Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up
Adam asked about using Infusionsoft primarily for eMail and Follow-Up:
I’m not looking to use Infusionsoft for everything that they advocate using it for…just as an email tool so that I can build rules-driven email campaigns that reference customer behavior data (we will send daily transactional data via API). For example, if customer purchases X, send them message 1…if customer is in Florida and has not purchased Y in more than 12 days, send them message 2, etc.
Follow-up up eMail campaigns are a real strength of Infusionsoft!
First, specifically for Adam. I am assuming that you are going to use your own shopping cart with your own customer behavior data. Then, via the API, you’ll trigger a Follow-up Sequence or Action Set. If this is your plan, I expect that Infusionsoft will work wonderfully for you!
Follow-up sequences are one of the best features of Infusionsoft. You can:
- Setup a sequence that includes multiple messages and even multiple types of media (Fax, direct mail, gift fulfillment, etc.)
- Specify the delay between steps in a sequence
- Schedule steps forward or backwards from a date or event
- Have a sequence trigger a follow-up phone call from your sales team
- Cancel the sequence when your prospect responds (Or put them in a different sequence)
Here’s how you would typical use a follow-up sequence. Let’s say a customer buys a product from you. You use that event to trigger a customer satisfaction follow-up sequence like this:
- Day Zero: Dear Customer, thank you for buying our product …
- Day 7: I hope you’re enjoying your new product. Did you know it can …
- Day 30: Please complete our survey and let us know how the product can be better …
It’s also great to complement your eMail messages with direct mail, and Infusionsoft can easily handle this as part of a follow-up sequence.
There are a lot of great ways to trigger a follow-up sequence, a specific action, or an ActionSet.
- A follow-up sequence is a sequence of actions or events that with set time delays (Like I described above)
- A single action can be things like sending an email, assigning a task to a salesperson, sending a direct mail piece, etc.
- An Action Set is a set of actions, but there are no set time delays or sequence. These are essentially just a group of actions.
Some of the ways you can trigger any of these are:
- A prospect fills out a web form on your website
- A customer buys a product
- A user manually causes a trigger (Example: a salesperson finishes a phone call and puts someone in a follow-up sequence)
- A person clicks on a link in an eMail message
I hope this helps Adam and any other current or prospective Infusionsoft users. There’s a lot you can do! It make take something to set all this up, but once you do, it’s wonderful. Usually, the hard part is doing the serious business thinking about how you actually want things to work.
There are some other ideas in our Special Report: Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results. Check it out, and let me know what you think.
And, keep those questions coming!
Hey Clarke,
Thanks for such informative details about InfusionSoft. I am trying to decide between 1ShoppingCart and Infusion. Right now I’m in talks with one of InfusionSoft’s “business coaches” (aka salesmen). My site has been up and running for about 8 months and my traffic and sales have been s-l-o-w. I will be partnering with a company with a huge audience and I expect traffic to increase exponentially (from about 100 per month to a few thousand). InfusionSoft was recommended as one of the best ways to manage, up-sell, re-sell and follow-up with contacts and customers. Will this be overkill for my current needs or simply the right way to set up before I REALLY need it?
By the way, just for this month (August 2009) InfusionSoft is offering some nice incentives for new customers like a “spend a dollar, get a dollar in services.” Of course, the line, “ONLY THIS MONTH!” could just be the sales pitch they use all the time.
Anyway, I have read most of your posts here on Infusion but didn’t see any specifics about what size company might be ready for this or how much traffic might require something bigger and more expensive than 1ShoppingCart. Thanks for any help.
- Lucky Larson
First, a warning: It’s been over a year since I last looked at 1ShoppingCart in detail. Still, I would expect that either Infusionsoft or 1ShoppingCart could easily support a few thousand transactions per month.
It’s not so much company size that matters. You didn’t really talk about your product, but from looking at your website, I think you are selling information products. And, Infusionsoft seems to be very strong in this area. Their shopping cart can be a weakness, and I wouldn’t recommend Infusionsoft for businesses that have a lot of products. I’ve just been finishing up an integration between Infusionsoft and the Volusion shopping cart. Volusion seems to be a very complete shopping cart, but it costs about $100 per month.
Infusionsoft’s biggest strength is in follow-up marketing — Staying in touch and building relationships via e-mail and other media. Just know that this also takes a real commitment from you to create all your communications.
Infusionsoft is recommended for companies with less than 25 employees/salespeople. But, I suspect this won’t be a limitation for you.
The real question you should consider is: “What do I need to support my marketing plan, and how easy/hard will it be to do?” It’s understandable that people focus on the cost of Infusionsoft or whatever tool they are evaluating. But, the largest cost is your time, or the time required of service providers like me. How hard is the system to learn, and how hard is it to implement your marketing plan?
Get Infusionsoft’s free trial, and try to implement some of your ideas. Then, try other options and pick what seems to work best.
I hope this helps!
I appreciate the response Clarke. That helps. Some Infusion users insist that the software’s automation is like having a couple extra employees, after they mastered the tricks. Critics say that it costs them more time than it’s worth. I guess you are right that I will have to just give it a try.
Thanks again,
- Lucky Larson
The truth, I think, is that Infusionsoft can be like having extra employees. But, it definitely takes something to set this up. Of course, if you decide to do the work by using employees, it still takes something to set it up!
For some reason, people want to believe they can buy some software and their troubles will magically go away. I’ve never seen any software that could actually do this! I have seen a lot of software that can improve business results if used intelligently.