HubSpot Sequences vs. Workflows : Differences Explained

When it comes to automating your marketing and sales efforts, HubSpot offers two powerful tools: Sequences and Workflows.

Each has its unique functions, benefits, and use cases. Understanding their distinct features will help you make the best decision for your business.

HubSpot Sequences vs. Workflows

HubSpot Sequences and Workflows might seem similar at first glance, but they serve different purposes.

Both of these automation tools are designed to enhance efficiency, but the decision between Sequences and Workflows is not about which is better, but about which is more appropriate for your specific marketing and sales processes.

HubSpot Sequences

HubSpot sequences are primarily designed for sales rep to manage one-on-one engagements and follow-ups with prospects.

This tool is ideal for maintaining engagement with sales-qualified leads through personalized, targeted emails, making them more personal and less like a mass distribution strategy.

How to create a sequence in HubSpot:

Key Features of Sequences

HubSpot Sequences help sales reps send a series of sales emails or create tasks for bottom-of-the-funnel leads.

Components of Sequences

Sales representatives can manually schedule a mix of actions such as sending emails, creating tasks, and conducting LinkedIn InMail through the LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration.

This manual touch is beneficial for maintaining a personal connection with each prospect.

Manual Enrollment

Despite the automation of emails, sequences require manual enrollment of contacts. This feature ensures that each engagement is personalized and tailored to the individual prospect’s needs.

Personalized Sales Emails

HubSpot sequences empower sales reps to craft personalized sales emails using predefined email templates, adding a human touch to each interaction.

Moreover, the sequence settings in HubSpot can be customized to define follow-up email send times and task creation times.

Good to know : There is an option to restrict sending to business days, ensuring that your emails don’t end up buried in your prospect’s inbox over the weekend.

Impact of Personalized Sales Emails

The power of personalized sales emails is not to be underestimated. Studies have shown that marketing campaigns employing email sequences generate 320% more revenue compared to campaigns that do not use automated email approaches. This ability to craft personalized sales emails using sales email templates is a game-changer in the world of sales and marketing.

Benefits of Sequences for Sales Teams

HubSpot sequences are particularly beneficial for sales teams as they provide a structured approach to lead nurturing. The tool allows for the creation of a series of targeted, timed email templates and automated task creation for effective follow-ups. This feature is a boon to sales reps who want to keep their leads engaged without having to manually track and manage each touchpoint.

HubSpot Workflows

HubSpot Workflows are designed for automating a wide range of marketing and service tasks.

It is a powerful tool for email automation, benefiting both sales and marketing teams by streamlining communication and follow-ups. It facilitates broader marketing automation, such as bulk email campaigns, lead management, and updating contact data.

Below is an excellent example of a HubSpot workflow designed for the marketing team. It details each step of the workflow and explains how each step interacts once triggered:

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How to create a sequence in HubSpot:

Key Features of Workflows

HubSpot Workflows operate on a trigger and action basis. Enrollment triggers are events that initiate the workflow, such as a form submissions or a contact property update. Actions are the steps taken once the workflow is triggered, like sending a marketing email or updating a contact property. These workflows can help optimize processes and save time and effort.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial to help you create your workflow with the drag and drop editor within HubSpot :

Automation for Marketing Tasks

HubSpot workflows automate a variety of tasks, including sending marketing emails using email template, internal notifications, updating lifecycle stages, and assigning lead owners.

The wide variety of workflows you can create ensures that each contact receives the appropriate content according to the stage of the buyer's journey.

Automatic Enrollment

Workflows enable the automatic enrollment of contacts based on specific criteria, like form submissions, ad interactions, or contact property updates.

For example, the enrollment trigger below is an interaction with any of the company's Google Ads. Additionally, the workflow checks the contact list to verify that the industry associated with the contact is 'Poultry farming.' If both conditions are met, the contact will be automatically enrolled in the workflow.

