62 - WordPress vs. HubSpot CMS

Episode Transcript:

Rich: All right, you know what I just realized? Cause we're using zoom for this one because we had an issue. But, um, the woman who says recording in progress for when you start, she sounds like that voice that people put to auto read their, um, like Tik TOKs and videos, all that, that whole monotone thing that speaks too fast.

Rich: It sounds like the same voice and it makes it's gross. They need a new voice, get a new voice. Um, but we don't need new voices today. People need to, uh, maybe

Catelin: new, we need new websites, new content management systems,

Rich: And maybe rethink their website, CMS and where they're at. Uh, so today we're going to talk about the differences between WordPress and HubSpot CMS.

Rich: Uh, one of them is one of those entities is not fighting with,

Catelin: with

Rich: of their host providers. Well, sort of with itself, uh, with one of its biggest customers. Um, but yeah, there's other differences as well. So HubSpot CMS used to be a little bit clunky. Yeah. Very much like you got a code if you're going to be in here and it has come a long way, baby. Uh, it's Virginia Slims, right? Um,

Catelin: I think so.

Rich: suddenly it's cigarette advertising. Sorry, y'all don't smoke. Um, but yeah, so we're going to talk a little bit about that, but we also have this weird cocktail that we're going to get into, um, that I'm like confused by, but I kind of get it. It's sort of a milk tea. Um, but not really.

Rich: Um, the cocktail's called the Tea Ceremony. Um, and it's martinis but it's spelled with a Y. M A R T I N Y apostrophe S cause we can't, why, why can't we make it more confusing in English? Um, but it's a person I believe. So the Tea Ceremony cocktail was created by Takuma Watanabe. Um, whoever that is. I didn't look them up.

Rich: But

Catelin: fun to say.

Rich: I do, I do know how to say Watanabe because the Watanabe's own Oriental Trading Company Back in the day when I was a youngster in Omaha. Um, but yeah, so it's a unique blend of Japanese and American influences. You know, who else is a unique blend of Japanese and American influences producer Zach, but, um, you knew that was coming. You had to know that was coming Zach. Um, so it's inspired

Catelin: The most unique blend. Our favorite

Rich: he is, he is.

Rich: Well, and what's funny is, um, Zach is a triplet and all three of them are very different blends of Japanese and American influences. Um, Yeah, and then he's got another brother who is completely different. and then I don't remember if he Do you have sisters? Yes? Other siblings? I don't know. Yeah, I think he's got some sisters too, so there's a big family in there, um, but I guess when you got three at once, you just, you're like, okay, do we just stop or what do we do?

Rich: I don't know. Um, anyway, keep moving. Stop talking about like Zach's parentage.

Catelin: Yes. Still stop talking about it. Yes.

Rich: riff off an old fashioned, which your husband would like Caitlin, your in home bartender. And I know Zach likes a good old fashioned. It's a Japanese tea ceremony because it features Japanese whiskey, but the tea comes in with matcha powder in there.

Rich: Also some coconut water and some white creme de cacao. Ooh, what drink do we use? Oh, creme de cacao. We must use that in like chocolate martinis.

Catelin: Probably.

Rich: We have some. We have some bowls creme de cacao, but it's the brown stuff. It's not the white stuff.

Catelin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Rich: so this is a very unique flavor profile, I will say. A little bit complex.

Rich: Don't know if I would like this. So if you like a matcha latte and you like whiskey, you're probably going to dig this. Um, although you could like those two things and not want them to be in the same glass. Um, I don't know. How does your in home bartender feel about matcha?

Catelin: I don't know. I don't know. I do know that we have at least one, but potentially multiple, varieties of Nika.

Rich: Okay. Okay. So you've got whiskey,

Catelin: that's like on, you know, automatic qualifier. Um, he, for a while, like early, early COVID, we were drinking a lot of tea at home, but not, um, like artisanal by

Rich: but not matcha, probably

Catelin: not matcha.

