How to configure CRM that fuels large digital marketing agency on the example of HubSpot and Verseo

Intro

Every company owner at some stage will have to face the harsh truth - in today’s world CRM is not just a possibility but rather a necessity if one wants to expand one’s business. It no longer gives a competition advantage - in a basic form it simply reduces the technological gap between the peloton and the stragglers. Carefully choosing and eventually mastering the CRM functionalities can make the company level up to the leaders tier.

We were experimenting with CRM software for a long time before finally settling down with HubSpot. Thanks to these formative years, we knew what a business like ours - a growing digital marketing agency - should expect, what we should learn and in what direction we should turn.

Let us show you how we use a CRM system - which features digital marketing agencies like Verseo consider to be mandatory, optional or useless. And how to successfully simplify business processes with great effectiveness. Read on!

What is a CRM system?

Even though it may seem obvious, let’s start with some definitions. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Business-wise it usually refers to software that helps to manage contacts and - if possible - marketing, sales and service activities. Digital market is thriving thanks to applications such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Bitrix24, Salesmanago, Pipedrive and many, many more. Each of those has the same core, but totally different philosophy, logic, User Experience (UX) and additional functionalities or integrations with external services.

At Verseo we realized it quite early, after a few months of using Excel as a CRM tool. Dynamic changes, marketing consents, keeping track of communication - all of this combined poses quite a challenge for a business. And Excel definitely was not ‘the one’ - at least when it comes to managing contacts.

Streamlining the Sales Process

One of the primary reasons Verseo chose to implement Hubspot was to streamline our sales process. By utilizing Hubspot's sales automation tools, Verseo was able to automate the sales process from generating leads to closing deals. The software allowed the sales team to track lead behavior, prioritize leads, and set up follow-up tasks, making the entire process more efficient and effective. As a result, Verseo saw an increase in their sales productivity and a decrease in the time it took to close deals.

Which features were the most important at this point?

• Mail sequences - basic automation that in the commercial context allows sales specialists to return to prospects after a while and monitor cooperation opportunities;
• Mail templates - with the growing number of emails, this has become rather a necessity than an option;
• Making and recording calls - the basis not only for cold calling, but also for commercial work as is.

Today, we use the vast majority of features in Sales Hub - deal pipelines, meetings, automation and more.

Which HubSpot features regarding sales do we consider less important?

Forecasting - the tool lacks some options and seems more like a filler than a standalone functionality.

Enhancing Marketing Efforts

The next step was implementing Marketing Hub so that Hubspot's marketing automation tools could help Verseo enhance our marketing efforts. In a nutshell, the software allowed the marketing team to create and manage targeted campaigns and track customer engagement. By utilizing Hubspot's analytics and reporting tools, Verseo was able to gain valuable insights into our marketing performance and make data-driven decisions to improve our marketing strategy.

See also Ranktracker’s 61 Marketing Automation Statistics for 2023

Which HubSpot functions do we consider useful for marketing?

Landing page creator - we have started creating guides related to various areas of digital marketing (Verseo Academy). Thanks to the landing page builder, the whole process was much simpler than before, e.g. using ‘traditional’ web development methods. A/B testing is also a very useful feature;

Forms - as a business offering services, our main goal in sales is to collect leads - the HS forms tool is convenient to use, and contacts with the appropriate fields go straight to the database;

Social media - we manage the publication of posts and monitor their results on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram;

Newsletters - we send a variety of materials to customers - news, trivia, offers and updates. HubSpot mailing options allow its users to resign from services such as Freshmail or Mailchimp;

Integration with Google Ads, Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads - for an agency whose strong suit are PPC campaigns, the ability to monitor campaigns and, above all, export groups of records from HS to the above systems based on defined activities is a huge advantage;

Automated lead analysis - i.e. assigning categories to leads based on several predetermined factors with a specific weight (lead scoring);

Which HubSpot features regarding marketing do we consider less important?

SEO Tools - recommendations regarding Search Engine Optimization as well as Google Search Console integration can be helpful, but in general the whole module cannot replace external tools like Ahrefs, Semstorm, Senuto, and Google PageSpeed Insights.

Improving Customer Service

HubSpot's customer service tools also proved to be a valuable asset to Verseo. For years Asana was the main software to manage service tasks. With Hubspot, the support team was able to track customer interactions, manage tickets, and provide personalized support. The software allowed the team to quickly respond to customer inquiries, prioritize urgent issues, and improve the overall customer experience. This resulted in higher customer satisfaction rates and improved customer retention.

Service Hub is designed for managing tickets from clients, but it can also be used as an internal tool for organizing administrative tasks - metaphorically speaking, with Service Hub we can kill two birds with one stone.

Which HubSpot functions do we consider useful when serving our customers?

Tickets and pipelines - we are able to identify every service ticket and check who is working on it, see its level of urgency etc.;

NPS (Net Promoter Score) - automating NPS forms allows us both to save time and collect important information about client satisfaction;

Which HubSpot features regarding service do we consider less important?

Knowledge Base - but the idea of a so-called ‘Wikipedia for our clients’ seems legit and not putting it into action is purely our fault.

Automation is power

Workflows facilitate full automation based on contact properties fields - it can be a position in a company, participation in an event, filling out a form, displaying a subpage, and basically anything else. In HubSpot, the possibilities of using workflows depend on the module - i.e. Sales Hub allows you to automate aspects related to sales, Marketing Hub does the same when it comes to marketing (e.g. sending the aforementioned newsletters) based on the fulfillment of certain conditions by contacts or our actions.

Reporting

CRM collects a lot of data about customers, relationships, sales, but in this scenario it also tracks marketing activities. Extensive reporting allows us to analyze both of these branches as one organism. This provides a holistic (or at least close to) picture of the results of individual activities in the company. Data can be combined to a large extent - but it is mainly about predefined reporting and custom reports if we want to measure anything outside the standard set offered by HubSpot.

Integrations

HubSpot can be integrated with many external tools. The platform offers many native integrations, like the aforementioned Google Ads, Google Search Console, Analytics, or Messenger. When there is no official integration - a skillful programmer can create a custom one.

Which HubSpot integrations do we use on a daily basis?

• Central Statistical Office database - HubSpot fills in company data such as address, tax identification number or type of industry;
• Google Chat - combined with NPS automation, we get a notification every time a client fills in a client satisfaction survey;
• Google Ads and other PPC tools - as a business that uses Google Ads and Meta (Facebook) Ads extensively, it helps us monitor our campaign performance;
• Search Console & Analytics - very helpful in analyzing website traffic;
• Invoice creator - We have created continuous integration with the invoicing system, which, based on transactions and notifications (tickets) in HubSpot containing appropriate data fields, sends a package of information needed to issue an invoice via a webhook.

Conclusion

Implementing Hubspot was a significant step for Verseo in terms of improving our business operations in a broad sense. As a result, Verseo was able to increase sales productivity, improve customer satisfaction rates, and make data-driven decisions to improve our overall business performance.

Was it difficult to implement HubSpot in a company with over 100 coworkers (and rising)? Of course. The main obstacle was definitely overcoming the human factor - it is really hard to introduce such a big platform, even in a tech savvy company. However - mission complete.