Ask Us Anything about Marketing Hub Starter!

[roisinkirby]

Last week HubSpot announced the launch of  Marketing Hub Starter, a new software offering that aims to give growing teams the tools they need to start marketing right. To celebrate experts from HubSpot's own Product and Marketing Teams will be answering your questions next week on how to start marketing right with HubSpot.

Some topics of interest you can ask the team about include:

• The Marketing Hub Starter product and features to help you to get started growing your business.
• Converting traffic into leads with ads and forms
  
• Engaging and nurturing leads with personalized email marketing
• Analyzing and improving your efforts using essential marketing reports
  
  

This AMA will start on Friday, July 27th at 9:00 AM ET. Paul, Courtney, Marjorie, Eabhan and Tova will be answering questions between 9am - 5pm ET. Feel free to start adding questions now, and the team will begin answering them on Friday.

                                                                                                 

Paul Weston (@pweston3)                                        Tom Monaghan (@TomMonaghan)
Senior Product Manager, Marketing Hub            Director of Product, Email

                                                               

Courtney Sembler (@coachcourt)                                Marjorie Munroe (@MMunroe)
Inbound Professor                                                          Inbound Professor

                             
                                                              

 Tova Miller (@TovaMiller)                                                         Eabhan Rowe (@Eabhan)

Demand Generation Marketing                                  Customer Marketing

Click here to learn more about Marketing Hub Starter.

[RevQ]

Does Marketing Hub Starter include workflows to send emails like Mailchimp? If so, are the emails mobile optimized like Mailchimp?

[pweston3]

Hi @RevQ,

Marketing Hub Starter includes simple automated emails that can be triggered by Lead Flow submissions. These emails are plain-text, but are mobile friendly in the way they wrap and render. 

Fully-featured automated Workflows are included in Marketing Hub Professional.  

Thanks,

Paul

[Marie_Baltz]

Suggestions for measuring email performance across multiple emails -- maybe in a campaign?

[pweston3]

Hi @Marie_Baltz,

The "Campaigns" feature exists in Marketing Hub Basic, Pro, and Enterprise, but not Starter. I certainly recommend using Campaigns in those packages to measure performance across multiple activities, especially when running integrated marketing campaigns with Social, Ads, and Landing Pages with forms. 

In regard to Marketing Hub Starter,  I recommend using the Email Analyze tab. Toward the bottom of the "Overview" tab, there is a chart you can use to pin and compare emails according to various metrics. There are also other charts to view "top performing" emails in a variety of categories. 

Thanks,

Paul

[arsalan23]

Are there any restriction on using purchased contacts in email marketing, and how much bounce rate is acceptable?

[TomMonaghan]

Hey Arsalan23,

No, purchased contacts may not be used and would be in direct violation to the terms you agree to when you sign up.  There's a bunch more in our Acceptable Use Policy.  But here's an important bit:

In addition, you are prohibited from using the HubSpot Service to email: (a) purchased, rented, or borrowed lists, and (b) lists that are likely to result in an excessive number of unsubscribe requests or SPAM complaints or notices, as determined by acceptable industry practices.

As far as a bounce rate goes, we don't publish an acceptable bounce rate.  Our automated deliverabilty systems watch all bounces as every bounce impacts the success of the system and it's users.  Anything in the neighborhood of 5%, which is over 10 times what our customers normally see, will get a lot of automated attention that may lead to the specific list being quarentined, the entire send being stopped, and / or the account being suspended. 

So yeah, don't buy contacts and watch your bounces.  If you're seeing a high bounce rate, something is wrong and that issue should be addressed before your next send.   

Thanks,

Tom

[arsalan23]

Can you through some highlight on the functionality of Blog & content creation and SEO & content strategy features in Marketing Hub.

[pweston3]

Hi @arsalan23,

Blog and Content Strategy tools are available in the Marketing Hub Basic, Professional, and Enterprise editions (but not Starter). 

Here are a couple of resources to learn more about these tools with HubSpot:

A quick tour of the blog tool: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/blog-user-guide-v2/a-quick-tour-of-the-blog-tool

The future of content strategy: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing-strategy

Thanks,

Paul

[ErinK]

So Hubspots email reporting is super messy in my opinion. What do you all use to have a clean way to report on email sends both total and by recipient.