Catelin: No,

Rich: like Lipton, like black tea, green tea, like just herbal tea.

Catelin: Yep. Um, a lot of, uh,

Rich: Yeah, I do.

Catelin: like the tea bags were like, the foil pouch was red

Rich: I don't know what that would be.

Catelin: it wasn't like. Like a bre well, we did I like English breakfast,

Rich: Okay.

Catelin: his was like a spiced, like a spiced black tea with some,

Rich: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. I've had that. I do herbal teas when I get off my caffeine kicks when I like get off caffeine, which has happened several times in my life. I do herbal teas to give me something warm in the morning. Um, so, yeah, so you're creamy. You've got matcha latte. You had hints of chocolate, but then you also have whiskey in this thing.

Rich: Um, yeah. And then, uh, you garnish this with a shiso flower, which

Catelin: Oh, who now?

Rich: a shiso flower. Maybe at the Asian market.

Catelin: I don't even know what that is.

Rich: I don't know. I don't either. We'll have to go Google it. Um, but

Catelin: That's I just am gonna keep saying Watanabe. It's fun, it, like, uh, yeah, my, my brain, it's breaking my brain a little bit, like my, because it, it's just not the, it's not the pronunciation that I'm used to, but it's fun to say, Watanabe. Uh, so the ingredients of this drink are one and a half ounces of Japanese whiskey, preferably that Nikka coffee grain whiskey, a half ounce of white cacao liqueur, one ounce of hot coconut water, preferably Vita Coco.

Catelin: Uh, Hot coconut water. You've lost me just

Rich: cause it's tea. You've got to dissolve that

Catelin: I know. Yeah. And a tablespoon of powdered matcha. This is says preferably fukuju. Oh gosh. Zach, please

Rich: F U K U J Y U.

Catelin: Please don't judge me. I can't.

Rich: Who could you? I don't know.

Catelin: It's

Rich: Um

Catelin: really um. Struggle bus over here. today. This is, this is not a, uh, an endorsement of my, my pronunciation capabilities,

Rich: and it looks like we have a little note from Zach. Thank you Zach that uh Yoshizo leaves uh or Kinome leaf. They start uh a little bit sweet and then transition to a cinnamon mint taste so that garnish is gonna like evolve in the drink as you

Catelin: Okay.

Rich: Okay, which is kind of, yeah, I'm, I mean, I'm not, I don't like whiskey, really.

Rich: Um, it depends. In a cocktail sometimes, I, every time I've had matcha, I've been like, no, not interested. Um, okay, so this one is not throw everything in the shaker and call it a day, you've actually got steps. Um, oh,

Catelin: See, this is the other thing. I just, yeah.

Rich: yeah,

Catelin: In a shaker with ice, combine your whiskey and white cacao liqueur and stir until chilled. Strain that into a rocks glass full of ice. Bring the coconut water to a boil using a saucepan or electric kettle and then turn off the heat. Then in a bowl, whisk the matcha with the coconut water just off the boil.

Catelin: Add the matcha mixture to the rocks glass and stir. Garnish with a fresh leaf. I don't think so.

Rich: are we, I think we're trying to melt the ice a little bit here is my guess. So, yeah, that's kind of cool.

Catelin: We have questions.

Rich: I mean, I guess that would make it more like a tea latte, right? Because like an iced tea, the water of the ice that you melt the hot tea over is important. Um,

Catelin: Is, I always feel like matcha is cold. Do you drink matcha warm? I always see

Rich: uh, I think you can do either. It's usually cold. It's usually like an iced latte is what we see around here. Um, also just a keynote, like, um, much like olive oil, the brighter the green, the more fresh the matcha. Which olive oil, if it's fluorescent green is much, much more fresh, by the way. Um, if it's yellowish or brownish, it is likely lower grade or, uh, Ooh, old, or my favorite word adulterated.

