How HubSpot Lifecycle Stages can Supercharge Your Marketing Efforts
HubSpot is a powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that can be used to form a stronger bond between your business and your customers. Having a personal bond with your customer base is critical in the modern business landscape.
The majority of people don’t respond to generic blanket marketing techniques aimed at covering a wide audience. If you want to hook your customers, you need to make sure that you’re speaking to them directly. Customers need to believe that the marketing message was designed specifically for them, and only them.
HubSpot allows you to do this by tracking the buyer’s journey, which is also known as the lifecycle stages within the CRM. If you understand how this system works and why it’s so effective, you can supercharge your marketing efforts with Hubspot.
What is a HubSpot Lifecycle Stage?
HubSpot’s powerful CRM allows you to track every customer interaction with your business. This gives you an idea of where they would be in their buyer’s journey. Understanding where they are in this “lifecycle” allows you to personalise your marketing messaging to cater to their needs and goals.
For example, if someone has just discovered your brand, it’s unlikely that they would be ready to buy. You can’t send them marketing messages that imply that they should start spending their money. You first need to go through a proof of concept stage where you’re slowly introducing them to customer testimonials about your different products and services. This will build their confidence and push them closer to being ready to buy into your business.
HubSpot’s lifecycle consists of seven stages:
- Subscriber
- Lead
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
- Opportunity
- Customer
- Evangelist
Being able to monitor which stage of the lifecycle your customers are in is a powerful advantage to have. HubSpot allows you to monitor each customer to ensure that you’re always sending them relevant marketing rather than generic blanket marketing.
Stages: What Do They Mean?
The key to maximising your marketing efforts using HubSpot’s lifecycle stages is understanding what each one means. Every stage is crmust ensureed to make sure that you can correctly identify which category each customer falls into.
1. Subscriber
A subscriber is someone who has just recently discovered your business. This person would have signed up for your newsletter or contact form, or fequently visits your blog to read updates about your business. At this point, it’s clear that they have an interest in your business, but they need some nurturing and guidance before you can start selling to them.
2. Lead
A lead is someone that has become a contact within your HubSpot database. Whether the contact was added in through a contact form or entered manually by a team member, leads are people who have shown an interest in your business, and could potentially become buyers in the future.
3. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
A marketing qualified lead is a contact who is ready to be contacted by the sales team and potentially closed. MQLs are set when leads match the ideal customer profile, indicating they are more likely to become customers.
4. Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
Leads that have been identified as potential customers by your sales team are sales qualified leads. A salesperson usually conducts this process manually, by researching LinkedIn profiles, cold calling, or emailing. In essence, it involves finding customers based on criteria that fit their ideal customer profile by going out to find them.
5. Opportunity
The opportunity lifecycle stage means that an MQL or SQL was successful and they have a deal opened in HubSpot. Opportunity only refers to open deals that are currently ongoing because a deal can still be successful or unsuccessful.
6. Customer
Once a deal has been closed in HubSpot’s CRM, the contact becomes a customer. At this point in the life cycle, the contact has already been successfully converted and you may revisit it again.
7. Evangelist
During the evangelist stage, you maintain contact with your contacts and encourage them to speak up for your company. A word-of-mouth referral, a testimonial, or even a simple recommendation on social media be used to do this. Referrals are the best way to get high quality leads for your business.
