HubSpot Tutorial for Beginners: A Quick Overview

HubSpot CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses of all sizes manage their customer interactions and relationships. It offers a suite of tools for marketing, sales, customer service, and operations, all integrated on a single platform. HubSpot CRM is a powerful and easy-to-use CRM platform that can help businesses of all sizes improve their customer relationships and grow their businesses.

Here is an example of how a business might use HubSpot CRM:

A small business that sells industrial products might use HubSpot CRM to track their leads and customers, automate their marketing campaigns, and provide excellent customer service. They could use HubSpot CRM to create a landing page to capture leads, send automated follow-up emails to those leads, and track their progress through the sales pipeline. They could also use HubSpot CRM to create and manage their marketing campaigns, such as email marketing and social media marketing. Additionally, they could use HubSpot CRM to track customer interactions and resolve support tickets efficiently.

Here are some of the key benefits of using HubSpot CRM:

• Centralized customer data: HubSpot CRM stores all of your customer data in one central location, making it easy to track and manage your interactions with them.
• Automated workflows: HubSpot CRM can automate many of your time-consuming CRM tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and scheduling meetings.
• Sales pipeline management: HubSpot CRM helps you track your sales pipeline and identify opportunities for growth.
• Customer service management: HubSpot CRM helps you provide excellent customer service by tracking customer interactions and resolving support tickets efficiently.
• Marketing automation: HubSpot CRM can help you automate your marketing campaigns, such as email marketing and social media marketing.
• Reporting and insights: HubSpot CRM provides you with detailed reports and insights into your customer behavior and preferences.

Ok now that you know what HubSpot is lets dive into some of its core features and how they could benefit your business growth.

HubSpot CRM Features

At its core, HubSpot is a powerful CRM platform. Lets look at some of the core CRM features.

Manage contacts and companies in HubSpot

In HubSpot, you can effectively manage your contacts and companies. Unlike some other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that prioritize organizing contacts by companies, HubSpot focuses on individual contact records. However, contacts belonging to the same company will still be grouped together.

To navigate and filter your contacts, you have various options such as sorting them by company, date of creation, or those requiring immediate attention. This enables you to quickly find and prioritize your contacts based on specific criteria.

Additionally, HubSpot allows you to easily browse and organize companies in your CRM. Similar to the contact list, you can utilize a range of filters to browse through companies and locate the information you need. You also have the option to organize companies based on their lifecycle stage, facilitating effective management and segmentation of your customer base.

Upload content for use across the organization

You can conveniently upload content for use across the entire organization in this designated section. Here, you have the opportunity to store and access key resources related to branding communication, sales processes, and any other relevant materials. It is recommended to have the most up-to-date and approved versions of documents available in this section for optimal results. Additionally, it is beneficial to inform other teams, such as marketing, of your usage of these resources and how they can also access them. Furthermore, this section provides usage data, allowing you to track how extensively your team is making use of the documents uploaded.

Use the inbox tool for support emails and chatflows

The inbox tool in HubSpot is designed to streamline your customer support processes by providing a unified platform for managing support emails and chatflows. With the inbox tool, you no longer need to log into separate platforms to handle customer interactions.

For support emails, the inbox tool allows you to access all customer emails and Facebook messages in one place. This means you can easily view and respond to customer inquiries without the hassle of navigating different interfaces. By centralizing your support email management, you can efficiently handle customer communication and provide timely responses.

Chatflows, on the other hand, allow you to customize the messaging and automation that occurs when someone initiates a chat on your website. Within the chatflow settings, you can define the initial message a visitor will receive, set up automated responses, and determine the next steps in the chat interaction. This provides a seamless and personalized experience for your website visitors, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.

By utilizing the inbox tool for support emails and chatflows, you can effectively manage and prioritize customer inquiries, ensuring that all communication channels are streamlined and easily accessible. Whether it’s through handling support emails or optimizing chat interactions, HubSpot’s inbox tool empowers you to provide efficient and effective customer support.

Use HubSpot lists for organizing contacts

HubSpot Lists are a valuable feature that can help you organize your contacts effectively. By utilizing both static and dynamic lists, you can manage your contacts based on specific criteria.

Static lists are ideal for situations where you want to create a list of contacts that will remain unchanged, regardless of any future updates in their information. For example, if you want to prospect contacts from your previous company at your new company, you can create a static list to ensure that only those particular contacts are included. This list stays the same and can be used for targeted outreach or specific campaigns.

