I'm Courtney, HubSpot Academy Professor. Ask Me Anything!

[cbsembler]

I'm Courtney Sembler aka @cbsembler, the HubSpot Academy Professor specializing in contacts, email marketing, and automation. Ask me anything!

Some of your questions are going to be answered live during the HubSpot Academy Cap Show live broadcast, August 25th at 4 pm EST.  Don’t know what The Cap Show is? Check out previous episodes here.

As discussed on the last episode of The Cap, I am currently in the process of writing a blog series titled: Contacts: A Growth Stack Story (you can see the current posts here). The aim of this series is to help provide education around The Growth Stack and how it can help you be successful. If you have questions about the Growth Stack, contacts, automation or email marketing please post them here.

This AMA will be broadcast live on August 25th at 4:00 PM EST. I'll answer as many questions as I can on the show, and I'll answer all of the questions here on the thread after the show is over.

Ready, set, let's go! 

[lulupearse]

Brand new to HubSpot, brand new to inbound marketing. What's the first thing I should automate? (I use the full stack of Marketing tools - including Social, Blogging, Email). Thanks!

[taf]

How can I have Hubspot automatically pull my contact's social media info into their contact record? Surely I don't have to do this manually for every contact? 

[Anonymous]

In follow up to @lulupearse's question I'd like to know what HubSpot defines as 'automation'. I think a lot of people can interpret that term differently, or apply it to different workflows and strategies. 

[cbsembler]

Hello @taf, 

There will be information that gets pulled automatically onto a contacts record inside of HubSpot. You can see the information that is default in HubSpot here.

In addition, the above will tell you how it can get pulled in. If the information is not there for HubSpot to locate the information then you will have to add it in manually for that contact record. 

Thank you,

Courtney Sembler  

Inbound Professor  

[cbsembler]

Hi @lulupearse, 

Thank you for the question and hopefully, you tuned into The Cap on Friday! 

Automation refers to the software that exists to help you automate your marketing and sales actions. Many businesses automate repetitive tasks, such as email follow-up, social media, and other website actions in order to nurture contacts through their lifecycle.Automation is also used to assist with deal creation and internal notifications.

The first thing to ‘automate’ would be defining an offer for lead nurturing and then setting up a lead nurturing workflow to automate the process of automating nurturing your leads down the funnel to a content offer. I would suggest going through this Academy Module for Creating a Lead Nurturing Workflow. 

Best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[derekgillaspy]

Hi Courtney,

My question is about custom/personalized messaging vs. templates.

I've written a 5 message series that isn't performing well.

Since then, I've customized the first message to mention their business and something about them that I found on LinkedIn.  Then I let the other 4 messages run off the template.

This is a cold outreach to complete strangers as I represent a brand most have never heard of.

Any tips on whether the other 4 need to be custom as well?  That would slow me down significantly, but I'm not getting great results as is.

Appreciate any insight here.

Also - 

[mwhite051]

Hi @cbsembler, looking forward to your show. 

I recently read an article on the community about leveraging custom views and I really liked the emphasis it placed on finding custom properties for your contacts/companies and I'm wondering if you have any suggestions about the best way to collect this information. 

For example, I'd love to learn more about my users preferences and demographics (we're not using Google Analytics at this time) but I don't want to make them fill out a massive form, I'd like to get this information bit by bit to learn more as they explore my site/become more familiar with my brand. 

Do you have any suggestions for the best way to "stagger" the way in which I collect this information? Thank you! 

[cbsembler]

Hello @mwhite051, 

Thank you for the question and hopefully you were able to tune into The Cap on Friday. 

When looking at leveraging custom views we want to look at the information you are collecting on your forms. The best way to stagger this information is implementing Smart Fields and progressive profiling. 

Over time your leads are willing to provide a little more about themselves each time they visit your site looking for information about how you can help them achieve their goals. If HubSpot recognizes the user's cookie, previously captured form information will be are placed by new more qualifying questions.

This will allow you to gather more information over time on your leads without implementing long forms. 

Best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[abrock_GIXXY]

Hi Courtney. I received an email last week from Kyle Jepson at HubSpot Academy telling me there are updated courses on HubSpot Sales Software Certification. I'm just wondering if I need to take these new classes to retain my certification and also, will this be the new norm, instead of redoing the entire exam?

Thanks,

Anthony

[KyleJepson]

Hey Anthony!

Kyle, here. Just wanted to jump in and tell you that your certification is valid for a year from the time you got it. The new content doesn't invalidate it. But when your certification expires, I definitely recommend going through the new material. The changes were based on feedback we've received and updates that have been made to the software itself, so a lot has changed.

For details about what changed and why, check out this writeup: https://blog.hubspot.com/customers/the-new-hubspot-sales-software-certification

Let me know if you have questions!

Kyle

[rosa4]

Hey @cbsembler! What role do you think email will play in the next generation of Inbound marketing? Do you think instant messengers and in-app inboxes are disrupters? 

