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Many companies pay for HubSpot and use only part of it: a form on the website, a newsletter sent to the whole database, contact records half filled in. The tool can do much more, provided someone runs it every week.
This guide shows that work on three examples. The features available depend on your edition: workflows, for instance, require a Professional or Enterprise plan. The reasoning, however, applies to any CRM, and it extends our guide to marketing automation for SMEs.
In short
A workflow starts from something the contact does and decides what comes next, rather than sending everyone the same message.
Send fewer emails, to more precise segments.
A landing page serves one campaign, and only one.
Data gets cleaned continuously: duplicates, empty properties, lifecycle stages.
Example 1: the workflow that follows a download
A contact downloads a guide from the website. Without a workflow, they receive the PDF and you never hear from them again. With a workflow:
After a guide is downloaded
- The download
The contact enters the workflow, with the campaign source.
- Three days later
A useful email, related to the guide’s topic, with no sales offer.
- The signal
If they come back to the pricing page, the salesperson gets a task.
- Otherwise
A second email ten days later, then the contact joins the newsletter.
Two rules prevent drift: a contact who is already a customer leaves the workflow, and a contact who replies to an email is handed to a person. The line between marketing and sales is detailed in Marketing and sales: the handoff rule.
Example 2: a newsletter sent to fewer people
The reflex is to send every newsletter to the whole database. Contacts who have not opened anything for months then weigh on deliverability, and messages land in spam more often for everyone.
The approach: a segment of active contacts, a segment per main interest (based on pages viewed or content downloaded), and a re-engagement email for inactive contacts before removing them from sends. The full reasoning: Segmentation: send less, sell more, and for the technical side, Deliverability: why your emails end up in spam.
Example 3: one landing page per campaign
A LinkedIn campaign that sends people to the home page wastes its budget: the visitor does not find the ad’s promise. The landing page repeats that promise, offers only one action, and its form files the contact under the right campaign thanks to a hidden field. That is also what lets you know, three months later, which campaign produced which sales.
The routine that keeps the data clean
- Every week.
Merge the duplicates HubSpot suggests, after checking them.
- Every week.
Check that new contacts have their source, their company and their lifecycle stage.
- Every month.
Review the active workflows: which ones trigger, which ones are no longer needed.
- Every quarter.
Archive unused properties and review the segments.
Watch out
A forgotten workflow keeps sending
A workflow created for a past campaign keeps running until someone switches it off. It then sends a dated message to contacts who have nothing to do with it any more. The monthly review is first and foremost for that.
To go further on this last point: Cleaning CRM data.
Frequently asked questions
How many workflows do you need to start?
Few. One workflow after each important form on the website and one for signed customers cover the essentials. Three workflows reviewed every month are better than twenty that nobody understands any more. You add one when a need comes back every week, not because the tool allows it.
Who should be allowed to edit workflows?
One or two named people. A workflow edited by several hands without a rule ends up sending contradictory messages to the same contact. Other users suggest, the person who runs it edits. Each change carries a date and a reason, noted in the workflow description.
Should you delete inactive contacts?
Not necessarily delete them, but take them out of regular sends after a re-engagement email that got no reply. They weigh on deliverability and, depending on your plan, on the bill. How long you keep data is also a GDPR matter, as we point out in CRM and GDPR: retention and the right to erasure.
What if HubSpot costs more than it brings in?
Some companies use only a small part of their subscription. Before deciding, compare the cost over several years and what would be lost. We have described both paths in Migrating from HubSpot to an open source CRM in seven steps and CRM pricing: the three-year cost.
What we can take on
- Sequences, segments and sends, on your CRM: email marketing and CRM.
- The CRM itself, set up or replaced: CRM.
- The whole chain, from advertising to signed sale, with a single report: digital marketing.
Sources
- HubSpot Knowledge Base, Create workflows (new tab)knowledge.hubspot.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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