Why is HubSpot So Powerful?

HubSpot is a CRM system that organises all the real-time data growing companies need to deliver a great customer experience in one searchable place.

What is CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM is a system that connects your different departments, from marketing to sales to customer service, and organises their notes, activities, and metrics into one cohesive system. As a result, every user in your company has easy, direct access to the real-time client data they need at any time.

The purpose of a CRM system is to manage and analyse customer data and interactions to improve customer service, aid in customer retention and drive sales.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is the number one CRM tool for scaling companies due to its emphasis on meeting customers’ needs without adding unnecessary complexity.

By nature, the modern customer journey is complex due to the many and varied ways companies interact with their clients. From one-on-one conversations to websites with chatbots, mailing lists, social channels and virtual and in-person events, your customers are likely to have multiple touchpoints with your company and interact with representatives from several departments, such as marketing, sales, customer service and tech support.

Companies use a CRM program to deliver a connected customer service experience and to track and report on customer interactions. Technology has made this process more accessible than ever before; however, choosing the correct CRM solution for your needs is imperative, as the wrong technology can hinder more than help you.

The Fundamentals of Inbound Marketing or How to Streamline Processes in a Single Environment.

Inbound marketing differs from traditional outbound marketing in that instead of the sales-focused approach; inbound marketing relies heavily on relationships. As a result, inbound marketing has drastically changed how businesses reach potential customers.

Inbound marketing focuses on engaging with the right people at the right time, nurturing them with relevant information until they are ready to move forward on their purchasing journey. Unlike the traditional “spray and pray” approach of spamming prospects with mass messaging and hoping it lands, inbound marketing takes a more personalised approach, letting the customer take the lead and ensuring he or she has the relevant information at the right time to make the purchasing decision. This makes the customer feel in control, significantly shortens the sales journey, and improves the opportunity to upsell and retain clients.

The Five Fundamentals of Inbound Marketing

If you are to make the most of your inbound marketing strategy, it is vital to get a handle on the fundamentals of this approach. The five fundamentals of inbound marketing are contacts, customer persona, customer journey, content, and goals. These fundamentals will assist you in planning long-term strategies that will satisfy customers or clients without being irritating.

Contacts

Relationships are at the centre of inbound marketing. Everything you do is informed and centred on your contact list. You acquire contacts via your customer touchpoints; website visits, newsletter sign-ups, social media, blogging, referrals, webinars etc. CRM systems help you track and organise your contacts into segmented lists in order to ensure they get the appropriate messaging for their particular customer journey. This ensures they receive personalised messaging related to their interests and specific and immediate needs.

Customer Persona

The second fundamental is the customer persona. A customer persona is a fictional character you create to represent a key target audience. The purpose of developing this fictional “ideal customer” is to help you better understand your prospects and tailor your marketing and messaging to connect better with their needs. You can have multiple customer personas segmented into different lists. This allows you to tweak your messaging to appeal to each persona in different ways.

By creating a persona, you are speaking to the needs of a particular group of people with a specific challenge in need of a solution. This approach will get better results than a mass marketing approach.

The Customer Journey

Now that your customer personas are locked down, you are ready to create a customer journey for each one. A customer journey refers to a three-stage process each potential customer takes, from awareness of your brand, through considering a purchase to making a purchase.

In the awareness phase, the prospect realises they have a problem or a requirement and begins researching to find a solution. For example, suppose you are looking for a CRM program to help you streamline your marketing process. In that case, you may ask for referrals on online forums and ask your colleagues and suppliers which platform they use.

In the consideration phase, the prospect has defined their particular requirements and may have a few different options under consideration. After some research, the customer may be leaning towards HubSpot as a solution since it integrates with their current project management software and several colleagues in similar fields seem to prefer HubSpot over its competitors.

In the decision stage, the prospect has decided that HubSpot is their preferred solution and is ready to make a purchase. After chatting to some colleagues, the prospect realises that HubSpot is a better solution for scaling businesses than its competitors as it covers marketing, sales, service, C.M.S. and operations in one easy-to-use solution. In addition, being connected to every part of the business makes HubSpot an excellent solution for the prospects’ challenges.

Content

Content is an important part of your marketing strategy. What content will attract and engage your customers and move them along the journey towards purchasing your product? What keywords will they be searching to find a solution? What tone of communication will appeal to your customers?

Content refers to any visual or written communication you may use in your business; blogs, emails, videos and images are just a few examples. Content is fundamental to any online strategy and its benefits cannot be overstated. According to Forbes, websites with blogs have 436% more indexed pages in search.

Great content facilitates greater engagement with your audience on social channels and can be used to drive traffic to your website. You can nurture these leads via email segmentation and automation by encouraging them to sign up to your newsletter. Lastly, you can build trust and credibility and establish yourself as an expert in your field through the use of helpful content.

Goals

It is essential to set goals and measure your progress against them to gauge the effectiveness of any inbound marketing campaign.

Goal setting is most effective when using the S.M.A.R.T. goal system. Setting goals that are:

Specific: be precise about what you expect to achieve.

Measurable: ensure that your goals can be measured against pre-determined KPIs.

Attainable: creating a successful strategy takes time, so break your goals down into small steps.

Relevant: the content you’re using to attract leads should align with overall business goals and priorities.

Timely: set deadlines to complete the goal by (i.e. the end of the quarter)

Inbound marketing relies on attracting leads by offering strategic, optimised content developed and designed with your prospects’ key challenges. As with any relationship-building, inbound marketing requires patience, time, and energy. As a HubSpot certified partner you can hire Faben to assist you with your inbound marketing strategy and implementation using the award-winning HubSpot suite of products. Faben works as an extension of your internal team to set up and manage your inbound marketing long-term, freeing you up to work on your business.