Hubspot: A Marketing Platform for the Digital Age
October 22, 2014

Hubspot: A Marketing Platform for the Digital Age

David M. Kolb | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Enterprise

Modules Used

  • Everything except CMS

Overall Satisfaction with HubSpot

We use Hubspot as our marketing automation platform and our CRM. It's primarily used by marketing, but our customer success department and partner team use it as well. Hubspot helps us attract new leads to our website, nurture and qualify those leads to a point where we can hand them off to sales to convert into customers. We track the entire lifecycle from lead to customer, and then from customer to evangelist.
  • Inbound Marketing Principles. Hubspot provides a theoretical framework for marketing in the digital age. First, you learn the principles and then there is a tool (Hubspot) to execute on those principles. It's not simply an email marketing tool with some workflows. It's a marketing platform based on a specific way to market to the modern buyer.
  • Simplicity. The Hubspot UI is very intuitive and requires very little training.
  • Continued Education. Hubspot has invested a lot in customer service and self-service resources. If you have a question, the knowledge base is incredible. If that doesn't work, just pick-up the phone. Seriously... they're that good.
  • I would like a 100% customizable dashboard that could be configured by user login. So, based on profile, the dashboard would reports that were relevant to that person. Example: as a director, I am concerned with MQLs. My VP on the other hand is concerned with Opportunities. Being able to configure customized dashboards would be huge.
  • More "high quality" leads. Most of our business is closed now as a result of the Inbound approach. 4 years ago, when I started trying to convince Executive Management to move this direction, nobody believed me. They all thought we got our leads from Trade Shows. Now, they want to know how we can improve SEO, blog more, etc. Our Lead to Customer conversions have decreased by about 1 month, but the overall cost of conversion as decreased substantially.
  • Increased revenue by 88% without adding anyone to the team.
  • We can better identify customers when they come to the website and evangelize them quicker.
Pardot and Marketo. In my opinion, Hubspot should not even be classified in the same competitive bracket because they address "inbound marketing", rather than marketing automation. Pardot and Marketo focus more on automating the online marketing experience. Yes. that's important, but the new digital buyer is connected to everything and Hubspot addresses this better. They've built, from the ground up, a platform that addresses, CMS, CRM, Social, Email, Reporting, Testing and Personalization. Neither Pardot nor Marketo have this formula. They are trying to catch up now...
Cost. I've recommended Hubspot to a lot of people and many have come back and say they can't afford it. If a potential Hubspot customer is sold on Inbound Marketing, it will make sense and they will be able to justify the cost. If not, they'll probably go elsewhere. I expect "lightweight" Hubspot knock-off products to hit the market soon as it's an area that is not covered well currently. Pardot, Marketo, etc. are not options here as they really don't address Inbound as well as Hubspot and are equal in price if not more.