It’s well known by now that we love HubSpot, but one of the things we love most about it is its utility and the countless features. Each member of our team uses a different aspect of HubSpot. So, we surveyed the entire Nextiny team to find out which HubSpot feature is their favorite.
Integrations / the API (feature) and the development of the HubSpot Platform.
The HubSpot Ecosystem
by Gabriel (Agency's CEO)
Related article: Top 10 HubSpot Integrations
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
Integrations / the API (feature) and the development of the HubSpot Platform.
Why is it your favorite feature?
Hubspot integrations allow the HubSpot software to become a platform; they bring out so much more value from it. Allowing external software companies to have access to the data through the API gives them the ability to create specific tools and features. These integrations enhance the HubSpot experience by providing more insight to the marketing and sales teams right inside the Hubspot CRM and the contact feed.
With the use of extensions, software companies can create specific workflow features to trigger actions from external activities. For example, you can trigger a workflow when someone watches more than 25% of a video (hosted in Wistia).
Integration software companies can innovate and create amazing tools that specialize in one thing while HubSpot keeps developing a robust, secure, and well-rounded core set of main applications for marketing, sales, and service.
Due to the rapid growth of the HubSpot platform, and the addition of more than 300 integrations, HubSpot is investing heavily in the development of relationships with great software companies. the creation of extensions to expand the workflow capabilities and the opening of more features and data through the API in the near future.
Integrations allow us to generate even more value for our customers and customize their software tech stack depending on their needs. The opening of the API to more data will open even more opportunities for analysis, insights, and value generated on the platform.
How do you implement it?
To manage your integrations you can go to the top right menu (settings wheel) and click on integrations.
Every integration has its own way to connect to HubSpot but most of them have a 1 to 2 step process, making it very easy to connect new apps into your HubSpot account.
After the integration is connected, depending on the software you connected, you will start seeing data from that software inside the contact feed as a native section, new features available in the tool (as native apps) or extensions added to list setup and workflows.
HubSpot Workflows
A HubSpot Workflow
by Kara (Agency Strategist)
Related Article: Starting Simple With Marketing Automation
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
HubSpot Workflows.
Why is it your favorite feature?
The workflows tool can be used in so many different ways from database management and clean up, to sales notifications, to lead nurturing, and more. I personally love to use Workflows in combination with the Email tool to nurture leads over time. This has allowed us to create a great experience for leads by following up with them in real time and get incredible email engagement results for opening rates, click-through rates, and further conversions.
How do you implement it?
Everyone has a Contact Us form on their website by now. Start with a simple nurturing email as a follow up to your Contact Us form. Even if the messaging is as simple as "Thank you for contacting us, someone from our team will get back to you soon," this is still a powerful tool for your team and a great experience for your leads. The goal of nurturing is to stay top of mind with your leads and keep them engaged with your business. Always include a link back to your website to encourage them to engage with you beyond their inbox. This will drive repeat visits to the website and hopefully, more conversions.
Traffic Analytics Report
A Traffic Analytics Report
by Bryan (Senior Account Manager)
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
Traffic Analytics Report
Why is it your favorite feature?
In my opinion, this is where the true value of HubSpot is. It's easy to get wrapped up in data and waste time trying to make sense of it all. For any business, at its core, the question should be: How are my digital activities influencing my bottom line? HubSpot connects your web analytics to your CRM, allowing you to not only understand the influence your digital efforts have on generating business but which specific sources are responsible for generating it.
When you’re managing content, paid advertising, co-marketing, and email campaigns it's crucial to understand the impact that those different activities have on the leads you're generating and the customers you’re closing. So while it's nice to see data from a bird's eye view, your traffic analytics report in HubSpot also allows you to get as meticulous as you'd like on the details of the sources influencing growth in your business and that is powerful for any marketer.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
If you're using HubSpot, there is no setup involved. Get started by clicking on Reports -> Analytics Tools -> Traffic Analytics and you’re there.
I would start by analyzing these two things:
1. How much traffic are you getting to your website from each source?
2. How many leads has each source generated for you?
There are many insights you can pull from those two questions that will help give your marketing activities a clearer direction.
The Design Manager
The HubSpot Design Manager
by Megan (Creative Director)
Related Article: Why We Use the HubSpot CMS for Our Websites
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
The Design Manager
Why is it your favorite feature?
HubSpot's Design Manager is extremely user-friendly and intuitive for building new website pages, landing pages, and emails. Not only are we able to easily create, edit, and update pages, we can also empower our clients to do the same without having to know any complex coding. Because this interface does not require much heavy lifting when it comes to making updates or changes to a page, we are able to easily and quickly optimize pages when we see opportunities for improved user experience.
Check out every episode of our inbound marketing video series, Coffee Talks!
