You’ve likely seen the iconic orange sprocket logo.
The sprocket symbol is a great representation of what HubSpot is built to do: transmit motion. And with the help of the right software tools, your business can move forward continuously.
To truly understand the software, you need to know the history of the company.
Co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah were at MIT when they noticed how much buying behaviors were changing in 2004. People were no longer responding well to interruptive marketing tactics.
These outbound marketing tactics were starting to be actively ignored. This change in buying behavior called for a change. For businesses to truly thrive, they needed to focus more on helping people first.
They needed to focus on the customer, not just making more sales.
Halligan and Shah opened their first HubSpot office in Cambridge, MA in 2005 as a marketing software company. Just five years later, they released the seminal book for the inbound movement – Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs.
In 2013, HubSpot went international, opening their Dublin office. The next year ushered in their first public offering on the stock market.
What sets HubSpot apart from other enterprise software options is the fact that it is built with the inbound methodology incorporated into every facet of their tools.
Inbound is the method of attracting, engaging, and delighting people to grow a business that provides value and builds trust. This methodology applies to marketing, sales, and customer service.
All of these components work together to fuel the flywheel model.
Source: HubSpot
The traditional approach many businesses use is the funnel. But the unfortunate truth is the funnel treats the customer like an afterthought. This is where the flywheel differentiates itself. It’s a necessary shift in how businesses treat the customer.
As you can see with the funnel, after a stranger converts to a lead, gets handed off sales, then makes the purchase, they become a customer. But then what?
They’re left on their own.
But customers need continuous support and service. That’s why customer centricity is not just a business trend in today’s landscape. Putting your customer at the center of everything you do is a must for your business to survive and thrive.
Here’s what the flywheel model looks like in your company, as marketing, sales, and service work together to attract, engage, and delight customers.
Source: HubSpot
You want to spark momentum and energy to fuel momentum of your flywheel. Your ability to accomplish this depends on speed, the amount of friction, and how big it is.
You can increase your speed by adding force to big impact areas of your business. To reduce friction, you find inefficiencies and address them. In turn, as your flywheel gains speed, you continually delight customers, turning them into advocates that help grow your business.
This is why the flywheel model works. People don’t put as much trust in marketers and salespeople as they used to.
Source: HubSpot
Now, consumers trust what people are saying about your brand. Therefore, when you constantly delight customers, you’re encouraging them to act as advocates for you. This is why strong customer experience is your best asset. And the HubSpot platform is built for optimizing your customer experience.
Let’s take a look at each part of HubSpot and how it supports your business.
The heart of your business is your contacts database, which is built on your customer relationship management (CRM) suite.
A CRM is a must for many reasons.
You want your CRM to be easy to use, streamline access for all your teams, integrate seamlessly with your other software tools, and provide insightful reporting features.
This is where the HubSpot CRM stands out. Not only does it check all those boxes, but it also beats out the competition in pricing.
While many options charge per user on a monthly basis, HubSpot’s CRM fulfills the HubSpot Guarantee: It’s free. Forever. That’s a great deal when you look at all the features it comes with.
Here’s a high-level view of all the awesome features it comes with, which set you up for fast growth.
Your HubSpot CRM seamlessly integrates with the rest of your business tools, including your Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub.
Aside from HubSpot CRM, there are several options to invest in. Here’s a look at the top five best HubSpot CRM alternatives:
A content management system, often abbreviated to CMS, is software that you use to build, manage, and update your website content.
The best CMS platforms are user friendly, so anyone can create and update website content without any technical knowledge.
The most important features to look for in your CMS include:
The HubSpot CMS Hub covers all the bases in two different tiers.
Price: Starts at $240 per month when you pay annually. Monthly billing starts at $300.
The HubSpot CMS Hub was launched in 2020, boasting a ton of amazing features that are built in to help companies scale their site as their business grows.
HubSpot CMS Hub Professional users get access to the following:
Price: Starts at $900 per month (billed annually).
The HubSpot CMS Hub Enterprise tier gives you access to all the tools from the professional tier, plus the following:
With so many CMS software options available, it's hard to determine which is the best fit for you. Here are the most notable alternatives to the HubSpot CMS Hub:
Marketing automation software helps companies in a variety of ways:
The HubSpot Marketing Hub is a top choice, and it’s available in four different tiers.
The free tier comes with a ton of awesome features, including the following:
Price: Starts at $50 per month, or $40 per month if you pay annually.
While there are some restrictions with the free marketing tools, HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter comes with fewer restrictions, as well as these additional features:
Price: Starts at $800 per month.
Along with fewer restrictions on the aforementioned features, the HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional comes with:
Price: Starts at $3,200 per month.
