5 HubSpot Tools You Already Have and Could Be Using

HubSpot is a robust platform that can do a lot for you, but only if you know how to use it. 

If your company has purchased HubSpot, but you're only using a few features, or you're just not sure how to get set up on the platform, this is the post for you. 

As HubSpot Solutions Partners, we get it. We teach and train our clients on HubSpot every day, and a lot of them have had HubSpot for some time. Whether you never got used to some of HubSpot's features, or they've rolled out new tools since your company onboarded, here are 5 HubSpot tools you already have and could be using pretty easily. 

01. HubSpot's Social Media Scheduling Tool

HubSpot's social media tool is pretty slick. From this tool, you can manage your company's entire social media strategy. Post directly to or schedule posts to Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter. Even better, you can track and analyze the results of every single post, right within HubSpot, and even assign posts to specific campaigns to better understand which of your initiatives are performing best, and on what platform. 

Getting Started on HubSpot's Social Media Tool

Like any new tool, the best way to get started is to dive in, and make small consistent efforts. To help you with the diving in part, we wrote a helpful guide: How to Schedule Social Media Posts With HubSpot. Read that, and then check out these tips to help make using this tool a habit:

1. Start by scheduling out one week of social media posts in the tool. 
2. Once you've done that, make it part of your weekly routine to schedule your posts, and look back at how they're performing. 
3. Take a look back at a full month of social media posts — how did you do? Where could you improve?
4. Repeat!

In just four steps, you've rolled your entire social media marketing strategy into one tool. While this definitely doesn't speak to all of the features of the HubSpot social media tool, it's a great place to get started. As you feel more comfortable using it, go ahead and try out more features, like assigning campaigns, replying to comments directly from HubSpot, and more. 

02. Topic Clusters

Topic clusters are another great tool to start using in HubSpot. They help you visualize your content strategy, and can really provide the direction you need to shift your marketing strategy towards the content your audience appreciates and engages with the most. 

Building Out Topic Clusters in HubSpot

I wrote an entire blog about the topic: Topic Clusters: The Future of Content Marketing that is a great place to start. This will give you the context you need for why we use topic clusters. Once you're ready to get started, here are a few tips for using them in HubSpot: 

1. Start with one or two clusters. Topic clusters can easily get unwieldy and overwhelming, so pick one or two to start with. I always recommend building off your service pages if you're not sure which topics are most important. 
2. Build out your cluster in HubSpot. I'm biased, but I find building out topic clusters very therapeutic. Especially if you already have the content, building your clusters is as simple as linking the right blog posts in your clusters. 
3. Take a look at the results. The best part about HubSpot's topic cluster tool (in my opinion) are the results you get. HubSpot will tell you exactly how many leads each cluster delivers and how the content in each cluster is performing, down to bounce rate and time on page. 

Topic clusters have helped us predict and lean into new growth markets and identify high-converting content opportunities. They're also one of HubSpot's more accessible tools, and I love how visual they are. If your marketing team is serious about content, topic clusters are a HubSpot tool you must use. 

03. Deal Stages

If you've been struggling to get your entire sales team into one sales process, then HubSpot has got a tool for you. 

Deal stages are an amazing way to define your sales process and get eyes on every single lead or prospect in your pipeline, no matter which sales rep is assigned to them. Essentially, you break every step of your sales process into a separate deal stage and define each of those stages in HubSpot. As leads come in and move through the sales funnel, your team can move them across your sales deal pipeline (which could look something like this). 

The benefit?

Everyone with access to your HubSpot Deal Pipeline can see at a glance what leads you have in the pipeline, and where they are in the sales process. Sales reps can filter the pipeline to show just the deals they're associated with, so they know exactly what to focus on. And, you can start building reports based on those deal stages, like this one:

Getting Started with HubSpot Deal Stages

Unlike the rest of these tools, deal stages will take a bit of internal work. Your sales team needs to sit down together and decide what you want your sales process to look like, and build out deal stages from there. Here are a few tips:

• Don't go overboard. Too many stages quickly becomes overwhelming for everyone. We recommend between 5-7 stages, with common stages being things like: 
• New Opportunity
• Qualified Good Fit
• Quote Outline
• Quote Ready 
• Closed Won
• Closed Lost
• Make it easy for your sales team. The simpler your deal stages are to remember and use, the more likely your team is to use it. 
• Set up regular check-in meetings. The hardest part of deal stages is just getting the sales team to use them. Setting up team meetings to check in and see who's moving those deal stages is a great way to keep everyone accountable. 

