You Don't Need to Hire A HubSpot Partner Agency, Or Do You?

This blog was originally posted on February 24, 2022, but has since been updated for relevance and accuracy.

Private clubs today are making significant strides in elevating their marketing efforts. Future generations of private club members demand more than just a list of amenities on a website. Some clubs have even discovered the power of HubSpot for private clubs.

If your club is implementing just one part of HubSpot, that’s great. The CMS is world-class, a "WYSIWYG" tool that makes tasks like blogging and managing leads incredibly simple. The email platform is equally impressive, with built-in safeguards to prevent spam.

Pro Tip: A common misconception we hear from clubs using HubSpot CRM is that they think that’s all the platform offers. In reality, HubSpot provides a wide array of tools, from content marketing and traffic analytics to customizable reporting dashboards.

As a hiring manager in today’s private club environment, you might be looking for a candidate with expertise in various skills like content creation, email marketing, and sales leadership. But finding someone proficient in all of these? That’s a tall order. You’re essentially looking for a content creator, email marketing expert, sales leader, and data analytics specialist all rolled into one. And that’s not even counting the service and operations hub that requires another skill set altogether. 

HubSpot has built an incredibly user-friendly platform, and they excel at selling it, using inbound marketing to draw you in. However, what appears simple is often complex, and expecting one person to manage the entire tool is unrealistic. If you purchased HubSpot to use just one part of it, you can probably find someone to learn that aspect and make it work for your club. But in doing so, you’re only tapping into a fraction of the platform’s full potential.

While you’re writing that job description for a unicorn with inbound/digital/content/email marketing and design skills who has experience or expertise in HubSpot software, stop and ask yourself–is this realistic?

HubSpot experts don’t grow on trees, and if you find one, they’ll cost more than you might expect. Even then, you’re hiring just one person for a platform that really requires a team. A better approach might be to hire a marketing strategist who can collaborate with a HubSpot partner agency to fully maximize this powerful tool for your club.

Here is why hiring an agency may be a better move for your organization.

Hiring an agency will drive results faster

As an employer, you might prefer to have your own team that you can manage directly. However, many private clubs aren’t clear on what they’re hiring for when building an inbound marketing team. The old rules for hiring marketing professionals don’t apply anymore, and not all digital marketers are created equal.

After hiring one or two seemingly capable people, expect it to take a couple of years before the team truly makes the platform work seamlessly. Remember, you’re asking them to adapt to a new software platform and a new approach to private club marketing—inbound marketing.

The process change alone can make a root canal look like a good afternoon out of the office. A seasoned marketing professional might be able to get one aspect of HubSpot working, but making the entire machine run smoothly will require intense focus, and even then, only a fraction of the work will be completed.

Finding the right agency, one with experience in your industry or a proven track record with various organizations can save you time and money, not to mention the frustration of trial and error. The right agency is staffed with the experts that would take you years to build in-house. If you’re still keen on building your own team, consider hiring an agency first to learn from them. Over time, you can hire people to take over specific aspects of the agency’s work. This way, you’ll ensure that each hire is well-suited for the required tasks. 

Hiring and firing is simpler

Building an inbound marketing team is one of the most challenging tasks for any organization. Finding top performers is tough in any role, and marketing is no different. For non-marketers, all marketers can seem the same—they’re great at marketing themselves on LinkedIn and making it seem like they can do everything.

Add to that a simple question: what background should the person who runs your inbound marketing have? Content creation? Design? Analytics? It depends on your specific needs.

When a new hire doesn’t work out—they leave for another opportunity, aren’t the right fit, or are recruited by a headhunter—what do you do? You’re back in the hiring game, starting from scratch with training. On the other hand, if you don’t like your agency, you can give them notice and find a new one. HubSpot can help you find the right agency partner, and the ramp-up time for a new agency will be much shorter than onboarding a new employee.

A Range of Capabilities and Expertise

One of the most significant benefits of hiring an agency partner is the access to a wide range of capabilities and expertise. An agency can extend your marketing team, adding services like video production, podcasting, CRM support, and integration with other platforms. Is it realistic to expect your new marketing hire, who’s only dabbled with iMovie, to create content your club can be proud of? Or to help the sales team onboard a new CRM? Probably not.

Success doesn’t happen overnight, but hiring an agency to tackle your inbound marketing can certainly expedite the process. An independent HubSpot user will find that the platform effectively simplifies a lot of the processes, from email workflows to social posting. However, a well-oiled agency will be able to take this a step further, providing effective strategies and a proven track record to support it.