They’ve got everything you need to put your customers first. Connect with and help your customers with customer service tools you can use for free. From ticketing, live chat, shared inbox, and basic bots, to HubSpot mobile app (see all features).
(E). CMS Hub
At all costs, grow your business by incorporating your website into your growth machine. HubSpot got everything you need to build and scale a data-driven website and grow your business. With their Free CMS Tools, you’ll be able to build a secure, optimized website for free with easy-to-use content management tools. Including features to help you with your website pages, blog, drag-and-drop editor, website traffic analytics, etc. That said, you can learn more about their CMS Hub in detail.
(F). Operations Hub
Connect your apps, sync, clean, and curate customer data, and automate every process for a friction-free business — and customer experience. Everything you need to connect your apps, sync and clean customer data, and automate business processes. Start syncing data between HubSpot and dozens of third-party apps — for free. Their free operations hub tools allow you to have an easy way for data sync, historical sync, default field mappings, email reply tracking, email health reporting, etc. With that in mind, you can learn more about their Operations Hub in detail.
Start Growing With HubSpot Today!
As we aforementioned, HubSpot is a CRM platform that brings everything scaling companies need to deliver a best-in-class customer experience into one place. Our crafted, not cobbled solution helps teams grow with tools that are powerful alone, but better together. So, as you can see, you don’t have to do everything all by yourself!
HubSpot’s award-winning customer support and services teams are there to answer your questions, help you master the inbound methodology, and make sure you’re getting the most out of your tools. All that — plus their detailed help documentation, educational resources, and training programs — means you’ll never feel left out in the cold.
Cobbled technology solutions don’t work for today’s customer journey. So far, 143,000+ customers in over 120 countries are already growing their businesses with HubSpot. Customer journeys are increasingly complex, and technology can help — or hinder — your ability to deliver a remarkable customer experience. When tech systems are cobbled together, they’ll fail.
This leads to:
- Silos between teams, whilst, making it harder to align
- A clunky user experience, making it harder to adopt
- And an inflexible tech stack, making it harder to adapt
Traditionally, a B2B company’s marketing plan focused on getting their product into the decision-maker’s hands and convincing them to buy it. The majority of content published were whitepapers, functional specs, and content — that helped their buyers make a purchase decision. Companies spent their time and resources building various relationships.
Suffice it to say, with a small group of people who were actively looking for a product to buy. Over the past decade, they’ve seen huge changes in how B2B companies approach media. Particularly, with an explosion in the popularity of those developing media products. Paired with inbound marketing to build relationships with large audiences across all their business stages.
For such reasons, that’s why HubSpot signed an agreement to acquire The Hustle, and be there for everyone’s needs. We’ll have a look at that in detail later on. But first, let’s first learn more about how you can utilize their powerful software tool features to your own business advantage. In order to scale it into even new/greater heights which includes:
1. Built-in Payments Powered By The CRM
For many reasons, HubSpot started looking for potential opportunities to acquire media companies — that had the talent and experience in the mediums they wanted to invest in. And, as you’ll learn, it became obvious to HubSpot that The Hustle perfectly met all those needs. Whilst, allowing you to transform your customer buying experience via built-in payments.
As well as:
- Unlock new revenue streams with more ways to collect payment
- Get paid faster with digital payments
- Give front office teams a 360-degree view of the customer
- Currently available in the U.S. only
- (you can learn more before getting started)
With a flywheel to attract, engage, convert, and delight — today, B2B brands can be a daily part of their customers’ lives before they even use their products. They can become a daily source of education and information for their customers. And, can grow a large audience for that content by creating it for the people who buy their product and the many more who will use it.
Equally important, they can also earn the attention of their audience by continually creating value for them. For this reason, HubSpot considered how it could keep meeting its customers’ needs, it knew there was an opportunity to diversify the content we published and the mediums through which we delivered that content.
And now, let’s find out how else HubSpot can help you achieve your company goals and create a delightful customer experience. Not forgetting, through their unique Online Marketplace, you can connect your favorite tools to HubSpot software.
2. Unlimited Easy To Use Features
The sales process can get very complicated, what with the thousands of leads to juggle, all at different points in the sales cycle and all with their own needs and price points. You need a platform that’s easy to use and intuitive so your team can pick it up and quickly make it a part of their daily routine. Is your team struggling with onboarding, without a way out?
If that’s the case, it will cost your business quality time, and resources, and, ultimately, more money in lost sales. HubSpot offers a suite of sales and marketing tools to help your sales team really go after that long list of leads. Features like integration with third-party apps, automation, custom reporting, and other tools can help take your team to the next level.
