HubSpot Automation Tutorial | Workflows & Sequences Explained

Key Takeaways

New to HubSpot automation. In today's video, we are going to break down exactly how automation works inside HubSpot. No stress, no tech headaches. Hi, I'm Talita. I'm a HubSpot expert and marketing automation consultant, and I've been teaching professionals how to use HubSpot since 2018. Now, one of my favorite things about teaching HubSpot is the reaction people have when I tell them we're diving into automation. I've literally had a client whisper once, "I'm afraid of workflows. She secretly told me she once cried over a HubSpot workflow. Honestly, I get it. Automation has a reputation for being complicated. Here's the flip side, though. The automation fanatics. They're like, "Look at all the time I saved." Meanwhile, HubSpot is sending emails for them while they're sipping a glass of wine in the couch. Whichever side you're on, stick with me because today we're going to make HubSpot automation easy and even kind of fun. Before we go ahead though, working with HubSpot automation requires basic HubSpot knowledge. If you're not familiar with the CRM properties and other basic features, please watch my HubSpot CRM tutorial before. The link is below. First things first, what is automation? At its core, automation is just letting software handle your repetitive tasks so you don't have to. Instead of manually sending reminders, updating records or following up with leads one by one, HubSpot can do that for you in the background while you focus on, you know, other high priority items in your checklist. So yes, HubSpot is a very powerful CRM, a tool where you can manage your contacts database, but HubSpot is also very powerful automation machine. Can I automate attending this boring meeting here? No, you can't really automate that. But here are some examples of things you can actually automate inside HubSpot. Email campaigns. Classic drip sequences to nurture leads. Lead management. Automatically assigning contacts to the right sales rep. Data updates. Tagging people who filled out a specific form. Follow-ups. Sending reminders after meetings or demos. Basically, if it's repetitive, HubSpot probably has a way to automate. Here's an example of an automation process inside HubSpot. As soon as someone fills out my form on the website, my consultation request form, I'm automating a series of emails. It's a drip campaign. This is a workflow representing a drip campaign that I'm automating. Inside HubSpot, the two main automation tools are workflows and sequences. Let's talk about the differences. Workflows are located here inside the automation menu. Workflows are big picture automation. Here's an example of a workflow. Workflows are like building a custom machine that runs your marketing and operations in the background. Sequences are located here inside the sales menu. Sequences are more personal. Think of them as your sales assistant who makes sure no lead slips through the cracks. Here's an example of a sales sequence inside HubSpot. Sequences are typically used by sales professionals using HubSpot. Whereas workflows are typically used by marketing professionals as well as anyone else in the business, operations reps, the founder, and so on and so on. Sequences are typically used by sales reps for one-to-one outreach, like sending a series of personalized emails to a prospect and setting reminders for follow-ups. Workflows, on the other hand, are broader and more flexible. They're usually used by, you know, marketing operations or service teams to automate larger processes. Before we dive into building automation, it's important to know that both workflows and sequences require access to specific HubSpot subscriptions. Workflows are available in the marketing hub professional and above accounts. While sequences live inside the sales hub professional and above. So if you don't have these options in your account, it's not you, it's just your plan. Okay, let's get hands-on and let's learn how to build HubSpot automation. We're going to get started with workflows first. You'll find workflows inside automation workflows. This is my workflows overview. This is where I can see all the workflows I've created inside my account. To create a new workflow, you're going to navigate to a create workflow. There are different types of options to go ahead with here. You can get started from scratch, creating a workflow from zero. You can also use a template and you can also use AI to create a workflows. We're going to talk about this later in the end of this tutorial. For now, let's just click from scratch. When you click to create a workflow, you're going to land on this page here. Think of workflows as a visual diagram of a process. They always need two things. A trigger, which kicks off the workflow. For example, someone fills out a form or they visit your pricing page. They are part of a specific list, something like that. And an action, what happens after the trigger? This could be send an email, add them to a list, update a property or something like that. Let's build the most classic workflow together, an email nurture sequence. Okay. So, for this email sequence that we're going to create, we are going to use a trigger based on a form submission. This is the easiest way getting