Category: Technology

ActiveCampaign CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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ActiveCampaign started out as an email marketing platform, but it also has one of the better CRMs around for sales and marketing automation. If your company is primarily focused on sales activities, ActiveCampaign might not be the best CRM for you. That said, for the many organizations out there with dual sales and marketing initiatives, ActiveCampaign is worth considering.

ActiveCampaign CRM Features:

Quite honestly, there’s a lot to love about ActiveCampaign. While we’ll dig into the pros and cons a bit later, for now let’s look at some of the reasons that businesses choose ActiveCampaign as their sales CRM:

  • Sales automation – Save time and energy and complement your team’s sales skills by using sales process automation to create and update leads and assign tasks and leads to your sales team.
  • Lead scoring – Score leads based on specific criteria and use the lead score to trigger automated sales emails and internal tasks and reminders.
  • Chrome and Outlook extensions – Access and update CRM data without leaving your email inbox.
  • 1:1 sales emails – Create a personalized sales experience with more than 250 templates through automated one-to-one sales emails.
  • Sales engagement automation – Use customer data from sales and marketing touch points to send customized sales messages and follow-ups with a human touch.

Again, while ActiveCampaign CRM won’t be a great fit for every sales team structure, businesses focused on combined sales and marketing initiatives will appreciate the seamless integration of sales and marketing tools.

With integrations including Salesforce and Gmail, ActiveCampaign’s desktop and mobile apps offer tools and functionality that will support your team throughout the sales pipeline, from creating leads and segmentation to email campaigns and conversions.

ActiveCampaign CRM Strengths & Weaknesses

Every CRM software has strengths and weaknesses, and ActiveCampaign is no exception. Knowing the potential pros and cons of any sales solution you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process.

Strengths of ActiveCampaign CRM:

Extremely scalable and efficient

A big reason for this is the vast array of ActiveCampaign automation options. Even the lower tiers offer robust sales and marketing automation tools, and the price to upgrade to Professional or Enterprise is quite reasonable compared to competitors.

Affordable for companies with lots of contacts

While this is more of a concern for marketing-heavy companies, contact management gets extremely expensive for many CRM platforms as you scale to 5k, 10k, 50k, or more contacts. With ActiveCampaign, the price remains reasonable even with higher contact counts.

Great for sales and marketing campaigns

ActiveCampaign CRM is a good all-around fit for companies with diverse needs across sales and marketing, and the seamless integration between the two makes it ideal for those following the HIRO pipeline model.

Weaknesses of ActiveCampaign CRM:

User interface (UI) is geared more toward marketing than sales

Because ActiveCampaign started as a simple email marketing tool and grew to include a CRM and sales tools, the UI is more marketing-centric. This won’t be a problem for everyone, but if you’re used to using traditional sales CRMs as part of your sales methodology, be aware that this will be a different user experience.

Limited sales features

If the majority of your CRM buying criteria revolves around sales, you won’t find much to get excited about. ActiveCampaign has limited features for sales calling, quotes, proposals, and more.

Bottom line:

While ActiveCampaign CRM’s won’t be a great fit for sales-heavy organizations, companies with combined sales and marketing efforts will appreciate the quantity and quality of sales and marketing tools and automations at an affordable price point.

Close CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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If you’re in the market for a CRM with a built-in power dialer, or are looking for a full-featured sales management tool that’s easy for team members to learn and use, you’ve probably heard of Close. While it won’t meet the needs of every sales team, it is a solid CRM with several useful features.

Every customer relationship management (CRM) platform has strengths and weaknesses, and knowing the potential pros and cons of the CRM software you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process. Read on to learn more about Close CRM.

Close CRM Strengths:

Close has great calling features

Close is surprisingly well equipped for making calls. Power dialers are the first step toward consistently making a high volume of sales calls, and Close has this feature natively. This is great since adding an efficient dialer onto most other CRMs is either impossible, expensive, or integrates poorly. With Close you get this feature right out of the box.

