How to use HubSpot’s AI tools in your sales and marketing

HubSpot has been rolling out new generative AI features. The company has introduced two AI-powered tools, Content Assistant and ChatSpot, to “help customers save time while creating better connections with their audiences.” Here we take a deeper dive into Content Assistant and explain how to get the most out of ChatSpot.

• Content Assistant streamlines content creation for marketing and sales teams. It suggests blog titles, generates post outlines, writes content for various platforms and consolidates content marketing workflows into one place. It’s in public beta as of this writing.
• ChatSpot is a chat-based tool that uses natural language (rather than code or technical expertise) to help you perform common tasks, like adding contacts to the CRM, creating custom reports and drafting personalized sales emails. This tool aims to make HubSpot’s software more interactive and user-friendly.

Using HubSpot’s AI Content Assistant

A notable difference between HubSpot’s Content Assistant and ChatGPT is its line-level and paragraph-level text generation. Rather than letting you produce an entire blog at once (which tends to yield generic, derivative content at best), HubSpot forces you to generate them in smaller segments.

This requires you to be clearer about the type of content you want, leading to better quality content and results.

So how might you use HubSpot’s Content Assistant?

• Writing emails. Whether you’re prospecting or setting up an email workflow, it’s faster than ever. Whip up emails based on the content you want to share or incorporate user data to help personalize outreach emails at scale.
• Inbox assistance. Freshly out as a public beta is the AI assistant in the conversations inbox. Helping you manage and respond to customer messages, it’s perfect for tackling common questions.
• Write social posts. Draft a fun social post and add hashtags or emojis.
• Generate blog ideas. Quickly get a list of topic ideas within your industry or niche.
• Create compelling CTAs. Write an engaging CTA for that webinar (for best results, try asking for a list of options).
• Paragraph generation. Whether it’s sales copy for your landing page or the meaty section of a blog post, get it done without the writer’s block.

Questions to ask yourself to get the most out of Content Assistant

Content generation is new and exciting, but don’t get fixated on the first few things you discover. To make your organization more efficient and effective, you need to start thinking a bit creatively. Get resourceful about how else you can apply these tools (even if it takes a bit more upfront work than you’d like).

• What types of content (blogs, social posts, emails) do I create most frequently that could be streamlined with Content Assistant?
• Which repetitive text-based tasks do I have in my current content creation workflow that could be automated? 
• Where do I get stuck in my content creation process? Where can Content Assistant help me overcome writer’s block or generate new ideas for content topics?
• How can I use Content Assistant to create more personalized content for my audience?
• Can Content Assistant help me improve the quality of my content while also saving time? (Whether that’s freeing up more time for research or cleaning up sentence structure and spelling errors).
• How can I leverage Content Assistant to create more engaging CTAs or marketing emails?

Using ChatSpot

ChatSpot started as a passion project by HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah. It’s designed to improve everyday workflows, provide unique insights and personalize interactions, making it a powerful tool for marketing and sales teams. It enables users to talk to HubSpot like a person rather than a machine.

While ChatSpot is helpful for anyone using the platform, it makes HubSpot especially easy for an intermediate user who understands the types of things they want from HubSpot but don’t always know the exact processes to make it happen. Or they know the processes but don’t want to go through the hassle. 

For marketing and sales teams, ChatSpot can be a game-changer. Here’s how:

• Streamlined outreach. With ChatSpot, you can quickly pinpoint key outreach opportunities.
• Insightful data at your fingertips. Ask something like, “give me a list of all companies in my state with under 100 employees,” and voila! ChatSpot delivers the insights you need.
• SEO made simple. Boost your rankings by getting help looking for keywords, analyzing phrases or understanding what your competition is doing. This tool mitigates the risk of common AI-related SEO mistakes people make.
• CRM tasks, simplified. Add contacts, create tasks, jot down notes — all using natural language. Your sales team can even automatically associate calls with deals.
• Customized AI support: ChatSpot gets to know your goals and tailors every interaction to your needs. It’s like having a personalized AI buddy to help with your marketing and sales strategies.

Questions to ask yourself to get the most out of ChatSpot

As with content generation, the full potential of ChatSpot won’t be obvious until you really start using it. As you try different things and understand how it works, consider some of the following:

• What routine tasks (adding contacts, creating tasks, notes) can I automate using ChatSpot?
• Where can ChatSpot help me gain deeper insights into my company data that would otherwise take much time to gather and analyze?
• How can I best leverage ChatSpot’s SEO tools to improve my content visibility and save time on keyword research and competitor analysis?
• How can I use ChatSpot to create more personalized interactions with my customers?
• Where can ChatSpot help me navigate through my to-do list more efficiently?
• How can I use ChatSpot to accelerate my sales prospecting process?

Encouraging AI adoption in your organization

MOps leaders have an opportunity to drive the adoption of AI tools like Content Assistant and ChatSpot within their organizations. 

Here are some tips for driving AI usage on your team and boosting productivity in the process:

• Make how-to videos. Whip up some quick Loom videos showing how to use these tools. Break down complex processes into manageable steps, showing team members how to accomplish specific tasks using the tools.
• Find your tech-savvy trailblazers. Got folks who love trying new tech? Get them on board first. Once they start seeing the benefits, they’ll happily show the team how to get more out of these tools.
• Keep the support coming. Don’t just set it and forget it. Keep checking in, offer help and keep everyone updated on new features. It’s all about making these tools part of the team’s routine.
• Set some ground rules: This can go without saying for most marketing ops people, but diving into AI may require you to standardize how and when these tools are used. If people start outsourcing their entire brains to the algorithm, things can go downhill quickly.

AI is not just about working faster and cranking up the output. It’s about working smarter and using that new time to be more intentional and strategic. 

“Why am I sending this email? Do I really need this workflow? Who am I writing this blog post for? How will it benefit them? How will that move us towards our goals?”

Jumping on the AI bandwagon just to crank up the output is not a good strategy. We’ve got to ensure these shiny new AI tools help us move toward organizational goals rather than scale our ability to churn out trash and document processes that aren’t worthwhile.