And, you’ll even close more deals on average. However, keep in mind that you’re not just looking for the platform with the most features, you’re looking for a software solution that has the right features for your business.
3. Crafted For Customer Experience
By all means, HubSpot offers a better solution that’s crafted, not cobbled. They built the entire platform in-house so their customers can benefit from software that’s cohesive, customizable, and easy to adopt. With a single source of truth, your teams can form deeper relationships with customers throughout their journey.
And, when the customer is at the center of every business decision, company-wide alignment is a whole lot easier. Good customer support can mean quite a very huge difference. More so, between a sales team that’s humming along and one that’s bogged down after running into a technical issue.
4. Deliver A Superior Customer Experience
In reality, the days of a prospect passing through the “funnel” and coming out as a customer are over. Now, we know that the buyer’s journey is a complex, winding path, and the goal is to turn prospects into brand advocates. In the flywheel business model, customers are at the center, and happy customers generate business momentum.
Using the inbound methodology, companies can attract, engage, and delight their audiences, and establish a community of promoters who fuel the flywheel, and ultimately — business growth (learn more). The only downside is fairly typical for CRM platforms: You have to spring for the paid version of the software to get that support.
5. Powerful Alone, Better Together!
Technically, you need a CRM platform that’s inclusive of every part of your business. Their approach to product development takes the critical elements of customer experience management — Content, Messaging, Automation, Data, and Reporting — and brings them into a single platform that’s built to grow with your company.
Each HubSpot product is powerful on its own, but the real magic happens when you use them together. HubSpot offers great customer support through email, phone, or even social media. And, there’s also an in-app help button where you can get all the answers that you seek.
Why Google Should Consider Partnering With The CRM Master
According to a Ujjwal Gupta article (via LinkedIn), Google and HubSpot are the Sam and Diane of the business tools world. In fact, they are Ross and Rachel of marketing software. It’s time they stopped the will-they-won’t-they behavior and pulled the trigger already. It’s time that Google buys HubSpot! Of course, this dance has been going on for a while.
Not to mention, even the King of Search recognized HubSpot’s potential back in 2011. Specifically, when its Google Ventures arm came together with Sequoia and Salesforce to invest a whopping $32 million into HubSpot. And, in mid-February of 2018, HubSpot and Google Cloud formed a strategic partnership. Whilst, allowing Google AdWords and G Suite to operate together.
More efficiently, with HubSpot working as the bridge between Google’s tools so businesses can better attract and connect with potential customers. This new partnership is but a glimpse of how an acquisition at this juncture would bring unrivaled potential to both companies. Since its formation, it has maintained a steady, successful trajectory in terms of growth.
In particular, toward stratospheric growth HUB heights in the effort gear for their customers, earnings, and valuation. It has beaten earnings expectations every quarter since going public in 2015 and surprised analysts by showing 39 percent year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2017. But, why advocate for that partnership? First, follow @ujjwalg on Twitter.
1. A Complete Platform In Return On Investment Terms
Right now, in valuation, HubSpot is one of the fastest-growing companies at its scale. Meaning, that there is no better time for Google to buy than right now before HubSpot becomes even more attractive (and expensive). But, why does even our team of Web Tech Experts Taskforce advocate for Google to buy this CRM master? And then, thereafter, add it to it’s inventory?
One thing is for sure, ROI on a complete platform. Many businesses find great value in the marketing and analytics features that both Google and HubSpot offer. And, they use both because neither Google nor HubSpot alone can provide all that a business needs. More so, as you’ll learn more here, towards marketing to its audience most effectively.
2. The HubSpot CRM Model Vs The Google Deep Dive Data Analytics
Bringing the best of both companies together would allow businesses to drill down on information and activate the right marketing tactics to attract paying customers. When it comes to analytics capabilities, HubSpot’s model lacks the deep dive of Google Analytics data. But, Google falls short in turning that data into action, however, which is HubSpot’s sweet spot.
If Google were to buy HubSpot, it would be in the ideal position to utilize its robust CRM capabilities. Meanwhile, HubSpot would gain a far broader reach into the marketplace without having to build its own email platform or larger OS. Instead, it could take advantage of capabilities Google already offers through G Suite, Android OS, Google Ad Network, and others.
3. Seamless Great Software Application Platforms Unification
For the last few years, Google’s Android has been the most popular OS in the world. As a matter of fact, knocking Microsoft off its long-held pedestal. With Microsoft Outlook on its way out, Android holds the attention of professionals on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. With the Android OS and Google Analytics, HubSpot will be poised to greater heights.
