HubSpot needs no introduction.
If you’re a small business owner, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with HubSpot’s marketing platform. They serve more than 121,000 customers in 120 countries around the world.
Their platform is pretty exceptional. Their platform focuses on customer relationship management (CRM) — inbound marketing, sales, customer service, and content marketing services. There’s one crucial area they don’t focus on, though; you see where I’m going with this, right?
HubSpot isn't Focused on Reputation Management
Chuck Schaeffer, in his review, wrote:
“HubSpot is not the best product in every category, and depending upon your objectives and requirements may not offer the best tool in any category, yet may still be the single best marketing solution in bringing all the tools together into a cohesive platform.”
That’s high praise.
There’s just one problem; HubSpot isn’t focused on reputation management. In fact, it’s noticeably absent from their platform.
Does that matter?
Well, let’s take a look at the data to get our answer.
- Having just five reviews increases purchase likelihood by a factor of almost 4
- Businesses that improve their Google My Business profile rating from 3.5 to 3.7 stars experience conversion growth of 120 percent
- Companies with more than 82 reviews earn 54 percent more in annual revenue than average
- The purchase likelihood for products with at least five reviews is 270 percent greater than products with zero reviews
So reviews shape your brand, then?
Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap (and eight other books on branding), says the brand is misunderstood.
Your brand is not your logo. It’s not a promise, corporate identity system, product, or service. It’s the gut feeling people have about your product, service, or company.
Your brand is your reputation.
Your brand exists in the heads and hearts of your audience, of the marketplace. Online reviews shape your customer’s perception of your business, creating your reputation. Positive four and five-star reviews (mixed with a few one and two-star reviews) keep your reputation humming along.
HubSpot is amazing, but the platform can’t help you improve or manage your reputation. You’ll need something else to make that happen.
The Value of CRM and Reputation Management
CRM usage is on the rise.
- CRM adoption/usage grew from 56 percent in 2018 to 74 percent in 2019
- The majority of companies (91 percent) with a staff of 11+ use a CRM system
- Only 12 percent of businesses used a cloud-based CRM. Today, that number has ballooned to 87 percent.
This is great news!
What about online reviews? Do we see the same kind of traction with reputation management?
Not so much.
- 91 percent of consumers expect a response to their review. In fact, only 9 percent of consumers didn’t expect a response to their online review
- 75 percent of businesses don’t respond to any of their reviews
- 89 percent of consumers read business responses to customer reviews
- Consumers spend 49 percent more with companies that reply to customer reviews
- 72 percent of consumers have written an online review. It was just 66 percent in 2019
What does this mean?
The vast majority of customers expect a response; it could be anywhere from 1 day to 1 month, but they want brands to engage with them. Most companies can’t be bothered to respond to any of their reviews. This is very bad news for them, but it’s fantastic news for you if you’re prepared to capitalize on their missteps.
But how?
Easy. You combine the CRM system you’re already using (HubSpot) with a powerful reputation management tool (Grade.us).
Why go to the trouble? Well…
- There are 3.5 billion searches every day. That volume grows by 10 percent every year.
- Google is the number one review platform; 63.6 percent of searchers search for reviews on Google before visiting a business.
- Google accounts for 57.5 percent of all reviews worldwide across all review platforms; Facebook accounts for 19 percent, TripAdvisor 8.4 percent, and Yelp with 6.6 percent. Other platforms account for a modest 8.6 percent.
- 25.12 to 27.94 percent of your local search rankings depend on your Google My Business profile.
- Online reviews make up another 6.47 to 15.44 percent of local search ranking factors.
Review management is an essential part of customer relationship management. If you’d like to decrease churn rates, increase customer lifetime values, and build a strong brand, you need review management. As we’ve seen from the data above, doing so increases traffic, leads, and sales.
How to Integrate Hubspot with Reputation Management
I’m going to assume that you already have a HubSpot account. Don’t have an account? Visit HubSpot’s category page to create a free account or request a demo.
From there, you’ll be prompted to confirm your account and log in. At that point, you’ll be all set!
What about Grade.us? If you don’t have a Grade.us account, or you’d like to take it for a test drive (no credit card required), you can get a free 14-day trial here.
All set? Perfect!
Let’s walk through the integration process together.
- Sign into your Grade.us account. In your desired account, click the “Integrations” tab on the left sidebar.
You should see Hubspot in the list of integrations.
2. Select “Hubspot” as the application you want to integrate.
3. Click “Configure” to start the authorization process.
4. You’ll be asked to choose the audience you’d like to import after you’ve given Grade.us permission to access your account.
5. Click “Finish” to complete the process!
See what I mean?
The sign-up process for HubSpot and Grade.us is simple; this is what makes HubSpot such an excellent platform; it’s designed to be simple and easy.
Okay, you’ve imported your HubSpot contacts into Grade.us.
What happens now?
You create an email and SMS autoresponder sequence to reach out to each of your customers. It’s a good idea to request reviews from everyone equally so there’s no accusation of favoritism from unhappy customers or disgruntled outsiders.
How do you do that?
Here’s a comprehensive video walkthrough, showing you the ins and outs of setting this up.
Setting these messages up is easy. What’s not easy is knowing who to ask or what to write in your email request. No worries, we’ve got you covered there too!
- 44 Unique Email Templates for Requesting Online Reviews
- 40 Situational SMS Templates for Requesting Reviews
- 11 Review Response Templates for Great Reviews
- 8 Review Response Templates for Negative Reviews
- How To Respond To Negative Reviews
- 60 Review Request Text Templates to Get Google Reviews
- 9 Industry-Specific Review Response Templates for Negative Reviews
Pick the right templates for your industry, customize them so they’re a fit for your business, then drop them into Grade.us. Select the duration and the number of messages you’d like to add, and you’re all set!
Note: Any customers added through HubSpot will be added automatically in Grade.us, but it will only create new contacts. It will not update if you change an existing contact after the initial upload. For example: if Jane (email [email protected]) changes her email to [email protected], it will not update her email. Jane would need to be added again as a new customer.
Next, you can only add one list of contacts to Grade.us. It’s a good idea to create a designated list of customers if you haven’t already.
HubSpot Doesn't Have to Care About Reputation Management
But you do.
HubSpot serves more than 121K companies around the world. Their platform is a one-stop shop for all things inbound marketing. They help brands manage their sales, marketing, CRM, and customer service departments, but they don’t cover reputation management.
That’s very good news.
With the right tools and a bit of integration, you can integrate your marketing stack with a powerful reputation management tool. Most of your competitors aren’t responding to customers the way that they should. When consumers take the time to write a review (positive or negative), most expect a response.
They’re not getting it.
This is your time to shine. Combining HubSpot and Grade.us helps you generate, monitor, and respond to more reviews; it’s a cheap surefire way to boost your traffic, leads, sales, and revenue.
