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You've decided to invest in HubSpot for your business, you've spoken to your agency or HubSpot themselves about the upcoming onboarding process, and you're keen to get going... so now what? Which part of this giant machine do you traverse first? We know that it can look overwhelming at first – here we wanted to offer you some pointers.
So much of your focus, when researching the HubSpot platform, tends to be about the tools; whether you can justify its costs for your business; who in your team will need training; which hubs to invest in – it isn’t until the decision has been made to proceed that you have chance to stand back and think about your next steps.
That’s why we’ve created this blog post, as a way to give your first day with HubSpot some structure (not that we expect you to stay awake a solid 24 hours staring at your screen in preparation!). We’ve outlined five of the most useful things you can be getting on with yourself to start acquainting yourself with the software. These tips come directly from our team and we hope they will be useful in setting up some of the most important initial tasks – you’re in for an exciting ride!
Account Set Up
Configure your domain settings
Of course, the first thing you need to do with your new HubSpot portal is configure your domain settings. Start by verifying that you have access to your DNS provider’s CNAME records. More information on how to do this is available here.
Get your tracking code in your existing website
You might have decided not to host your entire website on HubSpot. If so, you'll need to install the HubSpot tracking code on to these non-HubSpot pages in order to capture their analytics – and the sooner you do this the better so you don’t waste that vital data while you swap over.
It’s incredibly simple to do – here’s a walk through – and is likely a job for your web developer. This task takes barely any time to set up; you’ll just need to check it’s working effectively afterwards.
Get your tracking code in your existing website
You might have decided not to host your entire website on HubSpot. If so, you'll need to install the HubSpot tracking code on to these non-HubSpot pages in order to capture their analytics – and the sooner you do this the better so you don’t waste that vital data while you swap over.
It’s incredibly simple to do – here’s a walk through – and is likely a job for your web developer. This task takes barely any time to set up; you’ll just need to check it’s working effectively afterwards.
Harry, ESM Inbound HubSpot Implementation Specialist says:
“You'll want to start collecting that valuable data from your existing site as soon as possible. By getting your tracking code into your current website, you can draw all that precious information from it and store the results in HubSpot where it is automatically analysed with your other data.
HubSpot understands that, depending on which hubs you buy and which free tools you use – plus how good your existing website is – you might not want to completely migrate every page to HubSpot right away: this alternative means you can still take advantage of the granular analysis tools within HubSpot, right from the start.”
Filter out internal traffic
Filtering out your internal traffic - traffic from your office IP - is vital to keeping your analytics data accurate and reliable. Don’t forget to also exclude the IP address of any agency or consultancy that you work with too. Here’s how to filter out internal traffic in HubSpot.
Connect your social accounts
Connect your business social accounts and create and publish posts, including auto publishing for blog posts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn can all be linked in a HubSpot portal. YouTube is also available for Marketing Hub Enterprise customers.
Find out how to connect your social media accounts here.
Map your CRM data and import
The next action is to map your company’s clean CRM data, including what non-standard (custom) fields you'll need.
Importing contacts and other historical data into HubSpot is straightforward, see here.
Invite your team and get them enrolled in HubSpot Academy
HubSpot acknowledges it’s a weighty piece of software and that it’s difficult to keep track of the ever-changing developments their team makes. They’re determined to listen to customer feedback, modifying it to become even more useful to its users, but this means training needs to be constantly updated.
Therefore, they’ve created HubSpot Academy – a virtual learning centre where you can find videos, transcripts, tests, blog posts and tools on just about topic you might need to cover. Not only can you watch short videos that help you troubleshoot barriers straight away, but you can start taking certifications to grow your skill set and add prestige to your website – showing all the certs your team has passed illustrates what experts you are in your field.
Lucy, ESM Inbound Director of Operations says:
“My suggestion for your first 24 hours with HubSpot is to start making the most of the free materials in the HubSpot Academy. Highlight the training needs for your team members, identify existing gaps in knowledge, and assign them each relevant certifications to complete.
