21 Ways I Use Infusionsoft for Follow Up Marketing

With economic challenges as they are, many online and small business marketers are  taking necessary steps to increase profits, and reduce costs.  The fastest and easiest way to get more done is to automate follow up (not only email marketing which is used by a lot of small business marketing pros).  This should be a part of any small businesses web marketing strategy.  One of the best tools out there, Infusionsoft just became more appealing to cost conscious business owners.  In this post, you’ll learn 21 ways that I use Infusionsoft, as well as their new pricing model announced this week.

21 Ways I Use Infusionsoft for Follow Up Marketing

Follow Up Campaigns: Hi, Nice to Meet You…

1. Lead Capture. Some call it webforms, some lead capture.  It is a place for website visitors to give their name and email to get a special report,  join the site or newsletter (I have one of those such forms on the upper right hand side of this page, and the sites where I provide information about software I sell).
2. Task Assignment On Lead Capture. For sites where the form has a field for a phone number, the system creates a task for me to call them to welcome them as a subscriber, confirm they got access to the resources.  This also allows me to prioritize my prospect funnel.
3. List Segmentation. Since I sell software I ask them both how many users they have, and what software they are using currently.  This information allows me to segment them in the database, from which I can further target follow up messages to them.  Increased targeting=increased sales.
4. Template Creation and Merging. Who likes to cut and paste emails over and over?  Not me.  I use templates to merge personalization information collected on webforms to provide information and resources help them to make their buying decision.
5. Follow Up Marketing. This is key.  I follow up…well, the system follows up with my prewritten (templates) messages.  Follow up marketing is not merely email marketing (autoresponders), follow up can be done with email, faxing, voice broadcast, or postage mail.  Having different mediums is important for small, or even home based business.
6. Campaign By End Date. There was a promotion a while back which ended the last day of the month.  After creating the relevant messages, I set a follow up sequence (campaign) based on the day the promotion ended.  Doing this in advance, allowed me to focus on other marketing activities during the month, and let the system send the compelling messages with regularity and automatically as the deadline drew near.  What’s more, if the customer ended up purchasing, they were automatically removed from that follow up sequence so they no longer got prospect oriented emails.
7. Scheduling Emails. This is big.  I just had a promotion where broadcast messages where configured to out at a specific time for those who hadn’t yet purchased my training product.  I didn’t have to setup a campaign (although I could have), instead I created a targeted message, and sent it out on my most responsive dates and times.

It’s all in the Links…

1. One-Click Registration. For existing subscribers, when I send out an email informing them of an event or teleseminar, I can include a “one click registration” link.  This is a custom link  I setup in Infusion for merging into an email template.  The link can have Actions associated with it, one being to add them to a follow up sequence, and adding an *interest* tag to there record.  Therefore, when they click the link they are automatically added to the follow up sequence, and get the email sequence pertaining to the event or teleseminar.  Later I can easily find all contacts who have that interest tag.
2. Subscriber info updates. Another type of link allows the subscriber to opt-out or Update their contact information.  This is at the bottom of most emails I send out.  Other ways to use this might be to periodically (say before a mailing campaign), send an email merging a contacts mailing address, and giving them a link to update it.
3. Specific Sequence Unsubscribe Option. All autoresponder or follow up email marketing services must have an option to unsubscribe.  Infusion is no different.  However, they take this a step further, you can create a custom opt-out link that gives your subscriber the option to be removed from a specific follow up sequence (not the entire database).  This is useful if they no longer are a fit for that segement of your database, but don’t want to disconnect from you altogether.
4. Custom Buy Now Links. When setting up an opportunity for a prospect (see the next section), you can also send a custom buy now link which, when clicked, has all their information merged in the checkout page of your ecommerce store, they just have to insert their payment information.  I’ve had great experience with this feature, and customers love it.
5. Link Tracking. What you might expect, this feature answers the question small business owners are asking, how many times did a given link get clicked in an email…and by whom?
   
6. Email Marketing Reporting. There are many reports, I most often look at the batch email reports.  Graphically I can see use the delivery report to see how well emails are going through, and the percentage of those that click through.  I’m also looking at the email status report to see the percentage of folks who complete the email verification process.
   

Taking Care of Customers Before and After the Sale

1. Sales Opportunity Management. I identify prospects to a specific stage, enter the products they are interested in.  In most cases I’m dealing with a short sales cycle, but for longer ones I’ll create a sales opportunity.  Once it is created, the information flows into the reporting module, and also allows me to send them a custom buy now link (mentioned above).
2. Automated History Actions. This automates the result of an action.  Example: if I return a call and leave a voicemail, I can apply the returned call left voicemail action, which instantly 1-writes a history to their record that the voicemail was left, 2-sends them an email with the same information, and 3-schedules a follow up call in 2 business days.  As you might imagine, this saves a lot of time.
3. eCommerce Customization. The one they have out of the box is fairly generic.  Fortunately, nearly every aspect of it is customizable.  I had my webdesigner work with it, and the feedback has been very positive. (you can have a peek here)
   
4. Order Form Customization. Many information marketers don’t need eCommerce, rather a single purchase order form.  This was my case when selling video training during a promotion just this week.  Again, fully customized to have the style of my site, not only gives a professional look, but also proved to increase conversion.
5. Making Customers an Affiliate…automatically. While this option isn’t for every small business, it should be for every online information marketer.  I’ve used Infusion Software to make customers affiliates, so they can share what they just purchased with others and get the credit if they buy.
   
6. Task Assignment on Product Purchase. Believing that the best thing one can do for their business is take care of existing customers, upon purchase, my assistant has tasks automatically added to her list to process the order and get it in the mail.  For larger orders she will also make a personal phonecall to thank the customer on my behalf.
   
7. Virtual Assistant Access. Oh, and since it is a hosted service, my Virtual Assistant can login (did I mention there is security?), and take care of customers, and update records, and take care of any tasks I assign her.
8. Send Out Cards Integration (Testing). I haven’t completed the test yet, but the folks over at Internet Automator have a product in beta that integrates with send out cards.  This makes it easy to send birthday cards to customers a-u-t-o-m-a-t-i-c-a-l-l-y.

Infusionsoft New Tiered Model, More Affordable for Small Business

This week, Infusion Software announced a new pricing model which makes it more affordable for small businesses, to get started with their own follow up marketing.  Previously it was $5000 for activation and startup then $299/mo for up to 5 users.  With the new model a small business or online marketer can get started for $2000 and $59 per user respectively.

Need more info?:

• Infusionsoft features here
• Their Master the Moment eBook
• And there’s always the Infusionsoft Demo (video)

Or visit  the Infusion Home Page

Other Follow Up Marketing Ideas

Regardless of your system, Infusion, Aweber, 1SC, etc., what unique ways are you using it?  Have you considered follow up marketing as a part of your web 2.0 marketing strategy, afterall it’s all about relationships, right?  What would you want your system to do that it’s not doing currently?  As always jump in the conversation in the comment boxes below.

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