HubSpot or Salesforce for Healthcare Businesses? Which One Should I Use?

As the world adjusts to the new normal, healthcare marketers have had to amend tactics and figure out better ways to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time. Those within the healthcare industry have always had to adjust quickly to new healthcare regulations and concerns however, since the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare organizations have had to make dramatic adjustments in order to remain relevant, trusted and competitive. 

Healthcare marketers need to embrace new technology, systems and software in order to create new and effective organizational processes, competencies and models. Digital marketing is an important part of this strategy, from content creation and social media marketing to search engine optimization and digital lead generation. This may sound like an overwhelming task, but it doesn't have to be.

Thanks to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, marketers are able to create and monitor digital marketing campaigns, streamline processes, target high quality leads, nurture relationships, build trust and increase the bottom line from a single location. 

Introducing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Healthcare Businesses

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology designed to manage all your organization's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. Essentially, a CRM is a system or tool that helps with digital marketing, lead generation, contact management, sales management, productivity, and more.

Whatever sector you are in within the healthcare industry, from medical care (B2C) to machine manufacturing (B2B), a CRM platform is the best way to implement all of the above and is designed to help you attract, nurture and convert leads. 

There are hundreds of Customer Relationship Management solutions to choose from, but not all of them are the ideal fit for healthcare. This is why it is important you find a platform that can be optimized specifically for the healthcare industry.

Currently, there are two CRMs that have become well known across all industries, these being: HubSpot and Salesforce. Both CRMs have solidified their place in the business world, but which CRM works best for healthcare?

Let's dive right in.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce for Healthcare Businesses

Introducing HubSpot

HubSpot was launched in 2006 and was designed to help organisations in implementing their inbound marketing strategies. As of 2021, over 100,000 businesses across the world use HubSpot to help them manage their sales pipeline and increase revenue.

What the HubSpot CRM can do for your healthcare business:

• Collects, manages and stores any volume of data
• The CRM is fully customizable to suit your specific needs as a healthcare business
• Tracks every interaction and engagement with prospects, lead and clients
• Allows for digital marketing, tracking and analytics in a single location
• Sets reminders and add notes to help your healthcare teams (be this doctors, nurses or sales reps) keep track of their activities
• Easily integrates with hundreds of external software platforms
• Integrates seamlessly with WhatsApp

What makes HubSpot so powerful in the healthcare industry is that it helps healthcare professionals optimize their schedules and prioritize tasks to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently. Essentially, it gives team members the opportunity to understand each prospect or patient's needs.

Salesforce for Healthcare

Launched in 1999, Salesforce has become one of the biggest software development companies in the world. The company was created to make software available to the masses through a global computing infrastructure and is renowned in its software efforts. 

The platform is cloud-based and provides businesses with applications that have been created to streamline the customer experience, from attraction to lead acquisition. 

What the Salesforce CRM can do for your healthcare business:

• Data collection and management
• Task automation
• Digital marketing 
• Sales and marketing performance analysis
• Builds great customer experiences through marketing and sales data collection and automation
• Integration with a variety of platforms

Salesforce is more complex to navigate and learn than HubSpot however, like HubSpot, the platform provides healthcare professionals the opportunity to fully optimize their sales or admissions while managing data. 

In order to help you decide which CRM will work best for your healthcare business goals, it is important we take a look at the common CRM features required for the healthcare industry. 

HubSpot or Salesforce for Healthcare

Customer Relationship Management software is designed to enable:

• Sales and customer relationship strategy
• Lead generation and data collection
• Manage customer relationships and communication
• Provide a single platform for sales, marketing and customer service

Both HubSpot and Salesforce provide marketing, sales and service applications, so how do you go about choosing which CRM is better suited for your healthcare business if they complete similar tasks? 

In this article we will compare the below points to help you make a better informed decision when selecting the right CRM for your healthcare business: 

1. Ease of use and implementation 
2. Lead generation capabilities
3. Sales pipeline management
4. Pricing

Let’s dive right in.

1. HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Ease of Use and Implementation

Rolling-out a customer relationship management system across a business and its teams can be quite overwhelming. This is especially true when it comes to the high-pressure health care industry. This is why ease of use needs to be considered in the decision making process. 

Of course, ease of use is subjective based on an individuals personal preference and in this case, software experience. However, healthcare companies are vast and made up of a variety of individuals with different skillsets, this is why it is important you invest in a CRM that is intuitive and easy to understand. 

When it comes to usability, HubSpot takes the lead. While Salesforce offers more menu customization options, it does come with a more complex setup and more complicated tools. This is why many Salesforce users have to employ the services of a Salesforce specialist account manager. An account manager will help your business set up Salesforce and assist your team on an on-going basis as they learn to use the platform to the best of its ability. With HubSpot, your team is able to learn quickly and HubSpot also offers e-learning solutions to help users as they go through the process. 

