HubSpot's CMS and CRM: Why use both?

HubSpot is not just a website development or marketing software. It is so much more than that- it is the epitome of digital experiences. By combining the different hubs HubSpot offers and through developing additional functionalities in the serverless function, you will be able to use HubSpot to its fullest potential. So what’s the full potential of HubSpot, you may ask. By integrating all of the systems in your HubSpot account, you will create an all-encompassing platform that will ease your internal operations by having everything in one place and a 360-degree view on your customers, as well as delight your clientele by creating seamless digital experiences under one roof. 

What Hubs does HubSpot offer?

First of all, “Hubs” are different types of tools that constitute the complete CRM platform. Whether you want to increase leads, accelerate sales, streamline customer service, or build a powerful website— HubSpot’s got you covered. HubSpot offers the following:

1. CMS Hub: a content management software for building a powerful website.
2. Sales Hub: a high-level CRM software designed to help you close more deals.
3. Marketing Hub: a premium marketing software for growing traffic and leads.
4. Service Hub: customer service software for first-class support.
5. Operations Hub: operations software that automates and merges your systems together. 

Why integrate all of the Hubs together?

Keeping in mind that HubSpot is not just a CRM or a CMS software, integrating all of the tools together will help you utilize your resources to build a powerful website that is not just a business card for your company but one that creates a sophisticated digital experience both for you and your customer. How? First of all, having all of the tools in one place allows you to manage all of your data seamlessly and directly in your HubSpot account. You will receive detailed reporting on every aspect of your business- whether it’s sale deals, marketing campaigns, or website traffic. From there, you will be able to make educated business decisions based on elaborate knowledge about how your visitors, potential leads, and clients interact with your digital assets. If integrated together, the different Hubs will work closely in conjunction with each other to fill the gaps. A good integration will funnel all activity on your website straight into your HubSpot account for instant analysis and actionable insights. 

For example, CMS enables you to build an easy-to-manage website composed of drag-and-drop modules. With the analytics tool included in the CMS, you will also be able to get reporting on website performance and traffic. But all of these Hubs are limited in functionality if they are used independently. Without the Marketing Hub, you won’t be able to create landing pages or email campaigns that match your website branding to convert more leads. Without Sales Hub, you won’t be able to deepen client relationships by automating your sales process with personalized emails to your leads. Without the Service Hub, you won’t be able to enable responsive customer support by routing tickets to prioritize critical issues first. And without the Operations Hub, you won’t be able to automate every process of your business to reduce customer friction by automatically triggering actions in third-party systems. All in all, without one or the other, you will have scattered customer data. By integrating all of the Hubs together you will be able to utilize the different functionalities of those tools to your advantage.

How to use HubSpot to its full potential?

Here, we are going to write about what you can do beyond integrating the Hubs in order to provide well-crafted digital experiences. Basically, it comes down to two words - Serverless Functions. What is it? It’s basically functions that you can create on a serverless cloud that interact with HubSpot and third-party services through APIs. In other words, those are custom applications that you can develop and connect to your HubSpot website, CRM, or any other Hub. Serverless functionality allows us to develop custom applications that are perfectly suited to your business goals and the needs of your customers. In their CMS Hub Enterprise package, HubSpot offers serverless functionality on their cloud. But if you don’t have a budget and the need to upgrade to Enterprise (billed at over 13,000 Euros annually), you can use Amazon’s AWS Lambda (the pricing depends upon the number of requests but it proves to be a much less expensive option). By developing custom applications and connecting them to your HubSpot tech stack, you will be able to create digital experiences that are crafted, not cobbled. 

Example: Self-Service Application

Let’s analyze a case study to understand the benefits of using HubSpot to its fullest potential. ClickRay is currently developing a self-service application that interacts with both HubSpot’s CRM and CMS. The client, a company offering cybersecurity solutions, wanted to create a membership area application with e-commerce capabilities that integrates payment and ticketing systems, all while being managed through their HubSpot portal. AWS serverless function was used to act as a central repository and data transfer between different systems, that is CMS, CRM, and a third-party Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. ​​CRM was used to store clients’ details; ERP contained information about the inventory for purchase; and the CMS connected the application with the customers as the members would be able to log in to their accounts through the website. Beyond offering an all-encompassing application where the members are able to view their services tickets, request invoices, share files, renew services, and more, our client’s goal was to scale their business operations with an easy to manage a system that produces a detailed, complete analysis of their customers, all in an effort to becoming a differentiator in the market. The overall aim of the project was to sustain client information within the buyer’s journey on the website, meaning that the customer contact in HubSpot, member contact in the Membership Area, and contact information in the Support Portal would remain the same. Ultimately, HubSpot’s CRM will be a single source of truth for customer information.

The bottom line is that you can use HubSpot to build a technology stack that will grow your brand. That means that if you want to expand the possibilities of what you want to offer, you can do that through creating systems using the serverless functionality as well as connecting different Hubs together. Why? First and foremost, you have all data under one roof, which will help to ease your business operations. Second, you will be able to gain more customer insight through a multitude of analytics. Last but not least, you will not just have a website but rather a collection of powerful digital assets that will help your brand grow.