Close is easy to learn and use

A major strength of Close is its ease of use, which is partially because its features and options are so limited. That said, Close sticks to its core activities (namely calling and deal tracking) and does those well in a simple, easy-to-navigate format.

Close CRM Weaknesses:

Reporting is extremely limited

If you’re looking for solid reporting capabilities, you may want to consider HubSpot Sales CRM or Pipedrive CRM, as Close’s reporting functionality is extremely limited. While there have been a few improvements in recent years, Close still offers only a few basic reports. Enterprise users have slightly better options with custom graphs, but these remain unimpressive when compared to other CRMs.

Customization is limited

Close will look pretty much the same for any salespeople using it. You’re not able to change the user interface much, and while you can create custom fields on the dashboard and properties to record data, you can’t do much with them.

Other Close CRM Features Worth Noting:

Multichannel inbox – Communicate and follow up with prospects by email, phone, and text from one central inbox.

Dynamic template tags – Add tags to email templates to easily create automatically personalized emails in a bulk email campaign.

Call recording – Access recorded calls directly from the contact page.

Power dialer – Automatically call through your lead list without delays between each call.

Predictive dialer – Native software that lets you dial multiple numbers at once and automatically connect once someone picks up.

Workflows – Sales process automation that enables you to assign leads, create tasks, and reach out via email and SMS.

Bottom Line:

Close CRM has great calling features and is easy for sales reps to learn and use. It has integrations with Zapier, ChatGPT, Segment, HubSpot, Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. It’s one of the only CRMs at this price point that offers a full-fledged predictive dialer.

Close pricing plans include Startup, Professional, and Enterprise tiers. Monthly rates are $49 (one user), $299 (three users), and $699 (five users), respectively. Users on the Professional tier – for example, small businesses – can add extra users for $99.

This may be the best CRM for teams with a sales strategy that requires making lots of outbound calls, as long as the reps’ sales skills won’t be hindered by minimal customization and a lack of in-depth reporting tools.

Copper CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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Copper is a niche but powerful CRM that lives entirely inside your Google Workspace. If you’re a Gmail and Google Calendar super-user, Copper CRM is definitely one to consider.

That said, every customer relationship management (CRM) platform has strengths and weaknesses, and Copper is no exception. Knowing the potential pros and cons of the CRM you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process. Read on to learn more about Copper CRM.

Copper CRM features worth noting:

Customizable sales pipelines – Create visual drag-and-drop sales pipelines with as many pipeline stages as you need to represent your sales process.

Workflow automations – Make your sales process more efficient by using workflow automations to change deal stages, schedule follow-up tasks, update contact profiles, and more.

Custom reports – Leverage custom sales reporting and build your own sales reports using Copper data.

Activity insights – Create visibility into your team’s activities across any sales methodology for better transparency and accountability.

Lead scoring – To make the most of your team’s sales skills and optimize lead management, use lead scoring to easily identify the leads that are most likely to convert (requires Business tier).

Email templates – Make your email responses more consistent and improve sales rep efficiency with custom sales email templates.

Merge fields – Help automate sales processes by automatically personalizing emails using merge fields that pull from Copper data.

Email sequence & drip campaigns – Put your follow-up emails on autopilot by enrolling contacts in an email sequence or drip campaign.

Website tracking – Get insight into what your prospects are looking at on your website (Business tier only).

Mobile app – Access all contact activity while on the app. Calls and texts are logged automatically so every interaction is tracked and information is always up to date.

Copper CRM Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths of Copper CRM:

Seamless Google Workspace integration

Copper was designed for Google Workspace – which in addition to Gmail and Calendar includes Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and other Google apps. It is unmatched in terms of its integration with Gmail and the rest of the Google ecosystem.

If this is what you value more than anything else, look no further. Copper is the only sales CRM recommended by Google, and they’re a Google-backed company. There’s really no competition when it comes to Google Workplace/G Suite integration.

Copper is a full-scale CRM

At first glance it’s tempting to write it off as a niche Chrome extension, but it has robust functionality and is capable of more than many other standard CRM platforms.

