Inbound Marketing and Sales Software

4.5
185 reviews 
Made for: 

Companies looking for a sophisticated all-in-one marketing automation tool that covers all areas of digital marketing: email, social media, landing page development. 

Not for: 

Small companies looking for a simple marketing tool. 

 
Free trial
 
$200 - $2400/mo.
Pricing details
Example customers: 

University of Southern California

Shopify

Relevance

Features

Content creation

  • Landing pages
  • Blog posts
  • Call-to-action
  • email newsletters

Promotion & distribution

Provide relevant, contextual marketing experiences to every contact in your database

  • Social media marketing
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
  • Email Marketing
  • Calls-to-Action

Support

  • Chat Support
  • Support Tickets
  • Feature Requests
  • Local User Groups

Integration

  • SlideShare
  • SalesForce
  • SurveyMonkey
  • Uberflip
  • Inboundli
  • Dropbox
  • Eyemagine
  • WordPress
  • Google Chrome
  • Eventbrite
  • Zendesk
  • PandaDoc
  • etc...

Collaboration

Assign tasks to different members of your team within the same account

Automation

Schedule social media posts and email newsletters. 

Analytics and Tracking

  • Blog analytics
  • Social media analytics
  • email analytics and A/B testing
  • Landing page analytics
  • Goal tracking
  • Website traffic sources
  • Contacts reports

Monitoring

  • Monitor your competitors' marketing campaigns
  • Compare your campaign to your competitors'

Pricing

Basic info

 
Free trial
 
$200 - $2400/mo.
 
Annual subscription
  • Basic Plan - $200/ month + $600 (required onboarding)
  • Pro Plan - $800/ month + $3000 (required onboarding)
  • Enterprise Plan - $2,400/ month + $5000 (required onboarding)
Vendor Pricing

Reviews

4.5
185 reviews 
Sort by
 
Client Interview
May 07 2015

HubSpot Implementation at Kuno Creative

4.5

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
4.5
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$10,001 - $100,000/yr. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
11-50 Employees
 
Cleveland, OH
Marketing Technology Director, Kuno Creative
Dan Stasiewski
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The client is Kuno Creative, This client utilizes HubSpot when working with clients to capture leads online through content marketing, demand generation, and manage those leads and qualify them through marketing automation. Kuno Creative is a certified implementation partner of HubSpot. This client highlights HubSpots truly integrated nature from marketing to sales.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I'm the marketing technology director at Kuno Creative. We are an inbound marketing agency that specializes in the implementation of HubSpot and inbound marketing best practices.

Can you give a broad overview of how your company implements HubSpot?

We utilize HubSpot when working with clients to capture leads online through content marketing, demand generation, and manage those leads and qualify them through marketing automation.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your company was facing that incited the need for a content marketing platform?

Whenever we're implementing HubSpot, we're trying to use every feature in the system and setup ourselves and our clients for a successful use of the software. We don't just use one part, but really encourage the full use of the platform. HubSpot is a backbone platform that can host your website, which enables personalization based off a contact database, which is really the differentiator between HubSpot and every other marketing software out there.

HubSpot can send emails, it can capture leads on landing pages, and it can manage your social media with a tool that's better than HootSuite or Buffer. You can have your blogs for creating content all hosted on HubSpot. You can do your reporting. You can set up marketing automation. I think that most of the platforms that are out there right now are marketing automation first and platform second. HubSpot is a platform first, and it is the only system that can really claim that. HubSpot is a solid ground up platform that can manage multiple parts of your marketing.

Was there a specific business goal that you were hoping to accomplish?

Going into HubSpot makes me want to do marketing and makes me want to do it a certain way. It focuses on the whole picture of marketing, and I don't get that from any other platform. The user experience is second to none. When HubSpot did their rebuild, it was a complete change in the way that you can handle and do marketing. HubSpot makes it feel like you're doing a good thing as a marketer rather than just sending emails. HubSpot is built around the idea that sales is not the gateway to information. Eighty percent of the work is done on the marketing side to provide information. Being able to have that content all in one place, being able to have that contact database and knowing everything somebody does on a website helps us nudge people better to the information that they're going to need to make a buying decision. By the time the client is ready to talk to someone in sales, they're probably going to know more about you, your company, and what you do than the salesperson. That's our goal with HubSpot. 

SOLUTION

Did your company have a formal selection process for deciding on a content marketing platform? Was your company considering other platforms or possibly contracting a content marketing agency?

I actively work with other systems and the reason that we specialize in HubSpot is because even though the other systems have the word marketing in their titles they're really sales and lead flow automation tools. They're not marketing software. HubSpot is a software that is great for two reasons. It understands what you need to do from a modern marketing perspective in order to generate trust and a relationship online through creating content and enables the user to slowly nurture prospective buyer through to get them to the point where they're ready for sales. In addition, HubSpot has that automation aspect so that you can perform lead management and lead flow to sales. Every other system that I've touched outside of HubSpot has a user experience that is not ideal. They look, they feel, they move like systems that were built in the mid 2000s. That's what they are. 

HubSpot is a system that was meant for marketers whereas those other systems were meant for IT [information technology] buyers. IT was part of the buying process, so they make sense from an IT perspective. They do everything that they claim to do in terms of marketing automation but, when I look at what I can do, since technology is such an important part of everything in our daily lives, having technology that isn't user friendly or requires you to work on is not ideal. It's inefficient. It makes your day worse. 

Did you initially begin with the platform's free version or trial period? What pricing plan does your company currently utilize?

Kuno Creative is a HubSpot agency partner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your content marketing campaign since initial implementation of the platform?