On the other hand, dynamic lists, also known as active lists, offer a more automated approach to organizing contacts. These lists automatically include new contacts that meet certain criteria you have defined. For instance, if you want to create a list of all your leads from a specific industry, you can set up a dynamic list that will continuously update as new leads matching that criteria are added to your system. This saves you time and effort as you don’t have to manually add new contacts to the list every time.

HubSpot Lists provide flexibility in how you organize your contacts, giving you the ability to efficiently manage and target specific groups of contacts based on different criteria. Whether it’s creating static lists for unchanging groups or dynamic lists that automatically add new contacts, you can use HubSpot Lists to streamline your contact management process and enhance your marketing and sales efforts.

Track and manage calls and activities in HubSpot

In HubSpot, you have the ability to effectively track and manage calls and activities. This includes both internal and external calls made by your team. The platform provides comprehensive information about everyone involved in the calls, any related Deals that have been set up, and a space to record the outcome of each call.

One of the key features is the option to make calls directly from HubSpot, ensuring that they are automatically tracked and recorded in the system. This can be incredibly valuable for keeping a detailed record of all communication with your contacts.

Additionally, if you simply want to review the calls made for a specific company or contact, you can easily access that information in one place.

Furthermore, HubSpot offers an Activity Feed that organizes and displays all the activity happening within the platform. Activities are grouped by contact and are presented in a way that is tailored to the specific account you are accessing. This makes it easier to stay updated on the latest interactions and engagements with your contacts.

HubSpot Sales Features

So now that we have a way to collect and manage customer data how do you leverage that for sales? A key concept to this is understanding lifecycle stages as someone goes from a lead to a customer.

What are lifecycle stages and what are the default stages in HubSpot?

Lifecycle stages are tools used in a sales process to track the progress of contacts or companies. They provide a framework for understanding where a lead or customer stands in relation to your marketing efforts. In HubSpot, there are default lifecycle stages that follow a specific order: subscriber, lead, marketing qualified lead (MQL), sales qualified lead (SQL), opportunity, customer, and evangelist. These stages represent different phases of engagement with your company, starting from a simple subscription to becoming a loyal advocate. It’s important to note that these default stages cannot be edited in HubSpot. Therefore, it is crucial to familiarize yourself with the concept of lifecycle stages and how they align with your company’s marketing strategy. By understanding and utilizing these stages effectively, you can gain a comprehensive overview of your sales pipeline and make informed decisions in targeting and nurturing prospects as they move through each stage.

How do the different lifecycle stages work in HubSpot?

Lifecycle stages in HubSpot refer to the different phases or stages that a customer goes through in their buyer’s journey. These stages are designed to help businesses effectively track, manage, and engage with their leads and customers at various points in the sales funnel.

HubSpot offers three primary lifecycle stages:

1. Subscriber: This is the initial stage where individuals express interest in a company’s offerings by subscribing to their email list, following them on social media, or downloading content. At this stage, these individuals have shown a potential interest but have not yet been qualified as leads.
2. Lead: Once a subscriber engages further and provides their contact information through a form or other means, they become a lead. Leads have shown a specific interest in a company’s products or services and have the potential to become customers. At this stage, businesses typically focus on nurturing and qualifying these leads.
3. Customer: When a lead successfully completes a purchase or becomes a paying customer, they move into the customer stage. They have made a transaction with the company and have demonstrated trust and commitment. In this stage, businesses aim to provide a positive customer experience, maintain loyalty, and encourage repeat purchases.

It’s important to note that HubSpot also offers additional lifecycle stages that can further segment and categorize customers based on their specific behaviors, preferences, or actions. These additional stages may include marketing-qualified lead (MQL), sales-accepted lead (SAL), opportunity, and evangelist, among others.

HubSpot’s lifecycle stages work by assigning contacts or leads to the appropriate stage based on their behavior and interactions with the company’s marketing and sales activities. The stages allow businesses to understand where each customer is in their buyer’s journey and tailor their marketing and sales efforts accordingly. For example, subscribers may receive educational content to convert them into leads, while leads may receive targeted nurturing campaigns to move them closer to making a purchase.

By effectively utilizing lifecycle stages in HubSpot, businesses can create personalized and relevant experiences for their leads and customers, ultimately driving better engagement, conversions, and long-term customer loyalty.

Book sales calls and meetings directly on my calendar

To book sales calls and meetings directly on your calendar, you can utilize a dedicated section that allows you to track customer payments. In addition, this section provides you with a comprehensive view of the customer’s deal stage, the team member responsible for the deal, associated company contacts, and other valuable information. By leveraging this functionality, you can efficiently manage and schedule your sales calls and meetings, ensuring a seamless booking process.

