5 Key HubSpot Features Simplified

In today’s digital age, starting a company has never been easier but growing a company has never been harder. Shortsighted tactics which used to work in the past like forcing deals, sending spam, and growing at the expense of the valued customers don’t work anymore. Undoubtedly, investments in creating and sustaining a seamless customer experience are the prerequisite for the growth of any enterprise.

HubSpot offers innovative business solutions which provide a single shared view for all of the customer-facing entities of your organization. HubSpot is a US-based technology enterprise, founded in 2006, encompassing the role of a Developer and a Marketer for Business-to-Business (B2B) engagements. It is the key player in the domains of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Marketing, Sales, and Customer Services while offering innovative solutions for Lead Generation, Customer Support, Social Media Marketing, Content Management, and Search Engine Optimization, etc. 

This article will introduce you to HubSpot CRM and explain the 5 HubSpot Features that are influential for your business growth. Furthermore, the article will discuss the benefits of using HubSpot CRM and will also list down its limitations. Read along to learn more about how these HubSpot Features can improve your Marketing Team’s output!

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the HubSpot CRM
• Key HubSpot Features
  • HubSpot Features 1: Contact Management
  • HubSpot Features 2: Reporting, Dashboarding & Visualizations
  • HubSpot Features 3: Task Management
  • HubSpot Features 4: Automatic Data Capture Management
  • HubSpot Features 5: Mail & Meeting Scheduling
• Benefits of the HubSpot CRM
• Limitations of the HubSpot CRM
• Conclusion

Introduction to the HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is an integrated, Cloud-based, and free platform that helps enterprises to manage and organize customer relationships via intuitive and easy-to-use frameworks. It can easily be connected to the other tools and relevant domains of the business. It serves as a vital link between the Sales Teams, Marketers, Customer Service Teams, Operations Managers, and Business Owners to get full visibility, organize the information and subsequent contact management processes in an intuitive, simple, yet powerful architecture.

Seamless communications within and across the organization and via that, achieving higher Lead Conversion Rates, is of utmost importance for businesses today. The HubSpot CRM solution just does that, and it certainly improves the product’s time to market by removing any prevailing friction or communication gap within the organization.

With efficient and effective tracking of the generated Leads and establishing a comprehensive Database of the clienteles’ activities, enterprises can extract very crucial insights in terms of their positioning and perfect segmentation of the business. Essentially, the HubSpot CRM serves as an enabler and a catalyst for business growth by steering the company’s strategy and operation frameworks in the right direction.

To learn more about HubSpot CRM, visit here.

Key HubSpot Features

HubSpot provides the following key features that can enhance your business growth:

• HubSpot Features 1: Contact Management
• HubSpot Features 2: Reporting, Dashboarding & Visualizations
• HubSpot Features 3: Task Management
• HubSpot Features 4: Automatic Data Capture Management
• HubSpot Features 5: E-Mail & Meeting Scheduling

HubSpot Features 1: Contact Management

Contacts are the foundational blocks of any organization’s Marketing and Sales strategy. They are the real people the business organization provides value to, and in return, they grow the business. Managing these contacts within the Database is of utmost importance, thus the Contact Management strategy helps set the organization and respective customer base up for success.

HubSpot CRM supports up to 1 Million contacts. A contact is any entity that an enterprise market, sells or the partners it engages with. Contacts can also entail the employees of the organization, for creating value for the customer base. Contacts can play a key role in steering the Sales and Marketing strategy via HubSpot CRM, which can essentially be depicted in the below image.

Contact Management is one of the most crucial HubSpot Features and can assist enterprises in the following key areas:

• Update the Contacts Database: Contacts decay over time and need to be deleted from the Database to ensure precise and accurate information for generating Leads and converting them into customers. 
• Create Segmented Lists and Filters: HubSpot CRM can allow the segmentation of contacts as per required criteria, which essentially are the filters, to group the contacts on preferences. It surely saves a lot of time for implementing any framework for the said target group. An example of a segmented list is given in the below image.

