Inbound & Digital Marketing Blog

Some of you want to track the total number of orders received from each customer. That way you can send special messages or special offers to your best customers.

Order Totals Workflow

1. Log into HubSpot and go to Contacts -> Workflows.
   
   
2. Click the Create new workflow button, and name the workflow "Completed Purchase HubSync3," or whatever you'd like.
   
   
3. Setup the information to look like the example below.
   
   The workflow should trigger whenever the form named Completed Purchase (HubSync 3) is submitted.
   
   When this happens, the total number of orders gets increased by 1.
   
   You can add more workflow steps if you want. Remember you can only use each form once. 
4. Be sure to click the Save workflow button in the lower right. Also click the button to make the workflow live in the upper right.
   
   
5. VERY IMPORTANT: In the side navigation, click Edit workflow.
   Then, in the next screen, make sure Any time one of the Starting Conditions occurs is selected. Finally, click Save.
   
   If you forget to do this step, it will only increment the orders once for each contact.
   
   
   

That's it! Now the Total Orders will increment with each new order.

I hope you like the changes. Leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Telephone selling is still very important. Still, calling a totally cold, unqualified list is harder and less effective than ever. 

Enjoy the video ...

Please leave a comment on how you are using Inbound Marketing to create warmer leads for your outbound salespeople.

I am pleased to announce the release of HubSync 3!

We are in the process of updating all our current clients. New customers will be setup on the new version from the start.

HubSpot 3 was a major upgrade for HubSpot. Contacts, List, and Workflows all got major improvements.

And, HubSpot completely re-worked their software APIs. The changes caused us to re-think how a shopping cart integration should work, and we hope you really like the new version.

As before, HubSync continues to help you optimize marketing ROI for your eCommerce company:

• Know which sources are converting to sales.
• Recover sales from abandoned carts
• Closed-loop eCommerce

At a high level, it still works like it did before. We monitor your shopping cart to detect when visitors are adding items to their shopping carts and when they complete a purchase.

Every few minutes, we analyze the data to see if there is a new events:

• Completed Purchase - The visitor has put items into their cart, and checked out to complete their purchase
   
• Abandonded Cart - The visitor added items to their cart, but then did nothing for at least 60 minutes, and never completed their purchase. We know if they are still putting thing into or taking things out of their shopping cart.
  

 What's New in HubSync 3

The main changes you'll see are in Contacts. We've added a new Property Group called HubSync Information. All of these work just like any other HubSpot contact field.

For the most part, these fields contain the information from the Last, most recent, order.

The fields are:

• Last Order ID - The shopping cart order ID for the last order. Use this if you ever want to lookup the order in the cart or cross-reference orders.
  
  
• Cart Customer ID - The customer ID in the shopping cart. Again, it lets you cross-reference contacts.
  
  
• Last Order Date - Date of the last order.
  
  
• Last Order Subtotal - For the last order, the sub-total before taxes or shipping. 
  
  
• Total Orders - A field you can use to track the total number of orders for this contact.  This requires setting up a workflow. I'll tell you how in another blog post.
  
  
• Last Order Category List - (Depends on your specific shopping cart.) Where available, we put the product category list from the last order. Categories are separated by semicolons (;).
   
• Last Order Items List - A list of the items from the last order separated by semicolons (;).
  
  
• Last Order SKU List - A list of the SKUs for each item in the last order separated by semicolons (;).
   
• Custom Field List - (Depends on your specific shopping cart.) Where available, we put a list of custom fields from the last order separated by semicolons (;).

Besides this information, we also update other standard contact fields like name, address, city, state, company, etc. All of this is much cleaner for HubSpot 3 than with the old version of our software. 

Those of you who are more advanced in HubSpot 3 may already see ways to use this new information. I'm also going to show you some tricks in future blog articles. 

New Forms

We also added new HubSpot 3 forms to support the new capabilities in HubSync3. 

The old version of HubSync used forms with names like "Completed Purchase." To keep things clearn, all the new conversion look like this: Completed Purchase (HubSync 3).

Some of you may have the new Forms interface. Whether you do or not, it's very important that you not edit these forms or use them for anything other than HubSync.

I hope you like the changes. Leave a comment to let me know what you think!

I had a client today ask me about the best practices for forms on landing pages. Well, the most direct path is not always the easiest or the best!

It's nearly always best to use the shortest possible form — Name, Email, and perhaps Phone Number.

