It's nearly spring, and that means spring cleaning! If, like us, you're thinking about tidying up your life, consider taking some time to organize and optimize your HubSpot CRM.
While cleaning and organizing your CRM can be time-consuming, the benefits can be massive. Here's why:
What is a Clean CRM?
For our purposes, a clean HubSpot portal is where the following statements are at least 90% true:
- Each contact has complete and accurate information (phone, email, name)
- There are no duplicate records for the same contact
- Each contact is appropriately organized by lifecycle stage
As contacts are added to your database through automation and manual imports, there are bound to be some errors that crop up - like dust bunnies under your sofa. Aim for two things: each contact in your CRM should have a purpose for being there, and a contact record's data should be as accurate and complete as possible.
→ Related Content: 10 Common HubSpot Implementation Mistakes New Users Make
Benefits of a Clean CRM
1. Improved Usability
When you invest in keeping your CRM clean, It will be much easier to use and find the information you need. Your team will be able to access client data and quickly find exactly what they need to close those deals or connect with your customers.
2. Easy Troubleshooting
If your portal is messy, you'll run into errors: contacts could receive the wrong information or be removed from lists entirely. Having all your client data up-to-date and de-duped makes it much easier to troubleshoot when problems do arise.
3. Centralized Information
A clean CRM gives you the greatest benefit of a CRM: a centralized place for all your data, that anyone on your team can access and understand.
4. More Personalization/Segmentation Options
One of the biggest benefits of a clean database is that you can truly dig into the personalization and segmentation options available in HubSpot. Start creating emails with personalized fields based on a contact's industry, past actions, persona or lifecycle stage. This will give you more useful content that your contacts are more likely to interact with.
→ Related Content: How to Get Smarter Lead Tracking
5. Better Data
When everything is organized properly, your reports are more accurate. Additionally, when paired with personalization and segmentation strategies, you'll have more robust data on each contact.
How to Get a Clean CRM
1. Create Consistent Naming Conventions
Make sure to clearly define naming and data conventions for contact properties, such as:
- Do we include extensions in a company name? (INC., LLC, etc.)
- Do we make a contact's primary phone their work or cell phone?
- Do we use abbreviations or full titles? (St. Paul vs Saint Paul)
- How to properly label subsidiaries, deals related to other companies, referral sources, etc.
Sometimes, you won't be able to recognize what data sets you need to address until you run into them in the wild - so keeping a communal Google Sheet or Excel file where teams can input data naming conventions is a good idea.
2. Use Automation
You can use some of the built-in automation tools within HubSpot to help clean customer data. Try creating workflows that flag contact properties with incomplete data and adding them to a list for manual review and clean-up.
3. Partner with a HubSpot Agency
The clean-up process is manual and extremely time-consuming. The above tips will help you get you on your way to a clean CRM, but there are still a number of things you need to do before you're there, including auditing your database, which can take up to 40 hours or more of work.
Why spend all that time yourself and pull your team away from more important work when you can partner with an experienced agency that will do it for you?
As a Platinum HubSpot partner, BizzyWeb can help you with Onboarding, Inbound Marketing, Service and CRM optimization.
Onboarding Programs for New HubSpot Users
- Our onboarding programs are customized for you, based on your business, processes and goals
- Full onboarding for all Hubs (Sales, Marketing, Service, CMS, Ops)
- Personalized, custom training
- First-tier HubSpot tech support offered at no charge after onboarding
Fix-It Programs for Current HubSpot Users
- Thorough examination of current HubSpot Hub(s)
- Clean-up of data and contacts
- Creation of lists, workflows and sequences as needed
- Identify opportunities for integration
- Help you get the most out of your HubSpot account
BizzyWeb is a Minneapolis-based digital marketing and web design agency that helps companies get the high-quality leads they need to grow and thrive. Our tactics include inbound marketing, SEO, advertising, web design, content creation and sales automation. We are an accredited HubSpot Platinum Partner and we offer full-service HubSpot onboarding, enablement and strategy for new and current users.
