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Some Recent Thoughts...
Juicy Tidbits Without the "Tech Speak"
A compilation of ramblings about everything from HubSpot CMS development to data architecture, integrations and all the tech stuff you never knew you needed to know.
memeify the blog!
Blogs Listing - UPDATE 2024 (Jordan)
Scaling Organizations Need to Stop Buying HubSpot Marketplace Themes
Here's why scaling organizations need to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Optimize your HubSpot Reporting with a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit
A HubSpot Data Architecture Audit will help you gain more valuable business insights, optimize your workflows and make better informed business decisions.
Signs your HubSpot Reporting Configuration isn’t helping you scale
Your Hubspot reporting configuration should unlock the data you need to make the best decisions for scale - here are signs you need some help.
Why clients are slashing budgets : here's why a HubSpot Architect can help.
Budget cuts suck for agencies. Here's why a HubSpot architect can help save your portfolio during a recession.
Hire a HubSpot Technical Architect BEFORE you Switch from Marketo
Don't sign your HubSpot contract or migrate from Marketo to HubSpot without engaging the help of a HubSpot Technical Architect. Your success depends on it.
Ethical Outsourcing: Tips for White labeling HubSpot CMS Developers
Here's what you need to know about white labeling HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors for ethical outsourcing.
Your mom doesn’t work here - an Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
This is an open letter to HubSpot CMS Developers everywhere: clean. up. your. mess.
5 Content Organization Tips to Boost Resource Center Conversions
conversion rates looking stale? here are some content organization tips to help your boost resource center conversions.
BIGGEST Mistakes when Designing a Knowledge Base in HubSpot CMS
We all make mistakes, but don't make these BIG mistakes when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/NO!%20GOD%20PLEASE%20NO!!-jpg.jpeg\")
At the end of a long negotiation for HubSpot software, all any business wants to do is get migrated over to HubSpot’s marketing and automation tools as quickly as possible, especially if they’re paying for CMS Hub.
Many HubSpot reps and even some creative agencies send clients that have smaller budgets (or who have spent most of their budgets on their HubSpot contract) to the HubSpot Marketplace to browse new themes for their blog or website pitching it as a quick and easy way to get started. While for some businesses the HubSpot theme marketplace is a great way to save money with a boxed solution that can seemingly be implemented fairly easily; in reality, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique.
For scaling organizations, they may run into issues with the HubSpot Marketplace themes that they purchase as they grow. While HubSpot template themes are a great way for the average small business to get onto HubSpot CMS and we never want to discourage a small business away from HubSpot, for scaling businesses HubSpot Marketplace themes may not be the way to go.
As an organization grows in its journey with Hubspot and on HubSpot CMS, they often come to us looking to have us modify or fix their theme. We’ve seen many different types of issues with HubSpot marketplace templates - issues with how their logo appears, formatting issues, implementation, page speed and optimization issues - you name it, we’ve encountered a frustrated business that thought they could just buy a plug and play theme and didn’t quite get what they wanted.
Here are a few reasons that we think you should think twice as a growing organization before you buy a HubSpot marketplace theme, how to approach it if you are a business that does have to purchase a boxed template HubSpot theme, and a suggestion that we think might give you the best compromise between a totally custom website overhaul and a boxed theme that may not suit your needs.
Looks aren’t everything.
\n
HubSpot has a really amazing, thorough process for ensuring that only quality HubSpot templates are submitted on their marketplace. They require thorough documentation, screenshots, live proof of concept and support. In theory, this is a great way to provide accessible websites that work on HubSpot CMS. In reality, these themes are sometimes coded in a way that doesn’t suit your growing business as you scale or needs to be customized, integrated and better organized to suit your marketing content and the unique journey of your buyer.
Related: Website Quality Assurance - Why you need QA in HubSpot CMS Development
\nAny number of things could be hidden behind a HubSpot theme that you purchase, including: poor back end user interface, a lagging, slow website and sometimes? A really dissatisfied customer whose HubSpot launch is now delayed until they can find someone to fix their theme, often for more than they originally paid. It’s not always a hard time, but even just small fixes can sometimes be cumbersome for a new developer to implement if the foundation isn’t set up the right way.
Looks matter, but what’s the use in having a theme that looks pretty in demo, but isn’t actually functioning for your needs?
Usability first.
\n
“We’ll get by with a template for now, then we’ll develop a custom site later on.”
Initial HubSpot contract layouts can leave a business’ marketing or development budget depleted. In so many cases, organizations are compromising on their development - but at what expense? A clunky interface that isn’t intuitive can impact an employee’s productivity and overall happiness.
A poor back end user interface means that your employees simply cannot operate efficiently. And when they can’t post content efficiently or are constantly running into roadblocks in their everyday tasks, it can be wearing on them and a huge time suck. According to The CFO, an online business publication, inefficient processes waste nearly a third of employees time. And with job unhappiness at an all time high as of August 2022, according to CNBC, companies should be doing everything they can to make sure their employees are productive, happy and able to effectively get the job done.
Why? Happy workers are 13% more productive, according to Oxford University.
When you’re considering your HubSpot budget, you need to consider not only which Hubs you’ll need, how to secure them at the best value, but how you can situate your company to be most successful inside HubSpot by choosing a framework or theme that truly suits your needs.
You have little ability to customize.
\n
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? The top complaint we receive when we get clients that are already working inside HubSpot is — I wish I would’ve known. They wish they would’ve looked closer at their data needs, they wish they would’ve bought the right tiers from the outset, they wish they wouldn’t have wasted money with an inexperienced, order-taker developer and they wish they would’ve gotten set up the right way from the start.
Related: Why an experienced HubSpot CMS developer? Your website isn’t a sub sandwich.
\n
The HubSpot Marketplace Themes, whether they’re free or paid, lock you into either using that development agency for your improvements or will eventually require you to pay someone that is going to take longer to accomplish your goals, because they’re working in someone else’s code foundation. In the world of HubSpot Development, there are many ways to build the same framework, and because there’s a lacking centralized knowledge base for HubSpot developers right now (we hope that’s not always the case), it’s a bit Wild West out there sometimes.
Trying to customize an existing template can break functionality and will usually require a bit of an investment for another HubSpot CMS developer to familiarize themselves with how everything has been set up and go poking around before they make your improvements.
Ideally, you’ll vet the company offering the template from the start, question them about their expertise and make sure they’re a fit to work with long term and use your theme as a framework to build on. Just make sure that your framework actually has a stable foundation and can accommodate your needs as you grow.
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
If you already purchased a HubSpot Marketplace Theme, there’s no need to go out and spend thousands on a new website (yet). But as you grow, you may find that it’s not working as well for you. Odds are good that you can work with the company that developed the theme to customize it to suit your needs. Even if not, there are always ways to work around the infrastructure that you have while you make plans to redesign your site and build a new custom HubSpot framework that will better suit your needs.
What’s most important is finding the right development and technical partner. One that will look at your processes from front to back and really dig into what your needs are and how your HubSpot framework, your data architecture and the processes you’ve put in place will work for your organization in the long term. Ideally, that partner will grow with you in a long term relationship as you scale and continue to improve your marketing and brand over time.
Most often, what we find is that customized design inside a tried and true framework built with the bones you need to grow is the best solution for a business starting out on HubSpot CMS that isn’t quite ready to go all in on a custom build.
\n
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
At the end of a long negotiation for HubSpot software, all any business wants to do is get migrated over to HubSpot’s marketing and automation tools as quickly as possible, especially if they’re paying for CMS Hub.
Many HubSpot reps and even some creative agencies send clients that have smaller budgets (or who have spent most of their budgets on their HubSpot contract) to the HubSpot Marketplace to browse new themes for their blog or website pitching it as a quick and easy way to get started. While for some businesses the HubSpot theme marketplace is a great way to save money with a boxed solution that can seemingly be implemented fairly easily; in reality, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique.
For scaling organizations, they may run into issues with the HubSpot Marketplace themes that they purchase as they grow. While HubSpot template themes are a great way for the average small business to get onto HubSpot CMS and we never want to discourage a small business away from HubSpot, for scaling businesses HubSpot Marketplace themes may not be the way to go.
As an organization grows in its journey with Hubspot and on HubSpot CMS, they often come to us looking to have us modify or fix their theme. We’ve seen many different types of issues with HubSpot marketplace templates - issues with how their logo appears, formatting issues, implementation, page speed and optimization issues - you name it, we’ve encountered a frustrated business that thought they could just buy a plug and play theme and didn’t quite get what they wanted.
Here are a few reasons that we think you should think twice as a growing organization before you buy a HubSpot marketplace theme, how to approach it if you are a business that does have to purchase a boxed template HubSpot theme, and a suggestion that we think might give you the best compromise between a totally custom website overhaul and a boxed theme that may not suit your needs.
Looks aren’t everything.
\n
HubSpot has a really amazing, thorough process for ensuring that only quality HubSpot templates are submitted on their marketplace. They require thorough documentation, screenshots, live proof of concept and support. In theory, this is a great way to provide accessible websites that work on HubSpot CMS. In reality, these themes are sometimes coded in a way that doesn’t suit your growing business as you scale or needs to be customized, integrated and better organized to suit your marketing content and the unique journey of your buyer.
Related: Website Quality Assurance - Why you need QA in HubSpot CMS Development
\nAny number of things could be hidden behind a HubSpot theme that you purchase, including: poor back end user interface, a lagging, slow website and sometimes? A really dissatisfied customer whose HubSpot launch is now delayed until they can find someone to fix their theme, often for more than they originally paid. It’s not always a hard time, but even just small fixes can sometimes be cumbersome for a new developer to implement if the foundation isn’t set up the right way.
Looks matter, but what’s the use in having a theme that looks pretty in demo, but isn’t actually functioning for your needs?
Usability first.
\n
“We’ll get by with a template for now, then we’ll develop a custom site later on.”
Initial HubSpot contract layouts can leave a business’ marketing or development budget depleted. In so many cases, organizations are compromising on their development - but at what expense? A clunky interface that isn’t intuitive can impact an employee’s productivity and overall happiness.
A poor back end user interface means that your employees simply cannot operate efficiently. And when they can’t post content efficiently or are constantly running into roadblocks in their everyday tasks, it can be wearing on them and a huge time suck. According to The CFO, an online business publication, inefficient processes waste nearly a third of employees time. And with job unhappiness at an all time high as of August 2022, according to CNBC, companies should be doing everything they can to make sure their employees are productive, happy and able to effectively get the job done.
Why? Happy workers are 13% more productive, according to Oxford University.
When you’re considering your HubSpot budget, you need to consider not only which Hubs you’ll need, how to secure them at the best value, but how you can situate your company to be most successful inside HubSpot by choosing a framework or theme that truly suits your needs.
You have little ability to customize.
\n
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? The top complaint we receive when we get clients that are already working inside HubSpot is — I wish I would’ve known. They wish they would’ve looked closer at their data needs, they wish they would’ve bought the right tiers from the outset, they wish they wouldn’t have wasted money with an inexperienced, order-taker developer and they wish they would’ve gotten set up the right way from the start.
Related: Why an experienced HubSpot CMS developer? Your website isn’t a sub sandwich.
\n
The HubSpot Marketplace Themes, whether they’re free or paid, lock you into either using that development agency for your improvements or will eventually require you to pay someone that is going to take longer to accomplish your goals, because they’re working in someone else’s code foundation. In the world of HubSpot Development, there are many ways to build the same framework, and because there’s a lacking centralized knowledge base for HubSpot developers right now (we hope that’s not always the case), it’s a bit Wild West out there sometimes.
Trying to customize an existing template can break functionality and will usually require a bit of an investment for another HubSpot CMS developer to familiarize themselves with how everything has been set up and go poking around before they make your improvements.
Ideally, you’ll vet the company offering the template from the start, question them about their expertise and make sure they’re a fit to work with long term and use your theme as a framework to build on. Just make sure that your framework actually has a stable foundation and can accommodate your needs as you grow.
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
If you already purchased a HubSpot Marketplace Theme, there’s no need to go out and spend thousands on a new website (yet). But as you grow, you may find that it’s not working as well for you. Odds are good that you can work with the company that developed the theme to customize it to suit your needs. Even if not, there are always ways to work around the infrastructure that you have while you make plans to redesign your site and build a new custom HubSpot framework that will better suit your needs.
What’s most important is finding the right development and technical partner. One that will look at your processes from front to back and really dig into what your needs are and how your HubSpot framework, your data architecture and the processes you’ve put in place will work for your organization in the long term. Ideally, that partner will grow with you in a long term relationship as you scale and continue to improve your marketing and brand over time.
Most often, what we find is that customized design inside a tried and true framework built with the bones you need to grow is the best solution for a business starting out on HubSpot CMS that isn’t quite ready to go all in on a custom build.
\n
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
At the end of a long negotiation for HubSpot software, all any business wants to do is get migrated over to HubSpot’s marketing and automation tools as quickly as possible, especially if they’re paying for CMS Hub.
Many HubSpot reps and even some creative agencies send clients that have smaller budgets (or who have spent most of their budgets on their HubSpot contract) to the HubSpot Marketplace to browse new themes for their blog or website pitching it as a quick and easy way to get started. While for some businesses the HubSpot theme marketplace is a great way to save money with a boxed solution that can seemingly be implemented fairly easily; in reality, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique.
For scaling organizations, they may run into issues with the HubSpot Marketplace themes that they purchase as they grow. While HubSpot template themes are a great way for the average small business to get onto HubSpot CMS and we never want to discourage a small business away from HubSpot, for scaling businesses HubSpot Marketplace themes may not be the way to go.
As an organization grows in its journey with Hubspot and on HubSpot CMS, they often come to us looking to have us modify or fix their theme. We’ve seen many different types of issues with HubSpot marketplace templates - issues with how their logo appears, formatting issues, implementation, page speed and optimization issues - you name it, we’ve encountered a frustrated business that thought they could just buy a plug and play theme and didn’t quite get what they wanted.
Here are a few reasons that we think you should think twice as a growing organization before you buy a HubSpot marketplace theme, how to approach it if you are a business that does have to purchase a boxed template HubSpot theme, and a suggestion that we think might give you the best compromise between a totally custom website overhaul and a boxed theme that may not suit your needs.
Looks aren’t everything.
\n
HubSpot has a really amazing, thorough process for ensuring that only quality HubSpot templates are submitted on their marketplace. They require thorough documentation, screenshots, live proof of concept and support. In theory, this is a great way to provide accessible websites that work on HubSpot CMS. In reality, these themes are sometimes coded in a way that doesn’t suit your growing business as you scale or needs to be customized, integrated and better organized to suit your marketing content and the unique journey of your buyer.
Related: Website Quality Assurance - Why you need QA in HubSpot CMS Development
\nAny number of things could be hidden behind a HubSpot theme that you purchase, including: poor back end user interface, a lagging, slow website and sometimes? A really dissatisfied customer whose HubSpot launch is now delayed until they can find someone to fix their theme, often for more than they originally paid. It’s not always a hard time, but even just small fixes can sometimes be cumbersome for a new developer to implement if the foundation isn’t set up the right way.
Looks matter, but what’s the use in having a theme that looks pretty in demo, but isn’t actually functioning for your needs?
Usability first.
\n
“We’ll get by with a template for now, then we’ll develop a custom site later on.”
Initial HubSpot contract layouts can leave a business’ marketing or development budget depleted. In so many cases, organizations are compromising on their development - but at what expense? A clunky interface that isn’t intuitive can impact an employee’s productivity and overall happiness.
A poor back end user interface means that your employees simply cannot operate efficiently. And when they can’t post content efficiently or are constantly running into roadblocks in their everyday tasks, it can be wearing on them and a huge time suck. According to The CFO, an online business publication, inefficient processes waste nearly a third of employees time. And with job unhappiness at an all time high as of August 2022, according to CNBC, companies should be doing everything they can to make sure their employees are productive, happy and able to effectively get the job done.
Why? Happy workers are 13% more productive, according to Oxford University.
When you’re considering your HubSpot budget, you need to consider not only which Hubs you’ll need, how to secure them at the best value, but how you can situate your company to be most successful inside HubSpot by choosing a framework or theme that truly suits your needs.
You have little ability to customize.
\n
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? The top complaint we receive when we get clients that are already working inside HubSpot is — I wish I would’ve known. They wish they would’ve looked closer at their data needs, they wish they would’ve bought the right tiers from the outset, they wish they wouldn’t have wasted money with an inexperienced, order-taker developer and they wish they would’ve gotten set up the right way from the start.
Related: Why an experienced HubSpot CMS developer? Your website isn’t a sub sandwich.
\n
The HubSpot Marketplace Themes, whether they’re free or paid, lock you into either using that development agency for your improvements or will eventually require you to pay someone that is going to take longer to accomplish your goals, because they’re working in someone else’s code foundation. In the world of HubSpot Development, there are many ways to build the same framework, and because there’s a lacking centralized knowledge base for HubSpot developers right now (we hope that’s not always the case), it’s a bit Wild West out there sometimes.
Trying to customize an existing template can break functionality and will usually require a bit of an investment for another HubSpot CMS developer to familiarize themselves with how everything has been set up and go poking around before they make your improvements.
Ideally, you’ll vet the company offering the template from the start, question them about their expertise and make sure they’re a fit to work with long term and use your theme as a framework to build on. Just make sure that your framework actually has a stable foundation and can accommodate your needs as you grow.
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
If you already purchased a HubSpot Marketplace Theme, there’s no need to go out and spend thousands on a new website (yet). But as you grow, you may find that it’s not working as well for you. Odds are good that you can work with the company that developed the theme to customize it to suit your needs. Even if not, there are always ways to work around the infrastructure that you have while you make plans to redesign your site and build a new custom HubSpot framework that will better suit your needs.
What’s most important is finding the right development and technical partner. One that will look at your processes from front to back and really dig into what your needs are and how your HubSpot framework, your data architecture and the processes you’ve put in place will work for your organization in the long term. Ideally, that partner will grow with you in a long term relationship as you scale and continue to improve your marketing and brand over time.
Most often, what we find is that customized design inside a tried and true framework built with the bones you need to grow is the best solution for a business starting out on HubSpot CMS that isn’t quite ready to go all in on a custom build.
\n
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
At the end of a long negotiation for HubSpot software, all any business wants to do is get migrated over to HubSpot’s marketing and automation tools as quickly as possible, especially if they’re paying for CMS Hub.
Many HubSpot reps and even some creative agencies send clients that have smaller budgets (or who have spent most of their budgets on their HubSpot contract) to the HubSpot Marketplace to browse new themes for their blog or website pitching it as a quick and easy way to get started. While for some businesses the HubSpot theme marketplace is a great way to save money with a boxed solution that can seemingly be implemented fairly easily; in reality, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique.
For scaling organizations, they may run into issues with the HubSpot Marketplace themes that they purchase as they grow. While HubSpot template themes are a great way for the average small business to get onto HubSpot CMS and we never want to discourage a small business away from HubSpot, for scaling businesses HubSpot Marketplace themes may not be the way to go.
As an organization grows in its journey with Hubspot and on HubSpot CMS, they often come to us looking to have us modify or fix their theme. We’ve seen many different types of issues with HubSpot marketplace templates - issues with how their logo appears, formatting issues, implementation, page speed and optimization issues - you name it, we’ve encountered a frustrated business that thought they could just buy a plug and play theme and didn’t quite get what they wanted.
Here are a few reasons that we think you should think twice as a growing organization before you buy a HubSpot marketplace theme, how to approach it if you are a business that does have to purchase a boxed template HubSpot theme, and a suggestion that we think might give you the best compromise between a totally custom website overhaul and a boxed theme that may not suit your needs.
Looks aren’t everything.
\n
HubSpot has a really amazing, thorough process for ensuring that only quality HubSpot templates are submitted on their marketplace. They require thorough documentation, screenshots, live proof of concept and support. In theory, this is a great way to provide accessible websites that work on HubSpot CMS. In reality, these themes are sometimes coded in a way that doesn’t suit your growing business as you scale or needs to be customized, integrated and better organized to suit your marketing content and the unique journey of your buyer.
Related: Website Quality Assurance - Why you need QA in HubSpot CMS Development
\nAny number of things could be hidden behind a HubSpot theme that you purchase, including: poor back end user interface, a lagging, slow website and sometimes? A really dissatisfied customer whose HubSpot launch is now delayed until they can find someone to fix their theme, often for more than they originally paid. It’s not always a hard time, but even just small fixes can sometimes be cumbersome for a new developer to implement if the foundation isn’t set up the right way.
Looks matter, but what’s the use in having a theme that looks pretty in demo, but isn’t actually functioning for your needs?
Usability first.
\n
“We’ll get by with a template for now, then we’ll develop a custom site later on.”
Initial HubSpot contract layouts can leave a business’ marketing or development budget depleted. In so many cases, organizations are compromising on their development - but at what expense? A clunky interface that isn’t intuitive can impact an employee’s productivity and overall happiness.
A poor back end user interface means that your employees simply cannot operate efficiently. And when they can’t post content efficiently or are constantly running into roadblocks in their everyday tasks, it can be wearing on them and a huge time suck. According to The CFO, an online business publication, inefficient processes waste nearly a third of employees time. And with job unhappiness at an all time high as of August 2022, according to CNBC, companies should be doing everything they can to make sure their employees are productive, happy and able to effectively get the job done.
Why? Happy workers are 13% more productive, according to Oxford University.
When you’re considering your HubSpot budget, you need to consider not only which Hubs you’ll need, how to secure them at the best value, but how you can situate your company to be most successful inside HubSpot by choosing a framework or theme that truly suits your needs.
You have little ability to customize.
\n
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? The top complaint we receive when we get clients that are already working inside HubSpot is — I wish I would’ve known. They wish they would’ve looked closer at their data needs, they wish they would’ve bought the right tiers from the outset, they wish they wouldn’t have wasted money with an inexperienced, order-taker developer and they wish they would’ve gotten set up the right way from the start.
Related: Why an experienced HubSpot CMS developer? Your website isn’t a sub sandwich.
\n
The HubSpot Marketplace Themes, whether they’re free or paid, lock you into either using that development agency for your improvements or will eventually require you to pay someone that is going to take longer to accomplish your goals, because they’re working in someone else’s code foundation. In the world of HubSpot Development, there are many ways to build the same framework, and because there’s a lacking centralized knowledge base for HubSpot developers right now (we hope that’s not always the case), it’s a bit Wild West out there sometimes.
Trying to customize an existing template can break functionality and will usually require a bit of an investment for another HubSpot CMS developer to familiarize themselves with how everything has been set up and go poking around before they make your improvements.
Ideally, you’ll vet the company offering the template from the start, question them about their expertise and make sure they’re a fit to work with long term and use your theme as a framework to build on. Just make sure that your framework actually has a stable foundation and can accommodate your needs as you grow.
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
If you already purchased a HubSpot Marketplace Theme, there’s no need to go out and spend thousands on a new website (yet). But as you grow, you may find that it’s not working as well for you. Odds are good that you can work with the company that developed the theme to customize it to suit your needs. Even if not, there are always ways to work around the infrastructure that you have while you make plans to redesign your site and build a new custom HubSpot framework that will better suit your needs.
What’s most important is finding the right development and technical partner. One that will look at your processes from front to back and really dig into what your needs are and how your HubSpot framework, your data architecture and the processes you’ve put in place will work for your organization in the long term. Ideally, that partner will grow with you in a long term relationship as you scale and continue to improve your marketing and brand over time.
Most often, what we find is that customized design inside a tried and true framework built with the bones you need to grow is the best solution for a business starting out on HubSpot CMS that isn’t quite ready to go all in on a custom build.
\n
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
At the end of a long negotiation for HubSpot software, all any business wants to do is get migrated over to HubSpot’s marketing and automation tools as quickly as possible, especially if they’re paying for CMS Hub.
Many HubSpot reps and even some creative agencies send clients that have smaller budgets (or who have spent most of their budgets on their HubSpot contract) to the HubSpot Marketplace to browse new themes for their blog or website pitching it as a quick and easy way to get started. While for some businesses the HubSpot theme marketplace is a great way to save money with a boxed solution that can seemingly be implemented fairly easily; in reality, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique.
For scaling organizations, they may run into issues with the HubSpot Marketplace themes that they purchase as they grow. While HubSpot template themes are a great way for the average small business to get onto HubSpot CMS and we never want to discourage a small business away from HubSpot, for scaling businesses HubSpot Marketplace themes may not be the way to go.
As an organization grows in its journey with Hubspot and on HubSpot CMS, they often come to us looking to have us modify or fix their theme. We’ve seen many different types of issues with HubSpot marketplace templates - issues with how their logo appears, formatting issues, implementation, page speed and optimization issues - you name it, we’ve encountered a frustrated business that thought they could just buy a plug and play theme and didn’t quite get what they wanted.
Here are a few reasons that we think you should think twice as a growing organization before you buy a HubSpot marketplace theme, how to approach it if you are a business that does have to purchase a boxed template HubSpot theme, and a suggestion that we think might give you the best compromise between a totally custom website overhaul and a boxed theme that may not suit your needs.
Looks aren’t everything.
\n
HubSpot has a really amazing, thorough process for ensuring that only quality HubSpot templates are submitted on their marketplace. They require thorough documentation, screenshots, live proof of concept and support. In theory, this is a great way to provide accessible websites that work on HubSpot CMS. In reality, these themes are sometimes coded in a way that doesn’t suit your growing business as you scale or needs to be customized, integrated and better organized to suit your marketing content and the unique journey of your buyer.
Related: Website Quality Assurance - Why you need QA in HubSpot CMS Development
\nAny number of things could be hidden behind a HubSpot theme that you purchase, including: poor back end user interface, a lagging, slow website and sometimes? A really dissatisfied customer whose HubSpot launch is now delayed until they can find someone to fix their theme, often for more than they originally paid. It’s not always a hard time, but even just small fixes can sometimes be cumbersome for a new developer to implement if the foundation isn’t set up the right way.
Looks matter, but what’s the use in having a theme that looks pretty in demo, but isn’t actually functioning for your needs?
Usability first.
\n
“We’ll get by with a template for now, then we’ll develop a custom site later on.”
Initial HubSpot contract layouts can leave a business’ marketing or development budget depleted. In so many cases, organizations are compromising on their development - but at what expense? A clunky interface that isn’t intuitive can impact an employee’s productivity and overall happiness.
A poor back end user interface means that your employees simply cannot operate efficiently. And when they can’t post content efficiently or are constantly running into roadblocks in their everyday tasks, it can be wearing on them and a huge time suck. According to The CFO, an online business publication, inefficient processes waste nearly a third of employees time. And with job unhappiness at an all time high as of August 2022, according to CNBC, companies should be doing everything they can to make sure their employees are productive, happy and able to effectively get the job done.
Why? Happy workers are 13% more productive, according to Oxford University.
When you’re considering your HubSpot budget, you need to consider not only which Hubs you’ll need, how to secure them at the best value, but how you can situate your company to be most successful inside HubSpot by choosing a framework or theme that truly suits your needs.
You have little ability to customize.
\n
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? The top complaint we receive when we get clients that are already working inside HubSpot is — I wish I would’ve known. They wish they would’ve looked closer at their data needs, they wish they would’ve bought the right tiers from the outset, they wish they wouldn’t have wasted money with an inexperienced, order-taker developer and they wish they would’ve gotten set up the right way from the start.
Related: Why an experienced HubSpot CMS developer? Your website isn’t a sub sandwich.
\n
The HubSpot Marketplace Themes, whether they’re free or paid, lock you into either using that development agency for your improvements or will eventually require you to pay someone that is going to take longer to accomplish your goals, because they’re working in someone else’s code foundation. In the world of HubSpot Development, there are many ways to build the same framework, and because there’s a lacking centralized knowledge base for HubSpot developers right now (we hope that’s not always the case), it’s a bit Wild West out there sometimes.
Trying to customize an existing template can break functionality and will usually require a bit of an investment for another HubSpot CMS developer to familiarize themselves with how everything has been set up and go poking around before they make your improvements.
Ideally, you’ll vet the company offering the template from the start, question them about their expertise and make sure they’re a fit to work with long term and use your theme as a framework to build on. Just make sure that your framework actually has a stable foundation and can accommodate your needs as you grow.
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
If you already purchased a HubSpot Marketplace Theme, there’s no need to go out and spend thousands on a new website (yet). But as you grow, you may find that it’s not working as well for you. Odds are good that you can work with the company that developed the theme to customize it to suit your needs. Even if not, there are always ways to work around the infrastructure that you have while you make plans to redesign your site and build a new custom HubSpot framework that will better suit your needs.
What’s most important is finding the right development and technical partner. One that will look at your processes from front to back and really dig into what your needs are and how your HubSpot framework, your data architecture and the processes you’ve put in place will work for your organization in the long term. Ideally, that partner will grow with you in a long term relationship as you scale and continue to improve your marketing and brand over time.
Most often, what we find is that customized design inside a tried and true framework built with the bones you need to grow is the best solution for a business starting out on HubSpot CMS that isn’t quite ready to go all in on a custom build.
\n
Like so many other things that we write about, this one might rub some people the wrong way, but sometimes these discussions are warranted.
::deep breath:: Soooo, here we go:
We want scaling organizations to stop buying HubSpot Marketplace themes.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/undefined-4.png\")
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
First, we’ll need to know your HubSpot Product subscriptions.
\nYou’ll be limited (or unlimited) by which HubSpot product subscription you have, and knowing that from the starting gate will help us approach your data and processes in the best possible way. Because each tier for HubSpot’s Hubs varies in the capabilities included within it, knowing this before we get started discussing your data will help your Architect unpack what the possibilities are moving into the next phase of your audit.
There’s even a possibility that based on your current subscription, your processes, your goals and your workflow, that your HubSpot Architect may make recommendations to scale up or down in certain Hubs, or eliminate or add more on. Don’t worry - we have your best interest at heart here and we’re not in this for Partner Tier commissions, we’re in it to make sure you have everything you need.
If there’s one thing we want you to know from the outset - your Data Architect, much like a Fractional CTO or CRM Administrator, is your advocate for making sure HubSpot is working for you and giving you the ability to scale as you need to with the right tools at your disposal. In order to make the best recommendations, we need to know exactly what the situation is, so make sure you understand which subscriptions and tiers you subscribe to in advance of our initial consultation.
Next, we’ll learn just enough about your company to determine how deep the rabbit hole is.
\n![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/undefined-May-25-2023-04-42-42-7557-PM.png\")
We can Alice in Wonderland all day long over data, data structures, your tech stack, integrations and data workflows and reporting / dashboard configurations. And if things go well on this initial audit (and they usually do), we’ll end up digging deep into your organization’s data structure and tech stack even deeper. But for the most part, a preliminary HubSpot data architecture audit starts with us getting to know your workflow.
In our initial discovery call, we’ll talk to the necessary parties to understand the flow of data through your organization, the tools you use, how you make and optimize decisions now and any goals and pain points you might have.
Things we might hear on a call with a potential client that needs an architecture overhaul?
- \n
- We are lacking clarity on true ROI for our marketing campaigns. \n
- We don’t have enough grasp of our sales pipeline outlook. \n
- We aren’t positive about how to formulate a budget based on the analytics currently available to us. \n
Just so you’re aware - this is not uncommon at *all*. Many HubSpot customers just like you struggle with this as well. (Which is why we suggest engaging a HubSpot Architect BEFORE you migrate). Sitting down with deckerdevs gives us the insight we need to tackle your HubSpot portal and really get a birds eye view of what is happening inside your organization, which pieces of data you need to best reach your goals, and how we can configure things moving forward to help you get there faster, for less money. (Are you chomping at the bit to work with us yet?)
That all starts with a call. The more we understand about your tech stack, your processes, and how your organization is structured now, the bigger the picture we have in our heads when we go into the trenches to analyze the existing data structure as it sits inside your HubSpot Portal.
Maybe, we’ll screenshare a little bit.
\nOnce we understand more about how your business works, there’s a little ad-libbing here depending on how excited we are to get started. We may ask for access to your Portal or ask you to screen share a little bit of what your portal looks like to ask some questions and make sure that we’ve got everything right.
We need to make sure that we understand your goals entirely before we dig into how we’ll need to configure your reporting and data architecture to suit your needs. So, be ready on our call and provide access to our architect as soon as you feel comfortable.