Is there anything we can do to keep our internal people who receive our emails off the analytics? Like a seed list? I have worked other places where a 'seed list' is used and it is kept separate from the actual email recipients.

Thanks All!

[TovaMiller]

That is a great question. What I do to organize overall numbers is assign each email send to a HubSpot campaign. At the end of the month, I use the analyze tab in the email tool to get a full count of sends for the month. You can choose the timeframe you want to report on + you can narrow it down by campaign as well.  

You can create a list in the list tool to see who opened (and or clicked) your email and disclude people who have the domain from your company to pull those numbers. 

[MFrankJohnson]

Q: Is there anything we can do to keep our internal people who receive our emails off the analytics?

A: You have choices ...

-1- Exclude their IP addresses in Account Settings -> Reports & Analytics Tracking -> Advanced Tracking ... (they'll still receive emails)

- see How to filter out traffic from your website analytics

(see image)

-2- Opt them out of email (in case they open from a different IP address)

(see image)

One or both of these solutions will keep your guys off your analytics reports.

[manderson]

How can I generate a report of all conversions (form fills) for all forms? So far I only that it is possible to run a report for new contacts of customers. 

[Cofide]

Hi my name is Fernanda, 

It would be great that more courses of Hubspot could be  in other languages, for example in spanish we've only have Inbound Certification and Marketing Software.

It would be nice that us as costumers of Hubspot  or like a volunteer programme we could be capable to translate the courses.

In order to reach public and to promote the importance of Inbound Methodology and other content related.

[MMunroe]

Hi @Cofide,

Welcome to HubSpot Community. Thank you for the feedback. We are currently working on processes to make sure our content and certifications are available in more languages moving forward. I have forwarded this feedback along to the team responsible for these translations to continue to support their efforts!

Best,

Jorie

[Jigna]

In the analyse section of content - emails, would it be possible to have clicked-through rates available as a column instead of just click rate please? Be good to see that for each individual email.

[pweston3]

Hi @Jigna,

Thanks for the feedback! This isn't an option in the Analyze tab right now, but it's something we'll consider. 

Paul

[pweston3]

Hi @manderson, it depends a bit on what you're looking for.

You can see all contacts from form submissions by going to Contacts, adding a filter for the property "Number of form submissions", and choosing "is greater than" 0. 

From there, you can add them to a list for emailing or perform other bulk actions like assigning a HubSpot owner.

Thanks,

Paul

[Anonymous]

@Eabhan I'd like to know how you approach content / communications with your customer base? How do your goals / strategies / results differ to emails that are focuses on lead generation / conversion?

[Eabhan]

ey @Anonymous great question!

Lead generation/conversion is the fundamental focus of a lot of marketers because its how they drive revenue for their business. As a customer marketer, driving revenue (1) looks a little different for me, and (2) is only one part of my goals.

The three pillars of our customer marketing team are Engagement, Advocacy and Revenue. My role is then to build communication strategies that support each of these pillars. Because I support a variety of goals- the results that I focus on are highly dependant on the TYPE of email I'm sending.

Engagement

Enable customers to see growth with HubSpot and our products.

Example: Creating automated onboarding resources for customers to support their early experience with HubSpot.

Results: Focus on engagement with the HubSpot product and self-reported satisfaction with HubSpot.

*The important thing to note is that engagement is the central pillar of our customer marketing strategy, only by showing your customers TRUE value can you create advocates and customer revenue

Advocacy

Enable our happiest customers to be our best marketing team

Example: Focusing on moments when our customers are seeing success, and encouraging them to write a review for HubSpot at that point

Results: % of customers who are advocates or review success

Revenue

Driving revenue by improving retention and showing value of other products to your customer base

Example: Surfacing products to customers that are a good-fit for their usage

Results: Increased retention or revenue from the customer base

[Anonymous]

@TomMonaghan, @pweston3 can you give a high level breakdown of when to use Sales HUB CRM email tools and when to use Marketing Hub email tools? I'm struggeling to explain to my teams the difference in use case, target audience and strategy - I also don't want my teams misusing the tools and compromising sending scores.

...on that note, how do sending scores work at HubSpot?

[pweston3]

Hi @Anonymous,

Sales Hub email tools, like Sequences and Templates, are optimized for making sales rep processes more efficient. Here are some examples: 

• Before/after meeting with someone
• Moving a conversation to email (from a phone call, social network, or in-person)
• Regular customer outreach and nurturing

In any case, Sales Hub email makes your life easier because you can save and automate templates of follow-up emails for a variety of these sales scenarios, and customize them on a 1-to-1 basis if you'd like. 

