8 HubSpot SMS workflows to adopt + tips

As a business owner or team lead, your to-do list is ever-growing. How do you keep up with your daily tasks, while managing marketing, operations, support, and other customer communication? This is where automated communication workflows can help you and your team do more with less.

HubSpot SMS workflows allow you to set triggers and rules to automate text messaging within the CRM platform. In this article, we’ll cover some of the HubSpot SMS workflows you can set up after you connect Textline to the CRM.

HubSpot SMS actions and triggers to take advantage of

Let’s look at some of the most-used actions and SMS workflow triggers you can use in HubSpot. These can help you automate text messaging based on timing, events, or specific contact criteria.

• Delay for a specific time. You can delay a text message for a set amount of time: days, hours, minutes. For example, if a customer abandons a cart, you could send a reminder text after one hour.
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• Delay until a particular day. You can also delay a message from sending until a particular day. These can help automate a variety of texts, such as appointment reminders or nurture sequences as they help you schedule text messages in advance.
  
  
• Event-based triggers. An event-based trigger is one of the most popular ways to trigger a text message to send from a HubSpot workflow. This makes a text message send when an occurrence happens. For example, when a contact makes a payment, send a confirmation text. Another example is when a contact fills out a demo request form, you can text to schedule it.
  
  
• Filter-based triggers. These occur when specific criteria are met. For example, when a contact’s SMS subscription status is equal to “enrolled,” send a text message.
  
  
• If/then statements. Use if-then statements in your workflow to help determine if an event has not occurred. For example, if you want to trigger a text for when a customer hasn’t filled out a form, you’d use if customer form-fill equals no, then send a message.

8 HubSpot SMS workflows to adopt

Here are some HubSpot SMS workflows your business may want to add to improve customer communication. We’ll break down the objective, trigger, and actions to take in the workflow.

Welcome series workflow

A series of welcome messages can help your brand make a great first impression and encourage customers to purchase. The reality is that people are most engaged when they first sign up. Use this to your advantage with a welcome series SMS workflow.

Objective: Send a series of SMS messages to new leads or customers to welcome them and introduce your brand.

Triggers: An enrollment trigger that indicates a contact became a paying customer and opted-into texts. Or, they filled out a form submission.

Actions for the workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Welcome message thanking customers for subscribing or purchasing.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 3 days)
3. Send SMS 2: Offer an exclusive discount or incentive to purchase.
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week)
5. Send SMS 3: Share valuable content, a new product launch, or helpful tips related to your business.

Abandoned cart recovery workflow

The average cart abandonment rate is 70 percent. That’s a lot of missed revenue for companies. Set up an abandoned cart reminder workflow to help recover revenue and encourage customers to finish the purchase.

Objective: Encourage customers to complete a purchase by reminding them about items left behind and offering an incentive. 

Trigger: Contact abandons their shopping cart on your website.

Actions in the workflow:

1. Delay: Wait 1 hour
2. Send SMS 1: Remind customers about abandoned cart items with an SMS link.
3. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 24 hours).
4. Send SMS 2: Offer a limited-time discount or free shipping to incentivize purchase.
5. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 48 hours).
6. Send SMS 3: Create urgency by mentioning low stock or expiring discounts.
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Event reminder workflow

Don’t let event attendance suffer due to forgetfulness. Help boost turnout for your events with event reminder text messages. Ensure guests remember your event and have the right information.

Objective: Send event attendees timely reminders to ensure they don't miss the event.

Trigger: Contact registers for an event.

Actions in the SMS workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Confirmation of event registration with event details.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week before the event).
3. Send SMS 2: Reminder of the upcoming event and link to essential information.
4. Delay: Wait until a particular day (Example: 1 day before the event).
5. Send SMS 3: Last text reminder to help boost attendance.

Lead nurturing workflow

Many customers aren’t ready to purchase immediately. This is where lead-nurturing SMS workflows can help. Use them to walk customers through the sales funnel.

Objective: Move leads and prospects through the sales funnel with a nurture sequence filled with relevant content and promotions.

Trigger: Contact downloads a specific lead magnet or engages with a particular content piece. (Importantly: They’ve also opted into receiving text messages.)

Actions in the workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Deliver additional related content and value.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week).
3. Send SMS 2: Share a limited-time offer or discount related to the lead's interests.
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 2 weeks).
5. Send SMS 3: Invite the lead to join a webinar, product demo, or free trial.

Re-engagement workflow

With re-engagement SMS campaigns, you can identify customers at risk of churning and serve them a series of messages encouraging them to participate, buy, and re-engage. This is considered a growth strategy as it helps reduce customer churn.

Objective: Re-engage inactive contacts to return them to the sales or marketing funnel.

Trigger: Contact hasn’t engaged with any communication for a specified period (Example: 90 days)

Actions in SMS workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Deliver a friendly "we miss you" message and offer an incentive to re-engage like a discount or new product offering.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week).
3. Send SMS 2: Share valuable content or an update to pique their interest.
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 2 weeks).
5. Send SMS 3: Present a time-sensitive promotion or limited-time offer.

Post-purchase workflow

Help foster customer loyalty and gain valuable feedback with a post-purchase SMS workflow. You can use texting to thank customers for their purchase, send surveys, offer additional support, or encourage customers to leave a review. These can all help build return customers.

Objective: Gather feedback, offer support, or encourage customers to leave reviews after purchasing.

Trigger: Contact makes a purchase.

Actions in the workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Thank you message for the purchase and request for feedback.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 5 days after purchase).
3. Send SMS 2: Encourage customers to leave a review.
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 10 days after purchase).
5. Send SMS 3: Remind customers to leave a review.

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Upsell or cross-sell workflow

Increase the revenue you get from already-paying customers by using an upselling or cross-selling SMS campaign. You can automate this cross-sell or upsell text series to ensure the message gets to customers at the right time.

Objective: Upsell or cross-sell to existing customers based on their previous purchases to boost revenue.

Trigger: Contact makes a specific purchase or completes a transaction.

Actions in the SMS workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Thank the customer for their recent purchase and suggest similar or complementary products or services.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week)
3. Send SMS 2: Offer an exclusive upgrade or bundle deal related to their previous purchase.
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 2 weeks).
5. Send SMS 3: Remind them of ongoing promotions or loyalty rewards.

Customer onboarding workflow

Sometimes your product or service requires you to onboard customers. Help streamline this process with an automated onboarding SMS workflow. It will help you boost customer satisfaction.

Objective: Streamline the onboarding process for new customers and guide them through key steps to get the most value from your product or service.

Trigger: Contact becomes a new customer or subscribes to a service.

Actions in the SMS workflow:

1. Send SMS 1: Send a warm welcome text introducing the onboarding process and providing essential resources like who to contact if an issue arises.
2. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 1 week after purchase).
3. Send SMS 2: Check in to see if the customer needs assistance or support
4. Delay: Wait for a specified time (Example: 3 weeks after purchase).
5. Send SMS 3: Share advanced tips and tricks to enhance their experience.

Connect HubSpot and Textline to save time and effort

HubSpot and Textline are powerful tools on their own. But, together they can be a time-saving duo. Automate your SMS customer communication workflows to improve timely communication, and save your team time and effort.

Want to see Textline’s HubSpot integration in action? Schedule a demo with our expert team today. They’ll show you exactly how it works to scale and improve customer communication.