5 Advanced HubSpot Features That Can Transform Your Business

Do you want to make the most of your HubSpot investment? This blog will help you discover actionable insights on leveraging advanced HubSpot functionalities that are often overlooked but can boost your ROI and transform your business strategy. Whether you're looking to optimise your marketing campaigns, streamline your sales processes, or elevate your customer service experience, this blog is designed to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed.

Unlocking HubSpot's Full Potential

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, staying ahead of the curve requires not just using powerful tools, but mastering their most innovative features. HubSpot, a leader in inbound marketing, sales, and customer service software, offers a wealth of advanced functionalities designed to elevate your business strategy to new heights.

In this blog, we delve into five transformative advanced features of HubSpot that we think every business should take advantage of: programmable email, custom coded actions, deal pipeline rules, advanced lead scoring, and data formatting. Each of these features unlocks new potentials for customisation, efficiency, and insight, empowering you to tailor your marketing and sales efforts more precisely than ever before. 

To dive deeper into how these advanced features can streamline your business operations, we recently hosted a webinar that provided valuable insights, use cases and practical tips on harnessing these tools. You can watch our "Advanced HubSpot Features You're Missing Out On" webinar here:

1. Custom Lead Scoring in HubSpot

Lead scoring is a feature in HubSpot that allows you to prioritise your leads based on their engagement and fit with your ideal customer profile. By assigning scores to different actions and attributes, you can identify the leads that are most likely to convert and focus your efforts on them. For example, you can consider a lead who visits a landing page five times, a strong indicator of their readiness to convert. By assigning a score to this action, all leads engaging with your landing page will receive a numerical ranking, aiding in prioritising and guiding efforts towards those most likely to convert. 

With lead scoring, you can also segment your leads based on their scores and create targeted nurturing campaigns. By sending the right content to the right leads at the right time, you can increase engagement and drive more conversions. So, don't underestimate the power of lead scoring when it comes to maximising your ROI.

Lead scoring within HubSpot offers a high level of customisation, allowing businesses to tailor their approach to suit their specific needs and objectives. There are some common use cases of this tools such as engagement scoring, prioritising Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), scoring company records based on ideal customer Profile (ICP) criteria, etc. 

However, there are some more unique use cases of this feature that we discussed in our webinar "Advanced HubSpot Features You're Missing Out On". For example, you can set up SQL scoring, onboarding score, and even health/happiness score. You can base your customers' health score on a variety of factors, including their CSAT feedback, the number of email subscriptions they have, and their last activity date. 

Then, by utilising HubSpot's reporting tools you can gain valuable insight into your customers' health score. By tracking and analysing your customers' health scores, you can identify patterns, trends, and areas for improvement in your customer satisfaction levels. This data can help you make informed decisions, tailor your strategies, and ultimately enhance your overall customer experience. 

2. Programmable Email

Programmable email is another advanced feature offered by HubSpot that can help you enhance your email marketing and lead nurturing efforts. With programmable email, you can create dynamic and personalised email templates that adapt to each recipient based on data from activity or HubDB tables. This allows you to send highly targeted and relevant content to your contacts, increasing the chances of conversion.

In addition to personalisation, programmable email also offers advanced tracking and analytics capabilities. You can track email opens, clicks, and conversions, and use this data to optimise your email campaigns for better results. So, if you want to take your email marketing to the next level and maximise your ROI, consider leveraging the power of programmable email.

Some common use cases for programmable emails are job or property listings, product recommendations based on last viewed item, or latest news. But with this advanced feature in HubSpot, the possibilities are endless. From special birthday discounts to anniversary reminders, from abandoned cart notifications to customer loyalty rewards, businesses can truly customise their email marketing efforts to build strong relationships with their audience.

Another exciting use case for programmable emails is to create personalised event invitations based on past attendance, tailored workshop recommendations based on previous registrations, or exclusive offers based on past purchases. By leveraging the dynamic capabilities of programmable emails, businesses can deliver targeted content that resonates with each recipient, increasing engagement and driving conversions. So, don't miss out on the opportunity to utilise programmable emails to enhance your communication strategy and maximise your ROI.

3. Data Formatting

HubSpot offers a variety of tools and features that allow you to customise the way data is displayed and utilised within the platform. From custom fields to data segmentation options, HubSpot empowers users to format their data in a way that best suits their specific needs and objectives.