This hands-off approach allows your marketing team to set up triggers that automatically send personalized content to qualified leads whenever they engage with your brand.

Enhancing Customer Experience

Workflows play a significant role in enhancing customer experience by ensuring timely and relevant communication, automating follow-ups, sending targeted reminders, and providing valuable information to leads and customers at different stages of their journey. This automation helps in building stronger relationships and improving customer satisfaction, helping in the purchase decision.

Benefits of Workflows for Marketing Teams

Workflows automate a variety of tasks for enterprise users, far beyond just sending bulk emails. They streamline sales and service processes, and facilitate internal emails and notifications, making your life easier and your team more effective. The use of workflows significantly reduces the need for manual administrative work, allowing your team to focus on more strategic tasks.

Key Differences Between Sequences and Workflows in HubSpot

User Accessibility (Subscription Levels)

HubSpot sequences are accessible to users with a Sales Hub Professional, Service Hub Professional, or Enterprise subscription, as long as they have a connected personal inbox like IMAP, Office 365, or G Suite. This accessibility ensures that sales representatives and service teams can leverage the tool to send targeted email follow-ups and task creation.

Tip : For optimal use of sequences, it’s recommended to have a paid HubSpot account in Sales Hub Professional or Service Hub Professional with a connected email and calendar.

On the other hand, workflows are available in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise subscriptions. The functionality of workflows may have restrictions at the trigger or action level depending on the subscription tier and specific Hub.

Personalized Engagement vs. Broad Automation

HubSpot sequences are tailored for personalized, scheduled email chains to nurture individual leads. They are excellent for sales representative who need to keep in touch with prospects through meaningful, one-on-one email conversations. Sales rep can use sequences to nurture qualified leads and establish a 1:1 relationship with prospects.

These sequences offer personalization through the use of pre-made email templates, which means your sales representatives don’t have to spend time rewriting messages for each lead.

In contrast, HubSpot workflows facilitate broad automation of marketing tasks. Workflows can handle large-scale contact engagements, such as sending bulk email campaigns, automating lead management, customer onboarding, event registration, and sales follow-ups. This broad automation is perfect for the marketing and service team, allowing them to manage and nurture a large number of leads simultaneously.

Contatcs Enrollment

Sequences require manual enrollment of contacts. This feature ensures that each engagement is personalized and tailored to the individual prospect’s needs. Sales representative can manually schedule a mix of actions such as sending emails, creating tasks, and conducting LinkedIn InMail.

Workflows have both automatic and manual enrollment options. You can set specific triggers, and contacts will be enrolled in the workflow once they meet those triggers. Alternatively, you can manually enroll a contact or a list of contacts into a workflow.

This hands-off approach is perfect for nurturing leads and managing contacts efficiently without manual intervention.

Here is an example on how you can use workflows to update your leads :

By automating these tasks, your company can focus on growth rather than the details of administrative tasks.

Contacts Unenrollment

Sequences will automatically unenroll contacts from the series of emails once the contact replies to an email or books a meeting. This feature is particularly useful for sales reps, as it ensures that contacts are not bombarded with unnecessary follow-ups once they have engaged.

Workflows automatically unenroll contacts from a workflow when they achieve a specific goal, such as clicking a call-to-action, answering a form, or scheduling a meeting. You can also manually unenroll contacts by pressing the 'Unenroll' buttom.

Good to know : You can automatically re-enroll your contacts in a workflow. By default, records are only enrolled in workflows the first time they meet the workflow enrollment triggers or are enrolled manually. Re-enrollment triggers allow records to be re-enrolled in your workflows.

Types of Emails

One of the biggest differences between these two automation tools is the type of emails they send.

Sequences send emails from your connected inbox as sales emails, whereas workflows use marketing emails that are saved for automation.

