After signing up with Infusionsoft, a combination CRM, shoppingcart, autoresponder, email marketing service, I did my (backward) due diligence by seeking out some reviews on the company. I was quite excited about the service and expected to hear great things. I was shocked to find how many negative reviews there were. Complaints ranged from it being a complete scam to it being so buggy it was useless and almost impossibly confusing to set up. There were whole forum threads with people complaining back and forth about how much Infusionsoft sucks.
After using it for about two months now, I’m more than a little perplexed by the negative reviews and commentary. I don’t know if that was a much earlier release or experiences with a much younger company but, overall, I’ve got great things to say about Infusionsoft so far.
I do have two small complaints. First, the salespeople will cross lines to get you to sign up. Case in point, I asked if Infusionsoft could allow someone to have access to my calendar and book appointments with me through our website (something I am currently using BookFresh for – also a great service). My salesperson said, “Yes, I’ve seen it do that.” It doesn’t do that. What he should have said was, “Yes, you can do this but you will have to pay a programmer to add the capability using the API.”
The second is them doing away with their (rather large) upfront fees two weeks after I signed up and then not doing anything for me but that goes for any technology – I’ve had similar “screwed by not waiting two weeks” experiences with purchasing laptops and phones too so it would silly to begrudge them that. The pricing is now $199 to $399 per month depending on the package you choose. They also offer a 15 day free trial.
Now on to the positive – what’s so great about Infusionsoft?
It rolls your CRM, shopping cart, and email marketing into one integrated system so that they can communicate with one another and automate many updates and tasks that would normally need to be done manually. Most of this is done using “tags” and “action sets.”
When someone enters our sales funnel by requesting the free report from our website, they can be tagged with anything – “Free report requester,” “Receiving follow-up sequence,” and “Prospect,” for instance. Then, an autoresponder will continuously follow up with them. Nothing crazy new so far – that’s what autoresponders do. I can also create an “action set” to create a task so that when someone signs up, I get an action item automatically assigned to me, “Email prospect to ask if they have any questions.” pop up after three days. Rather than having to run a report from my autoresponder to see who signed up three days ago, a to-do is automatically generated. That’s the kind of slick automation that defines Infusionsoft.
ANALYTICS USING TAGS:
If this prospect goes on to sign up with us I can then have Infusionsoft automatically remove the “Prospect” tag and apply the “Client” tag. By looking at the tags I have a way of knowing how each client came to be a client. Did they request the free report from our website? On which page of our website did they opt-in? After which autoresponder message did they sign up? These are questions I can answer *by client* using tags. It’s true that an analytics package could tell me the paths certain visitors took through our site but they are anonymous. With Infusionsoft I can look at our best group of clients and say, “The clients we want tend to do these things while they are on our website.” That’s pretty good to know.
TASK ASSIGNMENT:
I can have Infusionsoft create tasks based on any event. When a new client signs up for our service, there are a few things we need to take care of: we need to get their client area set up, we need to create and send an NDA, etc. These tasks are automatically created, assigned, and the person responsible is notified via email and then has to check off the task when it is complete. Very handy.
NO ADDITIONAL FEES:
Their shopping cart does not have any fees – monthly or per transaction. Of course, your paying dearly for the service itself but it is nice to do away with the separate fees we were paying.
AFFILIATE SOFTWARE:
To be honest, I have not tested their affiliate software yet so I cannot speak to it’s accuracy at tracking sales. However, assuming it is up to par, having this be part of the same system is quite convenient. More than I am interested in it for rolling out an affiliate program, it can also be used to encourage and track sales from referrals. A new client can automatically become an “affiliate” and be emailed a tracking link that they can use to get referrals.
“ALL-IN-ONE,” INTEGRATED SYSTEM:
By far the biggest benefit of using Infusionsoft is doing away with the many services I was using before. I had my autoresponder, shopping cart, CRM, and email client. None of them talked to each other so I was spending time forcing them to stay on the same page. A new client signing up meant that I had to manually remove them from our marketing follow-up so that they didn’t keep getting sales material. I also had to manually go into my CRM and change them from prospect to client. And so on. To keep these disparate systems communicating was something time-consuming and tedious enough that, admittedly, I just didn’t stay on top of it which is a shame. By having all of these rolled into one, Infusionsoft can do all the work and do it automatically. They even offer a very useful Outlook plug-in. Not being a Windows user, I only tested it. I hope they come out with something comparable for us Mac users soon because it is very cool.
EDUCATION AND COACHING:
One thing that Infusionsoft does really well is push you into actually using and implementing the features once you’ve signed up. It’s obvious that they want you to use their software and this is a strong indication they believe in it which I like. After you sign up, you’ll get plenty of ideas about how to use their software to increase your sales. They are big on affiliate programs, referral programs, lead collection, and consistent follow-up. You’ll get an education on each of these and tips on how to get Infusionsoft to automate the processes as much as possible.
CONCLUSION:
It’s really something you need to use before you can see how it would benefit you. I don’t know if the sales staff there is still offering over-the-phone demos but I’d recommend getting one if you aren’t thrilled with your current CRM, autoresponder, or shopping cart. I feel strongly enough about it that I’ll be encouraging any client that can afford it to sign up with them. Once you see what it is like, your mind will probably be swimming with ideas for things it could do for you. What I’ve found is that you’ve really got to invest a lot of time getting things set up and running at the beginning. Later on, you just won’t be as motivated and months will go by without fully implementing it.
If nothing else, I recommend that you download their free report, “The Edge of Success” and see if you agree with their philosophy and approach to marketing and increasing your sales.
*** Yes, I’m an affiliate of Infusionsoft and if you sign up after clicking on a link in this article, I will get a commission. For the record, I’m only involved with two affiliate programs – Infusionsoft and Basecamp – so it’s not like I will promote anything willy nilly. This is a product I believe in.
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