RYZE Digital and HubSpot: partners for the marketing of the future

Jan Steinbach: Franziska, what exactly do you do at HubSpot?

Franziska Kolbe : I have been responsible for the Partner Development team for five years. We take care of the collaboration with our implementation partners, the so-called solution partners. This means that my team and I look at which joint projects we can win and support the partners in working with existing customers in the long term and expanding their services. Our DACH office has been here for around seven years. We have now grown to over 400 employees in the region. When I started, I was one of three managers in sales; now we are about twelve managers, which shows the growth of the sales organisation here in DACH very clearly.

Jan Steinbach: I am very interested in HubSpot's founding story. What were the beginnings and the vision?

Franziska Kolbe: Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and realised at the time that marketing and sales were simply not up to date at many companies. Dharmesh is the technical visionary, while Brian is a marketing expert. They developed a new approach with the inbound method. They wanted to attract customers with relevant content instead of overwhelming them with annoying advertising messages. This content should provide the right information for each phase of the decision-making process, supported by automation. This is how the combination of inbound marketing as a method and a technical solution was created - that was the beginning of HubSpot.

Jan Steinbach: How has HubSpot developed since then?

Franziska Kolbe : Initially, our focus was mainly on marketing automation. Around 2014, we added our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to manage the leads generated by marketing in a targeted manner. We then expanded the platform to include sales and service solutions so that we could offer a comprehensive centralised solution. Since then, we have continuously expanded our offering, for example with a content management system. Today, we are a leader in the field of marketing and have also developed strongly in sales and customer service. Almost 8,000 employees now work at HubSpot.

Jan Steinbach : With Coders Unlimited, we were one of the first, if not the first HubSpot partner in Germany. What appealed to us at the time was that it wasn't just software, but that there was also a vision behind it that other providers didn't have in this form. This philosophy was one of the reasons why we wanted to become a partner. Of course, a lot has happened in the field since then.

Franziska Kolbe: Yes, definitely. In the past, partners were primarily concerned with advising on marketing topics. But the more we have developed, the more we expect technical expertise from our partners. Especially when it comes to individual customer projects, complex data management or custom integrations, we need partners who can support end customers not only strategically but also operationally. The development shows that partners are now taking on a greater role in the implementation of technical solutions.

Jan Steinbach: Absolutely. We have also developed accordingly and invested in CRM expertise. For several years now, we have been specifically bringing experts into the team who are familiar with CRM and help us to map the entire chain from initial customer contact through to existing customer management. Where do you see HubSpot's strengths compared to major competitors such as Salesforce?

Franziska Kolbe: We often hear that our platform is easier and more intuitive for users to use, especially in comparison to more complex systems. Another major advantage is that all of our tools work on a shared database. Although we used to have disadvantages with highly customised customer solutions, we have increased our flexibility in recent years and can now also cover complex use cases. What is your experience with our system?

Jan Steinbach: I agree with that. The simplicity and standardisation of the platform is a great advantage, especially for customers who find other systems too complex. We often hear this from our customers or from companies that are looking for a new marketing solution. When we show a live demo, we often score points for ease of use.

Franziska Kolbe : As a partner, you also see the development from smaller to larger customers.

Jan Steinbach: Yes, in the beginning we still had to explain a lot about what inbound marketing is. Many potential customers thought it was great, but didn't have the confidence to do it: many companies weren't set up for it. In the meantime, however, it has become mainstream and the combination of marketing and CRM has made enormous progress. When we talk to our customers, we realise that marketing and sales are easier to convince of HubSpot because they want a system that they can interact and work with easily. Discussions with IT departments are sometimes more difficult. They often have a longer relationship with legacy systems and don't work with them on a daily basis, they just maintain them. The barriers to a change may be higher.

Franziska Kolbe: Yes, it is also important to us that we want to enable our customers to flexibly integrate different solutions. That's why we emphasise good API documentation and assure customers that they don't have to do everything with HubSpot if they prefer other solutions. But we have integrated more and more features so that customers actually only need very few third-party solutions.

Jan Steinbach : If you look to the future, where is HubSpot heading and what role do partners like us have to play?

Franziska Kolbe: The product is increasingly driven by AI, with Breeze as the AI solution that integrates with the existing tools. Our aim is to ensure that the platform can be flexibly adapted to customer needs. It will therefore also be important for partners to adapt to AI and automation in order to jointly support customers in their digital transformation.

Jan Steinbach: Can you give us a specific example of a solution?

Franziska Kolbe: Our Breeze Copilot is like a ChatGPT in CRM. It enables sales teams to create texts or generate templates based on the CRM data directly in the tool. There are also Breeze Agents that automate tasks such as prospecting. The AI analyses data and generates personalised customer approaches or scoring models, for example, in order to design processes efficiently.

Jan Steinbach: What do you think are the current marketing trends apart from AI?

Franziska Kolbe: Inbound marketing has now arrived and is widespread, but the combination with outbound strategies is becoming more important. We are also seeing content such as videos and podcasts becoming increasingly relevant in the B2B sector. Consumer behaviour is changing: people expect short, concise content that they can consume easily.

Jan Steinbach: Yes, the topic of brand building has also changed. It used to take place almost exclusively in traditional media, but today digital channels play an important role in brand building, even in B2B.

Franziska Kolbe: So it remains exciting. Thank you very much for taking this journey with us as partners. It's great to see how you are developing with us.

Jan Steinbach: Yes, it is definitely a partnership that we will continue to rely on in the future.