started with workflows inside HubSpot. So when I click to create a trigger here, the example that I want to give you is the following. We are going to add a trigger based on a form event. It's added to this section here, websites and media. Okay, I'm going to explain the other options in a second. Stick with me here for now. So form events. When you click on that option, you can see that you can select a workflow trigger based on when someone interacts with a form, when someone submits a form, and when someone views a form. Let's go ahead with the option form submission. And this is by far, let's say, classic option that we go for when creating an email sequence. Someone submits a form, they receive a series of emails. I want to go ahead with this form here, a consultation request. Okay? And so, basically, this is my trigger right here. All I have to do is click here. Make sure that I don't want to add additional filters. Let me just skip this for now to make this easier. And then click to save and continue. Okay. So, this is how I select a trigger. I click on the box. I select my option here in the left sidebar. I click to save and then the trigger gets added here. So for this example that I'm going to give you, the form submission is a trigger. Okay, someone goes to my website, they fill out the consultation request form and what happens next. Okay, so now that we have this trigger here, let's just pause for a moment. I want to explain to you the other options that we have when selecting triggers for a workflow. Great. So the workflow that we've created so far is this one here. Okay, based on a form submission as a trigger. I'll keep this here and I'll create a new workflow just to show you the other option. Okay, I'm really just showing you the other options that we have for triggers here. So the very first option is trigger manually. So you see how what we did previously is an automated trigger, meaning someone goes to the website, they fill out a form, then they automatically get added to the workflow. This is an automated trigger, right? I can also manually add people to my workflow. I can manually add people to email sequence and this is this exact option here, trigger manually. Okay. So, choose a type of record that can enroll. Let's say in this email email sequence here, I want to be enrolling contacts from now on. All I have to do is click to save and continue. And later on, when I turn on that workflow, I can start manually adding people to my email sequence. Okay, this is what this option here is about, trigger menu. Okay, met filter criteria. Just so that you know, let's say that we want to enroll contacts that meet specific conditions such as, for example, they are part of a specific list, right? They're part of my founders list or something like that. Or something like they, you know, their job title is founder, right? I would, I could do this based on a property called job title, job title. And then I just have to select the option founder here. I'm really just showing you all these different options that you have. Okay, so this is a trigger based on conditions. Okay, when someone meets those specific conditions, they get added to the workflow. Okay, so this is this other option that I have here. Let me just pull back. Met filter criteria. Good. What else do I have here? On a schedule, you can start workflows at specific times or dates. You can choose in the calendar here. Suppose that you want to have a workflow that runs every Monday morning or something like that, right? You just have to adjust this here. And then we have a few additional options here. I don't want to spend too much time here because at the end of the day, my goal is to build a simple email sequence together with you. But just so that you know, data values, these triggers are around CRM properties being created, updated or changed. So you know how we have different types of properties inside HubSpot, right? For example, we have bunch of different contact properties, job title, country and so on and so on. So this would be more around information right that we have inside HubSpot and and when this information changes, gets updated, gets created and things like that. Okay, emails, calls and communication. You can trigger workflow for when an email is opened, a reply is logged, a call happens for example, right? A meeting was booked with me, something like that. Websites and media is this option that we went for previously here in the lecture. So you can trigger workflow from when someone views a specific page on the website, website events, they interact with a specific form or an ad, something like that. Automations trigger is all about things that happen in other sequences or other workflows. And to finalize, this is a more advanced option here. Custom events and external events. These are usually they some of them need developer setup or custom coded integrations, but just so that you know you have advanced options here. you can, you know, work with web hooks, app events, right? Something happens on a specific app that I have connected with HubSpot and things like that. I know that this was a lot of information, but you don't have to memorize any of this. I'm adding an article for you in the description of this video so you can read more about different