Copper CRM is easy to use and intuitive

CRM software is a critical sales tool for your team, and one of the most important things to look for is the combination of scalability and user experience. In other words, your sales CRM should be easy enough to use that your reps will like it and commit to using it.

Copper may be the easiest CRM solution to get employees to buy into using since it’s a familiar user interface and everything is a click away from their Gmail inbox. Plus, it eliminates manual data entry by automatically populating Google data into its records. Copper doesn’t score as high on scalability, but more on that later.

Weaknesses of Copper CRM:

Not everyone is a Google Workspace super-user

While this isn’t a weakness per se, it’s important to realize that if you’re not really into Google products, Copper CRM probably won’t be a good fit. Copper was created for a niche group of Google Workspace users, and there’s not a lot of value for people outside of that group.

Scalability is an issue for Copper

Copper lacks many of the advanced capabilities you’d find in an enterprise CRM. Unlike the HubSpot Sales CRM which will scale well with your sales team as it grows, if you’re using Copper CRM when it’s time to scale you’ll likely need to find a new CRM software.

While you can use integrations to add in other sales tools you need like calling, quotes and proposals, and in-depth automations, using multiple integrations to fill in for missing features is expensive and quite often a hassle.

Copper CRM pricing is expensive

Copper’s basic plan is extremely limited, so many users need to start with the Professional or Business tier plans. Subscriptions are per person (regardless of roles) so even a small team with just a couple of sales reps, a manager, and an operations rep can end up costing over $500/month when paid monthly. At this price it can be tough to justify Copper’s lack of scalability and enterprise-level tools.

Bottom line:

If you’re a diehard Google Workspace user searching for effective sales solutions and want a solid full-scale CRM inside of your Gmail inbox, Copper is worth considering. While it won’t be enough for those looking for advanced workflow automations or scalability, Copper’s seamless Google Workspace integration and familiar user interface make it a good option for teams that are fully committed to the Google ecosystem.

Pipedrive CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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If you’re looking for a solid customer relationship management (CRM) platform that won’t break the bank, Pipedrive is a definite contender. While it’s not the best CRM for everyone, Pipedrive CRM packs a lot of value into a very affordable price point that makes it an appealing option for many users.

Pipedrive CRM Strengths & Weaknesses

Every CRM platform has strengths and weaknesses, and Pipedrive is no exception. Knowing the potential pros and cons of the CRM you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process. Read on to learn what we’ve discovered as experienced Pipedrive users.

Pipedrive strengths:

Pipedrive offers the best value of any CRM

Pipedrive’s Advanced and Professional tiers provide significantly more value than other CRMs at that price point. Pipedrive’s Professional tier (~$60 user/month) includes workflow automations, webhooks, custom fields, quotes, e-signatures, email sequences, custom reporting, scheduling, a dialer, and more. The majority of these features are either not included with other CRMs or are priced upwards of $100 per user per month.

Pipedrive’s UI/UX is excellent

It’s tough to pack a lot of features in a CRM while keeping it streamlined and easy to navigate. Many people leave CRMs like Salesforce, Zoho, and ActiveCampaign because the user interface is too confusing and difficult for sales reps to navigate. Ease of use is important in a sales CRM solution. Pipedrive is user-friendly, visually appealing, and easy to learn, and it maintains the difficult balance of containing lots of data without being visually overwhelming.

Pipedrive Weaknesses:

Limited scalability

Because Pipedrive has many of the same features as enterprise CRMs, it’s easy to feel like you’ll never grow out of it, but features are different from capabilities. Anytime you see a feature advertised by Pipedrive, know that it will have fewer capabilities and be less customizable than the same feature in premium tiers of HubSpot or Salesforce.

This is a tradeoff many are willing to make, as the cost of Pipedrive is 10-20 times lower than a premium tier enterprise CRM software. However, changing CRMs is such a big job that ability to scale provides a lot of reassurance — and not everyone will find that in Pipedrive.

