Using custom field + internal naming conventions to trigger corresponding Workflows
Hey guys,
I used Hubspot the last 2,5 years and recently joined a new job where we are currently setting up the whole automation engine.
We use a custom field called "Lead Source Campaign" which basically tracks interactions relating to associated campaigns.
My main intent was to build a number of corresponding Workflows that would be triggered based on a common name convention for campaign.
Example A:
An external contact downloads a white paper via a form. The campaign is called "WP_NAME_DATE_BUYERS JOURNEY_PERSONA". The buyer's journey stage would be here: Awareness. A workflow with the filter "enroll contact with #Lead Source Campaign containing 'Awareness'" will enroll this contact in a defined workflow that will guide this contact with aditional nurturing. Once finished he gets enrolled in the 'Consideration' WF and so on.
Example B:
An known lead takes part in a webinar. The campaign is called "Webinar_NAME_DATE_Consideration_PERSONA". Same process: The workflow with the correspodning filter checking the naming convention of this campaign will enroll this lead into the Consideration WF.
So:
A name convention would be the starting point of a customized WF based on the lead journey:
Awareness_Sales -> WF customized for Sales contacts in the awareness stage. Once finished -> enroll in Consideration WF.
Consideration_Service -> WF customized for Service contacts in the consideration stage. Once finished -> enroll in Decision WF.
My goal here was to minimize the need of forms while offering a high level of personalization by relying on a clear naming convention that triggers the relating nurturing. In the past I was used to build nurturing and followup wf from scratch, but I think this approach will facilitate the overall nurturing.
As the custom field should be overwritten once a contact does an action that is not meant to be his sales stage, he would be enroled in the corresponding wf or stays if he is doing another activity that is part of his journey.
He could be still rolled out once the contact reached a certain engagement score as he might be ready for sales qualification.
Do you see any concerns in this set up?
Feel free to share your thoughts or best practices on this.
As I was reading through your thread two thoughts occurred to me: 1. make sure you use a custom field to keep track of what "stage" they are in, and 2. consider using lead scoring to move them in or out.
I definitely read that you are using a custom field that has no other purpose other than to document what stage your contact is in and be the trigger for the various WFs. I think is is very smart. Be very, very mindful if you ever think to use that field for some other purpose.
Towards the end you mentioned something about lead scoring so I'm guessing you're using it as a back up. I think this could help your contacts jump WFs if they demonstrate enough behaviors that ramp up their score. So perhaps your advanced WFs are, "If contact is enrolled or has a lead score that is 70 to 79, remove from all other WFs and enroll here."
Using the Lead Scoring was my only other thought for your plan. It could give you an automated way to jump your contacts around if they go quiet or get really excited.
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while building the overall process, I also came across the idea, just using a score system. At this moment we do not use the smart scoring that hubspot is offering, so we would probably set up a list of "lead actions" and their corresponding "Score" values, like: webinar attendance = 25, Download WP = 16, Blog Visit = 2.
It would be another custom field like "Engagement Score" and we could define a certain goal, that would automatically convert them into an MQL.
To me the "Decision Stage" for example does not fit inbetween that Lead <-> MQL intervall. I would locate it more into the actual Sales Funnel (my use case is in a b2b software context). But we could certainly just go beyond the previos MQL Engagement Score Goal and to keep those nurtured, even if Sales is working on them (as long they do not want to exclude them).
I will certainly try to refine the overall approach. It would be just awesome, if the set-up would allow to build future campaign that automatically a covered by upcoming nurturing wf, without connecting them everytime from scratch, by using a trigger criteria.