types of triggers. Okay, I was just showing you around. Let's go back to that workflow we started creating previously based on a form submission as a trigger. Good. Once you have your trigger, the next step is to add actions. What is the action that we want to add to an email sequence? Emails, right? We want to add emails inside our email sequence. This emails will be sent automatically to the contact that gets enrolled into the sequence. And so I will add an email here to my workflow by using the communications type of action. Send email. This is the option I'm going for here. Okay. So I want to choose the email consultation request follow-up one. I want to save this and then I want to add the other emails of my sequence by following the exact same steps. Okay, so this is how you add emails to a workflow inside HubSpot. So I have three emails in my sequence. That goes without saying that before I'm able to use emails inside a workflow, I have to have them created in the first place. So an email needs to be created inside the HubSpot marketing hub. It needs to be published for automation in order for me to use these emails here. Okay, but here are my emails. Email one, email two, email three. Good. Let's do the same thing as we did just now. Let me just show you around the other types of actions that you have inside workflows. But for our example, we'll stick to these ones here. Okay, let me just show you the other options that you have. Okay, so when you click to add an action, this is the list you're going to see. Let's get started here. It's easier to understand. Communication related actions are like sending an email, creating an internal notification like an alert to your team members and something like that or logging communication with a contact or anything that has to do with communication, automated communication inside a workflow will be located here. Okay, good. CRM, you can also update records and properties inside your CRM in an automated way. These are the options that you're going to use. For example, here you can get HubSpot to automatically create a task, automatically create a record like a new contact or a deal. You can get HubSpot to update information about someone or right this is all related to yes updating records, you know, updating properties, updating data inside HubSpot. Here's another example. You can change someone's life cycle stage to customer, right? I would be going for this option here addit record and I could choose the property life cycle stage and I could update this to customer something like that. So this is my workflow you know automatically updating people's life cycle stage. So the CRM I'm not going to save this the CRM related actions are associated with data that that has changed marketing you can you know manage lists and audience for instance you can add someone to a retargeting ads list the second they hit your pricing page here's an example right you can remove people from lists as well so these actions have to do with marketing options data ops advanced stuff once again like creating you know working with web hooks running code for customcoded integrations Right? I would definitely recommend you to explore these options here if you're getting started. You can also leverage AI to add actions for you. We're going to talk about this topic at the end of this video. Okay, just so that you know, when you're creating multiple branches in your workflows, you're going to be working with the option branches here. Okay, so this is a logic tool. A branching is like choosing your own adventure, so to say. You can work with if then conditions that let contacts follow different paths. Okay, for example, if they engage with my email, send them to path one. If they don't, send them to path two and stuff like that. Right? These are the branches that you can add to your workflows. Go to workflow. It really helps you connect steps or even jump to another workflow. Okay? And delay. I left this one as the last concept I wanted to explain on purpose because we'll be adding delays in between our emails. Okay. So, let me go back to the workflow we were creating previously and let me add delays together with you. So, I'm creating an email sequence inside HubSpot. If I turn this on exactly as it is, someone might potentially receive these three emails at the exact same time, like in the exact same second. We don't want this to happen, right? We want them to have a break, right? We want to send email one, wait a few days, send email two, wait a few days, and send email three. This is how email sequences work. You typically have an email, a delay, an email delay, and so on and so on. So, let me just click here to add a delay together with you. You can select a delay based on different things. Okay? Wait until a certain calendar date like wait until a specific date in the calendar or wait until they do something. Wait until the contact engages with my email or wait until they I don't know change to late status open or something like that. The easiest type of delay you can set up inside a workflow is this one here. for a set amount of time. All you have to do is choose how many days you want for your delay and click to save. This way, email one gets sent. We wait five days and then we send email two. Okay, this avoids