Rich: Somebody has like.

Catelin: whore.

Rich: Basically, you don't need no slutty matcha for us. Just bright green. So keep it bright green. It's also going to make the drink pretty. Like I think the bright green color, like you just, the yellow or brown, like there's so many drinks that are brown and you're already putting whiskey in it.

Rich: Um,

Catelin: It's giving Kermit.

Rich: it's giving Kermit. Um, and then you do gar Start us just with a fresh shiso or kinome, which is gonna add to that flavor. I kind of want to use that in something else now, like a gin drink or something,

Catelin: Mm hmm.

Rich: some shiso. Um, Zach maybe can

Catelin: so fine.

Rich: fine. All right, well, I

Catelin: Who, whose idea was this? Who gave me a microphone?

Rich: I don't know, who, like, whoever wrote the, uh, unique blend of Japanese and American influences gave you a microphone and the word shiso to play with. So, yeah,

Catelin: It's okay. Should we do this?

Rich: Yeah, let's

Catelin: let's, let's talk some WordPress drama when we get back.

Rich: Absolutely. Hey, Caitlin, welcome back as

Catelin: Okay, let's, let's do this.

Rich: As I'm learning that I have to be very obvious that we're back from our break. Otherwise tangents get weird. Um, okay. So we're going to talk about WordPress and the HubSpot CMS. Um, we are a HubSpot partner, so full disclosure, yes, we make commission off HubSpot, um, but we actually moved our website into HubSpot CMS from WordPress, a year and a half ago, two years ago, maybe.

Rich: Um, we've done the same for a lot of clients. Um, it's been a really great experience. Um, and we'll talk a little bit about that. I think anybody who's used WordPress knows kind of the pros and cons of the difficulty that you can have and some of the management you have to do. Um, we did have a, uh, discovery call with somebody who wanted a new website and they actually said, I don't want to build it in WordPress.

Rich: And we were like, okay, great.

Catelin: Great. We love

Rich: We would use HubSpot CMS, but please don't tell us you want to use Wix or something like that, because we won't, uh, we don't, we just don't do that. Uh, they're a little bit too restrictive for the kind of sites that we build, but HubSpot CMS, surprisingly, is really wide and open.

Rich: Um, so I did,

Catelin: Do you also think we, you know, maybe talk about the drama?

Rich: yeah, we're gonna spill a little, uh, spill a little

Catelin: Spill a little tea. I

Rich: Yeah, we kind of hinted at this in the beginning, so, um, To me, this seems to be out of the blue. Maybe it came bubbling up in other ways, but

Catelin: it's messy.

Rich: WP engine has been around a long time. We have sites on WP engine. They bought flywheel, which is Omaha based.

Rich: Um, we have sites on flywheel cause we still manage a few WordPress sites. We have some other ones on WPMU dev. Um, but like there are like for a WordPress hosting system to use WP in their name is common, very common. And HubSpot or WordPress, I'm sorry, geez, WordPress, uh, automatic CEO and the folks at WordPress just got into a big pissing match with WP Engine.

Rich: Um,

Catelin: massive.

Rich: yeah, massive like lawsuits flying back and forth and cease and desist flying back and forth. So, um, basically, um, the CEO of WordPress is calling WP Engine a cancer to WordPress. He's, I think they've taken, um, They've enhanced, made too many enhancements, um, and have kind of done their own thing.

Rich: It's almost like they're, you know, WordPress is open source, has been forever, but it's almost like they're adding this layer to it that makes work, makes Automatic feel like they're losing control of the customer, perhaps. Um, so, um, basically, um, he made all these nasty comments. So WP engine sent a cease and desist to, um, automatic, which owns WordPress and their CEO to withdraw their comments.