We never done outbound marketing, and we've been working at this since 2010 when the partner program came into play at HubSpot. We have built our company up from maybe a dozen people to almost 40 people now. We've grown our client base just by implementing HubSpot inbound marketing methodology and best practices with the software. We don't make cold calls. We don't have to because we have so many consultation forms being filled out on a regular basis. That's because we're doing what HubSpot says to do: create content, share content, make sure the content is relevant to the buyer in the buyer's cycle, and nurture those leads.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that you were really impressed by that potential buyers should be aware of?

If anybody's looking at software systems and ways to do their marketing and their marketing online – everything starts and ends on your website in the end. The fact that HubSpot allows us to build out websites that directly connect to their database we can personalize content. If somebody goes to our website and downloads a piece of content, they're going to see a different headline on the home page the next time they come back. If they tell us what industry they're in, they're going to see a different industry message on the home page the next time they come back. We can't do that in a single system the same way. People tend to be hesitant when it comes to thinking about moving your website to HubSpot or any SaaS [Software as a Service] solution in the end. The fact that the website is connected to everything and sits right one top of that core customer database, and does websites in a way that is easier to use than WordPress for updating and building out attractive sites. They've given Web developers a lot of flexibility and leeway in what we can build out and what we can do. Most systems you expect email marketing and marketing automation. I expect some of the social metrics. But, when it comes right down to it, it's the Web and the content that matters. The fact that HubSpot has this content optimization system that connects right up to our database makes such a significant difference in being able to implement this more modern style of marketing. 

Have you found it necessary to use any of the company's available tutorials or support resources? Was the support useful and accessible?

One of the best things about HubSpot is they've been super attentive to user demands, but not rushing feature updates out the door.

Are there any areas of the platform that you feel are not intuitive or that you feel could be improved upon?

There are other platforms that can do things that might be more advanced from an automation side. I think the biggest challenge for anybody who's looking at HubSpot and looking at it up against Marketo or Pardot is you're not comparing apples to oranges. You're comparing apples to an elephant. HubSpot is designed around this entire methodology that if you don't subscribe to, you're going to miss utilizing major portions of the software. The methodology is so simple and easy to keep moving forward. We have clients that come to us because they need us to help them do things that their in-house developers couldn't do or they want us to do some advanced automation. There's so much that you can do with this software. It's so powerful in terms of creating this marketing experience online and putting your brand out there through content, that if you don't buy in to the way that things are done in that environment, you're not going to get the success out of HubSpot that the system is built for. If it doesn't do something, chances are it's something I shouldn't be doing in the first place.

OVERVIEW

We ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the top score. What would you give the platform for ease of use and implementation?

Four and a half, depending on the system that you're coming from. It could be lower than that if you're coming from a monstrous, old-school system into HubSpot. That might make it a little harder. If you're just starting out it's a five.

What would you give the platform's features for desired functionality?

Five. The quality of features that are available – I don't think most people realize how powerful it can be. I can't speak highly enough about the way that these features exist and work together.

For support, as in responsiveness and resources available?

Five. They have layers of support. Their first layer will be able to answer basic questions about the software. If it's something that might be more oriented towards a developer's issue, they have a developer's forum that gives you direct access to the engineers who are working on the software. Their support is great. Some people call for strategy information but that's not what they're there for. 

For overall usability and satisfaction with the platform?

Four and a half. Our success can be directly attributed to embracing inbound marketing and HubSpot as a tool. It's how we've grown without cold calls, backslapping sales, and RFPs [request for proposals].

How likely are you to recommend the platform to a similar business?

Five. HubSpot is the only marketing software that I would recommend to anyone at this point. There's nothing else that compares.

4.5
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 4.5 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
May 08 2015

HubSpot Implementation for Content Marketing Agency

4.5

Features: 
4.5
Ease of use: 
4.0
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$1,001 - $10,000/yr. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
1-10 Employees
 
Boston, MA
Founder, nDash Marketing
Michael Brown
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The client is nDash marketing, a content marketing agency located in the greater Boston area. They were in need of inbound marketing platform that would allow them to see their customer's content marketing campaigns' reports and analytics. They implement HubSpot for this purpose. The client is very satisfied with their implementation of HubSpot. The client highly recommends HubSpot its variety of features and great return on investment. 

Share :

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is nDash Marketing, a content marketing agency. We help companies develop anything that's on the written side of marketing, such as blog posts, articles, white papers, e-books, and emails.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the founder and CEO of the company. I oversee operations.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your company was facing that incited the need for a social media marketing platform?

We started implementing HubSpot a little more than a year ago. We had our website on WordPress, and I was looking for something that was little more robust that had more features. I was also looking for a platform that offered great customer support. We don't have development resources in house. In WordPress, if your website has issues, you are on your own. That's not the case with HubSpot.

Was there a specific business goal that you were hoping to accomplish?

First, we wanted to get our own marketing and operations on the HubSpot platform. The second goal was to become an agency partner of theirs. Being an agency partner works out really well. A lot of our clients are HubSpot customers as well, so to have that relationship is very valuable for us and for our clients. If we're writing content for a client, we can submit a lot of our stuff right in HubSpot. We have access to the reports and analytics so we can see what's working and what's not and make changes. That's been a big differentiator for us.

SOLUTION

Did your company have a formal selection process for deciding on a social media management platform? Was your company considering other platforms or possibly contracting a social media management agency?

I looked at other tools, and I realized that, if I chose another platform, I would have to use several tools that would complement each other. I would need WordPress for the website, MailChimp for our email marketing campaign, and HootSuite for social media management. I might need another tool for landing pages and lead capturing. HubSpot is all under one umbrella. To me, that was key. We're using one tool for multiple functions. When we signed on with them, they had not launched their CRM [customer relationship management system]. That launch was an even bigger confirmation that we made the right choice because now we can track leads and manage our sales.