Some key features require paid add-ons

There are features you’ll find in other full-suite CRMs that aren’t included with Pipedrive and must be purchased as add-ons. Depending on how you look at it, this could be a strength or a weakness, since a trimmed down core product helps keep the price down for those who don’t need these features.

However, many of these features are very basic and really shouldn’t be behind a paywall. For example, it’s an additional $32/month for a meeting scheduler, live chat, and web forms, which are all included in HubSpot’s completely free tier. Document library, document tracking, proposals and quotes, and e-signatures cost another $32/month. The list goes on.

Pipedrive Features for Sales Team Success

To be successful, sales reps must have a written, enforceable, transparent, and efficient sales process. The last two qualities, transparency and efficiency, are not possible without CRM functionality like the features we’ve listed below.

Pipedrive features that create efficiency:

Efficiency is the effort required from sales reps when moving deals through the sales process, from lead scoring to the moment you close deals. Too often, salespeople end up spending too much time on repetitive or even unnecessary tasks. By becoming more efficient, your reps will be able to spend more time actually selling. Time and time again, we’ve seen that increased sales team efficiency translates into increased revenue.

Pipedrive offers multiple sales tools to improve sales team efficiency. Below, we’ve listed a few of our favorites.

1. Workflow automation

Use workflow automations to email new leads, and set reminders for follow-ups and deal management. While Pipedrive’s workflow automations aren’t sophisticated, they’re enough to automate routine tasks. Also, Pipedrive integrates with many other software platforms, including third-party automation apps like Zapier for complex sales automation.

2. Smart contact data

Researching leads is an all too easy way for sales reps to waste time, but with Pipedrive’s Smart Contact Data there’s really no excuse for spending hours on inefficient lead research. Smart Contact Data uses publicly available information from the web and social sources, allowing reps to auto-populate lead information in just one click.

3. Two-way email sync

It’s important to log all communication in your CRM, and connecting your email inbox to Pipedrive via two-way email sync means you can put email logging on autopilot. Two-way email sync also enables transparency by providing visibility into conversations and negotiations in real time, making it easy to stay in the loop or quickly get up to speed as needed. Users who have synced their Gmail or other email accounts can also access email templates.

More Pipedrive features worth noting:

  • Sales forecasts – a comprehensive view of your predicted revenue.
  • Multiple sales pipelines – gives you the ability to separate your sales pipelines by product, team, or sales process for better visibility into each one.
  • Lead management – a complete overview of each lead and deal, with detailed communication and activity history.
  • Email open and click tracking – get notified when leads open your emails or click on a link you’ve sent them.
  • Native mobile apps – make changes to contacts, deals, and activities from your smartphone, whether on Android, iOS, Microsoft, or other operating systems.
  • Web-to-mobile calls – outgoing calls can be made from your desktop or you can send them to your phone.

Bottom line:

Pipedrive is a solid budget CRM that provides a lot of value for the price point. However, you may end up paying extra for basic features that are only available as add-ons. Still, it’s a great CRM platform, especially for small businesses that don’t need a lot of bells and whistles.

Zoho One CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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Zoho One is customer relationship management software (otherwise known as a CRM) that gives you access to 40+ apps to manage nearly every sales and business operations need. With an appealing price point, and the ability to make a one-and-done purchase decision, Zoho One can be an attractive option. That said, there are a few things you should know before choosing Zoho CRM.

An important note: Zoho actually offers two CRM-related products: Zoho One, and Zoho CRM Plus. While Zoho CRM Plus sounds like a solid and affordable option, in reality you would need to upgrade (and pay significantly more) for multiple other Zoho “apps” just to get features that are standard in the minimum tier of almost every other CRM. Zoho One, on the other hand, includes all 40+ Zoho apps (including Zoho CRM), bundling nearly every feature you could ever need into a slightly higher subscription price.

This article is primarily focused on Zoho One.

Zoho One Strengths & Weaknesses

Even the best CRM platforms have strengths and weaknesses, and Zoho One is no exception. Knowing the potential pros and cons of the CRM tool you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process. Read on to learn what we’ve discovered as experienced Zoho CRM users.

