A big system for small businesses providing loads of room for growth
December 11, 2015
A big system for small businesses providing loads of room for growth
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Basic
Overall Satisfaction with HubSpot
We use HubSpot to host and send out Blue Chip Tips, our blog, to build our lead list, to set up landing pages with free and paid for downloads and to send emails to those on our list. We also use it to see what pages our leads are visiting, what they're downloading and what they're buying.
Pros
- When blogging HubSpot takes me through all the things I need to do to make my post professional, SEO optimized and with suitable images. It also helps me email the post to people on my list.
- When setting up landing pages HubSpot enables me to select a template branded to my company, tailor the page content to what I want, insert a CTA (call to action) and a form for collecting email and other details. It really is very flexible and even has the option of opening up a separate Thank You page when someone fills in a form OR it can change the text in the exiting page, meaning you can say thank you and provide your free download, or whatever it is, without leaving the page. Of course, you also have the option of a follow up email to deliver the download.
- I can click on an contact in any list and HubSpot will show me all the pages the lead has visited on my website and blog, any downloads they've had and the date they did what.
- Every week, although I could set it to do it every day or month, HubSpot sends me an email summarising activity on my website and blog, listing what has been downloaded or bought, with percentages up or down since the last report. I also get a similar email with regard to my social media activities, which is really helpful.
- On that last point, I have set up HubSpot to notify me when people who I have connected with on my social media accounts post things that are relevant to my business. I can then take a look at what they've posted and re-post it myself if I want to.
- Whenever I send out an email to my list HubSpot tells me how many contacts have opened them, how many have click a link in them and how many have downloaded anything as a result of them.
- The online training, videos and presentations are superb. Just wish I had more time to devote to them.
Cons
- HubSpot is fantastic, it covers all the angles and is fun to use. I love it! However, the basic package cannot auto email contacts, despite being quite expensive. I could upgrade to the Professional package but that really is very expensive and, for the time being, out of our budget range. It would be good to have at least some basic auto emailing capability, perhaps also limited by the amount of emails you can send.
- When you're getting started, learning to use workflows and auto email would be very helpful and help sell the Professional package. It's too big a jump from Basic to Professional and way too expensive! I suppose I would even mind if I had to pay a bit extra for basic auto email functionality.
- I never got to grips with the double opt in. Apparently, I was the only one who had problems with this but, whatever it was, I had to abandon double opt in because I was losing too many leads. I even asked support for help but it still didn't work. I know I was doing something wrong but I also get the feeling that double opt in was an after thought that was added on, rather than built in from the start, and compared to the rest of HubSpot is pretty clunky.
- Sort of linked to my first point, HubSpot is expensive. Great fun, easy to use, does great things but still expensive. I'd like a cheaper version with all the main functionality but restricted in some way. As a very small business it's frightening to see my HubSpot bills. In some ways it's too big a system for us at this stage of our business, however, I can see that we could grow to utilise it a lot better. I just think that, with a few tweaks and imaginative pricing, we could grow a lot quicker, with less anxiety and then move on to the Professional package earlier and with far less trepidation than at present.
- More qualified leads in a shorter space of time.
- More and faster conversions of leads to 'warm' leads.
- More and faster conversion of leads to customers.
- Much more personalised service to customers.
I used ONTRAPORT, previously called Office Autopilot, for a couple of years. I loved it. It was very user friendly.
I also used Sendpepper, ONTRAPORT's little brother, for a while as well. I loved it also. It was very user friendly, had a degree of auto email functionality, and was very cheap.
Neither were as well set up, user friendly, supported by training, technically supported or with the complexity of functionality as HubSpot though. It was a tough choice and we decided to go with HubSpot because it could handle our planned growth, plus the sales team told me it had auto email functionality - I genuinely think they thought the basic package did, rather than were misleading me on purpose. I don't think I'd have gone with HubSpot if I'd known about the lack of auto email functionality in the basic package, however, I'm glad we did because it is such a good system in so many ways. I'm just frustrated that we can't afford to upgrade to the Professional package now and probably not in the next few years.
I also used Sendpepper, ONTRAPORT's little brother, for a while as well. I loved it also. It was very user friendly, had a degree of auto email functionality, and was very cheap.
Neither were as well set up, user friendly, supported by training, technically supported or with the complexity of functionality as HubSpot though. It was a tough choice and we decided to go with HubSpot because it could handle our planned growth, plus the sales team told me it had auto email functionality - I genuinely think they thought the basic package did, rather than were misleading me on purpose. I don't think I'd have gone with HubSpot if I'd known about the lack of auto email functionality in the basic package, however, I'm glad we did because it is such a good system in so many ways. I'm just frustrated that we can't afford to upgrade to the Professional package now and probably not in the next few years.
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