What is your annual spend on the platform? Did you start using the platform's free trial prior to purchasing the platform's subscription plan?

We're in their "PRO" plan, which is $800 per month. The pricing is straightforward. If you look at it from an ROI [return on investment] perspective, it pays for itself. I don't have any complaints on the price. It's a good value.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your content marketing campaign since initial implementation of the platform?

Our traffic has grown substantially. The leads that we've been able to generate have grown steadily during the last year and a half. We started off in HubSpot, so all of our growth has been within the platform. To make it work, you need to populate it with content. 

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you and by which potential buyers should be aware?

The best feature of the platform is the ease in which to create content. I like the fact that the templates are easy to use, whether it's for a Web page, blog post, or email. You don't really need to be a designer to have nice-looking assets.

Can you speak to the tracking and analytics tools available, such as lead nurturing and conversion rates?

I'm impressed with their keyword tools. It helps users benchmark where they are in terms of search ranking and their competitors. 

Have you found it necessary to use any of the company's available tutorials or support resources? Was the support useful and accessible?

HubSpot assigns you an account manager, and people that can point you in the right direction on how to resolve issues and leverage the platform to its full extent. Our account manager is fantastic. We're close to their office, so we can go in there once per quarter for a face-to-face meeting. They see how things are going and guide us on how to improve. The support staff is just as great. They are available all hours of the day. We found them to be particular helpful when we're making big changes. 

Are there any areas of the platform that you feel are not intuitive or that you feel could be improved upon?

I can't really think of anything. They give you all the tools you need to succeed. It can be overwhelming because there's so much to do on the platform. Sometimes, it might be hard to focus on optimizing one particular activity. That's not really a negative thing, though. That's like knocking them because they have too many features.

OVERVIEW

We have a few quick questions and, for each question, we ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the best. What would you give the platform for ease of use and implementation?

Four. 

What would you give the platform's features for desired functionality?

Four and a half.

For support, as in responsiveness and resources available?

Five.

For overall usability and satisfaction with the platform?

Four and a half.

How likely are you to recommend the platform to a similar business?

Five.

4.5
Overall Score
  • 4.5 Features
  • 4.0 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
May 28 2015

Digital Marketing Firm's Implementation of HubSpot

4.5

Features: 
4.0
Ease of use: 
4.0
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$10,001 - $100,000/yr. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
11-50 Employees
 
Indianapolis, IN
Director of Marketing, Digital Marketing Agency
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The HubSpot client is a digital marketing agency and publication firm. This client implements HubSpot as an internal solution largely to measure the efforts of their marketing campaigns. This client recommends HubSpot for its intuitive nature. One area this client sees for improvement for HubSpot is on lead scoring and identifying qualified leads.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I'm the director of marketing for a company that provides data-backed approaches to content strategy, SEO [search engine optimization], PPC [pay-per-click], paid media, digital PR, and analytics services. 

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

How does your company implement HubSpot?

HubSpot is the foundation of our inbound strategy. It allows us to set up campaigns, monitor, and measure all of our lead generation activities. We get granular when looking at the performance of our content marketing efforts. We can look at the quality of engagement that we accrue from leads that were generated through other channels. We have quite a diverse mix of sources for lead generation. The ability to look at and analyze the quality of those leads, their reaction, and responses to our lead nurturing efforts is important. With the addition of HubSpot's CRM [customer relationship management] last year, we have full visibility into the entire buyer's journey and the entire engagement with our company of all leads that turn into prospects. We're able to see which marketing campaigns worked and which didn't work. HubSpot allows to keep a living pulse on that metric. Not only does HubSpot help the marketing team improve campaign performance by constantly measuring and tracking campaign performance, but it also allows the sales and marketing team to hand shake and work close with the prospect so that we can bring business to the agency.

SOLUTION

Did your company have a formal selection process for deciding on a content marketing platform?

I wasn't involved in the choosing of HubSpot. I became the director of marketing last June. The decision was made by our current VP of audience, who was the VP of marketing before I took this position. He has been a HubSpot advocate and user for years even before his time with our company. He really believed in it as a powerhouse for inbound marketing because of its intuitive functionality. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project?

It's not only the tool, but also the campaign that's being executed and measured by HubSpot. We've had great success in quality lead generation and are able to see and track that through our inbound marketing efforts using the tool.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you and by which potential buyers should be aware?

HubSpot makes it easy to set up campaigns. It's very easy to park the data in lots of different ways. It is easy to zoom in on your marketing efforts. It makes it easy to create content and publish content. Now, connectivity makes it even better. It's a lot of tools in one. It's robust if you take the time to learn how to use all of the features that it's capable of. It doesn't feel as cumbersome for being such a powerful tool. I don't have firsthand experience with some of the other options but from other user feedback I've heard, other tools and implementation can be tricky. Getting the most out of the other tools is not always the easiest thing to do because they require so much training. When I started in June of last year [2014], within a month of just working through HubSpot, I thought it was very intuitive. It was easy enough for me to figure out the core content feeds and get the work I needed done.

OVERVIEW

We ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the top score. What would you give the platform for ease of use and implementation?

Four.

What would you give the platform's features for desired functionality?

Four. There really isn't anything large that sticks out. I'd be interested in email branching logic. Their lead scoring is a little on the weak end. Integration with Google Docs might be helpful. But, overall, HubSpot really allows us to quantify our marketing efforts. 

For support, as in responsiveness and resources available?

Five. They're really responsive. They're a fast team and, for the most part, they hunt down the answer if they don't know it.

For overall usability and satisfaction with the platform?

Four and a half.

How likely are you to recommend the platform to a similar business?

