So you want to become the MaGyver of a smart website…great! In this post, we will outline how you can utilize smart content and work smarter, not harder. Websites are becoming more and more integrated as technology systems grow more complex. Information is the key to any well planned strategy. Visitors coming to your website can leave behind valuable information that can assist in a well crafted sales funnel. Harnessing the power of HubSpot’s tools we can gather a user's name, location, social profiles, and even the company they work for. Using this information we can then develop marketing workflows that guide the user to the content that will solve their pain points.

What’s that...you don’t have a smart website? Continue reading to check out some of what you're missing out on.

Utilizing Smart Content

Make your marketing more relevant than ever before.

People are not static. They access your content from multiple devices. They come at it from a number of different channels. And, perhaps most importantly, as their experience with your company grows, their needs and interests change. And yet, most marketing still treats them all the same.

At the professional and enterprise level, HubSpot has Smart Content and personalization built right in, so you can show the most relevant message to each of your visitors.

What is Smart Content?

HubSpot’s new Content Optimization System, or COS, helps you deliver “Smart Content”, or content that is intelligently personalized to your customer’s needs. With Smart Content you can deliver content specifically tailored to where a prospect is in the buying process, or content targeted to people the very first time they visit. Smart Content lets you target content based on anything you know about your contacts.

How does Smart Content work?

Smart Content alters the content displayed within rich-text-modules depending on viewer characteristics. Much like HubSpot’s Smart Calls-to-Action (CTAs), Smart Content is powered by Smart Lists and Lifecycle Stages. By creating Smart Lists that recognize your different lifecycle stages, you can customize the content that people in each lifecycle stage will see. Visitors see content personalized for them.

How do I use it?

When you create a new email, site page or landing page in HubSpot you’ll see a “Make Smart” link in the top right of any rich-text module. Clicking that icon will open a window in which you’ll create smart rules and the dynamic content to be shown when the rules are matched.

Utilizing Smart CTAs

CTAs (Calls to Actions) are used to direct users to content that answer their questions and build confidence that you're the expert of that given topic. We use several calls to action that would appeal to different customers, or personas, from different industries. Instead of building a static call to action HubSpot offers a tool that will change the CTA depending on interactions taken elsewhere on the site.  Check out these features built into the HubSpot Smart CTAs:

Persona-dependent CTAs

Assemble Smart Lists for each of your buyer personas based on properties like industry, company size, and interests. Create Smart CTAs that adjust depending on which persona is looking at it.

Smart Images work just the same as Smart CTAs, so you can adjust the images on your site to reflect the interests of each persona.

Persona-based Smart CTAs and images personalize your marketing by showing not only relevant pictures to your audience, but also by targeting specific offers to them based on their unique interests and business challenges.

Lifecycle-dependent CTAs

Use Smart Lists to keep track of your lifecycle stages like visitor, subscriber, sales qualified lead, customer, etc.

Show first-time visitors CTAs for top-of-the-funnel offers, sales qualified leads CTAs for pricing inquiries, and customers CTAs for product tutorials or upgrades, all based on where they are in the consumer lifecycle.

Lifecycle-based Smart CTAs effectively move your leads down the funnel by showing them targeted offers that educate them further on your product or service, warming them up for sales.

Utilizing Smart Forms

This topic warrants it’s own blog post. For the sake of this post however I’ll cover the major points that I enjoy about using HubSpot forms.

Automatically Populated Fields

When building a MacGyveresk website you’re sure to have multiple calls to actions that require the most basic of information. For example name and email should be fields that are required always. It’s a pain for users to have to enter their information in every time they are presented with these field options. HubSpot can provide a better user experience by offering automatic field populations for user that have already filled out a form. How awesome is that!

Progressive Profiling

Have you ever clicked a CTA to download an ebook and were presented with a 57 field form to fill out? Having too many fields for users to fill out can be a turn off and reduce your conversion rate on landing pages. How could we get more information from user that are downloading multiple resources from us? We could build a form that has our few required fields and then include a list of other fields that we would like the user to fill out. Each time the user attempts to get one of our outstanding resources they are presented with a couple more fields to fill out. This helps us understand the user better to provide the most accurate services that they may need.

Start using these tools on your website your peers will start wondering if you are the real MacGyver! Want more information about how to get these tools implemented on your website? Contact us today to get the skinny on these MacGyver style tools.