Hubspot CRM: How can it power your marketing efforts?
In this blog, we will explore and explain the ways in which your company’s data can turn your CRM into a unique source of growth and revenue.
These days, it’s becoming more and more evident that a CRM necessary for running a business in a modern and competitive market. But CRMs aren’t just new ways to store customer information. They are an invaluable way for you to decode and monetize an incredibly powerful resource: customer data.
The Age of Data
Raw data is not useful without proper collection, storing and structuring. It needs processing to be harnessed in a valuable and low-maintenance manner.
For example, a list with all the names of users that showed interest in your business over the last eighteen months can be helpful.
But consider how helpful it would be to have lists of people who are browsing, ready to buy or even those that are ready to buy and have shown critical signs of converting.
By working smart, you can better understand your data and use it to send the right message to the right people at the right time avoiding processes that are riskier and more labor-intensive. Nowadays, targeting has also become much more precise, resulting in less interruptive and more informative ads. In fact, this precision has become so commonplace that good quality ads like those in Instagram feeds and YouTube videos are taken for granted.
Out with the old, in with the new
Digital marketing is not the same it was in its inception 20 years ago. GDPR, privacy advocates, start-ups and even big names like Apple are having a huge impact in redefining data mining.
Sound familiar?
| Buying data lists | Mass email sends with misspelt names | Cold calls without consent | Spam SMS messages from random numbers |
Chances are you still see some of them. And we’re not talking about the occasional ‘Hi {first name}’ greeting mistake in every marketers nightmares. We’re talking about the data-scraping, privacy-invading practices that gave the whole industry a bad name.
Many businesses STILL rely on these out-of-date practices, and we’re confident you’ve even encountered one this week.
But why?
Is it malintent? Greed? Indifference?
It’s usually none of the above. In fact it’s the polar opposite. Many businesses are so eager to get their message out there that they overlook the science and craft required for effective marketing. They forget about their treasure trove of prospect data, which contains valuable insights into behavior, preferences, and desire.
Say hello to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
A CRM is a tool that manages your customer information. It can be as basic as a spreadsheet or as sophisticated as an evolving AI that adapts to the needs of your clients. A CRM can help you increase income and delight prospects at each step of the purchasing journey if utilized correctly.
Why Successful Companies Leverage Their CRM for Experience-Driven Marketing
The marketers that are most successful today are hyper-focused on the customer experience. Experience-driven marketing puts your customers first in all you do as a marketer.
It’s a big reason why HubSpot has incorporated the flywheel into its processes. When marketing focuses on the customer experience, sales and marketing intersect. Service engages and pushes sales forward. Service delights and feeds back into marketing. And all of this is made possible because the company uses a CRM.
If you want your business to grow, focus on experience-driven marketing. It’s not just a fad — it actually works. According to Forrester research, businesses that said they were focused on customer experience grew 40% faster and increased their customers’ lifetime value by more than 60%.
Most marketers do not have all their tools and strategies tightly fitted into one CRM, which typically causes issues such as disconnected customer journeys, data hoarding, and no way to measure success.
We’re investing a lot of time and effort in integrating HubSpot’s Marketing Hub with the CRM so your team can have a unified view of the customer experience. This way, you’ll be able to create personalized experiences across all channels that are tailored to each individual. You’ll also be able to measure your success as a marketer more accurately.
A CRM Helps You Create Custom Marketing Offers for Each Client
Rooting your marketing in a CRM also allows you to deliver personalized experiences across every platform. Personalization is still the holy grail for providing a great experience in this hyper-competitive world. It’s harder than ever to grab attention in this saturated market, and we all know that the more personalized you are, the better your chances of being noticed.
At its core, real personalization is about delivering content that is tailored to the individual user. This could mean recommending new content based on what they have already read, or showing related offers when a visitor expresses interest in a particular topic. It could also involve using different calls to action for customers and prospects, or remembering a user’s name and sales rep through chatbot functionality. All of this is possible with CRM-driven marketing.
The three paths to CRM success:
- Segment – ensure prospects hear a message suited to their needs
- Contextualise – explain in clear terms why it’s useful
- Personalise – make them feel valued and loved
Segment
Promotional messaging is everywhere with the average consumer seeing between 5000-10000 ads every day.
