The ability to have access to this function is absolutely paramount. Seeing as it is now over five years since this issue has been flagged, I think it’s shocking that it hasn’t been addressed but HubSpot dev teams.
I have recently had a number of decent leads pretty much invalidated due to an issue with a variable (Contact: First name) which didn’t populate and sent a load of emails saying “Hi [Name]”, which as we all know is the equivaent of marketing/sales suicide. If I had the ability to check a Sequence first, those expensive leads would not have been wasted. I have used Outreach and SalesLoft extensively, both of which have this functionality pretty much baked in.
From what I see, the functionality already sits within HubSpot but it needs tying in at the back end. Here’s my suggestion for the HubSpot architects to create test sequences that we can use:
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Go to the Actions in option on the Sequence you have created and have a ‘Test Sequence’ option (which in essence would just be a clone of the Sequence)
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When the ‘Test Sequence’ is created, allocate by default the creators (or user if shared) email to that Test Sequence and name the cloned Sequence "TEST - *whatever the name of the Sequence is* and allow you to save it.
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Once saved, when you go into this test Sequence, have a button on each of the email steps saying “Send Test Email” which will then send it
instantaneously, which will enable the user to check variable and formatting etc etc
As said, the functionality is there (cloning sequence, sending template email directly from contact records etc etc), and this really is a feature that should be standard in this software.
If I were looking to purchase a Sequencing tool, and if I knew this functionality was not available, it would not be a product I would go for. Marketing leads are expensive, and if we are unable to ensure that our contact with our leads is not as we intend, it will be an ongoing and very costly mistake