Use workflows and other tools to automate processes based on your organization's needs. Workflows can automate processes both within HubSpot and externally.
For example, Sprocket Supply Co., a sustainable office supply company, is attending a conference. Before the conference, a workflow is used to automatically send a series of informative marketing emails to potential customers. After the conference, workflows are used to evaluate and score leads who have signed up at the conference booth, assign them to different sales representatives, and send this information to a Google Sheet.
Review the following recommendations to determine which workflow templates, actions, and other tools align with your business goals.
Considerations when building your workflow
Before setting up a workflow and when building out your workflow, it's recommended to determine your workflow goals and manage your workflow structure.
Determine your workflow goals before building a workflow
Before setting up your workflow, it's important to determine the purpose or outcomes of the workflow. A workflow may have multiple goals.
For example, when building a lead nurturing workflow, you may want to consider whether each step of the workflow contributes to customer engagement, such as whether an offer is likely to result in customer conversions.
After completing the workflow, performance metrics can be used to create a segment of leads that are engaged and worth investing more effort into. Cold leads can then be removed as marketing contacts.
In this case, the workflow's outcomes include promoting a product, qualifying leads, and managing your account's marketing contacts. Use the purpose, outcomes, or quantitative workflow goals as guiding principles when selecting actions and building your workflow.
Manage your workflow structure when building a workflow
When automating your processes, it's recommended to have multiple workflows, each with a dedicated purpose, rather than building large and complex workflows that encompass multiple goals. When reviewing a well-configured workflow, it should be possible to discern the purpose of the workflow.
For example, after the conference, a sales manager at Sprocket Supply Co. creates one workflow for lead scoring and enrichment, and another for lead assignment.
Understand different HubSpot tools and features for your automation goals
Below, review different recommendation types for your automation and process goals. Before determining which approach to use to solve a business need, it's recommended to consider the different approaches available and whether they align with your goals, using automation or otherwise.
Each recommendation can be used separately, but in many instances, works best when used simultaneously. For example, while using a workflow template may be the quickest to implement, it may still be necessary to customize with additional workflow actions. Or, when managing your marketing contacts, it's recommended to both use maximum contact limits and a workflow to automatically update your marketing contact status.
-
Templates: automatically generate a template workflow with placeholder actions. Learn how to use templates to create workflows. You can also install templates from the HubSpot Marketplace.
-
Actions: individual actions recommended when configuring a workflow for a specific purpose. To achieve your goals, use different combinations of workflow actions, as well as outcomes from earlier actions with other actions in a workflow. Learn more about the different workflow actions available.
-
Other features: when working toward your business goals with automation, there may be different strategies available, including using other tools instead of, or together with workflows.
Workflow goals and recommendations
Below, you can review the following common business goals and possible ways to approach them, with using workflows and other automation tools, within HubSpot.
Nurture new contacts
Subscription required
A Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription is required to send automated emails with workflows.
As part of your digital marketing efforts, use email marketing to nurture new contacts to build brand loyalty, promote new products, and also qualify leads that are interested based on email clicks and opens.
| Recommendation |
Instead of spending time manually setting up workflows, use the following templates as starting points to build common lead nurturing workflows for new contacts. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. sends a welcome email with a list of products that they may be interested in (e.g., office chairs, printers, and more) to users who have registered on their website.
They can later enroll records into other workflows based on which product links customers have clicked on in this email. |
| Recommended workflow templates |
|
Nurture existing contacts
Subscription required
A Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription is required to send automated emails with workflows.
Similar to nurturing new contacts, use email marketing to continue building brand loyalty, promoting products based on your existing customers' interests, and also continue qualifying customers that may become your brand evangelists.
| Recommendation |
Instead of spending time manually setting up workflows, use the following workflow templates to build common lead nurturing workflows for existing contacts. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. uses a workflow to send a discount code to existing customers on their first purchase anniversary. This encourages customers to repurchase and acts as a reminder to refill any necessary office supplies. |
| Recommended workflow templates |
|
Prioritize the correct leads
Subscription required
A Marketing Hub or Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription is required to use the lead scoring tool.
Use different tools to ensure that you have all the necessary information to prioritize the right prospects and focus on companies already showing buying signals to shorten your sales cycle.
| Recommendation |
Use both workflows and other tools such as lead scoring, buyer intent, and prospecting agent to accurately identify high-value prospects.
Then, use workflows to enroll records to prospecting agent. Ensure that no potential deals are missed by notifying relevant stakeholders such as sales teams, individual reps, and sales managers. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. uses lead scoring to identify potential prospects. For example, customers in industries that often use paper and printing supplies, such as legal services, are scored higher.
