HubSpot is often described as a tool to assist with your marketing efforts. While this is true, it’s only half of the platform’s full capabilities. Did you know it is also an effective sales tool? Knowing how to use HubSpot for your sales efforts is just as important as knowing how to use it for marketing.
Keep reading to learn why it’s such a valuable tool for sales and how to use HubSpot more effectively.
Before we go any further though, I do have one disclaimer. HELLO Marketing is not only a full-service internet marketing agency, but we’re also a HubSpot partner. This means we offer services that complement the software platform. It also means we use the platform ourselves and understand the benefits for sales when used to its full potential.
Why is HubSpot a valuable tool for sales?
So what value does HubSpot have for sales anyway? If you only know the platform by name, it’s a fair question. Here are just a few ways it helps sales teams.
Organization of contacts and leads
Beyond actually selling, the other key discipline for sales teams is keeping track of contacts. The smart HubSpot CRM system holds your contact records in one central location allowing each member of your sales team to:
- Capture new leads and seamlessly update current contact information
- Track and record phone calls
- Create, send and monitor email activity
- Schedule and manage calendar invites
- Store and manage document files
Visibility into contact engagement
Whether on your website, social channels, and even email communications, the HubSpot CRM tracks contact engagement activity so you can see what information leads are most interested in. This means conversations are more targeted and personalized for solving their problems and challenges.
More efficient use of time and resources
HubSpot allows teams to score contacts based on predictive events so you can focus your attention on leads that are ready to make a purchase. No more time wasted on calls to contacts that aren’t ready to talk with sales, let alone actually make a purchase.
This also means sales can let marketing nurture prospects that need more time to consider your products/services. In other words, sales teams who use HubSpot can shorten their sales cycle because reps are only talking to actual leads, not contacts or prospects that need more information. What sales professional doesn’t appreciate talking to serious inquiries only?
Measures your sales progress and growth
Planning and forecasting also becomes much simpler with HubSpot, with detailed and customizable deal stages. Know the status of various deals, how they are progressing, and projected revenue at a glance. This also improves closed loop reporting with marketing, so they can better track and measure their ROI.
The question of how to use HubSpot becomes a pretty open ended answer in light of these benefits. It all depends on the needs and structure of your sales team.
The real question is how to use HubSpot more effectively. Read on for the answer to that.
How to use HubSpot more effectively
Regardless of how great the HubSpot platform is, if it’s not integrated into your sales process and team mindset, you won’t gain the full benefits. So where should you start? We suggest the beginning.
Set your goals
Without clear goals in mind, how do you even know what you are working towards, much less when you have arrived? It’s hard to claim success when you don’t know it even looks like.
A large part of setting goals includes working with marketing to develop buyer personas so everyone understands who you are marketing and selling to.
Practical steps within HubSpot:
- Create buyer personas within your HubSpot portal for easy segmentation as part of your targeted email marketingcampaigns.
- Build landing pages with forms for gated assets that will allow contacts to choose their persona role when submitting their information.
Establish/define your sales process
Once you know what you are working towards, it’s time to clarify how you are going to achieve your goals.
There are three parts to this establishing this process:
- Define your buyers’ journey to identify your buyers’ behaviors at each stage. Then set specific actions both marketing and sales are responsible for and the point of handoff between the two teams.
- Develop a matrix to identify prospect fit and lead score to help sales identify the ideal time to personally connect with them. Make sure to add these criteria as well to your contact properties.
- Outline the larger stages of your sales process with actionable steps that must happen within each stage for a contact to advance.
Practical steps within HubSpot:
- Set up score properties to qualify your contacts within your contact properties.
- Establish your deal stages and properties in the sales portion of your HubSpot portal.
- Build automated internal workflows to advance contacts through your stages based on your preset criteria.
For more information on building a strong sales team and processes, check out these posts:
How to Make Your Sales Team More Effective
Top 5 Sales Lead Management Best Practices
Nurture your sales contacts
Nurturing contacts is perhaps the largest benefit to sales teams who use HubSpot. With the average number of decision makers now involved in business purchases, a system to gently guide contacts along is essential to closing deals.
Having the resources (meaning great content) and a streamlined process (meaning a good plan) helps sales professionals use HubSpot to their advantage when developing those essential business relationships.
Practical steps within HubSpot:
- Create template email messages that each sales rep can customize based on the questions and challenges of their respective contacts.
- Add relevant content to your document library for easy access and inclusion in your emails.
- Build sequences (separate from your marketing workflows) to automatically engage with contacts based on preset criteria you select.
HubSpot isn’t a one-size-fits-all platform. This is actually a good thing, though, when you consider all the nuances and non-linear paths contacts take on their way to becoming your customers.
Curious how to use HubSpot for your organization? Contact HELLO Marketing for a free 20-minute consultation that will help get you on the right path. Call Lauren at 973.214.5942 or email her at [email protected].