HubSpot is an extremely powerful CRM system that you can use to supercharge your marketing and sales processes. It’s all about forming a deep, personal, and relatable connection with your customers.
While there are many ways that you can do this, one of the best concepts you can use is lifecycle stages. This concept is cleverly designed to ensure that you get the most out of the marketing that you send to customers based on where they are in their buyer’s journey.
There’s no point in trying to close a deal with a customer if they have only just discovered your business’ products or services. There’s a ton of personalised communication that needs to happen in between to ensure that they are open and receptive to your marketing efforts. That’s where HubSpot’s lifecycle stages can benefit your business.
What is a HubSpot Lifecycle Stage?
HubSpot is a powerful CRM that can store all of your contacts and their information. It can also keep track of how they interact with your business over time. Whether they have been reading your blog posts or interacting with your business on social media, you can get an idea of how involved they are in your business’ activities.
HubSpot lifecycle stages are CRM properties that help you to organise and segment different contacts in your database based on where they are in your sales and marketing process.
There are 7 HubSpot lifecycle stages:
- Subscriber
- Lead
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
- Opportunity
- Customer
- Evangelist
If you can monitor and take note of which stage each of your customers are in, you can help your marketing and sales team to tailor your business messaging to the specific contact to make it ten times more effective. Research has shown that people are far more likely to interact with messaging and adverts that have a personal touch. It’s the most powerful way that you can.
What Does Each Stage Mean?
Knowing what the stages are is great, but if you don’t understand what each one means, you can’t personalise your messaging and get the most effective communication through to your customers. Below, we’ll briefly get into each lifecycle stage.
1. Subscriber
A subscriber is someone who has opted to receive communications from your business by signing up to your blog or newsletter. Subscribers are new to the buyer’s journey, oftentimes only just discovering your business. They will need a lot of nurturing to progress through the funnel.
2. Lead
Leads are contacts that have been “converted” for the first time on your website. This does not mean a subscription or a sign-up form (which is a subscriber). Leads can also be contacts that have been added to your CRM for the first time through emails. In other words, it’s a contact that has shown an interest beyond reading your blog or newsletter.
3. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Marketing qualified leads are contacts who are considered ready for the sales team to reach out and potentially close a deal. An MQL is set when a lead matches the ideal customer profile, which means that they are more inclined to buy into your business.
4. Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
A sales qualified lead is a contact that your sales team has identified as a potential customer. This process is done manually by a salesperson, and can often involve LinkedIn profile research, cold calling or emails. Essentially, it’s when the sales team goes out to find potential customers based on criteria that fit their ideal customer profile.
5. Opportunity
Opportunity is when a contact has at least one deal or contract with your business. The opportunity lifecycle stage means that an MQL or SQL was successful and their contact was converted into a potential customer.
6. Customer
A customer is a contact with at least one closed deal in your HubSpot CRM. This stage of the lifecycle means that you have successfully converted the contact before, and you could potentially revisit the contact again in the future.
7. Evangelist
The evangelist stage is when you keep in touch with your contact and encourage them to advocate for your business. This can be through word of mouth, testimonials, or even simple social media interactions. Referrals are the best way to get high quality leads for your business.
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