HubSpot is one powerful digital marketing platform, that’s for sure. It's got the functionality that enables you to grow your business by filling your sales funnel with qualified leads, specifically the kind of leads that qualify as your ‘ideal client’. Searching for a marketing platform that measures and delivers ROI? Check!
That said, this powerful functionality means very little if you're not sure how to tap into the platform’s potential and make the most of your HubSpot marketing account.
At a recent Struto workshop Scott Nursten, one of our directors, gave a presentation on getting the most out of your HubSpot account. Scott’s uniquely qualified to talk on the subject, as he's not only one of Struto's directors but also one of the founders of STRIDE, a stock evaluation platform for value investors. And he's had extensive experience in making HubSpot work to STRIDE's best advantage.
On facing all the bells and whistles offered by HubSpot, it's easy to become distracted in the process of launching all of your great ideas and activities at once. Slow down! There's one critical element you need to get right first, and that's creating and clearly defining your buyer personas (your ideal buyer) and their particular journeys on the road from stranger to lead, to buyer.
As Scott was quick to point out when speaking on this topic, understanding your buyer personas is challenging. Be prepared, hyper-targeting your marketing to your buyer personas can result in some controversial results, like a dramatic tumble in web traffic numbers. The flip side of the coin is that efficient buyer persona targeting can bring about positive results quite rapidly. Looking to improve your contact and client conversion rates? Hyper-targeting is where it’s at.
Have you managed to create accurate buyer personas for your business? You’re only getting started. If you’re looking to utilise your HubSpot account’s full potential, you will have to know your personas AND understand their buyer journeys
Understanding the behaviour exhibited by your buyers gives you a far greater insight into their motivation for seeking your company out, and helps you see exactly what triggers them to move along their buyer’s journey. This knowledge is invaluable because it enables you to tailor your site and offering to these trigger events for maximum conversion potential.
A critical element in correctly mapping your buyers' journeys is not relying on fundamental assumptions alone. Yes, you do need to start with fundamental assumptions. But making progress from there means being able to switch to data-driven decisions quickly because the detail gleaned from data mining is important to mapping accurate buyer journeys.
It starts with using the right tools. This means using Google Analytics and Hotjar in addition to HubSpot to help you find and compile the most accurate representation of your buyers' journeys. It means focusing on segmentation and behavioural analysis in Google Analytics, and using Hotjar to analyse your funnel in greater detail. And there's a lot more to focus on from there, once you isolate each stage of the buying cycle and perform analysis at each stage.
Measuring and analysing your buyers’ data is no one-off endeavour. It's an on-going process you need to commit to if you want to see the most accurate results. It's best to tackle these activities in short sprints and to focus on building, measuring and learning. And don't be afraid to challenge everything!