Introduction to Zapier Integrations

How to integrate and automate your processes for sales, marketing, and operations with Zapier

What is a Zapier Integration?

Most businesses use many different tools and software in their day-to-day operations, and rely on data from multiple sources to make decisions (CRM, their email marketing platform, analytics, etc.).

Most businesses also usually require quite a bit of data entry and manual admin work to keep running smoothly, and will often struggle with running out of resources in these areas as they try to grow.

Zapier helps solve BOTH of these challenges (and a lot more).

Zapier allows your business to operate more efficiently, and save loads of time on manual admin work. It’s a tool for building customizable integrations and workflow automations that connect different apps and software together to build fully customizable automations, called “zaps”.

Sync important data between platforms automatically and in real-time. Create workflow triggers that automatically run a particular process when a specific condition is met (such as automating a thank-you email after your sales call or automatically passing contact info from your marketers to your sales team) and other repetitive tasks without needing to code.

Creating a ‘Zap’ is simple, but creating these mini automations can have a powerful effect on the streamlining of your organization.

1. Choose the two apps you want to connect (from over 3,000 connected apps!)
2. Set the ‘trigger’ for the process to run (what criteria will cause it to start running)
3. Select the output action you want to be performed (from a list of options associated with the apps you selected)
4. That’s basically it! There are some additional fields you’ll fill in along the way, and there’s additional things you can do with Zapier (for example adding multiple steps to your automation), but this is the main idea to get you started

You could sit down today and automate thank you and confirmation messages.

Or automatically sync records and analytics between several platforms

Or send automatic followups to leads that came through one channel (such as Facebook ads) through another channel (automatically send them an email 3 days later, then a Linkedin connection request 2 days after that, etc.)

Or automate your entire client onboarding process!

The options are endless.

Zapier Integration and Automation Benefits

Why should you use them?

Zapier is a powerful and flexible way to streamline the operations of your business.

Zapier integrations and automations can help you…

Save time by automating repetitive tasks

The overall operations of your business are made up of series of smaller processes that you run, some manually and some not as much. Creating integrations and automations with Zapier can significantly increase the efficiency of everyone who works in your organization. One way Zapier does this is by allowing you to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

Use Zapier to automatically add a lead to your CRM, or send them a thank-you or followup, or notify your sales team of a new prospect.

Sync and organize data from multiple sources without data entry

Another way Zapier saves you time (and headache) is through its ability to eliminate the majority of the need for data entry work. You can create ‘zaps’ to do the manual admin tasks that involve moving or adding information, whether it’s between people on your team (such as transferring the details of a deal from salesperson to project manager) or between systems (adding leads from paid ads to your CRM) or even between systems and people (notify your sales team every time there’s a new prospect via your lead gen survey).

You can use Zapier to streamline a process that involves time-consuming tasks or data entry work generally results in dramatic improvements in productivity and efficiency.

As an additional side benefit, this also prevents your people from having to constantly switch between multiple systems or spend a bunch of time tracking down the data they need for their work.

Connect tools together that you couldn’t otherwise integrate

You might want to connect tools that you use that don’t have a direct integration. Often, Zapier can be a workaround for this, because many platforms do integrate with Zapier, even if they don’t have many other integrations. If the tool does integrate with Zapier, this means you can use Zapier to connect it to any other tool that Zapier also connects to. Using Zapier in this way also means that you can build automations that you might not directly offered as a feature of the tool you are using.

Do more with less people

Eliminating or automating repetitive, manual, time-consuming tasks reduces your need for staff in these areas. This means you can do more with your same amount of people. 

Do this is especially important as you scale (staffing is often a major constraint on growth) because an automation scales with you, without needing additional people. This means your business can do more over time as it growth, with far less people that it would otherwise need to operate.

Improve the accuracy and consistency of your operations

Human error costs you money. When you reduce the amount of manual admin work, you also reduce the possibilities for error…meaning you increase your overall accuracy, while also freeing your team’s time to do more of what they love.

