With more information available and readily accessible, customers now decide for themselves what products or services they want to buy. This choice has rendered traditional mass marketing techniques less effective, giving rise to inbound marketing. The success of inbound marketing for drawing in potential customers and visitors makes customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot a valuable business asset.
What Is HubSpot?
HubSpot is an integrated inbound marketing, sales, and customer service software. It’s an online platform that enables small and midsize businesses to build meaningful customer relationships through valuable content and delightful experience. The software combines features such as lead generation, marketing automation, analytics, contact management, meeting scheduling, help desk ticketing, customer feedback, and data syncing.
HubSpot is modular by design; companies can separately purchase marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations hub modules at different times depending on their business needs. Prices start at $50 per month, or $540 per year. HubSpot also offers mobile apps, and integration with select third-party software, as well as consulting and onboarding services.
Advantages of HubSpot
HubSpot offers a free CRM plan with tools for contact management, website activity, companies, deals, tasks, and activities. It also has free marketing, sales, service, and operations tools with full visibility for team collaboration, and storage for up to a million contacts. For some startups and small businesses, this is enough to get them off the ground at no cost. The CRM software also has mobile apps, hundreds of available integrations with other business tools, extensive online resources, and a responsive support staff.
Drawbacks of HubSpot
HubSpot has been around for 15 years and continues to be among the recognized leaders in the CRM software arena. However, many HubSpot competitors eager to get a share of its customer base are offering more affordable paid plans, or more advanced features. Recent industry innovations — such as more powerful marketing and traffic analytics — have left HubSpot lacking for some users. HubSpot is not as customizable as some of its competitors, either. There is similar software on the market that offers users the ability to custom-build their workflows or instances. Other negative feedback from customers includes HubSpot’s lack of social media integration, tedious onboarding process, and fewer choices for fonts and colors.