These emails are sent through HubSpot, and the 'from address' can be customized in the email editor.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to create an automated email :

Applications Examples of HubSpot Sequences and Workflows

Nurture Leads

Sales teams use sequences to send a series of targeted, personalized emails to nurture cold leads into warm prospects. Sequences can be set up to automatically send follow-up emails if a prospect does not reply within a certain period, ensuring that no opportunity is missed.

On the other hand, marketing teams employ workflows to automate the process of segmenting leads based on interactions and nurturing them with targeted content.

Automate Contact Management with Workflows

Workflows can manage the automation of updating contact properties and facilitating the transfer of leads between different lifecycle stages. This makes lead management efficient and effective, ensuring no leads fall through the cracks.

For example, a simple workflow might be set up to automatically send an email and notify the sales team when a prospect completes a request form.

Enhance Sales Outreach with Sequences

Sequences can significantly enhance your sales outreach efforts. Sales teams can increase their outreach effectiveness by employing personalization tokens in HubSpot sequences, tailoring communication to each recipient.

Incorporating personalization tokens such as those for contact properties like first name, last name, and email can enhance the relevance of sales communications.

Here's an example of how you can use personalization tokens:  

This level of personalization can significantly increase the effectiveness of your sales outreach, leading to higher conversion rates and better customer relationships.

Choosing the Right Tool for Your Team

Selecting the right tool is crucial for the success of your marketing and sales efforts. The choice ultimately depends on your team’s needs and the nature of your sales and marketing processes. Here's how to decide between Workflows and Sequences based on your specific requirements:

Marketing Hub Professional

For those using the Marketing Hub Professional, the focus is on broad engagement and large-scale marketing tasks.

Workflows:

• Ideal Use: Automating bulk email campaigns, managing leads, and updating contact data.
• Benefits: Extensive action options, automatic enrollment, and robust performance tracking. Workflows in the Marketing Hub Professional are designed to streamline broad engagement initiatives, making them perfect for handling large-scale marketing tasks efficiently.

Sequences:

• Limited Use: Typically not used in Marketing Hub as the focus is more on broad engagement rather than personalized follow-ups. Sequences are better suited for individualized communications, which is not the primary objective of the Marketing Hub.

Sales and Service Hub Professional

For users of the Sales and Service Hub Professional, the focus shifts to personalized follow-ups and efficient customer service management.

Workflows:

• Ideal Use: Automating service tasks, sending notifications, and managing customer support processes.
• Benefits: Flexibility in actions, automatic enrollment, and detailed reporting capabilities. Workflows in the Sales and Service Hub Professional help streamline customer support and sales processes, ensuring all tasks are handled promptly and efficiently.

Sequences:

• Useful For: Personalized follow-ups for customer service interactions, creating tasks for service reps to maintain engagement with clients. With detailed reporting capabilities, sequences are invaluable for ensuring continuous and personalized communication, keeping clients engaged and informed throughout their journey.

Final Thoughts on HubSpot Sequences vs. Workflows

To achieve a successful marketing and sales strategy, it is essential to use the right tools effectively.

HubSpot sequences and workflows each offer unique benefits that can enhance different aspects of your processes.

By combining the personalized touch of sequences with the broad automation capabilities of workflows, you can ensure a comprehensive approach to lead nurturing, customer engagement, and overall business growth.

Implement these tools thoughtfully and monitor their performance regularly to continually optimize your strategy and achieve the best possible outcomes.

Key Takeaways

• HubSpot Sequences are designed for sales teams to manage personalized, one-on-one engagements and follow-ups with prospects through scheduled email sequences. They require manual contact enrollment and are ideal for nurturing relationships with tailored attention.
• HubSpot Workflows automate various marketing tasks, including bulk email campaigns, lead management, and updating contact data. They allow for automatic enrollment based on specific triggers, providing a hands-off approach to nurturing leads and managing contacts efficiently.
• Choosing between Sequences and Workflows depends on your sales and marketing needs. Sequences are ideal for personalized lead nurturing, while Workflows excel in large-scale marketing automation and contact management.