Item: HubSpot CRM
Rating: 9
Author: Charles Fashana, MBA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HubSpot CRM is our primary tool for email marketing, service/transactional emailing, lead generation, and nurturing through the sales funnel. Many of our core systems lack capabilities and integrations with our website and other tools used by our sales and service teams. The HubSpot platform is critical to helping us further our goals around digital strategy, automation, sales growth, and member/customer development.

Pros and Cons

Interface is very intuitive and easy to use.
Customization to business-specific needs.
Data integrations and development are all possible.
Workflows and automation allow for set-it-and-forget-it strategies.
The deal pipeline allows for great forecasting and sales management.

The email address being the sole unique identifier per contact poses challenges for those with multiple email addresses.
I'd love to more easily see the subject lines associated with email previews.
Better ability to preview emails across browsers and devices.

Return on Investment

If you're a larger company with a lot of contacts, the platform will feel expensive. But when looking at it compared to money saved in direct mail and other offline outreach tactics (with less trackability and possibly less effectiveness), the value is more than there.
The integrations and automations are allowing for smarter work, more appropriate, and targeted communications.
The recent shift in pricing structure (to the marketing contacts model) allows for more flexibility in cost if not every contact is a sales or marketing opportunity.
For true B2B inbound marketing, the platform does its job, just be mindful of the requirement internally to support it with high quality, lead-generating content. Otherwise you'll still be treading water.

Usability

I would rank it among the top of anything I've used. It's intuitive, easy to find what you're looking for, and most of the data makes sense. It may take a little while to understand some of the HubSpot CRM terminologies, but nothing to worry about.

Alternatives Considered

SharpSpring from Constant Contact and Mailchimp

Far and away better. Easier to use, more powerful. Not even close.

Key Insights

Do you think HubSpot CRM delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with HubSpot CRM's feature set?

Yes

Did HubSpot CRM live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of HubSpot CRM go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy HubSpot CRM again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Experience Manager, Datorama, UKG Pro

Likelihood to Recommend

It really is a very powerful tool - we haven't used many of the features yet. But it's as easy as it comes for most people to pick up and start using. The workflows are possibly the nicest feature, allowing for limitless real-time and event-based emails to fire. And when the time comes for more custom work, the HubSpot service team/consultants are usually pretty helpful.

HubSpot is powerful and intuitive, better than most competing platforms out there

Overall Satisfaction with HubSpot CRM