How to get started with marketing automation: HubSpot edition

Considering HubSpot for your business’s inbound marketing needs? Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Here’s your beginner’s guide to the HubSpot basics.

HubSpot has firmly established itself as the market leader in inbound marketing. Over 177,000 businesses spanning 120 countries use HubSpot to harmonise and streamline their marketing, sales and customer-service processes.

In essence, HubSpot is a suite of tools for integration, automation and analytics. It sets the stage for business growth by enhancing efficiency, visibility and accountability across every team.

If you’re looking for cloud-based inbound marketing software that not only helps you attract an audience but also nurtures and converts leads, closes deals and fosters advocacy, then HubSpot is a very strong choice. Implemented thoughtfully, it’s a near-guaranteed catalyst for success.

Having said all that… HubSpot can be a bit much to get your head around at first. If you’re feeling slightly overwhelmed right now, you’re not the first, and won’t be the last.

Here’s your beginner’s guide to the HubSpot basics.

Get HubSpot-ready with an audit. 

First thing you need to know: Due to HubSpot’s extensive customisation options, your version of the platform will be uniquely tailored to your business, setting you apart even from your closest competitors.

HubSpot’s dizzying array of customisation options is unparalleled. You can set up automated workflows to streamline your operations. You can personalise content through its Smart Content features, tailoring campaigns down to exacting details. You can implement advanced reporting, dynamic contact properties or adaptive forms. There’s no area of your marketing operations that HubSpot can’t help with or enable.

As such, going it alone when setting up your business’s bespoke iteration of HubSpot isn’t something we’d recommend to first-timers. It’s definitely wise to ask for help during this stage.

For an optimal HubSpot implementation, we recommend enlisting the expertise of a HubSpot Partner Agency. These HubSpot experts can conduct a comprehensive audit of your business, mapping out every aspect influenced by HubSpot – from your processes to your buyer personas.

Your HubSpot Partner Agency will then craft a tailored HubSpot model that not only addresses your current business needs but also fosters future growth and evolution.

Decide what you want HubSpot to actually do.
You can get a head start on your HubSpot implementation by first pinning down exactly what you want the platform to do for your business.

What functions will HubSpot perform, on a day-to-day basis? What will it allow your teams to do? What information will need to flow into HubSpot, and what outputs will HubSpot give you in return?

If that all sounds a little vague, here are a few of the specific questions you’ll want to consider during the implementation process: 

  • What will your new HubSpot sequences and workflows entail, and how will they coexist and interact with each other?
  • How do you want your ads and social posts to be made, monitored and managed via HubSpot? 
  • How might your biddable media campaigns benefit from the control and visibility offered by HubSpot’s dashboard? 
  • How will your SEO and content strategies be changed by your implementation of HubSpot? 
  • Who in your team will be responsible for contact and database management within HubSpot? 
  • Does your business use conversational marketing tools (chatbots)? If so, they can be built within, or integrated into, HubSpot.  
  • Does your business offer self-service – e.g. customer portal, automated help desk, SLAs? Again, these can be integrated into HubSpot. 

These questions don’t represent the limit of your HubSpot options, by any means – but they will hopefully provide you with some thought-provoking jumping-off points.  

The key thing to consider is how your current systems will integrate with HubSpot. The more complex your current systems and processes – and the greater their reliance on legacy technology – the more thinking will need to be done about how HubSpot will connect to them.

You’ll also need to consider your existing contact and sales databases. All that information will need remapping and transferring across to HubSpot. This is the perfect moment to do some cleansing and updating of your data, to get it ready for its new home. 

Calculate the costs

HubSpot currently offers UK customers three tiers:

  • Starter tier, from £18 a month
  • Professional tier, from £702 a month
  • Enterprise tier, from £3,000 a month

The tier best suited to you will depend on the number of marketing contacts you want to reach, and the level of flexibility and control you need. 

There’s also your HubSpot onboarding to consider. For a fee – determined by your business’s size, complexity and specific needs – HubSpot will train up a HubSpot Power User within your business. In turn, this Power User then trains their colleagues in HubSpot. That means your business is fully prepped for implementation, and ready to hit the ground running from day one. 

Lesniak Swann is a certified HubSpot Gold Partner. We’ve helped businesses such as Carter Sullivan a nationwide engineering firm implement thoughtful and highly effective HubSpot solutions.

Looking to get to grips with HubSpot? Let’s talk it through.     

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