Solutions Partner Program Promotional Guidelines

Event Naming

Here’s what you need to know before you give your event a name:

• Your event cannot use “inbound” by itself or combined with another word in any capacity. Example: “Inbound Jacksonville”, “Inbound Experience” or “Inbound Summit."
• Your event cannot include the word “inbound” as part of another word. Example: “Wisconsinbound."
• You CAN use "inbound marketing" to describe your event. Example: "Inbound Marketing Summit Ohio." 

HubSpot has invested a great deal in the promotion and production of the annual INBOUND event (our partners are one of the reasons for its great success) so the preservation of the INBOUND/Inbound name use is very important for the event’s awareness and brand equity. We also strive to solve for attendees of your events and want to avoid any confusion with their perceived relation to our INBOUND conference.

 

HubSpot Speakers

Although we love to join our partners’ events, we cannot guarantee a HubSpotter can speak at your event. Here at HubSpot, we have to weigh a few factors in determining the investment (and feasibility) in HubSpot’s official participation in your event. For example, we look normally limit travel to events where HubSpotters would be speaking to audiences of 250+ attendees.

If you’d like to request a HubSpot speaker for your event, please fill out this form.  

 

Sponsorship Support

At this time, we don’t give sponsorship support for partner events. Note that HubSpot does not allow the use of its logo in conjunction with partner events or program sponsorship. 

Looking to write a press release that announces your new partner certification or tier status? Fantastic. Please follow the instructions below. 

 

Writing a tier or partner certification press release using the HubSpot template

 

Step 1: Write your press release

• Choose the correct press template for your announcement:
  
  • Partner Certification completion announcement
  • Tier status update (gold)
  • Tier status update (platinum, diamond)
  • Tier status update (elite)
• When using the word "partner" in your release, please specify up-front that you are a "HubSpot solutions partner".
• Quotes from HubSpot managers are only provided for gold-tiered partners and above, while quotes from HubSpot executives are only provided for platinum tiered partners and above.
• Approved statistics include:
  • "Reached <tier name> tier in <amount of time>"
  • "Manage or sell <dollars> amount of MRR, compared to tier requirement of <dollars>"
  • "Onboarded <X amount of> clients"

If you have a stat you'd like to use that is not listed here, please work with your CAM (channel account manager) to determine if it's allowed.

 

Step 2: Approval Process

Once you’ve personalized your press release, it’s now time to submit for approval. 

1. Do a quick review of the above guidelines.
2. Submit your ready-for-publication release to  partnercommsreview@hubspot.com in Google Doc format. Please use the following subject line: [INSERT COMPANY NAME] PR Draft.
3. Once in review, you will see the following message at the top of your document: DO NOT EDIT. THIS PRESS RELEASE IS CURRENTLY BEING REVIEWED BY HUBSPOT.  During this time, HubSpot will verify achievement, any stats used, messaging, etc. Please note reviews take 7-10 business days.
4. Once review is complete, you will be notified via email.

 

Blog & Social Media

Your company blog or social media is a great way to get the word out about our collaboration. If you’d like to use either of these channels to announce your news, please be sure to follow the same guidelines noted for press releases and seek approval of final copy.

HubSpot Logo Use

For usage of the HubSpot sprocket, please refer to Trademark Usage Guidelines. 

We’ve assembled quite a few logos you can use to show off your partner status or tier achievement. Tier badges are reserved only for partners who have reached a specified tier.

We’ve also provided other creative assets like product screenshots and illustrated icons that are available for use in your marketing and communications materials.

Please don't modify or adjust these logos, or use the HubSpot logo (or parts of it, like the sprocket) as a part of your company logo or branding. 

You can find tier badges available for download in the HubSpot Brandfolder - Solutions Partner Hub.

PPC and Other Advertising Campaigns

If you’d like to run a Google Ads PPC campaign that mentions your company and HubSpot in relation to our partnership, you’ll need to request approval from HubSpot and Google for the trademark use. Here’s how the process works:

1. Fill out this form. You'll be asked to include your 10-Digit Google Ads Customer ID (note: This is not your HubSpot Account number), postal address associated with the account, full legal name of the company on the account, website of the account, and the full ad copy you plan to run. In your ad, please specify that you are a "HubSpot partner" or "HubSpot agency" and not a "HubSpot agency partner." Also, please make sure HubSpot is spelled with a capital “S” and that you include all variations of the ads you plan to run with the “HubSpot” trademark.
2. We’ll review the copy and contact you if any edits are necessary. 
3. Once we've approved your ads, we'll initiate the trademark approval process with Google, which can take up to 7 business days.
4. We’ll notify you when we've submitted your request to Google and once Google has approved the request. You’ll then submit your ads to Google.