Five. That's a biased opinion because of my level of familiarity with it. It's unfair for me to be able to choose between HubSpot and another if I haven't used another. My experience has been such a positive one that I would not hesitate to make the recommendation to any size of company including small enterprises. HubSpot is robust enough to support larger companies.

4.5
Overall Score
  • 4.0 Features
  • 4.0 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Jul 05 2016

Content Management and Website Performance Tracking with HubSpot

5.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
5.0
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
Information Technology
 
11-50 Employees
 
New York City
Project Manager, Web Design Manager
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The user is a web design agency. They integrate HubSpot into the websites they build for their clients, so clients can then create new pages as needed and track website performance easily. They really like the clean and simple content editor that HubSpot provides and the CRM that is built into it. They recommend HubSpot to those looking for a flexible marketing automation and content management tool.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We're a website design agency.

What role do you play there?

My position here is project manager.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your clients were facing that initiated the need for this platform?

The reason that that HubSpot is most used on our side is for client integration purposes. Many times, we'll integrate that into our client side, not specifically for ourselves. Internally we do use the HubSpot CRM [content resource management], so that would be the most prominent tool that we're using from that software.

SOLUTION

How does your company implement this platform or software?

Based on the requirements of the client, the integration is dependent on what the client is looking for. HubSpot provides these marketing tools that we will integrate into the client's website. Sometimes, we'll build the design. One example would be we would build the design and set up the back-end using something like HubSpot so that if they wanted to create additional landing pages or if they wanted to monitor and assess the analytics of their pages, they're able to do that using HubSpot. That back-end from HubSpot allows us to provide an editor for content management and then many marketing tools so that they can assess the website performance. Based on what the client is looking for, HubSpot does a good job in providing tools and creating landing pages, calls to action and that sort of thing. Once the website is built, if there are other additional landing pages or campaigns that the client is looking to set up, they would most definitely use that platform to create those new pages and to create appropriate forms to capture lead information and then take it from there.

Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?

My team made that decision collectively. I know that HubSpot is easy to use, and I think that my clients have felt that their interface – again, I don't really know about some of these others that you just mentioned because I haven't used them, so I can't compare and say this was better. I do know that we have clients that have worked with HubSpot. It's a very dynamic tool. The interface is very clean, so we feel that we've heard some good recommendation on HubSpot with regards to how flexible it is and the amount of functionality they provide. Of course, I'm not able to compare it to Infusionsoft or any of the others.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

HubSpot's editor is very nice. I've used a bunch of editors, and content management is a very strong aspect of our overall process as a web development company. I know some clients are looking for a very sharp content management system. Their editor was pretty impressive. It's a couple steps ahead of other tools. For example, WordPress, which is not what HubSpot does, but WordPress is a content management back-end. Their editor couldn't really compare to what HubSpot has. I think their editor stands out.

They have a CRM, which is not extraordinarily unique, but pretty dynamic. One of the good things about it is that it's free. Although some of the tools that HubSpot offers are a little bit pricey, you can definitely get onboard onto their CRM. I think that's another one that stands out.

Looking back, are there any areas of the software upon which you feel could be added or improved?

I couldn't say so. They have good customer support. At times, I felt that something was missing, so every time I've called in someone has been able to help me out and pretty cheery on the other side. I don't think I've come into a situation where we're not able to figure it out or they don't provide something.

Do you have any results that came out of your use of HubSpot?

Just the fact that it allows for result analysis I think is a big one. Whether performance is good or bad, at least we have a tool now where we can use it to determine what pages are working. I know that our clients use HubSpot to determine is this lead form working for us, then they'll make some edits to the form, and then they'll check again to kind of see if the conversion is coming through. The constant analytical activity that they provide and give you a picture of is something that really helps us all on my side and the client's side. It really helps determine how we need to make changes on the marketing end. I think in that respect if you continue bettering your pages and your marketing material to achieve what it is that you're looking for.

RATINGS

We ask you to rate the software on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best.

What would you give the software for functionality of the features available?

5

What would you give the software for ease of use or ease of implementation into your business?

5

For support, as in responsiveness of the team or helpfulness of the resources available?

5 – They're good at that.

How likely are you to recommend the software to a colleague or similar business?

5 – I always recommend it.

For overall satisfaction with the platform?

5 – It's good.

5.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 5.0 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Aug 05 2015

HubSpot Implementation Partner – Inbound Marketing Agency

4.0

Features: 
4.0
Ease of use: 
4.0
Support: 
4.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$1,001 - $10,000/yr. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
2-10 Employees
 
San Diego, CA
Owner, Smashdeck Marketing
Christina Hall
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The client is Smashdeck Marketing, an inbound marketing agency and certified HubSpot partner that implements the platform on behalf of their clients. The client selected HubSpot over a number of other platforms, including Pardot and Marketo, because the features and pricing were more in line with their small business customers' needs. The client has been very satisfied with HubSpot, and its ability to track the successes of their content and inbound marketing programs. The client highlighted HubSpot's strength as being a fully integrated tool where landing pages connect to marketing lists and turn into email workflows, which then can be nurtured or closed. The client's only suggestion for improvement was a change in the pricing structure, which would allow smaller customers to forgo paying for features they don't use. Overall, the client would strongly recommend HubSpot to others.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide a brief description of your company and the role that you play there?

Smashdeck Marketing is an inbound marketing consultancy. We help companies establish an inbound marketing program. Our ultimate goal is to train their team and eventually hand off all the work to them after six to 12 months. We are a certified HubSpot partner agency.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your company was facing that led you to work with HubSpot?

When I made the decision to go exclusively towards inbound marketing, I knew I needed to have an ironclad process. A lot of agencies, from SEO [search engine optimization] firms to traditional marketing agencies do some form of content creation, but very few of them are intentional about their strategy.

