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Understanding HubSpot’s Contact Categories: Marketing vs. Non-Marketing

First off, let’s clear up what HubSpot means by “marketing” and “non-marketing” contacts. This distinction is super important because it directly impacts your subscription costs and what kind of emails you can send.

What is a Marketing Contact?

Your marketing contacts are basically your VIPs for promotional stuff. These are the folks you’re actively engaging with through HubSpot’s marketing tools. We’re talking about those newsletters, promotional emails, ad campaigns, and social media outreach efforts. If someone fills out a form on your website to get your newsletter, downloads an ebook, or opts into your latest product updates, they generally become a marketing contact.

These contacts are the ones that count towards your HubSpot subscription limit. Think of it like a monthly allowance: the more marketing contacts you have, the higher your plan might need to be, and thus, the higher your monthly or annual cost. HubSpot’s pricing is built around these numbers, so it’s in your best interest to keep this list targeted and engaged.

What is a Non-Marketing Contact?

Now, non-marketing contacts are everyone else in your HubSpot CRM. These are individuals whose information you have in your database, but you’re not actively targeting them with marketing campaigns through HubSpot’s dedicated marketing email tools. They’re still valuable, of course, but they’re not consuming your marketing resources in the same way.

Who might fall into this category? Mastering Customer Feedback: Your Guide to the HubSpot NPS Tool

Unsubscribed Contacts: People who’ve opted out of your marketing emails. It’s really important to mark them as non-marketing for compliance and to respect their preferences.
Inactive Leads: Contacts who show very low engagement and are unlikely to convert.
Existing Customers for service/support: You might have customers you communicate with regularly for support or account-related issues, but not promotional stuff.
Partners or Vendors: People you work with, but again, not for marketing outreach.
Internal Team Members: You might have your own staff in the CRM for various reasons.

The big win with non-marketing contacts? They don’t count towards your HubSpot subscription limit, making them super cost-effective. For many plans, you can store a significant number of non-marketing contacts for free – up to a million for some older plans, though newer free CRM accounts might be limited to around 1,000. This means you can keep your database comprehensive without racking up unnecessary costs.

Why Does This Distinction Matter So Much?

Understanding the difference between these two contact types is really important for a few reasons:

Cost Control: This is probably the most immediate impact. Since you only pay for marketing contacts, accurately categorizing them can save you a ton of money. If you have thousands of inactive or unsubscribed contacts marked as “marketing,” you’re literally paying to market to people who aren’t interested or won’t receive your emails anyway.
Targeted Marketing: When your marketing contact list is clean and focused, your campaigns are naturally more effective. You’re sending messages to people who want to hear from you, which typically leads to better open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, conversions.
Data Hygiene: Regularly reviewing and setting contact statuses helps keep your CRM database neat and tidy. This makes it easier to segment your audience, personalize communications, and ensure your data is up-to-date.
Compliance: As we’ll get into, legal requirements like GDPR and CAN-SPAM often hinge on whether an email is considered “marketing” and whether the recipient has given consent. Correctly categorizing contacts helps ensure you’re compliant with these regulations.

You can easily change a contact’s status between marketing and non-marketing in HubSpot. You can do this manually for individual contacts or in bulk. Just a heads up: while you can convert a non-marketing contact to marketing instantly, changing a marketing contact to non-marketing usually takes effect at your next subscription renewal date. So, it’s wise to be strategic about these changes!

How to Email Non-Marketing Contacts in HubSpot

Since you can’t send traditional marketing emails to non-marketing contacts using HubSpot’s standard marketing email tools unless you have a specific add-on for transactional emails and the email truly qualifies as such, you’ve got two main routes for reaching these individuals: one-to-one emails and transactional emails. N8n HubSpot Connection: Your Ultimate Guide to Seamless Automation

Method 1: One-to-One Emails Sales Emails

This is hands down the most common and often the best way to communicate with non-marketing contacts. Think of these as personal emails you’d send directly from your inbox, but with all the added power of HubSpot’s CRM.