Rich: Um, WordPress said, you're using our trademarks wrong and we need to, uh, be paid for that. Automatic said, no, suck it. WP Engine said no, suck it, we're using them fairly. Their CEO said he would take a scorched earth nuclear approach against WP Engine unless it agrees to pay a significant portion of its revenues for license

Catelin: like, this was the wild part. He just, like, went off the rails after, like, years and years of, of,

Rich: They both they've existed forever

Catelin: yeah.

Rich: and WP engine has, um, like they've been around for a long time. They have a lot of WordPress sites, like a lot, including some really big ones. Um, cause it's a managed WordPress environment to take some of that hassle away from you. So this just blew me away. Like all of this

Catelin: there was like an outage, like sites went down, they deleted some stuff, like,

Rich: Well, WordPress.

Catelin: a little bit since I read about it, but I was like, oh, this is bad.

Rich: Yeah. So what happened is, um, um, a couple of things. The WordPress foundation changed its trademark policy page. Um, it has called out WP Engine, alleging the hosting services, confusing users to think that it stands for WordPress engine. Well, whatever. Um, and that they're associated with WordPress, which it's not, well, kind of like it's a hosting thing, but yeah, it's not owned by WordPress.

Rich: So there's, um, They're also mad because they've never made a donation to the WordPress Foundation. I'm like, okay, petty, petty LaBelle, party of one, petty LaBelle, party of one. So, uh, WordPress shut off access to resources at wordpress. org, which is where you update plugins, update themes, like all of those things.

Rich: So that, uh, WP engine, um, can't, uh, their clients couldn't update themes and plugins, um, and they said, you want to update themes and plugins, build your own service to fetch them. Well, WP engine said, fine. And they did, it's

Catelin: I'm remembering, that's what I'm remembering, is like the one instance I, I had seen was like calling out the huge security risks. There was for the interim when they couldn't update plugins and things were breaking because they didn't have access to the update. It was like pretty gnarly.

Rich: Yeah. And so now they're going even further and WordPress is filing additional trademarks for managed WordPress, hosted WordPress. So the people can't use those. as they're hosting, but it's like, where are people going to go? Um, so I mean, the WP engine did take WordPress off of their names. So they had essential WordPress core WordPress enterprise WordPress, but they do WordPress hosting.

Rich: Like they don't do just random coded

Catelin: Yeah, it's

Rich: So this is crazy. And I think the thing to think about here is two giant corporations get in a pissing match over a trademark and suddenly your website can't be updated. Because your hosting platform and the software it runs on are two completely separate thing. Um, and that can be a good thing, but it goes back to people who complain about like, Oh, like my Twitter traffic is down. I can't advertise on Twitter because it's just all weird after Elon bought it, which we covered that in multiple episodes. We won't go there again. Um, or, you know, Facebook like keeps deleting my posts and blah, blah, blah.

Rich: It's like, right. You built your house on somebody else's land,

Catelin: Mm hmm.

Rich: Okay. Um, the fact that they're coming and, you know, tearing up your garden shouldn't surprise you. It's not your land.

Catelin: Right.

Rich: Um, and you know, realistically HubSpot is, uh, not your land either, but with HubSpot, they have all of it. So the software, the CMS, the backend code, the servers, everything is within one entity, so you don't get this.

Rich: He said, she said, or two entities kind of fighting with each other. And so you're really governed by. The terms and conditions with HubSpot, period. Um, with WordPress and your host, you're governed by the WordPress terms and condition, the host terms and condition, but then as we're learning here, the terms and conditions between the two as vendors or as partners or whatever you want to call it.

Catelin: And the terms and conditions of whatever plugins and modules and secondary tertiary pieces that you're using on WordPress, you're, you've got to, yep, all of those irons in the fire can become very contentious.

Rich: could see this with, with the egos that are at play and the money that's at play. I could see WP Engine be like, fine and go build their own CMS and just say, fine, then we won't use WordPress. So about 40 percent of the sites in the world are on WordPress. Um, which it used to be well over 50. I remember back when it was like 60 or 70%.

