Infusionsoft’s Biggest Fan

The marketing team over at Infusionsoft is a pretty smart bunch. In an attempt to find some happy customers to feature in their marketing and to get some great free advertising, they’re holding a contest to see who is Infusionsoft’s biggest fan.

Well, Guess What? Infusionsoft’s biggest fan is me!

Yes, we do a lot of online marketing strategy and planning for your clients, but we also manage all of the implementation from email marketing, to website marketing, to information product marketing and more.

Every client seemed to have a different combination of tools they were using and as a result, I have worked with a lot of different service providers. Some used a combination of QuickBooks and Constant Contact, some used a combination of 1ShoppingCart and aWeber, some used PayPal and iContact. The different combinations of tools were immense. But there was one thing that was consistent in all cases – the fact that they needed (and were paying for) multiple service providers.

One client was even paying a virtual assistant more than $2,000 a month to manage her list and keep it current between her shopping cart database and her email marketing provider’s database.

When Bourn Creative decided to focus on proactively marketing and growing our business, I knew that I didn’t want any of the solutions that my clients were using. It was a pain in the butt to manage marketing lists across multiple systems and they were spending a lot of money trying to do it efficiently.

I wanted an all-in-one solution. A solution that would make my life as a business owner and marketer easier, not more difficult. You see, I was swamped. I didn’t have time to spend on something that wasn’t going to work and I needed to be able to automate as much of my ongoing marketing as possible. I knew that there had to be a better solution out there.

I discovered Infusionsoft during their Double Your Sales tour. I flew down to LA for the day to attend and their staff on hand was incredible. They were friendly and they were willing to answer every question I had in detail. Needless to say it was obvious that Infusionsoft was the solution I had been looking for. It is the only all-in-one solution for small business marketing. With Infusionsoft, I have the capability to send broadcast emails, faxes, phone calls, and more, I can add all different types of web forms and order forms to my website, and I can automate customized follow up sequences, drip marketing campaigns, and marketing actions based on the behavior of my clients and prospects.

You know what though? Several internet marketing consultants I approached to see what they thought of the software told me the same thing … “It is too big and robust for you.” They told me that for a small home based business, it didn’t make sense.

But, I don’t know any other marketing software on the market that has the capability to implement behavior based marketing at the level Infusionsoft can and that is what I wanted.

I bought into Infusionsoft and was walked through the software setup by an amazing set up expert who patiently answered every question I had. Yes, I am a small home based business and yes, this is the perfect solution for me. Now that I use it, I don’t think I could ever use anything else!

With my shopping cart, auto responders, and email marketing all in one place, under one login, Infusionsoft allows me to quickly and effectively manage my clients, my communications with them, and all of my marketing… which saves me a ton of valuable time.

And speaking of saving time, with Infusionsoft, I can “set it and forget it,” meaning that I can create a marketing campaign or follow up sequence for an opt-in or purchase one time and set it up to run automatically over and over and over as needed without more work on my part. And do you know what that means? I have more time to do what I want to do … whether that is working on a new marketing campaign for my business, or spending more time with my kids!

I could go on and on, but I am sure you don’t want to spend hours reading this post, so here is a quick list of why I love Infusionsoft and why I think it’s the best solution for email marketing and online marketing management on the market:

• I can manage my shopping cart, my email marketing, my auto responders, my follow up, and my fulfillment from one place, which means I only need to remember one login.

• I can easily create and send both plain text and HTML email messages with completely custom design and even custom opt-out links that can say anything I want.

• I can customize my opt-out forms to allow my audience to only opt out of certain things, choose what they hear from us about, and update their profile information with us.

• I can create all different types of web forms with custom fields for my website. I use the form builder for my free offer opt-ins, my contact form, my affiliate sign up, and other forms.

• I can choose to use the shopping cart or an order form, both of which are customizable with my own images and html. I can even integrate Google analytics to my order forms and shopping cart for cross domain tracking, which means I can track every step of my sales process to see where any break downs occur.