Upgrade (and automate) your pipelines (for sales, client onboarding, etc.)

Whether it’s the pipeline you have for your sales process, or for bringing in new employees, or onboarding a new client after the sale is closed, Zapier can be a great tool for 1) building a better pipeline (greater consistency and faster turnaround times) and 2) streamlining your pipelines with automations, allowing them to handle more people with the same process. This will also help ensure you don’t have important people or deals slipping through the cracks!

The number 1 Zapier Integration for Sales Presentations…

The Zapier-Slidecast Integration

If you are looking for an app integration to help with your pitch decks (or other types of slide-based presentations), then it’s worth exploring Slidecast, one of the most powerful sales enablement integrations for Zapier.

Slidecast is a powerful remote selling platform designed to streamline and scale your ability to deliver and track your presentations, pitches, and product demos. Slidecast helps you build business presentations more efficiently, with analytics to track presentation engagement, and tools for follow-ups and marketing communications to help you make your presentations more impactful, and to close more deals.

250,000 presentations have been delivered through Slidecast, with 41,000 hours worth of attention from prospects on user presentations (an average of 10 minutes of attention per Slidecast presentation!).

Using Slidecast + Zapier gives you…

A powerful sales enablement for any slide-based pitch, presentation, or product demo

For many businesses, the pitch deck or product demo is the clincher in their sales process. Slidecast is the easiest way to create genuinely impressive audiovisual presentations. Pitch with Slidecast to keep them focused on your presentation, with you in the lead. With this integration, you can create, send, and track impactful pitches, presentations, and product demos to your sales contacts so you can close more deals.

Create beautiful, professional presentations in minutes, not hours

Slidecast is the easiest way to create genuinely impressive audiovisual presentations. Effortlessly create high-converting presentations, even if you’re not a graphic designer. Use built-in templates, import a PowerPoint, or use Slidecast’s integration with Canva to build beautiful professional slides in Canva and then push them to Slidecast.

Deliver a pitch or presentation to your contacts and leads, from any device, to any device, with a single click and no software

Send presentations to your prospects  in one seamless flow, with the recipient able to follow along in real-time simply by clicking a link in their email or text message. Your presentations are mobile-responsive, interactive, trackable, and upgraded with dynamic content like GIFs, video, and fillable forms…with zero downloads or installs required. This allows users to skip many of the technical headaches that can come up in sales presentations. A powerful sales enablement tool that lets you deliver a pitch or presentation from any device, to any device, with a click.

Low-friction remote selling – deliver more pitches and close more deals with Self-Guided presentations

Slidecast has a unique feature that lets you create and deliver ‘Self-Guided’ Slidecasts, which is a presentation where audio clips guide the prospect through your pitch. This empowers sales professionals to, for example, deliver more sales presentations to prospects who missed the meeting, or those who needed to view it again because they circled back after 3 months.

Understand your presentation’s performance with presentation analytics, synced to your favorite CRM

View real-time analytics on your presentations, and use powerful engagement data to send more targeted and strategic followups. Monitor presentation metrics like completion rate, time spent on each slide, when (or whether) a lead has viewed the presentation, whether they made it to your pricing slide, etc. Automatically sync contact info and engagement analytics from your presentations to your CRM (Hubspot, Zoho, Salesforce, etc.). Trigger workflows that automate time-consuming tasks related to any sales process that involves showing a slide deck.

Create post-pitch touchpoints with text messages and voice calls

Send and receive marketing communications through Slidecast, and even automate them with Zapier + Slidecast. Send text messages and make phone calls. Discuss slides in real-time as your client scrolls through your presentation. Keep track of all of your communications, including calls and texts, in your CRM analytics.

Leverage web-based presentations and skip the technical headaches

Slidecast presentations are web-based, meaning your presentations are mobile-responsive, interactive, trackable, and upgraded with dynamic content like GIFs, video, and fillable forms…with zero downloads or installs required.