Rich: Uh, but there are more options now. So, um, pissing matches aside, does that qualify for an E? Like, I don't know, pissing? I think it would. Maybe? I don't know. We'll have to see what the rules of the

Catelin: Fucking egos.

Rich: There. Well, now we got it. It's good. Um, so primary difference between WordSpread and HubSpot CMS in terms of their core functionalities.

Rich: Um, so the biggest one that we have, and we do have a landing page on this. Um, and I'm sure Zach will link it in the, the notes. I always say that, but I know he will without me saying that anyway, but, um, biggest differences are that HubSpot is self contained. So to, to Caitlin's point, the HubSpot ecosystem is all contained in one.

Rich: And you have, while you have modules in there that can be coded, they can be purchased. There's a huge number of them that HubSpot just has normal modules. Um, so you don't have to go for a whole bunch of plugins. We have a giant comparison chart

Catelin: plugin and a calendar plugin and a blog plugin and a page builder. It's

Rich: You've got to go to like WooCommerce and get that whole thing installed, which now complicates your site even more, especially with backups. And you've got live data going back and forth. Um, if you want to take payments, um, on HubSpot and don't need to use the shopping carts, you're taking donations or you're buying one off items or you're doing, you know, an auction type thing or whatever, um, their commerce system is built in and it just comes with it.

Rich: Um, and you're able to use it. So that's, I think, what's really nice. Both of them do use themes. You found is you can use a page builder like Elementor or Divi with WordPress, and that's going to give you broad flexibility with HubSpot. Some themes are really tight. Uh, the one we prefer is called PowerPro shout out to Maka Agency.

Rich: We love them who developed that. Uh, it's very, very open and we could show you five websites that were all built on the same theme. You would have no idea what the word theme even means anymore because they all look so, so different. Um, HubSpot is also a WYSIWYG, uh, WordPress. is sort of by default,

Catelin: WYSIWYG, Rich?

Rich: uh, what you see is what you get.

Rich: So basically you're editing what looks like a live version of your site. If you make type bigger, it gets bigger. If you make type smaller, it gets smaller. If you move them photo, it moves like real time while you're looking at it.

Catelin: Drag and drop is maybe another,

Rich: Drag and drop is a piece of that. Yes. Um, so you want the column to be wider.

Rich: You literally click between the columns and drag it one way or the other, and it'll get

Catelin: Mm hmm.

Rich: Um, So those are really

Catelin: can I just tell you one, one tangent? The first time I heard you use the word WYSIWYG, I was like, I'm, I can never do this job. I was so confused. I had to, I like typed W I Z Z Y W I G into Google and I was like, what the fuck does this mean?

Rich: Well, you got it. You got

Catelin: I figured it out.

Rich: Um,

Catelin: I was like, am I dumb? I was like, is this an episode of the Muppet Show?

Rich: no,

Catelin: That's F Wig

Rich: That Z Wig was on the Muppet Show. Oh

Catelin: F Wigs, uh, was the Muppet Christmas Carol. He was the, um, he was the, the first employer of sc Gooch Fuzzy wigs.

Rich: Yep. So the Pauzy

Catelin: or no fuzzy wigs. That's what it was. Uh,

Rich: wig. Right. Got it. Got it. Got it. So, um, The biggest difference is a lot of places where you would need a plugin in WordPress. It's just built in and HubSpot two factor authentication is built in. Payments are built in SEO tools are built in AI tools are now built in. Um, also you can add onto it and even the starter platform or the bigger platform, things like email tracking, email marketing.

Rich: So you don't necessarily need like a MailChimp anymore. Uh, meeting links are in there. We get one meeting link for

Catelin: a MailChimp anymore. Or, uh, yeah, like,

Rich: Yeah. So you don't need like a Calendly

Catelin: Please stop paying for Calendly. If you're on HubSpot, stop paying for Calendly.

Rich: Um,

Catelin: I beg of you.