that they receive multiple emails at the exact same time. I would definitely come here and follow the exact same steps to add more delays as well. So, let me just do for this one 7 days. Perfect. So, here is my email sequence inside HubSpot. Email one, email two, and email 3. Okay. With a few delays in between. Great. This is an email sequence created from scratch inside HubSpot workflows. When you're ready with your workflow, you're going to click on where it says review and publish. There are few different settings to look at here. We're going to go through them briefly because we have a lot to cover in this video. So, let me just explain the most relevant things you have to consider here. This is where you decide who gets enrolled into your workflow. HubSpot shows you if any contacts in your CRM already meet that criteria and lets you choose whether to include them or only future ones. In this case here, HubSpot is telling me that currently in my CRM, two people meet my trigger criteria. They have filled out the consultation request form. So, do I want to enroll them into my workflow or not? This is the option that I have to choose here. Okay, for this specific situation, I could go ahead with any option, right? I can send these two contacts this emails here. But if by any chance I don't really want current contacts to you know receive this emails here perhaps they already have received a similar type of communication in the past or something like that then you know I would go ahead with this option only enroll future contacts who meet the enrollment criteria. Okay this is what this option is about. Good. Let's just talk a little bit about reenrollment quickly. Do you want contacts to go through this workflow again if they meet the criteria later? Suppose someone fills out this form twice. Do they get enrolled twice into the workflow? Yes or no? This is an option you have here. Unenrollment rules. For example, if a contact is added to a specific list like I don't want to enroll these people. So you create a list, right? If they reach a specific goal or they no longer meet the criteria of your trigger, do you want them to be removed from the workflow? Yes or no? Okay, so these are the options you have here as well. As I keep reviewing these options, I can keep clicking on next. This is just for you to know what this workflow is connected with. And when I'm ready with my workflow, I will review everything, make sure everything is ready to go, and I'm going to click to turn on workflow. So, this is how you create a HubSpot workflow from scratch. All right, let's talk about sales sequences inside house. Sequences are located here. Okay, this feature is blocked for specific types of HubSpot accounts. So, make sure you have access to this before you go ahead to create a sequence. Right. To create a sequence, you are going to click here, create sequence. Remember how workflows are big automated processes that can touch marketing, sales, and even operations. Sequences are more focused. They are mainly designed for sales reps or, I don't know, founders doing their own outreach. Think of sequences as your personal sales assistant. Okay? Instead of you manually sending a follow-up email or creating a task to call someone, HubSpot does this for you. This is essentially why you create a sequence. Let me go ahead with this option here. Start from scratch and click to create a sequence. Good. Here's what sequences can do. You can send people automated emails the exact same way we added automated emails inside a workflow. You can do the same thing inside a sequence. Okay. Sequences can also create tasks for you. A task reminding you to call someone. A task reminding you to send someone a manual email. an email that you create from scratch or just a general task for you to do something else. If you have HubSpot connected with your LinkedIn account, sequences also allow you to send someone a connection request or an email. Okay, it's really easy to add steps to a sequence. In fact, sequences are much easier to set up in comparison to HubSpot workflows. All you have to do is select the boxes and start adding. Let me show you an example of a sequence created from scratch. Here is a sequence. So the very first step is an automated email that I send to the customer, right? Obviously this is coming not from my marketing email inbox or something like that but my own email inbox. Why? Because typically when you start using a idea is that the emails are coming from you. And so in this case here this example email that I'm showing you in the screen it will actually come from my own email inbox talita companyame.com. Okay. But essentially, this is an example of an automated email that goes inside a sequence. Where is this located? This is actually a template. So, I add emails to a sequence from templates that I've created inside HubSpot. Here are a few additional steps in my sequence. This is a task for me to call a person. Okay. This is a task for me to manually send an email to a person. But, Tita, what's the difference here? Well, an automated email gets sent to the person directly, right? A manual email is an email that I can actually click to change to update and then manually send to the person. It doesn't get sent automatically. That's the difference. This