Then, the fun stuff happens.
\nWell. Not the fun stuff for you. The fun stuff that our data architect loves to geek out on. A self proclaimed Vulcan (hi Trekkies! we’re still a tech company over here), he’s digging deep into the logic behind your configurations. This will help him determine, based on your subscriptions and tiers and the capabilities you have access to - which configuration is going to be most efficient and help you best reach those goals you outlined in that initial call.
He gets the birds eye view of your data configuration and then segments into each of your objects, properties and custom objects. His goal? Reverse engineer your entire HubSpot portal. Don’t be scared, when we come out on the other side of this, you’ll never want to think of life without deckerdevs ever again. This isn’t about codependency, this is about a deep business intelligence expert, here to unravel the kinks in the hose of your organization’s funnel so money comes flying out your pipeline. (Feeling better already, right?)
Finally? He comes to you with the solutions to your HubSpot data configuration woes.
\nIf I get to too technical here, I know I might lose you, so I’ll sift through all the fancy jargon used around predicate logic and If-then conditional workflow statements and tell you this - he will take your processes, expand and move things around and create a flow board with branches and options for your data configuration to best suit the business based on how HubSpot operates and the rules that apply within HubSpot’s capabilities (again, based on your Hub subscription and tier).
He’ll present you with your options, the re-configuration of your data architecture and discuss which solutions best suit your organization and why. So often (and through no fault of their own) HubSpot customers don’t know enough about the capabilities within their reach inside HubSpot. He's here not just to make things more efficient, but educate you on the logic behind the configuration. This might start with him re-configuring your sales pipeline reporting to give you more clarity by configuring objects and properties differently so that you don’t just have a mess of data to look at. Instead, you’ll come out with an organized report that helps you make the best decisions for growth.
It’s really easy to get lost in the tech speak when it comes to understanding how your business needs to configure data architecture in HubSpot, but it all comes down to a language that any manager, executive or employee can speak - efficiency. We want your employees to operate more efficiently, your marketers to have the best insight on their actions, your CFO to be able to analyze and rationalize budgets and your salespeople and sales managers to know exactly where they stand so they can best report back and thrive, continuing to bring in revenue and creating a healthier, happier organization at large.
We’re not just helping you Marie Kondo your data, we’re saving money, giving you happier employees, making your organization an easier place to work and dare I say it - maybe even changing the world one HubSpot Data Re-Configuration at a time.
Are you having trouble with your data architecture, reporting and making big decisions based on the data available to you in your dashboard right now? Let’s talk.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
First, we’ll need to know your HubSpot Product subscriptions.
\nYou’ll be limited (or unlimited) by which HubSpot product subscription you have, and knowing that from the starting gate will help us approach your data and processes in the best possible way. Because each tier for HubSpot’s Hubs varies in the capabilities included within it, knowing this before we get started discussing your data will help your Architect unpack what the possibilities are moving into the next phase of your audit.
There’s even a possibility that based on your current subscription, your processes, your goals and your workflow, that your HubSpot Architect may make recommendations to scale up or down in certain Hubs, or eliminate or add more on. Don’t worry - we have your best interest at heart here and we’re not in this for Partner Tier commissions, we’re in it to make sure you have everything you need.
If there’s one thing we want you to know from the outset - your Data Architect, much like a Fractional CTO or CRM Administrator, is your advocate for making sure HubSpot is working for you and giving you the ability to scale as you need to with the right tools at your disposal. In order to make the best recommendations, we need to know exactly what the situation is, so make sure you understand which subscriptions and tiers you subscribe to in advance of our initial consultation.
Next, we’ll learn just enough about your company to determine how deep the rabbit hole is.
\nWe can Alice in Wonderland all day long over data, data structures, your tech stack, integrations and data workflows and reporting / dashboard configurations. And if things go well on this initial audit (and they usually do), we’ll end up digging deep into your organization’s data structure and tech stack even deeper. But for the most part, a preliminary HubSpot data architecture audit starts with us getting to know your workflow.
In our initial discovery call, we’ll talk to the necessary parties to understand the flow of data through your organization, the tools you use, how you make and optimize decisions now and any goals and pain points you might have.
Things we might hear on a call with a potential client that needs an architecture overhaul?
- \n
- We are lacking clarity on true ROI for our marketing campaigns. \n
- We don’t have enough grasp of our sales pipeline outlook. \n
- We aren’t positive about how to formulate a budget based on the analytics currently available to us. \n
Just so you’re aware - this is not uncommon at *all*. Many HubSpot customers just like you struggle with this as well. (Which is why we suggest engaging a HubSpot Architect BEFORE you migrate). Sitting down with deckerdevs gives us the insight we need to tackle your HubSpot portal and really get a birds eye view of what is happening inside your organization, which pieces of data you need to best reach your goals, and how we can configure things moving forward to help you get there faster, for less money. (Are you chomping at the bit to work with us yet?)
That all starts with a call. The more we understand about your tech stack, your processes, and how your organization is structured now, the bigger the picture we have in our heads when we go into the trenches to analyze the existing data structure as it sits inside your HubSpot Portal.
Maybe, we’ll screenshare a little bit.
\nOnce we understand more about how your business works, there’s a little ad-libbing here depending on how excited we are to get started. We may ask for access to your Portal or ask you to screen share a little bit of what your portal looks like to ask some questions and make sure that we’ve got everything right.
We need to make sure that we understand your goals entirely before we dig into how we’ll need to configure your reporting and data architecture to suit your needs. So, be ready on our call and provide access to our architect as soon as you feel comfortable.
Then, the fun stuff happens.
\nWell. Not the fun stuff for you. The fun stuff that our data architect loves to geek out on. A self proclaimed Vulcan (hi Trekkies! we’re still a tech company over here), he’s digging deep into the logic behind your configurations. This will help him determine, based on your subscriptions and tiers and the capabilities you have access to - which configuration is going to be most efficient and help you best reach those goals you outlined in that initial call.
He gets the birds eye view of your data configuration and then segments into each of your objects, properties and custom objects. His goal? Reverse engineer your entire HubSpot portal. Don’t be scared, when we come out on the other side of this, you’ll never want to think of life without deckerdevs ever again. This isn’t about codependency, this is about a deep business intelligence expert, here to unravel the kinks in the hose of your organization’s funnel so money comes flying out your pipeline. (Feeling better already, right?)
Finally? He comes to you with the solutions to your HubSpot data configuration woes.
\nIf I get to too technical here, I know I might lose you, so I’ll sift through all the fancy jargon used around predicate logic and If-then conditional workflow statements and tell you this - he will take your processes, expand and move things around and create a flow board with branches and options for your data configuration to best suit the business based on how HubSpot operates and the rules that apply within HubSpot’s capabilities (again, based on your Hub subscription and tier).
He’ll present you with your options, the re-configuration of your data architecture and discuss which solutions best suit your organization and why. So often (and through no fault of their own) HubSpot customers don’t know enough about the capabilities within their reach inside HubSpot. He's here not just to make things more efficient, but educate you on the logic behind the configuration. This might start with him re-configuring your sales pipeline reporting to give you more clarity by configuring objects and properties differently so that you don’t just have a mess of data to look at. Instead, you’ll come out with an organized report that helps you make the best decisions for growth.
It’s really easy to get lost in the tech speak when it comes to understanding how your business needs to configure data architecture in HubSpot, but it all comes down to a language that any manager, executive or employee can speak - efficiency. We want your employees to operate more efficiently, your marketers to have the best insight on their actions, your CFO to be able to analyze and rationalize budgets and your salespeople and sales managers to know exactly where they stand so they can best report back and thrive, continuing to bring in revenue and creating a healthier, happier organization at large.
We’re not just helping you Marie Kondo your data, we’re saving money, giving you happier employees, making your organization an easier place to work and dare I say it - maybe even changing the world one HubSpot Data Re-Configuration at a time.
Are you having trouble with your data architecture, reporting and making big decisions based on the data available to you in your dashboard right now? Let’s talk.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
First, we’ll need to know your HubSpot Product subscriptions.
\nYou’ll be limited (or unlimited) by which HubSpot product subscription you have, and knowing that from the starting gate will help us approach your data and processes in the best possible way. Because each tier for HubSpot’s Hubs varies in the capabilities included within it, knowing this before we get started discussing your data will help your Architect unpack what the possibilities are moving into the next phase of your audit.
There’s even a possibility that based on your current subscription, your processes, your goals and your workflow, that your HubSpot Architect may make recommendations to scale up or down in certain Hubs, or eliminate or add more on. Don’t worry - we have your best interest at heart here and we’re not in this for Partner Tier commissions, we’re in it to make sure you have everything you need.
If there’s one thing we want you to know from the outset - your Data Architect, much like a Fractional CTO or CRM Administrator, is your advocate for making sure HubSpot is working for you and giving you the ability to scale as you need to with the right tools at your disposal. In order to make the best recommendations, we need to know exactly what the situation is, so make sure you understand which subscriptions and tiers you subscribe to in advance of our initial consultation.
Next, we’ll learn just enough about your company to determine how deep the rabbit hole is.
\nWe can Alice in Wonderland all day long over data, data structures, your tech stack, integrations and data workflows and reporting / dashboard configurations. And if things go well on this initial audit (and they usually do), we’ll end up digging deep into your organization’s data structure and tech stack even deeper. But for the most part, a preliminary HubSpot data architecture audit starts with us getting to know your workflow.
In our initial discovery call, we’ll talk to the necessary parties to understand the flow of data through your organization, the tools you use, how you make and optimize decisions now and any goals and pain points you might have.
Things we might hear on a call with a potential client that needs an architecture overhaul?
- \n
- We are lacking clarity on true ROI for our marketing campaigns. \n
- We don’t have enough grasp of our sales pipeline outlook. \n
- We aren’t positive about how to formulate a budget based on the analytics currently available to us. \n
Just so you’re aware - this is not uncommon at *all*. Many HubSpot customers just like you struggle with this as well. (Which is why we suggest engaging a HubSpot Architect BEFORE you migrate). Sitting down with deckerdevs gives us the insight we need to tackle your HubSpot portal and really get a birds eye view of what is happening inside your organization, which pieces of data you need to best reach your goals, and how we can configure things moving forward to help you get there faster, for less money. (Are you chomping at the bit to work with us yet?)
That all starts with a call. The more we understand about your tech stack, your processes, and how your organization is structured now, the bigger the picture we have in our heads when we go into the trenches to analyze the existing data structure as it sits inside your HubSpot Portal.
Maybe, we’ll screenshare a little bit.
\nOnce we understand more about how your business works, there’s a little ad-libbing here depending on how excited we are to get started. We may ask for access to your Portal or ask you to screen share a little bit of what your portal looks like to ask some questions and make sure that we’ve got everything right.
We need to make sure that we understand your goals entirely before we dig into how we’ll need to configure your reporting and data architecture to suit your needs. So, be ready on our call and provide access to our architect as soon as you feel comfortable.
Then, the fun stuff happens.
\nWell. Not the fun stuff for you. The fun stuff that our data architect loves to geek out on. A self proclaimed Vulcan (hi Trekkies! we’re still a tech company over here), he’s digging deep into the logic behind your configurations. This will help him determine, based on your subscriptions and tiers and the capabilities you have access to - which configuration is going to be most efficient and help you best reach those goals you outlined in that initial call.
He gets the birds eye view of your data configuration and then segments into each of your objects, properties and custom objects. His goal? Reverse engineer your entire HubSpot portal. Don’t be scared, when we come out on the other side of this, you’ll never want to think of life without deckerdevs ever again. This isn’t about codependency, this is about a deep business intelligence expert, here to unravel the kinks in the hose of your organization’s funnel so money comes flying out your pipeline. (Feeling better already, right?)
Finally? He comes to you with the solutions to your HubSpot data configuration woes.
\nIf I get to too technical here, I know I might lose you, so I’ll sift through all the fancy jargon used around predicate logic and If-then conditional workflow statements and tell you this - he will take your processes, expand and move things around and create a flow board with branches and options for your data configuration to best suit the business based on how HubSpot operates and the rules that apply within HubSpot’s capabilities (again, based on your Hub subscription and tier).
He’ll present you with your options, the re-configuration of your data architecture and discuss which solutions best suit your organization and why. So often (and through no fault of their own) HubSpot customers don’t know enough about the capabilities within their reach inside HubSpot. He's here not just to make things more efficient, but educate you on the logic behind the configuration. This might start with him re-configuring your sales pipeline reporting to give you more clarity by configuring objects and properties differently so that you don’t just have a mess of data to look at. Instead, you’ll come out with an organized report that helps you make the best decisions for growth.
It’s really easy to get lost in the tech speak when it comes to understanding how your business needs to configure data architecture in HubSpot, but it all comes down to a language that any manager, executive or employee can speak - efficiency. We want your employees to operate more efficiently, your marketers to have the best insight on their actions, your CFO to be able to analyze and rationalize budgets and your salespeople and sales managers to know exactly where they stand so they can best report back and thrive, continuing to bring in revenue and creating a healthier, happier organization at large.
We’re not just helping you Marie Kondo your data, we’re saving money, giving you happier employees, making your organization an easier place to work and dare I say it - maybe even changing the world one HubSpot Data Re-Configuration at a time.
Are you having trouble with your data architecture, reporting and making big decisions based on the data available to you in your dashboard right now? Let’s talk.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
First, we’ll need to know your HubSpot Product subscriptions.
\nYou’ll be limited (or unlimited) by which HubSpot product subscription you have, and knowing that from the starting gate will help us approach your data and processes in the best possible way. Because each tier for HubSpot’s Hubs varies in the capabilities included within it, knowing this before we get started discussing your data will help your Architect unpack what the possibilities are moving into the next phase of your audit.
There’s even a possibility that based on your current subscription, your processes, your goals and your workflow, that your HubSpot Architect may make recommendations to scale up or down in certain Hubs, or eliminate or add more on. Don’t worry - we have your best interest at heart here and we’re not in this for Partner Tier commissions, we’re in it to make sure you have everything you need.
If there’s one thing we want you to know from the outset - your Data Architect, much like a Fractional CTO or CRM Administrator, is your advocate for making sure HubSpot is working for you and giving you the ability to scale as you need to with the right tools at your disposal. In order to make the best recommendations, we need to know exactly what the situation is, so make sure you understand which subscriptions and tiers you subscribe to in advance of our initial consultation.
Next, we’ll learn just enough about your company to determine how deep the rabbit hole is.
\nWe can Alice in Wonderland all day long over data, data structures, your tech stack, integrations and data workflows and reporting / dashboard configurations. And if things go well on this initial audit (and they usually do), we’ll end up digging deep into your organization’s data structure and tech stack even deeper. But for the most part, a preliminary HubSpot data architecture audit starts with us getting to know your workflow.
In our initial discovery call, we’ll talk to the necessary parties to understand the flow of data through your organization, the tools you use, how you make and optimize decisions now and any goals and pain points you might have.
Things we might hear on a call with a potential client that needs an architecture overhaul?
- \n
- We are lacking clarity on true ROI for our marketing campaigns. \n
- We don’t have enough grasp of our sales pipeline outlook. \n
- We aren’t positive about how to formulate a budget based on the analytics currently available to us. \n
Just so you’re aware - this is not uncommon at *all*. Many HubSpot customers just like you struggle with this as well. (Which is why we suggest engaging a HubSpot Architect BEFORE you migrate). Sitting down with deckerdevs gives us the insight we need to tackle your HubSpot portal and really get a birds eye view of what is happening inside your organization, which pieces of data you need to best reach your goals, and how we can configure things moving forward to help you get there faster, for less money. (Are you chomping at the bit to work with us yet?)
That all starts with a call. The more we understand about your tech stack, your processes, and how your organization is structured now, the bigger the picture we have in our heads when we go into the trenches to analyze the existing data structure as it sits inside your HubSpot Portal.
Maybe, we’ll screenshare a little bit.
\nOnce we understand more about how your business works, there’s a little ad-libbing here depending on how excited we are to get started. We may ask for access to your Portal or ask you to screen share a little bit of what your portal looks like to ask some questions and make sure that we’ve got everything right.
We need to make sure that we understand your goals entirely before we dig into how we’ll need to configure your reporting and data architecture to suit your needs. So, be ready on our call and provide access to our architect as soon as you feel comfortable.
Then, the fun stuff happens.
\nWell. Not the fun stuff for you. The fun stuff that our data architect loves to geek out on. A self proclaimed Vulcan (hi Trekkies! we’re still a tech company over here), he’s digging deep into the logic behind your configurations. This will help him determine, based on your subscriptions and tiers and the capabilities you have access to - which configuration is going to be most efficient and help you best reach those goals you outlined in that initial call.
He gets the birds eye view of your data configuration and then segments into each of your objects, properties and custom objects. His goal? Reverse engineer your entire HubSpot portal. Don’t be scared, when we come out on the other side of this, you’ll never want to think of life without deckerdevs ever again. This isn’t about codependency, this is about a deep business intelligence expert, here to unravel the kinks in the hose of your organization’s funnel so money comes flying out your pipeline. (Feeling better already, right?)
Finally? He comes to you with the solutions to your HubSpot data configuration woes.
\nIf I get to too technical here, I know I might lose you, so I’ll sift through all the fancy jargon used around predicate logic and If-then conditional workflow statements and tell you this - he will take your processes, expand and move things around and create a flow board with branches and options for your data configuration to best suit the business based on how HubSpot operates and the rules that apply within HubSpot’s capabilities (again, based on your Hub subscription and tier).
He’ll present you with your options, the re-configuration of your data architecture and discuss which solutions best suit your organization and why. So often (and through no fault of their own) HubSpot customers don’t know enough about the capabilities within their reach inside HubSpot. He's here not just to make things more efficient, but educate you on the logic behind the configuration. This might start with him re-configuring your sales pipeline reporting to give you more clarity by configuring objects and properties differently so that you don’t just have a mess of data to look at. Instead, you’ll come out with an organized report that helps you make the best decisions for growth.
It’s really easy to get lost in the tech speak when it comes to understanding how your business needs to configure data architecture in HubSpot, but it all comes down to a language that any manager, executive or employee can speak - efficiency. We want your employees to operate more efficiently, your marketers to have the best insight on their actions, your CFO to be able to analyze and rationalize budgets and your salespeople and sales managers to know exactly where they stand so they can best report back and thrive, continuing to bring in revenue and creating a healthier, happier organization at large.
We’re not just helping you Marie Kondo your data, we’re saving money, giving you happier employees, making your organization an easier place to work and dare I say it - maybe even changing the world one HubSpot Data Re-Configuration at a time.
Are you having trouble with your data architecture, reporting and making big decisions based on the data available to you in your dashboard right now? Let’s talk.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
First, we’ll need to know your HubSpot Product subscriptions.
\nYou’ll be limited (or unlimited) by which HubSpot product subscription you have, and knowing that from the starting gate will help us approach your data and processes in the best possible way. Because each tier for HubSpot’s Hubs varies in the capabilities included within it, knowing this before we get started discussing your data will help your Architect unpack what the possibilities are moving into the next phase of your audit.
There’s even a possibility that based on your current subscription, your processes, your goals and your workflow, that your HubSpot Architect may make recommendations to scale up or down in certain Hubs, or eliminate or add more on. Don’t worry - we have your best interest at heart here and we’re not in this for Partner Tier commissions, we’re in it to make sure you have everything you need.
If there’s one thing we want you to know from the outset - your Data Architect, much like a Fractional CTO or CRM Administrator, is your advocate for making sure HubSpot is working for you and giving you the ability to scale as you need to with the right tools at your disposal. In order to make the best recommendations, we need to know exactly what the situation is, so make sure you understand which subscriptions and tiers you subscribe to in advance of our initial consultation.
Next, we’ll learn just enough about your company to determine how deep the rabbit hole is.
\nWe can Alice in Wonderland all day long over data, data structures, your tech stack, integrations and data workflows and reporting / dashboard configurations. And if things go well on this initial audit (and they usually do), we’ll end up digging deep into your organization’s data structure and tech stack even deeper. But for the most part, a preliminary HubSpot data architecture audit starts with us getting to know your workflow.
In our initial discovery call, we’ll talk to the necessary parties to understand the flow of data through your organization, the tools you use, how you make and optimize decisions now and any goals and pain points you might have.
Things we might hear on a call with a potential client that needs an architecture overhaul?
- \n
- We are lacking clarity on true ROI for our marketing campaigns. \n
- We don’t have enough grasp of our sales pipeline outlook. \n
- We aren’t positive about how to formulate a budget based on the analytics currently available to us. \n
Just so you’re aware - this is not uncommon at *all*. Many HubSpot customers just like you struggle with this as well. (Which is why we suggest engaging a HubSpot Architect BEFORE you migrate). Sitting down with deckerdevs gives us the insight we need to tackle your HubSpot portal and really get a birds eye view of what is happening inside your organization, which pieces of data you need to best reach your goals, and how we can configure things moving forward to help you get there faster, for less money. (Are you chomping at the bit to work with us yet?)
That all starts with a call. The more we understand about your tech stack, your processes, and how your organization is structured now, the bigger the picture we have in our heads when we go into the trenches to analyze the existing data structure as it sits inside your HubSpot Portal.
Maybe, we’ll screenshare a little bit.
\nOnce we understand more about how your business works, there’s a little ad-libbing here depending on how excited we are to get started. We may ask for access to your Portal or ask you to screen share a little bit of what your portal looks like to ask some questions and make sure that we’ve got everything right.
We need to make sure that we understand your goals entirely before we dig into how we’ll need to configure your reporting and data architecture to suit your needs. So, be ready on our call and provide access to our architect as soon as you feel comfortable.
Then, the fun stuff happens.
\nWell. Not the fun stuff for you. The fun stuff that our data architect loves to geek out on. A self proclaimed Vulcan (hi Trekkies! we’re still a tech company over here), he’s digging deep into the logic behind your configurations. This will help him determine, based on your subscriptions and tiers and the capabilities you have access to - which configuration is going to be most efficient and help you best reach those goals you outlined in that initial call.
He gets the birds eye view of your data configuration and then segments into each of your objects, properties and custom objects. His goal? Reverse engineer your entire HubSpot portal. Don’t be scared, when we come out on the other side of this, you’ll never want to think of life without deckerdevs ever again. This isn’t about codependency, this is about a deep business intelligence expert, here to unravel the kinks in the hose of your organization’s funnel so money comes flying out your pipeline. (Feeling better already, right?)
Finally? He comes to you with the solutions to your HubSpot data configuration woes.
\nIf I get to too technical here, I know I might lose you, so I’ll sift through all the fancy jargon used around predicate logic and If-then conditional workflow statements and tell you this - he will take your processes, expand and move things around and create a flow board with branches and options for your data configuration to best suit the business based on how HubSpot operates and the rules that apply within HubSpot’s capabilities (again, based on your Hub subscription and tier).
He’ll present you with your options, the re-configuration of your data architecture and discuss which solutions best suit your organization and why. So often (and through no fault of their own) HubSpot customers don’t know enough about the capabilities within their reach inside HubSpot. He's here not just to make things more efficient, but educate you on the logic behind the configuration. This might start with him re-configuring your sales pipeline reporting to give you more clarity by configuring objects and properties differently so that you don’t just have a mess of data to look at. Instead, you’ll come out with an organized report that helps you make the best decisions for growth.
It’s really easy to get lost in the tech speak when it comes to understanding how your business needs to configure data architecture in HubSpot, but it all comes down to a language that any manager, executive or employee can speak - efficiency. We want your employees to operate more efficiently, your marketers to have the best insight on their actions, your CFO to be able to analyze and rationalize budgets and your salespeople and sales managers to know exactly where they stand so they can best report back and thrive, continuing to bring in revenue and creating a healthier, happier organization at large.
We’re not just helping you Marie Kondo your data, we’re saving money, giving you happier employees, making your organization an easier place to work and dare I say it - maybe even changing the world one HubSpot Data Re-Configuration at a time.
Are you having trouble with your data architecture, reporting and making big decisions based on the data available to you in your dashboard right now? Let’s talk.
Sometimes, the way that we’ve established our processes in business doesn’t work the same way as we scale and introduce new tools to manage those processes. The flowchart in our minds of how data, deals, prospects and sales should move around gets established as we grow. Whoever is in charge of processes inside the organization establishes a flow for how things should move that makes logical sense to the departments involved.
If it isn’t broken, why fix it… right?
There may come a point, however, that as you adopt new technologies, new roles inside your organization and new tools to help you grow - that your business processes need to be tweaked. This is especially true when it comes to complex HubSpot reporting and data architecture configurations in HubSpot.
If you’re struggling with symptoms of misconfigured data in HubSpot I’m here to tell you, it’s not HubSpot, it’s your data configuration INSIDE HubSpot.
Don’t kill the messenger.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
While we all might believe that we have to configure a tool like HubSpot to match the data processes that we’ve set up inside our organization, sometimes it makes more sense to reconfigure our processes and reverse engineer our HubSpot setup to work with the structure of how data is managed in HubSpot. We can even consider making tweaks to how we manage reporting and data inside the organization as well as the processes we’ve associated with it.
In short:
Sometimes you have to rethink your data architecture and processes entirely to really make your HubSpot data configuration work for reporting purposes.
Not sure how you can do that, where you’d even start or what any of that looks like?
Not to worry. We interviewed a HubSpot Architect that spends all day geeking out on data in HubSpot portals and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot at all levels. We’ve made it our mission to help you understand why your data may be misconfigured, how to optimize your workflows and properties and why an ongoing relationship after a data architecture audit and diagnostic can save your company exponential amounts of money along the way.
What should you expect during a HubSpot Data Architecture Audit?
I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s dig in. ::Cracks knuckles::
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
![](\"https://i.imgflip.com/7m8pct.jpg\")
According to IBM, Poor data quality costs the US economy up to $3.1 trillion every year.
It’s a pretty common issue we see when customers come to us for simple application integrations. “We have all this data, but we need it to patch it into HubSpot.” Or, it gets patched into HubSpot and then they don’t know what’s next.
What they should have led with is, “We need an integration and some architecture insights so we can make sense of the data that lives in multiple places right now. Then we need to understand how to map it out and really glean the insight to determine ROI.”
Return. On. Investment.
It’s probably the most common complaint we get from our prospects looking for help with HubSpot Reporting and Architecture Consulting. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into an analytics software and they’re literally drowning in data - yet lack of structure and configuration for all of those insights is preventing them from understanding trends, making business process decisions and really digging into the ROI behind all their efforts.
According to Forbes, via TechJury.net: 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.
In order to save money, really nail down your data structure and make the decisions that will allow your business to scale in the long term, you’re going to have to invest into appropriate HubSpot reporting configuration - and that means hiring a HubSpot architect as soon as possible after you start working in your HubSpot Portal (or, ideally, beforehand).
Drowning in data analytics and dashboards? Here are some signs your HubSpot reporting configuration isn’t helping you scale.
You pay a lot for your tech stack, yet you’re still doing double duty data entry.
\nYou spend thousands a month for HubSpot, and even more on a legacy line of business application, accounting software, call center software, live chat, help desk software, ticket management, meeting scheduling, call tracking, and a CRM. What would happen if they not only all spoke to one another, but fed your reports in a way that provided you with a comprehensive viewpoint on exactly what your marketing is doing?
\nHear me out. We’ll use a Managed Services Provider as an example:
MSPs typically manage their client base with a CRM software. Sometimes that’s HubSpot CRM, sometimes it's software like SalesForce. They use a marketing automation platform - maybe in this case it's HubSpot Marketing Hub, or maybe they’re using an automation platform like Marketo or Pardot or ActiveCampaign.
They get great insights as to email open rates, blog views, bounce rates, and conversion rates as far as converting customers with different marketing efforts. They can see how a customer interacts with all of their marketing information.
They also might have a billing platform like Quickbooks that allows them to bill customers by project or on retainer for their technology services. They manage their Helpdesk tickets with Helpdesk software, so they have a good understanding of some of the struggles and trends that happen on an everyday basis with their customers.
Maybe they even have a fractional CIO that is offering expertise and technology strategy to each client… He probably makes recommendations via e-mail that may go into their CRM.
They have all these different platforms that are managing their data that aren’t speaking to one another. They have dashboards upon dashboards to provide them with customer satisfaction scores, to understand how their marketing is moving the needle, and where their revenue is coming from.
But what if they could integrate this and share all of this data in a central location?
Imagine the power of all that insight integrated together.
Imagine the type of intelligence that might allow you to grade your customers after the fact and continue to glean insight not only into the campaigns that are moving them towards buyer decisions, but the deep intelligence of their technology and pain points.
Imagine being able to integrate them all together and take that data and make really, really smart scalability decisions based on trends, client needs, marketing spend?
\nImagine knowing exactly where the ROI is?
\nThat’s the magic that can happen when you enlist help to really hone in on your HubSpot reporting configuration and combine that with integration builds.
\nHaving data insights at your disposal is great, but how can you take all that data and create a more cohesive customer experience?
\nYour email engagement is down, your unsubscribe rate is up and the sales pipeline is looking cloudy.
\nOoof. Not a great forecast, am I right? The number of touch points that your organization has with your customer during their customer journey is ever-increasing. You name it, it’s going out:
\n- \n
- engagement surveys \n
- customer service responses \n
- automated marketing messages \n
- order tracking notifications \n
- billing insights and notifications \n
This list goes on and on and on.
According to LSAInsider.com, a Google study found that touch points along the customer journey can reach anywhere from 20-500 depending on the complexity of the purchase.
That’s a lot of interaction. Creating a cohesive brand experience is essential to not only help you maintain your reputation with your customer, but also to boost your revenue and prevent attrition as a result of too many departments hammering your customers with requests and promotions.
Consider the number of interactions you yourself have with a brand and how that occupies a space in your brain (and your inbox). For example, let's say you purchased a really cool product online - but all of a sudden you’ve received not just your order confirmation, but in a matter of minutes you’ve received marketing messaging, a promotional email, a “how’d we do” survey and your tracking information for your order. Seems like a lot, right? Inside the organization those are all separate departments. There’s billing, there’s shipping, there’s marketing, there’s customer service. On the customer’s end, though? All you can think is, this is too much to delete out of my inbox, as you quickly unsubscribe to all emails. Just like that this brand hasn’t just lost a marketing opportunity, but reputation ranking with you. There is a negative association where there was once a positive experience, and you’ll have to weigh that negative association next time they reach you in targeted ads.
If that company had the ability to integrate its technology, though, maybe you’d receive a customer survey embedded inside an order confirmation with a little promo code for a future order and a request asking how often you want to hear from them? Would an effort like that move the needle? Is their reporting configured in a way that they can actually determine if their follow-up marketing and customer service is successful or not? These are the things that a HubSpot architect and integration can help with.
Your biases are really hampering your ability to make decisions for scale.
\nJust because you have all the data you think you need at your disposal, or have certain integrations in place, that doesn’t mean that you still aren’t struggling to determine what those important scaling decisions should be.
According to a recent Gartner Survey on Marketing Analytics:
- \n
- Data management challenges and cognitive biases are the top barriers to marketing analytics’ influence. \n
- One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion. \n
A quote from that same article:
“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in Gartner Marketing. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”
By defining benchmarks and goals ahead of time with an unbiased HubSpot Architect, you can configure your HubSpot reports to not only include the data that you need, but to guide you in the decisions that you’ll need to make to scale properly as you analyze that data. You can also make the decision to have your HubSpot Architect help you analyze the data and provide an unbiased opinion that has no internal agenda to best make sense of your analytics.
Small to Medium Sized businesses can invest anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually in data analytics. These are large investments that bring some insight that can be easily improved upon with an unbiased HubSpot Architect that can supercharge your reporting and analytics and bring focus that truly helps your organization come to an agreement on decisions for scale.
You can continue to fight inside your organization, sifting through data, or you can enlist some help, move more efficiently and make the right decisions for less.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
According to IBM, Poor data quality costs the US economy up to $3.1 trillion every year.
It’s a pretty common issue we see when customers come to us for simple application integrations. “We have all this data, but we need it to patch it into HubSpot.” Or, it gets patched into HubSpot and then they don’t know what’s next.
What they should have led with is, “We need an integration and some architecture insights so we can make sense of the data that lives in multiple places right now. Then we need to understand how to map it out and really glean the insight to determine ROI.”