When I made the decision to focus on inbound marketing, I wanted to create a process for my clients that would allow them to measure the reach of their programs and ROI [return on investment] easily. HubSpot is the best tool I've found for tracking activity and channel performance.

SOLUTION

Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?

I looked at Marketo and Pardot , but they are more enterprise based, and I work primarily with small or mid-sized businesses. Also, I've worked with Pardot before and, in terms of the user interface, I personally just don't like it compared to HubSpot.

The more comparable marketing software from a small business perspective is Infusionsoft. From what I know, it has a lot of similarities with HubSpot in terms of reporting and functionality and capability. Ultimately, I think HubSpot has a little more credibility in the market than other platforms, and as an inbound marketing agency for small business, it would be silly not to use HubSpot.

On an annual or monthly basis, how much does your company spend to utilize the platform?

They have an entry level, which a small percentage of users can actually use because it's only up to 100 contact records, so it's not very scalable. Most of my clients have gone with the Pro plan, which is an $800 a month commitment plus a training fee. One of the reason companies choose to partner with businesses like mine is that they don't have to pay HubSpot for the training fee.

RESULTS

Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your implementation of this platform?

HubSpot is a tool and as a tool, it's been really helpful in showing the return on investment of the marketing that we're doing for our clients. Without HubSpot's tracking features it would be much more difficult to show the results we're getting from the programs we're running. Having these very objective metrics is helpful in explaining to clients the benefits of inbound marketing because that still is a tough sell. Outbound marketing is still the default setting for most marketers. HubSpot is a crucial educational tool for showing why inbound is the future.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

A lot of marketing platforms offer one component or another, but usually not a fully integrated suite. With HubSpot, your landing pages connect to your marketing lists and turn into email workflows, which then can be nurtured or closed. There's tremendous benefit of having an end-to-end solution like HubSpot. Whereas if you're using a tool like Landwrap for your landing pages or HTML, and then you hook it up to another marketing automation tool that isn't a full suite and then the process gets broken. Having the full-cycle automation from a campaign perspective really helps to understand what that user is doing, and how you can engage them. 

Looking back, are there any areas of the software that you feel could be added or improved upon?

From a feature perspective it's feature rich, and many companies use it to 100 percent capacity. Most of the companies I've found are not using the platform's full suite of capabilities. That's not to say it's overbuilt, all of the features are useful, but a lot of small businesses still struggle to keep up with what they can actually do with it, and it's not inexpensive. To small businesses, $800 a month is very meaningful. I would love for them to offer an alternative solution to that was more catered toward the capacities of small businesses.

Have you had to interact with the platform's support team or reference their support resources?

From a partner's perspective, I have quite a bit, and their support is top notch in terms of the channel program. They continue to support their partners offline by offering the HubSpot user group in major metro areas. They also have a partner care program, where they reward their highest performing partners with intensive conversation, and additional workshops or something.

From a client's perspective, all my client's have said the support they receive is also top notch. I've never had a meaningful complaint from them around support.

OVERVIEW

We have a few quick questions and, for each question, we ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the best. What would you give the software for functionality of the features available?

Four. It's a very rich software. The main reason I wouldn't say five is because some of the functionality out paces my client's ability to utilize it.

What would you give the software for ease of use or ease of implementation into your business?

Four. They do the initial implementation, and then I or another HubSpot partner agency comes in to assist. I can't speak for how the implementation process works if the client is not working with a HubSpot partner agency.

For support, as in responsiveness of the team or helpfulness of the resources available?

Four. From a partner perspective, we have a channel partner that's assigned to us early on. I've yet to experience a software company being that proactive, and it's very much appreciated because they don't have to do it. In terms of their technical support team – it surpasses any other software I've ever worked with.

For overall satisfaction with the platform?

Four.

How likely are you to recommend the software to a colleague or similar business?

Five.

4.0
Overall Score
  • 4.0 Features
  • 4.0 Ease of Use
  • 4.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Jul 18 2016

Lead Nurturing and Capture With HubSpot

4.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
4.0
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
4.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$251 - $1000/mo. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
11-50 Employees
 
San Francisco, CA
Co-Owner at BayCreative
Scott Danish
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The use is BayCreative, a digital marketing agency. They use HubSpot to nurture prospects more effectively through an automated marketing solution for themselves and their clients. They like HubSpot's ease of use and the ability to customize landing pages and campaigns based on lead information and quality. The user recommends that companies using HubSpot have a dedicated resource allocated to the tool as it is very complex. 

Share :

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your role there.

BayCreative is a full-service B2B [business-to-business] marketing agency based in San Francisco.

I am a co-owner of the agency.

CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your clients were facing that initiated the need for this platform?

The main goal was to be able to nurture prospects more effectively through an automated marketing solution. We wanted to be able to capture more people that were visiting the BayCreative website and be able to send content to them on a regular basis depending on their different type of persona.

SOLUTION

How does your company implement this platform or software?

HubSpot is integrated with our website, which is built in WordPress. We don't build our website on HubSpot. They have their own content management solution, but we've elected to use WordPress instead. The forms that we have on our website are integrated with HubSpot, and our campaigns to drive traffic to the website are utilized landing pages that we have built in HubSpot. When we do a Google AdWords campaign, it jumps to a HubSpot landing page. We use the landing page creation tool as well as social media and blog publishing tools that it offers.

Once you have a blog written, then it makes it easy to propagate that blog to your social media properties. We use it for a context database of our prospects and our clients. We use it for email marketing campaigns.

We do drip campaigns and nurturing campaigns via email marketing to our prospects and to our clients. All this we do for both helping to run the BayCreative as well as several of our clients have asked as to manage similar type of content distribution as well as lead generation, and we do that through HubSpot as well.

