Important Note - For the InstaSites automation to trigger properly, you must have a Business contact record associated with the deal. The Business contact record needs to have the following fields as they are required to build an InstaSite; Business Name, Phone Number, Email Address, City, and State. Also, if you're sending notifications within the same sequence, make sure to have a Person contact record associated with the deal. The Person contact record needs to also have a phone number or email as well, as that's the number we're going to send the SMS or email to.

Deal Automation is potentially the most powerful feature available within the Deals application.

When your sales personnel are working a pipeline, they are likely completing similar tasks daily for each new deal. This might include sending a follow-up email or sending a text message a day later as a reminder. The more tasks that need to be done manually, the greater potential there is for human error.

The Deal Automations feature allows you to automate any number of these tasks throughout the various stages of your sales pipeline. Our platform currently allows you to create automation for Email and SMS. It also allows you to create automation to Build InstaSites and Build InstaReports, two of our standout prospecting tools.

This article will walk you through how to create a Build InstaSite automation for your sales pipeline.

Accessing the Deal Automations Menu

  1. Navigate to the Deals application. Make sure you are on the My Deals tab.

  2. Click on the Deal Automations button in the top-right corner.

How to Add a Build InstaSite Automation

Your current sales pipeline view will update to remove your deals and show only the existing deal automation. If you have yet to create an automation, this page will be empty along with a 0 at the top of each stage.

Decide on the appropriate stage for your pipeline. Our pipeline has a stage dedicated to the Build InstaSite step, so that’s where we will go for our example. However, you can add this to any stage that makes sense for you.

To create your automation:

  1. Click on + Add Deal Automation under the appropriate stage. For our example, we are going to add this under our Build InstaSite stage.

  2. A menu will appear prompting you to select one of the four available automation. Click Build InstaSite.

    Then, click Continue at the top of the page.

  3. Here, you will see a substantial list containing our 200+ InstaSites for a variety of industries. For our pipeline example, we want to target cybersecurity companies. We then look for that template in the list or search for it using the search bar at the top.

    Click on the template you want to use. Then, click Continue in the top-right corner of the page.

  4. Next, you will receive a prompt asking you if you’d like to include notifications with this automation. You can send an email, SMS, both, or none. Click the option you wish to use. We are electing to use both for instructional purposes.

    Then, click Continue in the top-right corner of the page.

  5. An empty email form will appear with various prompts for text entries. Below, we will explain what you need to enter into each of these fields.

    From

    Select the email address you’d like to use to send this email.

    Subject

    This is the subject line of your email as it will appear to the recipient.

    Message

    The message field is where you will input the text that you intend to send to your clients. As you enter text, a preview will appear on the right showing what your message will look like to the recipient. There is no limit on the number of characters you can have in your email.

    Attachments

    If there is anything you wish to attach to the email template, simply click on the “Attach” button located at the bottom of the Message area. This will open the file explorer where you can select the attachment from anywhere on your computer.

    Note - There is a cumulative attachment maximum size of 20MB. There is no limit on the number of files you can attach as long as it does not exceed this limit.

    Personalization Options

    This allows you to inject personalization options into your templates. This is a useful time-saving tool that can auto-inject data specific to each client.

    For example, the first option category that appears is called Business. This includes identifiers such as Business Name, Phone Number, Email, and more. For this demonstration, we will select “Business Name.”

    You will now see the text “{{Business-Business Name}} within your message field. The recipient will not see that text, but will instead see their business name.

    Screenshot_2021-08-16_124823.png


    If you send the email in the template above to “Joe’s Plumbing,” the recipient at Joe’s Plumbing will receive an email that looks like this:

    Subject: “Greetings, Joe’s Plumbing”

    Body: “Hi Joe’s Plumbing”

    As you scroll through, you will find a long list of personalization options that come from your Contacts, InstaSites, and InstaReports prospects. You can also inject your data. The added code will automatically inject the correct data according to the information from your contacts list.

    Since we are making this automation specifically for building an InstaSite, we may want to make use of the personalization option called preview, which will provide the link they need to review the website. However, if you simply wish to notify them that the site was made without a preview, this does not apply.


