At Real Inbound, we’ve helped numerous businesses implement HubSpot successfully. However, we’ve seen a common problem many companies face after the initial setup: incomplete adoption of the CRM system. When companies fail to fully close what we call the HubSpot Adoption Gap, they unknowingly incur significant hidden costs—both financially and operationally.
This gap arises when businesses don’t fully integrate HubSpot into their daily workflows. They invest in onboarding, training, and deployment, but when adoption falls short, they miss out on the full benefits. As a result, businesses suffer from wasted potential, lost revenue, and operational inefficiencies. In this article, we’ll unpack the financial and operational costs of incomplete HubSpot adoption and share how you can avoid these pitfalls by closing the adoption gap.
Understanding the HubSpot Adoption Gap
The HubSpot Adoption Gap refers to the difference between purchasing HubSpot and fully embedding it into your organisation in a way that optimises performance, streamlines processes, and maximises ROI. When businesses fail to close this gap, they often find themselves using only a fraction of HubSpot’s capabilities, missing out on the platform’s full potential.
For example, many companies focus heavily on the initial setup—migrating data, configuring tools, and training staff—but fall short on the crucial ongoing support, continuous training, and full feature utilisation that make HubSpot a growth engine.
While this gap may seem small at first, it has far-reaching implications that can significantly impact a business’s bottom line.
The Financial Costs of Not Closing the HubSpot Adoption Gap
Let’s start with the most obvious hidden cost: wasted investment. HubSpot is an investment in itself, with costs that can range depending on the size of your team and the features you choose. But the true financial loss comes from not using the system to its full capacity.
If your team only uses a small percentage of HubSpot’s functionality, you’re not getting the full value from your subscription. HubSpot offers powerful features like marketing automation, lead scoring, workflow automation, and detailed reporting. But if your team is only using the basic CRM functions or relying on manual processes, you’re essentially paying for advanced tools that go unused.
Example:
Let’s say your company subscribes to HubSpot’s Marketing Hub Professional, which costs around £700 per month. This subscription includes features like advanced reporting, marketing automation, and A/B testing. However, if your team only uses the email marketing tool and ignores the rest, you’re not getting the value of the additional features you’ve paid for.
Over time, this underutilisation can add up, costing businesses thousands of pounds in wasted subscription fees.
One of the major benefits of HubSpot is its ability to optimise sales and marketing processes by automating tasks, managing leads more effectively, and providing data-driven insights. If you’re not using these tools, you’re missing opportunities to close more deals and grow your revenue.
By not taking full advantage of HubSpot’s lead nurturing, segmentation, and sales pipeline features, businesses can lose out on potential customers that might have been captured through more advanced automation workflows. Missed opportunities equal missed revenue.
When your team isn’t fully using HubSpot, it often means they’re relying on inefficient, outdated processes. Instead of automating lead management or customer follow-ups, your team might be manually tracking tasks in spreadsheets or jumping between multiple platforms. These inefficiencies not only cost time but also result in increased labour costs.
For example, without automation, your marketing team might spend hours each week manually sending emails or following up with leads—time that could be spent on more strategic activities if HubSpot was properly utilised.
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The Operational Costs of Incomplete HubSpot Adoption
The hidden costs of incomplete HubSpot adoption go beyond financial losses—they also include operational inefficiencies that can cripple a business’s ability to scale and compete effectively. These operational costs are often harder to see, but they can create bottlenecks that stifle growth.
One of HubSpot’s strengths is its ability to align sales, marketing, and customer service teams through a shared platform of data and communication tools. But if not fully adopted, teams might continue to work in silos, relying on their own tools, resulting in poor alignment and communication.
For example, if your sales team isn’t fully adopting HubSpot’s CRM, they might not be tracking leads and deals properly. Meanwhile, your marketing team could be generating leads but failing to pass them along seamlessly to sales, resulting in lost leads and potential revenue.
HubSpot provides a unified platform for tracking customer interactions, managing deals, and analysing campaign performance. Without full adoption, your data can become fragmented, leading to inconsistent reporting and poor decision-making.
Incomplete adoption often leads to teams manually updating data or using multiple tools to track metrics, which introduces human error and inconsistency. This makes it difficult for leaders to get a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t.
Example:
Your marketing team may use HubSpot for email campaigns but track social media performance on another platform, while your sales team tracks deals in a separate CRM. Without fully integrating these tools, you’re left with an incomplete view of your performance, which limits your ability to make data-driven decisions.
One of the hidden operational costs of incomplete HubSpot adoption is employee frustration. When teams don’t have the proper tools or training to succeed, frustration builds up. This can lead to lower productivity, missed deadlines, and even turnover.
Employees who are expected to use a CRM but don’t have ongoing training or support may feel overwhelmed or confused, leading to poor job satisfaction. Over time, this can result in higher turnover rates and increased recruitment costs.
Closing the HubSpot Adoption Gap: How to Avoid These Costs
Now that we’ve explored the financial and operational costs of incomplete HubSpot adoption, let’s focus on solutions. Closing the HubSpot Adoption Gap requires a strategic approach that includes ongoing training, performance monitoring, and team alignment. Here’s how you can avoid these hidden costs:
One of the biggest reasons businesses struggle to adopt HubSpot fully is a lack of continuous training. HubSpot is an evolving platform, and new features are released regularly. Without training, teams can’t keep up with the changes.
At Real Inbound, we recommend implementing quarterly training sessions to ensure that teams are continuously learning and improving. HubSpot’s Academy also offers valuable certifications that help employees stay updated on best practices and new tools.
To avoid underutilisation, set clear goals for how your team will use HubSpot. Define KPIs that align with your business objectives, such as increasing lead conversion rates, reducing sales cycles, or improving customer retention.
Regularly monitor your progress and adjust your HubSpot usage as needed. Make sure your team understands how their use of HubSpot contributes to these goals.
Make sure that sales, marketing, and customer service teams are fully aligned when it comes to using HubSpot. Breaking down silos and fostering collaboration between departments can help ensure that everyone is using the platform to its full potential.
Consider holding regular cross-departmental meetings to review HubSpot data and share insights. This will ensure that all teams are on the same page and working toward common goals.
One of HubSpot’s most powerful features is its automation capabilities. From lead nurturing to task management, automation can save your team hours of manual work. Take the time to set up workflows that streamline processes across departments.
By fully utilising HubSpot’s automation features, you can significantly reduce operational costs and improve efficiency, closing the HubSpot Adoption Gap.
Conclusion: The Long-Term Benefits of Closing the HubSpot Adoption Gap
The HubSpot Adoption Gap represents a costly issue for many businesses. Without full adoption, companies miss out on the platform’s most valuable features, leading to wasted investment, lost revenue, and inefficiencies. However, by investing in ongoing support, setting clear goals, fostering team collaboration, and leveraging automation, businesses can close the adoption gap and unlock the full potential of HubSpot.
At Real Inbound, we’ve helped numerous businesses overcome this gap and transform their operations with HubSpot. If you’re ready to maximise your HubSpot investment and avoid these hidden costs, get in touch with us today.