There's a variety of different metrics that we can get on HubSpot ranging from the traffic that's visitors of our website or a landing page to who's clicked on it, to if they've opened an email and have responded to an email. We know how many times a page has been seen. It's similar to Google Analytics in that we can capture a lot of intelligence from it, understand the performance of a certain campaign, and be able to adjust it if performance isn't up to the levels we want it to be. It also lets you weigh the prospect based on certain criteria that you've set. If a prospect is coming in and fills out a form, and it's from a certain type of company and a certain type of job title, and they've visited a certain number of pages on our website, we can set a criteria for how that prospect is weighed, and so we can then customize campaigns for prospects that have different weight classes or weight levels. If somebody is classified as a very strong prospect and maybe they have a weight score of 80, we can send them a different type of email nurturing campaigns than somebody that's less attractive and has a much lower score.

Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?

We were considering Eloqua, Marketo, and Pardot. We went with HubSpot because they had a very helpful sales team and customer support team that onboarded us very closely and spent a lot of time with us to make sure that we had set up the HubSpot solution correctly and we were using it correctly. Then, they also had just a plethora of content available that was relevant to helping us not only use HubSpot, but also sell it to our clientele.

We are affiliates of HubSpot. We get a commission for every time that we sell HubSpot to our own clients. They did a great job of empowering us with the right messaging and the right sales tools to go out and engage with our clients and get them to buy into HubSpot as well and then manage their HubSpot accounts.

On an annual or monthly basis, how much does your company spend to utilize the platform?

We spend around $800 a month on it.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

HubSpot is very customizable, and the user interface is very easy to use. It makes it very easy, for instance, to create many different landing pages that are very customized for whatever campaign you're doing. You can create landing pages based on the characteristics of the prospects that you're going out to. If somebody has viewed Google AdWords and they hit on a landing page, we can have it go to multiple different types of landing pages based on different campaigns that they've seen, based on geographies that they are located in and on different services that we're trying to sell. I think what's great about HubSpot is that it's very flexible. It allows you to customize whatever you need to customize very rapidly and then does a great job of tracking performance very effectively.

Looking back, are there any areas of the software upon which you feel could be added or improved?

One of the challenges that we've had with HubSpot in some of our clients is the price point. There's a lot of pressure from newer companies like ClickFunnels, for instance, that have a lower price – at  $99 a month – that don't have all of the features and functionality that HubSpot has, but have about 80 percent – enough for you do the job, but the price point is much lower. We've lost some accounts because we've tried to implement HubSpot and sell them HubSpot, and it's just too high of a price point. I think that's one of the things that HubSpot could benefit from – to have a lower price offering.

Do you have any results that you can share that come out of your use of HubSpot?

From our own business, we've seen the number of what we would call warm leads – a good quality lead – increase by about 300 percent year over year for the last three years because of HubSpot. The more we get to use it, the more we understand the benefits it can provide and how to customize it better, the better off it is. I think we're doing a good job also of keeping the leads that we get – that they're just more valuable to use – because we're able to nurture them more effectively using HubSpot.

Do you have any recommendations about using the tool?

I think one of the most important things is that you need to have a resource for it. It's a very sophisticated tool that can do a lot for you, and you get what you put into it. I think one of the things that we learned is that we tried using HubSpot where a number of us were using it and trying to run the business using HubSpot in our spare time. It really does take some allocation of resources to be dedicated to being the administrators and users of HubSpot because, if you don't to that, you're either going to set things up improperly or not get all the benefits that you possible could out of HubSpot. I think that's one of the things I'd recommend: don't be surprised once you get this solution that it definitely takes some time in there to set it up and customize it properly. Ongoing, it's a good idea to have a dedicated resource that will ensure that you are using it as effectively as possible.

4.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 4.0 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 4.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Aug 18 2015

HubSpot Implementation for Digital Marketing Agency

5.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
5.0
Support: 
4.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$1,001 - $10,000/yr. spend
 
Digital Marketing
 
51-200 Employees
 
Chicago, IL
Marketing Manager, Digital Marketing Firm
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The client is a digital marketing agency based in Chicago that specializes in search engine optimization and pay per click. The client had been employing an aggressive inbound marketing strategy for some time, primarily built around blog post and social media. Recently, they decided to begin capitalizing on the user base they had created by employing a marketing software to track engagement and leads better. The client selected HubSpot based on the helpfulness of their sales team, and their reputation in the market. The client's implementation of HubSpot has been very successful. A few highlights the client noted were, HubSpot's ease of use, and the ability to track the activities and analytics of leads as they interacted with the client's website throughout the sales process. The only negative aspect of the client's work with HubSpot thus far has been her experience with the support team. Overall, the client recommends HubSpot highly.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide a brief description of your company?

We're a digital marketing agency based in Chicago. We specialize in Internet marketing, search engine optimization, and pay per click, in particular.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your company was facing that incited the need for this platform?

Lead generation was definitely the thing that switched us to get a marketing automation platform. We spent a lot of time during the past years building a base of marketing content, such as doing blog posts and getting a social media presence. We wanted to start turning that user base into customers, so lead nurturing and lead generation – that's why we're using HubSpot.

SOLUTION

Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?

I looked at Marketo and also Act-On. Marketo looked like a good solution but, honestly, it wasn't a good fit for us. I talked to the sales people a couple of times, and they weren't all that helpful. It was a totally different experience with HubSpot. They were a lot friendlier and a lot more helpful. Act-On seemed like they were a great solution, but maybe for a smaller company. Their steps were broken out differently than what we would probably want to follow.

On an annual or monthly basis, how much does your company spend to utilize the platform?  

We spend approximately $800 a month to utilize HubSpot.

RESULTS

Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your implementation of this platform?