By taking advantage of data formatting capabilities in HubSpot, businesses can ensure that their information is easily accessible, actionable, and insightful. Furthermore, with the ability to customise data formatting, businesses can create tailored reports, dashboards, and visualisations that provide a comprehensive view of their marketing and sales activities. This level of customisation not only enhances decision-making processes but also fosters a deeper understanding of customer interactions and engagement.

In HubSpot, you can also use the Data Quality Center to ensure your data is of the highest quality. From there you can evaluate any possible issues with records, properties, workflows or data sync integrations. The effects of poor data can range from negative customer experience to loss of customers, so don't underestimate the power of HubSpot's data management tools when it comes to optimising and transforming your business operations. For further insights on maintaining data cleanliness and upholding information integrity, check out our blog "Best Practices for Effective Data Cleansing in HubSpot".

4. Deal Pipeline Rules

During our webinar "Advanced HubSpot Features You're Missing Out On", one standout feature that sparked great interest was the discussion around deal pipeline rules. This advanced functionality within HubSpot CRM allows businesses to set up specific rules and criteria for managing deals as they progress through the sales pipeline.

Deal pipeline rules serve as a guiding force, ensuring that each deal is handled in a systematic and efficient manner. By establishing rules based on deal stage, amount, or other custom parameters, businesses can streamline their sales processes and make informed decisions at every step of the sales journey. 

By leveraging deal pipeline rules and customise deal tags in HubSpot, businesses can gain better visibility into their sales pipeline, but also improve their funnel and customer journey reports. Deal tags will help your team to quickly identify and prioritise deals and tickets in your pipeline by using an object tag based on certain criteria. 

For instance, you can set up tags for Large deals, and assign it to any deal with an Amount value greater than £10,000. Other use cases for this tool can be assigning a tag based on the service the deal is for, an urgent deal/deal that needs attention, or ideal customer profile/persona representation.

5. Custom Coded Actions

HubSpot’s custom coded actions feature is a powerful tool designed for businesses that seek to go beyond the conventional automation capabilities. This advanced feature, allows users to deploy unique scripts written in JavaScript or Python directly within their HubSpot workflows. By integrating custom code, businesses can tailor their marketing, sales, and service processes to meet highly specific needs, offering a level of customisation previously unattainable with standard automation features.

Custom coded actions serve as the bridge between HubSpot’s out-of-the-box functionality and the bespoke needs of your business. They enable the execution of custom scripts as a step within a HubSpot workflow, allowing for data processing, complex calculations, and interactions with external APIs. This means that you can automate tasks that are unique to your operational processes, enhance data integrity, and create personalised customer experiences at scale. By leveraging this feature, you can create highly tailored solutions that align perfectly with your operational requirements and customer engagement strategies, ultimately driving better business outcomes.

During our webinar "Advanced HubSpot Features You're Missing Out On", we discussed several use cases for this tool, such as: 

• Turn a full name into first and last name
• Email address validation
• Weighted lead rotation
• Complete all tasks of a closed deal
• Automate your renewal management
• Sentiment analysis with Service Hub
• Out of office reassignment
• ChatGTP integration

But one that sparked the most interest was forecasting recurring revenue reporting. HubSpot’s recurring revenue reporting still has some limitations - such as the inability to report on forecasted recurring revenue without the use of Commerce Hub. In this case, a custom coded workflow created a new “revenue” custom object for forecasted recurring revenue and one-off revenue. This data then allows you to forecast a breakdown of recurring and one-off revenue in a single report on a monthly frequency. 

Navigate HubSpot's Advanced Features with a Trusted Partner

Embarking on the journey to fully leverage HubSpot's advanced features can feel like navigating through uncharted territory. These powerful tools, including programmable email, custom coded actions, deal pipeline customisation, advanced lead scoring, and sophisticated data formatting, offer immense potential to transform your business operations and customer engagement strategies. However, unlocking their full potential can be a complex process, fraught with technical challenges and strategic nuances that require deep expertise and experience.

If the prospect of leveraging HubSpot's advanced features to their fullest excites you, but the technicalities seem daunting, it's time to reach out. Partner with us, your accredited HubSpot Elite Partner, and let's transform your business together.