More so, by taking even greater advantage of Google AdWords. Its network is vast — 2 million-plus websites. As well as over 650,000 apps. So, this means, that as data from Google Analytics gets translated into action, AdWords provides the needful super-powered vehicle. Generally, in order to communicate specific messages directly to the target audience.
3. Simplified CRM Toolkits Across Various Business Boards
Clearly, in a post published on Medium about the recent strategic partnership, HubSpot Chief Strategy Officer Bradford Coffey was seen saying a few. He said: “Closing this gap not only drives adoption of both platforms, but it also simplifies the overall user experience and creates a flywheel of growth for all involved.” Yet there’s still room to simplify further.
Thus, a HubSpot buyout by Google could solve that. As it stands, Google Analytics allows you to use one portal to view multiple sites, whereas HubSpot requires users to have separate portals for each site. With the partnership, the use of all the capabilities of both companies is still not seamless. Consumers want absolute simplicity and UX they don’t need toggling.
4. A Google-HubSpot Alliance Could End Amazon’s Monopoly
For your information, there’s also another article — How A Google-Groupon Alliance Could End Amazon’s Monopoly — by Ujjwal to borrow something from. Whereby, eight years ago, Google tried – and failed – to buy Groupon for nearly $6 billion. After the deal fell apart, Groupon went public with a valuation of $13 billion and saw its shares tank immediately.
Today, Groupon is worth a fraction of its original valuation – but the timing could not be better for a new deal with Google. A potential partnership between the King of Search and the daily deals business would benefit not only the companies but also consumers. The reason boils down to one word: Amazon. Bear in mind, that the e-commerce behemoth rules online shopping.
Keeping in mind, even as longtime Prime subscribers, we (Web Tech Experts) are as guilty of Amazon addiction as anyone. Whether we need socks or stereo speakers, we used to shop around on Google for the best prices, but now we go straight to Amazon. In 2017, the retailer owned nearly half of all e-sales. Learn why the time is right for Google to buy Groupon in detail.
5. Simplicity In The Main Solutions Delivery Integration
For sure, they almost have it. Google buying HubSpot would bring simplicity to these two mighty companies as well. The relationship they have now doesn’t complicate things, but having all capabilities under one roof is a sure way to make life easier for these innovators. With seamless integration of the best of both, they can focus on doing what they do best.
And, that’s finding innovative ways to connect businesses and consumers. By purchasing HubSpot, Google would be putting a ring on it – to steal a phrase – so that other companies don’t capitalize on all of its prowess and potential. Whilst, causing Google to miss out on vast opportunities. In nutshell, we can say: “It’s time the two companies make things official.”
And, ”become the power couple we all know they can be.” But, it is not too late for the rest of the industry. As an entrepreneur ourselves, we believe real competition in the marketplace is essential. By joining forces, Google and HubSpot could provide shoppers with greater choice, convenience, and savings while bolstering their organizations.
What To Expect After HubSpot Acquires The Hustle
As we aforementioned, the first reason why HubSpot Acquires The Hustle is to start adding exclusively new content to help scaling companies grow better. It’s also a new way for brands to get smarter on business and technology. Whereby, you’ll get the 5-minute newsletter keeping 2M+ innovators in the loop. Just by signing up for their newsletters for free!
So far, HubSpot has built a large community around its educational content, with seven million people each month reading the company’s blogs and hundreds of thousands viewing HubSpot videos on YouTube. HubSpot’s Academy is another source of education for its community. Through HubSpot, more than 100K people take lessons every month.
While, at the same time, over 300K people have received a HubSpot Academy Certification as well. Bearing in mind, a HubSpot Certification is a free and valuable tool for building your knowledge base, demonstrating your capacity for different tasks, and advancing in your career. The HubSpot Academy offers 15 certification tracks to all interested candidates.
Including but not limited to Inbound Marketing, Growth-Driven Design, Frictionless Sales, Email Marketing, and so much more! Meaning, that you can enroll for free to start making a new meaning to your digital online life.
Learn More: Is A HubSpot Certification Worth It? A Real-User Review – Lean Labs
Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle says: “I started The Hustle with the mission to help give business builders the information they needed to put their dent into the world and change how media companies operate. By joining the HubSpot team, we’ll take that mission to the next level to build the best business content networks in the world.”
In addition, “I know the HubSpot team shares our commitment to creating high-quality content to help companies scale, and I can’t wait to get started.” By acquiring The Hustle, HubSpot will be able to better meet the needs of these scaling companies. More so, by delivering educational, business, and tech trend content in their preferred formats.