Then, clients say: "Yes, but we need to know what zip code they are in to assign them to a salesperson." Or, "Yes, but we need to know their technical requirements."

You can still get all that information. Just don't kill your conversion rates by asking for it all at once.

It's like trying to climb a mountain. You could try to go straight up. That would be the most direct path — Unless you ran into a steep cliff and fell off!

Or, you could climb up using switchbacks to zig-zag your way. Less direct, but much more likely to get you to the top.

How to Use Multi-Step Conversion Forms

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to get all the information you want at once. Try this instead:

• Use the simplest possible form for the first conversion. Get the prospect's name and email address.
  
  
• Send them an email with a link to a valuable piece of content. In the email and in your content, have a call-to-action that encourages them to take the next step.
  
  
• The next step link goes to another form that requires they enter a bit more information, but also promises more value.
  
  
• Then, send another email that delivers the value and has another call-to-action.

When you have a valuable product that solves a problem for your prospects, they'll gladly take the next step. If you don't have a valuable product, stop spending money on marketing and invest instead in making your product better!

Plus, this way, you have their name and email. You can keep checking with them until you find a fit or determine there isn't a fit. If you ask for too much information up front, they may never give you anything, and there's nothing you can do.

There's yet another advantage. Have you ever entered bogus information on a web form? I know I have. When you ask for too much, too soon, you encourage people to lie. But, that's not the end of the story. People at your company will assume the bogus data is valid and assign the new hot lead to a busy salesperson. The salesperson ends up wasting time chasing down a High School student who's just trying to write a term paper!

It helps if you have the right marketing platform to make the multi-step process easier to implement. Contact Me, if you want to know more.

Please leave a comment if you use multi-step forms. What have you found that works? 

Image Credit: tylerkaraszewski

HubSpot 3 provides some great new features, and HubSync users may want to get a head start. We are considering some HubSync upgrades to better use the new Contacts functions. But, we won't be able to roll these out until HubSpot completes their migration (The latest estimate is February, 2013).

In the meantime, here are some things you can do. HubSync sends relevant data from orders into HubSpot. However, HubSpot won't let you use the data to build Smart Lists unless you do a few more steps.

First, there's a little homework. You need to identify the data you need. You can see the actual form submission data by going to:

https://app.hubspot.com/leads/app/list?portalId={Your Portal ID}

You have to lookup your portal ID and enter it after the "=" sign.

This will bring up the old HubSpot leads screen. Pick one of the leads submitted by HubSync. You can tell because the Event will be set to Completed Purchase, Abandoned Cart, or Admin Purchase.

Then, click View Full Lead Details > on the lower right.

Click the Form Data tab, and you can see all the data the HubSync sent into HubSpot for each Event. You'll see all the data like this:

Notice that for this order, Louise bought some Adult Comfort Tips. Now, here's what you can do to better use this information in the new Contacts area of HubSpot 3.

Go back to the main Contacts screen. Look for Manage Settings on the lower right.

Click the Blue Create Property button. Then copy the name of the data from the old leads form. For example, you might want to make a new property called item1_ProductName to hold the data for the first product purchased.

Normally, you can just leave these in the Contact Information group, and leave the input set to Single Line Text.

An easy way to do this is to have two tabs open in your browser — One for the new Contacts settings and another for the old Leads form data. Then, you can just cut and paste the names.

Now the new property is available to build Smart Lists and for other HubSpot 3 features!

This all works well for a lot of situations. Still, there are some limitations in HubSpot 3, and there's been some discussion about this on the HubSpot developer list lately.

There is currently no way to add multiple orders to HubSpot. So, if you have customers who make second and third purchases, item1_ProductName will contain the first item the customer last purchased. There is no way to have a complete history. We have some ideas for how to address this situation, but it is a difficult problem.

For a given order, we do submit data for multiple items purchased in a single order. You may see item1, item2, item3, etc. It's just that with a repeat order any new data will replace the old.

I hope this helps! If you have ideas or requests, please leave a comment.

True, iPhone 5 is expected to have a larger screen, work over higher-speed wireless networks, and have other goodies. But, will it help you grow your business so you can afford all those new iPhones for your employees?

At Inbound Team, we are a HubSpot partner, and yes, we love HubSpot. Still, it’s rare to see a new software release that offers as much as HubSpot 3.

Have you ever called a customer “service” number where they ask you to punch in your account number. Then, when you finally get a representative, what do they ask? “Could I have your account number please?” I cringe every time this happens, and it happens almost every time.

