Findernest Software Services Blog

Hubspot CMS for Enterprises: A Complete Guide

Written by Praveen Gundala | 6 Oct, 2024 8:40:40 PM

Discover how Hubspot CMS ensures top-notch security for enterprises, safeguarding your data and enhancing your digital presence. Choose FindErnest, a HubSpot Partner Agency for rapid access to our certified expertise, saving on Professional and Enterprise Hubs set-up fees, and enjoying tailored training and implementation. This partnership accelerates results and enhances value.

The benefits of HubSpot CMS extend far beyond its unique front-end features and include reduced total cost of ownership, improved reliability, and robust security for your vital data.

A lot of posts describing the benefits of HubSpot CMS focus on unique features near the front end. Things like themes, drag-and-drop editing, and personalisation. Although they're beneficial, the true advantages of HubSpot CMS are even more business-critical than that.

Why choose HubSpot CMS?

HubSpot CMS (part of Content Hub) removes the responsibilities, overheads, and risks associated with creating business critical infrastructure. Additionally, it lets you operate enterprise-level security, maintenance, testing and monitoring on your website – without building the expertise required or incurring any of the costs to do so.

This gives you more time to focus on your key differentiators – things like brand, website design, user experience (UX) and content creation.

When you use HubSpot CMS in conjunction with HubSpot's Marketing and Sales Hubs you achieve an even more seamless connection between your website, the shared CRM database, and analytics powered by the HubSpot suite of products.

And with no configuration or connection required, it's a huge opportunity to level up your digital marketing and refocus your efforts into more high-impact areas.

HubSpot CMS Enterprise offers several benefits, including: 

  • Additional functionality: Compared to the CMS Hub Professional tier, Enterprise provides more functionality for building web apps, hosting additional domains, and more control over governance.
  • Built-in CDN and SSL: HubSpot CMS comes with a content delivery network (CDN) and SSL by default, providing a fast and secure service without any setup.
  • Robust security: HubSpot CMS offers robust security for your data.
  • Improved reliability: HubSpot CMS offers improved reliability.
  • Reduced total cost of ownership: HubSpot CMS offers a reduced total cost of ownership. 

HubSpot CMS also offers several other benefits, including:

  • User-friendly interface
  • Straightforward implementation process
  • Budget-friendly pricing
  • All-in-one solution with integrated marketing automation, CRM, and sales tools
  • Unified publishing tools 

However, some say that HubSpot may not be the best option for larger companies because it can be challenging to scale. HubSpot also doesn't support eCommerce, so you'll need to use a different platform if you're looking to sell products online. 

The biggest challenges facing enterprise-level companies today

Businesses across different industries face an increasing need to deliver fluid digital experiences that delight and entertain customers. That, in turn, poses challenges more so to enterprise-level companies, as their reliance on cumbersome, legacy IT infrastructure can impede: 

Expandability

Enterprise-level companies often struggle with the agility required to respond to evolving demands, trends, opportunities, and innovations.

As these companies expand, customer expectations for their enterprise website design increase. This growth may necessitate incorporating tools for SEO, site monitoring, security, lead conversion, and CRM integration.

The situation becomes more complex when managing multiple websites, which might result from diverse marketing campaigns, subsidiary networks, or various business lines that require distinct content, landing pages, and websites.

These scenarios can lead to overwhelming hosting expenses for enterprise-tier clients across different platforms, alongside the additional costs of premium themes, plugins, and extensions. Such financial burdens can hinder a company's ability to enhance its digital presence.

This challenge is further exacerbated by extensive legacy IT systems that have evolved, resulting in high technical debt that makes scalability a precarious undertaking.

Management of multiple user-facing channels

To deliver a seamless customer experience, companies must effectively integrate various digital technologies into their enterprise website design and development. These technologies may encompass social media management, marketing automation, and CRM systems.

Conversely, the website's purpose is to fulfil the company’s marketing and sales objectives, necessitating additional tools like landing pages, eCommerce capabilities and calls to action.

