1. You're Allowed to Cheat
These Printable Cheatsheets are your friend. They walk you through best practices and make sure you don't miss any important steps. Print them out, use them, memorize them.
The Contact Properties cheatsheet is also handy to give you an overview of what data points you have access to. A deep understanding of these properties will help you send targeting emails effectively.
2. Data Entry Integrity
When entering contact items in F1, it's important to be aware of where email addresses are saved. Where email address get entered in F1 is mission critical to the effectiveness of HubSpot emails. Email address must be added to the appropriate field in F1.
See what you should do for the following scenarios.
Creating a New F1 Profile
If the email address is for an individual, it must be added to the individual's profile and not the household email address. It should also only be associated with a single person. It should not be added to anyone else in the household (for example, do not add a parent's email address to the children). Similarly, if an email address is for the household, it should be added to the household email field and not an individual.
Updating an Existing F1 Profile (Multiple Profiles With Same Email)
Reach out to IT to merge the two profiles. Otherwise, the F1/HS sync may not pull the right F1 profile into HubSpot. You might add a Communication Card contact item to Profile A with Email A, but F1 may also have Profile B with Email A. This ambiguity of which profile (A or B) should be associated with Email A causes HubSpot to choose a profile. If it inaccurately chooses Profile B, the contact item you added won't get pulled into F1 and the person will not trigger any workflows.
While you're waiting for IT to merge profiles, add a contact item (or whatever) to the best profile and then remove the email address from the duplicate profile. That way HubSpot will only see one profile with an email address.
Updating an Existing F1 Profile (Only Profile With Email)
Double-check where email addresses are saved for the household and fix any issues.
Is the household email also used for individuals? Remove the household emails from individuals so that it's only used in the household field.
Is the same email address used for multiple people? Identify which person the email actually belongs to and remove it from other people in the household.
3. Workflows, Workflows, Workflows
3.1. Don't Forget These Options
When adding creating a new workflow or editing an existing one, don't forget to review these settings. They are just as important as the enrollment criteria themselves.
For Communication Card follow-up emails, it's important to always allow re-enrollment (even for things like first-time guest or decision for Christ) that way someone signing up for something multiple times will get a follow-up email each time. Without re-enrollment enabled, someone signing up for Open Door the first time will get a follow-up email. However, if they miss Open Door and sign up a month later for the next one, they wouldn't get a follow-up email.
3.2. Test and Review
Workflows are a great way to automate follow-up emails. However, they need to be set up properly to work. You don't want to create a workflow only to realize months later that contacts you were expecting to get an email actually didn't. So it's important to test new workflows and periodically review existing ones.
When testing new workflows, mimic what a user needs to do to be enrolled. For example, if it's filling out a Communication Card, add a contact item to your F1 profile and see if you get a follow-up email the next day.
For existing workflows, periodically look at the history section and make sure contacts are still being enrolled properly.
4. Saving Is Not the Same as Updating
When editing an existing workflow email, keep in mind the Save button saves a draft and does not push your changes live. To make your changes live, you'll need to go to the Review section of the email, and click the Update button. It's the difference between saving an email draft versus sending it.
5. Timing of F1 and HubSpot Data Sync
HubSpot pulls various data points (Communication Card contact items, serving/NextGen check-ins, giving-related, etc.) from F1 on a daily basis. This sync typically happens every morning between 6:00-8:00am. So any data that gets added to F1 for a contact will get pushed to HubSpot the next morning. For example, if a volunteer adds Communication Card contact items Saturday evening, they'll be available in HubSpot Sunday morning. If they're added Wednesday afternoon, they'll be available Thursday morning.
6. Not All F1 Data is Synced to HubSpot
We've worked with IT to sync the most common or useful data points from F1 into HubSpot. We strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with the Contact Properties page to see which data points are available. You'll notice not all Communication Card contact items are synced to HubSpot. If there are additional contact items or data points you'd like added to HubSpot, please let us know.
7. Naming Convention
When creating emails, workflows, or lists in HubSpot, you'll notice there's a specific naming convention that should be followed. Be sure you follow that naming convention by prefixing anything you create with the proper campus code or Central ministry abbreviation (e.g. STO - Email Name).
Be sure you only edit things with your campus code or ministry abbreviation in the name.
8. Learn to Crawl Before You Walk
When starting out with HubSpot, it's tempting to clone emails, workflows, or lists from other campuses. Unfortunately, doing that doesn't teach you how to create those things yourself. You could also be unintentionally cloning a mistake and propagating that on your end without even knowing.
Cloning can be a great tool to save time, but only after you've mastered creating emails, workflows, and lists on your own—from scratch. A good litmus test is if you can confidently do everything listed in these Printable Cheatsheets without needing to reference them.
When you do clone, be sure you double-check the work you're cloning is accurate and that you're editing the cloned copy and not the original.