• I can pass information that a visitor puts in a web form they fill out and submit on my site to a thank you page to serve up a targeted and personalized message on the thank you page.

• I can have my follow up sequences (auto responders) start or stop based on an action or even a specific date. I can even have email messages go out on a specific date which is great of pre- and post workshop marketing.

• I can create completely custom, mixed media follow up sequences that use email, phone, fax and more to stay in touch with my clients.

• I can automate the assignment of tasks and fulfillment orders based on client actions.

• I can manage an affiliate marketing program in the Infusionsoft affiliate center (which has boosted our marketing and conversions significantly).

• I can assign “tags” to anyone in my database based on their behaviors and actions. Tags are like categories. They are an incredible tool for segmenting my database in as many different as I want for highly targeted, user focused, niche marketing. For example, I can assign a tag to someone based on the free offer they got when they opted in, based on what they purchased, based on where I met them, based on where they live, based on what type of business they are in, etc. Basically Infusionsoft will let me segment my list based on any criteria I want.

• I can remove “tags” from anyone in my database based on their behaviors and actions. This is a HUGE deal. For example, We held a preview call for our recent bootcamp and everyone who registered was tagged to receive a reminder follow up sequence before the call, and an upsell follow up sequence after the call. The minute that anyone in the upsell follow up sequence registered for the bootcamp, they were automatically removed from the upsell follow up sequence and added to the participant follow up sequence. Imagine how much better it would be if some of the gurus used Infusionsoft instead of 1ShoppingCart? You would no longer keep receiving the preview call sales messages after you registered for the event they are marketing or bought the product they are selling. Or they could set up a form on the website for their big live event that you could fill out once you booked your hotel. That way you wouldn’t have your email inbox clogged with 20 reminders to book your hotel room.

• Infusionsoft helps us keep email marketing relevant to the recipient, and in turn we are converting more prospects into clients, and seeing more clients come back again and again.

• Infusionsoft employees are present and active on Facebook and Twitter and any time I have had a question or hit a stumbling block, they have responded in record time and offered all the assistance I needed quickly.

• Because my marketing is now automated, I am working less and spending more time with my family. In fact, I went from working 14 hour days almost 7 days week one year ago, to now working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day… and I am MAKING MORE MONEY NOW THAN I WAS BEFORE. I also experience much less stress, which is great for everyone in my house!

• Infusionsoft hosts its annual conference, Infusioncon that is free for all Infusionsoft users to attend and they don’t spend the whole time marketing themselves and upselling their services. They provide marketing training and access to experts to help their customers get better at marketing and get more out of their software.

There are more reasons I love Infusionsoft and this last one I want to share with you today may really surprise you…

Now, we had been using Infusionsoft to manage the back end of Bourn Creative’s marketing for about a year when we started looking into and researching a project management system to implement in our business and help our team keep track of projects more effectively and efficiently.

I had mentioned this on Twitter once and Joe Manna, Infusionsoft’s Community Manager responded and suggested I take a peek at the features available inside Infusionsoft.

“Seriously?” I thought, “Are you kidding me?”

But then we began to really look at the software. With the ability to have multiple users with different levels of access, manage calendars, assign tasks and responsibilities (even as part of a follow up sequence), and keep track of client communications, the idea of using Infusionsoft was incredibly appealing. Plus we wouldn’t have to spend more money on another software system to implement in our business and we wouldn’t have to learn another system.

At this point, we aren’t using the project management features to the best of it’s ability and we’re sure that we’re only really taking advantage of just a portion of what Infusionsoft is capable of but yet, we’re already seeing a difference in our business.

I can only image what improvements happen in our business processes and marketing management when we do use the software to its full potential. That I look forward to!

Infusionsoft’s commitment to constantly improve their software and service, their commitment to staying in the conversation with their customers online through social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and their blog, and their one-stop-shop, make-my-life-easier online marketing solution and supportive staff has earned in me, a FAN FOR LIFE!