How to Send Them from the CRM

Sending a one-to-one email in HubSpot is super straightforward:

Navigate to the Contact Record: In your HubSpot account, head over to your CRM and find the specific contact you want to email. Click on their name to open their record.
Click the Email Icon: On the left-hand panel of the contact record, you’ll usually see an email icon. Click on that. A pop-up email editor will appear.
Compose Your Message: Write your email, just like you would in Gmail or Outlook. The “To” field will automatically be populated with the contact’s email address. You can even select different email addresses associated with the contact if they have more than one.
Personalize Crucial!: This is where the CRM really shines. Use personalization tokens to automatically pull in information like their first name, company name, or any other details you have stored. This makes your message feel much more tailored and less generic.
Use Templates and Snippets: To save time and maintain consistency, you can use pre-saved email templates or snippets for common responses.
Track Engagement: HubSpot automatically tracks opens, clicks, and replies for these emails, giving you valuable insights into how your messages are performing.
Send or Schedule: You can send the email immediately or schedule it to go out at a later time.

These one-to-one emails are logged directly on the contact’s timeline within the CRM, giving you a complete history of your communications. This is incredibly useful for sales teams, customer service reps, or anyone needing to keep track of individual interactions.

When to Use One-to-One Emails

One-to-one emails are perfect for:

Sales Outreach: Sending a tailored message to a prospect after a call or meeting, following up on a lead, or initiating cold outreach while respecting legal guidelines.
Customer Service: Responding to support queries, providing updates on a ticket, or confirming an action.
Relationship Management: Checking in with existing clients, partners, or vendors for non-promotional reasons.
Internal Communications: Sending a message to a colleague whose record is in HubSpot.

The beauty here is that these emails are generally considered direct, personal communications rather than mass marketing, which often has different legal implications more on that in a bit!. Why HubSpot for Newsletters?

Method 2: Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are a special category. Unlike marketing emails, their primary purpose isn’t to promote a product or service. Instead, they provide essential, non-promotional information related to a specific action a recipient has taken or an ongoing relationship.

What Makes an Email “Transactional”?

Think about emails you get that aren’t trying to sell you something, but are necessary for a service you’re using or a purchase you made:

Order confirmations and receipts
Shipping notifications
Password reset links
Account activation messages
Legal updates Terms of Service changes
Support ticket updates
Event registration confirmations

The key is that these emails are triggered by a user’s action and are crucial for completing a process or providing expected information.

HubSpot’s Transactional Email Add-on

While you can design emails that look like transactional emails in HubSpot, to send true transactional emails that bypass marketing subscription preferences for non-marketing contacts and ensure legal compliance in some regions, you usually need to leverage HubSpot’s Transactional Email Add-on.

This add-on is typically available for Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise tiers. It often comes with a dedicated IP address, which helps ensure high deliverability for these critical messages. You can set up transactional emails using HubSpot’s email editor or by integrating with the HubSpot SMTP API for automated sending. What Exactly is Email Marketing Automation in HubSpot?

It’s really important to distinguish between a marketing email that looks transactional and a genuinely transactional email. If an email’s primary purpose is still commercial advertisement or promotion, even if it contains some informational elements, it’s likely a marketing email and subject to marketing consent rules. If you’re unsure, it’s always best to consult with a legal professional to ensure your emails are correctly classified.

Navigating the Legal Labyrinth: Email Compliance

When you’re sending any kind of email, especially in a business context, you can’t just hit “send” without thinking about the law. Different regions have different rules, and getting it wrong can lead to hefty fines and damage your business’s reputation.

The CAN-SPAM Act United States

If your recipients are in the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act is your guide. This federal law sets the rules for commercial emails and applies to all commercial messages, including those sent to businesses B2B.

