Epicor Kinetic is a customizable, scalable, product-centric cloud ERP designed specifically for manufacturers.
N/A
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Score 8.7 out of 10
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HubSpot's Marketing Hub is an all-in-one inbound marketing engine that includes tools for email marketing, landing page creation, social media marketing, content management, reporting & analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.
$15
per month per seat
Pricing
Epicor Kinetic
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Marketing Hub Starter
$15
per month per seat
Marketing Hub Professional
$890
per month Includes 3 Core Seats (Additional Core Seats start at $50)
Marketing Hub Enterprise
Starts at $3,600
per month Includes 5 Core Seats (Additional Core Seats start at $75)
Epicor is an excellent system for most manufacturing customers and offers several features previously only offered on the very large (e.g. Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc) level platforms. Yet the pricing is mid-level, and the expandability through additional modules provides a great opportunity for future business growth. The architecture is easily scalable, fast, and offers great options for both on premise and hosted systems. Epicor is flexible, and large enough that regular updates and enhancements continue to be adopted to improve functionality and effectiveness. It is however, not for everyone. Competition in this sector is very good, with several mid-level systems being available at a similar price point. If you are considering adopting a new ERP system and are in the plastics space, you also owe it to yourself and your team to consider IQMS, which is becoming a de-facto standard in this segment. Also, for specific medical sectors, you will find that Epicor software validation for CFR Part 11 compliance can be quite costly-- although the software is capable of supporting this with modification. Overall, Epicor is a solid choice. Ultimately, it will be up to your team to determine what works best for your needs. You won't be disappointed with Epicor if you do the due diligence and take the time needed to properly review and demo the product. Remember though, demos are typically "best case" staged, so be sure to throw several curveballs at your vendor and bring out the unique requirements of your business.
As I said previously, I was not a fan at the beginning because, like everyone, I don't take change so well. Once I started following leads through HubSpot Marketing Hub, I integrated it with my email and created templates for what I needed, I started to see the positives immediately. My time working was better spent as I eliminated time put in routine tasks. I was able to track all communication in HubSpot Marketing Hub, we created systems in the office assigning tasks to one another and, through HubSpot Marketing Hub, our leads were able to book meetings in my calendar automatically. To be honest, if you are in sales and marketing, I cannot think of scenarios where HubSpot Marketing Hub cannot help. All I would like to say is, when using templates, pay attention to where you send them - you may need some personalization. I would encourage the management of HubSpot Marketing Hub to create short tutorials for beginners like me who need to configure and start using various features: setting up deals, templates, and dashboards.
Epicor has the best product configurator that I have seen on the market. This was one of the main reasons we went with Epicor, and have not been disappointed at all.
Epicor is also one of the easiest ERP system to learn, and has many ways for users to get training. Epicor University, on-line courses, or class room settings, also user conference every year, and user support groups.
The Enterprise search ability in Epicor is great, can find parts, customers, suppliers, etc. so easily. And if you can't remember where a report or task that you want to do is on the menu, you can search for that also.
While Hubspot has added some collaborative tools, I think this could improve. I'd like to see more options to comment on emails and ways of being able to share out changes as well as approval channels.
The ability to update ads via the calendar is pretty cumbersome. There's no good way to bulk edit or update. You have go into each one individually.
Real time edits would be nice. If you have multiple people working on the same thing, you'll get kicked out and your changes might not be saved.
Our business relies on the HubSpot platform to manage our marketing, sales and CRM processes. HubSpot marketing automation helps us define our activities and streamlines them in a cohesive and efficient way. Without HubSpot, we will have to revert to the 'old way' of doing everything with a variety of disparate systems.
I give this rating because the software has good functionality and usability. The system does not crash and can also be maintained under overall conditions in any business function. We utilize this to communicate effectively in various areas and make informed business decisions. This is highly rated as we make other changes to our organization
While there are some frustrating things that pop up unexpectedly ("wait... I can't do X?"), I have found HubSpot to be easy to use and extremely helpful to my daily work. The documentation is really good, and when it's not helpful, the support staff have been amazing.
They have had issues with system availability over the course of days. Sometimes the system is unusable, other times updates simply take a long time to show up. It's better now but, from a reliaibility standpoint, HubSpot is not Salesforce.com yet. Still great software though.
With all the new features in HubSpot, the system can get a tad slow sometimes... That said, most of the time it is lightning fast and I have no problems. Because most of the integrations are API, they silently work in the background. I have not had trouble with lag due to HubSpot integration
If the answer to your problem is not readily available in an answer book, your response or solution will take months, if you get one at all. Problems need to be sent to support and duplicated by them before they try to fix it. This is extremely frustrating because you have to prove to Epicor that you are having an issue. If by some miracle you get by this barrier, your problem is submitted to development for review. You can't speak to them or communicate in any way directly. This group appears to be completely unconcerned about user issues or customer service. Our experiences have been negative across the board.
During the few times I've needed it, HS support has been accessible, helpful and efficient. Often rolling up their sleeves to make changes for you as opposed to leaving you with a list of instructions to decipher on your own.
I did the 2-day classroom at HubSpot's corporate office in Cambridge. First off, it was amazing to see their corporate office in general. They have such a cool office environment. But it was also great to have the ability to learn in a workshop format with other HubSpot users and meet my Account Manager/ Inbound Marketing Consultant in person.
I went through Inbound Marketing University in 2006. Great training and helped my transition from traditional (outbound) marketing to inbound marketing that I've been able to apply to a number of businesses from wastewater and water reuse, to professional services and SaaS. Share information of value to build awareness and trust. Answer customers' questions in a transparent way to generate more qualified leads. Understand the difference between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead and put together a lead nurturing program. Your sales and marketing efforts will see significant ROI.
My biggest piece of advice for those who are implementing Hubspot is that you need to devote the time up front and learn how to use the product. Once you learn how to use Hubspot, it will be much more effective as well as much easier to use in the long run
Everyone at our organization really appreciated "made 2 manage" because of all of the quick access and some of the capabilities in accounting. So far, Epicor is much more advanced but the two can stand side by side. These two programs cannot really be compared just because it's just not fair to compare an on-site server ERP system to a cloud-based one.
Other competing software such as Zoho and Boomtown may have more bells and whistles, but it is too cumbersome and has many parts that only advanced users can operate. With HubSpot, each function is within reach of the average agent. It doesn't overpromise and then makes you feel incompetent when you can't use it all...
The software is pretty easy to use. Things are pretty clear on how to do them and if you don't know how to do something they have instructions on how to do them or you get an error code telling you exactly what to do. I have been satisfied with my overall experience.
HubSpot is addressing this more and more. Currently you can assign tasks to designated sales teams, which grow as you grow. They've added free baseline products for those just getting started. These and more contribute to the scalability of HubSpot - so I gave it an 8 and am hoping for more in the future!
The ROI can be hard to quantify. We spend more time setting up and entering information up front, but we spend less time than before trying to track project costs so that evens out. Purchasing the system and implementing it was very expensive, but the benefit is the the better information can save money on projects as we know where best to spend our time and identify potential problems earlier on a project. We believe it will have a positive impact, but I'd say it will take a few years (3-4) to be worth it.