Return. On. Investment.
It’s probably the most common complaint we get from our prospects looking for help with HubSpot Reporting and Architecture Consulting. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into an analytics software and they’re literally drowning in data - yet lack of structure and configuration for all of those insights is preventing them from understanding trends, making business process decisions and really digging into the ROI behind all their efforts.
According to Forbes, via TechJury.net: 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.
In order to save money, really nail down your data structure and make the decisions that will allow your business to scale in the long term, you’re going to have to invest into appropriate HubSpot reporting configuration - and that means hiring a HubSpot architect as soon as possible after you start working in your HubSpot Portal (or, ideally, beforehand).
Drowning in data analytics and dashboards? Here are some signs your HubSpot reporting configuration isn’t helping you scale.
You pay a lot for your tech stack, yet you’re still doing double duty data entry.
\nYou spend thousands a month for HubSpot, and even more on a legacy line of business application, accounting software, call center software, live chat, help desk software, ticket management, meeting scheduling, call tracking, and a CRM. What would happen if they not only all spoke to one another, but fed your reports in a way that provided you with a comprehensive viewpoint on exactly what your marketing is doing?
\nHear me out. We’ll use a Managed Services Provider as an example:
MSPs typically manage their client base with a CRM software. Sometimes that’s HubSpot CRM, sometimes it's software like SalesForce. They use a marketing automation platform - maybe in this case it's HubSpot Marketing Hub, or maybe they’re using an automation platform like Marketo or Pardot or ActiveCampaign.
They get great insights as to email open rates, blog views, bounce rates, and conversion rates as far as converting customers with different marketing efforts. They can see how a customer interacts with all of their marketing information.
They also might have a billing platform like Quickbooks that allows them to bill customers by project or on retainer for their technology services. They manage their Helpdesk tickets with Helpdesk software, so they have a good understanding of some of the struggles and trends that happen on an everyday basis with their customers.
Maybe they even have a fractional CIO that is offering expertise and technology strategy to each client… He probably makes recommendations via e-mail that may go into their CRM.
They have all these different platforms that are managing their data that aren’t speaking to one another. They have dashboards upon dashboards to provide them with customer satisfaction scores, to understand how their marketing is moving the needle, and where their revenue is coming from.
But what if they could integrate this and share all of this data in a central location?
Imagine the power of all that insight integrated together.
Imagine the type of intelligence that might allow you to grade your customers after the fact and continue to glean insight not only into the campaigns that are moving them towards buyer decisions, but the deep intelligence of their technology and pain points.
Imagine being able to integrate them all together and take that data and make really, really smart scalability decisions based on trends, client needs, marketing spend?
\nImagine knowing exactly where the ROI is?
\nThat’s the magic that can happen when you enlist help to really hone in on your HubSpot reporting configuration and combine that with integration builds.
\nHaving data insights at your disposal is great, but how can you take all that data and create a more cohesive customer experience?
\nYour email engagement is down, your unsubscribe rate is up and the sales pipeline is looking cloudy.
\nOoof. Not a great forecast, am I right? The number of touch points that your organization has with your customer during their customer journey is ever-increasing. You name it, it’s going out:
\n- \n
- engagement surveys \n
- customer service responses \n
- automated marketing messages \n
- order tracking notifications \n
- billing insights and notifications \n
This list goes on and on and on.
According to LSAInsider.com, a Google study found that touch points along the customer journey can reach anywhere from 20-500 depending on the complexity of the purchase.
That’s a lot of interaction. Creating a cohesive brand experience is essential to not only help you maintain your reputation with your customer, but also to boost your revenue and prevent attrition as a result of too many departments hammering your customers with requests and promotions.
Consider the number of interactions you yourself have with a brand and how that occupies a space in your brain (and your inbox). For example, let's say you purchased a really cool product online - but all of a sudden you’ve received not just your order confirmation, but in a matter of minutes you’ve received marketing messaging, a promotional email, a “how’d we do” survey and your tracking information for your order. Seems like a lot, right? Inside the organization those are all separate departments. There’s billing, there’s shipping, there’s marketing, there’s customer service. On the customer’s end, though? All you can think is, this is too much to delete out of my inbox, as you quickly unsubscribe to all emails. Just like that this brand hasn’t just lost a marketing opportunity, but reputation ranking with you. There is a negative association where there was once a positive experience, and you’ll have to weigh that negative association next time they reach you in targeted ads.
If that company had the ability to integrate its technology, though, maybe you’d receive a customer survey embedded inside an order confirmation with a little promo code for a future order and a request asking how often you want to hear from them? Would an effort like that move the needle? Is their reporting configured in a way that they can actually determine if their follow-up marketing and customer service is successful or not? These are the things that a HubSpot architect and integration can help with.
Your biases are really hampering your ability to make decisions for scale.
\nJust because you have all the data you think you need at your disposal, or have certain integrations in place, that doesn’t mean that you still aren’t struggling to determine what those important scaling decisions should be.
According to a recent Gartner Survey on Marketing Analytics:
- \n
- Data management challenges and cognitive biases are the top barriers to marketing analytics’ influence. \n
- One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion. \n
A quote from that same article:
“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in Gartner Marketing. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”
By defining benchmarks and goals ahead of time with an unbiased HubSpot Architect, you can configure your HubSpot reports to not only include the data that you need, but to guide you in the decisions that you’ll need to make to scale properly as you analyze that data. You can also make the decision to have your HubSpot Architect help you analyze the data and provide an unbiased opinion that has no internal agenda to best make sense of your analytics.
Small to Medium Sized businesses can invest anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually in data analytics. These are large investments that bring some insight that can be easily improved upon with an unbiased HubSpot Architect that can supercharge your reporting and analytics and bring focus that truly helps your organization come to an agreement on decisions for scale.
You can continue to fight inside your organization, sifting through data, or you can enlist some help, move more efficiently and make the right decisions for less.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
According to IBM, Poor data quality costs the US economy up to $3.1 trillion every year.
It’s a pretty common issue we see when customers come to us for simple application integrations. “We have all this data, but we need it to patch it into HubSpot.” Or, it gets patched into HubSpot and then they don’t know what’s next.
What they should have led with is, “We need an integration and some architecture insights so we can make sense of the data that lives in multiple places right now. Then we need to understand how to map it out and really glean the insight to determine ROI.”
Return. On. Investment.
It’s probably the most common complaint we get from our prospects looking for help with HubSpot Reporting and Architecture Consulting. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into an analytics software and they’re literally drowning in data - yet lack of structure and configuration for all of those insights is preventing them from understanding trends, making business process decisions and really digging into the ROI behind all their efforts.
According to Forbes, via TechJury.net: 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.
In order to save money, really nail down your data structure and make the decisions that will allow your business to scale in the long term, you’re going to have to invest into appropriate HubSpot reporting configuration - and that means hiring a HubSpot architect as soon as possible after you start working in your HubSpot Portal (or, ideally, beforehand).
Drowning in data analytics and dashboards? Here are some signs your HubSpot reporting configuration isn’t helping you scale.
You pay a lot for your tech stack, yet you’re still doing double duty data entry.
\nYou spend thousands a month for HubSpot, and even more on a legacy line of business application, accounting software, call center software, live chat, help desk software, ticket management, meeting scheduling, call tracking, and a CRM. What would happen if they not only all spoke to one another, but fed your reports in a way that provided you with a comprehensive viewpoint on exactly what your marketing is doing?
\nHear me out. We’ll use a Managed Services Provider as an example:
MSPs typically manage their client base with a CRM software. Sometimes that’s HubSpot CRM, sometimes it's software like SalesForce. They use a marketing automation platform - maybe in this case it's HubSpot Marketing Hub, or maybe they’re using an automation platform like Marketo or Pardot or ActiveCampaign.
They get great insights as to email open rates, blog views, bounce rates, and conversion rates as far as converting customers with different marketing efforts. They can see how a customer interacts with all of their marketing information.
They also might have a billing platform like Quickbooks that allows them to bill customers by project or on retainer for their technology services. They manage their Helpdesk tickets with Helpdesk software, so they have a good understanding of some of the struggles and trends that happen on an everyday basis with their customers.
Maybe they even have a fractional CIO that is offering expertise and technology strategy to each client… He probably makes recommendations via e-mail that may go into their CRM.
They have all these different platforms that are managing their data that aren’t speaking to one another. They have dashboards upon dashboards to provide them with customer satisfaction scores, to understand how their marketing is moving the needle, and where their revenue is coming from.
But what if they could integrate this and share all of this data in a central location?
Imagine the power of all that insight integrated together.
Imagine the type of intelligence that might allow you to grade your customers after the fact and continue to glean insight not only into the campaigns that are moving them towards buyer decisions, but the deep intelligence of their technology and pain points.
Imagine being able to integrate them all together and take that data and make really, really smart scalability decisions based on trends, client needs, marketing spend?
\nImagine knowing exactly where the ROI is?
\nThat’s the magic that can happen when you enlist help to really hone in on your HubSpot reporting configuration and combine that with integration builds.
\nHaving data insights at your disposal is great, but how can you take all that data and create a more cohesive customer experience?
\nYour email engagement is down, your unsubscribe rate is up and the sales pipeline is looking cloudy.
\nOoof. Not a great forecast, am I right? The number of touch points that your organization has with your customer during their customer journey is ever-increasing. You name it, it’s going out:
\n- \n
- engagement surveys \n
- customer service responses \n
- automated marketing messages \n
- order tracking notifications \n
- billing insights and notifications \n
This list goes on and on and on.
According to LSAInsider.com, a Google study found that touch points along the customer journey can reach anywhere from 20-500 depending on the complexity of the purchase.
That’s a lot of interaction. Creating a cohesive brand experience is essential to not only help you maintain your reputation with your customer, but also to boost your revenue and prevent attrition as a result of too many departments hammering your customers with requests and promotions.
Consider the number of interactions you yourself have with a brand and how that occupies a space in your brain (and your inbox). For example, let's say you purchased a really cool product online - but all of a sudden you’ve received not just your order confirmation, but in a matter of minutes you’ve received marketing messaging, a promotional email, a “how’d we do” survey and your tracking information for your order. Seems like a lot, right? Inside the organization those are all separate departments. There’s billing, there’s shipping, there’s marketing, there’s customer service. On the customer’s end, though? All you can think is, this is too much to delete out of my inbox, as you quickly unsubscribe to all emails. Just like that this brand hasn’t just lost a marketing opportunity, but reputation ranking with you. There is a negative association where there was once a positive experience, and you’ll have to weigh that negative association next time they reach you in targeted ads.
If that company had the ability to integrate its technology, though, maybe you’d receive a customer survey embedded inside an order confirmation with a little promo code for a future order and a request asking how often you want to hear from them? Would an effort like that move the needle? Is their reporting configured in a way that they can actually determine if their follow-up marketing and customer service is successful or not? These are the things that a HubSpot architect and integration can help with.
Your biases are really hampering your ability to make decisions for scale.
\nJust because you have all the data you think you need at your disposal, or have certain integrations in place, that doesn’t mean that you still aren’t struggling to determine what those important scaling decisions should be.
According to a recent Gartner Survey on Marketing Analytics:
- \n
- Data management challenges and cognitive biases are the top barriers to marketing analytics’ influence. \n
- One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion. \n
A quote from that same article:
“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in Gartner Marketing. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”
By defining benchmarks and goals ahead of time with an unbiased HubSpot Architect, you can configure your HubSpot reports to not only include the data that you need, but to guide you in the decisions that you’ll need to make to scale properly as you analyze that data. You can also make the decision to have your HubSpot Architect help you analyze the data and provide an unbiased opinion that has no internal agenda to best make sense of your analytics.
Small to Medium Sized businesses can invest anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually in data analytics. These are large investments that bring some insight that can be easily improved upon with an unbiased HubSpot Architect that can supercharge your reporting and analytics and bring focus that truly helps your organization come to an agreement on decisions for scale.
You can continue to fight inside your organization, sifting through data, or you can enlist some help, move more efficiently and make the right decisions for less.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
According to IBM, Poor data quality costs the US economy up to $3.1 trillion every year.
It’s a pretty common issue we see when customers come to us for simple application integrations. “We have all this data, but we need it to patch it into HubSpot.” Or, it gets patched into HubSpot and then they don’t know what’s next.
What they should have led with is, “We need an integration and some architecture insights so we can make sense of the data that lives in multiple places right now. Then we need to understand how to map it out and really glean the insight to determine ROI.”
Return. On. Investment.
It’s probably the most common complaint we get from our prospects looking for help with HubSpot Reporting and Architecture Consulting. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into an analytics software and they’re literally drowning in data - yet lack of structure and configuration for all of those insights is preventing them from understanding trends, making business process decisions and really digging into the ROI behind all their efforts.
According to Forbes, via TechJury.net: 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.
In order to save money, really nail down your data structure and make the decisions that will allow your business to scale in the long term, you’re going to have to invest into appropriate HubSpot reporting configuration - and that means hiring a HubSpot architect as soon as possible after you start working in your HubSpot Portal (or, ideally, beforehand).
Drowning in data analytics and dashboards? Here are some signs your HubSpot reporting configuration isn’t helping you scale.
You pay a lot for your tech stack, yet you’re still doing double duty data entry.
\nYou spend thousands a month for HubSpot, and even more on a legacy line of business application, accounting software, call center software, live chat, help desk software, ticket management, meeting scheduling, call tracking, and a CRM. What would happen if they not only all spoke to one another, but fed your reports in a way that provided you with a comprehensive viewpoint on exactly what your marketing is doing?
\nHear me out. We’ll use a Managed Services Provider as an example:
MSPs typically manage their client base with a CRM software. Sometimes that’s HubSpot CRM, sometimes it's software like SalesForce. They use a marketing automation platform - maybe in this case it's HubSpot Marketing Hub, or maybe they’re using an automation platform like Marketo or Pardot or ActiveCampaign.
They get great insights as to email open rates, blog views, bounce rates, and conversion rates as far as converting customers with different marketing efforts. They can see how a customer interacts with all of their marketing information.
They also might have a billing platform like Quickbooks that allows them to bill customers by project or on retainer for their technology services. They manage their Helpdesk tickets with Helpdesk software, so they have a good understanding of some of the struggles and trends that happen on an everyday basis with their customers.
Maybe they even have a fractional CIO that is offering expertise and technology strategy to each client… He probably makes recommendations via e-mail that may go into their CRM.
They have all these different platforms that are managing their data that aren’t speaking to one another. They have dashboards upon dashboards to provide them with customer satisfaction scores, to understand how their marketing is moving the needle, and where their revenue is coming from.
But what if they could integrate this and share all of this data in a central location?
Imagine the power of all that insight integrated together.
Imagine the type of intelligence that might allow you to grade your customers after the fact and continue to glean insight not only into the campaigns that are moving them towards buyer decisions, but the deep intelligence of their technology and pain points.
Imagine being able to integrate them all together and take that data and make really, really smart scalability decisions based on trends, client needs, marketing spend?
\nImagine knowing exactly where the ROI is?
\nThat’s the magic that can happen when you enlist help to really hone in on your HubSpot reporting configuration and combine that with integration builds.
\nHaving data insights at your disposal is great, but how can you take all that data and create a more cohesive customer experience?
\nYour email engagement is down, your unsubscribe rate is up and the sales pipeline is looking cloudy.
\nOoof. Not a great forecast, am I right? The number of touch points that your organization has with your customer during their customer journey is ever-increasing. You name it, it’s going out:
\n- \n
- engagement surveys \n
- customer service responses \n
- automated marketing messages \n
- order tracking notifications \n
- billing insights and notifications \n
This list goes on and on and on.
According to LSAInsider.com, a Google study found that touch points along the customer journey can reach anywhere from 20-500 depending on the complexity of the purchase.
That’s a lot of interaction. Creating a cohesive brand experience is essential to not only help you maintain your reputation with your customer, but also to boost your revenue and prevent attrition as a result of too many departments hammering your customers with requests and promotions.
Consider the number of interactions you yourself have with a brand and how that occupies a space in your brain (and your inbox). For example, let's say you purchased a really cool product online - but all of a sudden you’ve received not just your order confirmation, but in a matter of minutes you’ve received marketing messaging, a promotional email, a “how’d we do” survey and your tracking information for your order. Seems like a lot, right? Inside the organization those are all separate departments. There’s billing, there’s shipping, there’s marketing, there’s customer service. On the customer’s end, though? All you can think is, this is too much to delete out of my inbox, as you quickly unsubscribe to all emails. Just like that this brand hasn’t just lost a marketing opportunity, but reputation ranking with you. There is a negative association where there was once a positive experience, and you’ll have to weigh that negative association next time they reach you in targeted ads.
If that company had the ability to integrate its technology, though, maybe you’d receive a customer survey embedded inside an order confirmation with a little promo code for a future order and a request asking how often you want to hear from them? Would an effort like that move the needle? Is their reporting configured in a way that they can actually determine if their follow-up marketing and customer service is successful or not? These are the things that a HubSpot architect and integration can help with.
Your biases are really hampering your ability to make decisions for scale.
\nJust because you have all the data you think you need at your disposal, or have certain integrations in place, that doesn’t mean that you still aren’t struggling to determine what those important scaling decisions should be.
According to a recent Gartner Survey on Marketing Analytics:
- \n
- Data management challenges and cognitive biases are the top barriers to marketing analytics’ influence. \n
- One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion. \n
A quote from that same article:
“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in Gartner Marketing. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”
By defining benchmarks and goals ahead of time with an unbiased HubSpot Architect, you can configure your HubSpot reports to not only include the data that you need, but to guide you in the decisions that you’ll need to make to scale properly as you analyze that data. You can also make the decision to have your HubSpot Architect help you analyze the data and provide an unbiased opinion that has no internal agenda to best make sense of your analytics.
Small to Medium Sized businesses can invest anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually in data analytics. These are large investments that bring some insight that can be easily improved upon with an unbiased HubSpot Architect that can supercharge your reporting and analytics and bring focus that truly helps your organization come to an agreement on decisions for scale.
You can continue to fight inside your organization, sifting through data, or you can enlist some help, move more efficiently and make the right decisions for less.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
According to IBM, Poor data quality costs the US economy up to $3.1 trillion every year.
It’s a pretty common issue we see when customers come to us for simple application integrations. “We have all this data, but we need it to patch it into HubSpot.” Or, it gets patched into HubSpot and then they don’t know what’s next.
What they should have led with is, “We need an integration and some architecture insights so we can make sense of the data that lives in multiple places right now. Then we need to understand how to map it out and really glean the insight to determine ROI.”
Return. On. Investment.
It’s probably the most common complaint we get from our prospects looking for help with HubSpot Reporting and Architecture Consulting. They’ve invested thousands of dollars into an analytics software and they’re literally drowning in data - yet lack of structure and configuration for all of those insights is preventing them from understanding trends, making business process decisions and really digging into the ROI behind all their efforts.
According to Forbes, via TechJury.net: 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business.
In order to save money, really nail down your data structure and make the decisions that will allow your business to scale in the long term, you’re going to have to invest into appropriate HubSpot reporting configuration - and that means hiring a HubSpot architect as soon as possible after you start working in your HubSpot Portal (or, ideally, beforehand).
Drowning in data analytics and dashboards? Here are some signs your HubSpot reporting configuration isn’t helping you scale.
You pay a lot for your tech stack, yet you’re still doing double duty data entry.
\nYou spend thousands a month for HubSpot, and even more on a legacy line of business application, accounting software, call center software, live chat, help desk software, ticket management, meeting scheduling, call tracking, and a CRM. What would happen if they not only all spoke to one another, but fed your reports in a way that provided you with a comprehensive viewpoint on exactly what your marketing is doing?
\nHear me out. We’ll use a Managed Services Provider as an example:
MSPs typically manage their client base with a CRM software. Sometimes that’s HubSpot CRM, sometimes it's software like SalesForce. They use a marketing automation platform - maybe in this case it's HubSpot Marketing Hub, or maybe they’re using an automation platform like Marketo or Pardot or ActiveCampaign.
They get great insights as to email open rates, blog views, bounce rates, and conversion rates as far as converting customers with different marketing efforts. They can see how a customer interacts with all of their marketing information.
They also might have a billing platform like Quickbooks that allows them to bill customers by project or on retainer for their technology services. They manage their Helpdesk tickets with Helpdesk software, so they have a good understanding of some of the struggles and trends that happen on an everyday basis with their customers.
Maybe they even have a fractional CIO that is offering expertise and technology strategy to each client… He probably makes recommendations via e-mail that may go into their CRM.
They have all these different platforms that are managing their data that aren’t speaking to one another. They have dashboards upon dashboards to provide them with customer satisfaction scores, to understand how their marketing is moving the needle, and where their revenue is coming from.
But what if they could integrate this and share all of this data in a central location?
Imagine the power of all that insight integrated together.
Imagine the type of intelligence that might allow you to grade your customers after the fact and continue to glean insight not only into the campaigns that are moving them towards buyer decisions, but the deep intelligence of their technology and pain points.
Imagine being able to integrate them all together and take that data and make really, really smart scalability decisions based on trends, client needs, marketing spend?
\nImagine knowing exactly where the ROI is?
\nThat’s the magic that can happen when you enlist help to really hone in on your HubSpot reporting configuration and combine that with integration builds.
\nHaving data insights at your disposal is great, but how can you take all that data and create a more cohesive customer experience?
\nYour email engagement is down, your unsubscribe rate is up and the sales pipeline is looking cloudy.
\nOoof. Not a great forecast, am I right? The number of touch points that your organization has with your customer during their customer journey is ever-increasing. You name it, it’s going out:
\n- \n
- engagement surveys \n
- customer service responses \n
- automated marketing messages \n
- order tracking notifications \n
- billing insights and notifications \n
This list goes on and on and on.
According to LSAInsider.com, a Google study found that touch points along the customer journey can reach anywhere from 20-500 depending on the complexity of the purchase.
That’s a lot of interaction. Creating a cohesive brand experience is essential to not only help you maintain your reputation with your customer, but also to boost your revenue and prevent attrition as a result of too many departments hammering your customers with requests and promotions.
Consider the number of interactions you yourself have with a brand and how that occupies a space in your brain (and your inbox). For example, let's say you purchased a really cool product online - but all of a sudden you’ve received not just your order confirmation, but in a matter of minutes you’ve received marketing messaging, a promotional email, a “how’d we do” survey and your tracking information for your order. Seems like a lot, right? Inside the organization those are all separate departments. There’s billing, there’s shipping, there’s marketing, there’s customer service. On the customer’s end, though? All you can think is, this is too much to delete out of my inbox, as you quickly unsubscribe to all emails. Just like that this brand hasn’t just lost a marketing opportunity, but reputation ranking with you. There is a negative association where there was once a positive experience, and you’ll have to weigh that negative association next time they reach you in targeted ads.
If that company had the ability to integrate its technology, though, maybe you’d receive a customer survey embedded inside an order confirmation with a little promo code for a future order and a request asking how often you want to hear from them? Would an effort like that move the needle? Is their reporting configured in a way that they can actually determine if their follow-up marketing and customer service is successful or not? These are the things that a HubSpot architect and integration can help with.
Your biases are really hampering your ability to make decisions for scale.
\nJust because you have all the data you think you need at your disposal, or have certain integrations in place, that doesn’t mean that you still aren’t struggling to determine what those important scaling decisions should be.
According to a recent Gartner Survey on Marketing Analytics:
- \n
- Data management challenges and cognitive biases are the top barriers to marketing analytics’ influence. \n
- One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion. \n
A quote from that same article:
“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in Gartner Marketing. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”
By defining benchmarks and goals ahead of time with an unbiased HubSpot Architect, you can configure your HubSpot reports to not only include the data that you need, but to guide you in the decisions that you’ll need to make to scale properly as you analyze that data. You can also make the decision to have your HubSpot Architect help you analyze the data and provide an unbiased opinion that has no internal agenda to best make sense of your analytics.
Small to Medium Sized businesses can invest anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually in data analytics. These are large investments that bring some insight that can be easily improved upon with an unbiased HubSpot Architect that can supercharge your reporting and analytics and bring focus that truly helps your organization come to an agreement on decisions for scale.
You can continue to fight inside your organization, sifting through data, or you can enlist some help, move more efficiently and make the right decisions for less.
It’s a pretty accurate description to say that most scaling businesses have more data at their disposal than they can handle. They struggle to store it, they struggle to manage it, they struggle to create valuable reports out of it and they struggle to secure it. But the one thing that far too many businesses don’t do is synthesize that data into analysis and reporting that actually helps them make critical growth decisions.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
\n\n![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/undefined-1.png\")
We’re seeing marketing agencies everywhere encounter the SAME song and dance from all their clients: “We’ve just gotta cut the budget. There's a recession happening.\" Agencies are scrambling to write content about why cutting the marketing budget of all things during a recession is counter intuitive (we agree, for the record). They’re trying to explain to clients how it churns salespeople, how it annihilates your pipeline, how you can lean out your efforts without slashing your budget like a freakin’ WalMart rollback… but what some of them AREN’T doing? They’re not seeing how they’re failing to prove their own ROI.
It’s an unfortunate conundrum as an agency, sometimes, isn’t it? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner putting against a print ad, “We’ll take your marketing dollars FURTHER! Don’t toss away thousands on that print ad or billboard with no measurable impact! DO INBOUND MARKETING! You can SEE EVERYTHING…”
And then they did. They saw all the analytics. All the data points. And once they stopped being impressed by organic traffic growth and that one viral reel and some sales here and there, they really started to see… we can waste money in inbound marketing too, and we’ll demand more than we ever did from that silly little magazine ad we totally forgot about while our marketing teams stress more than they ever have to figure out a way to measure the results of their efforts.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot demanding clients shell out hundreds or thousands a month on a marketing automation tool that actually (gasp) holds us accountable?
For us, around here, as HubSpot technical architects, the answer is a resounding HELL NO. We engage with HubSpot customers and agencies alike to learn - WHERE IS THE ROI and help them show the client that with a little adjustment, investment and reallocation, you can truly optimize your marketing spend and PROVE ROI.
We found the beef!!!!
We’re here to answer the question all the agencies are asking…
Why are my clients cutting marketing budget during a recession and HOW DO I STOP IT?
We have a few answers for you:
They’re paying too much for marketing when they really need to be paying for data architecture first.
\nElephant. In the room. Here it is. Hi. We said it. As the agency model continues to die (this is a whole other blog post) and Elite agencies charge hundreds of dollars more per hour while continuing to farm out the work for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight on delivery, we’re here to tell you that the agency model is dying. And if we don’t evolve and become true business process consultants - we die with it.
Hear me out:
Your people are slowly seeing they can make more money going directly to the client on their own. The pandemic changed a lot. We started using Zoom. People started realizing they don’t need offices to do amazing work. They bailed on business casual in favor of hoodies and jeans. They started to understand that the people behind the scenes doing the work were capable of having the same conversations that large agencies were having and they could work directly with the client. And the savvier clients? They’re catching on, too.
As an agency, you should see this. Because your job is not to prevent it from happening but to evolve beyond it. We have seen how deep we, as HubSpot Partners, have to go into business processes with clients to make sure that deals can close. It’s why HubSpot introduced all the different Hubs to begin with. Our value is evolving to optimizing business processes, and we need to see that now so we can not only keep customers in HubSpot, but retain our clients, help our employees get paid more and stop inflating the true cost of marketing by holding onto our Mad Men way of doing things. We don’t need to charge less, we just need to let go of a portion of our business model and pivot into the direction of architecting and optimizing processes and data to really service their bottom line. I hate to break it to you, but in some instances, that’s gonna be reallocating the budget in a way that works for them.
Related: Ethical Outsourcing - Tips for Whitelabeling HubSpot CMS Developers
\nThey’re not seeing the results, because their reporting isn’t customized.
\nWe discussed in our blog on Marketo to HubSpot Migrations, that one of HubSpot’s weak points is reporting. Data architecture needs to be configured in a HubSpot portal from the outset, not reactively. Not only will a HubSpot customer pay more to store contacts and data they don’t need, but they’re not going to see the items they want to see that support their bottom line.
Just a few questions that sales managers, executives and other might have that aren’t getting answered:
- \n
- What deals are coming in? \n
- Where are they coming from? \n
- How are Sales & Marketing Hubs feeding one another to move prospects closer to a buying decision? \n
- Is the data clean and organized inside their portals? \n
- Are they losing deals and money because the right processes aren’t in place? \n
You know this to be true - you can get a company all the leads they want. But if you can’t keep them warm, nurture them and seamlessly play between sales and marketing, deliver service and operations and bring everything back full circle - you’re not going to retain that customer, and a lifetime customer is even more valuable than a new customer. How can we see this data if we don’t set our clients up right from the start? We have a prospect that we had a lot of conversations with recently about how their shopping cart wasn’t configured properly when they migrated to HubSpot. They’ve been paying for HubSpot for over a year with lackluster functionality and almost zero ability to see which customers are their most valuable customers and which efforts are driving the most repeat purchases.
You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded. Why did you sell and build this marketing machine only to toss your clients in with a wave? “Godspeed, guys.” Meanwhile, they have no map, they don’t know where they’re going, they haven’t laid out their journey along the way and they don’t even know what the mile markers look like.
But somehow we can’t figure out why they’re cutting budget and bailing on HubSpot?
Is it too harsh of a conclusion to come to that poorly guided customers could be close to the root of the reason that 500 HubSpot employees were laid off earlier this year?
We have a responsibility to HubSpot, to the customer, and the world of Inbound Marketing at large to make sure that our portals perform. It’s why we get paid the way we get paid, but time and time again we’re seeing customers let down and left without any direction and we’re sick of cleaning up the mess, guys.
Related: Your Mom Doesn’t Work here - An Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
\nYou don’t have a HubSpot architect on your team.
\nYou don’t build a house without an architect, so why are you selling HubSpot portals without an expert that can take a deep dive into business processes and data architecture BEFORE you sell a HubSpot Portal? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, we’re trying to make the case for change.
We see your pain. We feel your pain. But we can’t help you unless you take a good hard look at the processes that you’ve put into place to understand - HOW CAN WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES IN A POOL OF PARTNERS THAT LARGELY ALL DO THE SAME THING?
You can offer ROI. You can offer the right implementation from the start. You can bring on and partner with technical experts that can completely change the game from the get go and situate your team to find the results that they’re working hard to deliver on behalf of the client.
Without the infrastructure to truly show your impact, when budget cutting time comes, you’re gonna be the last thing they want to cut. But you have to make the decision to pivot the model that has always worked in honor of the model that will serve you (and your clients) moving forward.
It’s time for a change.
It’s time to assess your processes, and it’s time to add in a HubSpot architect into the lineup.
Do it now. Before they reach out. Save the client. Optimize the revenue. Optimize the spend. Be the hero.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
\n","rss_body":"It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
\n\n
We’re seeing marketing agencies everywhere encounter the SAME song and dance from all their clients: “We’ve just gotta cut the budget. There's a recession happening.\" Agencies are scrambling to write content about why cutting the marketing budget of all things during a recession is counter intuitive (we agree, for the record). They’re trying to explain to clients how it churns salespeople, how it annihilates your pipeline, how you can lean out your efforts without slashing your budget like a freakin’ WalMart rollback… but what some of them AREN’T doing? They’re not seeing how they’re failing to prove their own ROI.
It’s an unfortunate conundrum as an agency, sometimes, isn’t it? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner putting against a print ad, “We’ll take your marketing dollars FURTHER! Don’t toss away thousands on that print ad or billboard with no measurable impact! DO INBOUND MARKETING! You can SEE EVERYTHING…”
And then they did. They saw all the analytics. All the data points. And once they stopped being impressed by organic traffic growth and that one viral reel and some sales here and there, they really started to see… we can waste money in inbound marketing too, and we’ll demand more than we ever did from that silly little magazine ad we totally forgot about while our marketing teams stress more than they ever have to figure out a way to measure the results of their efforts.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot demanding clients shell out hundreds or thousands a month on a marketing automation tool that actually (gasp) holds us accountable?
For us, around here, as HubSpot technical architects, the answer is a resounding HELL NO. We engage with HubSpot customers and agencies alike to learn - WHERE IS THE ROI and help them show the client that with a little adjustment, investment and reallocation, you can truly optimize your marketing spend and PROVE ROI.
