As a HubSpot Agency Partner, I had the pleasure to attend HubSpot’s Inbound 2013 conference in Boston last week. Talk about drinking out of a fire hose. It was intriguing and inspiring to hear from and learn from some many bright marketing professionals. But there was so much information, instead of turning the firehouse on you, I thought it would be good to focus on only one of HubSpot’s latest announcements (of which there were many).
HubSpot recently launched a new tool that is awesome for any salesperson. You don’t have to be a HubSpot user either, so that is great too. Let me set it up for you. If you are in sales or are an owner of a small business (or really anyone in a company that has a product or service you are selling) you know there are certain sales insights that are impossible to gain. For example, you have a list of people you call or email on a regular basis. If they pick up the phone and talk, you can gain insights, gauge interest and document in your CRM. But when your follow up call goes unanswered, or you just want to keep top of mind, you email. So, how do you know if that person has opened and viewed that email without requesting a tacky receipt notice from the person receiving your email? Enter Signals from HubSpot!!
Signals is a slick little Google Chrome app by HubSpot that lives in the browser and notifies you when your prospect or lead opens your email. In this day and age, the sales person does not get to engage the prospects early in the buying process. Depending on what you read these days, prospects have access to all sorts of information they did not have access to before. You have likely heard before that a prospect can be anywhere between 50% and 80% of the way through the buying process before they contact a salesperson for more information. So, any insights a salesperson can gain on the interest level of a prospect can be very valuable.
In addition to the open notifications, Signals will also notify you when a lead returns to your website. This requires the HubSpot and Salesforce integration, but again, great insight. If your lead has seemingly gone cold what better news than to get a message on your desktop that your prospect is sniffing around again. It could be good timing to pick up the phone! In larger organizations, Signals can notify the salesperson when a lead has been assigned to them. How nice would that be to know right away you have a new lead so you can pick up the phone and follow-up?
The opportunity to improve your company’s sales process and build a more holistic approach to your sales and marketing efforts are huge. Knowing when to communicate with a prospect is a big step towards providing an excellent customer experience as well. It’s all about the timing.
Signals is a Google Chrome app and can be integrated with HubSpot, Salesforce and Outlook. Try Signals at www.getsignals.com.