Rich: So, so yeah, so that's kind of the biggest difference. Um, the other one is self contained platform, one vendor for hosting and, um, software and backend and with WordPress, you, I mean, you can host at wordpress. com, I guess, um, but there are multiple vendors for that.

Rich: Um, It's also just up to date. So like there isn't a really an updating plugins or anything. Every once in a while, there's a theme update because they change functionality, but HubSpot continues to roll out improvements that don't break your site, um, on the backend and it all looks good. Um, So learning curve, um, WordPress is harder to learn than HubSpot.

Rich: We can teach somebody HubSpot and how to edit a page in a couple hours. Uh, with WordPress, it can take days for people and they still generally come back. So here's the, here's the catch. We've had so many clients who are under some sort of a maintenance agreement with WordPress sites for us, because it's just difficult for them to make changes.

Rich: They edit a photo, it breaks something with a plugin, a plugin doesn't get updated. The site goes down.

Catelin: thing.

Rich: Um, we actually put ourselves. are putting ourselves out of the word, the HubSpot or website maintenance business by moving people from WordPress to HubSpot. Because the number, the first thing we teach them is here's how you can do all these simple edits yourself.

Rich: Now, if they want something more complicated or they want something bigger, or they just want our expertise and guidance, we're there, but it's really more about our brain instead of about this busy work of like, update this, change this paragraph, change this photo, those types of things.

Catelin: Well, and like, sometimes people just want the peace of mind of like, knowing that they can just say, here's what I need to happen. And we'll do it in the best, most responsible way. Not that they're not capable of doing that, but sometimes it's kind of nice to just be like, here, will you do this, please?

Catelin: Like kind of have, it's kind of like having a house cleaner, like,

Rich: Yep. Yeah, exactly. It is. Um, it's one of those want to have not a need to have, um, is how we shift it. Um, you need to have somebody helping you with a WordPress update. Uh, you don't need to have somebody helping you, but you can have them do it for you if you want to. Um, so looking at some of the technical considerations, I'm just kind of going through this, uh, the notes, um, customization and flexibility.

Rich: Honestly, we can do whatever we want to do with either one. Um, they're both very customizable. We could, we could, Jesse could design a website or Megan could, and we could build that site in either WordPress. or in

Catelin: Okay. Thank you.

Rich: It will be easier for us to build it in HubSpot. Uh, it'll take a little bit longer in, in WordPress the way we need to set it up.

Rich: Um, it can also be a little bit more of a delicate balance in WordPress because you have so many different things impacting it, your host environment, your code, et cetera. We actually had, um, we learned at one place. uh, with one host that if we were to update Elementor at only for sites at that particular host, it would break their sites and we'd have to go in and do a whole bunch of stuff to like

Catelin: Mm hmm.

Rich: Uh, we moved a couple of sites to a new host. We can have automatic updates for Elementor and no problem whatsoever. So those are kind of things that you have to figure out and learn and troubleshoot, and that one took us like a year and a half to troubleshoot. It was

Catelin: Yeah.

Rich: Um, because you don't expect that the host environment is breaking a really standard plugin update.

Rich: Um, so technical considerations, you do need to know the technical side of hosting. If you're going to host in WordPress, you need to know nothing technical. If you're going to host in HubSpot, um, HubSpot is designed for non technical people to be able to use. Um, security and

Catelin: HubSpot was designed for marketers. Let's be

Rich: that is true. Um, when it comes to things like security and maintenance, I already mentioned like two factor authentication. You need a plugin to do that in WordPress and it's going to be clunky and it might be problematic in HubSpot. It's just a toggle. You literally can check a box and everybody needs two factor to log in and they can use their phone or they can use a third party app, uh, for a code.

Rich: Um, maintenance. You're on your own in WordPress. You need to up, you can have plugins get updated automatically, but it might break everything. Um, and HubSpot, like we haven't had that issue, um, in the multiple years. I mean, we've had client websites in HubSpot for like five years. I

Catelin: Mm hmm.

