Last week I had the opportunity to attend HubSpot’s Partner Day, where they invite their Gold, Platinum, and Diamond partners to hear about future directions and collaborate on strategy. Much of what they cover is under non-disclosure, so I won’t disclose, but this blog was triggered by a passing comment made by a presenter that really resonated, so I wanted to repeat and expand on it.

We don't discriminate ...

As a company, Leading Results works with other platforms in addition to HubSpot. We have never forced a client to move off a marketing platform they like; as a result, we have clients who run Infor CRM and Inbox Guru and others who run Microsoft CRM and Click Dimensions as well as combinations that involve MailChimp or Constant Contact.

Although we might start since we heard this ...

What those platforms or tools have in common is that in all cases, the website runs on WordPress … and I used to think that was okay. But in the last year, I’ve heard story after story from other marketing firms (we network with many in the Duct Tape Marketing network) about clients who've had their WordPress site hacked and brought down. So the comment was, “HubSpot is a Professional Marketing Platform” – and that really rang true for me.

Today, your website is more than just a place people go online to learn about your company. It’s the center of your digital marketing efforts, and if it isn’t (to steal a line from Ford), professional grade, you're going to pay for problems somewhere down the road.

Why HubSpot?

I know I sound like a commercial for HubSpot, but here’s what you get when your website runs on the HubSpot COS (sites) product:

• SSL included – it’s not just about the security and the ranking factors, it’s also about speed – 80% faster in resolving DNS requests.
• Security – there are almost 9,000 infected WordPress sites in operation today, and they’re not the easily detected infections, either – they don't bring down your site, they turn your site into part of a bot-net in a denial of service attack.
• Distributed Content Network – content on HubSpot is distributed around the world on the Akamai’s content distribution network – again, enabling faster load times.
• Support for Google AMP pages for your blog posts – this means faster rendering times on mobile, which gives you a ranking edge.
• Optimized mobile pages – your pages are optimized for mobile viewing right out of the box – and Google cares a lot about mobile.

And then there are the rest of the HubSpot features that make it a professional platform:

• Great email editor and super high deliverability
• SEO coaching as you write content and create pages/posts
• Social posting and monitoring
• Integrated analytics and reporting so you can see what is happening or what has happened
• New content strategy engine (announced at Inbound last year) to help you better create and cluster content
• CRM and salesperson-friendly features built-in so sales and marketing can work together effectively (CRM features could be another whole post)
• Smart content and forms that change based on visitor activity
• Workflows that are so flexible you’ll be tempted to overcomplicate what you do
• Ridiculously easy-to-use-and-configure forms and calls-to-action
• Deep integrations with other marketing tools (like Go-To-Webinar) that you need to round out your “system”

So yes, HubSpot is different. And on the surface, yes, it appears to cost more than other parts and pieces you can put together. But just like a chef who wouldn’t use an IKEA knife, if you’re professional and serious about generating leads from your digital platform, you don’t want to wing it with the cheapest pieces you can find and splice together.

If you want to learn more about HubSpot and what it can do for you, request a meeting by clicking below.

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