    Warning - If you do not have the necessary data stored within your contacts or your account, the system will not be able to inject the data. In the example above, the recipient will receive an email that says “Hello {{Business-Business Name}}” if you did not associate the recipient with the Business Name in your contact information.

    Finally, you can use your email credits to test this email by using the fields located at the bottom of this email form. When you’re ready, click Continue in the top-right corner.

  6. An empty SMS form will appear with various prompts for text entries. Below, we will explain what you need to enter into each of these fields.

    From
    Select the phone number you’d like to use to send this message.

    Description
    This is a brief description that informs you and your team what type of content is within the template or its purpose.

    Message
    The message field is where you will input the text that you intend to send to your clients. As you enter text, a preview will appear on the right showing what your message will look like to the recipient.

    Note - The message field utilizes 1 credit for every 160 characters. You will utilize another credit each time you exceed the character limit.

    Personalization Options
    The templates app allows you to inject personalization options into your templates. This is a useful time-saving tool that can auto-inject data specific to each client.

    For example, the first option category that appears is called Business. This includes identifiers such as Business Name, Phone Number, Email, and more. For this demonstration, we will select “Business Name.”

    You will now see the text “{{Business-Business Name}} within your message field. The recipient will not see that text, but will instead see their business name.


    If you send the message in the template above to “Joe’s Plumbing,” the recipient at Joe’s Plumbing will view a message saying “Hello Joe’s Plumbing.”

    As you scroll through, you will find a long list of personalization options that come from your Contacts, InstaSites, and InstaReports prospects. You can also inject your data. The added code will automatically inject the correct data according to the information from your contacts list.

    Warning - If you do not have the necessary data stored within your contacts or your account, the system will not be able to inject the data. In the example above, the recipient will receive a text message that says “Hello {{Business-Business Name}}” if you did not associate the recipient with the Business Name in your contact information.

    Another Warning - You will see a red text warning that states “Credits may vary due to personalizations.” The reason for this is that the number of characters will vary depending on the content you wish to inject. Be aware of your credits and ensure that you do not unintentionally go over the character limit.

    Again, you can test your message by using the field at the bottom of the form. Be aware this will use SMS credits for each test. When you’re ready, click Continue in the top-right corner of the screen.

  7. At this final step, we have the option to set up an action delay. By default, automation will occur immediately after a deal card is dropped into the stage. However, you can delay this automation by using this menu.


    As you enter values into each field, the text at the top will update in real-time to reflect how long you will delay the action. You will also need to write a description in the final field. We recommend writing a brief description of the reason for the delay.

    Important Note - This delay affects every action in this automation. In our example, this includes building the InstaSite, sending an email, and sending an SMS. If you wanted to build the site immediately but send a delayed notification, you would need to create separate automation for each.

    Finally, click Continue at the top of the page.

Congratulations! The automation is complete.


When you close out of this screen, you will be back at the initial Deal Automations screen. You can now see your automation under the appropriate step.

The blue circle in the top-right corner updates to reflect that we now have one automation. The bolded text Immediately is telling us that there is no delay and that these actions take place instantly. The text beneath applies to the description we gave of the delay.

We recommend making this description something that allows you to identify the automation step.

Further down, the message icon shows how many notifications were sent out as a result of this automation. The number will increase appropriately.

The ellipses icon will open buttons that allow you to Edit or Delete this automation.

Finally, you can hit the ON/OFF toggle to temporarily disable the automation as opposed to deleting it entirely. When you’re done, you can go back to deals or create another automation.

Using Multiple Automation Steps

While the above is what appears when you only have one automation, we need to look at what happens when we have multiple.

Screenshot_2021-08-16_125530.png

In the above example, every automation will trigger immediately after the other. If you were to create a delay for any following actions, the "Immediately" text would be updated to reflect that delay.

When adding more than one automation, be very aware of your delays to ensure that you don’t accidentally cause actions to overlap. Once an automation step occurs, there is no way to reverse it.

That’s everything you need to know about this automation type! Happy building!

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