With the Workflows tool, you can create automated lead nurturing campaigns that bring your leads further along your buying cycle. This means that each of your leads can receive an email from you based on specific actions they complete on your site. They can also be added or removed from a segmentation list, or you can add a new property to their contact record, based on actions they take on your site.

Use the Workflows tool when you want to:

• Set up a lead nurturing campaign to drive leads further along your buying cycle
• Send an auto-response email upon a lead filling out a form on your site
• Remove leads from a list and move them into a new list upon completing a lead nurturing campaign

Those are just a few examples of how you can use the Workflows tool. Creating Workflows allows you to send hyper-targeted email communications to your leads and prospects in a very automated fashion. This will save you time and let you create powerful marketing campaigns.
 

There are infinite workflows that you could create. So for the sake of this example, we're going to show you how to create the following workflow: Add all leads who've downloaded an internet marketing kit to a lead nurturing campaign encouraging them to sign up for a consultation session.

 

Before you create a workflow, you must create the emails that will be part of the workflow.

Click here to learn how to create an email in HubSpot.

When you've finished sending yourself a test email, save the email for automation rather than sending or scheduling the email. Just select the Send email with automation workflows radio button in the Sending section, and then click Save for automation.

First click Contacts in the top navigation.

Then select Manage Workflows in the sidebar navigation.

Click New Workflow.

Then name your workflow and click Submit.

Select a starting condition for this workflow, meaning the action that a user needs to take on your site in order to start receiving your lead nurturing emails. Choose one of your forms as the starting condition.

If there are two forms by which website visitors can convert through, you'll want to add a second starting condition. Adding a 2nd starting condition is like adding an OR statement: if a user fills out Form A OR Form B, he/she will be added to this workflow. Click the plus sign (+). Then you can select a 2nd form.
 

When you've finished adding your starting conditions, click Add Step.

Next, set how much time should pass between the starting condition happening and the resulting action. (Keep in mind: the measurement is in BUSINESS days.) If you were setting up auto-response emails, you would leave the day at 0 days 0 hrs 0 minutes. In this case, we want our first informational email to go out two days after the user fills out the form. So we'll enter 2 days 0 hrs 0 minutes.

Then click add one now.

There are a few options for steps of your Workflow that can help you in different ways.

• Send an email: send an email to a contact based on their inclusion in a workflow.
• Set a contact property value: modify a contact property value based on their inclusion in a workflow.
• Add to/Remove from a list: add contact to a particular list based on their inclusion in a workflow.
• Increment a numeric property value: add or subtract from a numeric contact property's value for a contact based on their inclusion in a workflow.
• Copy a contact property value: copy a contact property's value into another contact property of the same property type based on a contacts inclusion in a workflow. (i.e. if you accidentally imported data into an incorrect property, it can now be copied into the correct propery by running a workflow)
• Trigger a webhook: send a notification from one application or system to another (learn more about webhooks here)
• Send an internal email: an email is sent to people in your company when a contact is included in a workflow.
• Send an internal SMS: a text message is sent to people in your company when a contact is included in a workflow.

For this situation, in the Select an action dropdown menu, choose Send email.
 

Then select one of the automation workflow emails you've created.

A campaign with one email isn't really an effective way to nurture your leads along the buying cycle. Let's add another step to our workflow to send leads another email. Click Add Step.

Then go through the process of setting a delay and selecting an email. When you set a delay, the time you enter will be from the time the previous email was sent out, not the original time the lead filled out your form. So if you want this email to go out 5 days after the previous email, enter 5 in the days field.

Continue adding steps to this workflow until you've included all the emails you'd like to send as part of this campaign. You will see a summary of your workflow on the left of the screen. Click Save Workflow.

Next you should edit the settings of this workflow. Click Workflow Settings.

Here, you can set the following:

• Whether your workflow is live or not (don't edit this yet).
• When the workflow should begin. If you'd like your leads to receive these emails only once, keep Only the first time... selected.
• Whether or not your emails go out on weekends. If you'd only like your leads to receive emails on business days, keep Yes selected.
• Whether or not leads in this workflow can be part of other workflows. If you'd like your leads to be focused only on the promotions from this workflow, select Yes.

 

When you've finished reviewing your workflow, it's time to make it live. Click the Workflow is Not Live dropdown in the top right corner and select Activate Workflow.