For designers and developers who feel more comfortable diving into the advanced features of the tool, the Design Manager's code editor allows you to work with CSS files, JavaScript files, and HTML templates.
HubSpot's IDE features allow you to see the impact of your adjustments in real time across multiple devices with live preview.
No matter the experience level that you have in development or design, HubSpot's Design Manager is the perfect tool to help you bring your ideas to life.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
HubSpot has some incredible resources for getting started with the Design Manager. The HubSpot Academy has countless free training courses. HubSpot provides users with an entire design support center, free templates and modules, and countless videos and articles on just about any issue you could run into. Here are some places I would recommend starting:
- Getting Started with the Design Manager
- Fundamentals of the HubSpot CMS Academy Course
- HubSpot's Free Templates
- HubSpot for Designers
Wistia Integration
Data made possible by Wistia+HubSpot integration
by Isabella (Video Marketing Manager)
Related Article: Wistia Channels: You New Video Pillar Page
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
Wistia+HubSpot Integration
Why is it your favorite feature?
The Wistia+HubSpot integration lets you go beyond the analysis functions that just Wistia or HubSpot has to offer. Outside of monitoring play rates, engagement, and other video metrics this integration allows us to dive further into the data and see the performance of our videos and where these videos lie within the journeys of each of our leads.
Being able to see whether a video play eventually turned a lead into a customer is an extremely valuable perspective for us to be equipped with, especially in regards to measuring ROI for videos. And, likewise, being able to see that a video, although it may have a high play rate, isn't leading to any conversions is just as important. That's when we can sit down and see if there are opportunities to optimize or strengthen our messaging in that particular video.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
If you're an account owner in Wistia, HubSpot makes it really easy to connect your account. Here's a step-by-step take on the setup process from Wistia. After you've connected your account, you not only have the analysis benefits mentioned above, but you can also start adding HubSpot forms to your videos to capture more information on your leads. You can also easily embed Wistia videos onto your webpages, emails, and blogs on your HubSpot website. Here are more resources to help you get started:
Wistia's Integration with HubSpot
Wistia + HubSpot Integration Case Study
Blog Posting Tools
The HubSpot Blog Posting Menu and Tools
by Dylan (Content Marketer)
Related Article: How To Write Better Blog Headlines That Will Attract The Audience You Need
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
Blog Posting Tools
Why is it your favorite feature?
As someone who spends a large chunk of time writing, editing, and posting blogs, the HubSpot tools make it very easy to do it all in one place.
As a word processor, it’s smooth and solid with all the usual suspects hanging around like fonts, sizes, alignments, spacing, and all the rest, but it really shines as an SEO tool. Right from the editing screen you can change the HTML title tags, edit the meta description, add the alt text on images, and edit the URL.
Check out every episode of our inbound marketing video series, Coffee Talks!
It doesn’t stop there, either. After getting your blog in shipshape, you can post it and jump straight into analytics from the next page to see how it’s performing and, eventually, update if need be which is also very easy to do.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
The only thing the HubSpot blogging tools won’t help you do is to write the blogs themselves. That’s the hard part and the part that’s solely on you (unless you enlist the help of HubSpot’s awesome SEO research tools to find keywords).
So, my advice is to get writing and producing that content. After that, grab HubSpot’s hand and skip merrily into the world of SEO.
Social Media Tools
HubSpot's Social Media Calendar
by Aaron (Creative Marketer)
Related Article: How Much Time to Invest in Organic Social Media Efforts
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
Social Posting
Why is it your favorite feature?
With the HubSpot social tool, you're able to streamline the posting process to multiple social platforms with multiple types of media from images, videos, text, and links all from one place. This saves time rather than going to each individual social platform to post.
Also, you can view analytics on each post within the same window which just further saves time and effort and keeps you posting efficiently. It also allows you to schedule posts for future updates in case something is time sensitive.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
The easiest way is by simply posting through the Social tool or scheduling out posts. It's a great way to plan out strategies such as a specific campaign a company is starting to roll out.
The HubSpot Academy
The HubSpot Academy's Marketing Software Course
by Abby (Creative Marketer)
What is your favorite HubSpot feature?
The HubSpot Academy.
Why is it your favorite feature?
HubSpot Academy takes the anxiety away from using an unfamiliar platform. The team provides users with in-depth tutorials and classes on everything you need to know about their service and makes you excited to grow your business with their platform.
Also, the learning center offers lessons on new business and social media trends to help keep your company relevant to the growth of technology.
How can people get started using/implementing it?
For this particular feature, all people have to do is find classes that coincide with their passion or field and start learning. I feel it is the most important step to take before using the rest of HubSpot's features because it maximizes a company's horizons when using the other platforms.
Have a favorite HubSpot feature not mentioned here? Tell us about it on social media or drop a comment below!
