Maximizing Lead Generation with HubSpot CRM & Zapier

jeffreyr · ‎oct. 5, 2015

How did you hear about our company? That common question leads to an array of answers, such as a web search, word of mouth, news story, or reviews blog. And just as your customers learn about your product in a variety of ways, so too do they come to you: some through your website's contact form, others through a trade show booth and some through personal email correspondence. Many leads from many places. That's the way it is.

If you aren't yet using a system like HubSpot's marketing platform, you might not have a streamlined way to funnel leads from the various tools you use into HubSpot CRM. (Even if you are, there's a good chance you may be using some outside tools that aren't connected to the rest of your marketing machine.)

Either way, the service we'll introduce you to today ensures you'll no longer need to import a CSV file or execute a copy-and-paste routine again. Zapier, a free tool that connects to HubSpot CRM, can pull leads into your CRM from over 500 complementary apps, such as Typeform, MailChimp, and Google Sheets.

How to Use Zapier with HubSpot CRM

When setting up Zapier, you customize how you want your data used in HubSpot CRM.

Zapier makes it easy to create automation in HubSpot CRM when an action takes place in another app. For example, you could set up a Zapier automation—called a "Zap"—to create new HubSpot contacts from new Wufoo form entries. Once you set up the Zap, you'd never again need to manually export form entries from Wufoo and import them into HubSpot CRM. Zapier moves the data for you.

Here are five ways to automatically start importing new leads into your CRM. To get started setting up an automation, click "Use this Zap".

1. Turn Form Entries into Contacts

If you're not using a HubSpot form to generate leads for your business, odds are you rely on Google Forms, Wufoo, Gravity Forms or another online form tool. No matter what it is you use, Zapier connects it to HubSpot CRM so you no longer need to worry about importing new entries.

This is how the EssentialSkillz Health and Safety eLearning employs Zapier to assure they get in touch with marketing qualified leads.

"When a potential large account submits a Free Trial request through the Wufoo form embedded on our webpage, it goes to one of business development manager and the long sales process begins," says Greg Micyk, a marketing manager at the company.

"We have to set up trial account manually for now but having all the data in CRM system makes all the communication much faster not to mention the fact that predefined templates can streamline the whole process."

Here are integrations for three of the top form apps, for more see the HubSpot CRM form integrations on Zapier.

2. Parse Contacts Details from Emails

If you find that your web form or lead generation app isn't integrated with Zapier, however, there's a free tool they've created just for this scenario. The Zapier Email Parser allows you to automatically extract important information from incoming emails, such as a lead's name, company, email, mailing address and phone number.

Muvi Studio, a video on demand software provider, has a contact page form that didn't integrate with HubSpot CRM. Their first option: enlist their developers to build a custom integration themselves.

"Unfortunately, I could not spare my dev's to work on this, as they were working on some important timelines and client work," says Viraj Mehta, Muvi's head of international business. "That's when I stumbled upon Zapier, and in just about 30 minutes I was able to find a way using a Zap!"

Mehta says with Zapier part of the equation there's more accountability for the sales team and less errors on manually importing contacts from their inboxes into their CRM.

"This has also helped the dev team to stay focused on the core tasks and not have to worry about maintaining one more set of APIs and codes."

3. Create Contacts from Business Cards

Think to the last time you attended a trade show or worked a booth at an expo. How many business cards did you collect? More important, how many of the new contacts did you add to your CRM? With the FullContact Card Reader and Zapier, the answer to that question will easily be "all of them." Just scan the card with your phone and within minutes, a new contact is added to HubSpot CRM.

4. Alert Team Members of Hot Leads

Now that you've automated importing new leads, use Zapier to trigger notifications to your sales team so that they act fast.

"As a small startup, we depend on automation heavily to do things we don't have staff to do," says Nik Martin, founder of NitroPCR, the maker of patient care report software. "One is managing the inbound marketing funnel. We want to make sure the right people are notified when someone fills out a request on our website, and that that request gets handled ASAP."

NitroPCR meets its goal thanks to Zapier.

"Once a user's HubSpot CRM status changes to 'Lead,' Zapier sends a Twilio SMS to our sales SMS group so that we can reach out from wherever we are to them," says Martin from NitroPCR. "Since we are so small, we may not be at our desks when that SMS comes in, and we still want to reach out quickly. These Zaps have been tremendous in keeping our CRM in good working order, and helps us stay on top of our sales and marketing efforts, and to nurture our customers and prospects."

Whether it's SMS, mobile push notifications or a team messaging app like Slack, Zapier can connect the tools.

"We are a partially remote team and rely on Slack for all communication," says Christopher Merrill, founder of digital agency WhatArmy. "When we have a Marketing Qualified Lead it typically has some urgency to it—by having a Zap that posts to both a #sales channel as well as direct messages the assigned Salesperson they can engage faster than a HubSpot notification or email."

Before Zapier, Merrill says, leads would get assigned and only picked up when the sales team was checking emails. Now, it's immediate. <script src="https://zapier.com/zapbook/embed/widget.js?guided_zaps=6303" type="text/javascript"></script>
Custom notifications can be triggered for new contacts, too.

5. Adds Leads to an Email Marketing List

With leads piling up in your CRM and your sales team busy, there's only one piece left to put in place: automated follow-up. Of course, HubSpot can help you execute this task, but if you're already relying on another tool, such as MailChimp, you're in need of an integration. Turn to Zapier to help here, too.

"Once a contact is in HubSpot CRM, we have five Zaps that we automate various things with, based on changes to a CRM Contact's record," says Martin of NitroPCR.

"Once a user is converted in the CRM from 'Lead' to 'Customer', for example, we move them to a customer segment in Mailchimp using a Zap, and we can then send them customer related emails."

This works the other way, too. "If a lead is set to status 'Unqualified', we unsubscribe them from our MailChimp list, so we don't bug them," Martin says.

Create Your Own Automation

Whether it's connecting a form app, extracting important information from email or transcribing business cards, Zapier makes it easy to get leads into HubSpot CRM. And as you saw with the integrations between apps like Slack and MailChimp, there are dozens of possibilities beyond importing leads. So whether or not you need Zapier today, keep it in mind for HubSpot CRM integrations—if there's an app you need integrated, Zapier likely supports it.

Releases and Updates