Looking for advice on building a workflow to send renewal reminders

[ank1t]

We sell a products annual subscription. We want to setup a workflow to automatically send subscription renewal reminders via hubspot email 10 days, 7 days and 3 days before product expiry date.

I have created and synced a property in HubSpot called "Product Expiration Date".

I have set it up with a property based Workflow checking if expiry date is between:

a. 11 and 9 days > Trigger an email

b. 8 and 6 days > Trigger an email

c. 4 and 2 days > Trigger an email

 Workflow end.

The workflow (http://imgur.com/a/odICT) is very complex. I am hoping there should a better way to set this up. Please advise. Thanks.

[louischausse]

We've built a Recipe to handle Renewals. A Recipe is a small process that you can install in your HubSpot portal. This doesn't require any third-party tool.

Here's a video of how it works:

Watch the video!

Renewal deals are created automatically for each closed-won deals with a known contract end date. Then, a task is generated with a reminder date XX days before that contract end date to notify the deal owner (or another user of your choice) that the renewal is coming soon.

Other settings and configurations are also available to suit your use case.

If you are interested, we can have a chat to setup this recipe on your HubSpot portal.

Learn more here

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hi There,

You're definitely on the right track! You actually can drastically simplify the workflow you have by getting rid of the if/then branches! With a Property-Based workflow, you can time your workflow actions to be exactly the number of days before/after the Date Property you want! Here is a screenshot of a similar worflow I've created as an example:

You have the structure of the workflow set up perfectly already! But since the Property-Based workflow delays already execute the next steps at the appropriate times (e.g. 10 days before the Expiration Date), you don't need to use if/then logic to check the Expiration Date. Phil had it right; your next steps could be to add a Goal List that could unenroll contacts who have renewed. That way, you're able to report on how many contacts have renewed as a result of this workflow.

Best of luck! Let me know if I can help clear anything up!

Best,

Derek Gervais

Customer Support Specialist - Workflows & List Logic

[ank1t]

Thanks folks for your answers. The reason I created the workflow with if-then logic is becuase HubSpot would not let me enroll contacts whose subscription expiry date is in future. Even at smartlist level the options that re available to filter against date are for past.

- was less than X days

- was more than X days

There is nothing like "is less than X days" available.

This is the response I have from Hubspot technical support:

Spoiler

I am going to be digging deeper into this issue for you. It appears that creating workflows or smartlist based on values in the future may prove difficult. I appreciate your patience on this matter and will reach back out to you when I have more information.

[cbsembler]

Hello! 

To go off of what Phil was suggesting above, the best way to work around having mutltiple If/Then branches would be to: 

• Create a Standard Workflow
• Starting Criteria: Enroll based of 'Product Exp. Date' is less than 11 Days 
• Set Goal of Workflow (More information on Workflow Goals located here) 
• Email One 11>9 Days 
• Delay of X Days 
• Email Two 8>6 Days 
• etc. 

To make sure everyone is unenrolled properly you will want to set the Goal to be Contact Property> 'Product Exp. Date' is more than 11 Days, meaning they have re-newed. 

Please let us know if you have anymore questions regarding building this workflow! 

Good Luck 🙂 

-Courtney Sembler, Inbound Professor 

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi ank1t,

Let's see if we can help you here. 

I think it may be possible to remove the if/then branches from your workflow. 

Presumably these are there to prevent reminder emails being sent to contacts that have already renewed? 

You could change this workflow so that when contacts no longer meet the starting condition - product expiration date is less than 11 days away - they are unenrolled from the workflow, meaning they will not be sent any more reminders. 

This approach may impact workflow reporting however, not sure. 

Another approach would be to create a goal condition that stopped the workflow from sending emails in renewal took place. 

The goal could be based on the product expiration date going over 11 days again or on the contact joining a list of renewing contacts. 

Does that sound like it meets your requirements? 

Let me know if I missed anything. 

[roisinkirby]

Great question! This isn't a workflow I personally have experience with building myself, but thought I'd tag a few marketing product experts to share their advice. 

@ndwilliams3, @Pablo, @Phil_Vallender, @Josh have any of you built workflows to this effect before, or worked with colleagues/clients who have?

Thanks for sharing your work @ank1t, it's great to see content/examples like this shared.