In addition to all the marketing, sales, and service-related insights we picked up at various educational sessions during INBOUND 2019, there were several significant product update announcements we feel are worth sharing with our clients—a.k.a you! Below is an overview of the most relevant changes recently made (or that will be made soon) to the HubSpot platform, as well as a couple notes about HubSpot pricing.
New App Marketplace
It's true that no single software can address each of your organization's specialized marketing needs. But HubSpot's goal is to decrease friction and provide resources that help businesses connect their tools, teams, processes and data through one system. So their Development Team has been hard at work populating a new App Marketplace with over 300 available integrations (more than doubling the integration count in the last 12 months). The Marketplace is much easier to filter than before, and the redesigned app listing pages prioritize the details business leaders need to know when considering a new solution—pricing, subscription requirements, demo videos, etc. This update is live and available to all HubSpot users.
Service Hub Features
HubSpot's Service Hub helps you facilitate a great customer experience. And one pillar of creating a great experience involves communicating with customers in the ways they prefer. In light of this, HubSpot is adding new channels to the Conversations inbox. For example, Facebook Messenger is now "in beta" as a newly integrated channel with Service Hub. What's more, web support forms are now live as a new in-take option in your inbox, helping you manage and scale service as you grow!
There are also more time-saving automation options available in Service Hub, one of which is a way to automatically conduct advocacy automation. Workflows can now be set up to trigger email outreach or tasks based on survey data results (like from an Net Promoter Score Survey, for instance), and you can deliver these feedback surveys in new ways... like right on your site, which also happens to be a simple way to gauge interest in page content and UX.
Team collaboration on customer issues has been made easier with internal commenting and in-line ticket status updates now possible. And finally, also in beta, HubSpot is working on enabling customers to configure access to articles in the Knowledge Base tool. So, for example, you can restrict public access to things that might be more exclusive or sensitive—and allow only customers or members of other specific HubSpot lists to see certain material. AND if you already have an existing Knowledge Base, it will be much easier to transfer articles onto HubSpot's if you so choose.
Landing Page Changes
Similar to the drag-and-drop editor functionality present in the Email Editor tool, this functionality will also be made available to HubSpot Landing Pages. Moreover, any customer using HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter will also have this new feature. PLUS, Starter users will now be able to send up to three kick-back emails (as workflows and most follow-up email functions are not included) after forms are submitted on their corresponding landing pages.
Pricing Note: While the core pricing of HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter's contact tiers will remain the same, addition of new contacts will start at $50—and will scale down as you purchase more.
Social Media Advertising
When one of your Facebook or LinkedIn posts generates high engagement, it's sometimes tempting to turn them into brand awareness ads. But this can be a time consuming and complicated process for marketers... until now!
Social post boosting for organic Facebook posts directly within the HubSpot platform (simply by clicking on Actions > Create Ad) is currently in beta—and will be available for all HubSpot Professional and Enterprise customers.
On a related note, LinkedIn lead generation forms and campaigns will also be integrated with HubSpot. This native ad integration will dramatically reduce friction for the user, and for the ad creator, too! And based on the information and data collected from these forms, customers will be able to automate next steps, workflows, list membership changes, and more.
Workflow Organization
While this may not feel super important for those of you who aren't in the tool every day, the additions being made to help organize workflows are awesome! (I can think of a few PMG clients who will appreciate this one based on how many workflows they want to set up as they scale).
Currently in beta is the ability to create folders for workflows to stay organized, as all HubSpot users know the Workflows tool can get crowded and messy as it grows. But perhaps even more helpful is the ability to create a go-to action that reconnects branches in a complicated if/then branching logic system. When if/then branching logic gets unwieldy, this will be a critical change! Again, this update is available for all Professional and Enterprise customers.
Sales Hub Professional
Sales Hub is getting better and better, too—with new access to features like eSign and custom "calculation" properties that incorporate various properties represented by numerical values.
Pricing Note: Effective on November 1st, the price of Sales Hub will increase to $500/mo with 5 user seats included, and $100/mo for each additional user. BUT, if you purchase Sales Hub before November 1st, you can lock in at the current price and be grandfathered into receiving all the new features as they become available.
HubSpot's Native Quotes tool allows a sales rep to easily create a beautiful, trackable quote they can send to their prospects. By integrating Stripe with HubSpot, sales reps can get paid right from their quote page, eliminating the needless back-and-forth that takes place during purchase orders and when finance departments are paid. HubSpot integrates Stripe Checkout with a Quote, collecting payment either by credit card or ACH. When a payment is accepted, HubSpot creates a customer and adds subscriptions to that customer in Stripe.
Not to mention, with a connected Stripe account, you can seamlessly generate a "buy now" link for any product, and can create a corresponding button for your website. This helps provide a much more friction-free purchasing experience.
Check In with Your PMG Account Manager if You Have Questions!
If you have any questions at all about these HubSpot product updates, or the pricing changes being made—particularly if you are interested in buying Sales Hub—please reach out to your PMG Account Manager. We'd love to help you get better acquainted with your options.
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