• Manage Contacts via Life-Cycle Stages: The HubSpot CRM gives clients the flexibility to manage, segregate, and segment the contacts based upon the Life-Cycle Stage. While the Marketing Funnel approach can be used in this regard, the definition of each Cycle Stage can be defined by management which can subsequently be communicated across the enterprise. 

HubSpot Features 2: Reporting, Dashboarding & Visualizations

As the HubSpot CRM can easily be integrated with other tools like E-Mail, Outlook, etc. it keeps a track record of all the activities as far as relevant departments are concerned i.e., Sales, Marketing, and Customer Services. Resultantly, lot many reports are generated to provide the users with relevant and accurate information. There are standardized reports in CRM and customized reports can be created as well. More so, existing reports can be edited as per the requirements of the end-users.

To keep the access in check, the HubSpot CRM enables the owner of the enterprise to manage the permissions for all the reports, thus keeping the critical data in safe hands. A few of the reports available in this software are given as follows:

For the reports to be more useful, HubSpot CRM has the feature of Dashboards, using which different reports can be integrated to create a birds-eye view for the management to extract meaningful insights. Reports can be cross-mapped to enable a holistic view, and summaries can be presented in the dashboards.

There are certain built-in standardized dashboards in the HubSpot CRM solution and custom Dashboards can also be formulated depending upon the reporting and business requirements. Not only this, built-in Dashboards can be edited by addition and subtraction of the new requisite reports. Following graphical representations provide an overview of the Dashboard options in HubSpot’s CRM:

Information isn’t of much use if not presented properly. The HubSpot CRM solution caters to this important need as well by offering a good variety of visualization tools to support the enterprise’s information flow and decision-making process. This includes a Bar, Column, Line, Area, Donut, Pie, Summary, Table, Combination, and Pivot table representations. Graphical depictions of these visualization tools are as follows:

HubSpot Features 3: Task Management

Task Management is another one of the HubSpot Features to look for in the HubSpot CRM as it really is a handy tool for Storage, Tracking, Managing, and Reporting of the tasks and the sub-activities which are the building blocks of an enterprise’s relationship with the customers. It allows the organizations to create an effective framework for managing repetitive and one-off activities, even at a large scale and scope, without much manual effort. The Task Management option of HubSpot CRM is shown in the image below.

Streamlining the tasks has never been this easy as it is with the HubSpot CRM. It saves the user the hassle to navigate amongst multiple windows and sheets, rather provides a centralized Dashboard view to bring efficiency into the Lead Generation and Lead Conversion processes as shown in the below image.

Synchronization in HubSpot’s Task Management can connect one’s calendar automatically with the software, with the centralized view of potential clientele base E-Mail Timings, Web Pages, and Sales Collateral. This is shown in the below image.

Navigation from one task to another, with all the previous details, is done seamlessly via various HubSpot Features. It allows the user to establish task queues and workflows using any of the E-Mail’s inbox or to-do list. It can all be accomplished without even have to leave the CRM’s window as depicted in the below image.

Moreover, it allows the users to prioritize the tasks based upon urgency and can enable progress tracking and performance management (pipeline progress). It can also provide valuable insights on the task completed to extract the key learnings and thus rectify and pre-empt any prevailing mistakes in the list of activities which is visible in the below image.

HubSpot Features 4: Automatic Data Capture Management

An interesting quality of HubSpot CRM is that it can collect the data (Leads) in the form of interactive forms and then automatically synchronize it in the CRM to enables its access for the relevant teams of Sales and Marketing. Due to the various HubSpot Features, the HubSpot CRM offers a lot of flexibility in designing the forms so that relevant information can be captured and automatically fed into the User Interfaces (UIs) of the concerned personals.

It simply is a drag and drops editor which can select from over 1000+ fields and can organize the data accordingly. Target Segmentation can also play a significant role in data capturing so the most relevant data can be utilized for enhancing the Outreach of your business as shown in the below image.