Review quotes on projects for different clients

To review quotes on projects for different clients, you can access a section specifically designed for this purpose. In this section, you will find detailed information about the quotes, including project details, progress status, and payment status. This allows you to easily track and analyze the quotes for different clients in one place, making it convenient for you to make informed decisions and manage your projects efficiently.

HubSpot Marketing Features

Create and manage Calls to Action (CTAs) in my blog posts

To create and manage Calls to Action (CTAs) in your blog posts, you can utilize the following steps. Firstly, you can start by accessing the designated platform, such as HubSpot, where you will have the necessary tools and functionality. Once there, you have the option to create and customize your CTAs according to your preferences. This includes adding compelling images and relevant links to enhance the effectiveness of your CTAs. By exploring the available presets and features, you can easily tailor the CTAs to align with your blog post content and objectives. Additionally, it is recommended to familiarize yourself with the detailed tutorials and guides provided by HubSpot or other platforms, as they can offer valuable insights and tips for optimizing your CTAs in blog posts. Remember, with the right tools and resources at your disposal, effectively creating and managing CTAs within your blog posts becomes a seamless process.

Use HubSpot to plan and schedule social media posts

HubSpot provides a comprehensive solution for planning and scheduling social media posts. With HubSpot’s social media tools, you can effortlessly create and organize your social media content calendar. The platform allows you to plan and schedule all your upcoming social media posts in one place.

To get started, you can use their user-friendly interface to generate engaging social media content. Whether it’s a promotional campaign, company update, or simply sharing valuable content with your audience, HubSpot offers customizable templates and an intuitive editor to create stunning posts.

Once you have your content ready, you can easily schedule the exact date and time you want your posts to go live. This feature allows you to plan your social media strategy in advance and ensure a consistent stream of content for your followers.

Additionally, HubSpot provides the ability to review and analyze your past posts and their associated metrics. This allows you to gain valuable insights into the performance of your social media campaigns. By understanding which posts received the most engagement, clicks, or conversions, you can optimize your future content to better resonate with your audience.

Store photos, PDFs, and other files for use in emails or web pages

You can use the “Files” feature to securely store your photos, PDFs, and various other files. This functionality allows you to conveniently upload and access these files whenever you need to include them in emails or web pages.

Create and send email marketing campaigns

To change out different modules in your email template design, you can utilize the “Design Tools” section. This section offers the functionality to modify various modules within your email template design, as well as your landing pages and more.

HubSpot Reports Analytics Features

Ok at this point you are using your CRM for marketing and sales, how do you now track and measure ROI so you can maximize your efforts?

What is the purpose of reports/analytics in HubSpot and how can they be used to analyze trends?

Reports and analytics in HubSpot serve the purpose of enabling users to effectively analyze trends across various HubSpot tools. These features provide a valuable toolset to gain insights into user behaviors and market trends. By utilizing the built-in library of reports and custom report creation capabilities, teams can gather comprehensive data to better understand their users and the market they operate in.

The reports and analytics functionality in HubSpot allows users to collect, organize, and interpret data from different areas of their HubSpot account. This includes data from marketing campaigns, sales activities, customer interactions, and more. By aggregating this information into meaningful reports, it becomes easier to identify patterns, trends, and key performance indicators.

The reports and analytics features facilitate the identification of trends by allowing users to observe changes and patterns over time. These trends can include changes in customer behavior, leads generated, engagement levels, conversion rates, and more. By visualizing this information through charts, graphs, and other visual aids, users can easily spot patterns and understand how they evolve over time.

Moreover, the ability to create custom reports ensures that teams are able to focus on the specific metrics and data points that are most relevant to their business goals. This flexibility empowers users to tailor their analysis to specific segments, campaigns, or objectives. By narrowing down the scope of analysis, teams can gain deeper insights into specific trends that align with their business strategies.

Find key analytics features like Traffic Analytics and Contact Analytics

Key analytics features like Traffic Analytics and Contact Analytics can be found within the analytics tools. These tools may sometimes be a bit hard to locate, but they typically house important features such as Event Tracking, which allows you to monitor customer activities on your website, along with various other analytics capabilities.

Track my team’s progress towards revenue goals

To effectively track your team’s progress towards revenue goals, our platform offers a comprehensive solution. Utilizing deal stages, you can easily evaluate individual performances within any desired forecast period. By doing so, you can ensure that you are on track to achieve crucial milestones within your revenue targets. With our tool, monitoring your team’s progression towards revenue goals becomes a seamless and efficient process.