Unfortunately, too much online marketing works the same way. Come to our website and download our white paper. Just give us your name, email, company, phone, etc. The only problem is that we may have recently collected all the same information from the same person — Very annoying!

• What if you had a website that knew all about your customers and visitors? 
• What if it only asked for data it didn’t already have? 
• Even better, what if it gave them appropriate content based on who they are and where they are in the buying cycle? 

Finallly, HubSpot 3 solves the problem.

At Inbound Team, we do a lot of integrations between HubSpot and other systems. We know how hard it can be to make everything work well together. 

In HubSpot 3, everything revolves around contacts. The Contacts section has been completely redesigned so that you can associate much more data with a specific contact. This really lets you know who the person is and what interests them. 

Then, you can build dynamic, “smart lists” to focus on a specific group of your customers or prospects. What if a big social media influencer visited your site? Wouldn't you want to treat them with extra care?

In the example list shown below, we’ve found our Influencers by checking their follower count and recent history. Yes, HubSpot actually looks this up for you.

Lists can be used for email marketing, but the same idea is used to create Smart Forms that only collect the data you don’t already have. 

You can even change Calls to Action (CTA) and other elements of your website based on the Contact’s information. You can show a top of the funnel CTA for new visitors and offer a totally different offer to visitors that are ready to buy.

There’s only one downside to all this marketing power — It takes some expertise to use it effectively. HubSpot has made things very usable. Still,you have to know your customers, know their buying process, create  relevant content and design all these interactions. That’s where we can help. Get a free HubSpot 3 marketing review. 

I may never know why phone systems keep asking for account numbers and can’t integrate with customer service software. At least my marketing life just got a lot easier. My customers will love it!

Please leave a comment and let me know how you are going to use HubSpot 3 to delight your customers.

The other day, someone asked:

"You have a team of young potential guys..all good at their basic profiles. How do you pick one amongst them who can take up a new venture on his own? Condition is that all the guys are good at their basic jobs, the daily working results et all."

Here’s the answer... The best way to spot management talent is to:

1. Learn about the employee’s past.
2. Look for patterns where they have shown natural leadership or management.

Even for younger employees, there should be examples where they organized a club, held some kind of elected office, or had another leadership role.

Some people will try to use a behavioral interview question like “Tell me about a time you organized something?” This isn’t usually that effective. It measures how well someone thinks on their feet. What you want to look for is someone who has a pattern or organizing things or ending up in leadership positions, not just someone who is good at telling stories!

I realize these are employees who may are already hired. But, I still recommend a structured interview that focuses on the person’s history. Please see the post on the basics of how to do a structured interview.

People who go through this process are regularly surprised at what they learn about their employees — Even for employees they’ve worked with for years.

LinkedIn is an amazing resource for B2B lead generation -- If you know how and don't mind doing some work!

Most small business people are on LinkedIn, but many have never gotten any leads. One reason is that people think of LinkedIn like other social networks. They try to amass connections, but nothing happens. It's not about how many connections you have. 

There's a better way, and I'm going to share our LinkedIn Lead Generation Formula!

Step-by-Step Guide to Lead Generation with LinkedIn

1. Know Your Ideal Prospects

For effective sales or marketing, you need to know who would be a great prospect. This is especially true on LinkedIn. For our clients, we usually create one or two Personas that describe their ideal prospect.

Let's say you have a product that is especially valuable to hotels, but you only serve Dallas, Texas and the surrounding area. 

Try this: Log into LinkedIn and click the advanced search button. 

Put in the keywords: hotel, hospitality

Put in a Dallas zip code: 75201, and a radius: 75 miles

Click Search. I got over 2,800 results.

Now all of these may not be perfect prospects, but they are all in your target industry and your target geography. And, each of them almost certainly knows several of your perfect prospects.

2. Create Valuable Content

Your prospects have problems and business challenges, and you have valuable knowledge. 

If you were an expert in staffing for hotels, and you knew how to find reliable employees, don't you think most hotel managers would want to hear from you?

So let your prospects know your tricks! Are you worried that you won't be able to sell your services anymore once you tell prospects what you know? Well, don't. It's almost always easier and cheaper to hire an expert. But first, you have to let your prospects know you are an expert!

Content can mean many things. Videos, Blogs, PDFs, eBooks, Info-Graphcs, Photos, MP3s -- Anything that communicates. You know your prospects, so you know what they would appreciate.

3. Announce Your Content with LinkedIn

Knowing your prospects and creating valuable content -- That's what you do for any Inbound Marketing campaign.