The automatic Lead Capturing mechanism saves users the hassle to swift amongst multiple Tabs, Sheets, and Workflows for generating Leads, rather it automatically filters all of the recorded info into the CRM platform, where all customer touch-point professionals can have a look at it and can be used for successful conversions. An interesting aspect of automatic Lead Capture is that it can score/mark all the generated Leads so that Sales and Marketing personals can prioritize the high scoring Leads and spend the efforts on them rather than investing time on bad-fits, which certainly increase the conversion ratio and also brings efficiency and effectiveness into the process. This can be seen in the below image.

HubSpot Features 5: E-Mail & Meeting Scheduling

Saving time and bringing efficiency to the business processes are the hallmarks of HubSpot Features. Its E-Mail Scheduling is one of such HubSpot Features which provides a lot of convenience in achieving the above-stated goals. It gives users the flexibility to schedule the E-Mails right from within Gmail (owing to its integrative nature) and it reaches the prospects at just the right time. It is very beneficial for the teams and clients working across different time zones. It can enhance the probability of getting the E-Mail seen, thus one can expect higher conversion rates.

One can also edit/modify the scheduled E-Mails as they are saved as drafts before the delivery to the prospective clientele base, thus relieving the email anxiety and getting the focus back on generating Leads. This is shown in the below images.

Not only E-Mails, but HubSpot Features also give its user the autonomy to automatically schedule the meetings without the hassle of completing a lengthy chain of back-and-forth E-Mails.

The Meeting Scheduler allows the prospective clients to choose the meeting slot that is suitable for them and it books that slot into the user’s calendar. It can easily be synced with Google Calendar or Office 365 and is coupled with the video-conferencing tool to enable a seamless meeting experience for all the stakeholders. Most of all, it can synchronize the meeting details with the CRM contacts to get a top-line view of the Leads and Prospects in a single canvas. The Scheduler’s work can be seen in the below images.

Benefits of the HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a unique solution available in the market and the numerous HubSpot Features provide the following benefits to its users:

• It’s Free: The platform of HubSpot CRM is free with a great variety of functions available, thus making it very effective in boosting the sales of the user organization. 
• Integration of Social Networking Platforms: Major Social Media apps including Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn can be connected with the HubSpot CRM. Moreover, the various HubSpot Features allow the collection of the relevant information from the profiles thus enhancing the effective reach for the enterprise. 
• Integration of Website: The user organization’s website can be integrated into the CRM to get notified when a prospect visits the site or modify his interests which might encompass the unique offering of the enterprise. This feature can be obtained by purchasing a premium add-on in the HubSpot CRM. 
• Track Communications: The various HubSpot Features allows the user to document any of the communication records to ease the documentation hassle. More so, it can also record the phone calls with due authorization to use them for future references. 

Limitations of the HubSpot CRM

There are certain limitations attached to the HubSpot CRM which are discussed as follows: 

• If an enterprise is shifting from another CRM software to HubSpot, previous activity timelines, emails, notes, and attachments can’t be imported.
• Business contact companies can’t be associated with the relevant deals during the occasion of import of CRM details.
• Companies with highly complex Sales processes might not be able to adapt the CRM to their needs.

Conclusion

The HubSpot CRM solution offers a wide array of features to enterprises with easy integration on one hand and flexibility on the other. Its easy-to-use interface and real-time Database updates make it a smart choice for the users. The various HubSpot Features certainly can bring the key domains of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service in a single canvas with a prime focus on achieving business growth. Streamlined communications, seamless integrations, and enhanced visibility for all the relevant stakeholders offered by HubSpot have certainly enabled the business organizations to achieve higher lead conversion rates, thus following the route of business success in a very cost-efficient manner.

Visit our Website to Explore Hevo

Now, the work of your Sales and Marketing Teams involves a lot of data transfer between CRMS and Data Warehouses. This could be a time-consuming process for you and will also divide your efforts and resources from your primary goals. Hevo Activate can simplify this work for you as it provides an automated Data Pipeline that can transfer data from Cloud-based Data Warehouses like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, etc to various CRMs like HubSpot and SaaS applications for free. It will provide you a hassle-free experience and make your work life much easier.

Want to take Hevo for a spin? Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand.

Share your understanding of key HubSpot Features in the comments below!