is a manual email task. Okay. Here there is another automated email that goes directly to the person. And here is a general task. I want to, you know, do something else after they've completed the sequence. Right? As you can see, the process of setting up these steps is very, very straightforward. Inside HubSpot, you also have the ability to add dynamic steps to your sequence. Unlike a regular sequence, okay, a regular sequence that just runs in a straight line like this. Email delay, email, manual task, call task, and so on. A dynamic sequence can adapt based on how the prospect is engaging. Uh, here's what it means. HubSpot watches for specific actions such as opens, clicks, or replies. Okay? And as soon as the lead engages, the sequence doesn't just keep spamming them. It shifts gears and starts queuing up manual steps for you like calling them or following up. So in this case here, if the lead opens an email in the sequence three times or clicks on a link, the contact will be automatically added to these steps here. And so they won't keep on receiving these emails because they are engaging. That makes sense, right? It's it's logic. If they are engaging, they are ready for something else. And in that case, what happens is we automate tasks for our team to call that person or do other things, send them emails, so on and so on, right? And so this is a dynamic sequence um that we have inside HubSpot. Dynamic sequences are basically smarter automation. They save you time, but they also keep the human element in the sales process because as soon as a lead shows interest, you jump in directly. A few things I forgot to mention in between emails, you can obviously add delays as well. Okay, so delays are set up directly on the top of the email as you can see here. It's not a separate action as we have in workflows. Okay, in terms of structure, it's very similar to workflow each step in a different box. And when it comes to sequence, you have a very comprehensive analytics to tell you exactly how many people are enrolling, how many people are engaging and so on and so on. Okay, to finalize this tutorial on HubSpot automation, this tutorial that is already becoming quite long. I'm sorry about that. I just wanted to wrap things up with some AI talk. So, you also have the ability to create automation with AI. That saves you a lot of time as long as you know exactly what to add to your prompt as always, right, when it comes to AI. And so, when you're clicking to create a workflow, you have the option here create with AI. Okay, what this means is that you'll be redirected to the AI assistant that you have inside HubSpot and the AI assistant will create a workflow for you. In this case here, the AI assistant is already telling me what exactly it needs in order to create the workflow for me. Let me just add a prompt. Click to create and see what kind of results we get. Good. So, I prepared a prompt here and I want to see if we get a similar result to what we got in the beginning of the video when we created the email sequence. Let me go ahead and let me add my prompt. So, it's quite a long prompt, but basically I'm asking it to create an email sequence based on form submission, consultation request, send email one, 5 days a day, send email two, 7 days a day, and email three. Okay. And then I'm talking about the goal here. Let me just click here and see if the AI system is going to ask a few additional questions or go ahead and create my workflow right away. Good. So, it's saying here, I'm ready to create a workflow. Can I go ahead and create this workflow for you? Yes. And um this system will go ahead and create a workflow directly for me. Awesome. It's giving me the link to the workflow. So, let me go ahead and click on it. And here is my workflow exactly as I requested. Form submission is consultation request. Email one, five days, email two, seven days, email three. Perfect. Exactly as I wanted. It's exactly the same as the very first workflow we created together manually. Right now, what's important when it comes to AI like with any other AI tool, you have to be really specific in your prompt and you have to make sure that you're using the HubSpot terminology for things, right? And so here I'm using words such as enrolls, right? Trigger, enrollment, trigger, form submission is. So I'm I'm using the HubSpot terminology for things, the the HubSpot way of building things, okay? And I'm also, you know, covering all the elements that the AI assistant is asking for here. So these are my tips for using for creating workflows with AI. Good. This tutorial was a lot. We covered manually creating HubSpot workflows, HubSpot sequences, and also creating automation with AI. And there you go. You now know the difference between HubSpot workflows and sequences, plus a sneak peek at other automation tools inside HubSpot. Now, we want to hear from you. What's the first thing that you would love to automate in your business inside HubSpot? Drop it in the comments. I love hearing your ideas. If this was helpful, hit that like button, subscribe so you don't miss the next tutorial, and check the links below for free HubSpot resources and my beginnerfriendly HubSpot automation course. See you in the next one. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music]