How Major Colours Assist HubSpot Construct a CRM That Prospects Love

At HubSpot, buyer expertise comes first. At all times.

Whether or not our advertising and marketing group is deciding on a time at which to ship an electronic mail or our internet group group is selecting the scale and site of a button on our homepage, the query we at all times return to is: “Will this be an excellent expertise for our prospects?”

As HubSpot’s Chief Product Officer, this customer-first precept is my guiding gentle in the case of product improvement. And it is the explanation why we do not purchase know-how once we wish to ship a brand new product to our prospects. We construct it.

This build-first strategy is changing into more and more uncommon in our business. Conventional SaaS firms have a tendency to accumulate different firms once they wish to considerably broaden their product choices or shortly enhance their buyer base. This could generally result in a fast uptick in income — in any case, when an organization buys one other, it acquires all of its prospects — however it’s usually a really adverse expertise for the client.

When two utterly completely different programs are cobbled collectively after an acquisition, the burden of constructing them work collectively is foisted onto the client. Every firm most likely took a totally completely different strategy to product improvement, leading to completely different underlying know-how, completely different processes, and completely different consumer interfaces.

Reconciling these variations with out inflicting friction for purchasers is an nearly unattainable job. And when SaaS firms apply this strategy over time, the friction accrues, technical debt goes via the roof, and the client expertise steadily degrades in consequence.

This strategy solves for the corporate implementing it, not the purchasers it is speculated to serve. That is why we do issues in a different way at HubSpot. In any case, it is not like us to observe the group.

When most firms had been doubling down on the outdated outbound playbook, we championed inbound approaches as a substitute. When most companies had been questioning whether or not distant work may ever work, we noticed the share of HubSpotters working from residence hit double digits lengthy earlier than 2020 compelled everybody’s hand. And whereas our business was nonetheless furiously centered on funnels, we embraced the flywheel.

We’re completely different. It is in HubSpot’s DNA. It is even mirrored in our firm mission: we assist organizations develop higher. Not develop in response to the established order. Not develop by adhering to age-old playbooks. Develop higher.

Simply as we consider there’s a greater option to develop, we additionally consider there’s a greater option to construct. That is the place the Major Colours are available.

Meet the Major Colours

Our strategy to product improvement is straightforward, and it permits us to create multiplicative advantages for purchasers that no different CRM platform affords. We deal with 5 foundational components that span all of our merchandise, and we work at enhancing every one in all them, all the time. These components are: Automation, Content material, Knowledge, Messaging, and Reporting. We name them “Major Colours.”

Each one in all our Hubs – Content material Hub, Advertising and marketing Hub, Gross sales Hub, and Service Hub – contains a unique mix of the 5 Major Colours, that means that each product on our platform is constructed on the identical underlying basis.

So when the product group reveals as much as work day by day, the query we ask ourselves is not “Which Hub or characteristic will we work on immediately?” It is: “Which Major Coloration will we improve?”

Consequently, once we add worth to 1 space of HubSpot, worth is routinely added throughout all the CRM platform. And that enables us to ship a gentle stream of enjoyment to all of our prospects on an ongoing foundation.

Listed here are 3 ways by which this strategy permits us to supply distinctive worth to our prospects within the crowded CRM market:

1. Steady enchancment throughout the platform.

“HubSpot is the proper, always-improving advertising and marketing software program” – evaluate on G2

The identical 5 Major Colours go into constructing every HubSpot product, so once we enhance one Major Coloration, we enhance each Hub. And each buyer of each HubSpot product sees an instantaneous profit, no matter a part of the platform they use.

For example, once we spend money on making Reporting in Gross sales Hub extra sturdy, this robustness ripples out to each Reporting device throughout the HubSpot CRM platform. So Advertising and marketing Hub prospects who use our Reporting instruments profit, Service Hub prospects who use our Reporting instruments profit, as do Content material Hub prospects — all as a result of we invested in enhancing only one Major Coloration.

2. Simple adoption of recent merchandise.

“We shortly adopted the Gross sales Hub Professional and Advertising and marketing Enterprise for our rising wants. It has been the most effective choices now we have made” – evaluate on G2

Since all of our Hubs are constructed on the identical Major Coloration basis, our prospects can anticipate a well-known, quick, and pleasant consumer expertise each time they add a brand new characteristic or product to their tech stack. This implies prospects can get pleasure from the advantages of every new addition instantly, with no time misplaced to coaching, integration, or new-system frustration.

As HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, places it: “Our prospects’ time-to-joy is decreased.”

As soon as a buyer learns tips on how to use Automation in, say, Advertising and marketing Hub, they immediately know the way Automation works in all of HubSpot’s merchandise throughout the CRM platform. In order their firm scales and provides new merchandise, options, and integrations to their tech stack, they’ll anticipate consistency, not complexity.

They do not should relearn how Messaging works or how Knowledge is saved each time they add a brand new Hub — one thing they’d seemingly should do in the event that they had been working with a system that had been cobbled collectively via acquisitions or in the event that they use completely different instruments for various customer-facing groups.

3. The flexibility to run a whole enterprise on a single platform.

“I can handle the web site, CRM, electronic mail advertising and marketing and all different efforts in a single single place. This permits me to have a single location for all my information Reporting and have a single supply of reality” – evaluate on G2

With HubSpot, fast-growing firms can run their complete enterprise on a single system, as a result of HubSpot affords the identical insights and energy to entrepreneurs, salespeople, and repair professionals alike.

And when all groups at an organization are understanding of the identical acquainted system, silos crumble, information is centralized, and knowledge flows freely. The entire group has entry to the identical useful insights, permitting them to grasp their prospects higher and ship a seamless expertise throughout each touchpoint.

For instance, when an organization’s advertising and marketing group makes use of Advertising and marketing Hub and its gross sales group makes use of Gross sales Hub, each groups achieve entry to the identical buyer information in a centralized CRM. And since each Hubs supply equivalent performance for recording and storing Knowledge, it turns into equally straightforward for every group to entry not solely the info they generate, but in addition Knowledge the opposite group generates.

This offers entrepreneurs and salespeople a holistic view of the client, enabling every of them to tailor their ways and personalize their outreach. If a prospect is exhibiting explicit curiosity in advertising and marketing content material a couple of sure characteristic, the gross sales group can see this info within the shared CRM and can know to deal with that characteristic on their subsequent name with the prospect.

They need not wait on a advertising and marketing report or depend on an impersonal script – they’ll personalize their outreach and hone in on a prospect’s particular areas of curiosity, all on account of each Hubs being constructed on the identical basis.

Constructing In a different way, Rising Higher

The challenges that firms face in 2021 are new, so our strategy to constructing our merchandise must be new as effectively. With the rise of the hybrid office, we’re all discovering our work lives intersecting our residence and household lives, too. That raises the bar on what we anticipate from enterprise software program.

Folks use HubSpot to energy their companies, to offer for his or her households, to assist their communities thrive, and in lots of circumstances, to make the world a greater place.

It is now extra vital than ever that our CRM platform expertise seems like one thing you’d use on the weekends, not simply Monday morning.

That is why we’re fiercely dedicated to constructing software program that has enterprise-grade energy mixed with consumer-grade intuitiveness and an expertise as pleasant as that supplied by the apps all of us use in our private lives.

At HubSpot, our bar is about by what our prospects want, not what our opponents have carried out in previous a long time. With the 5 Major Colours powering our platform and our unwavering dedication to by no means compromise on buyer expertise, we’re excited to proceed to assist our prospects develop higher in 2021 and past.