Sam and his team have a proven ability to create content that entrepreneurs, startups, and scaling companies are deeply passionate about. For this reason, Kieran is so excited! Particularly, for bringing them on board to take that work to the next level. In nutshell, by acquiring the Hustle, HubSpot will be able to better serve the needs of its customers and community.
What To Check In A Good CRM Software System
The correct CRM helps to achieve contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, instant messaging between employees, email tracking and integration with Outlook and Gmail, file, and content sharing, and dashboard-based analytics. Some other famous CRM tools are Salesforce, SAP, ZOHO, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Nimble, Sugar, Pipedrive, Creatio, etc.
Their Main CRM Benefits:
- It provides a better and improved client/customer relationship
- CRM increases business profits, customer lists, and interactions
- It supports improved cross-functionality and thereby increases team collaboration
- CRM offers strong efficiency in serving clients and more staff satisfaction
- You also gather more contacts in your email subscribers list
- It reduces cost and manual efforts
Their Key CRM Drawbacks:
- Without CRM it really gets difficult to manage customer contacts in Excel
- There is always a fight or moving between multiple tools
- Increases manual efforts to a great extent
- Small Scale easily loses track of business deals
- Lesser accessibility of data and lesser customer satisfaction
Overall, most CRM software allows all the customers to be registered in the database of the CRM toolkit. With some fields to identify their uniqueness — so that the organization can connect with them when required. But, there are also many types of CRM that are chosen on the basis of customer requirements like Operations, Analytics, and Collaboration.
The Topmost Best CRM Competitors Your Small Business Can Use
In other words, HubSpot CRM is a great solution for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as well as team building. But, it might not be the right fit for you, if you are just a small-scale business/getting started. Eventually, HubSpot CRM is one of the most popular CRM software platforms available, and for good reason. The simple, straightforward solution!
On that note, it’s something that is great for sales teams that want to onboard quickly — but still want a powerful CRM tool. It scored very well in our review, with particularly high marks for ease of use and features. The HubSpot team also does a great job when it comes to crunching data. And, creating excellent reports that can give you insight into how you’re doing.
As well as a dashboard that shows where you stand with leads in real time. However, perhaps you’ve given it a try and feel like it’s not a great fit for how you run your sales team. If that’s the case, it’s time to take a look at some other options and what they can offer. Usually, the importance of CRM has traditionally been as a sales and marketing software tool.
But, some of the biggest gains can come in other areas, such as customer service, HR, supply chain, and partner management. Having said that, below are the other topmost best competitors to HubSpot CRM software tools that you can try out.
Including:
- Agile CRM
- Bitrix24 CRM
- Close CRM
- Insightly CRM
- Pipedrive CRM
- Redtail Technology
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Salesforce CRM
- SugarCRM Software
- Vtiger CRM Software
- Zoho CRM Suite
- Nimble CRM
- Oracle CRM
- Creatio CRM
In addition to the above, there are other many other similar/related CRM Software Tools that you can consider. What to look for in a great HubSpot CRM competitor is that: First, it’s usually a very great stand-alone CRM platform! Simply, because it does all of the things a sales team needs. Therefore, any alternatives to HubSpot also need to do those things well.
But, perhaps you’ve given it a try and feel like it’s not a great fit for how you run your sales team, right? If that’s the case, it’s time to take a look at some other options and what they can offer. And, as an example, you can use the Salesforce Learning Platform to grasp the fundamentals behind its CRM software, how businesses use it, and the benefits it brings, that matter.
Takeaway Notes:
To enumerate, Customer Relation Management (CRM) can be defined as an organized approach to developing, managing, and maintaining a profitable relationship with customers. Likewise, it’s all about the system of tracking and examining every interaction and communication we have with our customers and clients.
Basically, CRM provides the organization with a central pool, which assures simplicity, security, and scaling of customer interactions. So, when we talk about HubSpot, we usually refer to a CRM system, a tool used for contact management, sales management, agent productivity, and more. The goal of such a CRM system is simple: Improve business relationships.
And, as a result, grow your business. CRM tools help you manage customer relationships across the entire customer lifecycle, at every marketing, sales, e-commerce, and customer service interaction. Ultimately, it’s a strategy that companies use to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. CRM helps all organizations to streamline processes.
As well as build customer relationships, increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability. See! There are so many reasons to consider HubSpot as your first business CRM software application/platform toolkit for your business. If you are in already, you can share your experiences with us in our comments section (or Consult Us for more help and support).