[cbsembler]

Hello @rosa4, 

Thank you for this question! I love discussing what email will look like in the next generation of Inbound Marketing. Hopefully, you were able to tune into The Cap on Friday as well. 

Email is not going anywhere. We are not going to outgrow it. Email will play a large role in the next generation but it will be hyper personalized and be connecting more platforms.

Instant messengers and in app-inboxes will just push email to be more and more real time. The next generation we will see it is a platform that with connect with all of these channels to be personalized and instant.

It is not dying but changing the way it helps us be productive to adapt. In the future, we are going to see email work smarter to help us.

Best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[Anonymous]

I have members on my team looking to level up their HubSpot and INBOUND skills and knowledge. Where should they start? Certificates, projects, video training, live training days? There's a lot to choose from. 

[cbsembler]

Hello @Anonymous, 

There are many options to aid different learning styles and time frames. I always suggest getting Certified first. This allows you a full walk-through of topics and tools and then tests you on the skills you have learned. 

If you are looking for shorter tracks of learning you can check Academy Modules. In addition, on September 25th to kick-off INBOUND17 we will have a HubSpot Training Day in Boston if you are looking for a concentrated learning experience. 

All the best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[rayckay91]

Hey @cbsembler off the bat of your Growth Stack content I have a question:

How do you think Sales and Marketing teams should be working together when it comes to contacts on your HubSpot database? Who should own lead scoring  - Sales/Marketing or both? I'd love to know also how teams can partner an automation, e.g. using workflows. 

[cbsembler]

Hello @rayckay91, 

This is a great question! As much as possible have your marketing and sales working together. The conversation around lead scoring needs to include both what sales and marketing consider a qualified lead.

I would highly suggest going through this Blog Post on scoring leads. 

Best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[SquareBox]

Hi Courtney,

My question is, how do I change my email address for task notifications?  My hub id is 1939110.

thank you

[Bertrand1]

Hi

I want to use Hubspot CRM not only for my sales force but also for my resell partners. They will be provided with an access to enter Leads and manage the transactions. 

I have one issue which is that partner can access Admin/ User & Team. This means that they can see other users from other teams i.e other partners working with my company. I do not want that. Is there a way to forbidd the access to this TAB to partners.

Thank you

Bertrand

[cbsembler]

Hello @Bertrand1, 

Thank you for your question. 

When looking at limiting Admin/User and Team access you can remove the 'Super-Admin' access from the Partners, shown here. Then once you do that you can customize permissions for Contacts where they can view, edit, add, etc. and remove admin access so they can't see, add, edit users. 

You can also review the different types of permissions you can give someone here. 

All the best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[Brian147]

Hi Courtney

I recently downloaded hubspot and am now beginning to import my contacts from csv. All good so far.

However, I am using Outlook through Office365 and when I try and send an email from my contact list, it is using an email from our server, not the sales email that I have on the hubspot account. I have looked everywhere and cannot for the life of me see where the email it is using is on the hubspot account. It should be directed to sales@nightowlsecurity.ie as per the default email in my settings.

Please help. My Hub ID is 3811039.

[SpencerU]

I have been provided a database that is a MESS and despirately needs to be cleaned up. 

How do I identify all bad emails and what do you suggest I do with the obviously incorrect emails once identified?  ie. 123@123outlook.com

Also, what is one item a database you suggest to remove immediately?  I am paying for contacts that are obviosuly no benefit to my company so I need to make moves on this cleanup immediately. 

[cbsembler]

Hello @SpencerU, 

This is a great time to do a Contacts Database Clean-Up. We have a few HubSpot Academy Projects targeted to walking you through cleaning up your database. 

I have listed them below: 

1. Contacts Clean-Up Project 
2. Setting-Up Your Database correctly (Module-highly recommend) 
3. Six Ways to Keep your Data clean 

With the contacts that have bad email addresses, I would remove them from your database or send a campaign to clean-up those lists. You can follow the steps to do that here. 

Please let me know if you have any more questions. 

All the best, 

Courtney Sembler 

Inbound Professor 

[kgregorakis]

Courtney, I want to learn about integration of HubSpot with SalesForce to sync activities, emails, etc.

can you help me understand the process and the cost?

thanks!

[rakhal]

Hi Courtney,

I am Rakhal. I am doing a Hubspot Academy course-Inbound Sales.

With the entire idea of Inbound with being human and empathetic , how can any business push sales of products which are of no greater use to the customer but more of an impulse buy product.

[KyleJepson]

Hi Rakhal,

My name's Kyle; I worked on the Inbound Sales course. Most of the content in that course assumes that you're selling a product that requires multiple sales conversations, negotiating on price, etc. For an impulse buy, or really for anything that can be purchased online without talking to a sales person, I think you'd be better off leaning into inbound marketing techniques and a solid eCommerce strategy. We have a course on this as well. Check it out and let us know if it helps!

Thanks,

Kyle