As a business owner or marketer, you likely already know how important it is to keep track of your customer journey and sales process. After all, understanding where your customers are in their buying journey can help you make informed decisions about your marketing and sales strategies, and ultimately drive growth and revenue for your business.
That's where HubSpot's custom lifecycle stages come in. This property allows you to create and customize the stages that your customers go through as they interact with your business, giving you greater insight and control over the customer journey.
So, how exactly can custom lifecycle stages improve your marketing and sales efforts? In this article, we will explain four of the benefits of using HubSpot’s custom lifecycle stages.
- Better alignment with your sales process
- Improved reporting and analytics
- More personalized communication
- Increased efficiency
Better alignment with your sales process
One of the primary benefits of custom lifecycle stages is that they allow you to align your customer journey stages with your sales process. This means that you can more accurately track where each customer is in the buying journey and identify areas where you can improve your sales process.
For example, you might create custom lifecycle stages such as "lead," "prospect," "qualified," and "closed won." By tracking each customer's progress through these stages, you can gain a better understanding of how long it takes to move a customer from one stage to the next, and where you might be losing potential sales.
Improved reporting and analytics
Another great aspect of custom lifecycle stages is the ability to generate more detailed reports and analytics that are tailored specifically to your business needs. By tracking each customer's progress through the stages, you can gain insights into how customers move through your sales flywheel (traditional sales funnels are outdated) and identify opportunities for optimization and improvement.
An example of this would be using custom lifecycle stages to track how many leads you generate each month, how many of those leads convert to prospects, and how many ultimately result in closed sales. With this data, you can identify where you might be losing potential customers, and make informed decisions about how to optimize your sales process.
More personalized communication
The custom property also allows you to segment your contacts based on where they are in the buying journey, and tailor your communication accordingly. This can help you deliver more personalized and relevant messages to your customers, which in turn, can improve engagement and conversion rates.
For example, you might use custom lifecycle stages to create targeted email campaigns for customers who are in the "prospect" or "qualified" stages. By tailoring your messaging to where each customer is in the buying journey, you can increase the likelihood that they will take the desired action (like scheduling a demo).
Increased efficiency
We’ve all heard the saying, “work smarter, not harder.” Well, custom lifecycle stages can help streamline your business’ efficiency. You may want to use custom lifecycle stages to automate a series of emails that are sent to customers in the "prospect" stage, with the goal of nurturing them and encouraging them to move to the "qualified" stage.
Automating certain tasks and workflows, such as lead nurturing campaigns or follow-up emails can help you save time while still delivering a high level of customer service and engagement.
HubSpot’s custom lifecycle stages are a powerful tool for any business that wants to gain more insight into their customer journey, improve their marketing and sales strategies, and drive growth and revenue. By creating customized stages that align with your sales process and overall goals, you can optimize your processes and create a better experience for your customers. For more tips on using HubSpot visit our library of HubSpot How To's.