Actually, we just implemented HubSpot last month, so we haven't had a ton of results yet, but it's immediately making everything so much easier for us. All of the analytics, and their keyword reports in particular, are useful. People are interacting with us on Twitter, and we can see what pages they view and track their progression as a lead, which helps us interact with them a lot more effectively. It's saving us a lot of time.

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you? 

I think HubSpot's user interface is just amazingly easy to navigate. I just started using it and, within a week or two, I feel like I know the whole thing, and I can really do a lot with it. There's not a huge learning curve for starting to use it.

The overall functionalities with lead nurturing and the ability to integrate with Salesforce is also really cool for us because it's communicating back and forth, so we can see how our marketing leads are interacting with the site while the sales team is talking to them.

Looking back, are there any areas of the software that you feel could be added or improved upon?  

We wanted to integrate HubSpot with Unbounce because we really liked their landing page software, but we can't use smart fields with Unbounce because it's just mapping. It would be nice if HubSpot had a better form of integration with Unbounce.

Have you had to interact with the platform's support team or reference their support resources?

Finding information online about them is great, but when you need something that they don't have a blog post about, calling them is not fun.

OVERVIEW

We have a few quick questions and, for each question, we ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the best. What would you give the software for functionality of the features available?

Five. Definitely.

What would you give the software for ease of use or ease of implementation into your business?

Five.

For support, as in responsiveness of the team or helpfulness of the resources available?

Four.

For overall satisfaction with the platform?

Five.

How likely are you to recommend the software to a colleague or similar business?

Five. I'd definitely recommend it.

5.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 5.0 Ease of Use
  • 4.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Aug 05 2016

SMM, Lead Tracking & Email Campaign Utilization

5.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
5.0
Support: 
4.0
Willing to refer: 
4.0
See More
the reviewer
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
11-50 employees
 
San Francisco, California
CEO at Incredo
Artash Arakelyan
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

An inbound marketing company uses Hubspot to manage their social media accounts, track leads, and create email campaigns. They like the lead history timeline and appreciate the platform’s support staff.

Share :
Background

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a marketing consultancy agency that does content marketing, social media marketing, website design development, and custom CRM [customer relationship management] integration. I am the founder.

What was the business challenge your clients were facing that initiated the need for this platform?

In order to do an integrated marketing campaign, we needed to have a tool to improve ROI [return on investment] for clients. The first challenge was doing the integrated marketing campaign. The second is improving ROI to our clients.

Solution

How does your company implement this platform or software?

We used marketing automation, social media publishing and monitoring, blogging, call-to-action, and landing pages features. We also do email marketing with Hubspot. If we want a fast campaign, we just use drag-and-drop templates with our marketing team. We do segmentation, advanced reporting for every lead, and some email marketing to target the leads.

Features

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

The lead history timeline is what I'm most impressed with. We like to refer to it daily; it's helping our marketing and sales teams.

Looking back, are there any areas of the software upon which you feel could be added or improved?

No, the only thing was that the pricing is a little bit high for an agency like us.

Have you had to interact with the platform's support team or reference their support resources?

Hubspot’s support team is great. We have a dedicated account manager, who's jumping in on every call if we want any questions to be answered.

Do you have any recommendations for other agencies considering using Hubspot?

I recommend them, but it depends on an agency’s needs. Integrated marketing campaigns, improving ROI, or having a marketing manager that manages a team while traveling, could all benefit from Hubspot.

Have you seen any results from using Hubspot?

It's been helping to grow our agency faster and smoother. We're getting leads that are turning into conversions.

5.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 5.0 Ease of Use
  • 4.0 Support
  • 4.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Aug 19 2015

HubSpot Partner's Implementation for External and Internal Marketing

5.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
4.5
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
$10,001 - $100,000/yr. spend
 
Marketing and Advertising
 
51-200 Employees
 
Knoxville, TN
Marketing Manager, Inbound Marketing Agency
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

The client is a Tennessee-based digital and inbound marketing agency. The client is a certified implementation partner of HubSpot, but also uses HubSpot internally for their inbound, email, and content marketing needs. This client really appreciates the integration capabilities of HubSpot, specifically for Wistia and GoToWebinar. The client also highlights the ease with which they are able to segment prospective clients based on industry. The large drawback this client sees with HubSpot is its reporting tool, they hope to see a more robust and easier to use reporting tool in the future.

Share :

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide a brief description of your company and the role that you play there?

We are a full-service digital marketing firm and we do everything from website and custom app design and development to full-scale inbound and digital marketing programs for clients across a variety of industries. 

What role do you play there?

I am the marketing manager, so I handle all of our internal marketing. I don't work with clients directly, but I handle our inbound marketing, webinars, social media, email marketing, content marketing, and premium content production.

OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge your company was facing that incited the need for this platform?

We had come into the need to have a full-scale platform to run all of our email marketing campaigns through and simultaneously gather contact information and then be able to market to them in the future. We needed a tool to capture email addresses, names, industry, and job title.

SOLUTION

How does your company implement this platform or software?

We started using HubSpot about three to four years ago. We're currently a HubSpot partner. We use it for ourselves as well as quite a few of our clients. We also use HubSpot's CRM [customer relationship management], it allows us to bring our efforts full circle. We are able to see where someone started on the marketing side and then closely follow what they did along the trail from marketing to sales.

Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?

Our company went through that process before I started. I do know that some of our leadership had previously used Marketo, but noted that it just wasn't as robust as we needed it to be. HubSpot has a lot more integration capabilities. Since I've been here, we've used other platforms like Pardot and support has been a nightmare. HubSpot support has far surpassed any support from any other marketing automation platforms that we or our clients have used. They just make it a lot easier, and we've found that something that takes 15 minutes to do in HubSpot takes two hours to do in Pardot.

