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What is HubSpot? (The Ultimate Guide)

What is HubSpot? (The Ultimate Guide)
Wondering what HubSpot is and what it can do for your business? This guide covers everything you need to know.

1. Introduction

Wondering what HubSpot is and how it can help your business grow? You’re in the right place!

HubSpot is a powerful, all-in-one platform designed to simplify your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts, no matter the size of your business. Whether you're looking to attract more leads, close more deals, or keep your customers happy, HubSpot has the tools to help you do it all in one place.

In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know about HubSpot - how it works, what it offers, and why it’s a game-changer for businesses.

From its various Hubs and integrations to its reporting tools that keep you on track, we’ll cover it all. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how HubSpot can take your business to the next level.

Ready to dive in and see what HubSpot can do for you? Let’s get started!

2. What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is an all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides tools for marketing, sales, customer service, and content management. Founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot's mission is to help businesses grow by attracting, engaging, and delighting customers.

The platform is built around the concept of Inbound Marketing, which focuses on creating valuable content and experiences tailored to customers' needs and interests in an effort to increase organic traffic to your website and generate leads.

HubSpot offers a suite of tools designed to help businesses manage their customer interactions more effectively. These are the six Hubs:

Marketing Hub: Marketing Hub provides the tools needed to attract, engage and nurture leads in your Inbound Marketing strategy, such as campaigns, emails, social, ads, forms and call-to-action (CTAs)

Content Hub: This all-in-one tool allows marketers to create and manage content across the buyers’ journey, build and manage websites, and optimize your website for SEO best practices.

Sales Hub: Sales Hub gives your business the tools needed to track sales activities, manage pipelines, automate sales tasks and overall helps you improve your sales efficiency.

Service Hub: Here you can manage customer service interactions, provide support and access various tools that help you to enhance customer satisfaction.

Operations Hub: Operations Hub helps your business to automate processes and keep data in sync across different platforms.

Commerce Hub: Here you can manage and integrate the tools and applications you need to manage payments within your HubSpot portal.

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3. What Can You Do in HubSpot?

HubSpot's versatility allows businesses to perform a wide range of activities that streamline marketing, sales, and customer service processes.

Marketing Automation

With Hubspot, you can create, automate, and measure marketing campaigns all in one place. Some key features include email marketing, lead nurturing, social media management, SEO and content strategy, and comprehensive analytics and reporting. These tools enable you to design professional email campaigns, automate lead nurturing workflows, manage and monitor social media engagement, and optimize your content for search engines, all while gaining valuable insights into your marketing efforts.

Sales Enablement

HubSpot's Sales Hub empowers sales teams with tools to close deals faster and more efficiently. Key functionalities include contact management, email tracking and templates, pipeline management, meeting scheduling, and sales automation. These features can help your sales team keep track of all customer interactions, monitor email engagement, visualize and manage sales pipelines, streamline meeting scheduling, and automate repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus more on selling.

Customer Service

The Service Hub helps businesses deliver exceptional customer service and build lasting relationships. It includes a ticketing system, knowledge base, customer feedback collection, live chat, and support automation. These tools enable your business to manage and track customer inquiries, provide self-service options for customers, collect valuable feedback, offer real-time support, and automate common support tasks, ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction.

Content Management

ContentHub has been designed to help your business more easily manage and edits its website. Features include a drag-and-drop website builder, SEO tools, content personalization, and security and performance optimization. With these tools, you can create and customize your website, ensure it is optimized for search engines, deliver personalized content experiences, and maintain a secure and high-performing website.

Operations Management

The Operations Hub enables you to automate and optimize your business processes. It offers data sync, automation, and data quality tools to keep your data in sync across various platforms, automate routine tasks, and maintain clean and accurate data.

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4. What are the Benefits of Using HubSpot?

