Daniel Vaczi
HubSpot has long been identified as an inbound marketing agency with moxie. They possess expert-level insight into today’s advertising and sales climate and master-engineer tools and softwares to achieve the most integrated customer experiences possible. That’s why they merit the number one spot for marketing software platforms.
Since their inception in 2006, the company has literally set the standard for how inbound marketing should and can be conducted. At this year’s INBOUND Conference in Boston, HubSpot raised the bar once more with two major releases: Their own CRM tool and an in-app toolset called Sidekick. Collaboratively, the two releases make up their new sales platform and take integration and optimization to new heights.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot pioneers applications that directly support sales representatives in addition to marketing teams. This year, they announced the release of their very own Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool; designed by sales reps for sales reps. The CRM tool will help salespeople know when and how to interact with prospects in relevant ways and will simplify the sales process by which tasks, actions and progress are logged and tracked.
HubSpot CRM will not replace Salesforce, but is rather a basic CRM offering for individuals who don’t already have a CRM system in place. The system was designed to work congruently with HubSpot’s other new release, an in-app toolset they call, Sidekick.
Sidekick
Sidekick is an expansion and re-naming of HubSpot’s former suite of tools called Signals. In addition to the tools that exist in Signals, like:
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Email open & click tracking
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Website revisits
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CRM integration
Sidekick also offers a web and Gmail sidebar that displays information, including:
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Company data
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Email connections
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Company contacts
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Related companies
If you are a current user of HubSpot’s, Signals, you will automatically gain access to all that Sidekick has to offer upon release.
HubSpot CRM and Sidekick
All the features you would expect in a basic CRM – you’ll find with HubSpot CRM, including:
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Track contacts
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Track companies
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Schedule and manage tasks
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Create and monitor deals
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Log call activity
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Generate reports
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Enrichment
An example of how HubSpot CRM and Sidekick work together can be observed in email. Let’s say you email a new contact within HubSpot CRM. Sidekick will instinctively notify the CRM tool that the contact is new and a contact profile will auto-generate without you having to do anything at all.
A record of activity will also be created for a contact’s company. Here, HubSpot CRM will outline details including:
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Interactions
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Company size
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Company description
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Notes
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Website link
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Average revenue
If you choose to visit a client’s website, Sidekick will pull this information from HubSpot CRM and display it on a sidebar within the web browser, providing you with constant access to your prospect’s information. What makes the relationship between HubSpot CRM and Sidekick powerful is the fact that they share the same database. Every detail you see, from lead intelligence to form data, comes directly from the marketing product without you having to manually input data.
More HubSpot CRM Features
HubSpot CRM provides users with a clean and simplistic interface loaded with useful tools to help
manage interactions with prospects. Users can completely customize their views and filter data in a variety of ways without any delay. HubSpot CRM also auto-logs contact information and activity, eliminating manual data input and creating an effortless experience for users. Interacting with contact records is easy with HubSpot CRM. From the contact’s timeline, you can send emails, place a phone call or send calendar invites – the tool will track it all!
The CRM system utilizes voiceover IP to allow phone calls directly from the contact’s timeline. Users can record the phone call, take notes and save progress instantaneously, making data collection a byproduct of completing a task. As sales create deals, they can organize within a table or board view and move deals according to progress. Deals reports can also be generated once a deal is closed to provide a comprehensive overview and forecast of business activity.
HubSpot CRM is currently in beta and once released, will be free to use. HubSpot customers and Signals users will be among the first to gain access to both the CRM system and Sidekick. The company plans to release the CRM tool to all users by 2015 and as the dust settles around the sales platform, HubSpot intends to cater to international users by releasing the CRM tool in different languages.