Without consolidating the website on a single enterprise CMS and unified installation, managing content across all customer-facing channels can become problematic. This lack of integration can hinder team collaboration through structured workflows and limit control over content creation, editing, and publishing permissions.

Coherent and fluid customer experience

Gone are times when your company’s website was the only source of business information. Today, web surfers can interact with you across multiple touchpoints in their buyer’s journey. The said touchpoints could be online or offline, with each point challenging your ability to deliver a consistent customer experience. (An essential element to maintaining consumer trust and engagement.)

Once again, enterprise-level companies may be hindered by legacy systems incompatible with the tech tools needed for a seamless customer buying journey. The resulting data silos impede your ability to deliver relevant, personalized experiences. 

That's a critical challenge as customer experience continues to influence purchase decisions. And as more consumers look to leaders across the digital space to set the bar for standard consumer experiences. 

That calls for a content management system (CMS) with customizable front-end user role management. 

The OLD Solution: WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management system, which means anyone can develop fixes, modules, and plugins for the platform. It's like having a global community working to enhance the CMS.

This open-source approach contributes to its popularity, powering well-known sites such as TechCrunch and BBC America. WordPress stands as the Goliath in a Goliath vs. David scenario, supported by its reputation and widespread recognition.

WordPress strengths 

WordPress is often considered the most popular CMS globally, thanks to its user-friendly nature, adaptability, and low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). To illustrate this, the platform typically accounts for only 10-20% of the overall digital project expenses. This affordability is due to its open-source model and absence of licensing fees, which frees up a significant portion of the budget for additional customization and services, accelerating the time to market.

Moreover, WordPress provides a holistic digital solution capable of meeting the security, performance, and scalability needs of enterprise-level businesses. As an open-source platform, WordPress seamlessly integrates with other digital technologies, enabling enterprises to quickly develop intricate ecosystems and adjust to evolving requirements.

WordPress weaknesses 

On the downside: extending your WordPress site’s functionality requires you to either add code to your CSS files or install and configure relevant plugins. That can limit a beginner’s ability to create sites with advanced functionality.

When using extensions: you need to ensure they are compatible with your site. And free from vulnerabilities. After all, open-source CMSs with unmaintained or outdated code fragments are more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Remember Elementor hack

So as the site owner, you must regularly update your WordPress and plugins – while devising measures for when the updates are incompatible with some extensions on your site. That can turn into considerable administrative work. More so on large enterprise website design and development projects. 

But I bet you'd better be growing your business and delivering a seamless customer experience instead. In this case, Hubspot has your back. 

The solution of the future: HubSpot

Hubspot CMS enterprise is a new kid in the block, your David underdog wannabe. Nevertheless: it has some pretty sweet features, which put the CMS in league with WordPress and power popular sites like Hamilton Beach and 730 Eddy

But how does Hubspot CMS take the hassle out of website management? 

Here’s a breakdown of how Hubspot CMS enterprise can resolve the challenges facing enterprise-level companies – to help you answer that. 

How HubSpot handles expandability and hosting costs.

We saw earlier that: as your company grows: you'll inevitably require multiple websites. Be it to cover different business lines or network subsidiaries. CMS Hub caters to such needs by including two brand domains in its enterprise package – with the allowance to purchase more as needed. 

As a result, you can host several domains and report on numerous websites within one CMS. (Without the need to juggle many systems to meet the expandability needs of your website.)

Better still, the CMS offers expanded capabilities on landing pages and other tools. For example, you can create hundreds of blogs to cater to your company’s different divisions or locations. And still, track content performance satisfactorily.  

Mind you: you get to enjoy all that without paying hosting fees. Or other ancillary costs, such as time, internal IT resources, and premium upgrades. Think plugins, SSL certificates, content delivery networks, and other extensions. 

Sure, with the CMS Hub Enterprise, you’re paying $900/month. But you don’t have any ancillary costs. Plus, you have the comfort of knowing all maintenance, updates, support, and security are taken care of.

HubSpot CMS Enterprise is set up for scaling.

