HubSpot is often praised for being powerful and incredibly versatile in their marketing, sales, and service hubs. Since launching their free CRM, they’ve added even more value for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
One of the best features of the platform is HubSpot lists. But to see the real value of how to use lists, first you need to learn what the HubSpot CRM is and how to set it up.
There is such a wide spread of CRM options available in the marketplace today, but its purpose and benefits may not be common knowledge. A CRM is essential in today’s digital business world for a number of reasons.
CRMs are a great tool when it comes to keeping up with your leads. You can keep track of your lead interactions, their behaviors, and the activity that’s taken place on both ends.
All of that data can help sales and marketing reps keep their teams and strategies aligned.
When a business first hits the ground, keeping track of the handful of contacts they may have earned is an easy task. But as the brand grows and more and more prospects are brought in, it becomes less and less feasible.
A CRM serves a business by managing that growing contact list, limiting the struggles the company may feel as it scales up.
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CRMs help sales and marketing reps by logging when they have communicated with a lead or prospect. They can record what was discussed and when, and can even schedule follow up calls or emails right there in the system.
When it comes to keeping an accurate and complete record of a lead’s history, there’s nothing better than a CRM system.
Decentralized data can create a lot of problems for salespeople because of disorganization, but a CRM provides all of a prospect’s info in one place.
As a business’ list of prospects grows, small tasks like follow ups and filling out forms can become hard to keep up with. CRMs help alleviate that pain for reps through automation features that can be applied to segmented lists.
CRMs can store all of your information in one place, allowing for a better analysis of your data as a whole. With a comprehensive system, reporting becomes much more accurate and in depth.
You can even customize what information you want analyzed so that you can make the most effective decisions as a rep.
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All of these different tools and features add up to making each individual team member’s job a lot easier to perform.
As a group, the benefits compound over the fact that multiple teams can easily access a centralized data system, giving everyone access to the same information.
Every department of your business can view a prospect’s history, leading to better service and a positive experience through the customer’s entire journey. Teams will be in sync with one another and their goals.
This can all be a bit overwhelming if you’re new to your CRM, but it should be assuring to know that you can achieve so much. The tough part is just knowing where to start.
All of the different tools available to you can make building your CRM feel much more complicated than it really is. Let’s go over how to set it up.
Your first order of business, if you already have a lot of data, should be to clean up your contacts. You don’t want to waste a lot of time transferring over old test data or fields that no longer serve you.
While you’re at it, set up a contingency plan just in case you lose any data while moving it to your new HubSpot CRM.
Take it slow. Migrate data one section at a time. This way, if you run into any issues, the amount of data affected will be limited.
To make it easier, you can import information using a spreadsheet or from your contacts in your email provider.
Installing the email extension and connecting your inbox will help by automatically logging all of your correspondences. The extension will actually allow you to look up important information without having to leave your inbox.
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Filters will help you in the long run by pulling together lists of related contacts based on certain information and criteria in your CRM. Depending on how much information you have, you can get incredibly specific on filtering based on certain properties.
These filters work in real time, so they make hunting through your data a much more efficient process.
This is actually where your sales team is going to live and breathe. They’ll need to familiarize themselves with where each contact is in your sales pipeline.
Within the CRM, you can define deal stages and drag and drop individual deals as they progress. This will provide a bird’s eye view of all their deals in play.
This is how you’ll actually capture leads on your site. HubSpot’s CRM has a JavaScript code that you can add to your website. Once that’s installed, you’re ready to build lead flows to drive lead generation.
Now that your CRM is up and running, you’re ready to focus on the next crucial component of the HubSpot CRM: lists.
Are you ready to build some lists? Are you psyched to get into creating the most impactful ones? If not, it’s probably because we need to answer a common question.
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This is a tool that’s going to work alongside your CRM and help you organize and track how your contacts relate to your company.
It's your go-to resource for many functions associated with your entire business. Marketing and sales especially benefit from lists.
When you break down your contacts into smaller groups based on commonalities, you’ll have an easier time tailoring your outreach so that your messages are more relevant and impactful. You’ll be able to build specific list types and pull valuable reports.
There are actually two different kinds of lists:
This type of list will refresh automatically, adding new contacts and deleting them based on criteria you set. Here's a quick guide to setting one up:
Source: HubSpot
Think of this kind as a sort of snapshot. They aren’t going to automatically refresh, so it’s on you to manually organize them.
Here are the steps on how to manually add a contact to a static list:
Source: HubSpot
You’d be surprised by how many different lists you can build. No matter what your goals are, you will find a list that will help drive results for your company.
Let’s take a look at each segmentation and run through a few examples of the lists you can build.
These lists are based off of how your users interact with your various channels.
These lists are centered around the actions your contacts take across your channels, including social, email, your website, and the like.
These lists focus on the overall health of your subscriber list for your email marketing efforts.
Defining your contacts based on their unique challenges and pain points will help with the content of your messages.
These lists will help you tailor messaging based on where a contact is in terms of their lifespan with your company.
As you can see, with the power of the HubSpot CRM and the lists you create, you’re well equipped to organize your life.
Marketing, sales, and service can align and build a proper system for managing contact information for long-term success.
Get your contacts in order, optimize your campaigns, and drive results. Your future self will thank you for it.