We found the beef!!!!
We’re here to answer the question all the agencies are asking…
Why are my clients cutting marketing budget during a recession and HOW DO I STOP IT?
We have a few answers for you:
They’re paying too much for marketing when they really need to be paying for data architecture first.
\nElephant. In the room. Here it is. Hi. We said it. As the agency model continues to die (this is a whole other blog post) and Elite agencies charge hundreds of dollars more per hour while continuing to farm out the work for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight on delivery, we’re here to tell you that the agency model is dying. And if we don’t evolve and become true business process consultants - we die with it.
Hear me out:
Your people are slowly seeing they can make more money going directly to the client on their own. The pandemic changed a lot. We started using Zoom. People started realizing they don’t need offices to do amazing work. They bailed on business casual in favor of hoodies and jeans. They started to understand that the people behind the scenes doing the work were capable of having the same conversations that large agencies were having and they could work directly with the client. And the savvier clients? They’re catching on, too.
As an agency, you should see this. Because your job is not to prevent it from happening but to evolve beyond it. We have seen how deep we, as HubSpot Partners, have to go into business processes with clients to make sure that deals can close. It’s why HubSpot introduced all the different Hubs to begin with. Our value is evolving to optimizing business processes, and we need to see that now so we can not only keep customers in HubSpot, but retain our clients, help our employees get paid more and stop inflating the true cost of marketing by holding onto our Mad Men way of doing things. We don’t need to charge less, we just need to let go of a portion of our business model and pivot into the direction of architecting and optimizing processes and data to really service their bottom line. I hate to break it to you, but in some instances, that’s gonna be reallocating the budget in a way that works for them.
Related: Ethical Outsourcing - Tips for Whitelabeling HubSpot CMS Developers
\nThey’re not seeing the results, because their reporting isn’t customized.
\nWe discussed in our blog on Marketo to HubSpot Migrations, that one of HubSpot’s weak points is reporting. Data architecture needs to be configured in a HubSpot portal from the outset, not reactively. Not only will a HubSpot customer pay more to store contacts and data they don’t need, but they’re not going to see the items they want to see that support their bottom line.
Just a few questions that sales managers, executives and other might have that aren’t getting answered:
- \n
- What deals are coming in? \n
- Where are they coming from? \n
- How are Sales & Marketing Hubs feeding one another to move prospects closer to a buying decision? \n
- Is the data clean and organized inside their portals? \n
- Are they losing deals and money because the right processes aren’t in place? \n
You know this to be true - you can get a company all the leads they want. But if you can’t keep them warm, nurture them and seamlessly play between sales and marketing, deliver service and operations and bring everything back full circle - you’re not going to retain that customer, and a lifetime customer is even more valuable than a new customer. How can we see this data if we don’t set our clients up right from the start? We have a prospect that we had a lot of conversations with recently about how their shopping cart wasn’t configured properly when they migrated to HubSpot. They’ve been paying for HubSpot for over a year with lackluster functionality and almost zero ability to see which customers are their most valuable customers and which efforts are driving the most repeat purchases.
You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded. Why did you sell and build this marketing machine only to toss your clients in with a wave? “Godspeed, guys.” Meanwhile, they have no map, they don’t know where they’re going, they haven’t laid out their journey along the way and they don’t even know what the mile markers look like.
But somehow we can’t figure out why they’re cutting budget and bailing on HubSpot?
Is it too harsh of a conclusion to come to that poorly guided customers could be close to the root of the reason that 500 HubSpot employees were laid off earlier this year?
We have a responsibility to HubSpot, to the customer, and the world of Inbound Marketing at large to make sure that our portals perform. It’s why we get paid the way we get paid, but time and time again we’re seeing customers let down and left without any direction and we’re sick of cleaning up the mess, guys.
Related: Your Mom Doesn’t Work here - An Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
\nYou don’t have a HubSpot architect on your team.
\nYou don’t build a house without an architect, so why are you selling HubSpot portals without an expert that can take a deep dive into business processes and data architecture BEFORE you sell a HubSpot Portal? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, we’re trying to make the case for change.
We see your pain. We feel your pain. But we can’t help you unless you take a good hard look at the processes that you’ve put into place to understand - HOW CAN WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES IN A POOL OF PARTNERS THAT LARGELY ALL DO THE SAME THING?
You can offer ROI. You can offer the right implementation from the start. You can bring on and partner with technical experts that can completely change the game from the get go and situate your team to find the results that they’re working hard to deliver on behalf of the client.
Without the infrastructure to truly show your impact, when budget cutting time comes, you’re gonna be the last thing they want to cut. But you have to make the decision to pivot the model that has always worked in honor of the model that will serve you (and your clients) moving forward.
It’s time for a change.
It’s time to assess your processes, and it’s time to add in a HubSpot architect into the lineup.
Do it now. Before they reach out. Save the client. Optimize the revenue. Optimize the spend. Be the hero.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
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\n\n
We’re seeing marketing agencies everywhere encounter the SAME song and dance from all their clients: “We’ve just gotta cut the budget. There's a recession happening.\" Agencies are scrambling to write content about why cutting the marketing budget of all things during a recession is counter intuitive (we agree, for the record). They’re trying to explain to clients how it churns salespeople, how it annihilates your pipeline, how you can lean out your efforts without slashing your budget like a freakin’ WalMart rollback… but what some of them AREN’T doing? They’re not seeing how they’re failing to prove their own ROI.
It’s an unfortunate conundrum as an agency, sometimes, isn’t it? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner putting against a print ad, “We’ll take your marketing dollars FURTHER! Don’t toss away thousands on that print ad or billboard with no measurable impact! DO INBOUND MARKETING! You can SEE EVERYTHING…”
And then they did. They saw all the analytics. All the data points. And once they stopped being impressed by organic traffic growth and that one viral reel and some sales here and there, they really started to see… we can waste money in inbound marketing too, and we’ll demand more than we ever did from that silly little magazine ad we totally forgot about while our marketing teams stress more than they ever have to figure out a way to measure the results of their efforts.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot demanding clients shell out hundreds or thousands a month on a marketing automation tool that actually (gasp) holds us accountable?
For us, around here, as HubSpot technical architects, the answer is a resounding HELL NO. We engage with HubSpot customers and agencies alike to learn - WHERE IS THE ROI and help them show the client that with a little adjustment, investment and reallocation, you can truly optimize your marketing spend and PROVE ROI.
We found the beef!!!!
We’re here to answer the question all the agencies are asking…
Why are my clients cutting marketing budget during a recession and HOW DO I STOP IT?
We have a few answers for you:
They’re paying too much for marketing when they really need to be paying for data architecture first.
\nElephant. In the room. Here it is. Hi. We said it. As the agency model continues to die (this is a whole other blog post) and Elite agencies charge hundreds of dollars more per hour while continuing to farm out the work for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight on delivery, we’re here to tell you that the agency model is dying. And if we don’t evolve and become true business process consultants - we die with it.
Hear me out:
Your people are slowly seeing they can make more money going directly to the client on their own. The pandemic changed a lot. We started using Zoom. People started realizing they don’t need offices to do amazing work. They bailed on business casual in favor of hoodies and jeans. They started to understand that the people behind the scenes doing the work were capable of having the same conversations that large agencies were having and they could work directly with the client. And the savvier clients? They’re catching on, too.
As an agency, you should see this. Because your job is not to prevent it from happening but to evolve beyond it. We have seen how deep we, as HubSpot Partners, have to go into business processes with clients to make sure that deals can close. It’s why HubSpot introduced all the different Hubs to begin with. Our value is evolving to optimizing business processes, and we need to see that now so we can not only keep customers in HubSpot, but retain our clients, help our employees get paid more and stop inflating the true cost of marketing by holding onto our Mad Men way of doing things. We don’t need to charge less, we just need to let go of a portion of our business model and pivot into the direction of architecting and optimizing processes and data to really service their bottom line. I hate to break it to you, but in some instances, that’s gonna be reallocating the budget in a way that works for them.
Related: Ethical Outsourcing - Tips for Whitelabeling HubSpot CMS Developers
\nThey’re not seeing the results, because their reporting isn’t customized.
\nWe discussed in our blog on Marketo to HubSpot Migrations, that one of HubSpot’s weak points is reporting. Data architecture needs to be configured in a HubSpot portal from the outset, not reactively. Not only will a HubSpot customer pay more to store contacts and data they don’t need, but they’re not going to see the items they want to see that support their bottom line.
Just a few questions that sales managers, executives and other might have that aren’t getting answered:
- \n
- What deals are coming in? \n
- Where are they coming from? \n
- How are Sales & Marketing Hubs feeding one another to move prospects closer to a buying decision? \n
- Is the data clean and organized inside their portals? \n
- Are they losing deals and money because the right processes aren’t in place? \n
You know this to be true - you can get a company all the leads they want. But if you can’t keep them warm, nurture them and seamlessly play between sales and marketing, deliver service and operations and bring everything back full circle - you’re not going to retain that customer, and a lifetime customer is even more valuable than a new customer. How can we see this data if we don’t set our clients up right from the start? We have a prospect that we had a lot of conversations with recently about how their shopping cart wasn’t configured properly when they migrated to HubSpot. They’ve been paying for HubSpot for over a year with lackluster functionality and almost zero ability to see which customers are their most valuable customers and which efforts are driving the most repeat purchases.
You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded. Why did you sell and build this marketing machine only to toss your clients in with a wave? “Godspeed, guys.” Meanwhile, they have no map, they don’t know where they’re going, they haven’t laid out their journey along the way and they don’t even know what the mile markers look like.
But somehow we can’t figure out why they’re cutting budget and bailing on HubSpot?
Is it too harsh of a conclusion to come to that poorly guided customers could be close to the root of the reason that 500 HubSpot employees were laid off earlier this year?
We have a responsibility to HubSpot, to the customer, and the world of Inbound Marketing at large to make sure that our portals perform. It’s why we get paid the way we get paid, but time and time again we’re seeing customers let down and left without any direction and we’re sick of cleaning up the mess, guys.
Related: Your Mom Doesn’t Work here - An Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
\nYou don’t have a HubSpot architect on your team.
\nYou don’t build a house without an architect, so why are you selling HubSpot portals without an expert that can take a deep dive into business processes and data architecture BEFORE you sell a HubSpot Portal? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, we’re trying to make the case for change.
We see your pain. We feel your pain. But we can’t help you unless you take a good hard look at the processes that you’ve put into place to understand - HOW CAN WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES IN A POOL OF PARTNERS THAT LARGELY ALL DO THE SAME THING?
You can offer ROI. You can offer the right implementation from the start. You can bring on and partner with technical experts that can completely change the game from the get go and situate your team to find the results that they’re working hard to deliver on behalf of the client.
Without the infrastructure to truly show your impact, when budget cutting time comes, you’re gonna be the last thing they want to cut. But you have to make the decision to pivot the model that has always worked in honor of the model that will serve you (and your clients) moving forward.
It’s time for a change.
It’s time to assess your processes, and it’s time to add in a HubSpot architect into the lineup.
Do it now. Before they reach out. Save the client. Optimize the revenue. Optimize the spend. Be the hero.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
\n\n
We’re seeing marketing agencies everywhere encounter the SAME song and dance from all their clients: “We’ve just gotta cut the budget. There's a recession happening.\" Agencies are scrambling to write content about why cutting the marketing budget of all things during a recession is counter intuitive (we agree, for the record). They’re trying to explain to clients how it churns salespeople, how it annihilates your pipeline, how you can lean out your efforts without slashing your budget like a freakin’ WalMart rollback… but what some of them AREN’T doing? They’re not seeing how they’re failing to prove their own ROI.
It’s an unfortunate conundrum as an agency, sometimes, isn’t it? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner putting against a print ad, “We’ll take your marketing dollars FURTHER! Don’t toss away thousands on that print ad or billboard with no measurable impact! DO INBOUND MARKETING! You can SEE EVERYTHING…”
And then they did. They saw all the analytics. All the data points. And once they stopped being impressed by organic traffic growth and that one viral reel and some sales here and there, they really started to see… we can waste money in inbound marketing too, and we’ll demand more than we ever did from that silly little magazine ad we totally forgot about while our marketing teams stress more than they ever have to figure out a way to measure the results of their efforts.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot demanding clients shell out hundreds or thousands a month on a marketing automation tool that actually (gasp) holds us accountable?
For us, around here, as HubSpot technical architects, the answer is a resounding HELL NO. We engage with HubSpot customers and agencies alike to learn - WHERE IS THE ROI and help them show the client that with a little adjustment, investment and reallocation, you can truly optimize your marketing spend and PROVE ROI.
We found the beef!!!!
We’re here to answer the question all the agencies are asking…
Why are my clients cutting marketing budget during a recession and HOW DO I STOP IT?
We have a few answers for you:
They’re paying too much for marketing when they really need to be paying for data architecture first.
\nElephant. In the room. Here it is. Hi. We said it. As the agency model continues to die (this is a whole other blog post) and Elite agencies charge hundreds of dollars more per hour while continuing to farm out the work for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight on delivery, we’re here to tell you that the agency model is dying. And if we don’t evolve and become true business process consultants - we die with it.
Hear me out:
Your people are slowly seeing they can make more money going directly to the client on their own. The pandemic changed a lot. We started using Zoom. People started realizing they don’t need offices to do amazing work. They bailed on business casual in favor of hoodies and jeans. They started to understand that the people behind the scenes doing the work were capable of having the same conversations that large agencies were having and they could work directly with the client. And the savvier clients? They’re catching on, too.
As an agency, you should see this. Because your job is not to prevent it from happening but to evolve beyond it. We have seen how deep we, as HubSpot Partners, have to go into business processes with clients to make sure that deals can close. It’s why HubSpot introduced all the different Hubs to begin with. Our value is evolving to optimizing business processes, and we need to see that now so we can not only keep customers in HubSpot, but retain our clients, help our employees get paid more and stop inflating the true cost of marketing by holding onto our Mad Men way of doing things. We don’t need to charge less, we just need to let go of a portion of our business model and pivot into the direction of architecting and optimizing processes and data to really service their bottom line. I hate to break it to you, but in some instances, that’s gonna be reallocating the budget in a way that works for them.
Related: Ethical Outsourcing - Tips for Whitelabeling HubSpot CMS Developers
\nThey’re not seeing the results, because their reporting isn’t customized.
\nWe discussed in our blog on Marketo to HubSpot Migrations, that one of HubSpot’s weak points is reporting. Data architecture needs to be configured in a HubSpot portal from the outset, not reactively. Not only will a HubSpot customer pay more to store contacts and data they don’t need, but they’re not going to see the items they want to see that support their bottom line.
Just a few questions that sales managers, executives and other might have that aren’t getting answered:
- \n
- What deals are coming in? \n
- Where are they coming from? \n
- How are Sales & Marketing Hubs feeding one another to move prospects closer to a buying decision? \n
- Is the data clean and organized inside their portals? \n
- Are they losing deals and money because the right processes aren’t in place? \n
You know this to be true - you can get a company all the leads they want. But if you can’t keep them warm, nurture them and seamlessly play between sales and marketing, deliver service and operations and bring everything back full circle - you’re not going to retain that customer, and a lifetime customer is even more valuable than a new customer. How can we see this data if we don’t set our clients up right from the start? We have a prospect that we had a lot of conversations with recently about how their shopping cart wasn’t configured properly when they migrated to HubSpot. They’ve been paying for HubSpot for over a year with lackluster functionality and almost zero ability to see which customers are their most valuable customers and which efforts are driving the most repeat purchases.
You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded. Why did you sell and build this marketing machine only to toss your clients in with a wave? “Godspeed, guys.” Meanwhile, they have no map, they don’t know where they’re going, they haven’t laid out their journey along the way and they don’t even know what the mile markers look like.
But somehow we can’t figure out why they’re cutting budget and bailing on HubSpot?
Is it too harsh of a conclusion to come to that poorly guided customers could be close to the root of the reason that 500 HubSpot employees were laid off earlier this year?
We have a responsibility to HubSpot, to the customer, and the world of Inbound Marketing at large to make sure that our portals perform. It’s why we get paid the way we get paid, but time and time again we’re seeing customers let down and left without any direction and we’re sick of cleaning up the mess, guys.
Related: Your Mom Doesn’t Work here - An Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
\nYou don’t have a HubSpot architect on your team.
\nYou don’t build a house without an architect, so why are you selling HubSpot portals without an expert that can take a deep dive into business processes and data architecture BEFORE you sell a HubSpot Portal? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, we’re trying to make the case for change.
We see your pain. We feel your pain. But we can’t help you unless you take a good hard look at the processes that you’ve put into place to understand - HOW CAN WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES IN A POOL OF PARTNERS THAT LARGELY ALL DO THE SAME THING?
You can offer ROI. You can offer the right implementation from the start. You can bring on and partner with technical experts that can completely change the game from the get go and situate your team to find the results that they’re working hard to deliver on behalf of the client.
Without the infrastructure to truly show your impact, when budget cutting time comes, you’re gonna be the last thing they want to cut. But you have to make the decision to pivot the model that has always worked in honor of the model that will serve you (and your clients) moving forward.
It’s time for a change.
It’s time to assess your processes, and it’s time to add in a HubSpot architect into the lineup.
Do it now. Before they reach out. Save the client. Optimize the revenue. Optimize the spend. Be the hero.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
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\n\n
We’re seeing marketing agencies everywhere encounter the SAME song and dance from all their clients: “We’ve just gotta cut the budget. There's a recession happening.\" Agencies are scrambling to write content about why cutting the marketing budget of all things during a recession is counter intuitive (we agree, for the record). They’re trying to explain to clients how it churns salespeople, how it annihilates your pipeline, how you can lean out your efforts without slashing your budget like a freakin’ WalMart rollback… but what some of them AREN’T doing? They’re not seeing how they’re failing to prove their own ROI.
It’s an unfortunate conundrum as an agency, sometimes, isn’t it? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner putting against a print ad, “We’ll take your marketing dollars FURTHER! Don’t toss away thousands on that print ad or billboard with no measurable impact! DO INBOUND MARKETING! You can SEE EVERYTHING…”
And then they did. They saw all the analytics. All the data points. And once they stopped being impressed by organic traffic growth and that one viral reel and some sales here and there, they really started to see… we can waste money in inbound marketing too, and we’ll demand more than we ever did from that silly little magazine ad we totally forgot about while our marketing teams stress more than they ever have to figure out a way to measure the results of their efforts.
Have we shot ourselves in the foot demanding clients shell out hundreds or thousands a month on a marketing automation tool that actually (gasp) holds us accountable?
For us, around here, as HubSpot technical architects, the answer is a resounding HELL NO. We engage with HubSpot customers and agencies alike to learn - WHERE IS THE ROI and help them show the client that with a little adjustment, investment and reallocation, you can truly optimize your marketing spend and PROVE ROI.
We found the beef!!!!
We’re here to answer the question all the agencies are asking…
Why are my clients cutting marketing budget during a recession and HOW DO I STOP IT?
We have a few answers for you:
They’re paying too much for marketing when they really need to be paying for data architecture first.
\nElephant. In the room. Here it is. Hi. We said it. As the agency model continues to die (this is a whole other blog post) and Elite agencies charge hundreds of dollars more per hour while continuing to farm out the work for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight on delivery, we’re here to tell you that the agency model is dying. And if we don’t evolve and become true business process consultants - we die with it.
Hear me out:
Your people are slowly seeing they can make more money going directly to the client on their own. The pandemic changed a lot. We started using Zoom. People started realizing they don’t need offices to do amazing work. They bailed on business casual in favor of hoodies and jeans. They started to understand that the people behind the scenes doing the work were capable of having the same conversations that large agencies were having and they could work directly with the client. And the savvier clients? They’re catching on, too.
As an agency, you should see this. Because your job is not to prevent it from happening but to evolve beyond it. We have seen how deep we, as HubSpot Partners, have to go into business processes with clients to make sure that deals can close. It’s why HubSpot introduced all the different Hubs to begin with. Our value is evolving to optimizing business processes, and we need to see that now so we can not only keep customers in HubSpot, but retain our clients, help our employees get paid more and stop inflating the true cost of marketing by holding onto our Mad Men way of doing things. We don’t need to charge less, we just need to let go of a portion of our business model and pivot into the direction of architecting and optimizing processes and data to really service their bottom line. I hate to break it to you, but in some instances, that’s gonna be reallocating the budget in a way that works for them.
Related: Ethical Outsourcing - Tips for Whitelabeling HubSpot CMS Developers
\nThey’re not seeing the results, because their reporting isn’t customized.
\nWe discussed in our blog on Marketo to HubSpot Migrations, that one of HubSpot’s weak points is reporting. Data architecture needs to be configured in a HubSpot portal from the outset, not reactively. Not only will a HubSpot customer pay more to store contacts and data they don’t need, but they’re not going to see the items they want to see that support their bottom line.
Just a few questions that sales managers, executives and other might have that aren’t getting answered:
- \n
- What deals are coming in? \n
- Where are they coming from? \n
- How are Sales & Marketing Hubs feeding one another to move prospects closer to a buying decision? \n
- Is the data clean and organized inside their portals? \n
- Are they losing deals and money because the right processes aren’t in place? \n
You know this to be true - you can get a company all the leads they want. But if you can’t keep them warm, nurture them and seamlessly play between sales and marketing, deliver service and operations and bring everything back full circle - you’re not going to retain that customer, and a lifetime customer is even more valuable than a new customer. How can we see this data if we don’t set our clients up right from the start? We have a prospect that we had a lot of conversations with recently about how their shopping cart wasn’t configured properly when they migrated to HubSpot. They’ve been paying for HubSpot for over a year with lackluster functionality and almost zero ability to see which customers are their most valuable customers and which efforts are driving the most repeat purchases.
You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded. Why did you sell and build this marketing machine only to toss your clients in with a wave? “Godspeed, guys.” Meanwhile, they have no map, they don’t know where they’re going, they haven’t laid out their journey along the way and they don’t even know what the mile markers look like.
But somehow we can’t figure out why they’re cutting budget and bailing on HubSpot?
Is it too harsh of a conclusion to come to that poorly guided customers could be close to the root of the reason that 500 HubSpot employees were laid off earlier this year?
We have a responsibility to HubSpot, to the customer, and the world of Inbound Marketing at large to make sure that our portals perform. It’s why we get paid the way we get paid, but time and time again we’re seeing customers let down and left without any direction and we’re sick of cleaning up the mess, guys.
Related: Your Mom Doesn’t Work here - An Open Letter to HubSpot CMS Developers
\nYou don’t have a HubSpot architect on your team.
\nYou don’t build a house without an architect, so why are you selling HubSpot portals without an expert that can take a deep dive into business processes and data architecture BEFORE you sell a HubSpot Portal? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, we’re trying to make the case for change.
We see your pain. We feel your pain. But we can’t help you unless you take a good hard look at the processes that you’ve put into place to understand - HOW CAN WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES IN A POOL OF PARTNERS THAT LARGELY ALL DO THE SAME THING?
You can offer ROI. You can offer the right implementation from the start. You can bring on and partner with technical experts that can completely change the game from the get go and situate your team to find the results that they’re working hard to deliver on behalf of the client.
Without the infrastructure to truly show your impact, when budget cutting time comes, you’re gonna be the last thing they want to cut. But you have to make the decision to pivot the model that has always worked in honor of the model that will serve you (and your clients) moving forward.
It’s time for a change.
It’s time to assess your processes, and it’s time to add in a HubSpot architect into the lineup.
Do it now. Before they reach out. Save the client. Optimize the revenue. Optimize the spend. Be the hero.
It’s the ultimate question that every executive, every CMO, every owner needs answered, and while some of us older Millennials and Gen X are laughing about the reference to the acclaimed Wendy’s commercial with the little old lady peering into the bun - it really is time to get into the meat of it.
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The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
\n![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/I%20SHOULD%20PACK%20LIGHT-jpg.jpeg\")
A similar comparison can be made when you’re looking to migrate from one marketing automation platform to another. HubSpot customers sometimes feel this way when they’ve rushed through onboarding or been made to hastily sign an agreement before quarter / month or year end to “close a deal” without really “packing up” their assets or taking time to analyze how their business will scale with HubSpot. Just like packing for a trip or a big move, when you migrate from Marketo to HubSpot, the migration requires more than a little planning to make sure you’re not caught in a blizzard in shorts. Hiring a HubSpot technical architect for your Marketo-HubSpot migration is the best way to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for the journey ahead.
They can dig into your business processes.
\nWhile many businesses and their marketing teams are eager to integrate HubSpot and begin marketing right away on the platform, it’s a good idea before signing your contact to engage a HubSpot technical architect long before you sign the deal. Why? Not only could it save you money, but it could save you many headaches and make scaling much simpler. By hiring a technical partner before you sign up for HubSpot, you can dig into your website framework, the other software programs you use and your business processes to determine how the different Hubs can work with your business over time and determine your true cost of adoption. By establishing a relationship with a HubSpot technical architecture consultant, you can get the full picture of the expected investment, plan for it and understand exactly how your existing tools will work with HubSpot to prevent any unforeseen obstacles down the road.
One of the biggest regrets we hear from clients coming from marketing agencies is that they didn’t take the time to explore how HubSpot would scale with their business.
- \n
- Maybe they signed up for Marketing Hub Professional only to discover that their website really needed to be migrated over to HubSpot CMS because the configuration, coding and page speed was handicapping their rankings *and* their user experience. \n
- Maybe they went ahead and migrated their website over to HubSpot CMS, but didn’t account for their industry line of business application that they use every day and how they’d eventually factor that into the website and marketing efforts to seamlessly pass data and avoid double entry. \n
- Maybe they signed on with a marketing agency, but the agency used Wordpress developers and the Wordpress developer oversold their skills and failed them during the HubSpot CMS migration, so they’re months into paying for a HubSpot Hub that they’re not leveraging. \n
- Maybe they had tons of data that wasn’t valuable moving forward, but in a rush just moved everything over and got stuck paying for way more data or contact storage than they needed, resulting in faulty or unclear reporting \n
- Maybe they never configured their reporting dashboard to seriously prove which campaigns are really netting the most ROI. \n
A technical partner has seen all the SNAFUs when it comes to HubSpot CMS, Marketing Hub Pro and the obstacles that have come along with integrating Operations Hub, Service Hub or Sales Hub with business applications at every level. By engaging a HubSpot Architect from the start, they’ll ask you the right questions about your business processes to plan your HubSpot portal configuration properly from the beginning, audit your business applications, potential integrations and complete an entire discovery process so you can ask the right questions BEFORE you sign your contract with HubSpot. We’re like a realtor for your big move, but a little more useful. (JK who doesn’t love realtors.) Believe me, you’re gonna want someone like us to dig in, because they’re important to the experience you’ll have with HubSpot moving forward and as your business scales.
Why?
They can help you look to the future.
\nFor our next trick? Time travel. You don’t need a Delorean to jump to the future of where your business will go and how it can leverage HubSpot, you just need a really gifted HubSpot Technical Architect. The kind that can recall the 6 trillion things they’ve done at any given point in their career and regularly brainstorms with other HubSpot veteran co-horts to come up with solutions for unique businesses using all of HubSpot’s specialized tools (and then some). They can plan integrations, help you budget for the items that you’ll want to grow with you and help you configure your reporting dashboard so that you can get the insight you need to make the most powerful decisions for the road ahead.
Are our metaphors too much? Because we’re talking GPS style navigation, guys.
Data overwhelm is a huge HubSpot problem that not many businesses proactively plan for. HubSpot is POWERFUL and the capabilities (particularly with the right technical partner ::big grin::) are endless because it all. works. together. And when you plan proactively for how it’ll work for you? There are no limits.
![](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/The%20limit%20does%20not%20exist-jpg.jpeg\")
Trust me when I tell you that you can’t build a mansion on a foundation built for a cottage. Scaling requires planning. One of the top complaints that we’ve seen in other consultants, CMOs and agencies that discuss Marketo’s advantage over HubSpot is the lack of reporting functionality and customization to business processes. In fact, we stumbled across this HubSpot vs Marketo YouTube Video from Shift Paradigm (a Marketo partner) where she basically tells YouTube that Marketo is superior to HubSpot by stating,
“Of course it’s a good idea to have everyone in the same system working with the same data, but maybe when one company tries to create and maintain a product to service the use cases to half a dozen departments and their dozens of employees it only facilitates half of what anyone actually wants.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS OF THIS VIDEO (beside the dig at HubSpot reporting, but we’ll come back to that in a second).
Listen to me carefully:
If you don’t configure your HubSpot properly in advance with a technical architect based on your unique business processes - you’re going to have a harder time. I’m not telling you that you won’t enjoy your HubSpot move or that you’ll fail. It’s just that when you fail to plan for YOUR business and settle on what HubSpot has setup to work for EVERY business, you might not get everything you need as you scale. In fact, you probably won’t get everything you need. And if you start too soon and with the wrong HubSpot Partner? You may even get downright pissed when you try to scale up or really integrate the rest of your business processes.
We love HubSpot Partners. But there are a lot of us now, and not all of us specialize in technical architecture. In fact, you don’t even have the ability to sift through the solutions directory until you at least start a HubSpot trial to see how many partners are marketing focused and don’t specialize in technical consulting. But as an aside - this should be one of the first things that you do when you sign up for a HubSpot trial. And Partners, if you don’t specialize? We suggest partnering with a HubSpot technical architect that does, but it’ll keep customers in your MRR for longer and happier in the long term when you’ve integrated all of their technology and started them off the right way, with thought given to the unique processes inside their business and how their big dreams for scaling in the long term.
Related: Your mom doesn’t work here - an open letter to HubSpot developer
\nThey can supercharge your reporting.
\nThe second biggest HubSpot complaint that she brings up in that video (I hope you watched the whole thing, because it’s valuable) is HubSpot’s reporting. She mentions that Marketo’s reporting is much better and that you can’t report ROI as well with HubSpot reports. This is NOT true. The fact is, you have endless capabilities in HubSpot to configure custom reports and dashboards, but sometimes it’s better to understand your data management and processes from the start in order to best determine how your reporting needs to be set up and tweaked over time. You’re trying to build an empire. Don’t limp through the cheapest onboarding you can find to get started as quickly as possible only to find later you’re struggling to produce effective reporting that really gives you intelligent business data to make growth decisions.
The RIGHT HubSpot technical expert is a whiz at reporting and can not only help you clean up your database before your migration, but configure your HubSpot reports and dashboards (and teach you how to tweak them) so that you’re setup the right way from the start. We can even integrate other pieces of data that live externally in a line of business application.
Once you’re configured, you can deliver all the data to your executive team or view data as the executive team in real time from anywhere without the need for long drawn out meetings. If you’re wondering if I’m telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life - let me just say: I’m not not telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life.
It’s not just about more convenient access to your statistics, it’s about sitting down with your team and determining, “Okay, now what?”
It’s about molding HubSpot around your business processes and not the other way around.
Being able to execute really amazing campaigns, create workflows that automate your marketing and execute social media and have it all intertwine with sales, service and operations is a DREAM. That’s a lot of information all funneling through one application. But when you take it all and process it through reporting and integrations in a way that really determines your ROI and helps you work smarter, you can make those important growth decisions more quickly.
There’s no question that you’re eager to get started, but let’s pause before you make a huge business decision that’s going to impact your organization for at least the next year (hopefully much longer if you really invest the right amount of time into onboarding and planning). This is a business decision for an application that is going to interlace itself into the very essence of your business. All departments, all data, and eventually all applications (ideally, we hope you’ll invest into all your integrations) will push data through your HubSpot portal. Take the time to engage a technical expert before you switch from Marketo to HubSpot and long before you determine which HubSpot Hubs are right for you.
You don’t pack light for the biggest move of your life.
Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
\n","rss_body":"Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
\n
A similar comparison can be made when you’re looking to migrate from one marketing automation platform to another. HubSpot customers sometimes feel this way when they’ve rushed through onboarding or been made to hastily sign an agreement before quarter / month or year end to “close a deal” without really “packing up” their assets or taking time to analyze how their business will scale with HubSpot. Just like packing for a trip or a big move, when you migrate from Marketo to HubSpot, the migration requires more than a little planning to make sure you’re not caught in a blizzard in shorts. Hiring a HubSpot technical architect for your Marketo-HubSpot migration is the best way to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for the journey ahead.