Here’s what CAN-SPAM generally requires: Digital Marketing HubSpot Blog: Your Ultimate Guide to Online Growth

Accurate Header Information: Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information must be accurate and identify the sender.
No Deceptive Subject Lines: The subject line needs to accurately reflect the email’s content. No tricking people into opening your email!
Identify as an Advertisement: If the email is a commercial message, you must clearly and conspicuously disclose that it’s an advertisement.
Physical Postal Address: Your email needs to include a valid physical postal address for your business. This can be a street address, a P.O. Box, or a private mailbox.
Clear Opt-Out Mechanism: Every commercial email must include a clear and easy way for recipients to opt out of receiving future emails. This opt-out mechanism must work for at least 30 days after the email is sent.
Honor Opt-Outs Promptly: Once someone opts out, you have 10 business days to remove them from your mailing list. You can’t charge a fee or require any information beyond their email address to process the request.

One key aspect of CAN-SPAM is that it generally does not require prior consent before sending commercial emails. You can send cold emails to business contacts in the US, provided you adhere to all these other rules, especially the opt-out mechanism. However, transactional and relationship messages are largely exempt from most CAN-SPAM provisions.

GDPR European Union

If you’re emailing anyone in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR is much stricter than CAN-SPAM, especially when it comes to marketing emails.

For marketing emails, GDPR mandates:

Explicit Consent: You need clear, specific, informed, and unambiguous consent from the individual before sending them marketing emails. This means no pre-ticked boxes or implied consent for promotional content. They need to actively opt-in.
Easy Withdrawal of Consent: Just as easy as it is to give consent, it must be equally easy for someone to withdraw it. You must provide a clear unsubscribe link in every marketing email.
Record Keeping: You need to be able to prove that you obtained valid consent, including who consented, when, and how.

For non-marketing or transactional emails, GDPR might allow you to send them based on a “legitimate interest” legal basis, or because it’s necessary for a contract e.g., an order confirmation. However, you still need to be transparent about data processing, and individuals still have rights like the right to object. It’s a careful balance, and using “legitimate interest” for anything that could be perceived as marketing needs very careful consideration.

The penalties for GDPR non-compliance are significant, up to €20 million or 4% of your annual global turnover, whichever is higher. So, it’s not something to take lightly. Crafting a Winning Digital Marketing Plan with HubSpot: Your Ultimate Guide

Other International Regulations

Many other countries have their own email marketing laws, often leaning towards the stricter, opt-in models like GDPR:

CASL Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation: This is one of the strictest, generally requiring express consent for sending commercial electronic messages.
Spam Act Australia: Requires permission express or inferred before sending marketing emails and a clear unsubscribe option.
PIPEDA South Korea, APPI Japan, LGPD Brazil: Many countries have similar data protection and anti-spam laws that emphasize consent and data privacy.

The bottom line here is you need to know where your recipients are located and comply with the most stringent laws that apply to them. When in doubt, always err on the side of caution and get explicit consent for anything promotional.

Best Practices for Effective and Compliant Emailing

So, you’ve got the lowdown on how to email non-marketing contacts and the legal stuff. Now, let’s talk about some best practices to make sure your efforts are both effective and compliant.

Segmentation and Contact Hygiene

Having a clean and well-segmented contact database is your superpower. Digital Marketing Manager with HubSpot: Your Ultimate Career Guide

Regularly Audit: Go through your contacts regularly. Are there old leads who never engaged? Unsubscribed contacts you forgot to mark as non-marketing? Clean them out or update their status. HubSpot offers tools to help you manage this, including workflows to automatically set unsubscribed contacts as non-marketing.
Use Lists Wisely: Create active lists in HubSpot to segment your contacts based on engagement, lead status, or any custom properties. This helps you identify who should be a marketing contact and who should be non-marketing.
Engagement Scores: Some HubSpot users leverage engagement scores like Thalox Engagement Score to identify truly inactive contacts who are unlikely to engage further, making them prime candidates for non-marketing status.

By keeping your contact lists tidy, you’re not just saving money. you’re also making your outreach more precise.

Clear Communication and Purpose

Before you even hit compose, ask yourself: What’s the real purpose of this email?