Please note that we won’t approve any ads that point to your HubSpot Solutions Directory profile, because HubSpot’s domain would appear as the displayed URL, which could mislead users.

Ads on other platforms: If you'd like to use the HubSpot trademark for paid ads on a platform other than Google, please complete this form so that our Communications team can review your ads.

 

The HubSpot Name

What’s in a name? We like to make things as easy as possible for our customers (and your customers) to know where they can go to get the best products, services and support to empower their business growth. Naming conventions is one way we like to simplify things -- all the while keeping the integrity of the HubSpot brand -- so here’s some guidance on how to go about naming your programs, services, communities and content in relation to HubSpot:

A question you may be asking is, how can I use the name HubSpot to showcase our partnership?

Here’s some guardrails:

Do:

• Indicate that you’re a “Certified HubSpot Solutions Partner.”
• Capitalize the “S” in “HubSpot”. You’d be surprised at how many times that doesn’t happen. Sigh.
• Be sure to create something that is distinct from HubSpot’s brand and products if you’re naming a program or service for your company.

Don’t:

• Title your program, service or product with the word HubSpot or “Hub” in the title, or modify, imitate or abbreviate any HubSpot brands or names anywhere in the naming convention. For example, “HubConnectors Program” or “HubBrand Lift” would be no-gos.
• Use your agency name + “for HubSpot”. For example, “Webstar Marketing Program for HubSpot” and “Amazing CRM Services for HubSpot” wouldn’t be ok.
• Note: There are a few instances of existing preapproved uses of the "Hub" derivative of HubSpot within our global partner program. If you think your use case falls into this category, please contact us at trademarks@hubspot.com to confirm that's accurate. HubSpot may require partners using the "Hub" derivative terms to include a disclaimer or "by [partner name]" tagline to avoid confusion, or change the appearance, color, or design of their logos or website. These changes are at the partner's cost.
• Partners may not use HubSpot's protected trade dress, meaning the appearance, layout, color scheme, and/or design of the HubSpot site, as described in the Trademark Usage Guidelines here. 
• Partners may not register or use domain names that include "HubSpot" or any other HubSpot mark, as described in the Trademark Usage Guidelines here. 

A note on discussions and forums:

• We love when our partners create and foster online discussions, forums and general interest groups about HubSpot. However, we require you follow either of the following naming guidelines.
• Preface HubSpot with “unofficial” (example: The Unofficial HubSpot Marketing Automation Discussion Group)

• Specify that it’s a group or discussion for “HubSpot Users” or “HubSpot Solutions Partners” (example: HubSpot User Marketing Automation Discussion Group)
• In addition to conferences or events (see Events, above), the HubSpot name should not be used in naming podcasts, newsletters, blogs, ebooks, reports, or other regular content vehicles produced by the partner. This also includes the use of the name HubSpot in domain names such as hubspotguru.com.
• If you have any questions or would like to submit your naming idea for our consideration, please contact trademarks@hubspot.com and a member of the team will respond to your inquiry in a timely fashion.

 

The Term "Inbound"

With the help of our partners, we've spread the gospel of "inbound marketing" far and wide. While we hold a trademark on the term "INBOUND" for events to make sure our annual conference is easy to distinguish, we see the term "inbound marketing" as a generic term used to cover an approach to marketing that focuses on creating great content to pull people toward a company and product, a natural opposite to "outbound marketing" tactics.

To make sure that these generic terms stay available to the whole community (even those who don't use HubSpot), we don't allow our partners to monopolize terms like "inbound" and "inbound marketing". This means that partners may not trademark those terms or enforce them against others.

If you have any questions about naming conventions involving the HubSpot brand name, please reach out to partners@hubspot.com to discuss.

 

The Fine Print

While it’s never made us feel great, we have required solutions partners not in alignment with these branding guidelines to change corporate and/or product name(s), domain names, social media assets, signage, printed promotional materials, website copy or logos, product descriptions, demos, booth design, messaging, and other materials. Costs for rebranding or the production of new material to comply with our branding guidelines is the sole responsibility of the partner.

Trademark Usage Guidelines can be found here and Content Usage Guidelines can be found here. Use these for basic guidelines around HubSpot’s name usage and copyrights.