Strengths of Zoho One:

For the price, Zoho One is the more well-rounded of the two CRM-related Zoho products, especially for small businesses and startups with limited sales and marketing teams. It integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, MailChimp, and other solutions. The Zoho CRM mobile app allows you to receive notifications anywhere and access and modify customer data even while offline.

Zoho One is affordable

Individual subscription costs can add up fast, and Zoho One’s bundle of 40+ sales, marketing, and other business operations apps is a compelling reason to consider Zoho One. Unfortunately, in our experience, this strength is also one of Zoho’s greatest weaknesses, but more on that later.

Zoho One is an all-in-one solution for business processes

Along with including a complete CRM, Zoho One markets itself as a business operating system. With sales, marketing, support, HR, accounting, and operations software bundled into one semi-integrated platform, Zoho One is a one-stop shop for business software needs.

For example, Zoho Analytics allows you to create custom reports and configure dashboards with varying layouts, and Zoho Campaigns allows you to manage your email marketing campaigns across customizable email templates.

While that’s all well and good, there are a few things you should know before settling on Zoho One for your CRM.

Weaknesses of Zoho One:

When choosing a CRM software, one of the most important things to look for is the combination of scalability and user experience. In other words, your sales CRM should be easy enough to use that your sales reps will like it and commit to using it, and it should be scalable enough to still be a good choice as your business grows.

Zoho One’s user interface is terrible

With a visually confusing user interface and perplexing navigation, Zoho One scores negative points in the user experience category. CRM software is supposed to be the lifeblood of your sales team, but when it’s difficult or impossible to learn and use, reps end up not using it properly or, even worse, not using it at all.

Customer support is available 24/7, but a dedicated help desk doesn’t make up for a negative customer experience.

Zoho One can do almost everything, but none of it well

While Zoho One provides a ton of functionality, none of the apps are truly good enough to stand on their own. Zoho Sites may give you a website, but it isn’t WordPress. Zoho’s combination of Zoho Books, Payroll, Invoice, and Expense apps doesn’t even come close to the functionality of QuickBooks. You may love the idea of a one-stop shop for your entire business needs but you’re in for a rude awakening if you try to replace your specialized platforms with Zoho apps.

Zoho One’s user experience is also terrible

A good portion of the “apps” included in Zoho One – forms, sales pipeline management, meeting scheduler, and document library – are standard features in almost any CRM solution, not add-ons. Splitting these features into apps (each with their own unique navigation) is not user-friendly and results in an experience that’s clunky, disjointed, and extremely frustrating.

While some CRM systems may charge extra for certain features, it’s insane to compartmentalize each one. Zoho One users need to constantly click to the main menu, find another app, open it, perform a task, click to the main menu, go back to the CRM, etc. And, since apps are separate modules, it’s often not possible to link tasks between two modules.

Zoho One features you might find helpful

  • CRM – basic, non-intuitive customer relationship and pipeline management.
  • Appointment scheduling – allows customers to book a meeting with you at a time that works for them.
  • Email marketing – create, send, and track email campaigns in real time.
  • Forms – build lead generation and customer engagement forms.
  • Chat – team instant messaging tool.
  • Shared inboxes – allow teams to manage shared email inboxes and turn emails into tasks.
  • Workflow automation – automate routine tasks and sales processes for your team members.

As we mentioned before, these features are usually included in most CRMs, rather than standalone apps, and the lack of true integration among everything makes the user experience subpar.

Bottom line:

Not recommended, unless you don’t care about the user experience, have a small team, and need a cheap all-in-one solution.

HubSpot Sales CRM – Everything You Need to Know

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If you’re in the market for customer relationship management (CRM) software, you’ve probably heard of HubSpot. There’s a reason this sales management software has such widespread recognition – it’s the only enterprise-level CRM that’s affordable and scalable for small to midsize sales teams.