They can dig into your business processes.
\nWhile many businesses and their marketing teams are eager to integrate HubSpot and begin marketing right away on the platform, it’s a good idea before signing your contact to engage a HubSpot technical architect long before you sign the deal. Why? Not only could it save you money, but it could save you many headaches and make scaling much simpler. By hiring a technical partner before you sign up for HubSpot, you can dig into your website framework, the other software programs you use and your business processes to determine how the different Hubs can work with your business over time and determine your true cost of adoption. By establishing a relationship with a HubSpot technical architecture consultant, you can get the full picture of the expected investment, plan for it and understand exactly how your existing tools will work with HubSpot to prevent any unforeseen obstacles down the road.
One of the biggest regrets we hear from clients coming from marketing agencies is that they didn’t take the time to explore how HubSpot would scale with their business.
- \n
- Maybe they signed up for Marketing Hub Professional only to discover that their website really needed to be migrated over to HubSpot CMS because the configuration, coding and page speed was handicapping their rankings *and* their user experience. \n
- Maybe they went ahead and migrated their website over to HubSpot CMS, but didn’t account for their industry line of business application that they use every day and how they’d eventually factor that into the website and marketing efforts to seamlessly pass data and avoid double entry. \n
- Maybe they signed on with a marketing agency, but the agency used Wordpress developers and the Wordpress developer oversold their skills and failed them during the HubSpot CMS migration, so they’re months into paying for a HubSpot Hub that they’re not leveraging. \n
- Maybe they had tons of data that wasn’t valuable moving forward, but in a rush just moved everything over and got stuck paying for way more data or contact storage than they needed, resulting in faulty or unclear reporting \n
- Maybe they never configured their reporting dashboard to seriously prove which campaigns are really netting the most ROI. \n
A technical partner has seen all the SNAFUs when it comes to HubSpot CMS, Marketing Hub Pro and the obstacles that have come along with integrating Operations Hub, Service Hub or Sales Hub with business applications at every level. By engaging a HubSpot Architect from the start, they’ll ask you the right questions about your business processes to plan your HubSpot portal configuration properly from the beginning, audit your business applications, potential integrations and complete an entire discovery process so you can ask the right questions BEFORE you sign your contract with HubSpot. We’re like a realtor for your big move, but a little more useful. (JK who doesn’t love realtors.) Believe me, you’re gonna want someone like us to dig in, because they’re important to the experience you’ll have with HubSpot moving forward and as your business scales.
Why?
They can help you look to the future.
\nFor our next trick? Time travel. You don’t need a Delorean to jump to the future of where your business will go and how it can leverage HubSpot, you just need a really gifted HubSpot Technical Architect. The kind that can recall the 6 trillion things they’ve done at any given point in their career and regularly brainstorms with other HubSpot veteran co-horts to come up with solutions for unique businesses using all of HubSpot’s specialized tools (and then some). They can plan integrations, help you budget for the items that you’ll want to grow with you and help you configure your reporting dashboard so that you can get the insight you need to make the most powerful decisions for the road ahead.
Are our metaphors too much? Because we’re talking GPS style navigation, guys.
Data overwhelm is a huge HubSpot problem that not many businesses proactively plan for. HubSpot is POWERFUL and the capabilities (particularly with the right technical partner ::big grin::) are endless because it all. works. together. And when you plan proactively for how it’ll work for you? There are no limits.
Trust me when I tell you that you can’t build a mansion on a foundation built for a cottage. Scaling requires planning. One of the top complaints that we’ve seen in other consultants, CMOs and agencies that discuss Marketo’s advantage over HubSpot is the lack of reporting functionality and customization to business processes. In fact, we stumbled across this HubSpot vs Marketo YouTube Video from Shift Paradigm (a Marketo partner) where she basically tells YouTube that Marketo is superior to HubSpot by stating,
“Of course it’s a good idea to have everyone in the same system working with the same data, but maybe when one company tries to create and maintain a product to service the use cases to half a dozen departments and their dozens of employees it only facilitates half of what anyone actually wants.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS OF THIS VIDEO (beside the dig at HubSpot reporting, but we’ll come back to that in a second).
Listen to me carefully:
If you don’t configure your HubSpot properly in advance with a technical architect based on your unique business processes - you’re going to have a harder time. I’m not telling you that you won’t enjoy your HubSpot move or that you’ll fail. It’s just that when you fail to plan for YOUR business and settle on what HubSpot has setup to work for EVERY business, you might not get everything you need as you scale. In fact, you probably won’t get everything you need. And if you start too soon and with the wrong HubSpot Partner? You may even get downright pissed when you try to scale up or really integrate the rest of your business processes.
We love HubSpot Partners. But there are a lot of us now, and not all of us specialize in technical architecture. In fact, you don’t even have the ability to sift through the solutions directory until you at least start a HubSpot trial to see how many partners are marketing focused and don’t specialize in technical consulting. But as an aside - this should be one of the first things that you do when you sign up for a HubSpot trial. And Partners, if you don’t specialize? We suggest partnering with a HubSpot technical architect that does, but it’ll keep customers in your MRR for longer and happier in the long term when you’ve integrated all of their technology and started them off the right way, with thought given to the unique processes inside their business and how their big dreams for scaling in the long term.
Related: Your mom doesn’t work here - an open letter to HubSpot developer
\nThey can supercharge your reporting.
\nThe second biggest HubSpot complaint that she brings up in that video (I hope you watched the whole thing, because it’s valuable) is HubSpot’s reporting. She mentions that Marketo’s reporting is much better and that you can’t report ROI as well with HubSpot reports. This is NOT true. The fact is, you have endless capabilities in HubSpot to configure custom reports and dashboards, but sometimes it’s better to understand your data management and processes from the start in order to best determine how your reporting needs to be set up and tweaked over time. You’re trying to build an empire. Don’t limp through the cheapest onboarding you can find to get started as quickly as possible only to find later you’re struggling to produce effective reporting that really gives you intelligent business data to make growth decisions.
The RIGHT HubSpot technical expert is a whiz at reporting and can not only help you clean up your database before your migration, but configure your HubSpot reports and dashboards (and teach you how to tweak them) so that you’re setup the right way from the start. We can even integrate other pieces of data that live externally in a line of business application.
Once you’re configured, you can deliver all the data to your executive team or view data as the executive team in real time from anywhere without the need for long drawn out meetings. If you’re wondering if I’m telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life - let me just say: I’m not not telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life.
It’s not just about more convenient access to your statistics, it’s about sitting down with your team and determining, “Okay, now what?”
It’s about molding HubSpot around your business processes and not the other way around.
Being able to execute really amazing campaigns, create workflows that automate your marketing and execute social media and have it all intertwine with sales, service and operations is a DREAM. That’s a lot of information all funneling through one application. But when you take it all and process it through reporting and integrations in a way that really determines your ROI and helps you work smarter, you can make those important growth decisions more quickly.
There’s no question that you’re eager to get started, but let’s pause before you make a huge business decision that’s going to impact your organization for at least the next year (hopefully much longer if you really invest the right amount of time into onboarding and planning). This is a business decision for an application that is going to interlace itself into the very essence of your business. All departments, all data, and eventually all applications (ideally, we hope you’ll invest into all your integrations) will push data through your HubSpot portal. Take the time to engage a technical expert before you switch from Marketo to HubSpot and long before you determine which HubSpot Hubs are right for you.
You don’t pack light for the biggest move of your life.
Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
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The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
\n
A similar comparison can be made when you’re looking to migrate from one marketing automation platform to another. HubSpot customers sometimes feel this way when they’ve rushed through onboarding or been made to hastily sign an agreement before quarter / month or year end to “close a deal” without really “packing up” their assets or taking time to analyze how their business will scale with HubSpot. Just like packing for a trip or a big move, when you migrate from Marketo to HubSpot, the migration requires more than a little planning to make sure you’re not caught in a blizzard in shorts. Hiring a HubSpot technical architect for your Marketo-HubSpot migration is the best way to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for the journey ahead.
They can dig into your business processes.
\nWhile many businesses and their marketing teams are eager to integrate HubSpot and begin marketing right away on the platform, it’s a good idea before signing your contact to engage a HubSpot technical architect long before you sign the deal. Why? Not only could it save you money, but it could save you many headaches and make scaling much simpler. By hiring a technical partner before you sign up for HubSpot, you can dig into your website framework, the other software programs you use and your business processes to determine how the different Hubs can work with your business over time and determine your true cost of adoption. By establishing a relationship with a HubSpot technical architecture consultant, you can get the full picture of the expected investment, plan for it and understand exactly how your existing tools will work with HubSpot to prevent any unforeseen obstacles down the road.
One of the biggest regrets we hear from clients coming from marketing agencies is that they didn’t take the time to explore how HubSpot would scale with their business.
- \n
- Maybe they signed up for Marketing Hub Professional only to discover that their website really needed to be migrated over to HubSpot CMS because the configuration, coding and page speed was handicapping their rankings *and* their user experience. \n
- Maybe they went ahead and migrated their website over to HubSpot CMS, but didn’t account for their industry line of business application that they use every day and how they’d eventually factor that into the website and marketing efforts to seamlessly pass data and avoid double entry. \n
- Maybe they signed on with a marketing agency, but the agency used Wordpress developers and the Wordpress developer oversold their skills and failed them during the HubSpot CMS migration, so they’re months into paying for a HubSpot Hub that they’re not leveraging. \n
- Maybe they had tons of data that wasn’t valuable moving forward, but in a rush just moved everything over and got stuck paying for way more data or contact storage than they needed, resulting in faulty or unclear reporting \n
- Maybe they never configured their reporting dashboard to seriously prove which campaigns are really netting the most ROI. \n
A technical partner has seen all the SNAFUs when it comes to HubSpot CMS, Marketing Hub Pro and the obstacles that have come along with integrating Operations Hub, Service Hub or Sales Hub with business applications at every level. By engaging a HubSpot Architect from the start, they’ll ask you the right questions about your business processes to plan your HubSpot portal configuration properly from the beginning, audit your business applications, potential integrations and complete an entire discovery process so you can ask the right questions BEFORE you sign your contract with HubSpot. We’re like a realtor for your big move, but a little more useful. (JK who doesn’t love realtors.) Believe me, you’re gonna want someone like us to dig in, because they’re important to the experience you’ll have with HubSpot moving forward and as your business scales.
Why?
They can help you look to the future.
\nFor our next trick? Time travel. You don’t need a Delorean to jump to the future of where your business will go and how it can leverage HubSpot, you just need a really gifted HubSpot Technical Architect. The kind that can recall the 6 trillion things they’ve done at any given point in their career and regularly brainstorms with other HubSpot veteran co-horts to come up with solutions for unique businesses using all of HubSpot’s specialized tools (and then some). They can plan integrations, help you budget for the items that you’ll want to grow with you and help you configure your reporting dashboard so that you can get the insight you need to make the most powerful decisions for the road ahead.
Are our metaphors too much? Because we’re talking GPS style navigation, guys.
Data overwhelm is a huge HubSpot problem that not many businesses proactively plan for. HubSpot is POWERFUL and the capabilities (particularly with the right technical partner ::big grin::) are endless because it all. works. together. And when you plan proactively for how it’ll work for you? There are no limits.
Trust me when I tell you that you can’t build a mansion on a foundation built for a cottage. Scaling requires planning. One of the top complaints that we’ve seen in other consultants, CMOs and agencies that discuss Marketo’s advantage over HubSpot is the lack of reporting functionality and customization to business processes. In fact, we stumbled across this HubSpot vs Marketo YouTube Video from Shift Paradigm (a Marketo partner) where she basically tells YouTube that Marketo is superior to HubSpot by stating,
“Of course it’s a good idea to have everyone in the same system working with the same data, but maybe when one company tries to create and maintain a product to service the use cases to half a dozen departments and their dozens of employees it only facilitates half of what anyone actually wants.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS OF THIS VIDEO (beside the dig at HubSpot reporting, but we’ll come back to that in a second).
Listen to me carefully:
If you don’t configure your HubSpot properly in advance with a technical architect based on your unique business processes - you’re going to have a harder time. I’m not telling you that you won’t enjoy your HubSpot move or that you’ll fail. It’s just that when you fail to plan for YOUR business and settle on what HubSpot has setup to work for EVERY business, you might not get everything you need as you scale. In fact, you probably won’t get everything you need. And if you start too soon and with the wrong HubSpot Partner? You may even get downright pissed when you try to scale up or really integrate the rest of your business processes.
We love HubSpot Partners. But there are a lot of us now, and not all of us specialize in technical architecture. In fact, you don’t even have the ability to sift through the solutions directory until you at least start a HubSpot trial to see how many partners are marketing focused and don’t specialize in technical consulting. But as an aside - this should be one of the first things that you do when you sign up for a HubSpot trial. And Partners, if you don’t specialize? We suggest partnering with a HubSpot technical architect that does, but it’ll keep customers in your MRR for longer and happier in the long term when you’ve integrated all of their technology and started them off the right way, with thought given to the unique processes inside their business and how their big dreams for scaling in the long term.
Related: Your mom doesn’t work here - an open letter to HubSpot developer
\nThey can supercharge your reporting.
\nThe second biggest HubSpot complaint that she brings up in that video (I hope you watched the whole thing, because it’s valuable) is HubSpot’s reporting. She mentions that Marketo’s reporting is much better and that you can’t report ROI as well with HubSpot reports. This is NOT true. The fact is, you have endless capabilities in HubSpot to configure custom reports and dashboards, but sometimes it’s better to understand your data management and processes from the start in order to best determine how your reporting needs to be set up and tweaked over time. You’re trying to build an empire. Don’t limp through the cheapest onboarding you can find to get started as quickly as possible only to find later you’re struggling to produce effective reporting that really gives you intelligent business data to make growth decisions.
The RIGHT HubSpot technical expert is a whiz at reporting and can not only help you clean up your database before your migration, but configure your HubSpot reports and dashboards (and teach you how to tweak them) so that you’re setup the right way from the start. We can even integrate other pieces of data that live externally in a line of business application.
Once you’re configured, you can deliver all the data to your executive team or view data as the executive team in real time from anywhere without the need for long drawn out meetings. If you’re wondering if I’m telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life - let me just say: I’m not not telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life.
It’s not just about more convenient access to your statistics, it’s about sitting down with your team and determining, “Okay, now what?”
It’s about molding HubSpot around your business processes and not the other way around.
Being able to execute really amazing campaigns, create workflows that automate your marketing and execute social media and have it all intertwine with sales, service and operations is a DREAM. That’s a lot of information all funneling through one application. But when you take it all and process it through reporting and integrations in a way that really determines your ROI and helps you work smarter, you can make those important growth decisions more quickly.
There’s no question that you’re eager to get started, but let’s pause before you make a huge business decision that’s going to impact your organization for at least the next year (hopefully much longer if you really invest the right amount of time into onboarding and planning). This is a business decision for an application that is going to interlace itself into the very essence of your business. All departments, all data, and eventually all applications (ideally, we hope you’ll invest into all your integrations) will push data through your HubSpot portal. Take the time to engage a technical expert before you switch from Marketo to HubSpot and long before you determine which HubSpot Hubs are right for you.
You don’t pack light for the biggest move of your life.
Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
\n
A similar comparison can be made when you’re looking to migrate from one marketing automation platform to another. HubSpot customers sometimes feel this way when they’ve rushed through onboarding or been made to hastily sign an agreement before quarter / month or year end to “close a deal” without really “packing up” their assets or taking time to analyze how their business will scale with HubSpot. Just like packing for a trip or a big move, when you migrate from Marketo to HubSpot, the migration requires more than a little planning to make sure you’re not caught in a blizzard in shorts. Hiring a HubSpot technical architect for your Marketo-HubSpot migration is the best way to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for the journey ahead.
They can dig into your business processes.
\nWhile many businesses and their marketing teams are eager to integrate HubSpot and begin marketing right away on the platform, it’s a good idea before signing your contact to engage a HubSpot technical architect long before you sign the deal. Why? Not only could it save you money, but it could save you many headaches and make scaling much simpler. By hiring a technical partner before you sign up for HubSpot, you can dig into your website framework, the other software programs you use and your business processes to determine how the different Hubs can work with your business over time and determine your true cost of adoption. By establishing a relationship with a HubSpot technical architecture consultant, you can get the full picture of the expected investment, plan for it and understand exactly how your existing tools will work with HubSpot to prevent any unforeseen obstacles down the road.
One of the biggest regrets we hear from clients coming from marketing agencies is that they didn’t take the time to explore how HubSpot would scale with their business.
- \n
- Maybe they signed up for Marketing Hub Professional only to discover that their website really needed to be migrated over to HubSpot CMS because the configuration, coding and page speed was handicapping their rankings *and* their user experience. \n
- Maybe they went ahead and migrated their website over to HubSpot CMS, but didn’t account for their industry line of business application that they use every day and how they’d eventually factor that into the website and marketing efforts to seamlessly pass data and avoid double entry. \n
- Maybe they signed on with a marketing agency, but the agency used Wordpress developers and the Wordpress developer oversold their skills and failed them during the HubSpot CMS migration, so they’re months into paying for a HubSpot Hub that they’re not leveraging. \n
- Maybe they had tons of data that wasn’t valuable moving forward, but in a rush just moved everything over and got stuck paying for way more data or contact storage than they needed, resulting in faulty or unclear reporting \n
- Maybe they never configured their reporting dashboard to seriously prove which campaigns are really netting the most ROI. \n
A technical partner has seen all the SNAFUs when it comes to HubSpot CMS, Marketing Hub Pro and the obstacles that have come along with integrating Operations Hub, Service Hub or Sales Hub with business applications at every level. By engaging a HubSpot Architect from the start, they’ll ask you the right questions about your business processes to plan your HubSpot portal configuration properly from the beginning, audit your business applications, potential integrations and complete an entire discovery process so you can ask the right questions BEFORE you sign your contract with HubSpot. We’re like a realtor for your big move, but a little more useful. (JK who doesn’t love realtors.) Believe me, you’re gonna want someone like us to dig in, because they’re important to the experience you’ll have with HubSpot moving forward and as your business scales.
Why?
They can help you look to the future.
\nFor our next trick? Time travel. You don’t need a Delorean to jump to the future of where your business will go and how it can leverage HubSpot, you just need a really gifted HubSpot Technical Architect. The kind that can recall the 6 trillion things they’ve done at any given point in their career and regularly brainstorms with other HubSpot veteran co-horts to come up with solutions for unique businesses using all of HubSpot’s specialized tools (and then some). They can plan integrations, help you budget for the items that you’ll want to grow with you and help you configure your reporting dashboard so that you can get the insight you need to make the most powerful decisions for the road ahead.
Are our metaphors too much? Because we’re talking GPS style navigation, guys.
Data overwhelm is a huge HubSpot problem that not many businesses proactively plan for. HubSpot is POWERFUL and the capabilities (particularly with the right technical partner ::big grin::) are endless because it all. works. together. And when you plan proactively for how it’ll work for you? There are no limits.
Trust me when I tell you that you can’t build a mansion on a foundation built for a cottage. Scaling requires planning. One of the top complaints that we’ve seen in other consultants, CMOs and agencies that discuss Marketo’s advantage over HubSpot is the lack of reporting functionality and customization to business processes. In fact, we stumbled across this HubSpot vs Marketo YouTube Video from Shift Paradigm (a Marketo partner) where she basically tells YouTube that Marketo is superior to HubSpot by stating,
“Of course it’s a good idea to have everyone in the same system working with the same data, but maybe when one company tries to create and maintain a product to service the use cases to half a dozen departments and their dozens of employees it only facilitates half of what anyone actually wants.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS OF THIS VIDEO (beside the dig at HubSpot reporting, but we’ll come back to that in a second).
Listen to me carefully:
If you don’t configure your HubSpot properly in advance with a technical architect based on your unique business processes - you’re going to have a harder time. I’m not telling you that you won’t enjoy your HubSpot move or that you’ll fail. It’s just that when you fail to plan for YOUR business and settle on what HubSpot has setup to work for EVERY business, you might not get everything you need as you scale. In fact, you probably won’t get everything you need. And if you start too soon and with the wrong HubSpot Partner? You may even get downright pissed when you try to scale up or really integrate the rest of your business processes.
We love HubSpot Partners. But there are a lot of us now, and not all of us specialize in technical architecture. In fact, you don’t even have the ability to sift through the solutions directory until you at least start a HubSpot trial to see how many partners are marketing focused and don’t specialize in technical consulting. But as an aside - this should be one of the first things that you do when you sign up for a HubSpot trial. And Partners, if you don’t specialize? We suggest partnering with a HubSpot technical architect that does, but it’ll keep customers in your MRR for longer and happier in the long term when you’ve integrated all of their technology and started them off the right way, with thought given to the unique processes inside their business and how their big dreams for scaling in the long term.
Related: Your mom doesn’t work here - an open letter to HubSpot developer
\nThey can supercharge your reporting.
\nThe second biggest HubSpot complaint that she brings up in that video (I hope you watched the whole thing, because it’s valuable) is HubSpot’s reporting. She mentions that Marketo’s reporting is much better and that you can’t report ROI as well with HubSpot reports. This is NOT true. The fact is, you have endless capabilities in HubSpot to configure custom reports and dashboards, but sometimes it’s better to understand your data management and processes from the start in order to best determine how your reporting needs to be set up and tweaked over time. You’re trying to build an empire. Don’t limp through the cheapest onboarding you can find to get started as quickly as possible only to find later you’re struggling to produce effective reporting that really gives you intelligent business data to make growth decisions.
The RIGHT HubSpot technical expert is a whiz at reporting and can not only help you clean up your database before your migration, but configure your HubSpot reports and dashboards (and teach you how to tweak them) so that you’re setup the right way from the start. We can even integrate other pieces of data that live externally in a line of business application.
Once you’re configured, you can deliver all the data to your executive team or view data as the executive team in real time from anywhere without the need for long drawn out meetings. If you’re wondering if I’m telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life - let me just say: I’m not not telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life.
It’s not just about more convenient access to your statistics, it’s about sitting down with your team and determining, “Okay, now what?”
It’s about molding HubSpot around your business processes and not the other way around.
Being able to execute really amazing campaigns, create workflows that automate your marketing and execute social media and have it all intertwine with sales, service and operations is a DREAM. That’s a lot of information all funneling through one application. But when you take it all and process it through reporting and integrations in a way that really determines your ROI and helps you work smarter, you can make those important growth decisions more quickly.
There’s no question that you’re eager to get started, but let’s pause before you make a huge business decision that’s going to impact your organization for at least the next year (hopefully much longer if you really invest the right amount of time into onboarding and planning). This is a business decision for an application that is going to interlace itself into the very essence of your business. All departments, all data, and eventually all applications (ideally, we hope you’ll invest into all your integrations) will push data through your HubSpot portal. Take the time to engage a technical expert before you switch from Marketo to HubSpot and long before you determine which HubSpot Hubs are right for you.
You don’t pack light for the biggest move of your life.
Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
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A similar comparison can be made when you’re looking to migrate from one marketing automation platform to another. HubSpot customers sometimes feel this way when they’ve rushed through onboarding or been made to hastily sign an agreement before quarter / month or year end to “close a deal” without really “packing up” their assets or taking time to analyze how their business will scale with HubSpot. Just like packing for a trip or a big move, when you migrate from Marketo to HubSpot, the migration requires more than a little planning to make sure you’re not caught in a blizzard in shorts. Hiring a HubSpot technical architect for your Marketo-HubSpot migration is the best way to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for the journey ahead.
They can dig into your business processes.
\nWhile many businesses and their marketing teams are eager to integrate HubSpot and begin marketing right away on the platform, it’s a good idea before signing your contact to engage a HubSpot technical architect long before you sign the deal. Why? Not only could it save you money, but it could save you many headaches and make scaling much simpler. By hiring a technical partner before you sign up for HubSpot, you can dig into your website framework, the other software programs you use and your business processes to determine how the different Hubs can work with your business over time and determine your true cost of adoption. By establishing a relationship with a HubSpot technical architecture consultant, you can get the full picture of the expected investment, plan for it and understand exactly how your existing tools will work with HubSpot to prevent any unforeseen obstacles down the road.
One of the biggest regrets we hear from clients coming from marketing agencies is that they didn’t take the time to explore how HubSpot would scale with their business.
- \n
- Maybe they signed up for Marketing Hub Professional only to discover that their website really needed to be migrated over to HubSpot CMS because the configuration, coding and page speed was handicapping their rankings *and* their user experience. \n
- Maybe they went ahead and migrated their website over to HubSpot CMS, but didn’t account for their industry line of business application that they use every day and how they’d eventually factor that into the website and marketing efforts to seamlessly pass data and avoid double entry. \n
- Maybe they signed on with a marketing agency, but the agency used Wordpress developers and the Wordpress developer oversold their skills and failed them during the HubSpot CMS migration, so they’re months into paying for a HubSpot Hub that they’re not leveraging. \n
- Maybe they had tons of data that wasn’t valuable moving forward, but in a rush just moved everything over and got stuck paying for way more data or contact storage than they needed, resulting in faulty or unclear reporting \n
- Maybe they never configured their reporting dashboard to seriously prove which campaigns are really netting the most ROI. \n
A technical partner has seen all the SNAFUs when it comes to HubSpot CMS, Marketing Hub Pro and the obstacles that have come along with integrating Operations Hub, Service Hub or Sales Hub with business applications at every level. By engaging a HubSpot Architect from the start, they’ll ask you the right questions about your business processes to plan your HubSpot portal configuration properly from the beginning, audit your business applications, potential integrations and complete an entire discovery process so you can ask the right questions BEFORE you sign your contract with HubSpot. We’re like a realtor for your big move, but a little more useful. (JK who doesn’t love realtors.) Believe me, you’re gonna want someone like us to dig in, because they’re important to the experience you’ll have with HubSpot moving forward and as your business scales.
Why?
They can help you look to the future.
\nFor our next trick? Time travel. You don’t need a Delorean to jump to the future of where your business will go and how it can leverage HubSpot, you just need a really gifted HubSpot Technical Architect. The kind that can recall the 6 trillion things they’ve done at any given point in their career and regularly brainstorms with other HubSpot veteran co-horts to come up with solutions for unique businesses using all of HubSpot’s specialized tools (and then some). They can plan integrations, help you budget for the items that you’ll want to grow with you and help you configure your reporting dashboard so that you can get the insight you need to make the most powerful decisions for the road ahead.
Are our metaphors too much? Because we’re talking GPS style navigation, guys.
Data overwhelm is a huge HubSpot problem that not many businesses proactively plan for. HubSpot is POWERFUL and the capabilities (particularly with the right technical partner ::big grin::) are endless because it all. works. together. And when you plan proactively for how it’ll work for you? There are no limits.
Trust me when I tell you that you can’t build a mansion on a foundation built for a cottage. Scaling requires planning. One of the top complaints that we’ve seen in other consultants, CMOs and agencies that discuss Marketo’s advantage over HubSpot is the lack of reporting functionality and customization to business processes. In fact, we stumbled across this HubSpot vs Marketo YouTube Video from Shift Paradigm (a Marketo partner) where she basically tells YouTube that Marketo is superior to HubSpot by stating,
“Of course it’s a good idea to have everyone in the same system working with the same data, but maybe when one company tries to create and maintain a product to service the use cases to half a dozen departments and their dozens of employees it only facilitates half of what anyone actually wants.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS OF THIS VIDEO (beside the dig at HubSpot reporting, but we’ll come back to that in a second).
Listen to me carefully:
If you don’t configure your HubSpot properly in advance with a technical architect based on your unique business processes - you’re going to have a harder time. I’m not telling you that you won’t enjoy your HubSpot move or that you’ll fail. It’s just that when you fail to plan for YOUR business and settle on what HubSpot has setup to work for EVERY business, you might not get everything you need as you scale. In fact, you probably won’t get everything you need. And if you start too soon and with the wrong HubSpot Partner? You may even get downright pissed when you try to scale up or really integrate the rest of your business processes.
We love HubSpot Partners. But there are a lot of us now, and not all of us specialize in technical architecture. In fact, you don’t even have the ability to sift through the solutions directory until you at least start a HubSpot trial to see how many partners are marketing focused and don’t specialize in technical consulting. But as an aside - this should be one of the first things that you do when you sign up for a HubSpot trial. And Partners, if you don’t specialize? We suggest partnering with a HubSpot technical architect that does, but it’ll keep customers in your MRR for longer and happier in the long term when you’ve integrated all of their technology and started them off the right way, with thought given to the unique processes inside their business and how their big dreams for scaling in the long term.
Related: Your mom doesn’t work here - an open letter to HubSpot developer
\nThey can supercharge your reporting.
\nThe second biggest HubSpot complaint that she brings up in that video (I hope you watched the whole thing, because it’s valuable) is HubSpot’s reporting. She mentions that Marketo’s reporting is much better and that you can’t report ROI as well with HubSpot reports. This is NOT true. The fact is, you have endless capabilities in HubSpot to configure custom reports and dashboards, but sometimes it’s better to understand your data management and processes from the start in order to best determine how your reporting needs to be set up and tweaked over time. You’re trying to build an empire. Don’t limp through the cheapest onboarding you can find to get started as quickly as possible only to find later you’re struggling to produce effective reporting that really gives you intelligent business data to make growth decisions.
The RIGHT HubSpot technical expert is a whiz at reporting and can not only help you clean up your database before your migration, but configure your HubSpot reports and dashboards (and teach you how to tweak them) so that you’re setup the right way from the start. We can even integrate other pieces of data that live externally in a line of business application.
Once you’re configured, you can deliver all the data to your executive team or view data as the executive team in real time from anywhere without the need for long drawn out meetings. If you’re wondering if I’m telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life - let me just say: I’m not not telling you that hiring a HubSpot technical architect will improve your quality of life.
It’s not just about more convenient access to your statistics, it’s about sitting down with your team and determining, “Okay, now what?”
It’s about molding HubSpot around your business processes and not the other way around.
Being able to execute really amazing campaigns, create workflows that automate your marketing and execute social media and have it all intertwine with sales, service and operations is a DREAM. That’s a lot of information all funneling through one application. But when you take it all and process it through reporting and integrations in a way that really determines your ROI and helps you work smarter, you can make those important growth decisions more quickly.
There’s no question that you’re eager to get started, but let’s pause before you make a huge business decision that’s going to impact your organization for at least the next year (hopefully much longer if you really invest the right amount of time into onboarding and planning). This is a business decision for an application that is going to interlace itself into the very essence of your business. All departments, all data, and eventually all applications (ideally, we hope you’ll invest into all your integrations) will push data through your HubSpot portal. Take the time to engage a technical expert before you switch from Marketo to HubSpot and long before you determine which HubSpot Hubs are right for you.
You don’t pack light for the biggest move of your life.
Do you know how there are two types of people when packing for a trip? The kind that make lists, itineraries, pack in advance and plan for every contingency and then people that wing it? The people that wing it might get stuck with the wrong sorts of clothes because they forgot to check the weather, or forget important items like their toothbrush or hair brush. They’re so excited about the destination, they forget that their trip will go much more smoothly if they stop and take some time to prepare in advance for what they’ll face when they arrive.
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As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
Communicate expectations in advance.
\nYou wouldn’t believe the number of stories we have to sit through and the different circumstances we hear as to why we have to white label our services. Here’s a little secret - we don’t really care why. We just want to know how to avoid weird scenarios like the customer going around you, requesting items that are outside of the scope or trying to push in work behind your back. Full transparency is going to allow us to work as efficiently as possible, without having to ask you a lot of additional questions.
We have no issues being your preferred white label HubSpot CMS developer or reporting contractor as long as the expectations and boundaries are crystal clear in advance. If you prefer to be the gatekeeper, we’re totally fine with that. Just know that the more figurative telephones you add in the middle of the process, the less efficiently work will get done.
Commit to clear expectations from the outset and we’ll be sure to be clear about ours as well. We want this relationship and every project to be as seamless as possible and we’re going to make sure we stay within the parameters of what we discuss, because agencies are our best customers and want to keep you guys happy by keeping your customers happy. That said, lay out the ground rules in advance of the engagement. If we’re not comfortable with something, we’ll be able to tell you at the beginning and we’ll be able to negotiate accordingly.