Streamlining your sales process is an issue that nearly every company struggles with. HubSpot offers you tons of tools that will make sales easier, but the hard part is getting everyone on the same page, and using the tool every day. Check out these 7 Ways to Get Your Sales Team to Use HubSpot Every Day for a few tips and tricks to make that process a little easier.

04. Lead Scoring

Tired of wasting time on unqualified leads? Enter Lead Scoring, a HubSpot tool you've been missing out on. It's available to almost all HubSpot subscription levels, and, when set up, it automatically assigns a priority level to new contacts, based on attributes you select. 

We already wrote a guide on how to use this awesome tool, so check that out for more info: How to Use HubSpot Lead Scoring. 

A few important benefits of the HubSpot lead scoring tool that are good to keep in mind include: 

1. Once you set it up, you're set to go. After you've identified positive and negative attributes, HubSpot will just score leads for you. And if you have an Enterprise Tier subscription, you can even use predictive scoring, which will continue to learn based on how leads behave. 
2. With lead scoring in place, your sales team can organize their day based on the leads with the highest scores. Focus on hot leads when they're hot, and follow-up with cold leads when Sales has a little extra time. 

If your sales team feels like they're inundated with leads and are tired of spending time on contacts that don't close, lead scoring is an insanely valuable HubSpot tool you probably already have access to. A little lost in all the marketing/sales jargon? Check out this blog for a refresher on What Lead Scoring Is, And Why It's Important to Sales Success.

05. HubSpot's Email Marketing Tool

Anyone with a HubSpot account — whether you're rollin on the free CRM or have upgraded all the way to Enterprise — can get something out of HubSpot's email marketing tool. Regardless of company type or industry, we can say with total confidence that HubSpot's email marketing tool is one of the best we've used, bar none. 

Why?

1. Email sending and scheduling is easy. 
2. Segmenting your audience and sending emails to just a certain type of content is easy. 
3. Tracking results and performance on a per-email basis is easy. 
4. Analyzing your entire email marketing strategy across campaigns, time periods, and more, is easy. 

In case you haven't gotten my point yet, HubSpot's email marketing tool makes emailing easy. Like super easy. 

Getting Started With HubSpot's Email Marketing Tool

Even if you're new to HubSpot, it's likely that you've used some sort of email marketing tool, whether it was MailChimp, Drip, or Constant Contact. HubSpot works similarly to most of them, which makes getting started fairly intuitive. 

1. Head to the email marketing tool by navigating to the Marketing dropdown, and then "Email" 
2. This will pull up the whole tool. As you can see you can view emails drafted, scheduled, sent, and archived. 
3. You can also move to the Analyze or Health tabs for information about your email marketing strategy's performance. 
4. To draft an email, click "Create Email" and you're off to the races. HubSpot's Getting Started With HubSpot Email lesson will walk you through the step-by-step here. 

Once you get used to building out emails, selecting your ideal contact lists, and scheduling them, I encourage you to test out the analysis and tracking features. There's nothing better than taking a look at an email you've sent, and seeing exactly what people are engaging with most. 

And, as you start to build your email marketing campaigns, you'll slowly gather more and more data you can use to send out more effective campaigns. It's a smart way to grow, which is why we're written a ton of blogs about email marketing. Check 'em out for more info: 

• 8 Bad Email Marketing Habits that are Killing Your List
• Amp Up Your Email Marketing Strategy: Use Segmentation
• Email Automation 101: HubSpot Sequences vs. Workflows

Let HubSpot's Tools Work For You

It's not easy to get started on any new tool, let alone an entire suite of them. If your team is having trouble getting started with HubSpot, you're not alone. Adopting a new CRM across your entire company, getting people onboarded, and convincing them to use it daily is no small feat.

But, it's important to remember why you purchased HubSpot in the first place. Likely, you had a problem that you knew the platform could solve.

Start there, and try to work on a new tool each week or even each month to really grow your team's capabilities and understanding of the platform. 

The more you invest in HubSpot today, the easier it will be for your team to market, sell, and grow tomorrow. Just not sure where to start? The Evenbound team can help. As HubSpot Diamond Solutions Partners, we're here to deliver the onboarding and training you need. Get in touch with our team of experts today.