After completing numerous HubSpot Sales Hub implementations for our clients, and using it for our own CRM needs, we’ve developed an in-depth appreciation for all that HubSpot has to offer. We detail these below, along with a few things that you should know before purchasing HubSpot Sales Hub software for your team.

HubSpot Sales Hub Strengths & Weaknesses

HubSpot is a CRM software that offers six different hubs: Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Customer Service Hub, CMS Hub, Operations Hub, and Commerce Hub. Each hub has a Starter tier, Professional tier, and Enterprise tier. Hubs can be combined for a significant discount in HubSpot’s CRM Suite bundles. Nearly all sales capabilities are contained within HubSpot’s Sales Hub, so that’s what we’ll be discussing today.

Every CRM platform has strengths and weaknesses, and HubSpot Sales Hub is no exception. Knowing the potential pros and cons of the CRM you’re looking to purchase is an essential part of the research process. Read on to learn what we’ve discovered as experienced HubSpot users.

Strengths of HubSpot Sales Hub:

Great user experience from Sales Hub Starter to Sales Hub Enterprise

When choosing a CRM software, one of the most important things to look for is the combination of scalability and user experience. In other words, your sales CRM should be easy enough to use that your reps will like it and commit to using it, and it should be scalable enough to still be a good choice as your business grows.

HubSpot is the only enterprise CRM that includes every capability you could ever need, along with a great user experience for every team size and price point.

We don’t recommend other enterprise CRMs like NetSuite and ACT because of how clunky and outdated they look and feel. Salesforce and ZohoOne are not much better. We’ve found that sales teams who use these tools just don’t like using them as much as non-enterprise CRMs, and find them all to have steeper learning curves. HubSpot gives you the strength (and scalability) of an enterprise CRM without jeopardizing buy-in from your team.

Nearly unlimited sales automation capabilities

HubSpot has just about every workflow and task automation you’d ever need. Sales Hub Professional is enough automation for most teams and costs a maximum of $500/month for five users, whereas Sales Hub Starter ($20/month) is just enough automation for small teams just starting out. Either way, this is far more automation options than a non-enterprise CRM like Pipedrive.

Because HubSpot Sales Hub is one of the largest sales CRMs, there are options for integrating with nearly every software you use in the HubSpot App Marketplace. This doesn’t mean every integration will be useful to your workflow, but you have more options than you would with a non-enterprise CRM.

Affordable Sales CRM for small sales teams, with nearly unlimited capability to scale as you grow

While the entry tier CRM technically offers free tools, anyone serious about sales will want the HubSpot Sales Hub Starter plan. This is $20/month for two users ($10 per additional) and provides great sales tools for an entry-level CRM. It won’t give you automated tasks or prospecting, but it’s easy to set up, learn, and use to your advantage.

High quality sales training and resources

Regularly updating your sales skills is important, and HubSpot’s training academy and onboarding services offer incredible value. Not only are the courses for learning how to use HubSpot great, but they also have some of the best online sales training courses we’ve ever seen, and this all comes included with your subscription. The free HubSpot blog has up-to-date articles for every feature and process, as well as sales and marketing skills, concepts, methodologies, and more.

Weaknesses of HubSpot Sales Hub:

HubSpot Sales Hub is not ideal for automated prospecting

In order to get automated email sequences, you’ll need Sales Hub Professional, with a price tag of ~$500/month. Even then, you’ll have less automated prospecting capabilities and settings than you would with a dedicated prospecting tool.

This is why we often recommend combining Sales Hub Starter with Reply, which comes out to ~$90/month for both applications and includes a good native integration between the two. One of the other sales engagement tools we recommend is Growbots, which includes both prospecting and targeting tools and also works well with HubSpot.

To do full-blown prospecting in HubSpot you’ll need Sales Hub Enterprise ($1,200/month). This HubSpot Sales Hub tier is loaded with features but is not at all worth buying if you only need it for prospecting.

HubSpot’s buying process can be annoying

HubSpot is a large company, and the sales experience can be hit or miss depending on which sales rep you get. They are open to a lot of negotiation, which can be a good thing or bad thing depending on your needs. While we appreciate when a SaaS company makes the buying process easy, being able to negotiate can play to your advantage if there’s only one feature you need from a different tier or Hub, or if you’re willing to bundle product Hubs, pay annually, or sign a long-term contract.

