In 2024, more companies than ever will be moving to HubSpot to achieve sales and marketing efficiencies.  

It's easy to understand why. As businesses increasingly recognize the value of an all-in-one platform, HubSpot undoubtedly emerges as the go-to solution, as it effortlessly fits together the essential pieces of CRM, marketing, sales, and service under one roof. The friendly design and robust tools of HubSpot give teams the power to make work easier all around, foster collaboration, and craft a customer experience that is truly cohesive and tailored.  

But, as you dive into this transformation, hurdles can pop up, and getting ready for data migration becomes daunting. Still, if your commitment is to forge a more interconnected and streamlined future for your business, HubSpot is inevitable. And you will eventually need to find a starting point. 

Here are a few crucial steps to adeptly navigate a HubSpot migration. 

1. Decisions 

Launching a significant migration involves bringing together decision-makers, stakeholders, and leaders to make pivotal choices concerning the transition as well as the configuration of the new portal.  

It is essential to acknowledge that configurations and features in the new HubSpot portal may diverge from those in the old system, posing potential conflicts with established processes or settings in your legacy system. Additionally, decision-making spans from minor adjustments to substantial choices, which means you will need regular meetings for continuous evaluation – both during the migration project and well beyond as well.  

Assuming you've already selected the Hub for migration well in advance, you will need to collaborate with your team to identify essential decision points and outline what needs to be migrated and optimized in the new portal. These points can include:  

1. settings  
2. lifecycle stages 
3. teams and roles 
4. workflows 
5. pipelines 
6. automation processes 
7. level of customization 
8. reporting and analytics 

2. Cleanup 

After determining the essential setup elements for the new portal, the next crucial step is to clean your assets and data to see to a unified migration. 

HubSpot's features operate far more efficiently with a clean dataset, diminishing errors and elevating the user experience. The elimination of duplicate records, outdated contacts, and irrelevant data not only boosts organizational effectiveness but also fosters alignment among your marketing, sales, and customer service teams in the new portal. Therefore, data cleaning should be seen as an investment in unlocking the complete potential of your HubSpot portal, establishing a steadfast foundation for producing results within its CRM platform. 

The items you have to clean include but are not limited to:  

• Contact Records 
• Campaigns 
• Workflows 
• Sequences 
• Deals 
• Properties 
• Users & Teams 
• Forms 
• Lists 
• Landing Pages and Website Pages 

3. Mapping 

With cleaned and organized data, the next step involves mapping it for the new system. 

Mapping is the process of aligning each item from the legacy system to its corresponding location and structure in HubSpot. This step becomes particularly crucial when integrating a legacy system into a pre-existing, formatted HubSpot portal, potentially driven by factors like partnership, acquisition, or other considerations. 

Properties 

When mapping existing properties, take care to align them accurately with HubSpot's default properties. If you choose to use HubSpot's defaults, make sure the information is formatted correctly for the property type (dropdown, number, text, etc.). This prevents any complications related to property formatting. 

 Processes 

1. Pipelines: Map each stage in your pipeline to its corresponding phase in HubSpot, checking that your sales processes translate into the new CRM.  
2. Forecast: Here, you have to see to it that the criteria and parameters employed for forecasting align with HubSpot's system, generating accurate and meaningful predictions. 
3. Communication Workflows: This includes email campaigns, newsletters, schedules, and other assets required for consistent and targeted communication. 
4. Content Creation: Don’t forget to map the process of content creation, approval, and publishing – all of which can be aligned with HubSpot's content management system for continued content strategy. 

 Automations 

1. Workflows: Considering the specific actions, conditions, and triggers, align each step in your existing workflow with HubSpot's capabilities 
2. Lead Scoring: By mapping lead scoring — including criteria and point values — you can leverage lead prioritization and experience a harmonious transition in identifying qualified leads. 
3. Integrations: All third-party integrations need to be mapped to HubSpot's integration capabilities. 

4. Asset Build/Transfer 

After building a clear map of your properties and processes – you can start building all of your assets in the new portal. By now, you should have cultivated a nuanced understanding of the various components within your HubSpot ecosystem. 

Here’s a high-level summary of the assets you’ll be building: 

1. Properties - these are truly the fundamental building blocks of data, requiring meticulous recreation of items such as contacts, companies, deals, and more in the new system.  

