Over the next few weeks our team will be highlighting key HubSpot features on why we believe HubSpot is the best in its class in the market. Up first? Payments.
Released in 2021, the introduction of the HubSpot Payments tool unlocks new potential for publishing clients using HubSpot. With the addition of Payments, HubSpot is now outfitted “to delight the customer from first payment to final transaction.” For some HubSpot users this may mean no longer needing to pay for an additional service in order to accept payments, but for others, this new upgrade may enable removing an additional tool from your marketing tech stack altogether–😮. Here are five ways we think the HubSpot Payments tool can serve publishers.
Recurring Sales Campaigns
HubSpot Payments makes a great alternative to manual invoicing for off-the-shelf advertising packages. Selling a recurring $500 directory listing or a sponsored blog post? Direct your clients to a HubSpot landing page to submit details and pay for the product immediately. Set form submission notifications to an ad coordinator and you can execute on the campaign without any manual interference.
Take the sales marketing campaign a step further by implementing corresponding automations that match the product offering to the user. Sales contacts visiting your website regularly are great candidates for an offer for a directory ad. Send a personalized email shortly after the visit that requires no manual actions from your sales team, and closes the sale with just the click of a button. Payments can also be utilized within the HubSpot chat functionality. So if someone is viewing your offerings page or your media kit, it’s possible you could make a sale from the messaging tool alone.
Sell Contest Entries or Awards Submissions
Utilizing an outside platform for contesting and revenue driving efforts like award submissions or contest entries often requires Zapier or a custom integration and not many standard contesting tools offer the option to accept payments. By using HubSpot as your contesting tool from promotion to payment allows you to seamlessly market to entrants immediately with timely messaging content without the need for manual imports or additional programming fees. The HubSpot form flexibility allows you to ask multiple types of questions making Forms + Payments a strong option for your next awards program or contest.
Sell Reprints, Covers, and Single Copies
Never a large enough revenue driver to dedicate an entire person, the process of selling reprints was always clunky. The process typically required multiple touchpoints to allow for invoicing and customer customizations. HubSpot Payments is the perfect solution for this, allowing you to invoice or take payment immediately with just a simple payment module added to your landing page.
Plus, Payments is now available as a CTA option in the email builder, so you can get ahead of requests and send an email prior to issue release to candidates who may be interested and grow the revenue from this channel. Bonus points for those publishers leveraging the HubSpot Service Hub, where customer service issues can be addressed using a connected inbox and ticketing system making this once clunky experience frictionless from call to conversion.
Sell Event Tickets
Selling tables for your wine event? Or looking to fill your next networking happy hour? HubSpot Payments allows you to invoice when necessary, or set up immediate payment options to sell simple event tickets. While the Payments cannot yet handle event seating charts or more of the advanced features of Eventbrite, you won’t be paying a service fee AND a transaction fee with Payments making it a great alternative for the simple events. Extend the marketing efforts even further by emailing users who have viewed the event details page but haven’t purchased an email with a payment CTA and close the sale in the inbox.
Process Donations, Paid Newsletters, and Subscriptions
HubSpot Payments can manage single payments and auto-renewal payments. Publishers accepting donations or offering paid newsletters will find a lot of use for Payments. Accept a recurring monthly donation, acknowledge and thank your donors, update user records and revenue reports entirely with automation inside the HubSpot platform. We’re still big fans of DepositFix, a HubSpot payment integration that allows for gating content by HubSpot lists and accepting detailed subscription orders (like gifts or ‘buy one get one’ offers), but if you are accepting single, monthly, or annual donations or offer a paid newsletter subscription, the ease and convenience of HubSpot Payments can’t be beat.
Did we miss any ideas? Share your thoughts with us at ashley@twentyfirstidigital.com or melissa@twentyfirstidigital.com.