Logo - Full (Color)
Skip to content
 

FrankenSpot

How to Build An Inbound Marketing Platform Without Using HubSpot

HubSpot pioneered the concept of Inbound Marketing, Sales and Service. We have helped tens of thousands of individuals build effective cross-channel marketing campaigns, improve their sales process and provide personalized support.

HubSpot Support is accessible any day of the week, so you can call them or have them call you. And the HubSpot Academy offers free, easy resources to learn inbound and the software.

 

We get it. HubSpot is not for everyone.

HubSpot products are built with the belief that all-in-one is the best option for most businesses. All-in-one means your contacts, data, and communication channels all live in one connected system.

Some people would prefer the flexibility of cobbling together the specific tools they need. Other folks would prefer to save money instead of saving time by integrating free or low-cost tools, sacrificing having all of their contacts, marketing channels, and analytics in one place. We get it. And we want you to succeed.

If you like to hack solutions together. This guide is for you.

How to Build Your Very Own FrankenSpot

HubSpot has three product lines you will have to create: Marketing, Sales and Service.  

We did not do a feature-by-feature comparison. Some of these tools may have bells & whistles that HubSpot does not offer. Likewise, this collection certainly cannot fully recreate the individual features of HubSpot or the all-in-one experience.

Prices and feature descriptions are from July 2018 – features may have changed, prices may have increased or decreased, some products may have been discontinued, and new products may exist.

FrankenSpot Marketing

To build a modern marketing suite you are going to have to accomplish three things. Build a website, attract and convert visitors, then communicate with them over multiple channels.

Building an Online Presence

In order to create a digital presence you need to be able to create a website and host a variety of landing pages.

Webpages


Website Builder Expert

Comparison of some of the most commonly used website building platforms. 

Monthly Price: ~$10-40

 

Blogging


Blogger

A blogging platform that is easy to setup.

Monthly Price: Free

 

Medium

Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams. 

Monthly Price: ~$5

 

Wordpress

A blogging and content management system with thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes. 

Monthly Price: ~$4-25

Landing Pages


Unbounce

Produces landing pages for websites. Requires little to no coding. 

Monthly Price: $79-$400

 

Insta Page

Powerful landing page solution optimized for post-ad-click experiences. 

Monthly Price: $69-$179 

 

Lead Pages

Simple to use landing page tool that has an accompanying suite of lead generation and opt-in tools. 

Monthly Price: $25-200

Attracting & Converting Leads

Generating website traffic, attracting leads, and turning them into customers is essential for any business.

SEO Tools


SEO Powersuite

SEO Powersuite is robust SEO toolkit that includes tools for rank tracking, website audits, link assistants and more. 

Monthly Price: ~$25

 

Moz

Moz Analytics offers reporting and performance insight for your rankings, traffic, links, social media, content, and brand marketing. 

Monthly Price: ~$99-$249

 

SEM Rush

Helpful intelligence suite for that provides information on SEO, PPC, social media, and video advertising. 

Monthly Price: ~$70

Ad Platform


Native Platforms

Whether it's Google, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn most networks you want to advertise on have software that will help you bid for ad space. Without a connection to your CRM or marketing systems, you won't be able to do closed-loop reporting. 

 

Ad Roll

AdRoll helps companies to see all of their digital ad spend in one place and easily connect it to specific marketing campaigns. They take a small percentage of your total ad spend. As you spend more on advertising the level of service and features increases. 

 

Communication

In today’s multi-channel world you need tools to communicate over email, social, and live chat.

Email Marketing Software


 MailChimp

Offers email subscriber profiles, automation and personalization, optimization and analytics.

Monthly Price: ~$0 - $209

 

Web Chat


Snap Engage

Enterprise chat software for businesses that helps capture leads and interact with customers. 

Monthly Price: ~$99 per month / 5 users

Social Tool


Hootsuite

Leading social media tool that lets you manage multiple networks and profiles. 

Monthly Price: ~$29 - $599

 

Buffer

Incredibly simple social media tool that is very easy to use and lets you post on multiple channels. 

Monthly Price: ~$99 - $399 

 

Sprout Social

Powerful social media monitoring and posting tool. Includes a tasking and social CRM toolset. 

Monthly Price: ~$99 - $149

FrankenSpot Sales

To build a modern sales team you are going to need to get a CRM to store contact info, use productivity and enablement tools, and then understand your sales process through reporting and analytics.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM Software is essential for anyone looking to move beyond keeping track of contacts in excel sheets.

Free CRM


Zoho

Zoho is a simple free to start CRM system that includes a host of productivity tools

Monthly Price: $0

 

Pipedrive

A CRM focused on helping sales teams to be more effective. 

Monthly Price: $0 - $49

Paid CRM


Salesforce

One of the most recognizable CRMs in the business. Incredibly powerful software that integrates with a wide range of services.

