Most people know HubSpot as a CRM platform. But since its inception in 2004, the platform has grown and expanded to become one of the most powerful inbound marketing and sales engines in the world.
There are now four components to HubSpot. They are the Marketing Hub, the Sales Hub, the Service Hub, and the most recent addition: the CMS (content management system) Hub.
(Source: HubSpot)
If you want to experience these solutions first-hand, you don’t even have to sign up for a demonstration. Each Hub is available in a basic edition that’s free to use.
Most businesses can benefit from all these solutions. But depending on what your business does, you may only need one or two of them. Here, we’ll explore what each of these solutions does, what features they include, and whether they are a good choice for your business.
The HubSpot Marketing Hub is a type of marketing automation software that helps you attract an audience and convert people into customers. You can launch an entire inbound marketing campaign through the Marketing Hub and use it in conjunction with the HubSpot CRM to track and nurture leads.
The Marketing Hub has a long list of core features, including:
You can use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to track your ads on Google and social media platforms like Facebook. There is even a live chat feature that lets you qualify leads with bots and then connect with potential customers in real-time.
The Marketing Hub is useful for any company that wants to do inbound marketing. And these days, that’s almost every company.
That said, it’s much more useful if your customers have measurable sales cycles. If you need powerful tools to convert and nurture leads, HubSpot Marketing Hub has everything you’d need to do it.
The Marketing Hub is available in four editions at different price points. In addition to the free edition, you can get a “Stater” edition that’s great for small businesses or individuals, a “Professional” edition that’s perfect for SMBs and some larger companies, and an “Enterprise” edition that’s ideal for the largest companies.
Higher-tier editions include more features than the lower tiers. But it’s best to choose one based on your company’s needs.
For example, the Enterprise edition includes powerful team management features. But if your team is small, you may only wish to use the Professional edition, which includes tools like customer feedback surveys and a knowledge base. The Professional edition is by far the most popular and versatile of the four.
The HubSpot Sales Hub works together with the HubSpot Marketing Hub and includes an all-purpose sales CRM. But it also includes must-have sales features that can help any sales department close the deal.
Even with the free edition, you can get contact, deal, and task management tools, as well as document sharing and meeting scheduling solutions. It even integrates with Gmail and Outlook, so you can manage all your sales conversations from a single location.
With the premium edition, you can take advantage of features like these:
HubSpot Sales Hub is an ideal solution for companies that need to engage in hands-on sales work, as well as any company that maintains a substantial sales team. The product’s automation tools make sales tasks much easier, and there are plenty of extra features to help salespeople identify viable leads and nurture their prospects.
The most obvious alternative to HubSpot Sales Hub is Salesforce. Both products provide a powerful sales CRM, but most businesses tend to have a favorite between the two. According to a comparison by G2, many users feel that Salesforce meets their immediate business needs, but they prefer the support provided by HubSpot and they’re more excited about HubSpot’s product roadmap.
That said, you can still take advantage of HubSpot’s features even if you want to continue using Salesforce. If you install the HubSpot-Salesforce integration, you can pass data between the two products and use them together. Combining the HubSpot Marketing Hub with Salesforce is a popular option for companies that want to stay on Salesforce.
Like the Marketing Hub, the Sales Hub comes in four editions: Free, Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.
The HubSpot Service Hub was built for any company that provides customers with a help desk function. It allows your customer service team to resolve issues in minutes through personalized service, automation, and communication tools that meet your customers on the channels they prefer.
The backbone of the Service Hub is its robust ticketing system, which works seamlessly with HubSpot’s CRM. You can expect features like these:
This Hub is best for companies that sell software products, including SaaS companies, or companies that provide some type of tech service to customers. It was designed to enable service teams to answer ticket requests quickly and use automation to resolve customer queries and problems.
Nonetheless, you might be able to leverage this Hub if you’re serious about customer service, regardless of what type of product or service you sell. The premium edition includes a customer feedback function that works with Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and other strategies. It even lets you create videos and a knowledge base to help your customers.
Like the other Hubs, the Service Hub comes in four editions: Free, Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. The Professional edition is what provides you with help desk automation, customer feedback surveys, and the knowledge base. The enterprise edition is better suited to larger companies that manage several teams.
HubSpot has long provided its customers with a CMS, allowing them to build a website on the HubSpot platform and integrate their web analytics with the CRM. But with CMS Hub, HubSpot has expanded its offering to support developers and empower web-based companies with even more features.
The CMS Hub includes features like the following:
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, and it can integrate with HubSpot with the right inputs. But companies that leverage HubSpot’s other tools should consider the HubSpot CMS to build their websites if they want a seamless integration or if they want to be able to manage their marketing, sales, customer service, and company website all in one place.
HubSpot’s drag-and-drop website building function makes it so you can build a beautiful, mobile-responsive website even if you aren’t a developer. This makes it a viable option for smaller teams and businesses that don’t have full-time web development staff. This also means your non-technical staff can update the website with content as needed without running into technical barriers.
Unlike the other HubSpot Hubs, the CMS Hub only comes in two editions: Professional and Enterprise.
The Professional edition includes all the features you need to build and maintain a great business website, including the drag-and-drop editor, website themes, SEO optimizations, and 24/7 security monitoring and threat detection.
The Enterprise edition is best suited to larger companies and organizations that need to support complex website functions. For example, this edition includes a hierarchical teams function that supports up to 300 teams. It also includes custom objects (up to 10 definitions and 500,000 records), content partitioning, and custom CDN (content delivery network) configurations.
Almost every business can leverage HubSpot’s tools to some degree. And if your company is serious about the inbound methodology, you won’t find a better set of tools to support your strategy than those offered by HubSpot.
That said, it’s always important to do a cost/benefit analysis before purchasing any type of software in a long-term agreement. Depending on your needs, you may benefit from one or two of the Hubs listed above, or you might be able to leverage all four.
To find out which HubSpot tools are right for your business, contact us at A8 today. We’re certified HubSpot partners and we have years of experience implementing HubSpot’s tools in our client’s technology stacks.