HubSpot + Salesmsg for SMS Automation

If you're reading this, you're likely a marketer like me.

That means you don't just care about marketing.
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You care about every aspect of your customer experience. Sure, you want to boost your numbers and smash through your KPIs. (Who doesn’t?) But more than that, you want to delight your customers at every point in their customer journey. 

As a marketer, you’re on the lookout for simple, quick wins to make that happen.

When it comes to simple, quick wins, you won’t find another marketing channel like SMS. Texting is the fastest, easiest way we have found to reach your customers, and get them to consume your marketing messages from wherever they happen to be.

It only takes minutes to add text messages to your marketing to attract, engage, close and delight your customers—especially if you’re already using HubSpot and Salesmsg. 

Even better, you can use automation inside HubSpot to continuously (and effortlessly) drive those quick wins in your business.

Today, I’ll show you how to do that.

I’ll give you my top four ways to add SMS to your marketing. That includes automated campaigns. (Make sure to watch the video for details.)

But first, let’s start at the beginning…

HubSpot SMS Automation: What does that mean?

When I say HubSpot SMS automation, I’m talking about adding text messages to your automated marketing campaigns to attract, engage, close and delight your HubSpot contacts. 

Text messages have a 98% open rate. That means you have a 98% chance of reaching your HubSpot contacts when you send a well-timed, helpful text to them. (Compare that to your standard email, that has a 20% or 30% open rate on a "good day.")

If you’re using Salesmsg, it’s easy to add these kinds of text messages to your automated campaigns inside your native HubSpot account.

Our Salesmsg team built our texting-and-calling platform that beautifully integrates with HubSpot.

It’s a two-way integration. That means you can login to our Salesmsg platform to text and call your HubSpot contacts. Or, if you already love HubSpot, you can use Salesmsg to easily text and call your contacts from inside your HubSpot account. (In other words, you never have to leave the HubSpot ecosystem if you don’t want to.)

Either way, it takes a few clicks to connect your HubSpot account to Salesmsg. 

Once you’re set up, you can use text messages in your marketing in a few ways:

1. Two-way Texting

Want to get real-time insights from your customers? Or answer their questions? Text your HubSpot contacts, and invite them to text you back.

As a marketer, this gives you a personal way to engage and delight potential customers. You can answer questions, overcome objections, ask for reviews, etc.

You can add this call-to-action to text you back inside an automated workflow to continuously drive this kind of engagement with customers.

2. SMS Broadcasts

Running a marketing campaign? Or have valuable content to share? Send out a one-line text about it to a group of your contacts. Be sure to include a short link in your text message to your content, landing page or offer. Often, just this simple text message is enough to drive more sales. 

You have the option to add SMS messages to your automated HubSpot workflows. If you have a SMS broadcast that performed exceptionally well, consider dropping that exact text message into an automated workflow. 

For example, you just sent out a SMS broadcast about your new free course. You notice this SMS message caused a spike in free trial sign-ups. You could add that same SMS message to a welcome HubSpot workflow, so all new leads get a text about your free course when they join your SMS list.

3. MMS Broadcasts

This is exactly like an SMS broadcast, only you can add multimedia to your text message.

This allows you to get creative with your marketing. You can add emojis, videos, images or PDFs to your text messages to delight your leads and customers.

Again, any winning MMS broadcasts belong inside your automated workflows too.

4. Automated Text Messages

Naturally, this is my favorite.

You can use one or two well-placed text messages to breathe life into any outdated, underperforming HubSpot workflow. Or, you can build entire automated campaigns around a series of emails and text messages.

Either way, it takes minutes to add an SMS to any HubSpot workflow. (It’s much faster than an email.) Once you do, you’ll have tiny text messages continuously reaching out to grab your customer’s attention and boost your sales.

What kinds of marketers use HubSpot SMS?

With five billion people texting around the world, this marketing channel works for so many different types of businesses.

