Signals from the Field

HubSpot is a CRM with powerful marketing automation features that can be used with its own Sales Hub or integrated with another CRM. Salesforce is a popular CRM with manufacturers but when it comes to marketing automation to nurture the leads, HubSpot is the leading platform for usability and functionality - in any industry. It integrates easily with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics and keeps data in a centralized location rather than maintaining data in two separate systems. HubSpot also integrates with ERP systems such as Odoo and Commercient giving one source of truth for data records.

ChatGPT and artificial intelligence (AI) have taken the world by storm in 2023 and it is being applied across countless platforms. While on the surface it can create content, that is actually not where the power will be found. In fact, if used purely to create content AI could have long-term detrimental SEO effects. AI is changing the way people search for answers to their questions so it could disrupt search engine marketing and a lot of the things we do.

HubSpot is a powerful CRM solution with three main "hubs" - Sales, Marketing, and Service. While these hubs work together seamlessly, they can also be integrated with other tools. For manufacturing businesses, HubSpot's Marketing Hub is an excellent marketing automation tool that can be easily integrated with other leading sales CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.

I previously worked for a news agency with a large team of advertising salespeople of various tenures. The corporate office mandated the use of a customer relationship management tool (CRM) and not surprisingly, the seasoned members of the sales team resisted using it to track and measure their activity.

People with decades of experience were suddenly expected to enter their hard-earned leads into a system that any of their peers could access. They'd heard that management wanted to measure and evaluate their activities with these leads. The team members expressed feeling that their value was being diminished and turning over that information made them feel "no longer necessary". What they weren’t told (not convincingly, at least) was that the CRM was actually going to help them by making their jobs easier and converting more leads to sales. 

Originally posted on September 2, 2019, this post was refreshed to highlight ways businesses can save money on Google Ads.

Are you stretching your Google ads budget as far as it can go? Small and medium-sized businesses can't afford to throw away ad dollars trying to compete with large companies and must be strategic with their advertising spending.

In our 2019 broadcast, we covered some important things to look out for that could be burning through your campaign budgets. Making adjustments to these 3 things could save you thousands of dollars.

Content marketing plays a critical role in credit union marketing. It engages the target audience, builds trust, and contributes towards the credit union brand as an authority in the financial services industry.

This is our first post-pandemic manufacturing survey and we are happy to see many aspects of marketing are returning to normal. As trade shows have re-emerged manufacturers are finding success in face-to-face connections and live demonstrations.

As a credit union marketer, when it’s time to secure your budget or request funding for a specific campaign are you able to justify the spend? Can you tie actual results to your marketing efforts for the credit union?