In Conclusion: HubSpot is easier to implement and teach across your organization which will help your healthcare teams begin the CRM journey as seamlessly and quickly as possible. Salesforce will come at an extra cost as you will need to invest in a Salesforce specialist or account manager to guide you through the implementation process - and you will require a dedicated Salesforce account manager at any given moment. 

2. HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Lead Generation Capabilities

When it comes to choosing the best CRM for healthcare (particularly healthcare organizations in the medical supplies space), lead generation, data collection and lead management tools are vital. Without strong lead generation tactics and analytics in place, your CRM is not going to do its job - specifically in such a niche industry. 

HubSpot is the leader in inbound marketing methodology and has created a CRM that focuses on lead generation by aligning marketing and sales under one roof. With its unique focus on content creation, marketing, automation and distribution across digital platforms. HubSpot allows your healthcare marketing team to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time. 

Salesforce does not offer the same level of Inbound Marketing tactics for lead generation  (HubSpot is the brains behind this methodology) however it does stand out when it comes to customization. 

However, both HubSpot and Salesforce offer lead scoring - a tactic vital for business growth. Lead scoring allows you to scale your leads based on their priority and where they are within the buying cycle. With a lead scoring model in place, your healthcare sales reps are able to view the ranking of prospects against a predetermined scale that represents the perceived value of every lead. The resulting score is then used to discover which leads are a priority and which require more nurturing in terms of marketing and marketing automation.

In Conclusion: Both platforms offer quality lead generation services, with HubSpot taking the lead in its inbound marketing efforts. 

3. HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Sales Pipeline Management 

The sales pipeline refers to a theoretical customer journey, as a lead makes their way to the purchasing stage of the journey. If you work in healthcare, you will know how important is it to manage this pipeline - and a CRM is able to visualize the journey for you and your team. This helps you configure deal stages that match the sales or admissions process of your healthcare business or institution. 

Both CRMs provide you with flexibility in regards to the sales pipeline - ensuring you can create a pipeline to suit your specific needs. Salesforce was once the leader in pipeline customization however, HubSpot has listened to its users and has taken steps to ensure a more flexible and scalable sales pipeline solution.

Both CRMs can track leads as they move through the pipeline and both are able to send out automated and personalized communication via a variety of digital channels. This means they are both able to send out personalized and automated emails and direct individual leads as they make their way through the pipeline (be this sales for medical businesses or even hospital admissions for institutions) -  saving your sales team time and limiting time consuming and repetitive tasks. 

In Conclusion: Both CRMs provide a strong sales pipeline, ensuring your healthcare leads or patients are tracked, managed and nurtured correctly. 

4. HubSpot vs Salesforce: Pricing

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot includes all the features you require at its advertised price, and you only pay for additional sales seats that are all revenue-generating at the same time. Free “seats” are available for team members who require visibility into your business regarding reporting or related day-to-day functionality regarding sales tools.

Some insight into HubSpot rates:

• It is possible to have free users (without premium features)
• Support is free 
• Transparency in all offers

Salesforce Pricing

Salesforce is one of the more expensive CRM platforms due to the complexity of the technology. The platform charges every user and needs paid add-ons for essential features.

Some insight into Salesforce rates:

• Salesforce is typically more expensive than HubSpot and comes with an equivalent scope and features.
• Support through Salesforce is paid
• The Salesforce add-ons are vast and come at a cost
• As Salesforce does not offer the same level of training as HubSpot, you will require an in-house specialist (as stated previously) to assist you with implementation and management.
• An acquirer of related businesses, Salesforce can quickly provide new, innovative features but this can come at a cost of having different user interfaces for each feature and integration isn't as seamless as HubSpot's new features, given HubSpot's preference for natively building new technology rather than bolting 3rd party systems onto their platform.  This is why HubSpot typically wins when comparing user experience and overall usability between the two platforms.

In Conclusion: HubSpot is more transparent in its costing, while Salesforce offers more complex solutions, which in turn can add costs up. 

The Wrap Up

The above points should help you on your path to finding the right CRM for your healthcare business. Today's modern healthcare marketing teams need to invest in customer centric technologies that support their marketing efforts and target markets needs. The customer needs to be prioritized above all else, and this is why a CRM software cannot be ignored. 

In order to gain success in the industry, healthcare businesses and institutions need to invest in systems that allow for team alignment, automation, and data collection so that all teams can monitor their marketing and lead generation success with ease. 

How we can help you

Nexa has been recognized as a high-quality healthcare marketing partner and was awarded the Best Digital Marketing Award - Healthcare by the MENA Search Awards in 2019 for our extensive work with Invisalign.

Nexa is Dubai's Leading Independent Digital Marketing Agency and a HubSpot Diamond certified agency partner. We're here to help you with everything HubSpot - book an online meeting to begin your Digital Transformation journey.