HubSpot AI Tools

What AI tools does HubSpot offer, such as the Content Assistant and ChatSpot?

HubSpot offers a range of AI tools that can assist businesses in various aspects of their operations. For instance, they have developed their own Content Assistant, an AI-powered tool that can help users in enhancing their content creation process. The Content Assistant is designed to provide suggestions, recommendations, and insights to improve the effectiveness and relevance of the content being produced. Additionally, HubSpot also introduced ChatSpot, another AI tool that facilitates customer interactions. It enables businesses to integrate chatbot capabilities into their websites or messaging platforms, allowing for automated conversations with customers. With ChatSpot, companies can provide quicker responses and resolve customer queries efficiently, enhancing overall customer experience.

HubSpot Resources and Training

Helpful HubSpot settings and features

HubSpot offers a wide range of helpful settings and features to enhance your experience and optimize your marketing efforts.

Below are the main sections of the HubSpot tool that you would see in the site navigation at the top.

1. Dashboard: HubSpot’s user-friendly dashboard provides an overview of your marketing and sales performance, allowing you to track important metrics at a glance.
2. Contacts: Manage your contacts in a centralized database, keeping track of their interactions, lead status, and communication history.
3. Companies: Keep information about your company’s interactions with other organizations, allowing you to have a comprehensive view of your business relationships.
4. Activity Feed: Stay updated on all recent activities and engagement from contacts, giving you insights on their interests and preferences.
5. Inbox Tool (Support Email): Efficiently manage and respond to customer inquiries by integrating your support email inbox directly into HubSpot.
6. Chatflows: Engage with prospects and customers in real-time using chatbots and live chat, providing immediate assistance and collecting valuable information.
7. Snippets Overview: Create reusable content snippets, such as email signatures or common responses, to save time and maintain consistency in communication.
8. Templates: Design and store email templates, landing pages, and blog templates for quick and effortless content creation.
9. HubSpot Ads: Run and manage ads directly within HubSpot, allowing you to streamline your ad campaigns and track performance.
10. Email Campaigns: Design and execute targeted email marketing campaigns to engage with your audience and nurture leads.
11. HubSpot Social: Schedule, publish, and analyze your social media content, streamlining your social media strategy within HubSpot.
12. Lead Capture (CTA): Create effective call-to-action buttons and pop-ups to capture leads and guide them towards conversion.
13. Forms: Build customizable forms to gather contact information and qualify leads, seamlessly integrating with your marketing campaigns.
14. Planning and Strategy (Calendar): Organize and plan your marketing initiatives with a shared calendar, ensuring alignment across multiple teams and campaigns.
15. HubSpot Campaigns: Create, manage, and track multi-channel campaigns, allowing you to easily analyze their effectiveness and optimize for better results.
16. SEO Tool: Optimize your website and content for search engines with HubSpot’s SEO tool, ensuring higher visibility and organic traffic.
17. HubSpot Projects: Collaborate with your team and manage project timelines, assigning tasks, and tracking progress within HubSpot.
18. Sales Tab: Streamline your sales process by managing your pipeline, tracking deals, and monitoring sales activities.
19. Tasks: Assign and prioritize tasks for yourself and your team, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and driving productivity.
20. Reports/Analytics: Generate in-depth reports and analyze key marketing and sales metrics to measure your performance and make data-driven decisions.

These are just a few of the many helpful settings and features that HubSpot offers. By leveraging these tools effectively, you can streamline your marketing, sales, and customer service processes, helping you achieve your business goals more efficiently.

Access additional tutorials and resources for learning HubSpot

To access additional tutorials and resources for learning HubSpot, you have various options at your disposal. Firstly, you can explore the HubSpot Hacks channel on YouTube, which offers a range of informative videos aimed at beginners. This channel provides a comprehensive ‘HubSpot for beginners’ playlist that covers everything you need to know to get started. One of the tutorial videos within this playlist offers an in-depth demo, showcasing useful features and highlighting the various ways you can make the most of HubSpot.

Additionally, HubSpot offers a wealth of educational materials and training resources on their website. By visiting the HubSpot Academy, you can access a variety of courses, certifications, and guides that are tailored to different experience levels and areas of interest. These resources provide a step-by-step understanding of the HubSpot interface, explain the functionality and application of each tool, and offer practical use cases within the marketing automation platform.

Whether you prefer video tutorials or written guides, HubSpot ensures that you have the necessary tools to learn at your own pace. Take advantage of these resources to deepen your knowledge of HubSpot and share them with your team members who may also benefit from this valuable information.