HubSpot Pros and Cons: Are You Choosing the Right Tool?

Since the time the tide has turned in favor of all things digital, we have seen a virtual explosion of many trends that have prompted the rise of many tools and technology. CRM that is backed by marketing automation, or marketing automation backed by CRM would be one such technology that has set the world of digital presence building on fire!

Let us first understand how before we talk about HubSpot, and the HubSpot pros and cons. If we are to gain precious perspective, here’s what typically happens online, in a span of 60 seconds or in just a minute:

• $751,522 gets spent online
• 4.1 million videos are viewed
• 452,000 posts are updated on social media
• 900,000 logins happen on social media platforms
• 1.8 million shops are created

When you look at the above statistics and figures, there would be a part of you that would want at least 1% of that revenue, or those hits for your posts and videos – and at least 1% of those 900,000 people logging in to find you on their feed as well. Is that right? Of course it is! When you are running a business, and especially when you are still running a business in these pandemic times – your online presence is one of the most important things that should be well taken care of.

This is where tools like HubSpot come into the picture. What is HubSpot really? This is essentially an inbound marketing tool that is powered by CRM or customer relationship management to further fuel marketing automation. HubSpot was established way back in 2006 and since then, it has revolutionized the way businesses and brands approach their social media, SEO and email marketing strategies. With the advent of the IoT or the Internet of Things, it has become crucial to not only get hold of the big data that pertains to your niche audience, but it has also become important to actually use the relevant parts of that data, in a relevant way. Why? For these two functions to happen seamlessly:

• Find the right prospects from your brand audience or segment
• Convert these prospects into leads

Now, when we look at the above two functions, we instantly think of the hours and hours of work, the weeks and months spent waiting for the results to start showing up and the money that will be spent in order to sift through all that data and to find the relevant nuggets that would actually help you. Well, by the time you are done with all this, the markets would have moved forward with the next big thing and there would be a strong possibility that either your competitor would have reached out and converted your prospects, or the trends would have changed and your ideas would already be obsolete.

So, what is the answer? The answer would be a marketing automation tool that is fully and seamlessly backed by a CRM system that allows you to find and store all the data that is relevant to you and your business, in the right fields so that you would be able to make use of the same in the best possible way. This is what HbSpot does and this is what many other platforms like HubSpot competitors would also be able to do for you, with much ease. While HubSpot is one of the best in the business and one of the earliest, there are also many HubSpot pros and cons that you cannot ignore. Here are a few:

Pros:

1. The Price: HubSpot is free for most people until you want a larger and more enterprise suited package.
2. Customization: One of the best things about HubSpot is that there is no limit on how much you want to customize the framework that you build for the exact needs of your business and your team.

Cons:

1. Pricing: When you want to go forward and scale up your business, you would also want a platform that is suited for all the varied departments and verticals of your business and the teams that need to be aligned for the same. Unfortunately, HubSpot does not offer this flexibility. HubSpot pricing becomes an issue here and it would be far wiser and far cheaper to engage your own team in order to build your framework for your business.
2. Usability: With UI/UX issues, you will have a number of problems when it comes to dealing with and maintaining your HubSpot framework. This makes it difficult to work with and integrate with other platforms as well.

As you can see from the above points made, there are many issues with hubSpot. Now that we have cast a glance at the HubSpot pros and cons as well as the HubSpot pricing, let us look at two worthy HubSpot alternatives for you and your business needs:

• EngageBay: This would have to be the best HubSpot alternative since it offers you the flexibility of low pricing when you scale up and the leeway to customize as you want with all the integrations you may need. It also has a wide range of features and functions that can take care of all your business needs even as leads get generated, tracked, nurtured and converted in an omni platform way.
• ActiveCampaign: While this is good HubSpot alternative, it would not be easy to use since it does not offer easy integrations. Also, it does not offer very many features apart from email marketing which is not the only place where you can generate and convert leads. Further, with Active Campaign, you will have limitations on how much you can customize the framework and how much it would cost you.

All in all, EngageBay in comparison with other HubSpot alternatives would be the best bet for your business since it will grow with you thanks to features, pricing and customization flexibility as well. You can easily choose this over all other alternatives.