Consider the last time you were resting and browsing on your phone, perhaps doing some online shopping or checking in on social media. How much irrelevant advertising did you encounter?
“Today only – 50% of all organic aloe vera & chili peanut butter cups!”
“Door, doors, doors! Get your doors from Acme doors!! Big doors, small prices!”
“Crypto, something or other.”
Have you ever closed a web page because the advertising was so bad that it detracted from your online experience? If you have, then you’re not alone. But there’s something even scarier for marketers than angry prospects, and that’s apathy!
When consumers don’t feel like you’re speaking to them directly, they’ll tune out. This is why a CRM is so crucial to today’s marketing. You can’t offer your clients the material they want when and how they want it if you don’t understand them.
The great news is that you already have the solution to your marketing dilemma in your CRM data. You can extrapolate specific customer groups from that data by wants, needs, and readiness to buy.
Segment your database with HubSpot lists
Segmenting your database helps you to focus on specific groups of people by any data point, such as who they are, where they work, or what they’re doing. You can create lists that update in real-time to reflect changes in the data fields.
In a few minutes, you can compile a list of customers who are in the third month of their current contract. Would they be interested in upgrading their service with a complementary package?
Why not target every potential customer that has visited your pricing page multiple times in the past month by sending them a discount code?
It’s quite clear that the same messaging won’t work for both groups of people. However, with a bit of deliberation, you can send each group custom messages which they will be happy to receive because it solves a problem they have.
Create manually tracked custom events triggered by user behavior
Manually tracked custom behavioral events enable you to define and track events that are unique to your business. By customizing your contact behavioral events and tying them to specific properties, you can get a more granular understanding of how users interact with your website. These manually tracked events give you insight that would otherwise be unavailable, but require the analytics API and some coding knowledge to set up.
This is a reporting tool in the HubSpot Marketing Hub Enterprise that allows you to monitor more complicated analytics on your website or via third-party apps to get deeper context about the entire customer journey.
Learn how this tool works in this article
Contextualize
Every potential buyer must progress through the three key buying stages of Awareness, Consideration and Decision.
However, depending on what you’re selling, those steps often look different. For example, somebody who’s thirsty on a hot day will move from Awareness to Decision about buying iced water much quicker than a Project Manager investigating new forecasting software for a global SaaS company. The former transaction could be completed in minutes while the latter might take months.
Nonetheless, consumers require specific purchasing stage-specific information before they can make a decision, no matter how long or far the trip lasts.
Consider this: a Project Manager first becomes aware of your forecasting software once they have a problem caused by poor planning tools. They’ll then seek for a solution, which might range from integrating a new tool to outsourcing the whole issue.
Build Campaign triggers and link them to the Buyer’s Journey via HubSpot
The content below was designed to appeal to buyers at every stage of their journey. By sending emails and messages that are tailored to where the customer is in their buyer’s journey, you can be sure that your content will always be relevant and useful to them. Always put yourself in the shoes of your buyer and think about what they need from you at each stage of their purchase process.
Awareness:
Blog: Why Project Managers Always Seem to be Short on Time
Consideration:
Guide: 10 Tips for Becoming a More Effective Project Manager
Decision:
Case study: See How Company X Solved their Forecasting Problem with our Technology
If you organize your prospective customers in your CRM according to their customer journey, you can be confident they will receive accurate messaging for the stage they are at. Just as it would be premature to propose marriage on a first date, it is also unwise to overload a new prospect with too much technical data before they have fully realized they have a problem that needs solving. Instead, Send them timely and helpful pieces of information like breadcrumbs which will slowly draw them in rather than shoving your product down their throats prematurely.
You can improve your conversion rates significantly by segmenting your audience and providing them with contextually relevant sales messaging.
Use HubSpot Smart Content to Contextualise your messaging at scale
HubSpot Smart content gives you the ability to personalize emails, landing pages, and calls-to-action (CTAs) for each individual user. The rules you set determine what content is displayed.
Say you want to send context-appropriate content to your prospects without taking the time to do it manually. You can use HubSpot pages that automatically change according to what the lead needs. The CRM data will show Awareness, Consideration, or Decision-related content based on where they are in their buyer’s journey—allowing you to give them exactly what they need at every stage.