When records reach a certain threshold and are considered qualified, they are automatically enrolled in prospecting agent using a workflow. Within the same workflow, a sales rep is notified with information on the prospect in the notification email.
|
| Recommended tools for qualifying leads |
|
| Recommended workflow templates |
|
| Recommended workflow actions |
|
Accurately assign leads
Subscription required
A Sales Hub or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription is required to use the Rotate record to owner workflow action.
Seats required
When assigning users with this action, users must have a paid sales or service seat.
Accurately and automatically assign records to sales reps to ensure that potential deals are managed in a timely manner.
| Recommendation |
In addition to the recommended workflow templates, if you have specific requirements for lead assignment, you can use workflow branching to route records based on properties such as country, company size, and industry. Then, use the Edit record workflow action to update the [object] owner property. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. receives a quotation request on their international website. Contacts are automatically directed to different branches in the workflow based on region, such as APAC, EMEA, and NAM.
Then, within the Rotate record to owner action, contacts are assigned to specific users based on random assignment. |
| Recommended workflow templates |
|
| Recommended workflow actions |
|
Accurately align data across different applications
When working across your tech stack, to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and that decisions are made with the most accurate information, you'll want to make sure that your data is synced between HubSpot and other external applications.
| Recommendation |
Use the import tool for one-time data transfers. To ensure that your data is continuously kept up to date, use data sync for one way, or bidirectional syncs.
When aligning your data, to ensure that data from HubSpot can be parsed across different platforms, use the Format data workflow action to standardize your property values. For example, use a custom formula function to remove any additional spaces and format your string as a number.
It is also recommended to use Agent Hub workflows if you'd like to take action or include specific pieces of data based on external applications. For example, you can trigger a workflow based on a webhook sent by your external application, then use data from that webhook with the Edit record workflow action to update your CRM record in HubSpot. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. manages marketing campaigns and assets from HubSpot, and direct sales from Salesforce. They keep their record information synced using the HubSpot-Salesforce integration.
When a contact is influenced by a campaign in HubSpot, they're added to a corresponding campaign in Salesforce using the Set a Salesforce campaign workflow action. This allows them to have accurate attribution reporting across their entire tech stack. |
| Recommended data management tools |
|
| Recommended workflow actions |
|
Use custom solutions in your workflows
Subscription required
A Data Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription is required to use the Custom code workflow action.
Beyond the existing actions available within the workflows tool, use custom code actions and create custom workflow actions to meet any specific automation requirements, both within HubSpot and externally.
| Recommendation |
For more complex business needs, you may require custom solutions for automating your processes. In these cases, use the Custom code workflow action to write and execute JavaScript or Python (beta) to extend workflow functionality both within HubSpot and externally.
When using custom code actions in the Agent Hub workflow builder, describe your required functionality within Breeze Assistant to automatically generate the corresponding code.
If you need to automate processes with external applications, create custom workflow actions to integrate your service within HubSpot's workflows. For example, create a workflow action to invoke a serverless function, or fetch options from external APIs. |
| Example |
Sprocket Supply Co. assigns leads within North America based on the postal code of the customer's business address. To do so, they build a custom HubDB table to store their lead assignment logic (e.g. postal code X is covered by owner Y). Then, within a workflow, they add a custom code action to use postal code as input, reference the HubDB table, and assign it with the corresponding owner.
After making a sale, a custom workflow action connected with their warehousing and logistics platform is used to create and send an order, using fields derived from corresponding property values such as order details, customer address, and more. |
| Recommended data management tools |
|
| Recommended workflow actions |
|
Manage marketing contacts
Subscription required
A Marketing Hub Starter, Professional, or Enterprise with marketing contacts subscription is required to use and manage marketing contacts.
Manage the number of marketing contacts in your account to both market to the contacts that have potential and still manage the volume of marketing contacts in your account.
| Recommendation |
In addition to the built-in tools such as maximum limits and user permission restrictions, use the Set marketing contact status workflow action to automatically manage the number of marketing contacts in your account. |
| Example |
To prioritize engaged contacts and manage their volume and costs surrounding marketing contacts, Sprocket Supply Co. uses a workflow to automatically set contacts as non-marketing when they've bounced from their marketing emails. |
| Recommended marketing contact management tools |
|
| Recommended workflow actions |
|
Additional resources
Marketing Hub
Professional, Enterprise
Sales Hub
Professional, Enterprise
Service Hub
Professional, Enterprise
Data Hub
Professional, Enterprise
Smart CRM
Professional, Enterprise
Revenue Hub
Professional, Enterprise
HubSpot Credits required for certain features
