Business solutions don’t become successful by accident, and HubSpot has certainly earned its place among the most trusted customer relationship management suites. One of the key factors of most of the world’s digital success stories is how easily a beginner can pick it up and start being productive as soon as possible. How does HubSpot fare in this regard?
In my experience, it depends who you ask. People familiar with CMSes like WordPress are going to pick up that element pretty quickly, it’s very similar. And those who have used a CRM before will generally have no trouble picking it up after a few hours of experimenting. If you’re diving right in and using it as a complete solution rather than just one of its components, then the ease with which you’ll learn it will depend on how broad your experience is of the main systems.
That’s to get to grips with the basics, anyway. You’ll quickly learn your way around the dashboard – how to import contact lists, set up mailing lists, schedule mailshots, create landing pages and so on. But in truth, if you (or your employer) are only going to use the basic CRM functionality, you may as well get a free open source system or another paid CRM that’s cheaper.
The whole point of investing in HubSpot is that you’ll have access to all its powerful tools like live chat and working alongside a complex team on prospects, leads and clients. That’s when you might find yourself on a steep learning curve.
Luckily, help is at hand in the shape of the HubSpot Academy. It’s almost guaranteed that whatever you want to look into regarding the platform, there will be in-depth articles covering it. They’re presented in an incredibly simple to follow manner, and you’ll be able to learn aspects of the platform in a methodical way, with certificates available in the various disciplines.
You just need to sign up to take them, but it’s 100% free. You’ll find you’ll learn a lot more than the platform itself, too – you’re going to pick up a wealth of invaluable information on inbound marketing, sales and customer service too.
Now, if you’ve taken a look at the academy and had a glimpse at the courses, you’ll probably have concluded that this isn’t a half-hour job.
There are two-day courses available to learn the system, but most people will be learning on the job, accompanied by scheduled self-study for a few hours a day. If that’s the case, you’d probably be a competent HubSpot user in two to four weeks, but you’ll be able to confidently carry out 90% of the commonest tasks within the first week.
The exams take about two hours to complete, if you’re going for accreditation (and it’s probably worth it whether it’s for your own CV or to enhance your company’s skillset).
All of the above information is with regard to the general user. If you really want to get the most out of the platform, some more advanced coding knowledge will be required, but that is probably beyond the scope of the average marketer. It’s one of the reasons we offer HubSpot development among our services. You can take our vast experience working with the CMS off the peg and use our team to create solid code to make your landing pages shine. Why not get in touch to find out more?
