After much research, you’ve decided to invest in HubSpot as your marketing automation platform. But now you’re faced with another task: onboarding. Migrating your data and website over, creating templates, integrating with your other tools, setting up lists and segmentation - all while learning the platform yourself, or training your colleagues on it.
There’s no denying it; you need a HubSpot agency to help. But with so many HubSpot partners vying for your attention, how do you choose the best HubSpot agency for your business?
Getting your HubSpot set-up right from the start is key to successfully using the platform for years to come. So while your instinct may be to save money and go with the agency offering the cheapest onboarding services, if this leads you to compromise on quality, it will cost you time, money and stress further down the track.
Thankfully, the following three tips can help you choose the best HubSpot agency that will deliver an exceptional and lasting onboarding plan and those who won’t.
1. Avoid one-size-fits-all approaches
Are you migrating to HubSpot from a similar platform or is this your first foray into marketing automation software? Do you have the internal expertise to set up your own email templates or do you need assistance? Are your sales and marketing processes aligned or (frustratingly) disconnected?
If a HubSpot agency isn’t asking you these types of questions, then that should sound alarm bells. Your initial HubSpot onboarding will depend significantly on your current marketing set-up, including the quantity of content you have, the accuracy of your data and how ingrained your marketing and sales processes are. A one-size-fits-all approach fails to account for these nuances and how they will impact your onboarding requirements.
The result? You’ll probably blow through your original quote quite quickly and end up paying a lot more than you originally bargained for. Plus, there’ll be the hassle of dealing with a tense agency relationship, and no one likes that.
Takeaway: Choose a HubSpot agency that asks the right questions, seeks to understand your goals and challenges, and creates a customised onboarding plan and quote for your business.
2. Choose a strategic onboarding agency
Landing pages and blogging, social posting and scheduling, automated workflows, SEO strategy, ad tracking and management, forms, calls-to-action, lead management, account-based marketing, live chat… the list goes on. But where should you start?
HubSpot is a powerful marketing automation and CRM tool, and to be honest, it can take awhile for a business to take full advantage of all it offers. However, the best HubSpot agency will be able to develop a custom roadmap outlining when and how you should implement different features based on your goals and needs, from blogging to nurtures to sales enablement.
A new system is also a good opportunity to review your current processes and make improvements. An experienced HubSpot partner will be able to make recommendations on how your new marketing platform can help you streamline and optimise your current operations.
Takeaway: Choose a HubSpot agency that offers strategic insight and guidance on how to make the most of your new marketing automation platform, and implements an organised and systematic approach to onboarding.
3. Don’t miss the opportunity to start fresh
You don’t get many opportunities to start from a clean slate, but migrating to HubSpot is one of them. One of the biggest ways you can mess up the onboarding process is to dump your old data into the platform without taking the time to cull the garbage. We’re talking about the inaccurate, inconsistent, irrelevant, duplicate or missing information that is definitely not helping your business, and may even be harming it.
If your HubSpot onboarding agency doesn’t discuss your data needs in the scoping and quoting process, then run in the opposite direction. The best HubSpot agencies will be able to offer advice on data migration best practices, including helping with data cleansing, suggesting new custom properties and objects, and managing integrations with your current CRM.
Takeaway: Choose a HubSpot agency that offers practical data migration advice and won’t let you start your HubSpot journey with data that will stop you from reaching your goals.
With these three tips in mind, you’ll be able to narrow the field of potential agencies and choose the best HubSpot agency for your business.
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