With a lot of marketing contacts, HubSpot Marketing Hub can be expensive

The vast majority of companies won’t experience this scaling issue. If you want to actively market to 10,000+ contacts you’ll end up spending ~$3,600 per month. Fortunately, Sales Hub doesn’t have this same problem and is much more affordable for marketing teams at scale (~$120 per user for 10+ users).

HubSpot CRM features that will revolutionize your sales process

To be successful, sales teams must have a written, enforceable, transparent, and efficient sales methodologies. The last two qualities, transparency and efficiency, are not possible without CRM features like the ones we’ve listed below.

HubSpot CRM features that help create transparency:

1. Two-way email sync through the HubSpot Sales Extension

This feature, which is available for both free and paid users, is one of the simplest ways to create transparency for your team. When enabled, the HubSpot Sales extension automatically syncs all incoming and outgoing email, whether through Gmail, Outlook, or any other provider, to the corresponding contact or company in the CRM. Once this is running in the background, conversations with leads and existing customers are all recorded and accessible, making it easy for anyone to get up to speed in less time if needed.

2. HubSpot Calling and/or VoIP integrations

HubSpot calling can be a great option if outbound calls aren’t a huge part of your sales process. Each HubSpot Sales Hub tier includes a block of minutes each month (HubSpot Sales Hub Starter – 500 minutes, Sales Professional – 3,000 minutes, and Sales Hub Enterprise – 12,000 minutes), so if you’re only occasionally reaching out to customers or prospects, this might be enough to meet your needs.

When call recording is enabled, HubSpot will record every call and attach the recording to the contact record, which allows for call review and coaching, as well as the ability to listen to past conversations, which is ideal for transparency.

If you have a sales team making hundreds of calls per day, you’ll probably want to go with a VoIP that integrates well with HubSpot, like Aircall or Kixie. These more robust platforms create transparency through automatic call logging and recording, along with queues, power dialers, and other high-volume calling tools.

HubSpot Sales Hub easily connects to HubSpot Customer Service Hub to provide real-time customer support with live chat or chatbots.

3. Detailed sales analytics and custom reporting

HubSpot has solid reporting tools for both the free CRM tier and Sales Hub starter. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise users have access to even more robust reporting options, along with sales analytics that will help you to keep a pulse on the effectiveness and productivity of your salespeople.

Detailed activity reports and customizable dashboards mean that every member of your sales team can stay in the loop and aware of the personal and team activity metrics that will directly lead to their success.

HubSpot CRM features that improve efficiency:

Efficiency is the effort required from sales reps when moving deals through the sales process, from lead scoring to the moment you close deals. Too often, sales reps end up spending too much time on repetitive or even unnecessary tasks. By becoming more efficient, your team will be able to spend more time actually selling. Time and time again, we’ve seen that sales team efficiency translates into increased revenue.

HubSpot Sales Hub offers multiple tools to improve rep efficiency. Below, we’ve listed a few of our favorites.

1. Streamline sales emails with templates and snippets

Unlike mass email marketing templates, HubSpot sales email templates and snippets are designed for personalized, one-to-one sales emails. Creating templated emails instead of re-inventing the wheel every single time you need to reach out to a lead or customer is one of the easiest ways to increase efficiency. Canned snippets are similar to templates, but are intended for bite-sized chunks of information like specific legal terms or responses to frequently asked questions.

2. Keep leads from falling through the cracks with automated follow-up

When it comes to sales, it’s all about the follow-up. On average, only 2% of sales are made during the first point of contact. That means if you don’t follow up, even with a simple follow-up email, you’re missing out on potentially 98% of your sales. That’s no small amount.

