Migrating your CRM data is like moving to a new house—exciting, full of potential but also a little nerve-wracking. After all, you want everything to arrive at your new HubSpot home intact and organized, right?
No matter the size or scope of your migration, laying the groundwork beforehand is key to success. Neglecting these best practices could turn your migration into a chaotic data dump, creating more problems than it solves.
Let’s walk through what you need to do before you hit that “migrate” button.
First things first—don’t treat your migration as an isolated task. It’s actually just one piece of a successful CRM implementation puzzle.
Your end goal isn’t just to move data; it’s to set up a CRM that supports your business processes, enhances your customer relationships and drives growth. So, before you start, make sure you have a clear understanding of how this migration fits into the bigger picture.
Ask yourself: what are your CRM goals, and how will this migration help achieve them?
By keeping the broader scope in mind, you can ensure that your migration aligns with your overall business strategy.
Now, let’s talk about how you’re going to move that data. There are a few different methods to migrate data into HubSpot, each with its pros and cons.
Whichever method you choose, make sure you create a backup of your data before you start. You’ll thank yourself later.
Imagine packing up your old house, only to realize that half the stuff you’ve brought to the new place is junk. That’s what happens when you migrate dirty data. Let’s make sure you’re only moving what’s necessary. What does that mean?
Your migration doesn’t just involve data; it also involves the people who’ll be using that data in HubSpot and the new processes you'll need to build there to support them. Make sure everything is set up for success.
Are you importing data owned by deactivated users or users who only existed in your old platform? Reassign those records to active users and make sure your HubSpot team is ready to handle the incoming data.
If you’ve already set up lead scoring in HubSpot before migrating, remember that all contacts, companies and deals will be scored as soon as they enter your portal. Review your old fields—like Region or Service Type—and decide if they should influence your HubSpot scores.
Any published workflows in HubSpot will automatically run when you migrate your data. Double-check the triggers and make sure they align with your new data setup. You don’t want contacts getting enrolled in workflows they shouldn’t be a part of.
The Migration Mapping Matrix is your best friend during this process. It helps you map out which fields from your old CRM will correspond with HubSpot fields. Not all tabs will be relevant to every organization, so customize it to your needs.
Start by documenting and categorizing your HubSpot users. This step ensures that you have the right people with the right permissions ready to take over once the migration is complete. Who are you buying a HubSpot seat for? What should their permissions include? What team should they be on?
You may already have this rocking and rolling in your portal, but we often find that companies lack user documentation, so feel free to use it as a gut check. This sort of documentation is helpful when onboarding or off-boarding employees too!
These sections will help you map the properties from your old system to HubSpot’s fields—some important things to note:
Pro tip: Use HubSpot Insights to automatically populate company information based on domain names. It’s a lifesaver when you’re missing key details like annual revenue or employee count.
You’ve done the hard work of preparing your data and mapping it out—now it’s time to make the necessary updates in HubSpot. This step includes creating any custom properties you identified earlier, updating default fields and making sure everything is ready for your new data to fit seamlessly into HubSpot.
As mentioned above, some default HubSpot fields and features may still require updates, as the out-of-the-box values may not meet the needs of your incoming data. Make sure to review (and update if necessary) the following items:
Like we mentioned earlier, as you complete the Migration Mapping Matrix you'll notice a lot of the data you are migrating will have an existing corresponding default field in HubSpot…but does that default field fit your incoming data?
While some default HubSpot fields are not editable, others are! For example, the Closed Lost Reason on the Deal Object can be updated to a dropdown select rather than the standard single-line text, which means your reporting and segmentation efforts won’t have to work so hard!
Other examples of editable default fields include State/Region, Country/Region, Military Status, Seniority and Closed Won Reason.
For data that doesn’t fit into default fields, now’s the time to create those custom properties you planned out earlier. Just remember to match the property types and values exactly—HubSpot is a stickler for consistency.
While not directly part of the migration, don’t forget to define your Marketing Contact Management strategy. Make sure you’ve purchased enough marketing contacts in HubSpot to match your email outreach plans before migration. And if you want to save on costs, decide who you’ll actually pay to email and assign marketing contact status accordingly.