How HubSpot's Signals Can Turn Your Website Into A Retail Marketplace

11/05/2013 3 min read Written by Roman Kniahynyckyj

Bear with me, fearless inbound reader, I'll need a little time to set this analogy up. But I promise you, the payoff - oh the payoff will be good. Yes indeedy, it will. We've reviewed HubSpot's Signals previously and also discussed how Signals can benefit your sales process. If you're new here - Welcome! And if you're new to Signals - simply put - it's an app you can use with Gmail or Outlook that tells you when someone opens emails you've sent them or clicks links within those emails. If you connect Signals to your HubSpot platform, you'll know when leads visit your site and what pages they are viewing. That's kind of where the magic happens. 

Now, imagine for a moment that you're a manager at a retail store like Old Navy or Starbucks - pick your favorite place. If you're working the floor of that store you're able to see visitors walk in and see where they go. If you're an Old Navy manager you see more people going to the jeans or khaki sections for their back to school shopping. Moms with kids might go straight to the the back of the store looking for children's clothes on sale. The Starbucks customer might walk in and focus on the in-store Pumpkin Spice Latte display. Wonder what they will be ordering... When you know where people are headed you also begin to understand the best way you can help them. At Old Navy, you're not gonna direct the Mom with kids to the purse section - you're probably going to ask for sizes and colors her kids prefer. Same with Starbucks, you're not going to offer the person fixated on the Pumpkin Spiced Latte an iced coffee. In each case, you have intelligence about your visitors and you have a sense of how you can best help them.  

Now - imagine people walking into your website 'store.' They may enter through a landing page or through your website store's 'front door'  - your homepage. Or they may enter from an email link. Then they may go to your pricing page or your case studies page or your blog. They may even view the same page over and over again. That's what connecting HubSpot's Signals to your HubSpot platform does. It lets you see, in real time, the leads 'walking' into your website and where they are going. If they are looking at your pricing your products page you may want to give them a call. If they are looking at your portfolio or case studies you may want to wait to see what pages they view when they visit your website again.

Here at the LyntonWeb corral, we sent out our email newsletter last week and I was tracking the leads that visited our site as a result of that email send and it was an excellent reminder of the value of a powerful newsletter and a nice way to see real time lead 'foot traffic' on our site from our newsletter. Connecting your HubSpot platform to Signals offers a powerful way to get real time data on how your leads navigate through your website. 

How to Plan a Website That Works

Photo Credit: Curtis Gregory Perry via Compfight cc

By: Roman Kniahynyckyj

Roman has been helping clients develop and implement revenue enhancing inbound marketing strategies since 2009. Prior to becoming an inbound marketer, Roman was a management consultant with Ernst & Young, Booz Allen Hamilton, BearingPoint, and KPMG. Roman's relentless focus on client satisfaction and client results has garnered accolades from many clients and teams.

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