Marketing Hub email tools are best suited for targeted campaigns at scale. This is the tool you want to use to reach a larger (yet well-segmented) audience. Here are some examples:

• Invitation to attend a webinar or event
• Promote or showcase products you're selling
• Update your audience with relevant announcements or news

In Marketing Hub Starter, you can to segment and send to lists of contacts, look professional with an easy-to-use editor, and measure success with robust post-send reporting. With Marketing Pro & Enterprise, you can also send automated workflows, blog notifications, A/B tests, and more. 

In both Sales and Marketing Hub email, make sure you've got permission to email contacts and that they expect to hear from you!  Here are some tips to keep your contact lists clean and get your email delivered: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/email/how-to-clean-up-your-contact-lists-to-improve-deliverability

[TovaMiller]

I tend to measure success of an email campaign based on email engagement via clickthrough rate. 

There are 3 metrics that I look at for each send: 

1. Clickthrough rate: shows how much the content we are sending is resonating with our audience

2. Unsubscribe rates: how much the content is not resonating with our audience

3. Influenced monthly recurring revenue 90 days after send. We measure this by looking at clickthroughs and then deals closed within that 90 days after recipients open and click the email. 

[TomMonaghan]

"what's your biggest piece of advice for EMEA marketers who are impacted by GDPR?"

So first off: TINAL - Tom Is Not A Lawyer.  

So the short answer is, do the right thing.  GDPR is Inbound, with a host of very specific requirements added in. Review those and how they impact your business. Engage a lawyer. Only you and they can know the impact and requirements on your business.

Ok, now that that's out of the way.  My biggest piece of advice is to focus on being transparent with your contacts.  Did you give them notice? Were you super clear on how you're establishing the legal basis for storing their data and communicating with them?   Finally, if you don't know the answers to these questions, you can be sure your contacts won't know either and I'd guess that's not a discussion anyone wants to have with a regulator.

-Tom

[tammydonelson]

How can I track the actions of contacts whose email addresses have been uploaded since they show as an offline source?

[coachcourt]

Hey @tammydonelson, 

If you are looking to specifically track contacts that have the original source of 'offline sources' you can use that criteria  to create a list and then drill down based off actions you are interested in. 

If you are looking to dig into something else please let me know. 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[MMunroe]

Hi @hubspot,

Great question! I recommend your marketing interns start with the Inbound Certification and (especially!) Inbound Marketing Certification. These will provide the most context on the state of inbound marketing. The latter will also start to touch on the implementing inbound strategies. 

Depending on the interns' exact roles, we do also have certifications that cover Content Marketing, Email Marketing, and Social Media Marketing that could help with more specific strategy/application needs. 

Tracks are a little less time intensive and targeted (in terms of subject matter). We have a  business writing track with author Daniel Pink (see here) that may be useful.  The Building Sustainable Traffic for Business Growth track, taught by Matt Howell-Barby, also breaks SEO down in an incredibly accessible way. 

Any and all content can also be taken as bite sized lesson (usually 30 minutes or less). So if time is a worry, I recommend having your interns look at the Lesson tab first to make sure they are getting the information they need — fast. 

Best,

Jorie

[pweston3]

what features are available with Marketing Hub Starter?

Here's a list of the major features that come with Marketing Hub Starter: https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing?selectedPackage=starter

This page also has more context and information: https://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/starter

Does this package include automation tools? 

Marketing Hub Starter includes simple automated emails that can be triggered by Lead Flow submissions. Fully-featured automated Workflows are included in Marketing Hub Professional.  

[MeganNevins]

I recently passed my new inbound marketing exam with a 47/50 and that was on the 24th. I still havent recieved my certificate.

[coachcourt]

Hello @MeganNevins, 

If you provide me with your email address I am happy to take a look at your Certification. 

In addition, you can see if your badge was delivered by following the below instructions: 

1. In your HubSpot account click your account name in the top right-hand corner, then click Learning Center. 
2. Navigate to the Certification you are looking for. 
3. Click  'View Certification' on the certification you want to view 

If you are unable to see if there please let me know and provide your email address so I can take a deep look. You can also email me (csembler@hubspot.com). 

Thanks, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor