HubSpot Tips & Tricks

The COVID-19 pandemic has put many companies in a limited sales position. Do we try some outbound tactics to quickly improve sales figures, or do we stick with our inbound marketing strategy which may result in longer sales cycles at the moment?

Understandably, you may have some immediate concerns about how your sales are performing this quarter and looking for effective ideas to boost your lead generation now. 

But there's no reason why this can't be done the inbound way. 

With things as they are globally, many companies have had to revisit their lead generation tactics to ensure that they are only spending on the best activities for them. This list will look specifically at the lead generation tactics that are part of your digital marketing strategy. Whilst not an exhaustive list, these activities are methods that have been proven to either provide you with a low cost tactic or optimise current activities and reduce the cost per SaaS lead.

Your marketing strategy has undoubtedly had a bit of a shakeup over the past few weeks. The economic crisis has affected each industry in different, yet concrete, ways. SaaS companies are in a unique position whereby trading can mostly continue. However, buyer confidence is low, and businesses have to work harder to attract and convert leads or simply retain existing customers whose budgets have just gone through the wringer. 

If your services have been affected or stalled due to the pandemic, you've probably had to change your messaging and create content to update customers on your company's current position. It's possible that you've also pulled the plug on some of your carefully planned upcoming campaigns. Traffic to your website may look nothing like it usually does. And all this while your customer service team tackles questions that were never featured in the training guide.

As we outlined in our post How Much Does HubSpot cost? With HubSpot Free, you don’t need to pay for onboarding. This is also true of HubSpot Starter. But for customers purchasing HubSpot Marketing Pro, or HubSpot Marketing Enterprise edition, you will need to pay an onboarding fee to get you up and running. Onboarding is a process that takes 90 days in total, whoever provides the support. You can either purchase onboarding from HubSpot direct, or from a HubSpot partner like us. It is significantly better value to purchase onboarding from a partner, and HubSpot itself actively encourages customers to look to partners for onboarding support. Onboarding with HubSpot starts at £2,450 for Marketing Pro, rising to £4,900 for Marketing Enterprise, so you will be paying a premium to purchase onboarding direct.

The short answer to the question is: HubSpot is free. At entry-level, businesses can access a basic level of HubSpot without paying. The free package includes email marketing and a CRM system with basic lead capture and ad management tools alongside some kickback automations included. For those who are wondering how worthwhile these free tools could be to their business, I’m going to outline below how an effective CRM automation tool for lead-capturing works. Let’s take as our example an imaginary prospect selling cloud storage solutions to SMEs:

HubSpot’s reporting tools really will make your CRM function more efficiently, saving you time, money and effort. But getting the hang of using them isn’t without its problems. Here, we share five common stumbling blocks we’ve come across, and the solutions to overcome them.

With so many CRM and marketing automation systems available to you, how do you know that HubSpot is right for you and your company's needs?