To support them in succeeding, block out some time in their diaries to complete the training – some of the courses are a few hours long and there’s so much content to take in. By investing in your team this way, you won’t just convey the importance of CPD to them, but you’ll show just how seriously everyone needs to be taking their HubSpot skills development. You’ll also be encouraging a wide spectrum of new knowledge across your team, making your combined skill set airtight.”
Add live chat to your website
At the recent Grow with HubSpot event we attended in London, we learned how 90% of consumers now expect an immediate response to queries (which counts as any time within 10 minutes of the initial request). Due to social media, amongst other factors, the idea of immediate service has become an expected basic for many consumers – so what are you doing not to get left behind?
HubSpot has created tools to help you chat with visitors, prospects and customers in real time. Use live chat to automatically connect consumers to the appropriate person on your team who can help them: whether it’s a customer service inquiry, or a lead that needs to speak to a salesperson.
John, ESM Inbound Director of Growth says:
“If you haven’t used a chat function on your website before, it’s vital you get this set up early on. HubSpot has made it easy to customise the chat widget to your branding, and you can quickly learn how to create targeted messages for different segments of your audience and for different pages – this is to allow a personalised experience when visitors come to your site.
The part of the tool I especially love is that every conversation you have in the chat widget gets automatically saved and stored in your conversations inbox and on the contact’s timeline in HubSpot. This means that, no matter who had the initial conversation, the rest of your team has complete transparency about the context of that contact’s journey and their upcoming needs.”
Subscribe to the HubSpot blog
This is simple and quick to achieve – if you’re not already, subscribe to the official HubSpot blog. They helpfully split their blog into four different areas, depending on what help you think you’ll need: Service, Sales, Marketing, and Agency. It might sound like an obvious tip, but the more you read, the more ready you’ll feel to get going.
In order to help yourself get ahead and start feeling a bit more organised before official onboarding begins, start reading some articles around the process and what lies in store.
Carl, ESM Inbound HubSpot Growth Hacker says:
“I can’t recommend subscribing to the HubSpot blog enough in the run-up to onboarding, and beyond – it’s packed full of useful insights, from sweeping general pointers, to granular tips about specific tool functions. No matter what topic you type in, you’re likely to find an entertaining, clear and well-written post relating to it.
As my chief role at ESM Inbound is working with new customers who are starting their HubSpot experience, I do loads of reading of their blog in order to find content that will be helpful for those just starting out. I get dedicated time to identify opportunities to improve our customers’ performance, so HubSpot always has an article to shake up my ideas. I recommend it to all my clients as a way to help educate their different teams, too.”
Activate pop-ups on your website
Pop-ups don’t always get a good reputation, often seen as annoyances – they interrupt, they’re direct and don’t appear to be very “inbound” in their form… yet they work. There have been case studies conducted that reveal pop-ups can increase email subscribers by up to 1,000% over a month. Hence, HubSpot has created a tool purely designed for the purpose of incorporating pop-ups into your web pages – and it’s really easy to use.
Setting up popups across your website is a great activity to initiate in your first 24 hours with HubSpot because it allows you to start driving more traffic to the content offers and conversion opportunities you really want consumers to be engaging with on your site.
Anna, ESM Inbound Director of Marketing says:
“In its simplest form, a pop-up is a window offering further help or advice for a visitor to your site. It suggests a download or link to an educational page they might not have yet seen on their own. This is incredibly inbound.
You can customise them to pop up with offers appropriate to what your visitors have clicked on or searched for previously, ensuring they aren’t getting bombarded with irrelevant spam. It’s a chance to create highly personalised, educational pathways to the content you’ve created, and that your contacts might actually use.
HubSpot allows you to track who is clicking on pop-ups, who is submitting their details for the offer and who is accessing the content once they’ve been emailed – this is golden data to find out more about your channels and buyer personas.”
And there you have it! Our top tips to keep you busy in your first 24 hours with HubSpot. We want to encourage you to get your hands dirty as much as possible in this platform – it’s your portal, after all. But these nice, simple ‘break-you-in’ tasks should give you a flavour of what’s to come.
Want to find out more about our full onboarding process to see what you can expect next? Just head over to our Onboarding pillar page.
