Salesforce vs HubSpot

December 31, 1969

As a happy, daily user of HubSpot since Sept 30, 2014 and a holder of all 12 of their certifications, a previous Salesforce user going back to 2004, and a former trainer on Salesforce when Dell deployed it back in 2007, here are the main differences between this CRM and Inbound Marketing Platform.

Origin

From the beginning HubSpot started as a tool for business owners to generate more traffic and leads.

Interestingly, they offered a variety of free tools to generate their own leads and they still do to this day.

Salesforce, on the other hand, started as a CRM and has remained a CRM.

They started out touting the "no software" mantra and targeted users of big, clunky CRMs like Siebel.

Salesforce would offer an affordable option for small businesses but quickly scaled up their pricing, their packages, and their ideal customers.

Today

Founded in 1999, Salesforce is the 800 pound gorilla in the CRM space and they offer a fantastic—and expensive—platform for the large enterprise to connect everything under the sun in the platform to make it do what they need such as marketing automation, autoresponders, email marketing, etc.

Founded in 2006, HubSpot is the 800 pound gorilla in the inbound marketing space and they offer a fantastic, nearly-all-in-one platform for the small to medium business to create inbound marketing and inbound sales.

Salesforce has the AppExchange, which is appropriately names because it's the online exchange you can visit to buy the various applications you want or need to supercharge your Salesforce application.

HubSpot has a Partner Marketplace where you can download free or premium themes for your site, retain a partner to assist with getting more out of the software in ways that are customized to your workflows, or get add-on applications to supercharge your HubSpot application.

HubSpot has tools that helps you grow traffic and leads:

  • Blogging Tool

  • Website Content Management System

  • SEO Tools

  • Social Media Tools

  • Landing Page and Other Lead Capture Tools

  • Email Tools

  • Call to Action Button Tool

  • Lead Database with Contact Timeline

  • Workflows (allows you to create actions based on triggers – the possibilities are endless) Ex. Someone fills out a form. Trigger an email to a sales rep, an email to the visitor, a series of 27 emails scheduled to go out over the next 12 months, an upgrade in Lifecycle Stage, etc.)

  • Lead Scoring Tools

  • Competitor Website Analysis

  • Reporting Tools

Recently (last 2 years or so), they added a CRM (customer relationship management). This tool allows you to:

  • Create Deals and Track them in your Sales Pipeline

  • Send and track individual emails to leads from sales reps

  • Report on Leads, Deals, and Revenue

  • Report on Individual Sales Rep Activity and Productivity

  • Create Email Templates to be used by Sales Reps

Salesforce is a CRM

A CRM typically has the items I bulleted out above for the HubSpot CRM.

The way I think about it is that Marketing Automation is primarily used to attract and convert leads as well as help produce sales opportunities. This tool is used by marketers primarily. A CRM helps sales people track their activity, opportunities and save time following up. This tool is used by sales individuals primarily.

There is quite a bit of crossover (typically around automating emails) when comparing Marketing Automation Tools and CRM tools, but in general, marketers use marketing automation and sales people use the CRM.

Both tools should work together just like marketers and sales people should work together.