Understand that working in white label formats requires more work.
\nFrom having to login to entirely separate e-mail accounts to texting you to get two-factor authentication codes, the number of situations where we end up having to delay work for access issues are increased when we white label. If we’re not working in your client’s portal under our domain and e-mail, it’s going to cost a little more than if we didn’t have to jump through all those additional hoops.
As you probably know, HubSpot Partners get awarded points for engaging inside customer portals - so if all that work is happening under your e-mail and domain, it comes at an additional cost to us and you should expect to have that passed through to maintain the white label service that you’re requesting.
While that may be a tough pill for some agencies to swallow, the hard fact of the matter is that really high quality, experienced HubSpot technical specialists aren’t as desperate for work as you might think they are. Sometimes new agency clients approach us feeling they’ve got our golden ticket. Don’t get us wrong, we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have with our agency partners, but white label scenarios are more time consuming than working directly with the client. Many HubSpot contractors are inundated with requests and having to jump through more hoops to field them isn’t appealing to a contractor that is already very busy.
If we’re working in a portal under your domain, you’ll likely be billed accordingly and you should expect it. Not only are we not getting a piece of the MRR credit in that portal towards our Partner tiering, but we’re sometimes having to have multiple additional meetings and conversations more than once when we attempt to play telephone to help troubleshoot client issues. If we spend more time doing more work, and get less from it than we would by working with a client directly, there is more expense on our end, so there is more expense on your end. It’s as simple as that.
Be transparent with your fees.
\n![](\"https://i.imgflip.com/7i10dl.jpg\")
We get it. There’s time, effort and work involved in facilitating the details of any contract, even if you’re just coordinating a referral. Communicate your plans in advance for how you’ll be charging the client, how you need to be billed and how we should expect to be paid. We recently conducted an informal survey about margins relative to white label services for HubSpot Partners and understand that many agencies add anywhere from 10-30% to our fee structure to account for their time, but we need you to communicate this in the event that the client asks how much we charge or about any other details.
If you’ve maintained a good, honest rapport with your clients, they understand that the time you spend collaborating with us is valuable and billable. The more transparent you are about your fees with the client and with us, the easier we can all work together and the more sustainable the relationship is for everyone long term.
Unless…
Don’t be greedy. OR offensive.
\nWe found out recently that a white label partner we were working with was charging 300% of our fees for a service that we were white labeling for them that didn’t require any involvement on their end whatsoever. It was pretty offensive for us, we found out accidentally and we’re pretty sure if the client knew, they’d be equally offended.
\nHere’s the thing - you charge what you charge. Sometimes white label partners charge a little less than an agency might charge. When there are significant discrepancies between what your white label partner charges and what you charge, you need to have an honest and open conversation and do what is right. If the client would’ve approached us and told us they were willing to pay a little more, charge the client a little less and still make a really good margin on the service, they wouldn’t have lost their ability to partner with us.
Again, maybe you think what you charge is none of our business. But we’re human and so are your customers. If they know they can find a comparable service for less or that you’re gouging your contractors for really no other reason other than the client can pay it - it’s not going to look good. Be an ethical business and do what’s right by communicating with your contractors and clients in advance. There’s no reason that you can’t come up with a compromise to get paid your fees, make your contractor happy and make your client understand the value of the products or services at the very same time.
Don’t scope creep.
\n
You hate it when clients do it to you, but agencies are sometimes culprits themselves when it comes to scope creep on a project. Clearly delineate the parameters of your projects with both your contractor and your client. By establishing them in advance, the client will know exactly what is included. Leave yourself padding when creating budgets with your clients and work through individual scenarios on a case by case basis with your contractors to make sure that both you and the client are being charged properly for the services you’re getting.
Don’t ask for extra features, pretend you didn’t understand the scope of the original agreement or try to push through an extra request at the tail end of a project. Be the client you want to work with! Your contractors will appreciate it so much.
\nBe gracious with the possible scenarios that may transpire.
\nWe can’t count the number of awkward positions we’ve been put in as a white label contractor. From customers trying to see how much we charge to customers asking to work with us directly and fire an agency - it’s rare, but sometimes there’s some weird stuff that happens. Like, the time that a customer of ours Googled Nicholas Decker HubSpot and found us on an agency’s team page randomly (they added us without our knowledge) and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we don’t actually work for that agency…
Communication is critical, so *we* can operate the right way within it. Make sure that you trust the white label contractors that you work with to make the right decisions that are best for everyone involved and provide a safe format for them to do that. If you don’t trust your contractors, it’s hard for them to feel safe communicating the scenarios that sometimes arise. For example, if the customer is trying to have conversations with a contractor behind your back, there’s a lot to learn from that situation and your contractor should feel safe bringing it up.
By working together to tackle the issue, you can ensure not only that everyone leaves with the optimal outcome, but that you can keep your relationship with both the client and the contractor intact.
Having successful white label relationships can open up your agency to lots of additional service offerings that will not only help you expand the number of customers you reach, but become an even more trusted resource to your HubSpot clients. When you hire an experienced HubSpot professional, you can go far beyond offering marketing services and really digging into the complex business processes and other issues that your clients have that sometimes get in the way of closing deals.
Be a good white label partner by following this simple (and somewhat common sense) list of tips for working with HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
Communicate expectations in advance.
\nYou wouldn’t believe the number of stories we have to sit through and the different circumstances we hear as to why we have to white label our services. Here’s a little secret - we don’t really care why. We just want to know how to avoid weird scenarios like the customer going around you, requesting items that are outside of the scope or trying to push in work behind your back. Full transparency is going to allow us to work as efficiently as possible, without having to ask you a lot of additional questions.
We have no issues being your preferred white label HubSpot CMS developer or reporting contractor as long as the expectations and boundaries are crystal clear in advance. If you prefer to be the gatekeeper, we’re totally fine with that. Just know that the more figurative telephones you add in the middle of the process, the less efficiently work will get done.
Commit to clear expectations from the outset and we’ll be sure to be clear about ours as well. We want this relationship and every project to be as seamless as possible and we’re going to make sure we stay within the parameters of what we discuss, because agencies are our best customers and want to keep you guys happy by keeping your customers happy. That said, lay out the ground rules in advance of the engagement. If we’re not comfortable with something, we’ll be able to tell you at the beginning and we’ll be able to negotiate accordingly.
Understand that working in white label formats requires more work.
\nFrom having to login to entirely separate e-mail accounts to texting you to get two-factor authentication codes, the number of situations where we end up having to delay work for access issues are increased when we white label. If we’re not working in your client’s portal under our domain and e-mail, it’s going to cost a little more than if we didn’t have to jump through all those additional hoops.
As you probably know, HubSpot Partners get awarded points for engaging inside customer portals - so if all that work is happening under your e-mail and domain, it comes at an additional cost to us and you should expect to have that passed through to maintain the white label service that you’re requesting.
While that may be a tough pill for some agencies to swallow, the hard fact of the matter is that really high quality, experienced HubSpot technical specialists aren’t as desperate for work as you might think they are. Sometimes new agency clients approach us feeling they’ve got our golden ticket. Don’t get us wrong, we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have with our agency partners, but white label scenarios are more time consuming than working directly with the client. Many HubSpot contractors are inundated with requests and having to jump through more hoops to field them isn’t appealing to a contractor that is already very busy.
If we’re working in a portal under your domain, you’ll likely be billed accordingly and you should expect it. Not only are we not getting a piece of the MRR credit in that portal towards our Partner tiering, but we’re sometimes having to have multiple additional meetings and conversations more than once when we attempt to play telephone to help troubleshoot client issues. If we spend more time doing more work, and get less from it than we would by working with a client directly, there is more expense on our end, so there is more expense on your end. It’s as simple as that.
Be transparent with your fees.
\n
We get it. There’s time, effort and work involved in facilitating the details of any contract, even if you’re just coordinating a referral. Communicate your plans in advance for how you’ll be charging the client, how you need to be billed and how we should expect to be paid. We recently conducted an informal survey about margins relative to white label services for HubSpot Partners and understand that many agencies add anywhere from 10-30% to our fee structure to account for their time, but we need you to communicate this in the event that the client asks how much we charge or about any other details.
If you’ve maintained a good, honest rapport with your clients, they understand that the time you spend collaborating with us is valuable and billable. The more transparent you are about your fees with the client and with us, the easier we can all work together and the more sustainable the relationship is for everyone long term.
Unless…
Don’t be greedy. OR offensive.
\nWe found out recently that a white label partner we were working with was charging 300% of our fees for a service that we were white labeling for them that didn’t require any involvement on their end whatsoever. It was pretty offensive for us, we found out accidentally and we’re pretty sure if the client knew, they’d be equally offended.
\nHere’s the thing - you charge what you charge. Sometimes white label partners charge a little less than an agency might charge. When there are significant discrepancies between what your white label partner charges and what you charge, you need to have an honest and open conversation and do what is right. If the client would’ve approached us and told us they were willing to pay a little more, charge the client a little less and still make a really good margin on the service, they wouldn’t have lost their ability to partner with us.
Again, maybe you think what you charge is none of our business. But we’re human and so are your customers. If they know they can find a comparable service for less or that you’re gouging your contractors for really no other reason other than the client can pay it - it’s not going to look good. Be an ethical business and do what’s right by communicating with your contractors and clients in advance. There’s no reason that you can’t come up with a compromise to get paid your fees, make your contractor happy and make your client understand the value of the products or services at the very same time.
Don’t scope creep.
\n
You hate it when clients do it to you, but agencies are sometimes culprits themselves when it comes to scope creep on a project. Clearly delineate the parameters of your projects with both your contractor and your client. By establishing them in advance, the client will know exactly what is included. Leave yourself padding when creating budgets with your clients and work through individual scenarios on a case by case basis with your contractors to make sure that both you and the client are being charged properly for the services you’re getting.
Don’t ask for extra features, pretend you didn’t understand the scope of the original agreement or try to push through an extra request at the tail end of a project. Be the client you want to work with! Your contractors will appreciate it so much.
\nBe gracious with the possible scenarios that may transpire.
\nWe can’t count the number of awkward positions we’ve been put in as a white label contractor. From customers trying to see how much we charge to customers asking to work with us directly and fire an agency - it’s rare, but sometimes there’s some weird stuff that happens. Like, the time that a customer of ours Googled Nicholas Decker HubSpot and found us on an agency’s team page randomly (they added us without our knowledge) and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we don’t actually work for that agency…
Communication is critical, so *we* can operate the right way within it. Make sure that you trust the white label contractors that you work with to make the right decisions that are best for everyone involved and provide a safe format for them to do that. If you don’t trust your contractors, it’s hard for them to feel safe communicating the scenarios that sometimes arise. For example, if the customer is trying to have conversations with a contractor behind your back, there’s a lot to learn from that situation and your contractor should feel safe bringing it up.
By working together to tackle the issue, you can ensure not only that everyone leaves with the optimal outcome, but that you can keep your relationship with both the client and the contractor intact.
Having successful white label relationships can open up your agency to lots of additional service offerings that will not only help you expand the number of customers you reach, but become an even more trusted resource to your HubSpot clients. When you hire an experienced HubSpot professional, you can go far beyond offering marketing services and really digging into the complex business processes and other issues that your clients have that sometimes get in the way of closing deals.
Be a good white label partner by following this simple (and somewhat common sense) list of tips for working with HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
Communicate expectations in advance.
\nYou wouldn’t believe the number of stories we have to sit through and the different circumstances we hear as to why we have to white label our services. Here’s a little secret - we don’t really care why. We just want to know how to avoid weird scenarios like the customer going around you, requesting items that are outside of the scope or trying to push in work behind your back. Full transparency is going to allow us to work as efficiently as possible, without having to ask you a lot of additional questions.
We have no issues being your preferred white label HubSpot CMS developer or reporting contractor as long as the expectations and boundaries are crystal clear in advance. If you prefer to be the gatekeeper, we’re totally fine with that. Just know that the more figurative telephones you add in the middle of the process, the less efficiently work will get done.
Commit to clear expectations from the outset and we’ll be sure to be clear about ours as well. We want this relationship and every project to be as seamless as possible and we’re going to make sure we stay within the parameters of what we discuss, because agencies are our best customers and want to keep you guys happy by keeping your customers happy. That said, lay out the ground rules in advance of the engagement. If we’re not comfortable with something, we’ll be able to tell you at the beginning and we’ll be able to negotiate accordingly.
Understand that working in white label formats requires more work.
\nFrom having to login to entirely separate e-mail accounts to texting you to get two-factor authentication codes, the number of situations where we end up having to delay work for access issues are increased when we white label. If we’re not working in your client’s portal under our domain and e-mail, it’s going to cost a little more than if we didn’t have to jump through all those additional hoops.
As you probably know, HubSpot Partners get awarded points for engaging inside customer portals - so if all that work is happening under your e-mail and domain, it comes at an additional cost to us and you should expect to have that passed through to maintain the white label service that you’re requesting.
While that may be a tough pill for some agencies to swallow, the hard fact of the matter is that really high quality, experienced HubSpot technical specialists aren’t as desperate for work as you might think they are. Sometimes new agency clients approach us feeling they’ve got our golden ticket. Don’t get us wrong, we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have with our agency partners, but white label scenarios are more time consuming than working directly with the client. Many HubSpot contractors are inundated with requests and having to jump through more hoops to field them isn’t appealing to a contractor that is already very busy.
If we’re working in a portal under your domain, you’ll likely be billed accordingly and you should expect it. Not only are we not getting a piece of the MRR credit in that portal towards our Partner tiering, but we’re sometimes having to have multiple additional meetings and conversations more than once when we attempt to play telephone to help troubleshoot client issues. If we spend more time doing more work, and get less from it than we would by working with a client directly, there is more expense on our end, so there is more expense on your end. It’s as simple as that.
Be transparent with your fees.
\n
We get it. There’s time, effort and work involved in facilitating the details of any contract, even if you’re just coordinating a referral. Communicate your plans in advance for how you’ll be charging the client, how you need to be billed and how we should expect to be paid. We recently conducted an informal survey about margins relative to white label services for HubSpot Partners and understand that many agencies add anywhere from 10-30% to our fee structure to account for their time, but we need you to communicate this in the event that the client asks how much we charge or about any other details.
If you’ve maintained a good, honest rapport with your clients, they understand that the time you spend collaborating with us is valuable and billable. The more transparent you are about your fees with the client and with us, the easier we can all work together and the more sustainable the relationship is for everyone long term.
Unless…
Don’t be greedy. OR offensive.
\nWe found out recently that a white label partner we were working with was charging 300% of our fees for a service that we were white labeling for them that didn’t require any involvement on their end whatsoever. It was pretty offensive for us, we found out accidentally and we’re pretty sure if the client knew, they’d be equally offended.
\nHere’s the thing - you charge what you charge. Sometimes white label partners charge a little less than an agency might charge. When there are significant discrepancies between what your white label partner charges and what you charge, you need to have an honest and open conversation and do what is right. If the client would’ve approached us and told us they were willing to pay a little more, charge the client a little less and still make a really good margin on the service, they wouldn’t have lost their ability to partner with us.
Again, maybe you think what you charge is none of our business. But we’re human and so are your customers. If they know they can find a comparable service for less or that you’re gouging your contractors for really no other reason other than the client can pay it - it’s not going to look good. Be an ethical business and do what’s right by communicating with your contractors and clients in advance. There’s no reason that you can’t come up with a compromise to get paid your fees, make your contractor happy and make your client understand the value of the products or services at the very same time.
Don’t scope creep.
\n
You hate it when clients do it to you, but agencies are sometimes culprits themselves when it comes to scope creep on a project. Clearly delineate the parameters of your projects with both your contractor and your client. By establishing them in advance, the client will know exactly what is included. Leave yourself padding when creating budgets with your clients and work through individual scenarios on a case by case basis with your contractors to make sure that both you and the client are being charged properly for the services you’re getting.
Don’t ask for extra features, pretend you didn’t understand the scope of the original agreement or try to push through an extra request at the tail end of a project. Be the client you want to work with! Your contractors will appreciate it so much.
\nBe gracious with the possible scenarios that may transpire.
\nWe can’t count the number of awkward positions we’ve been put in as a white label contractor. From customers trying to see how much we charge to customers asking to work with us directly and fire an agency - it’s rare, but sometimes there’s some weird stuff that happens. Like, the time that a customer of ours Googled Nicholas Decker HubSpot and found us on an agency’s team page randomly (they added us without our knowledge) and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we don’t actually work for that agency…
Communication is critical, so *we* can operate the right way within it. Make sure that you trust the white label contractors that you work with to make the right decisions that are best for everyone involved and provide a safe format for them to do that. If you don’t trust your contractors, it’s hard for them to feel safe communicating the scenarios that sometimes arise. For example, if the customer is trying to have conversations with a contractor behind your back, there’s a lot to learn from that situation and your contractor should feel safe bringing it up.
By working together to tackle the issue, you can ensure not only that everyone leaves with the optimal outcome, but that you can keep your relationship with both the client and the contractor intact.
Having successful white label relationships can open up your agency to lots of additional service offerings that will not only help you expand the number of customers you reach, but become an even more trusted resource to your HubSpot clients. When you hire an experienced HubSpot professional, you can go far beyond offering marketing services and really digging into the complex business processes and other issues that your clients have that sometimes get in the way of closing deals.
Be a good white label partner by following this simple (and somewhat common sense) list of tips for working with HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
Communicate expectations in advance.
\nYou wouldn’t believe the number of stories we have to sit through and the different circumstances we hear as to why we have to white label our services. Here’s a little secret - we don’t really care why. We just want to know how to avoid weird scenarios like the customer going around you, requesting items that are outside of the scope or trying to push in work behind your back. Full transparency is going to allow us to work as efficiently as possible, without having to ask you a lot of additional questions.
We have no issues being your preferred white label HubSpot CMS developer or reporting contractor as long as the expectations and boundaries are crystal clear in advance. If you prefer to be the gatekeeper, we’re totally fine with that. Just know that the more figurative telephones you add in the middle of the process, the less efficiently work will get done.
Commit to clear expectations from the outset and we’ll be sure to be clear about ours as well. We want this relationship and every project to be as seamless as possible and we’re going to make sure we stay within the parameters of what we discuss, because agencies are our best customers and want to keep you guys happy by keeping your customers happy. That said, lay out the ground rules in advance of the engagement. If we’re not comfortable with something, we’ll be able to tell you at the beginning and we’ll be able to negotiate accordingly.
Understand that working in white label formats requires more work.
\nFrom having to login to entirely separate e-mail accounts to texting you to get two-factor authentication codes, the number of situations where we end up having to delay work for access issues are increased when we white label. If we’re not working in your client’s portal under our domain and e-mail, it’s going to cost a little more than if we didn’t have to jump through all those additional hoops.
As you probably know, HubSpot Partners get awarded points for engaging inside customer portals - so if all that work is happening under your e-mail and domain, it comes at an additional cost to us and you should expect to have that passed through to maintain the white label service that you’re requesting.
While that may be a tough pill for some agencies to swallow, the hard fact of the matter is that really high quality, experienced HubSpot technical specialists aren’t as desperate for work as you might think they are. Sometimes new agency clients approach us feeling they’ve got our golden ticket. Don’t get us wrong, we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have with our agency partners, but white label scenarios are more time consuming than working directly with the client. Many HubSpot contractors are inundated with requests and having to jump through more hoops to field them isn’t appealing to a contractor that is already very busy.
If we’re working in a portal under your domain, you’ll likely be billed accordingly and you should expect it. Not only are we not getting a piece of the MRR credit in that portal towards our Partner tiering, but we’re sometimes having to have multiple additional meetings and conversations more than once when we attempt to play telephone to help troubleshoot client issues. If we spend more time doing more work, and get less from it than we would by working with a client directly, there is more expense on our end, so there is more expense on your end. It’s as simple as that.
Be transparent with your fees.
\n
We get it. There’s time, effort and work involved in facilitating the details of any contract, even if you’re just coordinating a referral. Communicate your plans in advance for how you’ll be charging the client, how you need to be billed and how we should expect to be paid. We recently conducted an informal survey about margins relative to white label services for HubSpot Partners and understand that many agencies add anywhere from 10-30% to our fee structure to account for their time, but we need you to communicate this in the event that the client asks how much we charge or about any other details.
If you’ve maintained a good, honest rapport with your clients, they understand that the time you spend collaborating with us is valuable and billable. The more transparent you are about your fees with the client and with us, the easier we can all work together and the more sustainable the relationship is for everyone long term.
Unless…
Don’t be greedy. OR offensive.
\nWe found out recently that a white label partner we were working with was charging 300% of our fees for a service that we were white labeling for them that didn’t require any involvement on their end whatsoever. It was pretty offensive for us, we found out accidentally and we’re pretty sure if the client knew, they’d be equally offended.
\nHere’s the thing - you charge what you charge. Sometimes white label partners charge a little less than an agency might charge. When there are significant discrepancies between what your white label partner charges and what you charge, you need to have an honest and open conversation and do what is right. If the client would’ve approached us and told us they were willing to pay a little more, charge the client a little less and still make a really good margin on the service, they wouldn’t have lost their ability to partner with us.
Again, maybe you think what you charge is none of our business. But we’re human and so are your customers. If they know they can find a comparable service for less or that you’re gouging your contractors for really no other reason other than the client can pay it - it’s not going to look good. Be an ethical business and do what’s right by communicating with your contractors and clients in advance. There’s no reason that you can’t come up with a compromise to get paid your fees, make your contractor happy and make your client understand the value of the products or services at the very same time.
Don’t scope creep.
\n
You hate it when clients do it to you, but agencies are sometimes culprits themselves when it comes to scope creep on a project. Clearly delineate the parameters of your projects with both your contractor and your client. By establishing them in advance, the client will know exactly what is included. Leave yourself padding when creating budgets with your clients and work through individual scenarios on a case by case basis with your contractors to make sure that both you and the client are being charged properly for the services you’re getting.
Don’t ask for extra features, pretend you didn’t understand the scope of the original agreement or try to push through an extra request at the tail end of a project. Be the client you want to work with! Your contractors will appreciate it so much.
\nBe gracious with the possible scenarios that may transpire.
\nWe can’t count the number of awkward positions we’ve been put in as a white label contractor. From customers trying to see how much we charge to customers asking to work with us directly and fire an agency - it’s rare, but sometimes there’s some weird stuff that happens. Like, the time that a customer of ours Googled Nicholas Decker HubSpot and found us on an agency’s team page randomly (they added us without our knowledge) and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we don’t actually work for that agency…
Communication is critical, so *we* can operate the right way within it. Make sure that you trust the white label contractors that you work with to make the right decisions that are best for everyone involved and provide a safe format for them to do that. If you don’t trust your contractors, it’s hard for them to feel safe communicating the scenarios that sometimes arise. For example, if the customer is trying to have conversations with a contractor behind your back, there’s a lot to learn from that situation and your contractor should feel safe bringing it up.
By working together to tackle the issue, you can ensure not only that everyone leaves with the optimal outcome, but that you can keep your relationship with both the client and the contractor intact.
Having successful white label relationships can open up your agency to lots of additional service offerings that will not only help you expand the number of customers you reach, but become an even more trusted resource to your HubSpot clients. When you hire an experienced HubSpot professional, you can go far beyond offering marketing services and really digging into the complex business processes and other issues that your clients have that sometimes get in the way of closing deals.
Be a good white label partner by following this simple (and somewhat common sense) list of tips for working with HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
Communicate expectations in advance.
\nYou wouldn’t believe the number of stories we have to sit through and the different circumstances we hear as to why we have to white label our services. Here’s a little secret - we don’t really care why. We just want to know how to avoid weird scenarios like the customer going around you, requesting items that are outside of the scope or trying to push in work behind your back. Full transparency is going to allow us to work as efficiently as possible, without having to ask you a lot of additional questions.
We have no issues being your preferred white label HubSpot CMS developer or reporting contractor as long as the expectations and boundaries are crystal clear in advance. If you prefer to be the gatekeeper, we’re totally fine with that. Just know that the more figurative telephones you add in the middle of the process, the less efficiently work will get done.
Commit to clear expectations from the outset and we’ll be sure to be clear about ours as well. We want this relationship and every project to be as seamless as possible and we’re going to make sure we stay within the parameters of what we discuss, because agencies are our best customers and want to keep you guys happy by keeping your customers happy. That said, lay out the ground rules in advance of the engagement. If we’re not comfortable with something, we’ll be able to tell you at the beginning and we’ll be able to negotiate accordingly.
Understand that working in white label formats requires more work.
\nFrom having to login to entirely separate e-mail accounts to texting you to get two-factor authentication codes, the number of situations where we end up having to delay work for access issues are increased when we white label. If we’re not working in your client’s portal under our domain and e-mail, it’s going to cost a little more than if we didn’t have to jump through all those additional hoops.
As you probably know, HubSpot Partners get awarded points for engaging inside customer portals - so if all that work is happening under your e-mail and domain, it comes at an additional cost to us and you should expect to have that passed through to maintain the white label service that you’re requesting.
While that may be a tough pill for some agencies to swallow, the hard fact of the matter is that really high quality, experienced HubSpot technical specialists aren’t as desperate for work as you might think they are. Sometimes new agency clients approach us feeling they’ve got our golden ticket. Don’t get us wrong, we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have with our agency partners, but white label scenarios are more time consuming than working directly with the client. Many HubSpot contractors are inundated with requests and having to jump through more hoops to field them isn’t appealing to a contractor that is already very busy.
If we’re working in a portal under your domain, you’ll likely be billed accordingly and you should expect it. Not only are we not getting a piece of the MRR credit in that portal towards our Partner tiering, but we’re sometimes having to have multiple additional meetings and conversations more than once when we attempt to play telephone to help troubleshoot client issues. If we spend more time doing more work, and get less from it than we would by working with a client directly, there is more expense on our end, so there is more expense on your end. It’s as simple as that.
Be transparent with your fees.
\n
We get it. There’s time, effort and work involved in facilitating the details of any contract, even if you’re just coordinating a referral. Communicate your plans in advance for how you’ll be charging the client, how you need to be billed and how we should expect to be paid. We recently conducted an informal survey about margins relative to white label services for HubSpot Partners and understand that many agencies add anywhere from 10-30% to our fee structure to account for their time, but we need you to communicate this in the event that the client asks how much we charge or about any other details.
If you’ve maintained a good, honest rapport with your clients, they understand that the time you spend collaborating with us is valuable and billable. The more transparent you are about your fees with the client and with us, the easier we can all work together and the more sustainable the relationship is for everyone long term.
Unless…
Don’t be greedy. OR offensive.
\nWe found out recently that a white label partner we were working with was charging 300% of our fees for a service that we were white labeling for them that didn’t require any involvement on their end whatsoever. It was pretty offensive for us, we found out accidentally and we’re pretty sure if the client knew, they’d be equally offended.
\nHere’s the thing - you charge what you charge. Sometimes white label partners charge a little less than an agency might charge. When there are significant discrepancies between what your white label partner charges and what you charge, you need to have an honest and open conversation and do what is right. If the client would’ve approached us and told us they were willing to pay a little more, charge the client a little less and still make a really good margin on the service, they wouldn’t have lost their ability to partner with us.
Again, maybe you think what you charge is none of our business. But we’re human and so are your customers. If they know they can find a comparable service for less or that you’re gouging your contractors for really no other reason other than the client can pay it - it’s not going to look good. Be an ethical business and do what’s right by communicating with your contractors and clients in advance. There’s no reason that you can’t come up with a compromise to get paid your fees, make your contractor happy and make your client understand the value of the products or services at the very same time.
Don’t scope creep.
\n
You hate it when clients do it to you, but agencies are sometimes culprits themselves when it comes to scope creep on a project. Clearly delineate the parameters of your projects with both your contractor and your client. By establishing them in advance, the client will know exactly what is included. Leave yourself padding when creating budgets with your clients and work through individual scenarios on a case by case basis with your contractors to make sure that both you and the client are being charged properly for the services you’re getting.
Don’t ask for extra features, pretend you didn’t understand the scope of the original agreement or try to push through an extra request at the tail end of a project. Be the client you want to work with! Your contractors will appreciate it so much.
\nBe gracious with the possible scenarios that may transpire.
\nWe can’t count the number of awkward positions we’ve been put in as a white label contractor. From customers trying to see how much we charge to customers asking to work with us directly and fire an agency - it’s rare, but sometimes there’s some weird stuff that happens. Like, the time that a customer of ours Googled Nicholas Decker HubSpot and found us on an agency’s team page randomly (they added us without our knowledge) and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we don’t actually work for that agency…
Communication is critical, so *we* can operate the right way within it. Make sure that you trust the white label contractors that you work with to make the right decisions that are best for everyone involved and provide a safe format for them to do that. If you don’t trust your contractors, it’s hard for them to feel safe communicating the scenarios that sometimes arise. For example, if the customer is trying to have conversations with a contractor behind your back, there’s a lot to learn from that situation and your contractor should feel safe bringing it up.
By working together to tackle the issue, you can ensure not only that everyone leaves with the optimal outcome, but that you can keep your relationship with both the client and the contractor intact.
Having successful white label relationships can open up your agency to lots of additional service offerings that will not only help you expand the number of customers you reach, but become an even more trusted resource to your HubSpot clients. When you hire an experienced HubSpot professional, you can go far beyond offering marketing services and really digging into the complex business processes and other issues that your clients have that sometimes get in the way of closing deals.
Be a good white label partner by following this simple (and somewhat common sense) list of tips for working with HubSpot CMS development and HubSpot reporting contractors.
As HubSpot has grown over the years and expanded their product offerings, there has been more and more opportunities for HubSpot Partner agencies to specialize, expand their service offerings and really be a comprehensive business consultant to their client base. It has also meant investing heavily in the right kind of talent that will help situate your agency to really support the success of your customer in the long term. Exceptional talent is hard to get and harder to keep, particularly in the Millennial generation. In 2014, Deloitte conducted a survey of 7,800 Millennials where 70% of them reportedly expected to be working for themselves by 2025. This generation was also predicted to occupy 75% of the workforce by 2025.
It’s no wonder agencies are struggling with a talent gap. The number of people with deep experience inside the HubSpot platform aren’t many and a lot of the veterans have moved on from being an employee at an agency to opening their own agency. It’s not enough anymore to hire out a new graduate with a fresh degree in Communications or Marketing, get them trained on HubSpot Marketing Pro and send them on their way.
It might’ve worked in the past, but the types of clients that HubSpot is angling for now are much more complex. They’re moving more and more towards Enterprise level clients and the small business in large part is priced out. While HubSpot has recently introduced some packages that are much more small business friendly, when it comes to building the agency that you want to build and servicing multiple customer portals - you sometimes need some backup.
A specialized technical, architecture or reporting partner can dig deeply into an organization’s business processes and glean specialized insight that the average marketing agency employee wouldn’t have experience with. Hiring on a full time version of these specialized contractors would run you hundreds of thousands of dollars. While we prefer to have work referred to us, because we can work faster and more efficiently, we understand that some partners aren’t comfortable with that. However, to help make sure that no boundaries are crossed and things go as smoothly as possible, we wanted to write down a few helpful tips coming from a specialized partner to help you successfully white label HubSpot CMS development, HubSpot architecture, and HubSpot Reporting contractors.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers.
\nIt doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.
\nAccording to Zippia.com:
\n- \n
- 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy \n
- 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience \n
- Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one. \n
- There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. \n
- MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase. \n
TEN TIMES. Ouch.
You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners.
Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly
\nHere’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point…
\n\n
When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.
\n![\"HAD](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/HAD%20A%20BAD%20EXPERIENCE.jpg\")
It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added.
When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met.
Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what?
\nYou’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.
\nYou really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.
\nWhen you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.
\nWhen you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry?
\nYou’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow.
I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way.
Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer.
Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.
So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this?
Stick to what you’re good at.
\nStop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of.
\n
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently.
Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much.
Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal.
Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line.
We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers.
\nIt doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.
\nAccording to Zippia.com:
\n- \n
- 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy \n
- 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience \n
- Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one. \n
- There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. \n
- MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase. \n
TEN TIMES. Ouch.
You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners.
Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly
\nHere’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point…
\n\n
When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.
\n
It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added.
When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met.
Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what?
\nYou’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.
\nYou really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.
\nWhen you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.
\nWhen you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry?
\nYou’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow.
I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way.
Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer.
Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.
So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this?
Stick to what you’re good at.
\nStop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of.
\n
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently.
Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much.
Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal.
Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line.
We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers.
\nIt doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.
\nAccording to Zippia.com:
\n- \n
- 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy \n
- 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience \n
- Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one. \n
- There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. \n
- MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase. \n
TEN TIMES. Ouch.
You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners.
Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly
\nHere’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point…
\n\n
When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.
\n
It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added.
When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met.
Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what?
\nYou’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.
\nYou really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.
\nWhen you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.
\nWhen you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry?
\nYou’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow.
I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way.
Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer.
Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.
So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this?
Stick to what you’re good at.
\nStop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of.
\n
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently.
Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much.
Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal.
Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line.
We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers.
\nIt doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.
\nAccording to Zippia.com:
\n- \n
- 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy \n
- 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience \n
- Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one. \n
- There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. \n
- MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase. \n
TEN TIMES. Ouch.
You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners.
Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly
\nHere’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point…
\n\n
When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.
\n
It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added.
When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met.
Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what?
\nYou’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.
\nYou really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.
\nWhen you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.
\nWhen you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry?
\nYou’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow.
I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way.
Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer.
Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.
So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this?
Stick to what you’re good at.
\nStop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of.
\n
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently.
Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much.
Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal.
Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line.
We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers.
\nIt doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.
\nAccording to Zippia.com:
\n- \n
- 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy \n
- 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience \n
- Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one. \n
- There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. \n
- MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase. \n
TEN TIMES. Ouch.
You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners.
Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly
\nHere’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point…
\n\n
When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.
\n
It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added.
When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met.
Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what?
\nYou’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.
\nYou really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.
\nWhen you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.
\nWhen you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry?
\nYou’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow.
I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way.
Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer.
Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.
So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this?
Stick to what you’re good at.
\nStop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of.
\n
Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1
\n
Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently.
Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much.
Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal.
Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line.
We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.
CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.
Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job. While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk.
I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.
That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large.
We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else.
We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things…
This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Related: Content Overload - It’s time for a Content Library or Resource Center
\nThe website knowledge base or resource center has become a popular way to offer more information to website visitors. When it comes to organizing those resource centers - how do you make the most of the data available in your content library to boost those knowledge base conversions?
Here are a few tips:
Geek out on buyer intent data
\nBuyer intent data is a collection of behavior signals collected during online activity. Intent data gives you an analytical look at how buyers are consuming content along their buyer journey as they interact with information associated with your products and services.
From specific blog topics, to certain product pages viewed, to how frequently a prospect is visiting your website, to how they click through and engage with the marketing materials you send them - intent data is understanding the connection between these patterns and buying decisions to help carve out and understand the buyer journey through data rather than speculation.
Only 25% of of B2B companies use buyer intent data, according to internalresults.com - but powerful analytics software programs like HubSpot and special configurations within HubSpot via software integrations and custom behavioral events give you TRUE insight into that buyer journey.
Buyer intent data helps you understand and identify information that is most important to your highest value customers and how they go about searching for, accessing and consuming the information that matters most to them. Things like heat maps, keyword data, search trends, social media interaction and your most popular content conversion information all work together to create unique stories that will help you better plan content organization and refine your strategy moving forward.
Buyer intent data should be a key part of how you organize and plan your content, specifically surrounding your content library or resource center. If we know our top converting pieces and the trends between the content that our highly engaged customers have downloaded, we can deliver an experience and organize our content in a way that best appeals to our ideal customer profile by using intent data to align your company goals and prospect goals to plan the design and interface.
Audit your content and identify opportunities.
\nYou have a TON of content, and while your buyer intent data will help you identify the most valuable content and some of the pathways your ideal customer has taken, you still need to organize everything you have and align it with both your goals and the goals of your prospective customers. You might notice along the way that you have content gaps that need to be filled in. By auditing existing content and using buyer intent data from third parties, you can refine your content strategy moving forward and identify related resources.
A content map can help you group together individual pieces of content, create new categories and use keyword trend research and surveyed customer interests to identify the ways that you’ll organize your content. Content feature carousels, “you may also enjoy” suggestions and other personalization options are great ways to present your highest converting content when it comes to your knowledge base or resource center.
Establish categories, content formats and industries
\nThe best way to organize your main resource center content will depend on the format of the existing content that you have, the different topics that you cover, categories, and industries you cater to.
While it will be a little more expensive to create a more complex resource center that allows for more content filters, this will let buyers choose the information that’s the most relevant to their business and their learning style. Flexibility and options are important when it comes to how your buyers are accessing the data they’re using to make their purchasing decisions.
- \n
- Content type: by establishing different types of content, you can make sure that your audience has the flexibility to consume the content they need for where they are in their journey both physically and emotionally. If your prospect is in public and doesn’t have headphones with them, they may prefer to read an article or whitepaper rather than watch a webinar or listen to a podcast episode. Without a category filter, or without a resource center, your customer may find themselves inside a blog that offers a webinar or video CTA and because of their content preferences, they might abandon the website to peruse at a later time and never come back. Offering a content type filter on your site will assist in conversions by allowing your customers to choose the type of content they want to consume exactly when they want to consume it.
- Industry: while you might believe that your products and services can approach any industry in a fairly similar way to solve their issues, customers don’t always feel the same way. If you have content filtering by industry, a website prospect can pull in blogs, case studies, white papers and other resources that are unique to that buyer’s individual industry and niche. This will help them feel like they’ll be adequately taken care of by an industry professional that understands their unique business struggles.
- Topic or category: This is an obvious and easily the most important one - you must have a filter for content type and categories relevant to the content they’re looking for. You can break these down further by offering even more detailed filters like “articles by product type” or articles by pain point. If you’re a company that invests a significant amount of time and money into content creation, you need to make it accessible and organized for your audience. \n
Bells and whistles.
\nThis is the fun part. A customized HubSpot resource center allows you to be infinitely creative and feature content in different ways that are sure to get noticed by your website prospects. Featured content carousels or headers in your resource center allow you to easily feature content that is high converting, new or showcases services and products that you want to highlight.
\n- \n
- Content features can offer a visually aesthetic and informative header featuring high converting content in the form of a carousel or header image. \n
- Interactive content like fun polls and quizzes can not only help your readers understand more about their needs and engage more fully with your website, but also give you even more intent data to help guide you in establishing the content your users want to see. \n
- Dynamic search is a nice way for users to quickly see suggestions related to any topics that they’re interested in without having to manually search. \n
- Icons can help a user quickly browse tiles and content types to find what they need. HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is a great example of how they laid out their resource center using icons. \n
Consider smart content and personalization
\nSmart content in the form of CTAs or featured headers and sidebar content is a great way help boost your conversions on your website. You can use both internal and external intent data and test CTA graphics and other elements in your knowledge base to help users that are familiar with some of your key content move further in their buyer journey. This is a great way to combine that buyer journey roadmap with other options to see what percentage of your prospects actually follow the journey that you’ve mapped out for them versus carving their own path.
\nRelated: Biggest Mistakes when Designing a HubSpot Resource Center
\nUltimately just having a knowledge base or resource center on your website is a huge accomplishment, but when you implement some additional features, filters and customization you can supercharge your content library. Boost conversions by getting creative with your layout and features and amp your content library up to help your website users find the information they’re looking for on their self-guided buyer journey.
\n
","rss_summary":"
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Related: Content Overload - It’s time for a Content Library or Resource Center
\nThe website knowledge base or resource center has become a popular way to offer more information to website visitors. When it comes to organizing those resource centers - how do you make the most of the data available in your content library to boost those knowledge base conversions?
Here are a few tips:
Geek out on buyer intent data
\nBuyer intent data is a collection of behavior signals collected during online activity. Intent data gives you an analytical look at how buyers are consuming content along their buyer journey as they interact with information associated with your products and services.
From specific blog topics, to certain product pages viewed, to how frequently a prospect is visiting your website, to how they click through and engage with the marketing materials you send them - intent data is understanding the connection between these patterns and buying decisions to help carve out and understand the buyer journey through data rather than speculation.
Only 25% of of B2B companies use buyer intent data, according to internalresults.com - but powerful analytics software programs like HubSpot and special configurations within HubSpot via software integrations and custom behavioral events give you TRUE insight into that buyer journey.
Buyer intent data helps you understand and identify information that is most important to your highest value customers and how they go about searching for, accessing and consuming the information that matters most to them. Things like heat maps, keyword data, search trends, social media interaction and your most popular content conversion information all work together to create unique stories that will help you better plan content organization and refine your strategy moving forward.
Buyer intent data should be a key part of how you organize and plan your content, specifically surrounding your content library or resource center. If we know our top converting pieces and the trends between the content that our highly engaged customers have downloaded, we can deliver an experience and organize our content in a way that best appeals to our ideal customer profile by using intent data to align your company goals and prospect goals to plan the design and interface.
Audit your content and identify opportunities.
\nYou have a TON of content, and while your buyer intent data will help you identify the most valuable content and some of the pathways your ideal customer has taken, you still need to organize everything you have and align it with both your goals and the goals of your prospective customers. You might notice along the way that you have content gaps that need to be filled in. By auditing existing content and using buyer intent data from third parties, you can refine your content strategy moving forward and identify related resources.
A content map can help you group together individual pieces of content, create new categories and use keyword trend research and surveyed customer interests to identify the ways that you’ll organize your content. Content feature carousels, “you may also enjoy” suggestions and other personalization options are great ways to present your highest converting content when it comes to your knowledge base or resource center.
Establish categories, content formats and industries
\nThe best way to organize your main resource center content will depend on the format of the existing content that you have, the different topics that you cover, categories, and industries you cater to.
While it will be a little more expensive to create a more complex resource center that allows for more content filters, this will let buyers choose the information that’s the most relevant to their business and their learning style. Flexibility and options are important when it comes to how your buyers are accessing the data they’re using to make their purchasing decisions.
- \n
- Content type: by establishing different types of content, you can make sure that your audience has the flexibility to consume the content they need for where they are in their journey both physically and emotionally. If your prospect is in public and doesn’t have headphones with them, they may prefer to read an article or whitepaper rather than watch a webinar or listen to a podcast episode. Without a category filter, or without a resource center, your customer may find themselves inside a blog that offers a webinar or video CTA and because of their content preferences, they might abandon the website to peruse at a later time and never come back. Offering a content type filter on your site will assist in conversions by allowing your customers to choose the type of content they want to consume exactly when they want to consume it.
- Industry: while you might believe that your products and services can approach any industry in a fairly similar way to solve their issues, customers don’t always feel the same way. If you have content filtering by industry, a website prospect can pull in blogs, case studies, white papers and other resources that are unique to that buyer’s individual industry and niche. This will help them feel like they’ll be adequately taken care of by an industry professional that understands their unique business struggles.
- Topic or category: This is an obvious and easily the most important one - you must have a filter for content type and categories relevant to the content they’re looking for. You can break these down further by offering even more detailed filters like “articles by product type” or articles by pain point. If you’re a company that invests a significant amount of time and money into content creation, you need to make it accessible and organized for your audience. \n
Bells and whistles.
\nThis is the fun part. A customized HubSpot resource center allows you to be infinitely creative and feature content in different ways that are sure to get noticed by your website prospects. Featured content carousels or headers in your resource center allow you to easily feature content that is high converting, new or showcases services and products that you want to highlight.
\n- \n
- Content features can offer a visually aesthetic and informative header featuring high converting content in the form of a carousel or header image. \n
- Interactive content like fun polls and quizzes can not only help your readers understand more about their needs and engage more fully with your website, but also give you even more intent data to help guide you in establishing the content your users want to see. \n
- Dynamic search is a nice way for users to quickly see suggestions related to any topics that they’re interested in without having to manually search. \n
- Icons can help a user quickly browse tiles and content types to find what they need. HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is a great example of how they laid out their resource center using icons. \n
Consider smart content and personalization
\nSmart content in the form of CTAs or featured headers and sidebar content is a great way help boost your conversions on your website. You can use both internal and external intent data and test CTA graphics and other elements in your knowledge base to help users that are familiar with some of your key content move further in their buyer journey. This is a great way to combine that buyer journey roadmap with other options to see what percentage of your prospects actually follow the journey that you’ve mapped out for them versus carving their own path.
\nRelated: Biggest Mistakes when Designing a HubSpot Resource Center
\nUltimately just having a knowledge base or resource center on your website is a huge accomplishment, but when you implement some additional features, filters and customization you can supercharge your content library. Boost conversions by getting creative with your layout and features and amp your content library up to help your website users find the information they’re looking for on their self-guided buyer journey.
\n
","tag_ids":[62770428190,98457582138,98464015968],"topic_ids":[62770428190,98457582138,98464015968],"post_summary":"
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Related: Content Overload - It’s time for a Content Library or Resource Center
\nThe website knowledge base or resource center has become a popular way to offer more information to website visitors. When it comes to organizing those resource centers - how do you make the most of the data available in your content library to boost those knowledge base conversions?
Here are a few tips:
Geek out on buyer intent data
\nBuyer intent data is a collection of behavior signals collected during online activity. Intent data gives you an analytical look at how buyers are consuming content along their buyer journey as they interact with information associated with your products and services.
From specific blog topics, to certain product pages viewed, to how frequently a prospect is visiting your website, to how they click through and engage with the marketing materials you send them - intent data is understanding the connection between these patterns and buying decisions to help carve out and understand the buyer journey through data rather than speculation.
Only 25% of of B2B companies use buyer intent data, according to internalresults.com - but powerful analytics software programs like HubSpot and special configurations within HubSpot via software integrations and custom behavioral events give you TRUE insight into that buyer journey.
Buyer intent data helps you understand and identify information that is most important to your highest value customers and how they go about searching for, accessing and consuming the information that matters most to them. Things like heat maps, keyword data, search trends, social media interaction and your most popular content conversion information all work together to create unique stories that will help you better plan content organization and refine your strategy moving forward.
Buyer intent data should be a key part of how you organize and plan your content, specifically surrounding your content library or resource center. If we know our top converting pieces and the trends between the content that our highly engaged customers have downloaded, we can deliver an experience and organize our content in a way that best appeals to our ideal customer profile by using intent data to align your company goals and prospect goals to plan the design and interface.
Audit your content and identify opportunities.
\nYou have a TON of content, and while your buyer intent data will help you identify the most valuable content and some of the pathways your ideal customer has taken, you still need to organize everything you have and align it with both your goals and the goals of your prospective customers. You might notice along the way that you have content gaps that need to be filled in. By auditing existing content and using buyer intent data from third parties, you can refine your content strategy moving forward and identify related resources.
A content map can help you group together individual pieces of content, create new categories and use keyword trend research and surveyed customer interests to identify the ways that you’ll organize your content. Content feature carousels, “you may also enjoy” suggestions and other personalization options are great ways to present your highest converting content when it comes to your knowledge base or resource center.
Establish categories, content formats and industries
\nThe best way to organize your main resource center content will depend on the format of the existing content that you have, the different topics that you cover, categories, and industries you cater to.
While it will be a little more expensive to create a more complex resource center that allows for more content filters, this will let buyers choose the information that’s the most relevant to their business and their learning style. Flexibility and options are important when it comes to how your buyers are accessing the data they’re using to make their purchasing decisions.
- \n
- Content type: by establishing different types of content, you can make sure that your audience has the flexibility to consume the content they need for where they are in their journey both physically and emotionally. If your prospect is in public and doesn’t have headphones with them, they may prefer to read an article or whitepaper rather than watch a webinar or listen to a podcast episode. Without a category filter, or without a resource center, your customer may find themselves inside a blog that offers a webinar or video CTA and because of their content preferences, they might abandon the website to peruse at a later time and never come back. Offering a content type filter on your site will assist in conversions by allowing your customers to choose the type of content they want to consume exactly when they want to consume it.
- Industry: while you might believe that your products and services can approach any industry in a fairly similar way to solve their issues, customers don’t always feel the same way. If you have content filtering by industry, a website prospect can pull in blogs, case studies, white papers and other resources that are unique to that buyer’s individual industry and niche. This will help them feel like they’ll be adequately taken care of by an industry professional that understands their unique business struggles.
- Topic or category: This is an obvious and easily the most important one - you must have a filter for content type and categories relevant to the content they’re looking for. You can break these down further by offering even more detailed filters like “articles by product type” or articles by pain point. If you’re a company that invests a significant amount of time and money into content creation, you need to make it accessible and organized for your audience. \n
Bells and whistles.
\nThis is the fun part. A customized HubSpot resource center allows you to be infinitely creative and feature content in different ways that are sure to get noticed by your website prospects. Featured content carousels or headers in your resource center allow you to easily feature content that is high converting, new or showcases services and products that you want to highlight.
\n- \n
- Content features can offer a visually aesthetic and informative header featuring high converting content in the form of a carousel or header image. \n
- Interactive content like fun polls and quizzes can not only help your readers understand more about their needs and engage more fully with your website, but also give you even more intent data to help guide you in establishing the content your users want to see. \n
- Dynamic search is a nice way for users to quickly see suggestions related to any topics that they’re interested in without having to manually search. \n
- Icons can help a user quickly browse tiles and content types to find what they need. HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is a great example of how they laid out their resource center using icons. \n
Consider smart content and personalization
\nSmart content in the form of CTAs or featured headers and sidebar content is a great way help boost your conversions on your website. You can use both internal and external intent data and test CTA graphics and other elements in your knowledge base to help users that are familiar with some of your key content move further in their buyer journey. This is a great way to combine that buyer journey roadmap with other options to see what percentage of your prospects actually follow the journey that you’ve mapped out for them versus carving their own path.
\nRelated: Biggest Mistakes when Designing a HubSpot Resource Center
\nUltimately just having a knowledge base or resource center on your website is a huge accomplishment, but when you implement some additional features, filters and customization you can supercharge your content library. Boost conversions by getting creative with your layout and features and amp your content library up to help your website users find the information they’re looking for on their self-guided buyer journey.
\n
","postBodyRss":"
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Related: Content Overload - It’s time for a Content Library or Resource Center
\nThe website knowledge base or resource center has become a popular way to offer more information to website visitors. When it comes to organizing those resource centers - how do you make the most of the data available in your content library to boost those knowledge base conversions?
Here are a few tips:
Geek out on buyer intent data
\nBuyer intent data is a collection of behavior signals collected during online activity. Intent data gives you an analytical look at how buyers are consuming content along their buyer journey as they interact with information associated with your products and services.
From specific blog topics, to certain product pages viewed, to how frequently a prospect is visiting your website, to how they click through and engage with the marketing materials you send them - intent data is understanding the connection between these patterns and buying decisions to help carve out and understand the buyer journey through data rather than speculation.
Only 25% of of B2B companies use buyer intent data, according to internalresults.com - but powerful analytics software programs like HubSpot and special configurations within HubSpot via software integrations and custom behavioral events give you TRUE insight into that buyer journey.
Buyer intent data helps you understand and identify information that is most important to your highest value customers and how they go about searching for, accessing and consuming the information that matters most to them. Things like heat maps, keyword data, search trends, social media interaction and your most popular content conversion information all work together to create unique stories that will help you better plan content organization and refine your strategy moving forward.
Buyer intent data should be a key part of how you organize and plan your content, specifically surrounding your content library or resource center. If we know our top converting pieces and the trends between the content that our highly engaged customers have downloaded, we can deliver an experience and organize our content in a way that best appeals to our ideal customer profile by using intent data to align your company goals and prospect goals to plan the design and interface.
Audit your content and identify opportunities.
\nYou have a TON of content, and while your buyer intent data will help you identify the most valuable content and some of the pathways your ideal customer has taken, you still need to organize everything you have and align it with both your goals and the goals of your prospective customers. You might notice along the way that you have content gaps that need to be filled in. By auditing existing content and using buyer intent data from third parties, you can refine your content strategy moving forward and identify related resources.
A content map can help you group together individual pieces of content, create new categories and use keyword trend research and surveyed customer interests to identify the ways that you’ll organize your content. Content feature carousels, “you may also enjoy” suggestions and other personalization options are great ways to present your highest converting content when it comes to your knowledge base or resource center.
Establish categories, content formats and industries
\nThe best way to organize your main resource center content will depend on the format of the existing content that you have, the different topics that you cover, categories, and industries you cater to.
While it will be a little more expensive to create a more complex resource center that allows for more content filters, this will let buyers choose the information that’s the most relevant to their business and their learning style. Flexibility and options are important when it comes to how your buyers are accessing the data they’re using to make their purchasing decisions.
- \n
- Content type: by establishing different types of content, you can make sure that your audience has the flexibility to consume the content they need for where they are in their journey both physically and emotionally. If your prospect is in public and doesn’t have headphones with them, they may prefer to read an article or whitepaper rather than watch a webinar or listen to a podcast episode. Without a category filter, or without a resource center, your customer may find themselves inside a blog that offers a webinar or video CTA and because of their content preferences, they might abandon the website to peruse at a later time and never come back. Offering a content type filter on your site will assist in conversions by allowing your customers to choose the type of content they want to consume exactly when they want to consume it.
- Industry: while you might believe that your products and services can approach any industry in a fairly similar way to solve their issues, customers don’t always feel the same way. If you have content filtering by industry, a website prospect can pull in blogs, case studies, white papers and other resources that are unique to that buyer’s individual industry and niche. This will help them feel like they’ll be adequately taken care of by an industry professional that understands their unique business struggles.
- Topic or category: This is an obvious and easily the most important one - you must have a filter for content type and categories relevant to the content they’re looking for. You can break these down further by offering even more detailed filters like “articles by product type” or articles by pain point. If you’re a company that invests a significant amount of time and money into content creation, you need to make it accessible and organized for your audience. \n
Bells and whistles.
\nThis is the fun part. A customized HubSpot resource center allows you to be infinitely creative and feature content in different ways that are sure to get noticed by your website prospects. Featured content carousels or headers in your resource center allow you to easily feature content that is high converting, new or showcases services and products that you want to highlight.
\n- \n
- Content features can offer a visually aesthetic and informative header featuring high converting content in the form of a carousel or header image. \n
- Interactive content like fun polls and quizzes can not only help your readers understand more about their needs and engage more fully with your website, but also give you even more intent data to help guide you in establishing the content your users want to see. \n
- Dynamic search is a nice way for users to quickly see suggestions related to any topics that they’re interested in without having to manually search. \n
- Icons can help a user quickly browse tiles and content types to find what they need. HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is a great example of how they laid out their resource center using icons. \n
Consider smart content and personalization
\nSmart content in the form of CTAs or featured headers and sidebar content is a great way help boost your conversions on your website. You can use both internal and external intent data and test CTA graphics and other elements in your knowledge base to help users that are familiar with some of your key content move further in their buyer journey. This is a great way to combine that buyer journey roadmap with other options to see what percentage of your prospects actually follow the journey that you’ve mapped out for them versus carving their own path.
\nRelated: Biggest Mistakes when Designing a HubSpot Resource Center
\nUltimately just having a knowledge base or resource center on your website is a huge accomplishment, but when you implement some additional features, filters and customization you can supercharge your content library. Boost conversions by getting creative with your layout and features and amp your content library up to help your website users find the information they’re looking for on their self-guided buyer journey.
\n
","postEmailContent":"
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Related: Content Overload - It’s time for a Content Library or Resource Center
\nThe website knowledge base or resource center has become a popular way to offer more information to website visitors. When it comes to organizing those resource centers - how do you make the most of the data available in your content library to boost those knowledge base conversions?
Here are a few tips:
Geek out on buyer intent data
\nBuyer intent data is a collection of behavior signals collected during online activity. Intent data gives you an analytical look at how buyers are consuming content along their buyer journey as they interact with information associated with your products and services.
From specific blog topics, to certain product pages viewed, to how frequently a prospect is visiting your website, to how they click through and engage with the marketing materials you send them - intent data is understanding the connection between these patterns and buying decisions to help carve out and understand the buyer journey through data rather than speculation.
Only 25% of of B2B companies use buyer intent data, according to internalresults.com - but powerful analytics software programs like HubSpot and special configurations within HubSpot via software integrations and custom behavioral events give you TRUE insight into that buyer journey.
Buyer intent data helps you understand and identify information that is most important to your highest value customers and how they go about searching for, accessing and consuming the information that matters most to them. Things like heat maps, keyword data, search trends, social media interaction and your most popular content conversion information all work together to create unique stories that will help you better plan content organization and refine your strategy moving forward.
Buyer intent data should be a key part of how you organize and plan your content, specifically surrounding your content library or resource center. If we know our top converting pieces and the trends between the content that our highly engaged customers have downloaded, we can deliver an experience and organize our content in a way that best appeals to our ideal customer profile by using intent data to align your company goals and prospect goals to plan the design and interface.
Audit your content and identify opportunities.
\nYou have a TON of content, and while your buyer intent data will help you identify the most valuable content and some of the pathways your ideal customer has taken, you still need to organize everything you have and align it with both your goals and the goals of your prospective customers. You might notice along the way that you have content gaps that need to be filled in. By auditing existing content and using buyer intent data from third parties, you can refine your content strategy moving forward and identify related resources.
A content map can help you group together individual pieces of content, create new categories and use keyword trend research and surveyed customer interests to identify the ways that you’ll organize your content. Content feature carousels, “you may also enjoy” suggestions and other personalization options are great ways to present your highest converting content when it comes to your knowledge base or resource center.
Establish categories, content formats and industries
\nThe best way to organize your main resource center content will depend on the format of the existing content that you have, the different topics that you cover, categories, and industries you cater to.
While it will be a little more expensive to create a more complex resource center that allows for more content filters, this will let buyers choose the information that’s the most relevant to their business and their learning style. Flexibility and options are important when it comes to how your buyers are accessing the data they’re using to make their purchasing decisions.
- \n
- Content type: by establishing different types of content, you can make sure that your audience has the flexibility to consume the content they need for where they are in their journey both physically and emotionally. If your prospect is in public and doesn’t have headphones with them, they may prefer to read an article or whitepaper rather than watch a webinar or listen to a podcast episode. Without a category filter, or without a resource center, your customer may find themselves inside a blog that offers a webinar or video CTA and because of their content preferences, they might abandon the website to peruse at a later time and never come back. Offering a content type filter on your site will assist in conversions by allowing your customers to choose the type of content they want to consume exactly when they want to consume it.
- Industry: while you might believe that your products and services can approach any industry in a fairly similar way to solve their issues, customers don’t always feel the same way. If you have content filtering by industry, a website prospect can pull in blogs, case studies, white papers and other resources that are unique to that buyer’s individual industry and niche. This will help them feel like they’ll be adequately taken care of by an industry professional that understands their unique business struggles.
- Topic or category: This is an obvious and easily the most important one - you must have a filter for content type and categories relevant to the content they’re looking for. You can break these down further by offering even more detailed filters like “articles by product type” or articles by pain point. If you’re a company that invests a significant amount of time and money into content creation, you need to make it accessible and organized for your audience. \n
Bells and whistles.
\nThis is the fun part. A customized HubSpot resource center allows you to be infinitely creative and feature content in different ways that are sure to get noticed by your website prospects. Featured content carousels or headers in your resource center allow you to easily feature content that is high converting, new or showcases services and products that you want to highlight.
\n- \n
- Content features can offer a visually aesthetic and informative header featuring high converting content in the form of a carousel or header image. \n
- Interactive content like fun polls and quizzes can not only help your readers understand more about their needs and engage more fully with your website, but also give you even more intent data to help guide you in establishing the content your users want to see. \n
- Dynamic search is a nice way for users to quickly see suggestions related to any topics that they’re interested in without having to manually search. \n
- Icons can help a user quickly browse tiles and content types to find what they need. HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is a great example of how they laid out their resource center using icons. \n
Consider smart content and personalization
\nSmart content in the form of CTAs or featured headers and sidebar content is a great way help boost your conversions on your website. You can use both internal and external intent data and test CTA graphics and other elements in your knowledge base to help users that are familiar with some of your key content move further in their buyer journey. This is a great way to combine that buyer journey roadmap with other options to see what percentage of your prospects actually follow the journey that you’ve mapped out for them versus carving their own path.
\nRelated: Biggest Mistakes when Designing a HubSpot Resource Center
\nUltimately just having a knowledge base or resource center on your website is a huge accomplishment, but when you implement some additional features, filters and customization you can supercharge your content library. Boost conversions by getting creative with your layout and features and amp your content library up to help your website users find the information they’re looking for on their self-guided buyer journey.
\n
","rssSummary":"
When it comes to their company website, marketers are working hard to find ways to increase engagement and boost resource center conversions to optimize their existing website traffic. Historically, the buyer journey has been written up as a story based on the psychographics of their audience and making calculated predictions based on their values, goals and interests.
The approach took the idea of the basic demographics that companies associated with buyers a step further by digging into how buyers might think and make decisions along their journey in resolving the solutions associated with the products and services a company provides. One thing that’s missing, however, is the understanding of how different the individual ideal buyer might be.
Every buyer’s journey and experience is so unique, quantifying all of that into a summary judgment usually means information and data gaps. Some marketers found interviews to help - but when the number of factors influencing a buyer’s journey are infinite, how can we ever sum it up in a few interviews?
Marketers haven’t taken into account the individual factors that might influence a buyer’s journey and the increasingly self-guided nature of the buyer. In a world that has turned itself off to personal contact as solutions and data become increasingly available, marketers must be prepared to present as much data as possible in a cohesive, organized way. It seems cliche to say “Covid changed the way buyers make decisions” but it’s actually very true. More and more of the pre-decision phase in a buyer’s journey is self guided and we need to be keeping up with that journey.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
![\"knowledge](\"https://6534445.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6534445/BLOG%20Images/knowledge%20center.png\")
RELATED: Content Overload - It’s time for a content library or resource center
\n
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things - the good, bad and ugly when it comes to knowledge base designs for HubSpot CMS, and we’re here to help you learn from the mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Here are the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS:
Lack of planning
\n
Putting a category or topic filter on your resource center and leaving it at that doesn’t really give you much more than you’ve already got on your blog. Your blog is a great place to start when it comes to determining some of the categories that will help you organize your content library - but that’s just a starting point. You’ll need to map out your library by establishing subtopics from your main categories or topics and adding individual pieces of content into your sub categories. It can be helpful to establish a content tree or color code your content to help you better determine which categories and subcategories you want to include.
Establishing a general buyer journey guideline will help you reach a certain point in organizing your content library, but you’ll also want to look into buyer intent data, as buyer journey’s are increasingly self guided nowadays. Use data to plan. If you’re paying for an analytics resource software like HubSpot Marketing Pro, you have no shortage of reporting and analytics available to you to help you best determine the impact each piece of content is having and where you can help your buyers along by filling content holes that can help them have all the information they need to make buying decisions.
As you plan, ask yourself questions like:
\n- \n
- What is the goal of this content library? \n
- What are the most popular types of content that our customers are consuming? \n
- Where do we need to offer more information that our buyers need at certain steps in their buying journey? \n
- How can we make this information more accessible to buyers that are doing research independently? \n
- How can we structure and organize our content in a way that’s personalized and effective? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our buyer? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our sales process? \n
- Which industries do we want to feature, if any?
Not Going Custom
\n
Your business isn’t like other businesses and where best to showcase your unique spin on your products and services than your knowledge base or content library? We understand that not everyone has the budget to go fully custom with their website content library, but we think that it’s important to at least find a stable framework that can suit your needs and allow you to do a small amount of customization. More than likely in the planning process, you’ll uncover some features that you want to see.
Your resource center configuration and design should be as flexible as possible so that you can feature new pieces of content, website prospects can easily filter the wealth of information available to them, and you can dress it up beyond the standard category filter options. You can even add things like dynamic search to help your prospect find things they didn’t even know they needed. Employee Fiduciary’s website resource center is an example of a resource library that we recently worked on that has a simple, clean design and functionality with topic filtering, search and feature options.
What you want to deliver to your prospects and customers might be a totally different experience.
