Your HubSpot onboarding will become even more effective if you know these five things
If you are in the position to start thinking about HubSpot onboarding or you are about to go through the process-- congratulations! We at Story Collaborative love HubSpot. Yes, in full transparency, they do pay us for the amount of HubSpot accounts we manage, but this is by no means a paid advertisement. We honestly just like talking about HubSpot and how great of a CRM/CMS it is!
We're going to get right to it because you've already decided that HubSpot is right for your business, so here are the top five things you should know before you start your HubSpot onboarding process:
1) You should get an idea (or several) of what datasets you would like to see your organization report on
Thinking about ideal attributes will require you to consider the helpful, sales-related details tied to your prospects or existing clients. If you miss this step, you'll be skipping part of what makes a great CRM so powerful and integral to success.
The great thing about HubSpot is that the Custom Properties in HubSpot are easy to set up and offer a variety of data validation such as:
- Single-line text
- Dropdown select
- Date picker
- Calculation
- Score
- File insertion...
- ...and more.
Custom Properties can be associated with your Contact Record and show up in the Life of the Lead view of each contact. You can also view the progress of these Properties by using tools like Analytics and Workflows when a marketing event needs to be triggered.
2) You should be prepared with details from your website such as your DNS server (if you plan to integrate it)
When you begin your HubSpot process, you may think it's as simple as HubSpot taking everything from your website domain and transferring it to HubSpot's. While that's sort of the case, there are many minor details that need to be addressed.
- Where is your domain hosted? This is also known as your registrar, the organization that sells domain names to the public, such as, Hostgator, GoDaddy, WPEngine, etc.
- What are the login credentials?
- What is your DNS server?
- What pages do you want to transfer?
- Think critically about this and how your customer is looking at this information. If a page hasn't been visited in over six months, you can either repurpose it (if the content is good and still relevant) or scrap it.
- Think about what pages you want to get rid of/completely revamp.
- Is there any underlying functionality that will break as a result of the transfer (aka Frankenstein code with multiple Wordpress plug-ins or custom HTML code)?
Work with your onboarding team to iron out the best integration plan for your needs. You may need to build a new website within HubSpot, use a plug-in from HubSpot, and more, but there are many ways to integrate HubSpot so that you are aligning sales and marketing.
3) You should realize that your HubSpot onboarding is unique to your business
A HubSpot onboarding process, while similar for most businesses, isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. Your business is unique and special! (And, if you cannot figure that out, maybe you should talk to us, and we'll help you in that effort.)
For example, as of August 2022, there are 30 companies in Silicon Valley that make the Fortune 1000 list. In addition, there are thousands of startup companies in the valley. And each of them are solving a different problem for a different audience. If they are solving a problem that another business is already solving, then I hope they are doing it in their own unique way.
As such, the needs of your business are unique. What you'll need reporting and real-time analysis on will differ from even competitors in your industry.
- Your datasets will be different
- What you need to report will be different
- Your contacts will be different
- Your automations and workflows will be different
- Your emails will be different...
- ...and so on.
HubSpot allows for an incredible amount of customization.
4) You should come prepared with any other login information your HubSpot onboarding team might need
Any login information that you believe is relevant to the HubSpot onboarding team should be considered, even if you no longer use the service and there may be data still in that associated software.
This could include:
- Google My Business
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Wordpress
- Pardot
- Marketo
- Salesforce
- Others?
Sit down with your stakeholders, particularly your marketing and sales teams, to see what systems are being used now and how to access them. Take notes about the systems that have relevant information, and make a list of software you're hoping to eliminate after the onboarding process. Your HubSpot Partner should be able to help you identify any consolidation opportunities.
5) You should come with stakeholders ready to learn...and ready to express their passion for your business
Finally, any stakeholders who will be using HubSpot on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, should be on the HubSpot onboarding get-togethers.
There will be a learning curve, especially if you are more familiar with Pardot or Salesforce, or even Sharpspring.
Everyone should come armed with any questions that they may have. Your onboarding process should guide you through the intricacies, opportunities, and best practices of using HubSpot.
If you need HubSpot onboarding, dude, we know a lot about it, so talk to us!