But even knowing that follow-up is key, it’s far too easy for reps to let leads fall through the cracks. Fortunately, with HubSpot Sales Hub it’s easy to automate follow-up tasks based on time since last contact, lead behavior, and even deal stage. Sales automations are available for Sales Hub Starter to Enterprise users, so there’s no excuse for not using them to create tasks and follow-up reminders.

3. Be more consistent with sales outreach using sequences

Out of all the sales engagement tools that HubSpot Sales Hub offers, sequences might be one of the most underrated. Many confuse sequences with an auto-drip campaign, but in HubSpot sequences are actually semi-automated cadences that enable you to reach out to leads in a varied and intentional way throughout your sales process.

Basically any sales outreach activity – 1:1 emails, calls, texts, and LinkedIn messaging, along with other task reminders, can be added to a sequence with natural delays between each step.

Here’s an example:

  • Day 1: Send LinkedIn connection request + send first cold email
  • Day 2: If LinkedIn connection is accepted, send first LinkedIn message
  • Day 5: Send second cold email
  • Day 8: Send second LinkedIn message
  • Day 10: Send third cold email
  • Day 11: Make first phone call
  • Day 16: Make second phone call

If a lead responds to an email, or schedules a meeting from your scheduling link, HubSpot can automatically unenroll them from the sequence so that you can continue the conversation organically.

Sequences are only available to HubSpot Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise users, but are definitely worth considering if your team is doing a high volume of sales outreach.

More HubSpot Sales Hub features we love to use:

  • Custom properties – this allows you to track and report on the specific sales and customer data that matters to you and your business.
  • Multiple deal pipelines – you can use each deal pipeline for a different product or sales process.
  • Meeting scheduler – send contacts a link so they can easily book meetings at a time that works for their schedule.
  • Personalized emails – use dynamic fields in templates to easily create personalized emails in seconds.
  • Email tracking – get unlimited notifications when contacts view and click on tracked emails.
  • Lead rotation automation – distribute incoming leads fairly to each member of your sales team.
  • Sales pipeline automation – automatically create deals and move them through the sales pipeline based on pre-defined criteria.
  • Document library – store and share documents with trackable links so you have clear data on which pieces of sales collateral are converting.

How to choose between Sales Hub Starter, Professional, and Enterprise

With all of the bells and whistles that HubSpot has to offer, it’s not always obvious what Sales Hub tier will best serve your needs. While each situation is unique, there are some general guidelines that will help point you in the right direction.

HubSpot Sales Hub Starter

This extremely affordable HubSpot tier gives you everything you need in a basic CRM, while allowing room to grow and expand down the road.

Choose HubSpot Sales Hub Starter if:

  • You only need basic CRM functionality without automations or in-depth reporting
  • You’re working with a small team and limited budget
  • You’re just starting out, but want to be prepared for significant growth in the near future.

HubSpot Sales Hub Starter might not be the right fit if:

  • You need to automate sales processes or create custom reports
  • You need multiple deal pipelines

HubSpot Sales Hub Professional

While this HubSpot tier jumps up in price, there’s also a significant increase in what you can do with Sales Hub Professional.

Choose HubSpot Sales Hub Professional if:

  • You want to increase sales rep efficiency by automating follow ups and task reminders
  • You need sequences, sales analytics, and playbooks
  • You need lead scoring and automated lead rotation

HubSpot Sales Hub Professional might not be a good fit if:

  • You want to organize users in teams
  • You need custom objects, custom goals, or predictive lead scoring
  • You’re integrating with Salesforce or a custom API

HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise

HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise allows you to do pretty much anything you can imagine with your CRM, but it’s not cheap. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional will meet the needs of 99% of non-enterprise sales organizations, but there are a few reasons you may want to choose enterprise.

Choose HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise if:

  • You have multiple sales teams and sales managers
  • You need conversation insights, custom objects, or custom goals
  • You want to automate almost everything from sequence enrollments to predictive lead scoring
  • You need to integrate with Salesforce or a custom API

Bottom line:

Whether you have an established sales team or are just starting out, HubSpot Sales Hub has the functionality and tools you need to manage your sales team, improve sales performance, and scale effectively.