Rich: um, haven't had anything break.

Rich: We even just did a jQuery update for one of them and nothing broke. Um, and it was easy to test. So,

Catelin: What a thing of beauty.

Rich: yeah, very, very helpful. Um, Let's see. I think we've covered like, you know, we feel like HubSpot's more intuitive. Um, there's a broader content creation that you can do in HubSpot. Um, the SEO tools are pretty rudimentary in HubSpot, but they're there.

Rich: And honestly, they're required. If you don't have a title tag, you're not going to publish it. If you don't have a meta description, it won't let you publish the page, which is kind of nice because you should have those things.

Catelin: Honestly, and I think, too, the other thing that's really nice is that those SEO tools are built in at the base level, where it will give you some really basic, but not always well known suggestions for optimizing your page, to say, like, you have to fill in a meta description, and you have to have a page title, and here's why.

Catelin: why you should do that and um, will also kind of give you like your, you know, your over your, your characters on a meta description because some people want to write a freaking novel in that box but it's like, oh no, you're way over and it'll tell you like how many characters and yeah.

Rich: There's also, um, a few other tools. So it does tap into a SEMrush to power some of its SEO tools. And if you've got a, um, uh, Google, oh my gosh, my brain is fried right now. No, not Google analytics. It's the other one. Um, No, uh, webmaster tools, Google webmaster tools. Um, sorry. Yeah, I know you wouldn't, you weren't going to go there.

Rich: Um, but if you're tied to that, it can actually pull stats from your site, um, up on top of the stats that it has in HubSpot and match them to Google keywords through SEMrush. So there's a little sidebar on the left. If you click this, there's a little, um. like analyze my page, you can put in what your focus keyword is that you want it to be.

Rich: You can also do a little bit of keyword research, but, um, and it'll tell you how your page stacks up and things like use your keyword in your meta description, use your keyword in your H1 or H2, um, and those types of things. So that's really nice. Um, and you can like, try to get all green lights there. Um, and it's pretty, uh, pretty easy.

Rich: So we like it. Um, we haven't seen any speed problems with HubSpot. We've got a site that actually scored a hundred on Google speed test, Google page speed insights.

Catelin: It doesn't get better than a hundred in case you're

Rich: it doesn't. And it has a video on the homepage and it still scored a hundred, which was wild. Um, but our, our team is just that good.

Catelin: Good job us.

Rich: 100%. All right. So I think we're kind of, um, wrapping this up or getting close to it, but I think the biggest one people have are like, okay, well HubSpot is like 9, 000 a month, isn't it? Well, it can be if you want it to be. Um, so if you've got a smaller site, I believe it's now under 30 pages, if I recall.

Rich: Um, one, You can use HubSpot Content Hub for free. Um, it's going to be a small site and you're going to have powered by HubSpot on the bottom of all the pages, but you can go create a free account and play with it and

Catelin: And at least see how it works.

Rich: how you like it. Um, but if you go to the Content Hub starter, uh, we would say don't do that.

Rich: Just go to the starter customer platform because they're the same price. Um, But it's 15 per month per user. So 180 per year per user. Um, WordPress is free, but the hosting is going to run you, decent hosting is going to run you somewhere around 300 a year ish. TBD, but, and then you've got plugins you might have to pay for that are annual, those types of things.

Rich: Um, so, you know, a couple of people in HubSpot is going to be 360 a year. It's really inconsequential, but here's the deal. Not only do you get The web stuff for that on that customer platform, but you get sales tools like quotes and e signature, some prospecting tools, email tracking. It's some of it's limited on the starter suite.

