In a Nutshell
pros
- Best in class for marketing automation
- Includes full CRM integration
- Excellent social media management tools
cons
- Big jump from Starter to Professional plan
- Pricey option
HubSpot at a Glance
Ease of Use
Analytics & Reporting
Pricing
Integrations
Customer Support
Best for: SMBs, medium-sized businesses, enterprise tier organizations
Key uses: Lead generation, email marketing
Price: From $40 per month
Free trial: Forever free plan
SEO
HubSpot marketing hub has a great SEO wizard that literally hands you optimization tips as you type so that your content will be search engine ready. The site also has integrated analytics, so you can get SEO ROI.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one area where HubSpot marketing hub has gone all out. It has the regular stuff like customizable email templates, responsive designs, and auto-scheduling for marketing campaigns, but there’s a lot more. HubSpot marketing hub pulls data points from all over the web, including job information, social profiles, and other pertinent information. Then, HubSpot helps you utilize this information to target and personalize your communications seamlessly for each lead.
HubSpot marketing hub has a smart drag-and-drop email editor, so you can plug those personal details into each email you send out. This is one of the most intuitively-designed and easy to use email editors we’ve seen so far.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is just as essential as the other two techniques we’ve already mentioned. You can use the HubSpot marketing hub social monitoring tools to keep tabs on your customers, hear what they have to say, and keep the conversation going when you want to. Respond directly to a customer’s complaint or praise from within the social media channel. You can also send out posts on your various social media channels and have those blasted to your email lists automatically. It covers the big ones, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
HubSpot also incorporates contact management through the popular social media channels, so fans can be included in your CRM for follow up, loyalty rewards, and communications. You can also utilize this tool to get testimonials from customers and have those reviews automatically migrated over to your website for some solid social proof.
Website Design
The Starter Plan for HubSpot marketing hub offers limited features for building landing pages and designing your website. You'll find page templates, responsive designs, and basic reporting. More advanced plans come with more detailed features. Website design is definitely not the focus of this product, though, so don't expect incredibly advanced features.
HubSpot marketing hub also has marketing tools that you can build into your website design. For example, you can create and customize call to actions to fit your target audience, do A/B testing, and promote seasonal items.
Chatbot
HubSpot marketing hub can be used with the HubSpot customer service software as well, so businesses can provide extensive customer support to their customers. This is a big deal since people are usually looking towards chatbots for fast answers to make on-the-spot decisions.
Even the free plan allows you to do some basic conversational bot activity like create tickets and book meetings. More advanced plans include custom branching logic, programmable bots, and webhooks.
Lead Generation
HubSpot marketing hub really does lead generation and management well. The whole system is built off of a comprehensive CRM, so you can manage every aspect of your leads from the moment they share their email address. HubSpot marketing hub really impressed us with in-depth analytics and real-time reporting. You can see up-to-the-minute data about any lead like what pages they're visiting on your site, who they are, and where they work.
From there, HubSpot marketing hub lets you automate your email responses, so you can capture leads as they are going through the decision-making process. For example, you can set up rules to send out a personalized email as soon as a lead checks out an item on your site. Contact forms, pop-ups, and other means of direct contact are really useful for collecting lead information and follow-up.
Live Chat Software
HubSpot marketing hub incorporates live chat into the mix, as well. So, when you get a new or returning customer, you can engage with them immediately. And by the way, this feature is available even with the free plan.
Pricing
HubSpot marketing hub comes in three levels (or four if you count the freemium plan), which we’ll describe in more detail below. It’s pretty generous that all HubSpot marketing hub plans include the entire suite of HubSpot CRM, which is tremendous. You’ll get tools like:
- Contact management
- Website activity
- (limited) Email marketing
- Ad management
- List segmentation
- Ticketing
- Ability to create landing pages, blogs, and other types of content
- Personalization methods like calls to action and smart content
- SEO and content strategy
- Live chat functionality
- Conversational bots
- Form builder
And a bunch more. So, before you even start paying for anything, there's a ton to offer. Once you start looking at the for-pay plans and the marketing hub plans, in particular, there are a few differences between them. Here's a breakdown of the three marketing hub plans:
HubSpot also has a free marketing hub plan that gives you access to all of the HubSpot CRM features, form builder, 2,000 email sends per month, ad management, list segmentation, team email, live chat, and limited messenger integration. Actually, it’s an impressive list for a freemium plan, and some SMBs will be able to manage just fine with this option.
If you want more advanced features like ad retargeting, SEO and content strategy, Google integration, social media support, etc. you’ll need to go for the more advanced plans, though. The Starter Plan has a lot of the marketing tools you’d be excited about, including email marketing, contact website activity, and conversational bots. And while it’s a big jump from the Starter Plan to the Professional one, the good news is that every business other than huge corporations will be more than satisfied with the Professional Plan.
This second tier plan has a ton of marketing tools like full marketing automation suite, lead nurturing, A/B testing, custom workflows, and a lot more. Meanwhile, the Enterprise Plan offers even more detailed features like custom event automation triggers, company-wide campaign reporting, revenue reporting, and more.
In addition to any plan, HubSpot lets you pay for add-ons for more in-depth features in a specific area (sales, service, CMS).
Customer Service
HubSpot marketing hub has award-winning customer support via email or phone. You can also speak to a live chat rep for on-the-spot questions or browse the tremendous library of help documentation and training articles. HubSpot marketing hub also has a community forum that lets you ask other users how things work for more hands-on troubleshooting.
Bottom Line
HubSpot marketing hub is an all-inclusive automated marketing solution that has got all the bells and whistles included. While it's more expensive than several of the other options, it really packs a ton into that price tag. Plus, it still undercuts some competitors like Salesforce's Pardot. HubSpot marketing hub includes all the marketing tools you'll need, including email, SEO, social, and analytics. So, if you're looking for all-encompassing, this is the place to be.
