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HubSpot Migration Checklist and Guide

What is a CRM Migration?

When I was 8 years old, my parents bought a new house and we moved.  I have very specific memories of my mom and dad packing items up into boxes and labeling them.  Kitchen utensils and appliances were packed up and labeled “kitchen” on the box; dining room plates and curtains were likewise packed and then labeled “dining room”.  When we arrived at the new house, these boxes were unpacked and everything was essentially put back into the same room it was just in…except inside a new house.

The steps described above are very similar to what happens when you migrate to a new CRM:

  • You have to pack up all of your stuff (clean and organize your customer data!)
  • Label everything (designate where it will go in your new CRM) 
  • Rearrange it in its new location (complete the migration) 

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For example, when (yes…when, not if) you migrate your data to HubSpot, your marketing data (landing pages, marketing emails) will be in the Marketing Hub.  Ticket pipelines?  Service Hub

Think of these hubs as the rooms in your new house.  Just as your kitchen supplies would still be in a kitchen if you moved, your marketing data will move to the marketing portion of your new CRM platform, and sales data to the sales section.

If your current CRM just ain't cuttin’ it (it’s not a coincidence that Salesforce rhymes with Failsforce), then it’s time for your company to be movin’ on up to HubSpot! 

Why Choose HubSpot?

The easy (and short) answer is because they’re the best.

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But here are a few more reasons:

  • For inbound marketing, it has no rival
  • You can easily integrate it with other platforms
  • Allows you to easily see/assess the entire buyer’s journey
  • Workflow creation for emails
  • Regular release of beta features
  • Integrated SEO tools

(I’ll stop short of providing the complete list because, quite frankly, you don't want to read a 45 minute blog.)

HubSpot CRM Data Migration Service

If you don't have the expertise or the capacity to handle the data migration yourself, HubSpot provides (for a fee) a service to do it for you.  Not enough company bandwidth?  Not a problem!  The service involves a 4-step process which includes:

  • An audit of your current CRM system and data, including recommended clean up
  • Designing of an import strategy and the mapping of your data
  • A test migration
  • Execution of the full migration

HubSpot Migration Checklist by Hub

CMS Hub Migration Checklist

Before Migration
  • Content audit (keep what you need, trash what you don’t)
  • Data assessment (evaluate costs, timeline, and risks)
  • Seek approval from all internal and external stakeholders
During Migration
  • Identify deviations in data architecture
  • Create a backup of your content (data loss=sleepless nights)
  • Automate the process when/where possible
After Migration
  • Test your data to confirm integrity
  • Optimize via quality checks (for example, make sure there are no page loading errors)
  • Close down the old CMS
  • Team training

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Marketing Hub Migration Checklist

Before Migration
  • If applicable, be aware of when your current CRM contract expires
  • Get team buy-in
  • Assess timeline and compare it to current company capacity
  • Make someone the point person for this operation (not so you can have someone to blame later if it all goes wrong, but rather to creator clarity throughout the process)
During Migration
  • Import your cleaned  data (If you were moving houses, you wouldn’t take broken stuff with you…don’t do it here either)
  • Create custom record properties
  • Move over all video content, website and blog images, and blog content
  • Reconnect your existing social media accounts
After Migration
  • Recreation of lead collection forms 
  • Recreation of landing pages
  • Recreation of segmented lists
  • Recreation of email marketing campaign (HubSpot tools are here to help)

Service Hub Migration Checklist

Before Migration
  • Determine a “cut-off” date 
  • Delegate responsibilities/remind all employees
  • Prepare HubSpot (recreate custom fields; customize HubSpot homepage)
  • Turn off integrations
  • To avoid duplicates, disable automatic association of contacts and companies
  • Disable ticket status automations
During Migration
  • Move all previously closed tickets into HubSpot and put into a historic pipeline
  • Close out any open tickets from old system
  • Import any remaining open tickets to HubSpot
After Migration
  • Inspect to make sure everything was migrated correctly
  • Enable all notifications and check settings 

Data Migration Challenges

What Cannot be Migrated?

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Sometimes when you move from one house to another, there are things that can’t be brought over.  The basketball hoop that you cemented into the ground, for example, is staying put.  It’s the same story with data migration.  Here are some examples of content/features that HubSpot will not be able to migrate:

  • Pages which are database-driven
  • Any type of user-generated content
  • Blog comments from your current blog
  • Commenting features from third parties
  • Live chat
  • Gated content
  • Menus which have non-linked content
  • Menus which are image based
  • Forms which ask for Personally Identifiable Information

Common Mistakes

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Here are a few areas where companies tend to mess up:  

  • Not conducting a trial run (you should use a sample size of your data to validate your migration)
  • Teams are not aligned (working in silos)
  • Failure to understand the extent of the project (unrealistic timeline)
  • Lack of experience and/or migration tools within your company

RevPartners to the Rescue

A successful CRM data migration can make or break a company.  When you want to do it right, take these two steps:  

  1. Choose HubSpot as your new CRM
  2. Choose RevPartners to help you out

Why RevPartners?

  • We are an ELITE  partner that  specializes in CRM implementations
  • We are veteran RevOps professionals that specialize in HubSpot
  • We are change management professionals that have led large-scale projects for scaling companies
  • We are the most technical HubSpot Solutions Partner (over 700 certifications) in the world

When you make the call to migrate your CRM data, make the call to RevPartners.

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