Rich: And you've got to look at that. Um, payments are included, SEO tools, two factor authentication is included. You get the email marketing. You'll be limited on some automations just so you know, uh, won't have social media marketing in that one. That's marketing pro, which does run higher. But if you're just looking to get your website on a really easy platform to use, um, we always recommend HubSpot and we do migrate sites,

Catelin: That's, I mean, that's kind of become one of my favorite things to do really is like site migration into HubSpot. We just had a, a kickoff meeting this morning for somebody who's talking about, you know, their full customer journey, and how do we maximize what we're saying and how do we get people to the right place?

Catelin: And all of that is possible with some of the upgraded tools within HubSpot that you can really, really start to serve. your clients and potential clients in a meaningful way in the HubSpot CMS and using, you know, some of those other.

Rich: Other tools.

Catelin: exactly.

Rich: even get into, you can have a help desk pipeline, a service ticket pipeline, and a help desk. You get one in starter hub, um, which is just huge, especially if you're triaging email in, in Outlook or in, you know, Google or whatever,

Catelin: So I'll just give you like one really, really quick overview of a starter suite that I am utilizing in a volunteer capacity, where we needed to be able to collect donations, uh, potentially like sell some merch. Uh, we needed a new website. And also needed to be able to accept form submissions for both like contact purposes, but also event submissions.

Catelin: And all of that was possible within HubSpot. And then when you start talking about the service pipeline, what, what I was able to do was set up a channel specifically for event submissions that creates a ticket. And then as soon as the ticket has been generated, and usually me because I'm the, you know, de facto webmaster at this point.

Catelin: But once I've published that event as a blog post, I just drag that ticket into completed and it automatically triggers an email to the person who submitted the event to say, your event's been published. So it's just this like really easy, beautiful kind of fluidity in that entire HubSpot universe. Um, that is, um, It's serving up beautiful content that's useful to our audience, but is also really easy to use and build, um, on the backend.

Rich: and that reminds me of the other big one. You get HubSpot's free CRM with anything so you can organize your contacts and actually manage and maintain a database and list of them, not an email, not in a contact app on your phone, not in some. I mean, the weird way

Catelin: other. Can I tell you the other great thing is all of those, all of those, um, events are on a blog for which I have a subscription type set up that sends out the event email automatically 9am. So now our comms person who is also a volunteer doesn't have to spend all of his ding dang time.

Catelin: fussing around with an email, it just goes out and people start, are starting to realize my, my email from this, this group comes Mondays at 9am and I should click in and see what's going on.

Rich: Okay, fine. I'll, I'll move my website into HubSpot sold. All right. So we do have another episode coming up in a week. It is the Chauncey is our drink Chauncey.

Catelin: that you were like trying to tell me somebody's name when I saw this. I was like, who the fuck is Tronsy?

Rich: is our drink, uh, not serving us, uh, how to best utilize AI for your marketing strategy in 2024.

Catelin: this one.

Rich: So

Catelin: Recent AI convert over here.

Rich: mean, AI, it's got a place, right? Like we either embrace it and find a way to use it and manage it, or we, uh, get taken over by it. Uh, so maybe we should develop our own AI and name it Chauncey.

Rich: And then the AI could just make

Catelin: Who's, who's time? Who's got time to write our own AI agent?

Rich: I

Catelin: Go home, Mackie. You're drunk.

Rich: I'm not drunk. I wish I was. Um, all right. Well, we're on all the socials at anadorinerscoach71 and Caitlyn, where else can they find

Catelin: like to send your way. Our way . Send it our way. Head to CJ podcast live to shoot us an email. Even better. You can leave us a voice message on our hotline at 4 0 2 7 1 8 9 9 7 1. Your question will make it into a future episode and we will have

Rich: prizes in Q4, uh, which I was going to talk about now, but we're out of time.

Catelin: Stay tuned to hear about what

Rich: top of the podcast. Next time we'll talk about prizes.

Catelin: top of the podcast too. Yeah, that was supposed to be Irish. It's not. Okay, I'm gonna

Rich: you later, Caitlin.

Catelin: Bye.

Rich: Bye.