At first glance, hiring a Certified Hubspot Partner may seem like an expensive proposition – especially to small businesses and those that work with a tight marketing budget. However, we are here to show you how to evaluate the cost and determine where it is really IS all that expensive. You might be surprised at the results!
First of all, how much does it typically cost to hire a Certified Hubspot Partner? There isn’t a specific answer for this, as the costs vary from partner to partner. However, all partners base their pricing loosly around a) their billing rate and b) how many hours per month they will devote to your campaign. If you are familiar with Hubspot, then you know that it is a hosted software application that allows you to manage all of your inbound marketing activities in one slick and easy-to-use portal. Blogging, landing pages, calls to action, forms, email campaigns, contact lists and social media are all components of any good inbound marketing campaign and they can all be managed through the Hubspot Portal!
Consider how long it would take you to do all this yourself. We have put a little table below that outlines some typical Inbound Marketing activities – and common tasks that you or someone within your organization would have to do.
| Average Hours/Week to Implement Inbound Marketing | ||
| Keyword Research | Continually finding and logging keywords that will drive traffic to your website. | 1-2 hrs/week |
| Writing Blog Articles | You have to write at least 1 blog post per week to really build momentum. | 2/4 hrs/week |
| Managing Social Media | You have to promote your blog articles via twitter, facebook, linkedin etc. | 2/4 hrs/week |
| Creating Premium Content | To hook your readers, you need ebooks or whitepapers they WANT to download. | 4-6 hrs/week |
| Creating CTA Buttons | Each blog post and page needs call to action (CTA) buttons to drive traffic to your landing pages. | 1-2 hrs/week |
| Creating Landing Pages | Landing pages are the key to capturing the lead’s information and delivering the premium content. | 2-4 hrs/week |
| Creating Marketing Emails | Automated marketing emails are necessary to keep your leads warm and coming back for more information. | 2-4 hrs/week |
| Reporting, Analyzing Data |
You need to know if your efforts are paying off. If they are – keep going. If not, adapt and refocus. | 1-2 hrs/week |
| Potential weekly hour requirement for Inbound Marketing | 15-30+ hrs/week | |
The Lesson: Inbound Marketing Takes Time
There are no free lunches, and no instant success schemes – we all know that. The table above isn’t meant to scare you away from inbound marketing – in fact – it has been proven over and over again that money spent implementing the above type of marketing plan yields results and generates leads for a cost over 60% less than with traditional marketing (yellow pages, radio, tv, newspaper ads, billboards, etc.). The kicker is that it takes hours to get these things done.
As business owners, we don’t often have the hours to do these sorts of things because well – we have a business to run! The table above shows the average tasks required to implement an inbound marketing campaign and as you can see – you could spend anywhere from 15-30 hours per week performing these tasks! With these hours, we’re getting into a full-time position here! So here are the two options:
1) Hire a Hubspot Partner
A Hubspot partner (such as ourselves) has received many hours of intensive training in the Hubspot platform covering not only how to use Hubspot, but also in best practices for delivering results to our customers. Hubspot partners can also get more done in a shorter period of time because this is what we do every day. We’re not feeling our way around in the dark, trying to run our business while trying to learn Hubspot at the same time. Hubspot partners are uniquely equipped to design and implement a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy while their customers spend their time and energy on their own business.
2) Manage Hubspot yourself
Some choose to do this – and we can even help our clients get set up with Hubspot and train them how best to use it. However – with the kinds of hours we are talking about here, as well as the learning curve for using new software, unfamiliar social networks, and learning HOW to blog, post, tweet, etc in the most effective way – it quickly becomes something the typical business owner will not want to do. They often have to hire someone – or utilize a marketing person they might already have on staff. If you are lucky enough to have a marketing person on staff – this can be a great setup and we (and any other Hubspot partner) would help you get set up for success.
Weigh the Risk & Reward for Each
Any business decision needs to be evaluated based on a risk/reward basis. If you have a marketing person on staff that could be devoted to an inbound marketing campaign – then you could certainly sign up for Hubspot, get trained and hit the ground running. However, if you are seeing these tasks, realizing what an impact they would make but have NO idea how you could possibly do it all – then consider hiring a Certified Hubspot Partner. Partner fees range anywhere from 2k and up for different sized Inbound Marketing campaigns. In the end, when you compare a professional retainer fee to the cost of hiring someone – and the RISK of hiring someone in an area that you might not have a lot of experience in, the the Hubspot Partner option looks more and more attractive.
Many times we preface a quote by saying “a wise man once said”, but whoever said “if you want a job done right, do it yourself” may not have been all that wise! When you have a business to run, you are always better off delegating and surrounding yourself with the best talent available. With Inbound Marketing, this is especially true. If you do not have someone on staff that would easily learn these methods, then do yourself a favor and protect your investment and grow your business by hiring a Certified Hubspot Partner!
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ITD Interactive Can Manage Your Inbound Marketing!
That’s what we do as a Hubspot Partner. We make sure you bypass the learning curve and get the most out of your Hubspot subscription and start generating leads!
To take a peek inside an inbound marketing campaign – click the link below. You’ll get a better understanding of what all is involved, how we approach inbound, and how we plug in.
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