How to Create a Smart Email for Webinar Follow-Up + Templates

In one of my previous blog posts, “Guide to Setting Up Email Workflows for Webinars,” I mentioned that smart content is a great idea if you want to target your follow-up emails to multiple segments without creating multiple if/then statements in a multi-step workflow.

This blog post will cover how exactly to create those smart emails, whether you’re using GoToWebinar or a different product.

Step 1: Segment Your Audience and Write the Emails

I covered how to set up email workflows for webinars in a previous post, but this process is worth emphasizing. Prior to doing any work in HubSpot, decide how you want to customize the webinar follow-up email. To demonstrate in this post, we’ll have four types of emails based on audience:

1. Customers and Opportunities who attended the webinar
2. MQLs and SQLs who attended the webinar
3. Leads who attended the webinar
4. All contacts who registered but didn’t attend the webinar

As an example, here’s what those four emails might look like:

1. Customers and Opportunities who attended the webinar

Hello {(firstname}},

Thanks for attending our webinar, “[Title of Webinar].” We hope you enjoyed it! If your question wasn’t answered during the live event, we plan to get back to you within the next day or two.

You can access the slides and recording here.

Please feel free to pass these along to colleagues who may be interested.

Thanks again,

Jessica

2. MQLs and SQLs who attended the webinar

Hello {(firstname}},

Thanks for attending our webinar, “[Title of Webinar].” We hope you enjoyed it! If your question wasn’t answered during the live event, we plan to get back to you within the next day or two.

You can access the slides and recording here.

I would like to set up a call to see what you thought about the event and the industry in general. Does next week work for you?

Thanks again,

Jessica

3. Leads who attended the webinar

Hello {(firstname}},

Thanks for attending our webinar, “[Title of Webinar].” We hope you enjoyed it! If your question wasn’t answered during the live event, we plan to get back to you within the next day or two.

You can access the slides and recording here.

We also invite you to fill out this survey to let us know what you thought about the event and what topics we should cover in the future.

Thanks again,

Jessica

4. All contacts who registered but didn’t attend the webinar

Hello {(firstname}},

According to our system, you weren’t able to make it to our webinar today, “[Title of Webinar].” We are sorry we missed you!

If you are still interested, you can access the slides and recording here.

Please feel free to pass these along to colleagues who may be interested.

Thanks again,

Jessica

(Note on this last email: The form to access the recording should be smart to adjust to two segments: leads and customers. Leads will need to answer qualifying questions to access the recording, whereas customers just have to input their email addresses to gain access.)

Once we’ve formed our emails, we’re ready to go!

Step 2: If You Are Using GoToWebinar – Create Your Lists

Conveniently, you can create your lists prior to the webinar taking place. Your lists will just be empty until the event is over.

To make your emails smart based on the webinar’s status, you’ll first want to create a Smart List. I start by making a list for my first segment: “Customers and Opportunities who attended the webinar”. Under “Segment contacts by…”, select “GoToWebinar webinar status”, then choose “Attended”, and pick your webinar.

Next, you’ll want to add an “and…” criteria and choose Lifecycle Stage as equal to Customer or Opportunity. Name and save your list, and you’re done with the first segment.

You’ll want to repeat this process for lists #2 and #3, including other Lifecycle Stages where it’s appropriate.

For the fourth and final list, you’ll want to add two criteria: “Contact has registered for your webinar”, and “Contact has not attended your webinar”. If you don’t include this last criteria, you’ll populate the list with everyone who didn’t attend, including people who didn’t register.

Step 3: If You’re Using a Different Product – Import Your Lists

For products other than GoToWebinar that don’t use native integration with HubSpot, you’ll need to import a list or lists after the webinar is over (Contacts > Lists > Import button at top right).

There are two ways to do this:

1. The first way is to create a new column for the contacts’ webinar status: “attended” or “didn’t attend”. You’ll import this column as a new Contact Field in HubSpot, and if you want to keep statistics and cross-reference who attended which event later, you’ll need to create a new field every time you launch a new webinar.
2. The other way to import your list is to break your list into two files: one for those who attended and one for those who didn’t. When you import each list, name it appropriately. That way you can reference the correct static list at any point in the future.

Which method you choose is up to you, but I recommend being consistent.

(One note: When importing contacts, HubSpot uses email addresses for deduplication. Anyone who registered with a different email address will be created as a new contact. This is also true with people who register using the GoToWebinar integration or download any content from your website in general.)

Once you have imported your file(s), you should make the four Smart Lists outlined above if you would like to also segment by Lifecycle Stage.

Want to get everything ready to go before the webinar? Here’s a tip: Create your four Smart Lists, named for each of your four segments and with the Lifecycle Stage criteria selected. After the webinar is over, upload your lists. Next, go back to the Smart Lists you already created and add an additional criteria for being on the webinar status list you just uploaded.

Step 4: Create Your Smart Email

Once you’ve written your emails and created the lists, you’re ready to create your smart email (Content > Email > Create new email button at top right).

In the main body of the email, paste your default text. Your default text will appear to anyone who isn’t on any of your lists (which shouldn’t happen, but just in case):

Hello {(firstname}},

Thanks for your interest in our webinar, “[Title of Webinar].”

You can access the slides and recording here.

Please feel free to pass these along to colleagues who may be interested.

Thanks again,

Jessica

(Note: You could use the default as one of your four lists; however, I find using a default more confusing when you’re trying to piece together processes and replicate them for the next webinar.)

After finishing the default email, click elsewhere, mouse over the body of the email, and click on the orange smart button on the top left that appears.

Choose “Contact List Membership” and then find your first list. You will now see the smart variation options on the left-hand side of the screen and can paste in the email copy for your first list.

Click on the blue “Add smart rule…” and choose your second list. Enter the email text for this segment. Repeat for lists 3 and 4.

Finish your email by choosing the person the email is from, Subject Line, Preview Text, Campaign, Email Type, and Web Version.

If you’re planning to send this email via a Workflow, choose “Save for automation” under “Recipients.” If you’re planning on sending it by hand, select your four lists on the left under “Recipients” by clicking the green “Include” button for each.

Finally, you can then hit “Send” or “Save for Automation”!

Smart Content in emails is an excellent way to segment your webinar attendees and non-attendees and deliver a customized message targeted to their experience. When you want this message to be laser-focused with four or more lists, Smart Content is the way to go.

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