It's a common problem that small businesses have. They put up a website or blog, but nobody comes to see their great content. You can have the best content in the world, but it doesn't matter is nobody sees it.

You also need a content announcement strategy that connects your prospects to your content. This is where LinkedIn shines. Here are some examples of ways to get the word out:

• Send a direct message to all your contacts
• Announce your content to groups you've joined
• Use a status update to announce your content
• Create your own group and provide value
• Do a Poll and let everyone know the results

Even though all of these are possible with LinkedIn, many companies don't take advantage. Why? Because it takes time -- Time that small companies don't have. Plus, it does take some specialized knowledge so, 

Typical Lead Generation Results

This is all nice, but does it work? I'll share the actual metrics with you from a LinkedIn campaign we did internally in the fall of 2011. 

In one day, we got 15 leads. It kept growing, but we neglected to capture the graphs or I'd show you the rest. How many of you wouldn't love to get 15 quality leads a week -- Every week? These are typical results -- Not a special case.

For a large business, that's not enough, but for most smaller businesses, you'll quickly overwhelm your sales team.

Even better, these were very qualified leads. You can visit the Quickly Boost B2B Sales landing page. It's a good landing page, but a 50% conversion rate? The only way you get that high a conversion rate is to have great content and send very qualified traffic!

Here's another thing that happens. Your LinkedIn visitors will vote for your content. Good results confirm that you are solving their problems and delivering valuable content. Who do you think they'll call when they need your products or services?

The example below got 51 LinkedIn "shares" and 6 Re-tweets. The Twitter results came for free as we have our LinkedIn and Twitter accounts connected together. We weren't even focused on Twitter!

Inbound Marketing Takeaways

Use LinkedIn correctly and you can connect your prospects with your content -- Everybody wins.

• Know your prospects -- Be targeted.
• Create valuable content that solves your prospect's problems.
• Announce your content on LinkedIn. Let your world know.
• Track your results.

 

Our researchers and writers are continuously searching the web for better ways to improve results from Inbound Marketing. Here are some recent articles we've been reading.

One key to Inbound Marketing is measuring your results with web analytics and continuously finding improvements. That's our topic for today. Web Analytics.

Know Your Customers by their Digital Footprints

John Walker of JPL Creative offers tips on how to learn more about your customers through web analytics. Key points:

• By 2017, the chief marketing officer will spend more money on information technology than the chief information officer
  
  
• Review your traffic flow graphs to see when traffic goes up. Then,discover why and repeat.
  
  
• Check your bounce rate to see if your home page needs improvement. Also see where your visitors go next.
   
• Review your most popular pages. Should you have more on popular topics? 

I'm a guitar player -- Well, sort of. I was thinking of buying a special learning guitar from Fretlight. It has LEDs built into the neck to show you where to put your fingers!

Here's what happend, Fretlight lost my trust due to over-optimized marketing. I'm no longer a prospect.

Like many people, I rely on reviews and opinions from other people. And, the reviews were all great -- This thing was supposed to play just like a Fender guitar. Plus, it would help you shorten your guitar learning curve.

The reviews were so good, I got curious and did a search for "Fretlight negative review." That's when I started seeing stories about how Fretlight was aggressive in suppressing negative reviews and getting non-guitar players to write glowing reviews. Then, I found people talking about some serious quality problems and playability problems.

Fretlight may have a good product, I don't know. The point is that I'm too put off to find out! If their product really does help you master guitar, I wish they had put more effort into improving their product than perfecting their marketing.

The safe way to get search traffic is to create great content that helps your prospects solve their problems. Anything else and Google will getcha.

Google's Penguin Update and SEO

Speaking of over-optimized marketing, you may have heard about Google's recent Penguin update. Google is now penalizing sites for having over-optimized links.

Let's say you want to rank for a keyword like "inbound marketing." And you have lots of links that all have the same exact anchor text that includes the optimized keywords. 

Google figures this couldn't have happened naturally -- You must be manipulating the links. If it were natural, at least of few of the links would say "Click Here" or something equally irrelevant. ("Click Here" is the anchor text even though this link doesn't go anywhere.) 

Takeaways

What works and will always work is creating great content and serving your prospects. Anything else can work against you.

• You can't fool Mother Google. Don't try.
• Always, Always, Always, make sure you are serving your customers first.
• Have a great product. If you don't, improve the product until it is great.

Learn how to grow sales the right way with our free special report: Boost My Sales.