Last week HubSpot invited all their Gold, Platinum and Diamond partners back to Cambridge to give us a sneak peek on all the changes and system updates they are implementing. Each year this event keeps getting larger and larger as their partner program continues to grow.
As one of HubSpot's first certified partners we have seen lots of changes. Some exciting, some we yawn and discard (they recognize that some changes are better for some clients/agencies than others). This year was a mix of both, some we have known about for months that they are finally ready to roll out, some are more isolated to particular clients that we do not necessarily have in our client base. And of course, some we are really excited about.
Here is a brief recap of some of the new product/enhancement announcements:
1) Conversations: Back in September 2017, HubSpot announced it had acquired a chatbot company called Motion AI, since that time we were waiting to see how they planned to introduce and utilize this feature. Chatbots are now all the rage, being able to create custom playbooks so that visitors to your site can have a better, more positive user experience versus the traditional form. Right now, chatbots seem less intrusive, less informal, and are increasing conversion rates. The big advantage here is they did a really great job of integrating Conversations with their CRM so that Sales and Marketing stakeholders have visibility and can automate follow-up initiatives through Workflows.
2) Shopify Integration: Shopify is one of the most popular and easy to use eCommerce payment gateways. Now with a fully automated integration, it makes implementing Shopify easier and tying it to your CRM provides a great cradle to grave reporting component.
3) Service Hub: This is the latest portal being introduced. In the beginning, there was just Marketing which included your website pages, landing pages, emails and contacts. Then they brought in Sales Hub to help convert, track and manage contacts along the pipeline. The Service Hub is designed to track the customer service activities for those organizations who manage a Customer Service department. Now, you can use the HubSpot CRM and reps or technicians can log calls and internal stakeholders can be apprised of any issues. Within this function there are lots of features such as a ticketing component, shared knowledge library, and many others. All tied of course to the HubSpot CRM. The cost for the Service Hub starts at $400/month for the first 5 users and the $80/month for each additional user
4) New API's: HubSpot announced 6 new API's. The integrations component is designed to bring in great value-added resources to improve customer service or reporting functionality. The 6 new API's are:
- Products API
- Line Items API
- Tickets API
- CRM Object Properties API
- Associations API
- Changelog API
5) Platform Changes: If you have worked with the HubSpot platform recently, you should have experienced the changes to the internal navigation, how pages are managed, how templates are designed. If you are a HubSpot Developer, they have made things easier to develop and code. You can now see HTML, Hubl, CSS and JavaScript all on one page. These changes are designed to make the platform easier to use for both the marketer as well as the developer. Plus, they have introduced a new and powerful Site Search module that replaces the old Custom Search module. In other words, it will be a lot easier to install a Site Search widget confined to your own domain.
6) Email platform: If you are invested in communicating to your contact group via email, HubSpot "Recommendations," which for simplified description is a email optimization system. It is designed to make your emails more effective from both a content and personalization basis.
7) Meetings & Quotes: Integrated into the Sales Hub, Meeting is designed to help schedule meetings automatically based upon pre-established rules and playbooks you set up. This connection is now easier with different calendar options and can also automatically send reminder emails helping ensure that people show up.
Quotes is also a new tool within the Sales Hub Professional that allows users to easily and automatically generate quotes. And to make it a seamless transaction, it can be tied to Stripe for merchant service execution.
8) Social - Instagram: For quite some time the partner and client community have been screaming for better calendaring and scheduling interface and more importantly Instagram integration. All of that is now available within the enhancements HubSpot introduced. Your copy team can now write and bulk upload social posts for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. But what I am personally most excited about is the scheduling component, using a drag and drop calendar to get posts scheduled and find out where there are potential holes, and not just for one social account but multiple within the same portal.
9) Facebook Messenger: If you are a marketer, you know the impact of Messenger in today's social environment. Yet businesses either have not learned how to or had a platform to communicate on a 1-to-1 basis. HubSpot is one of the few organizations Facebook has allowed into their ecosystem. What this empowers you to do is to run targeted campaigns within HubSpot on Facebook, and to easily add Messenger CTA's to any website page and be able to ask questions and deliver content via Messenger. And of course, they tied all of this to the HubSpot CRM for visibility to all internal stakeholders.
10) Simplified Tier Structure: HubSpot is currently offering 5 different tier levels (Free, Starter, Basic, Professional, and Enterprise). With all of the changes going on with Sales Hub and Service Hub, they are simplifying their product offerings. Here is their forecasted model for 2019.
As a HubSpot certified partner, we have seen that when they come up with these announcements, historically there is also a bump in monthly licensing. Now having said that, we also have quite a few clients that have been grandfathered into the new features with the same monthly license rate they signed back in 2009 (imagine having a license with unlimited email records for $250/month -- we have them). So, if you are thinking about making a shift to HubSpot, now is the time to do so. With our negotiating power, we often are able to get the HubSpot monthly fee below their advertised rate. Plus, we come along side you to make sure you are able to take full advantage of this powerful CMS platform.
Connection Model is a nimble Digital Marketing Agency, focused on helping clients grow revenue, generate qualified leads and acquire profitable new customers through measurable, accountable Inbound Marketing. Specifically, the agency delivers results through Performance-Built Websites, Content Marketing fueled by Paid Media and Social Media, Blogging, SEO, Online Video, Loyalty and Lifecycle Marketing programs.
Written By: Doug Milnor