You save time, boost conversions, and generate more money with less effort by determining which prospects need to see your messaging.
Personalize
With HubSpot, you can use standard or custom properties (the various data points you collect on contacts) to personalize sales messages.
However, effective personalization goes beyond just addressing someone by name in an email. While this may have been disruptive a few years ago, today’s consumers are much more tech and data-savvy.
To create a modern personalized message, consider the language, tone and subject matter that would be most relevant to your customer. Make sure to send it in a timely fashion so they will see it when they need it.
Now, picture this: you open an email and it’s addressed to you by name. Sure, it’s nice–but that same morning, you’ve gotten four other emails starting off the exact same way. At this point, you can spot an automated message from a mile away.
But what about four weeks before your company’s HR software is due for renewal, you get a timely notification specifically addressing your HR management issue?
The importance of personalization can be seen through this example: You just started a small business six months ago and you receive a message from an invoice management software vendor on the importance of filing your taxes on time?
You want your prospects to feel serendipity. We know it was effective CRM management when you set up a HubSpot workflow to contact HR managers one month before their next renewal date, or small business owners who have established in the last year. However, prospects will connect with your brand because the content is tailored to their demands and sent at the appropriate moment.
It can be tricky to know where contextualizing ends and personalization starts, so here’s an analogy:
Segmentation – to whom do we want to speak?
Contextualisation – what are we going to say?
Personalization – how are we going to say it?
Contextualization ensures that you don’t torpedo a conversion by going too hard too quickly, while personalization ensures the prospect feels like you’re speaking directly to them at the moment they’re most likely to want to hear your message.
Contextual communications should be personalized, but not to the point where it’s off-putting. Your clients want information that feels tailored to them and is useful when they need it most.
Use custom properties to get tailored information on leads’ companies
HubSpot provides a wealth of data points you can collect on each prospect. From name and address to how many emails they’ve opened, HubSpot can help you build a better understanding on a group and individual level.
Because HubSpot must cater to a wide range of businesses, it is restricted in the universal properties it may create. Not everyone will require the typical weight of a Nebraskan dairy herd, for example.
With custom properties, you can create data points that are tailor-made for your needs.
Your CRM as a source of growth
You’ll be able to generate more sales and provide better service if you keep your CRM information clean and simple to access.
When Segmenting your audience, you can more easily target specific groups of prospects with the right message. This helps ensure that your marketing efforts are more effective.
Contextualizing your messaging allows you to boost conversions at every stage of the funnel by matching your message to a specific point in your prospect’s journey.
By Personalizing your messaging, you make it relatable to prospects on a human level. By doing this, they will begin to trust and respect your brand more. To show them that they truly matter to you, try and understand what pain points they have and offer helpful information or solutions when needed most.”
CRM triggers for hyper-personalized communications
Your CRM is packed with useful demographic data that you can use to personalize your communications but using activity and engagement data to send out timely messaging could be the difference between a personal email and hyper-personalized messaging.
Triggers for timely communication
- Use page tracking to provide individual recommendations
- Knowing which pages a contact has visited will enable you to provide specific recommendations to people based on their particular requirements. You could say this is similar to email remarketing.
- To help promote sales, use deal stages to activate tailored bots on websites.
- Create bots that appear to prospects based on what stage of the deal they are in. By having a bot specifically for each stage of the buyer’s journey, you can ensure that buyers always have their questions answered promptly and appropriately.
- Use important dates to trigger personal messaging
- Send a birthday email, an anniversary email, or even a mail letting customers know when their subscription will expire. These timely communications can be used to connect with prospects and consumers through the data you have collected.
- Use workflows to trigger actions just when a contact responds/performs an action
- Workflows allow you to postpone actions until a contact has completed an action, such as visiting a website or filling out a form. The benefit of this is that you may wait till a buyer is engaged with you before sending them an email. As a result, you’ll be able to connect with buyers in real time.
Transform your CRM system into a marketing powerhouse by sending out consistent, targeted messages to your audience at the right time.
If you implement one or more of these ideas, your business will see a revenue increase that is both sustainable and cost-effective. HubSpot provides a simple but effective toolset that allows you to build personalized and contextual campaigns on a large scale.
