Takeaways from HubSpot Partner Day to Prepare You for INBOUND 2018

It’s over halfway through 2018 (time is flying, right?!), and HubSpot has some cool things in store to announce at their annual INBOUND conference this year. As a prequel to that, we’ve decided to share the top takeaways from this year’s Partner Day – at which our very own Susan LaPlante-Dube was a speaker! Here’s what you should be keeping an eye on in HubSpot as the year progresses.

The Release of Service Hub

What’s the Service Hub? It’s the manifestation of HubSpot’s commitment to customer success. This hub looks like the Marketing or Sales Hub, except it includes tools specifically meant to make your customer service stand out. The suite includes:

• Messages, which offers live chat functionality integrated with your Conversations tool, meaning information about the customer is already at your fingertips.

• Tickets, which can essentially turn received emails into tasks and assigns those tasks to the right person on your team.

• Knowledge Base, an FAQ center where you can post helpful articles for customers (or prospects!) looking for quick answers to simple questions related to your product or service.

• Customer Feedback, which helps you create surveys to capture and track what your customers are thinking about your services and why.

GDPR Integrations

HubSpot’s updates geared to GDPR are up and running and are meant to help ease your transition into the newly improved information-collecting world. Need a reminder on GDPR? Check out our latest blog post about the topic.

Shopify Integration

If your business also has an e-commerce side, HubSpot’s new Shopify integration will help you create a personalized, powerful online shopping experience for your customers. You can customize, automate and—best of all—integrate all of the customers you already have (or will have) in Shopify for a brand experience your customers won’t forget (it sounds like a sales pitch, I know – but it’s true!) We’re excited about the organization aspect of this integration... it really is a powerful way to give your customers the experience they should be having online.

Marketing Hub Updates

You may have noticed HubSpot’s interface has changed, but there are tons of other internal updates made to not only improve your experience on HubSpot but also to position HubSpot as a leader in the online publishing world. Most notable are the changes HubSpot is making to their social tool:

• They’ve beefed up their bulk upload tool for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the publishing tool now boasts an Instagram publishing and scheduling integration.

• The social media calendaring tool now helps you tweak the timing of posts more easily.

• Since HubSpot has become a full Facebook partner, Facebook Messenger integrates with the new Conversations tool, meaning all details exchanged in the app will sync with your contacts’ records.

There’s A LOT more going on with the Marketing Hub – reach out to your account manager if you have any additional questions about its new capabilities.

Sales Hub Changes

If you are using HubSpot Sales Hub, there are a few changes that will help your sales team reach prospects faster. The Meetings App now has increased flexibility: that means that a prospect can now customize language, title, location, and type when they are booking a meeting with you. Think of the Meetings App as a sister to form submissions – it can capture leads, track submissions and page views, trigger workflows to send prospects a set of automated emails and capture their information, and supply you with revisit notifications. Essentially, you can use Meetings as a conversion tool – score!

HubSpot also now has a Quotes tool that can help your sales reps generate quotes in the CRM in less than a minute, which will then lead up to a web link to send to the prospect. Not only that, but the Quotes tool is integrated with Stripe, meaning the buyer can pay with a credit card right from the quote, automating the payment collection process and encouraging a seamless user experience for both your sales reps and your customers.

Notes for Reference

A few people spoke at Partner Day to give the HubSpot Partner Agencies some advice that we are now bestowing unto you. Here are some quick tips as you get started with the new and improved HubSpot.

• Centralize Your Customer Data. This will make it easier for you to make sweeping changes to your database, keep your contacts and their associated information organized, and allow plug-ins to easily access and use the data.

• Embrace Video. You already know that you have to embrace social platforms, and I’m sure that you’ve been hearing a lot about the importance of video in digital marketing moving forward. You don’t have to be an expert on video and video marketing to start doing it. Consider this insight from Partner Day: the play button is the best call-to-action. So, if you’re looking for tools or tips on how to start doing video (or want us to whip up a video plan for you), shoot a note over to your account manager.

• Get Ready to Innovate. Make innovation a part of your business regimen. This means trying out new tools that might streamline your business-side processes, consider new ways to reach customers through an adjusted content plan, or simply incorporate customer success principles into your business practices for the last half of 2018. If there is a pattern that we are noticing, it’s the fact that companies who are willing to stretch a bit outside of their comfort zone are giving themselves a chance to stand out.

If you have any questions, we are more than happy to hop on a call. HubSpot is a tool that continues to change – and we are there to make these transitions as easy as possible for you.