Is it truly informational or service-related? Transactional
Is it a personal follow-up related to a specific interaction? One-to-one sales email
Is it trying to sell something or promote content broadly? Marketing email, requires consent if to a marketing contact

Being clear about the email’s purpose helps you choose the right sending method in HubSpot and ensures you’re aligning with legal requirements. Don’t try to sneak marketing messages into transactional emails unless explicitly allowed by law in your recipient’s region and even then, proceed with caution.

Always Offer an Opt-Out It’s Just Good Manners!

Even for emails that aren’t strictly “marketing” under laws like CAN-SPAM or GDPR’s legitimate interest, it’s just good practice to include a way for people to say “no thanks” to future communications. This could be a simple “If you’d rather not receive these updates, please let me know” or a more formal unsubscribe link if appropriate. Building trust means respecting people’s preferences.

Leveraging HubSpot Tools for Non-Marketing Contacts

Remember, non-marketing contacts aren’t dead leads. they’re just not being targeted by your mass marketing efforts. You can still use HubSpot’s CRM to: Supercharge Your Business: Unlocking the Power of HubSpot Marketplace Apps

Track Interactions: Keep a detailed timeline of all communications, calls, meetings, and emails.
Manage Deals: Associate non-marketing contacts with deals if they’re prospects being managed by your sales team.
Provide Service: Use them within the Service Hub for customer support.
Automate Tasks: Set up tasks and reminders for your team to follow up with non-marketing contacts manually.

HubSpot is designed to be a comprehensive platform for managing customer relationships, regardless of their marketing status. By understanding and utilizing the tools correctly, you can nurture relationships, drive sales, and provide excellent service to all your contacts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the main difference between marketing and non-marketing contacts in HubSpot?

The main difference lies in how you engage with them and how they affect your HubSpot subscription. Marketing contacts are those you actively send marketing emails or campaigns to, and they count towards your paid contact limit. Non-marketing contacts are stored in your CRM but don’t receive marketing communications, and they generally don’t count towards your billing, saving you money.

Can I send a regular newsletter to my non-marketing contacts in HubSpot?

No, you generally cannot send regular marketing newsletters or promotional emails to non-marketing contacts using HubSpot’s standard marketing email tools. HubSpot’s system is designed to prevent this, ensuring you comply with billing and, more importantly, email regulations. If you try, HubSpot will usually flag these contacts and exclude them from your send list. Mastering HubSpot Marketplace Templates: Your Ultimate Guide

How do I send a one-to-one email to a non-marketing contact in HubSpot?

It’s pretty simple! Go to the contact’s record in your HubSpot CRM, click the email icon in the left panel, compose your personalized message, and send it. These are considered sales emails or personal communications and bypass the marketing contact restrictions.

What are transactional emails, and can I send them to non-marketing contacts?

Transactional emails are automated, non-promotional messages triggered by a user’s action, like an order confirmation, password reset, or account update. You can send these to non-marketing contacts in HubSpot, but to do so legally and efficiently, you often need the HubSpot Transactional Email Add-on, especially for bulk sends, as it allows these emails to bypass marketing subscription preferences.

What are the legal considerations when emailing non-marketing contacts?

The legal varies by region. In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act allows commercial emails even cold ones to non-consenting contacts, provided they include an opt-out, accurate sender info, and a physical address. However, in the EU, GDPR requires explicit consent for marketing emails. For non-marketing communications, you might rely on “legitimate interest” under GDPR, but this requires careful justification and transparency. Always provide an easy way to opt out, regardless of the law.

How can I avoid accidentally sending marketing emails to non-marketing contacts?

Regularly audit your contact lists and properly categorize them as marketing or non-marketing. Use HubSpot’s tools to automate this, especially for unsubscribed contacts. When creating marketing campaigns, always ensure your recipient list specifically targets marketing contacts with appropriate consent. HubSpot also has built-in features that will warn you or prevent sending marketing emails to non-marketing contacts.

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