Beyond expanded capabilities, Hubspot CMS is scalable through well-thought-out features such as:  

Partitioning

Hubspot’s team features let you assign access, functions, and dashboards specific to departments in your company.  

Content partitioning, in particular, lets you control who can access what: based on role, location, business unit, and other demographics. With the feature: you can assign different functions for blog posts, landing pages, forms, CTAs, emails, etc. (In that, different teams will see and access only what's assigned to them.) 

Consequently, it becomes easier to track down changes made: when, where, and by whom. And enhance the site’s security. 

Themes & Templates

If you've ever crafted a strategy for enterprise website design, you know the challenges of getting a landing page just right. Recall those times when you urgently needed to expand a column or insert an additional CTA.

Traditionally, you would have to modify your site's template, affecting every page using it. Themes offer a solution by allowing changes to be made precisely where necessary. Consider them as collections of modules, global content, and templates that developers can tailor to create a user-friendly content editing experience.

HubSpot CMS offers a wide range of themes to select and adapt according to your business requirements. You can pick from over 3,500 templates available in the company’s Asset Marketplace to alter your site’s design.

Each template is automatically responsive and includes drag-and-drop modules, making it simple to add and organize images, CTAs, text blocks, etc.

If your chosen theme lacks cloning or critical menu features, a HubSpot developer can customize it to suit your organizational needs.

Once the theme is set up, your teams can quickly create sites and landing pages. They only need to adjust the template within the parameters established by the developer.

Security

CMS Hub ensures your site is safe from cyberattacks and that your website browsers have a secure surfing experience through: 

  • Included SSL
  • Web application firewall
  • Content delivery network (CDN) configuration
  • Activity logging & partitioning 
  • Continuous updates 
  • Sophisticated anomaly detection
  • Site performance monitoring 
  • Custom domain security settings 
  • Reverse proxy configuration 
  • 24/7 threat detection 

Is CMS Hub impermeable to hackers?

No. But it’s functional and robust enough to operate under the radar. Its closed supply nature may also make it more difficult for malicious players to get credulity.

Beyond the said features, Hubspot CMS enterprise is backed by a functional CRM – giving it an edge. 

Hubspot CMS as Backed by Hubspot CRM 

HubSpot recognizes that your website is not just about establishing an online presence; it's a critical marketing and sales tool. Therefore, it seamlessly integrates its CMS and CRM solutions, allowing you to efficiently produce personalized content on a large scale. By utilizing the data and insights about your target audience, you can enhance user experiences.

The integration of CRM and CMS provides valuable insights into effective content and channels, aiding your customer acquisition strategy.

By harmonizing the CMS with Marketing, Sales, and other HubSpot offerings, the platform simplifies digital system management. This empowers teams to manage digital channels effectively, enabling a sharper focus on customer experience.

In other words, HubSpot CMS is a part of a technology ecosystem, where you can access all the tools necessary to succeed online on a single platform. In fairness, not all marketing or sales tools are available without the "respective" subscriptions on top of the CMS Hub. But you can find many essential tools automatically within the content management system, including: 

  • Forms
  • Blog 
  • Contact list segmentation
  • CTAs
  • Analytics
  • Google AMP pages 
  • Password-protected pages 
  • A/B testing
  • Email marketing
  • Lead scoring
  • Salesforce integration
  • Contact attribution reporting
  • Company insights 
  • Canned snippets 
  • Online meeting schedule
  • Calling
  • Prospect reports, etc.

The CMS also integrates with a social media management application, helping you manage your social channels with ease. It helps you:

  • Sync your social channels and directly publish content from a single platform
  • Track any relevant social conversations
  • Compare the performance of various social media campaigns over each channel, etc.

When needing extra functionality, you can leverage the available integrations in the Hubspot ecosystem, such as those with eCommerce sites such as Shopify. 

How HubSpot integrates into Shopify for a fluid user experience. 

To integrate Hubspot into Shopify:

  • Set up your Hubspot account
  • Access Hubspot marketplace 
  • Search for Shopify integration
  • Connect the two apps
  • Now, that's overly simplified, but you can learn more about the integration process here and here

The integration between Hubspot and Shopify syncs the contacts, orders, and products on the Shopify store to Hubspot CRM. So if a person orders a product listed on your Shopify store, the CRM creates a contact (that's linked to a deal signifying the order/product.) 

