Let me ask you a couple of very simple questions: Are you getting enough qualified leads that have been completely and throughly educated in what your business does and can do for them? Have they been nurtured through the process of deciding upon your product before you are ready to try closing the sale? After they are in, are they constantly being moved forward through your fulfillment process while being kept informed about the process? What about the ones who you didn’t convert…are they being revisited from time to time? If your answer is “YES!” then you are probably using InfusionSoft. If your answer isn’t, then keep reading…
If you have talked to me or have read any thing I’ve posted (other than cat videos) you know that I am an automation specialist. You will probably not find a more vocal champion for automating any and everything you do in your life. Automation makes your life easier, allows you to get more done, and eliminates mistakes in your workflow.
So, basically, I’m an automation junkie.
It should come as no surprise that I would fall in love with software that makes it so easy to automation processes that I personally find challenging…and that software platform is InfusionSoft.
InfusionSoft in a Nutshell (or: ld;dr)
Ok, so if you are reading this you are probably asking yourself: “Self, what is InfusionSoft?” This is silly, since you don’t know what InfusionSoft is and have no answer to give yourself. If you are this kind of person, see me after this blog post and I’ll refer you to a local psychologist to get that checked.
InfusionSoft is a platform designed to automate work flow for your business, primarily in the marketing and contact management side (although the platform supports eCommerce and has an open API so that people like myself can extend the platform to allow it to automate just about everything you do repetitively).
You can, for example, create a campaign that is started by a particular “magnet”…say a whitepaper about a particular topic in your industry…that sets off an automated process that nurtures that potential lead into a contact and moves them through your sales funnel towards conversion…and after conversion you can continue to automate the fulfillment process so that every step of the way the customer is informed of what’s going on and your behind the scenes processes move smoothly.
The way that would work is the lead is presented with a simple yet good looking form asking for their name and email address. A link to the whitepaper is sent to that email address. Once this form is submitted, InfusionSoft creates a client record for this lead. It generates an email customized with the contact’s name to their email address containing the link to the whitepaper. The email itself is built in side of InfusionSoft’s email builder and is branded with your company logo and formatted to fit the look of your brand. Future emails are built using this template to maintain consistency and to build your brand’s trust. It sends the email, places a record of the sent email into that client’s record, and tags the email as having been sent.
The email heads out into cyberspace and into your lead’s inbox where they (hopefully) open it. InfusionSoft is able to track this and shows you the rates at which your emails are opened. This lets you know if you subject line is effective or not and allows you to make changes if you just aren’t getting enough people to even look at the email! Inside, the link is waiting for them to click on it.
If the lead clicks the link, the file is downloaded and their client record is flagged as having downloaded it in InfusionSoft. From here, you can setup a follow up email chain to send out over the next couple of days thanking them for their download and asking them if they need more info or offering additional links.
However, if they don’t download the file you can have InfusionSoft send a follow up email asking if there was a problem and if there’s anything you can do to assist them.
You’re getting the idea of how InfusionSoft can help keep on top of your leads…but did I mention this is completely automated? As in this is happening while you’re in your pajamas dreaming of your next vacation? Yes, THAT is the power of automation.
And it doesn’t end there! Once you’ve nurtured this lead to the point where they are ready to be converted into a sale InfusionSoft can automate the fulfillment process. It can quickly fire off emails to suppliers or other venders requesting items to be created or shipped. InfusionSoft could send alerts to others teams in your organization about things that needs to be done or contacts that need to happen…and using the same automation as before it can follow up if things are or aren’t done in a timely manner, notify you that things are or aren’t getting done, and even keep the customer apprised of the status of their order.
It’s all about the add-ons
There’s also an army of developers out there who are writing plugins for the platform to do even MORE! There are plugins to help with Social Media Marketing, to assist you in handling customer service and help desk functions, to allow for automation of scheduling ..if there’s a need for it in business then there’s a plugin that is out there or someone who can make one.
Wow! This is powerful…but I’m in over my head!
Maybe you’re like me and you can jump in with both feet and learn InfusionSoft to where you have everything automated…right down to a robotic coffee maker that knows when you need a top off*. Then I invite you to head over to InfusionSoft and get started right now!
However, a lot of you look at this and say “I know this can help me grow my business, but I don’t know how to use it.” That’s a fair statement, and InfusionSoft is ready to help you. InfusionSoft offers an amazing array of help options from self guided courses to an actual coach who can help you not only figure out how to use InfusionSoft to maximize your ROI, but also to even identify areas that you can use the software! And if that’s not enough, there’s an ever growing group of certified partners that are waiting to be hired to launch your business through the next level and into the level beyond that.
Yeah, it’s that big of a deal.
So, tell us your InfusionSoft success stories or ask us how InfusionSoft can help you in the comments below!