HubSpot management: outsource or in-house?

Should you outsource the management of your HubSpot platform or keep it in-house? In this blog, we take a look at both outsourcing and insourcing, highlighting the benefits of each and what we would advise. 

As an all-in-one growth solution that includes marketing, sales and customer service tools, managing HubSpot can be complex if you don’t know what you’re doing.

There are loads of tools to use, and even more to look after and monitor on a daily basis – so we’re never surprised when businesses come to us for advice and support.

In our experience, if you want to be successful with HubSpot, you either need to make the most of it yourself or find an agency that can help you. Doing the first can be quite straightforward if you have the time and resources, but the second option requires a fair bit of research.

As a result, businesses usually fall into one of the scenarios below:

Scenario #1: the company isn’t making the most of HubSpot

On the one hand, there are companies that have HubSpot but aren’t making the most out of it. These companies sometimes spend large amounts of money on the platform (giving them access to all of the enterprise-grade tools) but only use a fraction of it. Alternatively, it may be that while these companies have HubSpot set up, they don’t have the resources or knowledge in-house to leverage its benefits.  

Scenario #2: the company is using HubSpot so much they need help

On the other hand, are companies that have HubSpot and use it so much that they need support managing and optimising all of their activities. These companies are trying to get the most they can out of the tool; doing everything from social media promotion to custom attribution reporting – but struggle to keep up with the latest best practice and HubSpot updates (technical or otherwise).

Your business could be in scenario one, it could be in scenario two. It might even have a bit of both! Regardless, there are two options available to you: outsource your HubSpot activities to a HubSpot partner or enlist more in-house expertise to manage activities.

Of course, it’s not a simple choice, so we’ve weighed up both options.

Should you outsource?

With outsourcing, your marketing team spends less time on the small, day-to-day activities that inhibit real progress – think social media, building web pages, optimising content, or setting up workflows. All of the above will be done by the agency and your marketing team can instead focus on overall strategy and objectives and how to achieve them.

As for costs, depending on the level of support you require, costs can range from a couple of thousand pounds a month up to £8,000 a month and beyond. This is because at the lower end of the scale is straightforward support – i.e. website building, workflow management and landing page optimisation. The price rises as you add in training for your team, lead management consultancy, website template development, content creation, SEO optimisation and so on.

But the key thing about outsourcing is that you have access to advice and support from a trusted HubSpot agency that knows the platform inside out and isn’t learning on the job.

Should you hire internally?

By insourcing, your marketing team is intimately involved with activities and has greater responsibility over its own success. Your team suddenly has the opportunity to learn and improve, can deploy strategies and campaigns as and when necessary, and is bought into what it is you are trying to do.

Over time, your marketers become your experts – those that everyone can turn to for help – and are completely familiar with how your processes work.

Unlike insourcing, when you outsource, you run the risk of working with an agency that doesn’t reciprocate or understand what it is you do. This can really show if they’re producing your content or doing your PR.

So, which should you choose?

There’s no simple answer.

We wish there was – but really it depends on what you’re trying to achieve, by when you’re trying to achieve it, your market, and whether or not you have the resources in place to support your plans.

Furthermore, as every business is different, examples of what could be achieved need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. For instance, a small business’ marketing team might want to increase website traffic by 50% but how many visits is the website getting in the first place? The same applies to a larger business – but chances are it has a larger marketing team and can therefore dedicate more time (and resources) to the objective.

What would we recommend?

In our minds – the best choice is the one that has a bit of both.

For example, have your internal marketing resource manage an agency to ensure everything is on the right track. This means your strategy and objectives are always considered. The agency instead operates in a consultative capacity, sharing its super detailed knowledge that your in-house marketing team may not have (or have time to find out about due to other pressures).

By partnering with Huble, you can focus on your marketing strategy, while leaving the technical details to our experts. Learn more about our 24/7 HubSpot managed services and get a personalised cost breakdown.