- \n
- Do you have different buyer personas that you may want a website prospect to select in a page before your prospect can review the content that most applies to them? \n
- Do you want them to be able to filter your content by industry? \n
The questions that you asked yourself in planning your content library or resource center are the ones that will ultimately guide design - so make sure that you take that first step to plan so that you can determine your list of wants and needs when the time comes.
Ignoring Mobile
\n
As of March 2023, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of your visitors viewing your pretty new resource center on mobile devices, you’ll want to START there. So many prospects approach us with designs with little to no advance consideration for how that design will translate to a mobile device. Rather than making hard choices to save space reactively, you can intuitively design the mobile view for the website first and then take those elements and add or move things around in your full size desktop version.
It is much easier to convert from mobile to desktop than it is to start with desktop and have issues deciding how your site will render when it sizes down to a smaller screen. This is particularly true for resource centers that have sidebar filter options, additional feature content, tables or other special features that may be more difficult to render on a small screen.
The more mobile friendly your website is, the better it ranks. Mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor with Google and because the percentage of mobile traffic continues to increase year over year, this will only become more important for increasing your conversion rates as well.
Related: Web development for SMBs, a mobile first approach to web design
\nIgnoring Load Speed
\n
How quickly your website’s resource center loads is such an important factor when it comes to optimizing it for conversions AND search engines. Google's Core Web Vitals update in 2021 focused heavily on page experience for the user, requiring companies that want to get noticed online to focus on page speed and user experience on their website. The statistics support this focus, because faster loading website pages are proven to increase conversion rates. Site load time decreases in retail website of just .1 second resulted in an 8.4% increase in conversion rates on retail websites. When you’re funneling lots of traffic to your website, these small things matter and in your Resource Center, you’ll want to focus on them as well.
Image size is a huge factor that bogs down many websites. Be sure to pay attention to the size of the images, icons, buttons and other graphical elements that you add to your website. So often marketing managers add graphics and images to a website without looking at the size of the images that they’re uploading and over time this can bog down a website significantly. This is particularly true for resource centers, where you’re often loading large image graphics, icons and more onto a single page. Images that you load into your website resource center should be no larger than 200kb.
It is important to create a set of standards for anyone uploading content to your resource center to protect your page load time.
Related: Page Speed Optimization - 5 Factors Bogging Down Your Website
\nNot Integrating a Mega Menu
\nResource centers are perfect for centralizing all of that content you work so hard to put out - but how do you get people there? While it may be a bit of an unexpected expense, we highly recommend adding a Mega Menu to your budget. A website Mega Menu acts like a central map for your entire website and allows you to be more granular in the content that you offer on your standard website navigation. You can feature full download content, break down your services or resource center into smaller categories and offer short descriptions that better help guide the user to where they need to go.
\n
Adding visual elements, showcasing popular pieces of content and really providing a guide for your website users will help them better find the information that they need as they go through their buying journey. Mega Menus and Resource Centers work closely together to keep website prospects moving through your content using the tools you provide within your resource center listing page and your mega menu as they move through additional resources.
Related: Why a Mega Menu Should Be Your Next Website Investment
\nNot hiring an expert
\nThis is an unfortunate mistake that we see many agencies and HubSpot customers make - hiring someone based on price rather than experience. Hiring an inexpensive or inexperienced web developer might feel like an okay thing to do in the beginning, but quickly you begin to see the issues as the project unfolds. Here are a few things you might notice if you hire an inexperienced web developer:
\n- \n
- Persistently changing timelines \n
- Sluggish response times \n
- Being ghosted \n
- Buggy issues with your resource center \n
- Long loading times \n
- Entire lack of strategy \n
We once received an agency’s partially completed website project from another developer whose resource center took more than a minute to load. While it looked great, the configuration was not well-conceived and because the developer wasn’t an expert in HubDB, they didn’t even realize they could have configured it much more simply within HubDB rather than using an external cloud server.
Now we’ve fixed it and their resource center loads in just a couple seconds, but they had to increase their budget for us to come in and fix this. Now they know that they need a skilled developer at their disposal for continued optimization and projects as their website evolves, and we’re here to make sure they can build sustainably.
If you’re in the middle of hiring for a website, we have a comprehensive list of questions to ask your HubSpot developer prospects when vetting them for a job.
Related: Why Hire an Experienced Web Developer? Your Website Isn’t a Sub Sandwich.
\nEveryone messes up sometimes, and it’s totally fine. Your Resource Center project may not go perfectly - and you may change what you’d like to see within it; the formatting, the features and filters that you offer along the way. Try to partner up and create your strategy before you delve too far into the development process so that you can make sure you not only cater to your prospective buyer, but stay within a predictable budget and avoid some of the biggest and most costly mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
RELATED: Content Overload - It’s time for a content library or resource center
\n
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things - the good, bad and ugly when it comes to knowledge base designs for HubSpot CMS, and we’re here to help you learn from the mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Here are the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS:
Lack of planning
\n
Putting a category or topic filter on your resource center and leaving it at that doesn’t really give you much more than you’ve already got on your blog. Your blog is a great place to start when it comes to determining some of the categories that will help you organize your content library - but that’s just a starting point. You’ll need to map out your library by establishing subtopics from your main categories or topics and adding individual pieces of content into your sub categories. It can be helpful to establish a content tree or color code your content to help you better determine which categories and subcategories you want to include.
Establishing a general buyer journey guideline will help you reach a certain point in organizing your content library, but you’ll also want to look into buyer intent data, as buyer journey’s are increasingly self guided nowadays. Use data to plan. If you’re paying for an analytics resource software like HubSpot Marketing Pro, you have no shortage of reporting and analytics available to you to help you best determine the impact each piece of content is having and where you can help your buyers along by filling content holes that can help them have all the information they need to make buying decisions.
As you plan, ask yourself questions like:
\n- \n
- What is the goal of this content library? \n
- What are the most popular types of content that our customers are consuming? \n
- Where do we need to offer more information that our buyers need at certain steps in their buying journey? \n
- How can we make this information more accessible to buyers that are doing research independently? \n
- How can we structure and organize our content in a way that’s personalized and effective? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our buyer? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our sales process? \n
- Which industries do we want to feature, if any?
Not Going Custom
\n
Your business isn’t like other businesses and where best to showcase your unique spin on your products and services than your knowledge base or content library? We understand that not everyone has the budget to go fully custom with their website content library, but we think that it’s important to at least find a stable framework that can suit your needs and allow you to do a small amount of customization. More than likely in the planning process, you’ll uncover some features that you want to see.
Your resource center configuration and design should be as flexible as possible so that you can feature new pieces of content, website prospects can easily filter the wealth of information available to them, and you can dress it up beyond the standard category filter options. You can even add things like dynamic search to help your prospect find things they didn’t even know they needed. Employee Fiduciary’s website resource center is an example of a resource library that we recently worked on that has a simple, clean design and functionality with topic filtering, search and feature options.
What you want to deliver to your prospects and customers might be a totally different experience.
- \n
- Do you have different buyer personas that you may want a website prospect to select in a page before your prospect can review the content that most applies to them? \n
- Do you want them to be able to filter your content by industry? \n
The questions that you asked yourself in planning your content library or resource center are the ones that will ultimately guide design - so make sure that you take that first step to plan so that you can determine your list of wants and needs when the time comes.
Ignoring Mobile
\n
As of March 2023, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of your visitors viewing your pretty new resource center on mobile devices, you’ll want to START there. So many prospects approach us with designs with little to no advance consideration for how that design will translate to a mobile device. Rather than making hard choices to save space reactively, you can intuitively design the mobile view for the website first and then take those elements and add or move things around in your full size desktop version.
It is much easier to convert from mobile to desktop than it is to start with desktop and have issues deciding how your site will render when it sizes down to a smaller screen. This is particularly true for resource centers that have sidebar filter options, additional feature content, tables or other special features that may be more difficult to render on a small screen.
The more mobile friendly your website is, the better it ranks. Mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor with Google and because the percentage of mobile traffic continues to increase year over year, this will only become more important for increasing your conversion rates as well.
Related: Web development for SMBs, a mobile first approach to web design
\nIgnoring Load Speed
\n
How quickly your website’s resource center loads is such an important factor when it comes to optimizing it for conversions AND search engines. Google's Core Web Vitals update in 2021 focused heavily on page experience for the user, requiring companies that want to get noticed online to focus on page speed and user experience on their website. The statistics support this focus, because faster loading website pages are proven to increase conversion rates. Site load time decreases in retail website of just .1 second resulted in an 8.4% increase in conversion rates on retail websites. When you’re funneling lots of traffic to your website, these small things matter and in your Resource Center, you’ll want to focus on them as well.
Image size is a huge factor that bogs down many websites. Be sure to pay attention to the size of the images, icons, buttons and other graphical elements that you add to your website. So often marketing managers add graphics and images to a website without looking at the size of the images that they’re uploading and over time this can bog down a website significantly. This is particularly true for resource centers, where you’re often loading large image graphics, icons and more onto a single page. Images that you load into your website resource center should be no larger than 200kb.
It is important to create a set of standards for anyone uploading content to your resource center to protect your page load time.
Related: Page Speed Optimization - 5 Factors Bogging Down Your Website
\nNot Integrating a Mega Menu
\nResource centers are perfect for centralizing all of that content you work so hard to put out - but how do you get people there? While it may be a bit of an unexpected expense, we highly recommend adding a Mega Menu to your budget. A website Mega Menu acts like a central map for your entire website and allows you to be more granular in the content that you offer on your standard website navigation. You can feature full download content, break down your services or resource center into smaller categories and offer short descriptions that better help guide the user to where they need to go.
\n
Adding visual elements, showcasing popular pieces of content and really providing a guide for your website users will help them better find the information that they need as they go through their buying journey. Mega Menus and Resource Centers work closely together to keep website prospects moving through your content using the tools you provide within your resource center listing page and your mega menu as they move through additional resources.
Related: Why a Mega Menu Should Be Your Next Website Investment
\nNot hiring an expert
\nThis is an unfortunate mistake that we see many agencies and HubSpot customers make - hiring someone based on price rather than experience. Hiring an inexpensive or inexperienced web developer might feel like an okay thing to do in the beginning, but quickly you begin to see the issues as the project unfolds. Here are a few things you might notice if you hire an inexperienced web developer:
\n- \n
- Persistently changing timelines \n
- Sluggish response times \n
- Being ghosted \n
- Buggy issues with your resource center \n
- Long loading times \n
- Entire lack of strategy \n
We once received an agency’s partially completed website project from another developer whose resource center took more than a minute to load. While it looked great, the configuration was not well-conceived and because the developer wasn’t an expert in HubDB, they didn’t even realize they could have configured it much more simply within HubDB rather than using an external cloud server.
Now we’ve fixed it and their resource center loads in just a couple seconds, but they had to increase their budget for us to come in and fix this. Now they know that they need a skilled developer at their disposal for continued optimization and projects as their website evolves, and we’re here to make sure they can build sustainably.
If you’re in the middle of hiring for a website, we have a comprehensive list of questions to ask your HubSpot developer prospects when vetting them for a job.
Related: Why Hire an Experienced Web Developer? Your Website Isn’t a Sub Sandwich.
\nEveryone messes up sometimes, and it’s totally fine. Your Resource Center project may not go perfectly - and you may change what you’d like to see within it; the formatting, the features and filters that you offer along the way. Try to partner up and create your strategy before you delve too far into the development process so that you can make sure you not only cater to your prospective buyer, but stay within a predictable budget and avoid some of the biggest and most costly mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
RELATED: Content Overload - It’s time for a content library or resource center
\n
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things - the good, bad and ugly when it comes to knowledge base designs for HubSpot CMS, and we’re here to help you learn from the mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Here are the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS:
Lack of planning
\n
Putting a category or topic filter on your resource center and leaving it at that doesn’t really give you much more than you’ve already got on your blog. Your blog is a great place to start when it comes to determining some of the categories that will help you organize your content library - but that’s just a starting point. You’ll need to map out your library by establishing subtopics from your main categories or topics and adding individual pieces of content into your sub categories. It can be helpful to establish a content tree or color code your content to help you better determine which categories and subcategories you want to include.
Establishing a general buyer journey guideline will help you reach a certain point in organizing your content library, but you’ll also want to look into buyer intent data, as buyer journey’s are increasingly self guided nowadays. Use data to plan. If you’re paying for an analytics resource software like HubSpot Marketing Pro, you have no shortage of reporting and analytics available to you to help you best determine the impact each piece of content is having and where you can help your buyers along by filling content holes that can help them have all the information they need to make buying decisions.
As you plan, ask yourself questions like:
\n- \n
- What is the goal of this content library? \n
- What are the most popular types of content that our customers are consuming? \n
- Where do we need to offer more information that our buyers need at certain steps in their buying journey? \n
- How can we make this information more accessible to buyers that are doing research independently? \n
- How can we structure and organize our content in a way that’s personalized and effective? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our buyer? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our sales process? \n
- Which industries do we want to feature, if any?
Not Going Custom
\n
Your business isn’t like other businesses and where best to showcase your unique spin on your products and services than your knowledge base or content library? We understand that not everyone has the budget to go fully custom with their website content library, but we think that it’s important to at least find a stable framework that can suit your needs and allow you to do a small amount of customization. More than likely in the planning process, you’ll uncover some features that you want to see.
Your resource center configuration and design should be as flexible as possible so that you can feature new pieces of content, website prospects can easily filter the wealth of information available to them, and you can dress it up beyond the standard category filter options. You can even add things like dynamic search to help your prospect find things they didn’t even know they needed. Employee Fiduciary’s website resource center is an example of a resource library that we recently worked on that has a simple, clean design and functionality with topic filtering, search and feature options.
What you want to deliver to your prospects and customers might be a totally different experience.
- \n
- Do you have different buyer personas that you may want a website prospect to select in a page before your prospect can review the content that most applies to them? \n
- Do you want them to be able to filter your content by industry? \n
The questions that you asked yourself in planning your content library or resource center are the ones that will ultimately guide design - so make sure that you take that first step to plan so that you can determine your list of wants and needs when the time comes.
Ignoring Mobile
\n
As of March 2023, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of your visitors viewing your pretty new resource center on mobile devices, you’ll want to START there. So many prospects approach us with designs with little to no advance consideration for how that design will translate to a mobile device. Rather than making hard choices to save space reactively, you can intuitively design the mobile view for the website first and then take those elements and add or move things around in your full size desktop version.
It is much easier to convert from mobile to desktop than it is to start with desktop and have issues deciding how your site will render when it sizes down to a smaller screen. This is particularly true for resource centers that have sidebar filter options, additional feature content, tables or other special features that may be more difficult to render on a small screen.
The more mobile friendly your website is, the better it ranks. Mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor with Google and because the percentage of mobile traffic continues to increase year over year, this will only become more important for increasing your conversion rates as well.
Related: Web development for SMBs, a mobile first approach to web design
\nIgnoring Load Speed
\n
How quickly your website’s resource center loads is such an important factor when it comes to optimizing it for conversions AND search engines. Google's Core Web Vitals update in 2021 focused heavily on page experience for the user, requiring companies that want to get noticed online to focus on page speed and user experience on their website. The statistics support this focus, because faster loading website pages are proven to increase conversion rates. Site load time decreases in retail website of just .1 second resulted in an 8.4% increase in conversion rates on retail websites. When you’re funneling lots of traffic to your website, these small things matter and in your Resource Center, you’ll want to focus on them as well.
Image size is a huge factor that bogs down many websites. Be sure to pay attention to the size of the images, icons, buttons and other graphical elements that you add to your website. So often marketing managers add graphics and images to a website without looking at the size of the images that they’re uploading and over time this can bog down a website significantly. This is particularly true for resource centers, where you’re often loading large image graphics, icons and more onto a single page. Images that you load into your website resource center should be no larger than 200kb.
It is important to create a set of standards for anyone uploading content to your resource center to protect your page load time.
Related: Page Speed Optimization - 5 Factors Bogging Down Your Website
\nNot Integrating a Mega Menu
\nResource centers are perfect for centralizing all of that content you work so hard to put out - but how do you get people there? While it may be a bit of an unexpected expense, we highly recommend adding a Mega Menu to your budget. A website Mega Menu acts like a central map for your entire website and allows you to be more granular in the content that you offer on your standard website navigation. You can feature full download content, break down your services or resource center into smaller categories and offer short descriptions that better help guide the user to where they need to go.
\n
Adding visual elements, showcasing popular pieces of content and really providing a guide for your website users will help them better find the information that they need as they go through their buying journey. Mega Menus and Resource Centers work closely together to keep website prospects moving through your content using the tools you provide within your resource center listing page and your mega menu as they move through additional resources.
Related: Why a Mega Menu Should Be Your Next Website Investment
\nNot hiring an expert
\nThis is an unfortunate mistake that we see many agencies and HubSpot customers make - hiring someone based on price rather than experience. Hiring an inexpensive or inexperienced web developer might feel like an okay thing to do in the beginning, but quickly you begin to see the issues as the project unfolds. Here are a few things you might notice if you hire an inexperienced web developer:
\n- \n
- Persistently changing timelines \n
- Sluggish response times \n
- Being ghosted \n
- Buggy issues with your resource center \n
- Long loading times \n
- Entire lack of strategy \n
We once received an agency’s partially completed website project from another developer whose resource center took more than a minute to load. While it looked great, the configuration was not well-conceived and because the developer wasn’t an expert in HubDB, they didn’t even realize they could have configured it much more simply within HubDB rather than using an external cloud server.
Now we’ve fixed it and their resource center loads in just a couple seconds, but they had to increase their budget for us to come in and fix this. Now they know that they need a skilled developer at their disposal for continued optimization and projects as their website evolves, and we’re here to make sure they can build sustainably.
If you’re in the middle of hiring for a website, we have a comprehensive list of questions to ask your HubSpot developer prospects when vetting them for a job.
Related: Why Hire an Experienced Web Developer? Your Website Isn’t a Sub Sandwich.
\nEveryone messes up sometimes, and it’s totally fine. Your Resource Center project may not go perfectly - and you may change what you’d like to see within it; the formatting, the features and filters that you offer along the way. Try to partner up and create your strategy before you delve too far into the development process so that you can make sure you not only cater to your prospective buyer, but stay within a predictable budget and avoid some of the biggest and most costly mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
RELATED: Content Overload - It’s time for a content library or resource center
\n
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things - the good, bad and ugly when it comes to knowledge base designs for HubSpot CMS, and we’re here to help you learn from the mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Here are the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS:
Lack of planning
\n
Putting a category or topic filter on your resource center and leaving it at that doesn’t really give you much more than you’ve already got on your blog. Your blog is a great place to start when it comes to determining some of the categories that will help you organize your content library - but that’s just a starting point. You’ll need to map out your library by establishing subtopics from your main categories or topics and adding individual pieces of content into your sub categories. It can be helpful to establish a content tree or color code your content to help you better determine which categories and subcategories you want to include.
Establishing a general buyer journey guideline will help you reach a certain point in organizing your content library, but you’ll also want to look into buyer intent data, as buyer journey’s are increasingly self guided nowadays. Use data to plan. If you’re paying for an analytics resource software like HubSpot Marketing Pro, you have no shortage of reporting and analytics available to you to help you best determine the impact each piece of content is having and where you can help your buyers along by filling content holes that can help them have all the information they need to make buying decisions.
As you plan, ask yourself questions like:
\n- \n
- What is the goal of this content library? \n
- What are the most popular types of content that our customers are consuming? \n
- Where do we need to offer more information that our buyers need at certain steps in their buying journey? \n
- How can we make this information more accessible to buyers that are doing research independently? \n
- How can we structure and organize our content in a way that’s personalized and effective? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our buyer? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our sales process? \n
- Which industries do we want to feature, if any?
Not Going Custom
\n
Your business isn’t like other businesses and where best to showcase your unique spin on your products and services than your knowledge base or content library? We understand that not everyone has the budget to go fully custom with their website content library, but we think that it’s important to at least find a stable framework that can suit your needs and allow you to do a small amount of customization. More than likely in the planning process, you’ll uncover some features that you want to see.
Your resource center configuration and design should be as flexible as possible so that you can feature new pieces of content, website prospects can easily filter the wealth of information available to them, and you can dress it up beyond the standard category filter options. You can even add things like dynamic search to help your prospect find things they didn’t even know they needed. Employee Fiduciary’s website resource center is an example of a resource library that we recently worked on that has a simple, clean design and functionality with topic filtering, search and feature options.
What you want to deliver to your prospects and customers might be a totally different experience.
- \n
- Do you have different buyer personas that you may want a website prospect to select in a page before your prospect can review the content that most applies to them? \n
- Do you want them to be able to filter your content by industry? \n
The questions that you asked yourself in planning your content library or resource center are the ones that will ultimately guide design - so make sure that you take that first step to plan so that you can determine your list of wants and needs when the time comes.
Ignoring Mobile
\n
As of March 2023, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of your visitors viewing your pretty new resource center on mobile devices, you’ll want to START there. So many prospects approach us with designs with little to no advance consideration for how that design will translate to a mobile device. Rather than making hard choices to save space reactively, you can intuitively design the mobile view for the website first and then take those elements and add or move things around in your full size desktop version.
It is much easier to convert from mobile to desktop than it is to start with desktop and have issues deciding how your site will render when it sizes down to a smaller screen. This is particularly true for resource centers that have sidebar filter options, additional feature content, tables or other special features that may be more difficult to render on a small screen.
The more mobile friendly your website is, the better it ranks. Mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor with Google and because the percentage of mobile traffic continues to increase year over year, this will only become more important for increasing your conversion rates as well.
Related: Web development for SMBs, a mobile first approach to web design
\nIgnoring Load Speed
\n
How quickly your website’s resource center loads is such an important factor when it comes to optimizing it for conversions AND search engines. Google's Core Web Vitals update in 2021 focused heavily on page experience for the user, requiring companies that want to get noticed online to focus on page speed and user experience on their website. The statistics support this focus, because faster loading website pages are proven to increase conversion rates. Site load time decreases in retail website of just .1 second resulted in an 8.4% increase in conversion rates on retail websites. When you’re funneling lots of traffic to your website, these small things matter and in your Resource Center, you’ll want to focus on them as well.
Image size is a huge factor that bogs down many websites. Be sure to pay attention to the size of the images, icons, buttons and other graphical elements that you add to your website. So often marketing managers add graphics and images to a website without looking at the size of the images that they’re uploading and over time this can bog down a website significantly. This is particularly true for resource centers, where you’re often loading large image graphics, icons and more onto a single page. Images that you load into your website resource center should be no larger than 200kb.
It is important to create a set of standards for anyone uploading content to your resource center to protect your page load time.
Related: Page Speed Optimization - 5 Factors Bogging Down Your Website
\nNot Integrating a Mega Menu
\nResource centers are perfect for centralizing all of that content you work so hard to put out - but how do you get people there? While it may be a bit of an unexpected expense, we highly recommend adding a Mega Menu to your budget. A website Mega Menu acts like a central map for your entire website and allows you to be more granular in the content that you offer on your standard website navigation. You can feature full download content, break down your services or resource center into smaller categories and offer short descriptions that better help guide the user to where they need to go.
\n
Adding visual elements, showcasing popular pieces of content and really providing a guide for your website users will help them better find the information that they need as they go through their buying journey. Mega Menus and Resource Centers work closely together to keep website prospects moving through your content using the tools you provide within your resource center listing page and your mega menu as they move through additional resources.
Related: Why a Mega Menu Should Be Your Next Website Investment
\nNot hiring an expert
\nThis is an unfortunate mistake that we see many agencies and HubSpot customers make - hiring someone based on price rather than experience. Hiring an inexpensive or inexperienced web developer might feel like an okay thing to do in the beginning, but quickly you begin to see the issues as the project unfolds. Here are a few things you might notice if you hire an inexperienced web developer:
\n- \n
- Persistently changing timelines \n
- Sluggish response times \n
- Being ghosted \n
- Buggy issues with your resource center \n
- Long loading times \n
- Entire lack of strategy \n
We once received an agency’s partially completed website project from another developer whose resource center took more than a minute to load. While it looked great, the configuration was not well-conceived and because the developer wasn’t an expert in HubDB, they didn’t even realize they could have configured it much more simply within HubDB rather than using an external cloud server.
Now we’ve fixed it and their resource center loads in just a couple seconds, but they had to increase their budget for us to come in and fix this. Now they know that they need a skilled developer at their disposal for continued optimization and projects as their website evolves, and we’re here to make sure they can build sustainably.
If you’re in the middle of hiring for a website, we have a comprehensive list of questions to ask your HubSpot developer prospects when vetting them for a job.
Related: Why Hire an Experienced Web Developer? Your Website Isn’t a Sub Sandwich.
\nEveryone messes up sometimes, and it’s totally fine. Your Resource Center project may not go perfectly - and you may change what you’d like to see within it; the formatting, the features and filters that you offer along the way. Try to partner up and create your strategy before you delve too far into the development process so that you can make sure you not only cater to your prospective buyer, but stay within a predictable budget and avoid some of the biggest and most costly mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.
RELATED: Content Overload - It’s time for a content library or resource center
\n
We’ve seen a LOT of weird things - the good, bad and ugly when it comes to knowledge base designs for HubSpot CMS, and we’re here to help you learn from the mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Here are the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS:
Lack of planning
\n
Putting a category or topic filter on your resource center and leaving it at that doesn’t really give you much more than you’ve already got on your blog. Your blog is a great place to start when it comes to determining some of the categories that will help you organize your content library - but that’s just a starting point. You’ll need to map out your library by establishing subtopics from your main categories or topics and adding individual pieces of content into your sub categories. It can be helpful to establish a content tree or color code your content to help you better determine which categories and subcategories you want to include.
Establishing a general buyer journey guideline will help you reach a certain point in organizing your content library, but you’ll also want to look into buyer intent data, as buyer journey’s are increasingly self guided nowadays. Use data to plan. If you’re paying for an analytics resource software like HubSpot Marketing Pro, you have no shortage of reporting and analytics available to you to help you best determine the impact each piece of content is having and where you can help your buyers along by filling content holes that can help them have all the information they need to make buying decisions.
As you plan, ask yourself questions like:
\n- \n
- What is the goal of this content library? \n
- What are the most popular types of content that our customers are consuming? \n
- Where do we need to offer more information that our buyers need at certain steps in their buying journey? \n
- How can we make this information more accessible to buyers that are doing research independently? \n
- How can we structure and organize our content in a way that’s personalized and effective? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our buyer? \n
- Which content categories are most important to our sales process? \n
- Which industries do we want to feature, if any?
Not Going Custom
\n
Your business isn’t like other businesses and where best to showcase your unique spin on your products and services than your knowledge base or content library? We understand that not everyone has the budget to go fully custom with their website content library, but we think that it’s important to at least find a stable framework that can suit your needs and allow you to do a small amount of customization. More than likely in the planning process, you’ll uncover some features that you want to see.
Your resource center configuration and design should be as flexible as possible so that you can feature new pieces of content, website prospects can easily filter the wealth of information available to them, and you can dress it up beyond the standard category filter options. You can even add things like dynamic search to help your prospect find things they didn’t even know they needed. Employee Fiduciary’s website resource center is an example of a resource library that we recently worked on that has a simple, clean design and functionality with topic filtering, search and feature options.
What you want to deliver to your prospects and customers might be a totally different experience.
- \n
- Do you have different buyer personas that you may want a website prospect to select in a page before your prospect can review the content that most applies to them? \n
- Do you want them to be able to filter your content by industry? \n
The questions that you asked yourself in planning your content library or resource center are the ones that will ultimately guide design - so make sure that you take that first step to plan so that you can determine your list of wants and needs when the time comes.
Ignoring Mobile
\n
As of March 2023, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of your visitors viewing your pretty new resource center on mobile devices, you’ll want to START there. So many prospects approach us with designs with little to no advance consideration for how that design will translate to a mobile device. Rather than making hard choices to save space reactively, you can intuitively design the mobile view for the website first and then take those elements and add or move things around in your full size desktop version.
It is much easier to convert from mobile to desktop than it is to start with desktop and have issues deciding how your site will render when it sizes down to a smaller screen. This is particularly true for resource centers that have sidebar filter options, additional feature content, tables or other special features that may be more difficult to render on a small screen.
The more mobile friendly your website is, the better it ranks. Mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor with Google and because the percentage of mobile traffic continues to increase year over year, this will only become more important for increasing your conversion rates as well.
Related: Web development for SMBs, a mobile first approach to web design
\nIgnoring Load Speed
\n
How quickly your website’s resource center loads is such an important factor when it comes to optimizing it for conversions AND search engines. Google's Core Web Vitals update in 2021 focused heavily on page experience for the user, requiring companies that want to get noticed online to focus on page speed and user experience on their website. The statistics support this focus, because faster loading website pages are proven to increase conversion rates. Site load time decreases in retail website of just .1 second resulted in an 8.4% increase in conversion rates on retail websites. When you’re funneling lots of traffic to your website, these small things matter and in your Resource Center, you’ll want to focus on them as well.
Image size is a huge factor that bogs down many websites. Be sure to pay attention to the size of the images, icons, buttons and other graphical elements that you add to your website. So often marketing managers add graphics and images to a website without looking at the size of the images that they’re uploading and over time this can bog down a website significantly. This is particularly true for resource centers, where you’re often loading large image graphics, icons and more onto a single page. Images that you load into your website resource center should be no larger than 200kb.
It is important to create a set of standards for anyone uploading content to your resource center to protect your page load time.
Related: Page Speed Optimization - 5 Factors Bogging Down Your Website
\nNot Integrating a Mega Menu
\nResource centers are perfect for centralizing all of that content you work so hard to put out - but how do you get people there? While it may be a bit of an unexpected expense, we highly recommend adding a Mega Menu to your budget. A website Mega Menu acts like a central map for your entire website and allows you to be more granular in the content that you offer on your standard website navigation. You can feature full download content, break down your services or resource center into smaller categories and offer short descriptions that better help guide the user to where they need to go.
\n
Adding visual elements, showcasing popular pieces of content and really providing a guide for your website users will help them better find the information that they need as they go through their buying journey. Mega Menus and Resource Centers work closely together to keep website prospects moving through your content using the tools you provide within your resource center listing page and your mega menu as they move through additional resources.
Related: Why a Mega Menu Should Be Your Next Website Investment
\nNot hiring an expert
\nThis is an unfortunate mistake that we see many agencies and HubSpot customers make - hiring someone based on price rather than experience. Hiring an inexpensive or inexperienced web developer might feel like an okay thing to do in the beginning, but quickly you begin to see the issues as the project unfolds. Here are a few things you might notice if you hire an inexperienced web developer:
\n- \n
- Persistently changing timelines \n
- Sluggish response times \n
- Being ghosted \n
- Buggy issues with your resource center \n
- Long loading times \n
- Entire lack of strategy \n
We once received an agency’s partially completed website project from another developer whose resource center took more than a minute to load. While it looked great, the configuration was not well-conceived and because the developer wasn’t an expert in HubDB, they didn’t even realize they could have configured it much more simply within HubDB rather than using an external cloud server.
Now we’ve fixed it and their resource center loads in just a couple seconds, but they had to increase their budget for us to come in and fix this. Now they know that they need a skilled developer at their disposal for continued optimization and projects as their website evolves, and we’re here to make sure they can build sustainably.
If you’re in the middle of hiring for a website, we have a comprehensive list of questions to ask your HubSpot developer prospects when vetting them for a job.
Related: Why Hire an Experienced Web Developer? Your Website Isn’t a Sub Sandwich.
\nEveryone messes up sometimes, and it’s totally fine. Your Resource Center project may not go perfectly - and you may change what you’d like to see within it; the formatting, the features and filters that you offer along the way. Try to partner up and create your strategy before you delve too far into the development process so that you can make sure you not only cater to your prospective buyer, but stay within a predictable budget and avoid some of the biggest and most costly mistakes we’ve seen others make.
Your HubSpot website knowledge base or resource center is your home base when it comes to helping customers along in their buyer journey. While the blog summary page has played a significant role until now in helping your website prospects find the information they need, as you’ve adapted your efforts, your content arsenal has become increasingly varied. From recorded webinars to podcast archives, YouTube videos, white papers and other resources, you’re practically overflowing with content. If you haven’t already created a knowledge base or resource center in HubSpot CMS, you may be exploring what to incorporate in your content library or best practices when it comes to designing a knowledge base in HubSpot CMS.