The additional features you get with HubSpot Marketing Hub Enterprise include:
Your HubSpot Marketing Hub is built to guide your growth and to grow alongside your business. Gain control and visibility of all your ongoing marketing tactics.
There are so many marketing automation tools available. Here are some notable alternatives to the HubSpot Marketing Hub:
Sales automation consists of software, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital tools working together to streamline manual tasks related to your sales processes.
Businesses with sales automation software enjoy several advantages, including the following:
The HubSpot Sales Hub is a top choice for sales automation software. Let’s go through each available tier.
With no financial commitment, you get access to a ton of awesome free sales tools, most notably:
Price: Starts at $50 per month, or $40 per month if you pay annually.
After upgrading to HubSpot Sales Hub Starter, your free tools come with less restrictions and you gain access these features:
Price: Starts at $500 per month.
The best tools that you can use with this tier include the following:
Price: Starts at $1,200 per month.
At the top level of the HubSpot Sales Hub, you get all you need to run big sales teams and maximize efficiency. Here are the enterprise-exclusive features, many of which you get access to using the other hub enterprise tiers:
With so many sales automation software options, there are a lot of considerations to look at. These are the most notable HubSpot Sales Hub alternatives:
Many businesses are using automation tools to make the most of their customer service efforts. There are many benefits of using customer service automation software.
Here’s a breakdown of the four tiers of the HubSpot Service Hub.
For no charge, you can start delivering excellent customer service using several free tools you get through the other free hubs (e.g., live chat, conversational bots, meeting scheduling, messenger integration) as well as these free Service Hub tools:
Price: Starts at $50 per month, or $40 per month if you pay annually.
This tier gives you fewer restrictions on free tools and provides access to the following features:
Price: Starts at $400 per month, or $320 per month if you pay annually.
Here’s a look at the best features you get with the professional tier:
Price: Starts at $1,200 per month.
The top tier of the HubSpot Service Hub empowers large customer service teams to continually support and delight customers in a scalable way. The most notable enterprise features include:
Customer service automation software is transforming how companies deliver A+ customer experiences. Here are the most notable HubSpot Service Hub alternatives.
One of the best parts of HubSpot is how many integrations you get access to. There are many platforms you can use with HubSpot in the following categories:
Source: HubSpot
Here are some of the most notable HubSpot integrations.
Databox is a business analytics that pulls all data into one location. Users can build comprehensive reports from various data sources, giving full visibility of all the metrics that matter.
There are many ways you can integrate your HubSpot with Databox. Learn more from these resources:
SurveyMonkey is an online survey solution that makes creating and distributing surveys easy. They also provide software for marketing, human resources, and customer experience teams.
Here are some resources to learn more about managing integration between HubSpot and SurveyMonkey:
Salesforce is a leading CRM solution, and it works perfectly with HubSpot. You can learn more about the integration by reading these resources:
Typeform is another leading online survey solution, but they also specialize in online form building. Used by top companies, it’s not surprising that it’s a leading name in SaaS.
Check out these resources about the integration:
Drift is one of the best software solutions for conversational marketing. They provide live chat, video, email, and other automation tools.
Here are some resources about integrating your Drift with HubSpot:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an excellent tool for your sales teams that is worth the price. When you connect it with your HubSpot, your team becomes unstoppable.
Review the basics of this integration in these resources:
Slack is a collaboration tool that helps teams collaborate and stay connected in real time. It’s one of the most powerful business communication solutions.
Here’s what you need to know about integrating it with HubSpot:
Gmail is a leading email service that works perfectly with HubSpot. Learn more about the integration in these resources:
Mailchimp is a top choice for marketing automation, specializing in email marketing. To see how it works with HubSpot, check out these resources:
Shopify is a go-to ecommerce platform that helps users build online stores and manage everything from products and inventory to shipping and payments.
Here’s what you need to know about the HubSpot-Shopify integration:
Now that you have a solid understanding of HubSpot and each of their tools and features for every tier, you can see exactly how it can take your business to the next level.
Most importantly, you can visualize how all areas of your business – marketing, sales, and service – work together to deliver the best customer experience.
Customer centric businesses win big. They're 60 percent more profitable than companies that don't focus on the customer. And those companies that provide a superior customer experience earn 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors who are falling behind in creating good customer experiences.
With the right business software, you're well equipped to put the customer first.
Additionally, you can see how integrations work with the tools you currently use. HubSpot is quick to implement and easy to set up. When you get all your software tools working together, you unify your entire organization.
That’s the ultimate goal of any business looking for software: to bring their teams together and build frictionless processes for maximum efficiency. HubSpot is the ultimate solution for building an inbound organization and creating a sustainable flywheel model for your business.
With HubSpot, you’re not just setting yourself up for success. You’re going to grow better.