How to use the Slidecast – Zapier Integration

First, make sure you’ve signed up for a free Slidecast account at Slidecast

You can use pre-built automation templates to quickly create your “zap”(their word for an automation

Or, create a custom automation, first by choosing the trigger to start the automation

For example, these are triggers from Slidecast you can use to initiate the process.

Then, choose the connected app, and the action to follow the trigger. For example, here could create an automation to automatically add a contact to a specific list within Hubspot CRM, once they view the pricing slide in your sales pitch you sent them through Slidecast.

Configure the fields, test it to make sure it works properly, then just activate it and you are good to go!

What are other apps are commonly used with Zapier?

Salesforce

Zapier helps you automatically handle the manual work of keeping your Salesforce list up-to-date, so you can spend time on winning more customers. Use Zapier to automatically create or update leads, contacts, or opportunities from emails, online forms, social media ads, or other apps you use.

Gmail

One of the most popular email services, Gmail keeps track of all your emails with threaded conversations, tags, and Google-powered search to find any message you need.

Filter by Zapier

Only allow a Zap to proceed when a certain condition is met. For example, if you’re sending a text message when you receive a new email, you could use a Filter that only sends a text message when the email received is from a certain address.

Slack

Slack is a platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. Offering instant messaging, document sharing and knowledge search for modern teams.

Webhooks by Zapier

Webhooks simply POST data (or JSON) to a specific URL every time we see something new. Webhooks can also accept data (or JSON) to kick off a workflow in Zapier.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar lets you organize your schedule and share events with co-workers and friends. With Google’s free online calendar, it’s easy to keep track of your daily schedule.

Formatter by Zapier

Data isn’t always in the format you need. Perhaps a date is in International format, but your app needs it in American format. Or maybe you need to Title Case a subject, truncate text for a Tweet, or turn Markdown text into HTML for your blog. Zapier’s Formatter tool can help.

Email by Zapier

Send and receive email via a custom Zapier email address at “zapiermail.com”. This is great for triggering off of emails and sending custom emails. (Max of 10 email sends per hour.) Have direct access to your own email servers? Check out our IMAP and SMTP services!

Mailchimp

Share your ideas with Mailchimp email newsletters—then use its landing page and form builders to grow your lists and take marketing further with drip and transactional emails.

Schedule by Zapier

Schedule is a native Zapier app you can use for recurring tasks. Trigger an action every day of the month, every day of the week or every single day. You can also select the hour of the day. If you’re a developer, this is similar to a crontab, cronjob or cron.

Examples of popular automations commonly created with Zapier

1. Share content across several social media platforms
1. Twitter
2. RSS by Zapier
3. Facebook Pages
4. WordPress (Legacy)
2. Send new leads a personal message, by connecting
1. Facebook Lead Ads
2. Google Forms
3. Typeform
4. SurveyMonkey

1. Notify my team about new leads, by connecting
1. Facebook Lead Ads
2. Google Forms
3. Typeform
4. Calendly
2. Add new leads to a spreadsheet or database, by connecting
1. Facebook Lead Ads
2. Eventbrite
3. Unbounce
4. Gravity Forms
3. Add new leads to my CRM or support platform, by connecting
1. Facebook Lead Ads
2. ClickFunnels
3. Gravity Forms
4. Google Sheets
4. Collect new Typeform responses as rows on Google Sheets
5. Send an email when a new lead comes in
6. Get email notifications or send follow-ups to new Typeform respondents
7. Get Slack notifications for new Typeform entries
8. Get emails with new Facebook Lead Ads leads
9. Add new Facebook Lead Ads leads to rows on Google Sheets
10. Post new RSS items to a Facebook Page
11. Save new Gmail attachments to Google Drive
12. Create Trello cards from new Typeform responses
13. Save new Gmail emails matching certain traits to a Google Spreadsheet
14. Send emails via Gmail when Google Sheets rows are updated
15. Create Trello cards from new Google Sheets rows
16. Generate Google Calendar events from new Google Sheets rows