1. Marketing Assets – this area encompasses a broad spectrum, including emails, landing pages, and workflows. Therefore, take care to maintain a one-to-one correspondence as you recreate these assets.  

1. Sales Assets – these involve deal stages, custom deal properties, and associations between deals and contacts/companies. When mapping tasks and engagements, account for any specific fields or attributes integral to your sales processes.  

1. Reports and Dashboards – there might be variations in reporting capabilities between your old platform and HubSpot. Therefore, accurately mapping data sources, filters, and key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential. 

5. Object Transfer/Import 

Once the assets are built, and the portal is almost ready, it’s time to migrate all of your data! In HubSpot, this is referred to as Objects.  

If you have complex data structures or if your previous system has native integration with HubSpot, it might be worth exploring more sophisticated methods, such as integrations or APIs for data migration. Leveraging an integration or API can significantly streamline the transfer, facilitating data accuracy and reducing the risk of errors associated with manual imports. For instances where the migration involves intricate data relationships or dependencies, it might be beneficial to engage a HubSpot partner with expertise in migrations and integrations, like our team at Flawless! We are able to navigate the intricacies of our client’s specific migration requirements, ensuring a cohesive and efficient data transfer. 

Here are the different objects you can migrate:  

• Contacts and Companies 

• Deals 

• Custom Objects 

• Activities, Tasks, and Notes 

The technical acumen applied during the object transfer phase leads to not only the accurate replication of data but also the preservation of relationships and data integrity crucial for ongoing operations.  

6. Training 

In the process of shifting to a new system, your team will need training to understand the functionality of new tools, discover where their data resides, and adapt their standard processes to the unique platform. 

We recommend training in two parts:  

1. Portal Admins

These individuals will oversee the technical aspects of your HubSpot portal, shaping how your individual teams embrace the new platform. 

It is essential to have at least one administrator knowledgeable about the intricacies of the portal's setup. Their training focus should include: 

• System Setup 
• Property Management 
• Automation Workflows 
• Troubleshooting 

Ideally, your portal administrators are consistently staying updated on HubSpot updates and can effectively evaluate their impact on your organization.  

2. Teams 

These are the actual users of the portal who need to be trained specifically on how their tasks will be carried out in HubSpot.  

Their training program should account for: 

• Daily Operations 
• Utilizing Features 
• Efficiency and Productivity 
• Adoption of Processes 

Training instills confidence, reduces resistance to change, and fosters a culture where every user, from administrators to frontline staff, feels empowered to leverage HubSpot as a strategic asset in achieving collective business objectives.  

7. Go Live 

It’s the big day (or week) - the culmination of all the diligent migration efforts as you transition and go live into HubSpot.  

Still, there are a few essential steps you will need to undertake in the go-live week, each geared towards guaranteeing a fluid and successful transition. 

1. Final Re-Import: if you were still working on your old system prior to the last import and go-live, you need to do another import of data to capture anything that might have changed since then.
2. Users' Individual Set-Up – you will need to have your team members set up their individual profiles when they join the portal. This includes connecting emails, setting up meeting links, and any other individual settings they want to add.
3. Launch
   1. The final step in your go-live plan is to actually launch the new system!
   2. Take care to give all users appropriate advance notice and be ready to provide support as needed throughout the first weeks after launch.
   3. You might want to consider implementing a short blackout period on all work in your current/previous system so that nothing gets missed or is potentially altered during the migration itself.  

FLAWLESS INBOUND'S MIGRATION SERVICES

Embarking on the migration journey to HubSpot, similar to any other implementation, can be both intricate and rewarding. To navigate this process more effectively, you need to thoroughly align your business goals and needs with HubSpot's capabilities.

Flawless stands among an exclusive group of only 13 agencies worldwide that HubSpot considers qualified for advanced implementation projects. Whether you're just getting started with setting up a CRM for your organization or you want to upgrade from your previous system, we will work closely with your team to get your essential sales and marketing tools up and running in HubSpot. That includes making sure your portal is properly set up and that the essential tools your team needs for their day-to-day activities are programmed.

We’d be happy to offer a free consultation to uncover your migration requirements and provide a preliminary plan. Contact us today to get started.