RESULTS

Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your implementation of this platform?

I know that since we started using HubSpot and doing different inbound marketing campaigns, our traffic leads, conversions, and sales have all increased as well as revenue year over year. 

FEATURES

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

We use HubSpot for everything. For me, I market to different industries, HubSpot's helpful in segmenting our contacts by industry. I'm then able to aim campaigns directed at contacts within a specific industry. It makes it more targeted so we're not blasting an entire list of contacts. With digital marketing, we can hone in on certain groups of people. Smart lists are a big thing. The ability to create our own form fields in HubSpot and then create smart lists from those form fields is great. 

The ability to integrate "GoToWebinar" has been helpful because we're able to see who registered for a webinar, who attended a webinar, who registered but didn't attend, how long they attended for, and their interest rating. The integration with Wistia [video hosting platform] has been great as well. We can see who retroactively has watched a video and it will show a heat map of how long they paid attention for. Lastly, HubSpot's CRM, being able to see full circle, what a client's path was to becoming a customer. Through an evaluation of that path, we are able to see what were our most-effective content and webinars. 

Looking back, are there any areas of the software upon which you feel could be added or improved?

What I think is lacking most is a robust reporting tool. For the data that I pull, I have to do it semi-manually. We would like to be able to see a prospective customer's first conversion and every conversion in between then and their most recent conversion. We're hoping that HubSpot is moving toward that.

Have you had to interact with the platform's support team or reference their support resources?

HubSpot is always very responsive. We can either call or submit a support ticket and we'll get an email back – it's supposed to be within 24 hours but it's always within one or two. Even if they don't have an immediate solution, they let us know they're working on it. I've never had an issue that was not resolved so that's great. If we have something more immediate, we'll reach out to our account manager to see if they can elevate the situation but, in general, they're super quick. We have a close relationship with support at HubSpot. They've been great at listening to our suggestions, and I feel like they've been good at taking what we say we want and implementing those suggestions. 

OVERVIEW

We have a few quick questions and, for each question, we ask you to rate the software on a scale of one to five, with five being the best. What would you give the software for functionality of the features available?

Five.

What would you give the software for ease of use or ease of implementation into your business?

Four and a half. I would note the reporting situation.

For support, as in responsiveness of the team or helpfulness of the resources available?

Five. They're easy to talk to, and they always have a solution.

For overall satisfaction with the platform?

Five.

How likely are you to recommend the software to a colleague or similar business?

Five.

5.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 4.5 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer
 
Client Interview
Aug 05 2016

Sales Tracking for Video Production Agency

5.0

Features: 
5.0
Ease of use: 
5.0
Support: 
5.0
Willing to refer: 
5.0
See More
the reviewer
 
Video Production
 
11-50 employees
 
Newport Beach, California
Marketing Manager at VeracityColab
Holden Raulston
 
Verified
The Review
Recommendations: 

A video production agency uses HubSpot to manage relationships with prospective clients and for other general sales purposes. As they have begun to use the platform, they really appreciate the support staff at HubSpot. They have plenty of resources and the ability to track analytics is great for the client.

Share :
Background

Introduce your business and what you do there?

I am the Marketing Manager for VerocityColab. I am involved in the long-term projection of our marketing plans, marketing strategies, and also the day-to-day content creation and distribution across our social platforms and across our website.

What was the business challenge your clients were facing that initiated the need for this platform?

We were in the market for a CRM [customer relationship management] software that would not only be able to handle all of our clients but also had a marketing side to it as well.

Solution

How does your company implement this platform or software?

Currently, I would say 90% of our involvement with it right now is the sales portion of it. We're building out our marketing campaigns and just our understanding of the marketing side with HubSpot. Currently, the majority of what we're doing is we're tracking prospective contacts, current clients, and managing those relationships. We're also using it for their sales dashboard and their sales forecasting, so we can see where we are with sales going forward. We use it to generate landing pages and callbacks.

Features

Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you?

One thing that we're very excited about moving forward with is going to be analyzing our marketing performance through the analytic tracking. We haven't really found anywhere else that has that sort of thing. I'd say that having one platform that has everything is appealing to us.

I would say that we're happy. We're also in the beginning phases of it. From what we have used it [Hubspot] for and what we have seen, we're impressed with it. We're excited to see how we can customize it to give us the feedback and the insight that we're looking for.

Looking back, are there any areas of the software upon which you feel could be added or improved?

Maybe two years ago, HubSpot might not have been there entirely, but I think they've arrived because they've built out a great support team, they know their product very well, and they've made onboarding very easy. Our entire experience with them has been very delightful. They've been very easy to work with, making sure that we're paying for what we need and not anything else. There are no real downsides to report.

Have you had to interact with the platform's support team or reference their support resources?

They have a phenomenal support team. They probably have more resources than you could ever need. Anything that you're looking to learn about, understand, or evaluate has a video to go along with it that's well done and teaches you and informs you. I think they've done a great job of providing support and resources where there might not be a human touch. We're very pleased with their support and their resources.

Do you have any recommendations for anyone that's considering HubSpot?

One thing that our team has really benefited from is going through HubSpot's marketing course and through their inbound certification course, two things that they offer for free that teaches you about the actual topic. We've had multiple team members go through that, and it's been very informative.

Can you share any results that have come from using the platform?

I would say the results would be more of a comprehensive understanding of our client base: who our customers are, and seeing their engagement and their shelf life in a sense. Seeing the first interaction, how things go, and after that, how long they last, has been very useful. HubSpot has been able to give us a very good picture of that overall.

5.0
Overall Score
  • 5.0 Features
  • 5.0 Ease of Use
  • 5.0 Support
  • 5.0 Willing to Refer