For example, HubSpot marketers have used Salesmsg to text their contacts in various industries like:

• Real estate
• Technology / Software
• Gyms / Health clubs
• Legal services
• Banking / Financial services
• Business services
• Insurance
• Shipping
• Entertainment
• Retail
• Healthcare
• Telecom
• Non-profit
• Recruiting / staffing
• Home renovation or construction
• Marketing Agencies or Services
• Consulting / advisory
• Utilities 
• Hospitality 
• Education
• Manufacturing
• Consumer products
• Consumer services
• And the list goes on.

Don’t see your industry on the list? That’s okay.

Even more than the industry, we suggest considering the size of your business before you dive into SMS or SMS automation. At Salesmsg, we have found that texting works best for small, medium and enterprise companies. We suggest you have a staff of 10+ before you try texting for your business. (In other words, texting is not for tiny, one-person businesses.)

Sound like your team? Then you’re in a good position to start with SMS (and SMS automation).

4 easy steps to include SMS in your marketing

Ready to add texting to your marketing? 

Here’s where I would start… 

Step #1: SMS Automation in All Your Workflows

I’m guessing you already have workflows set up inside your HubSpot account.

Whether your workflows are hitting their numbers or not, I suggest adding one or two short text messages (160 characters or less) to each workflow you’re running.

For example, if you’re running a win-back campaign to re-engage refunded customers, add a text message to your workflow to make sure customers see your offer.

“Hey (First Name), I noticed you refunded a while back. Anything we can do to help? Or perhaps, can we give you a 25% coupon to try us again? (Shop here: link)”

To get started, you need your HubSpot account integrated with Salesmsg.

Like with all marketing, you also need permission to text any contacts coming through your workflows. That involves building your HubSpot SMS texting list.

That brings me to step #2.

Step #2: Text-to-Join Leads

How can you build your SMS texting list from anywhere? This is how.

When you use a text-to-join keyword, you’re asking potential leads to text you a specific keyword to a specific phone number to join your HubSpot contact list.

Inside Salesmsg, you can create as many text-to-join keywords as you like. Once your keyword is set up, you just need to ask potential leads to text you that keyword.

For example, you might say:

“Text the word ‘Book’ to (my phone number) to get a free copy of my book.”

Add this one sentence to social media to organically grow your leads in:

• YouTube videos 
• Social media bios
• Social media reels
• Social media posts
• Live speaking engagements 
• Podcasts
• Website
• Or anywhere else.

It’s as simple as that.

Step #3: Automated SMS Reminders

Running any live webinars, virtual workshops, LinkedIn live events, sales demos or appointments to sell your services? 

Then it’s your job to make sure people show up.

You can send an automated text message to remind registered attendees to make an appearance at your virtual event.

For example, 20 minutes before you go live, send a text message that reads:

“Still coming to our meeting today? We start in 20 minutes at 1:00 PM EST. See you there at this link: (Link)”

This text message not only reminds registered attendees to join in the live training. It also helpfully provides the sign-in link, so attendees know exactly how to join.

(This removes another friction point from people skipping your event.)

Best of all, you can set up this text inside HubSpot in a workflow, so you don’t have to remember to send it 20 minutes before your training. 

Step #4: Promotions, Campaigns and Automated SMS Offers

Want your best VIPs to see your Black Friday promotion? Send a text with a link.

Want your returning customers to know about this weekend’s sale? Send a text about when this sale will go live. 

Launching a new product, and want customer feedback first? Send a text message.

You get the idea.

When you’re running any kind of promotion or launch, send out a SMS or MMS broadcast to your best HubSpot leads, to make sure they saw it.

Even better: Build an evergreen, automated promotion that runs to your VIP customers three or six months after they become your customer. (This is a fantastic way to encourage upsells if you have more than one product or service to sell.) 

This kind of HubSpot SMS automation delights your customers by making them feel like VIPs, while also boosting your sales. 

For details on all these strategies, be sure to check out my video above. 

To recap...

HubSpot is a powerful marketing tool—especially when you pair it with Salesmsg.

If you already have HubSpot, I suggest you check out Salesmsg to see what our all-in-one texting and calling platform can do for your business.

You can get your 14-day free trial of Salesmsg right here.