HubSpot is a great tool that can help you achieve your business goals. But unlike what most entrepreneurs think, it's not a strategy on its own. So, to make the most of HubSpot, you need to have a clear plan and use it as part of a broader strategy.
For instance, in the past, I've heard potential HubSpot clients say things like:
- "I want HubSpot so that I can rank better on Google."
- "I want HubSpot so I can get more leads."
- "I want HubSpot so I can convert leads."
None of this will happen if you don't have a clear strategy. So how do you build a clear strategy to get the most out of HubSpot?
Firstly, we need to cover 2 quick things…
Having HubSpot will not automatically make you a great Marketer, sales rep, or service rep.
HubSpot is the tool that helps you execute your strategy; it's not the strategy.
Let's dive into how to build the strategy.
Below are the 4 pillars needed to build a solid strategy that will allow you to make the most out of HubSpot.
1. Get Organised (HubSpot Audit, Team Members)
HubSpot features so many tools for collecting all types of data, but what most front-end users don't realise is that they're responsible for organising and wrangling it to enable them to create meaningful reports and assess everything they're doing in the tools. So, take your time to document the data your currently collecting and the methods you're using to collect it. You can also write what data you'd ideally like to be capturing.
Next, break it out for your deals, companies, contacts, and tickets (based on which HubSpot platform you're using). Once you've documented this, it's time to audit the data in your HubSpot platform and ensure you're organising each of your properties in a way that enables you to establish reports and assess performance.
A HubSpot audit is made to take a complete stock of how you set up your CRM, the tools you use, and what tools you don't need. Doing this will also help you clean up all the messy contacts and data you don't need. With the help of your team, you can conduct an internal HubSpot audit or work with a professional to complete the task for you efficiently and professionally.
While auditing, you need to ask yourself questions like are you taking job titles on forms, but collecting them as an open single-line text field to enable contacts to type in what they want?
Or, do you want to segment by general job title for your lead assignment or email nurturing?
If so, you'll have to change this property to a dropdown with alternatives like VP, CEO, Manager, and CEO, so you can start standardising this information. Take note of all the properties that are currently unstandardised and go through them in your platform to ensure they get updated.
The end goal here is to understand all the data coming into your portal and how it's coming in. This will enable you to organise everything and report on them. Keep in mind that having structured data will drive your business sales.
What Do You Want Out of HubSpot?
Once your platform is looking clean and spiffy, everything you need to make realistic goals will be within your reach. Take a close look at your audit - which tools are you using? Which ones aren't working for your company or haven't been used by your team?
Then, check your marketing plan and growth goals for the year. If you've got plenty of leads, but your team is having difficulty converting, maybe you should concentrate on sales enablement.
On the other hand, if your team is crashing closing and your marketing team is finding it hard to deliver a higher volume of leads, chances are, you should focus your HubSpot strategy goals on getting more out of your Marketing hub.
Whatever your strategy goals are, they should be smart (relevant, attainable, measurable, and time-bound).
Don't say, "our company should benefit the most from the Marketing hub this year.
Instead, say, "by X 2022, we want our sales reps to complete at least two activities each day on the HubSpot platform.
Remember, your goals are your big wants. Plus, they should align with your sales, revenue, and marketing goals for the year. That's how simple it is to develop a HubSpot strategy that wins.
2. Writing a Strategy (To Make HubSpot Work for Your Business)
Okay, you know all the tools you're using, and you've got strategy goals for your platform. Now's the time to take a close look at how you should be using your HubSpot strategy. It's always wise to map your service, sales, and marketing processes through the HubSpot portal. This will dictate how you create your lead capture strategy.
One of the most commonly asked questions among entrepreneurs is, "what's the perfect way of using HubSpot?"
The answer?
However, the portal best fits your process.
So, after auditing and cleaning up your HubSpot platform, walk through the entire procedure, from the first time a client lands on your website, all the way through the moment they leave a review about your service or product.
Is your HubSpot portal set up to support this process from start to finish?
Is your sales pipeline ready to map deals effectively the way your sales rep works them?
Are there parts of the procedure that might feel a bit convoluted that your tools can help to streamline?
This is just like a process audit that helps you and your team get the best idea of what your procedure is and whether your current setup is supporting that procedure or hindering it. If you notice any place where the process stalls - like changing SQLs into true sales prospects - write it on your list and identify which tools can help minimise that stall time.
What Data Do You Need?
Every company has data. It can be information about your clients, their purchases, or engagement with your service - irrespective of the type of business, there's always going to be data. And as the company scales, your data will grow too.
While data is so common and abundant, no entrepreneur can improvise with it. You need a data strategy to develop a comprehensive and holistic vision of all the information within your business. This will help maintain consistent, accurate, and relevant data everywhere.