The CRM then prompts you to set up basic workflows, such as:

  • Emails to reconnect with customers after a first purchase 
  • Emails to reconnect with prospects who have abandoned their cart 
  • Reminder to call customers that haven’t purchased in three months 
  • (All of which you can easily create within the CMS Hub.)

This integration has multiple benefits, including delivering personalized experiences to your store visitors. But it’s also a tad limited. For instance, it doesn’t sync discount codes, making it hard to segment your contacts (in the CRM) by discount code utilization. 

Add-Ons Worthy of Mentioning  

  • Serverless functions to help add interactive elements (dynamic calculators, guest books) without needing to install and configure plugins. 
  • Custom objects to sort and store relevant data with different association levels in one interface.
  • Multi-language content creation to create and manage content in a variety of languages. The feature plus location-based analytics and multiple currencies make it easy to scale marketing efforts across brands, borders, and other dimensions. 
  •  Video hosting helps you harness the power of video in delivering actionable, personalized content to the target audience.
  • Custom report builder to measure the performance of your Hubspot-hosted content, including errors reported by site visitors. 
  • Password-protected members-only content to help provide site surfers with tailored content recommendations based on their interactions with your brand. Or provide your loyal customers (or visitors) access to premium content.

Beyond the add-ons, Hubspot CMS brings all the tools and packages you need to grow an online presence under one easy-to-use panel. That means: You get to manage your website, test to determine what's working and receive actionable insights from one login. All thanks to:  

  • Marketing Hub: A boon for enterprise-level companies looking to adopt marketing at a scale. It boasts the tools necessary to attract, nurture, and convert leads. Think live chat, email marketing, SEO, blogging, social channel management, and advertisement management. 
  • Sales Hub: A collection of powerful tools needed to close deals faster, such as Quotes, Email Scheduling, Deal Pipeline, and CRM.
  • Services Hub: A solution geared towards delivering a seamless customer experience. It boasts tools such as Conversations, Customer Feedback, and Help Desk. 
  • CMS Hub: A platform that provides numerous features to design a robust enterprise website and track its performance. Its well-thought-out functionalities empower your website through high speed, security, scalability, and reliability. 
  • Operations Hub: A suite of tools to help make your CRM's data management more efficient and accessible. It boasts tools such as datasets, data syncs, and workflow extensions.

And when it comes down to it: HubSpot was built for this. 

That is evident in the remarks of Angela DeFranco, VP of product management at Hubspot. During the launch of CMS Hub, DeFranco noted: "Over the past year, we've seen just how important it is for companies to be able to create reliable and effective digital experiences. In addition to providing the tools our customers need to get their website up and running, CMS Hub is also built on top of our CRM platform to help companies leverage their data to create a better end-to-end customer experience."

HubSpot CMS Enterprise is loaded with features that make it easy to build a user-friendly website, minus the complexity often found in other CMSs. This allows you to handle content creation and management independently, without needing a developer, for a fixed monthly cost of $1000.

On the downside: Hubspot can tie you to a design template, which may force you to hire a Hubspot developer to customize the same. That makes migrating websites to Hubspot clunky – especially if you desire the same functionality and appearance as the existing WordPress site.

Choose FindErnest, a HubSpot Partner Agency for rapid access to our certified expertise, saving on Professional and Enterprise Hubs set-up fees, and enjoying tailored training and implementation. This partnership accelerates results and enhances value.

References

Maximize Business Growth with HubSpot: Key Benefits and Features

https://www.findernest.com/en/blog/benefits-of-hubspot-for-your-business-its-time-to-upgrade-your-business?hs_preview=uUAkZCre-179921447260

 

Top Benefits of Using HubSpot CMS for Your Business

https://www.findernest.com/en/blog/top-benefits-of-using-hubspot-cms-for-your-business?hs_preview=dDCOAlAL-180366718888