From a Vision to More Leads and New Business for Professional Service Firms

Turbocharge your firm’s marketing by making “Connections”

HubSpot_Ideation_Process I’m not quite sure how the new product ideation, development and launch process works within HubSpot. Sometimes I suspect that a whole bunch of intrapreneurs clamber into a tipi where Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah throw green wood onto a fire and wait until the vision thing starts to happen.

“I see a monkey ... it’s taking a survey. Hey! It’s not just any old plain monkey!! Holy smokes, it’s the SurveyMonkey and it’s dropping leads right into the CRM!!!

“… AND LO! I shall create a path to paid media right inside the HubSpot portal!

“No wait!! It’s right in front of me! I… I… I… got it! A central dashboard that combines all of your marketing and sales reports into one interface!

“Oooooh. Aaaaah. Preeee-diiic–tiiive-lead-scoring… ”

And When the Smoke Cleared…

.... and the really, really good ideas were separated from the really, really bad ideas (like scratch n’ sniff HubSpot), they brought and just announced nine new add-ons, modifications and enhancements to the HubSpot product that showcase why they are the most innovative and progressive marketing technology firm in the market today.

From “Ads Add-on” which allows HubSpot users to buy and place LinkedIn and Google AdWords right from the HubSpot portal; to the new “Reporting Add-on” dashboard that helps companies easily and quickly figure out areas to focus on to drive growth, this new suite of enhancements makes all of the extra days and hours those HubSpotters spent in the tipi pay off for CPA, consulting and other professional service firm marketers.

For a complete description of the existing and new add-ons and enhancements, click here.

How CPA, Consulting and Other Professional Service Firms Get Connected

Just to be clear, when I’m talking about “connections” for professional service firms, I’m not talking about how to build a better referral or word of mouth marketing mousetrap. I’m talking about the effort that HubSpot committed to integrating third-party products into the platform so marketers could do a better job at lead acquisition, nurturing and closure.

From the perspective of lead generation, applications familiar to professional service marketers like GoToWebinar, SurveyMonkey, Slideshare, and ReadyTalk can be integrated with the HubSpot platform. Essentially, what this means is that prospects that fill out a form on any of these platforms (and every single bit of the data on that form) drop into the HubSpot portal and become a contact.

Once they’re in the portal, you can put them into campaigns, marketing automation workflows, make them recipients for emails, and so on.

Good news: the cost for these integrations is free (although the third-party product may have fees) and HubSpot has made the integration process a no-brainer.

Inbound 2015: What’s New?

At Inbound 2015, HubSpot announced a number of new connections including: BlogMutt, PandaDoc, Smartling, Teamwork, UberConference, Unbounce, and ZenDesk.

But the new connection that I’m most excited about is the HubSpot/Eventbrite integration. Eventbrite is a tool for online event registration and promotion. Like other integrations with lead generation as a common denominator, any client, prospect or referral source (and the data from the sign up form) that signs up for a workshop or seminar through Eventbrite becomes a contact in the HubSpot platform.

And as any good spirit guide knows, professional service firms LOVE workshops and seminars!

Eventbrite This integration should be part of making marketing automation and lead nurturing magic happen. I’m already talking to my clients about using these integrations, and in fact, there’s one campaign we’re working on that includes both a survey and an event that will use the SurveyMonkey/EventBrite/HubSpot integration throughout the campaign and automation process.

Back Into the Tipi

I’m predicting that over the next few years the pace and scope of enhancements, add-ons and integrations that we’ll see coming out of HubSpot will grow. That will only give accountants, consultants, AEC and other professional services firms more and better ways to find prospects and nurture them into sales.

My concern is that there will be so many opportunities to help our clients execute really compelling marketing with new and innovative marketing technology that I’ll be spending all of my time in a state of constant amazement.

Then again, maybe I’ll take our staff, spend some more time in the VitbergLLC tipi, and throw some more green wood on the fire.

After all, don't more leads and new business start with a vision?