Welcome to HubSpot for in-house teams: a series of blogs specifically produced to assist in-house teams run high-performance inbound marketing programs with HubSpot software.
Now we’re looking at HubSpot for in-house teams and the 3 Things you need to do to fix HubSpot and make it work, like it should, for your company.
It’s time to see HubSpot as a Formula 1 car - and then treat it as such.
An F1 car will not win a race without a team of engineers. Even the most simple of tasks; starting the engine - requires a team of experienced engineers. It then needs to be tuned for each track it races at.
HubSpot can be purchased off-the-shelf - but that doesn't mean it will perform out-of-the-box. It needs tweaking. A lot of tweaking. It needs engineering and when it comes to HubSpot for in-house teams then there are often a lot of unknowns.
HubSpot for in-house teams - Fix Number 1
So, the first thing to fix is your team of engineers. Do you have any? What skill set is your team made up of? Are they fully competent with HubSpot?
Here’s a (minimal) list of the people (engineers) you’ll need to get you started;
- Copywriter, obviously
- Content Strategist so that everyone and everything is on point for the desired audience. Think keywords, content clusters, persona mapping, workflows, automation...
- Designer for landing pages and emails (don’t forget UI and UX either!)
- Illustrator for infographics
- Animator for your video content
- Salespeople (they need to be included too)
- Web Developer to integrate code, establish tracking and make HubSpot work for your brand
- (Certified) HubSpot specialist that knows the software and methodology of inbound marketing, intimately. They will hang all the content together, create the campaigns, build the emails, add the content, get and analyse data and build reports, and much more.
- Account Director They should be the linchpin that drives everything forward and the person that holds everyone to account. They need to know the campaign objectives, all KPIs, and milestones and they need to report on (and analyse, interpret and disseminate) everything. Good Account Direction is critical.
HubSpot for in-house teams - Fix Number 2
Buy-in. We’ve touched on this in the bullets above. You need sales people involved. You, and your organisation, may see inbound marketing and HubSpot as a marketing activity. That needs to change. Inbound should unify sales and marketing.
You need to get sales and marketing to work together;
- What constitutes a good lead? - Have you checked that with sales?
- What constitutes an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)? - Have you agreed that with sales?
- What qualifies as an SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)? Did you decide that or was it sales?
- Have sales agreed what success looks like?
If you've not done these things, then you will fail. Even if you are doing a great job, if sales don't agree, then you won't get credit for your efforts. So you need to work together.
But, even before you involve sales, you also need to involve the sales leaders, the directors. In fact you need top-level engagement across all departments.
HubSpot and inbound marketing give you the opportunity of taking ‘marketing’ from being seen as a cost-centre to a profit-centre. But that won’t happen without their buy-in and engagement. Start selling what Inbound can do for your organisation, what it can do for every department. Get buy-in at every level you can.
HubSpot for in-house teams - HubSpot Fix Number 3
Take outside counsel. If you have a team, great. But who is leading and advising that team? If the foundation is wonky, then the output will be miles out. Take outside counsel on the strategy of your campaigns.
Experienced minds at this stage is a big win for your campaign. Even if you have the team and the buy-in as listed above, without a rock-solid strategy - an inbound specific, HubSpot specific strategy, you’ll miss by a mile.
Find a specialist, engage them and take their counsel. You do what you do. They do what they do. Put the two together and you’ll be 1/3rd of the way there.
