If you’re currently involved in running a company, then chances are that over time, you’ll have gathered a substantial list of sales prospects. While this is great for your business, it’s important to know how to keep them organised and updated in a way that best serves your needs. For this, HubSpot lists are your perfect tool.
Here we’ll look at what HubSpot lists are, best practice for using them, and just how they can benefit your business.
What are lists?
The list tool in the HubSpot CRM is a great way to create lists of contacts or companies relevant to your business. You can group them together based on certain characteristics, such as their browsing activities, property values, or email engagement.
Active lists
HubSpot active lists, also known as Smart Lists, automatically update their members based on set criteria, meaning they dynamically evolve over time. You can choose from up to 250 filters, and records will flow in and out of the list as and when they meet the criteria. You can also always go back in and edit the filters, making active lists more flexible and suitable for workflows.
Static lists
Static lists are just that, static. They contain a list of members that met certain criteria when the list was made but will not automatically update themselves. To change a static list, you must go in and alter the records manually.
Both active and static lists can be very useful for your business, depending on the circumstances.
When should your business use lists?
Active lists
One reason HubSpot active lists are so great is that they’re incredibly versatile. There’s no end to the useful ways they can help your business! Here are some examples of when you might use an active list:
- Sending targeted emails to list members who meet certain criteria (for example, those who have visited your webpage multiple times and are ready for an upsell!)
- Sending out a regular newsletter
- Analysing contact behaviour at different stages throughout their customer lifecycle to optimise your marketing and sales strategies
Static lists
It’s likely that most of the time you’ll be turning to active lists, but there are certain circumstances where using a static list is best:
- Sending a one-off email or campaign, which you know won’t be repeated
- Manually adding records to a workflow
- Grouping records that don’t share list criteria
- Purging records from your database
What’s so great about lists?
HubSpot lists are a really useful way to keep your database clean and organised. They can ensure the right contacts get the right communication at the right time. Knowing your customer well is of vital importance when it comes to making a sale, and using lists is one of the best ways to help you along.
With active lists, suppressing and recategorising members happens automatically. This avoids irrelevant information being sent out to the wrong targets – for example, a welcome email to list members who have already made a purchase.
HubSpot active lists are also great at identifying people for lead scoring. Lead scoring is a useful way to keep track of where someone is in their customer journey and provide them with the right information at the right time.
With lead scoring, different scores are assigned to various activities – for example, visiting a pricing page, accepting a free trial or adding a product to their basket. When the customer reaches a set threshold, they pass from being a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead. Once this happens, more targeted sales information can be directed at them to try and convert them into a customer.
People can be targeted based on lots of different activities. For example, they might be targeted based on their engagement with different ad types, or by how many times they have viewed your webpage. HubSpot lists help all that information to be brought back into a single customer view, which then allows you to engage with them much more effectively.
HubSpot lists are also useful for spotting members who are not engaged, such as people who haven’t opened an email from your company in several months. Once these disengaged leads have been identified, they can either be identified as non-marketing, or simply deleted from your system, providing you with a quick cost-saving solution.
How to use lists
Creating HubSpot lists is very simple. In the ‘Contacts’ section of your HubSpot account, you’ll find an option for ‘Lists’. Clicking on this will give you the option to create either a contact or company-based list.
You can then choose whether you want an active or a static list and give it a name. Following this, clicking ‘Add Filter’ will allow you to set the correct criteria for your list, using up to 250 filters. Once you have completed the set-up, you can always return to your list, and edit or delete it according to your needs.
Check out this video for a quick demonstration:
With the HubSpot list tool, you can really optimise the efficiency of your business’ sales and marketing activity, and even save on costs. If you’re interested in finding out more about how any of HubSpot’s features can benefit your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team at Attacat. We love to help you grow!