A data strategy starts by knowing the data type useful to your business. This will determine what's worth picking in your lead generation forms and any other data collection channel.
Some of the data types vital for your business include:
- Lead data
- Website data
- Customer data
- Product data
- Social media data
- Market data
Even if you identify the right data for your company, you must ensure that it's high-quality. On the other hand, quality data is complete, accurate, consistent, accessible, relevant, and timely.
Where Are Your Leads Coming From?
Most entrepreneurs have no idea where their company leads come from or how their sales are finalised. Plus, they go through lower and higher periods than normal, but they don't really know what's causing these troughs and peaks.
If a shopper has discovered you and becomes interested in inquiring about your service or product, isn't it wise to know what led them to your site and proactively make product sales surges happen again? By controlling your data analysis, you'll improve the quality and quantity of sales leads while allocating the budget depending on true performance and ROI.
Generally, inbound leads boast many sources and will often come to you as a website visit (accounts for the vast majority of leads) or a call (the most valuable lead). To start analysing sources, it's a common practice for marketers to use codes so that when leads arrive, they be attributed appropriately.
What Can You Automate?
One of the main reasons marketers want to have an excellent lead capture and data strategy is to enable them to automate manual procedures in HubSpot. For instance, if a bottom-of-the-funnel lead, you'd want to route them to different company sales reps depending on what their experiences are and what their job role is.
After restructuring your job title property with drop-down fields, you can now develop a workflow that looks at a job title field and assigns them depending on whether they're a VP, manager, CEO, or something else. You can even take it a step further and use the same workflow to create deals for your sales reps and then develop follow-up tasks.
Since automation is one of the most valuable and time-saving features in HubSpot, a strategy that doesn't incorporate it means that you're wasting time doing what HubSpot could be doing for you! The goal here is to automate as many manual procedures as possible so you can get time to do other more valuable things.
How Can You Include Training & Education Into the Process?
There are many different factors that play a pivotal role in having an effective strategy. However, the best thing you can do to take your approach to the next level is to incorporate individual and team education.
One thing that makes HubSpot an excellent platform is that every company that has it will use it uniquely, even if some of the aspects overlap. So, there's always a chance to learn about how other organisations are using the tools and to stay sharp on anything new in the portal on an ongoing basis.
Some of the things you can consider including in your training and education strategy are:
- Bring in an outside perspective. Have an audit done to find areas of opportunity for using the portal better, or hire a consultant to work with your sales team to push them to learn and keep them accountable for the long haul.
- New HubSpot Certifications. Go through HubSpot Academy's courses and decide which lessons you want to prioritise depending on your overall goals. Consider setting due dates for every course you want to complete so you can plan the best time to take them.
- Engage in the HubSpot user community. You can look for a HubSpot User Group around your area, spend some time on community.hubspot.com going through top feature requests and how other organisations get around feature limitations, or consider joining the user-run HubSpot User Slack.
3. Gather Data and Build a Game Plan
Once you've gathered all the data needed to create a truly successful strategy, it's time to build a game plan.
But why is this vital?
Well, identifying problems isn't enough to create a HubSpot strategy. The whole point of coming up with a strategy is to establish and implement essential tactics that will help you make the most of your CRM. And that means you must have an implementation plan.
Now that you've outlined the specific areas of your CRM that could use some work, your game plan will lay out how you plan on addressing them, and in which order. You can use a tool like Miro to plan the customer journey.
Map Out the Process
While the content of your plan is wholly dependent on your organisation's goals, here are a few top priorities that it should include:
- If your organisation is having difficulty getting MQLs, your strategy might prioritise your chatbot tools, form, and CTA over email marketing tools.
- If you're handling a lead conversion problem, you might choose to develop lead nurturing workflows and sequences rather than optimising
- If you have trouble closing sales, your strategy might prioritise optimising and streamlining HubSpot deal stages over setting up marketing workflows.
Beyond priorities, ensure your game plan identifies:
- What your goals are
- What tools you need to achieve those goals
- When you plan on tackling each task
- And whether your sales team will require additional training
Think of your game plan as a roadmap. You've already identified the key sections you want to improve with your strategy. Your plan is how you make these improvements happen.
4. Implement and Review Your HubSpot Strategy Regularly
As your sales team starts making improvements, your tactics and goals will necessarily change. So, it's vital to remember that your plan and strategy can and should change.
Build Out the Plan
Look at your strategy and goals at least quarterly or once a month to help you keep on track with HubSpot tool development and training. Whatever period that works best for you, you must settle on one and review your strategy regularly. Also, remember to train your staff on a regular basis.
Need help making the most out of HubSpot? Contact DigiKat today.
