The HubSpot Premium Custom Object Integration makes any Custom Object set up in a HubSpot Workflow available to trigger direct mail in a HubSpot Workflow, and even receive mail events back into HubSpot at the object level and the “Mailed” event on the HubSpot Timeline.
What is a HubSpot Custom Object?
A HubSpot Custom Object is a data field in HubSpot that doesn't fit into the standard Contact, Company, or Deal objects. Examples could include "Properties" for a real estate company, "Events" for an event management company, or "Subscriptions" for a SaaS business.
An Example Use Case:
A Real Estate Company's "Property" Custom Object
A real estate company uses HubSpot to manage its entire sales and marketing process. They've created a custom object called "Property" to track all the details of each property they're managing, including:
Property Address
Number of Bedrooms/Bathrooms
Square Footage
Status (e.g., "Just Listed," "Price Reduced," "Open House Scheduled")
Associated Contact (the homeowner)
The Use Case:
The company wants to automatically send a postcard to a list of potential buyers whenever a property's status changes to "Price Reduced." This postcard will be highly personalized with the property's address, new price, and a QR code that links to the online listing.
The Custom Object Workflow to and from Postalytics:
HubSpot Workflow Trigger: The HubSpot workflow is configured to trigger whenever a "Property" custom object record has its "Status" property updated to "Price Reduced."
Enrollment and Data Mapping: The workflow enrolls the associated "Contact" record (the potential buyer list) into the flow and the relevant data from the "Property" object (address, new price, etc.) is mapped to a Postalytics-compatible field.
Postalytics Action: The workflow's next action is to "Send Direct Mail with Postalytics." Postalytics receives the data and sends the mailpiece.
Tracking and Follow-up: The integration then sends delivery and response events (like "Mail Delivered" or "pURL Visited") back to the HubSpot timeline of the associated Contact record. This data can then be used to trigger further actions, like a follow-up email from a sales rep.
How to Create a HubSpot Premium Custom Objects Workflow for a Triggered Drip Campaign
Setup Your HubSpot Premium Integration
Before being able to trigger direct mail from a HubSpot Workflow, the HubSpot Premium Integration process must be completed. To set up the integrations, see our help article, HubSpot Premium Custom Objects Overview and Integration Set Up. Then, once complete, come back to this article.
It’s important to note that your HubSpot account must include extended object permissions to use this feature. Contact your HubSpot administrator for details.
Create a Triggered Drip Campaign in Postalytics
Before the HubSpot workflow is created, create a Postalytics Triggered Drip Campaign, designed to be quick and easy with the Campaign Wizard tool.
Begin by selecting: Campaigns in the top menu selection, then click “New Campaign” > “Triggered Drip”.
Next, on the Choose Integration page, select “HubSpot Premium Objects”.
The Wizard will walk you through each of the remaining steps to create the triggered drip campaign.
Triggered Drip Campaigns are in “Test Mode” by Default
By default, all Triggered Drip Campaigns are initially set to “Test Mode“.
This feature enables the testing of the workflow and its connection to the Triggered Drip Campaign – without actually sending mail and using Direct Mail Credits.
Come back to the Triggered Drip Campaign once the HubSpot workflow is configured and ready to test.
Add an Action in a HubSpot Custom Object Workflow
With the triggered drip campaign completed and in “Test Mode”, navigate to HubSpot.
Either create a new HubSpot Custom Object Workflow, or add a mail trigger into an existing Custom Object Workflow.
After setting the trigger, click the plus sign to “Add an Action”.
To the left of the workflow, use the search box to search for “send mail”, or scroll down the panel to the ‘Integrated apps’ section, and find Postalytics.
Click the “Postalytics” option, and then click “Send Direct Mail with Postalytics”.
Map HubSpot Contact Data For Mailing and Personalization
In the lefthand panel select the Postalytics Triggered Drip Campaign created in the previous section.
Then, map the data fields using the dropdown menus in each of the field options. Each field has the option of typing within the search bar, or scrolling to select the appropriate field.
For mailing purposes, all of the required name and address fields must be mapped:
First Name (20 characters, alpha numeric) and Last Name (20 characters, alpha numeric) AND/OR
Company (40 characters, alpha numeric)
Address (64 characters, alpha numeric)
City (200 characters, alpha numeric)
State/Providence (for US addresses either the 2 letter state short-name code “MA” or valid full state name “Massachusetts”)
Zip code/Postal Code (for US addresses either the 5 digit numeric “02370” or 5 dash 4 digit numeric “02370-1234”), (for Canadian addresses the 6 digit alpha numeric “K0K 4T5”)
For additional personalization options, up to 34 user defined fields - referred to as Variable Data fields - can also be mapped.
These variable data fields can be used for personalization within the creative, such as a special offer based on the Last Engagement Date, or drive dynamic content with the Variable Logic feature.
For example, mapping a Variable Data field to a HubSpot field “Realtor”, allows for creating logic in the Direct Mail Template Editor to use the specific image and contact information of the Realtor associated with the Contact.
Once the mapping is complete, click “Save”.
Test the HubSpot Workflow
To test the workflow, “Review and publish” the workflow.
Follow the prompts for review, and then click “Turn on workflow”.
To complete the test, we recommend manually enrolling a contact or two.
Click “Enroll” in the upper right corner.
Finally, select “Choose individual contacts”, choose the record(s) to enroll and click “Enroll”.
If the records chosen for the test will also be live records once testing is complete, be sure to adjust the settings for the trigger to allow contacts to re-enroll.
Confirm Test Data Sent
From the Performance History dropdown menu, select “Action logs”
Review the record(s) to confirm a successful send.
Review Trigger Drip Campaign Test
Visit the Postalytics Triggered Drip Campaign Dashboard and view the mailers created in the test.
To do this, click the “Preview Created Mail” button in the upper right of the dashboard.
A popup window will appear with PDF’s of each of the mailpieces generated for your test records. Remember that since you are in test mode, none of these pieces have actually been sent to the printer.
Once your campaign has been toggled to “Live Mode” and your triggers are coming through, clicking “Preview Created Mail” will show live mail that has actually been sent to the printer.
Flip the Triggered Drip Campaign to “Live”
Before your campaign can be toggled from test to live mode, you’ll need to have at least 100 Direct Mail Credits in the mail format that you’ve chosen for your campaign (by format, we mean the creative format/postage combination. For example:
4×6 First Class
6×9 Standard Class
If there are already credits in the format queue, the campaign will seamlessly switch to “Live” when you click the toggle. If not, a pop up window will appear when the toggle is clicked. Select “Purchase Credits Now” and proceed with the steps to purchase credits to run the campaign.
The HubSpot Premium Custom Object Triggered Drip Campaign is now live and will “listen” for the HubSpot workflow to trigger it, sending out the mailer with no further interaction needed.