Monthly Price: $25 - $300 per seat

Sales Enablement & Productivity

To build a modern sales team you are going to need to get a CRM to store contact info, use productivity and enablement tools, and then understand your sales process through reporting and analytics.

Email Tracking


Yesware

Yesware provides software that works in your email client to track emails and provide sales automation. 

Monthly Price: $25/user

Calling Software


Uberconference

Free to start. Visually focused and easy to setup conference calling software that does not require PINS.

Monthly Price: $15

Video


Vidyard

Online video platform for businesses that is focused on increasing sales and service rep productivity. 

Monthly Price: $12

Automation


Zapier

In order to replicate the connected data of an all-in-one platform you will need a service like Zapier to ensure all your data is syncing together.

Monthly Price: $20 - $250

Meeting Tool


Calendly

Simple tool that will help you replicate HubSpot's meeting link functionality. 

Monthly Price: $12

 

 

Document Tracking


Doc Send

Helpful document tracking tool for sales and marketing teams. Has a plugin so it works with Gmail. 

Monthly Price: $45/user

 

 

Quoting Tool


Proposify 

Creates visually appealing proposals and includes e-signature functionality. 

Monthly Price: $25 - $250

Esignature


Docusign

Well known company in the e-signature space. Has a strong mobile app that allows you to track, sign, and manage your signatures.

Monthly Price: $25/user

Automation & Reporting

Reporting


Insightsquared

Insight Squared is a flexible platform that helps you sift through your sales data. They have both templated and customizable reports. 

Monthly Price: Request for pricing.  

Communication


Troops.ai

Awesome tool that helps you connect Salesforce and Slack together. You can update Salesforce data via Slack. 

 

Enablement & Playbooks


Seismic

Sales Enablement software that lets teams find the right sales content and uses data to help optimize the sales process. 

 

FrankenSpot Service

To build a service platform you are going to need a conversational inbox to communicate with customers, a knowledgebase to help them find the right information, a survey tool to collect feedback and life chat to engage with them on their website.

Conversational Inbox


Front

Front is a conversational Inbox that allows teams to respond to people over email, SMS, social, and live chat. They offer a web chat widget as well for an additional fee. 

Monthly Price: $15-$59 per user/month

Knowledge Base


HelpJuice

Several conversational support tools incorporate a simple knowledge base but if you are in the market for a point solution HelpJuice offers powerful system to build a world class knowledgebase.

Monthly Price: $199 - 249

Survey and Feedback


Survey Monkey

Survey monkey is a simple to use online survey tool that starts free. If you are going to be regularly soliciting feedback from your audience you will need a business license.

Monthly Price: $37 - $99 

Live Chat


Snap Engage

Enterprise chat software for businesses that helps capture leads and interact with customers. 

Monthly Price: ~$99 per month / 5 users

 

The Hidden Cost of FrankenSpot

There is only one cost to building a FrankenSpot: Time. Given enough time anyone can fix any problem they run into with a FrankenSpot system. The problem is, this is one thing business owners are always running out of. Below are the most common reasons we hear from customers about where they were losing time by having several disconnected systems.

Data: Combining spreadsheets, reviewing discrepancies and formatting data. This is a major time sink and a huge headache. The more systems you have the more difficult it can be for people to agree on a “single source of truth.”

When your marketing, sales, and service systems all sit on the same CRM you an avoid this problem.

 

Uncertainty & Risk: Any system you purchase is a risk. Will it live up to expectations? What if something breaks? Will the price increase? Will they remove features? Will the integration break?

The more systems you use, the more integrations you need to maintain, the more exposure you have to company changes. For many users a companies, if an integration breaks in one system there can be cascading effects. That means more time troubleshooting, more time on the phone with different account managers, and more time making sure it won’t happen again.

 

Brand: Maintaining a consistent brand across web, email, social, chat, sales, and service can be incredibly difficult. Each tool you use is another area to monitor to ensure you have a consistent brand experience.

All-in-one systems like HubSpot make it far easier to maintain your brand because all logos, colors, design, and assets are being pulled from the same place.

 

Education: Every new system you purchase is a new system to learn. You also want to purchase a system that is going to evolve and adapt to changes in the way consumers want to interact with businesses. With each new tool, with each new tool’s updates, there are more things to learn. Learning takes time. Time you may not have.

HubSpot offers full courses, short modular lessons, award winning support to help you and your team get up-to-speed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

How does this compare to HubSpot?

From attracting visitors to closing customers, HubSpot brings your entire marketing, sales and service divisions together. The end result? Less hassle, more control, and an inbound growth strategy that actually works.

Start Growing With HubSpot Today

Bring your marketing, sales and service teams together to grow your business in less time.

Get a full 360 view on your contacts from the moment they first convert to the moment they become a customer.