Before you can use B2B workflows for marketing and sales teams, it’s important to consider best practices for HubSpot data quality.
I’ve sat down with top marketing directors and CEOs to gather their invaluable insight about harnessing HubSpot’s incredible potential. From automating data workflow to prioritising leads with scoring, these are the six best HubSpot practices that’ll maintain your database’s integrity and take your team to the next level.
The Importance of HubSpot Data Quality
Great CRM data quality helps to form a powerful foundation for every industry. If your B2B business requires more accurate insight and hopes to optimise automation, I recommend starting here.
In 2021, 95% of businesses reported being affected by poor data quality. To mitigate such issues, modern organisations should expect to lean heavily on data quality best practices.
Remember: Gathering data is important, but so is maintaining those data quality processes.
Questions to Ask About Your Data
No matter the CRM, ask the following questions whenever you collect information:
- Is the data consistent across fields?
- Is the data comprehensive and complete?
- Does the data serve a purpose?
- Does my team have access to the same data?
- Is the data current?
1. Format Data Action Workflow
Hubspot’s Format Data Action workflow encourages users to define rules and improve consistency for data formatting (like dates or names). Maybe your sales team wants to convert various date formats into a European standard (DD-MM-YYYY). Streamlining these menial tasks will improve accuracy, reduce errors, and keep databases organised.
Patrick Beltran (Marketing Director of Ardoz Digital) adds :
“You need to instruct your workflow on how to handle formatted data. While the Format Data Action will format the chosen property, you need to decide what to do with this formatted data. Say that you want each last name in uppercase. You can include a Format Data action in a workflow. Merely including that action won’t change the last names in your contacts.
“I’d recommend using the Copy Property Value action and setting it to duplicate the value from “Format Data.” Next, choose the type of property and the specific property you want to update. You’ll automate the capitalisation of all last names in your contact list.”
2. Lead Enrichment Workflow
Jon Morgan (CEO of Venture Smarter) considers this Hubspot workflow a game-changer because it automatically enriches lead data with valuable information sourced from various channels.
“Whenever a new lead enters your system – or when existing lead data is updated – triggers within HubSpot can activate the workflow. HubSpot will tap into its extensive database by gathering additional details about leads (e.g., company size, industry, revenue).
HubSpot matches this data with your existing lead records, filling in any missing gaps to ensure that your database is as comprehensive and accurate as possible. This enriched data gives you deeper insights into your leads while helping you tailor your marketing and sales efforts more effectively.”
3. Data Cleansing Workflow
If I had to choose a HubSpot workflow that significantly improves data quality for my B2B clients, it’s this one. The Data Cleansing Workflow goes a long way to ensure that CRM databases stay current and accurate. I recommend using it to automate the identification and clean-up of duplicate and/or incomplete contact records.
When starting with a recent B2B client, the first thing I did was locate all of the inactive contacts: those without an assigned owner, non-marketing clients, and zero activity over the past 24 months. It certainly seemed shocking to suggest deleting 24,000 contacts (and about 13,000 companies), a smaller database was the best way for the client to start seeing value in their data.
Digital marketer Kartik Ahuja adds:
“By implementing this workflow, one of my clients reduced their duplicate contacts by 30% within the first month. This led to more efficient marketing and sales efforts. This client also set their workflow to include regular checks for missing or outdated information (like email addresses and job titles) to improve data integrity.”
While it’s a lesser-known HubSpot workflow, it’s a simple, proven method to maintain high-quality data for my B2B clients. And who doesn’t want better campaign performance and customer behavior insights?
4. Email Validation Workflow (for Contact Accuracy)
This is a highly effective HubSpot workflow for B2B businesses focused on data quality. Use the Email Validation Workflow to automate the verification of new and existing email addresses in your database.
Harry Boxhall (of Boxhall SEO) lays out a simple way of improving data quality for HubSpot:
“The email validation trigger should activate whenever a contact is added or updated. Then, it should be automatically checked via the email verification tool that’s ntegrated with HubSpot. I recommend segmenting company contacts by verification results. Invalid emails will either be tagged for review or deletion. Contact properties will be updated according to their email validation status.”
The importance of keeping your database accurate cannot be stressed enough. Not only will it help keep long-term costs lower, but it will also greatly improve email deliverability.
Bonus tip: Use Hubspot’s Invalid Email Address Function to create lists and/or use workflows for monthly task review. You can also integrate email verification tools (like Neverbounce, Zerobounce, or Kickbox) to improve accuracy.
5. Duplicate Contact Cleanup Workflow
“Duplicate Contact Cleanup” is one of the best HubSpot workflows. I use it to analyse and merge duplicate contacts based on email addresses, names, and other custom identifiers. When set up correctly, it should trigger a review process and either automatically merge duplicates or alert team members (to manually review them).
Hubspot has a duplicate contact function. While it’s fairly straightforward – and you can set up rules – it’s much smarter to automate this process. Unless you want your marketing and sales teams spending massive amounts cleaning up the database.
Nicolas Krauss (Founder and CEO of dasFlow Custom Sublimation Apparel) attests:
“This workflow not only improves the accuracy of marketing and sales efforts, but it also enhances customer experiences by ensuring communications are relevant – never redundant. I recommend regularly cleaning your database with these types of workflows to improve operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making!”
6. Lead Scoring & Prioritisation Workflow
Lead scoring is a HubSpot workflow that helps businesses allocate resources more efficiently and improve conversion rates. Leads receive points based on actions (like website visits or form submissions), which are attributed to them in various ways.
Himanshu Sharma (CEO & Founder of Academy of Digital Marketing) affirms:
“Point systems encourage sales teams to prioritise the most promising leads. Be sure to set an optimal score that automatically flags a potential as sales-qualified.”
A marketing team might put together a point system that looks something like this to help their sales team prioritise qualifying the leads:
- Visited the site: 1 point
- Provided an email address: 2 points
- Provided a phone number: 3 points
- Visited service / product page: 3 points
- Visited pricing page: 5 points
- Downloaded a whitepaper: 5 points
- Attended a webinar: 25 points
- Visited pricing page 3+ times: 25 points
- Requested a demo: 50 points (+ sent straight to sales)
Remember: Captured data needs to be helpful and useful to your sales team – and recorded consistently.
Improving Data Quality for HubSpot Starts Here
The most effective B2B companies have carefully crafted processes and structured frameworks to keep their data clean, useful, and profitable. Falling behind simply isn’t an option anymore.
Your business deserves a manageable funnel that can be replicated quickly and easily. To start streamlining your marketing and sales efforts, let’s book a discovery call.
Bonus Tip: Data quality dashboard
Consider setting up a dashboard to monitor the data quality in your HubSpot account.
Things I like to keep on top of.
- Contacts with no first name (yikes!) – usually this seems to happen when contacts are being created straight from the email add-in/exetension.
- Contacts with no email
- Contacts with no phone number
- Contacts and Companies with no owners – how are you going to move your contacts on through your sales process if there are no contact owners?
- Deals with no next step
- Deals with no amount – hopefully these are only in the pre-proposal stage
- Overdue deals – quick thing to check up on sales calls and update the realistic timelines
Here’s a dashboard I set up for one client recently when I took over their portal to make all this visible in one place.
If you need help setting up something similar for your business, let’s book a discovery call.