Using HubSpot offers numerous benefits that can significantly impact your business's growth and efficiency:

  1. All-in-One Platform: HubSpot consolidates multiple tools into a single platform, reducing the need for separate software and simplifying your tech stack.
  2. User-Friendly Interface: HubSpot's intuitive interface makes it easy for users of all skill levels to navigate and use its features.
  3. Scalability: HubSpot grows with your business, offering solutions for small startups to large enterprises.
  4. Inbound Marketing Focus: HubSpot's tools are designed around inbound marketing principles, helping you attract and engage customers more effectively.
  5. Comprehensive Analytics: Gain deep insights into your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts with robust analytics and reporting.
  6. Community and Support: Access a vast library of resources, training, and support from HubSpot's community and customer service team.

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5. How Much Does HubSpot Cost?

HubSpot offers a range of pricing plans to suit different business needs and budgets, including free tools, starter plans, professional plans and enterprise plans, all offering a range of features and functionalities depending on your company’s specific needs.

These plans can be accessed across the various Hubs, with your business able to pick and choose the Hub and level of functionality required.

This customization means that HubSpot pricing varies significantly depending on a company’s needs, from simply using the free tool to thousands for the enterprise Hubs. For companies that invest in more than one Hub, they can be discounted at a bundle price.

As of March 5, 2024, HubSpot unveiled a new pricing model, which will roll out a seats-based pricing model to all Hubs and subscription tiers. The change removes seat minimums for Sales Hub and Service Hub and introduces the Core Seat and View-Only Seat.

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6. What is HubSpot Onboarding?

After making a HubSpot purchase, onboarding and implementation services help you make the most of your investment.

HubSpot Onboarding is a structured process designed to help new users get the most out of the platform. It includes setup assistance, training and resources, strategy development, and ongoing support.

During the onboarding process, you receive guidance on setting up your HubSpot account, integrating tools, and configuring settings. Additionally, you have access to training sessions, webinars, and a comprehensive knowledge base to help you learn how to use HubSpot effectively.

These onboarding services can be done through HubSpot, and will cost $3,000 for Professional Tier service and $7,000 for the Enterprise Tier. They can also be done through a HubSpot partner agency, which is typically less expensive.

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7. What is a HubSpot Partner Agency?

A HubSpot Partner Agency is a certified agency recognized for its expertise in using HubSpot to help businesses grow. These agencies undergo rigorous training and certification processes to demonstrate their proficiency with HubSpot’s tools and methodologies.

Partner agencies provide a range of services designed to maximize the value businesses can get from the HubSpot platform. These services include assisting with the initial setup and configuration of HubSpot accounts, developing and executing Inbound Marketing strategies, and implementing tools and processes to improve sales efficiency.

Additionally, partner agencies focus on enhancing customer service operations, ensuring businesses can deliver better support and build stronger relationships with their customers.

By continuously providing ongoing support and training, HubSpot Partner Agencies ensure that businesses can make the most out of the platform's features and stay current with best practices and new developments.

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8. What are the Benefits of Working With a HubSpot Partner Agency?

Working with a HubSpot Partner Agency offers numerous advantages that can significantly enhance your experience with the HubSpot platform and drive business growth. 

By partnering with a HubSpot agency, you gain access to a wealth of experience and insights that can help you optimize your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts, including:

  • Expertise and Experience: Partner agencies have in-depth knowledge of HubSpot and extensive experience in helping businesses grow using the platform.
  • Customized Solutions: They provide tailored solutions that address your unique business needs and challenges.
  • Faster Implementation: With their expertise, partner agencies can help you implement HubSpot more quickly and efficiently.
  • Ongoing Optimization: Partner agencies continuously monitor and optimize your HubSpot setup to ensure it delivers the best results.
  • Training and Support: They offer training and support to help your team become proficient in using HubSpot and stay up-to-date with the latest features and best practices.

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Tom Davis
Post by Tom Davis
October 17, 2024
With a background in journalism, Tom combines his love of writing and experience in Inbound Marketing to deliver effective content strategies to SummitBound clients.

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