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	<title>Greased Skid Marketing</title>
	
	<link>http://www.greasedskid.com</link>
	<description>Maximize Your Revenues with Effective Follow-up</description>
	<pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:52:38 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Double Your Sales Promise Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-double-your-sales-promise-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-double-your-sales-promise-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:27:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[education-based marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=363</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Double Your Sales Promise Overall Grade: B+
Recently, their focus may have shifted. But, over the last year, Infusionsoft has talked a lot about their product being able to Double Your Sales. Is this true?
Actually, it is true for many small businesses. If your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Double Your Sales Promise Overall Grade: B+</h4>
<p>Recently, their focus may have shifted. But, over the last year, Infusionsoft has talked a lot about their product being able to Double Your Sales. Is this true?</p>
<p>Actually, it is true for many small businesses. If your business fits into the following, you have a good chance to Double Your Sales with Infusionsoft:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>If you have revenues less than $1M.</strong> Obviously, it&#8217;s easier to grow your business from $200K to $400K than it is to go from $10M to $20M in a short time.</li>
<li><strong>If you have a good product or services and a clear, differentiated strategy.</strong> If you have a poor or &#8220;me too&#8221; product, then doing a better job of communication and follow-up still won&#8217;t help.</li>
<li><strong>If you are willing to spend your time and/or money</strong> to improve your marketing or follow-up. Sometimes, people allow themselves to believe that all they have to do is spend $200-300 with Infusionsoft and their sales will improve. Of course, this won&#8217;t happen by itself. It takes a real effort to realize the potential of Infusionsoft.</li>
<li><strong>You&#8217;re an established business</strong> and already have a list of customers. Startups can still benefit from Infusionsoft, but it&#8217;s going to take longer and cost more.</li>
</ul>
<p>Infusionsoft has a famous case study where they were able to double sales in only 72 days &#8212; <a title="All About Spelling Case Study" href="http://www.infusionsoft.com/aas-story" target="_blank">All About Spelling</a>. This company had a good product, was established and had a contact list of almost 6,000 customers, and had revenues of  $200-300K when they started. The one thing that isn&#8217;t always pointed out is that Infusionsoft supplied some of their top people to provide consulting help. All About Spelling may have paid for some of the improvements to their website, but they didn&#8217;t pay for the top consulting help.</p>
<p>Doing better at attracting leads, building your contact list, and following-up will help any business, and Infusionsoft is very helpful in facilitating this process. Plus, Infusionsoft will help with your education-based marketing programs.</p>
<p><strong><em>The key is to provide value to your prospects and customers.</em></strong> I know this is obvious, but I talk with people all the time who have the idea the technology like Infusionsoft is the secret. Infusionsoft is a good tool for many companies. But, you have to know your customer, provide value, and communicate clearly. At GreasedSkid, we help Infusionsoft clients accomplish exactly these goals.</p>
<p>So, why a B+ instead of a higher grade? Some of Infusionsoft&#8217;s marketing reinforces the idea that if you just buy the product, your sales will quickly double. As described above, it can. Just be prepared to do the needed work!</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Affiliate Module Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-affiliate-module-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-affiliate-module-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:11:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Affiliate Module]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Shopping Cart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=343</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Affiliate Module Overall Grade: C-
The big problem with Infusionsoft&#8217;s Affiliate Module is that it relies on the Shopping Cart! And, as we already discussed, the shopping cart is a very big weakness of Infusionsoft.
Credit for an affiliate sale is given when a sale [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Affiliate Module Overall Grade: C-</h4>
<p>The big problem with Infusionsoft&#8217;s Affiliate Module is that it relies on the Shopping Cart! And, as we already discussed, the shopping cart is a very big weakness of Infusionsoft.</p>
<p>Credit for an affiliate sale is given when a sale is completed. But the sale has to go through the shopping cart, so you have to use the shopping cart for the Affiliate functions to work.</p>
<p>For most of my clients, I have not been able to use the shopping cart, so I have not had the need to do a deep dive into the Affiliate functions. If the <a title="Infusionsoft Shopping Cart Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-shopping-cart-storefront-review/" target="_self">shopping cart is suitable</a> for your business, I would give the Affiliate module a much higher grade &#8212; At least a B+.</p>
<ul>
<li>It supports multiple Affiliate levels</li>
<li>Affiliates can login and setup their marketing programs, and you can create marketing resources for them.</li>
<li>You can vary the Affiliate payouts by product and setup different Affiliate programs.</li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe Infusionsoft will fix their shopping cart, and the Affiliate module will become useful for many more clients!</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Shopping Cart &amp; Storefront Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-shopping-cart-storefront-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-shopping-cart-storefront-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:58:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Shopping Cart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=338</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Shopping Cart &#38; Storefront Overall Grade: D
The shopping cart and storefront are some of the worst parts of Infusionsoft!

The customization options are limited
The product pages are not SEO optimized
The shipping options are limited, and you can&#8217;t integrate with Fedex or UPS.
It&#8217;s not a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Shopping Cart &amp; Storefront Overall Grade: D</h4>
<p>The shopping cart and storefront are some of the worst parts of Infusionsoft!</p>
<ul>
<li>The customization options are limited</li>
<li>The product pages are not SEO optimized</li>
<li>The shipping options are limited, and you can&#8217;t integrate with Fedex or UPS.</li>
<li>It&#8217;s not a good fit if you have very many products</li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe I&#8217;m being too hard in some ways. If your needs are very basic, the shopping cart does work. It&#8217;s a good fit for you if:</p>
<ul>
<li>You have relatively few products and product categories</li>
<li>You are not picky about the branding for your online store</li>
<li>You can use simplified shipping options</li>
</ul>
<p>I think Infusionsoft is aware that their Shopping Cart &amp; Storefront is a big weakness, and they have oriented their marketing toward their strengths in email marketing, follow-up, and automation. It&#8217;s a shame, really. It&#8217;s really great to be able to do marketing follow-up based on products purchased, etc.</p>
<p>The limits of Infusionsoft&#8217;s shopping cart has been good for GreasedSkid, though. We do a lot of project that integrate Infusionsoft with third-party shopping carts like Volusion.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Infusionsoft Automation &amp; Multimedia Marketing Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-automation-multimedia-marketing-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-automation-multimedia-marketing-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[eMail Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing Automation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=324</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Automation &#38; Multimedia Marketing Overall Grade: A+
Infusionsoft&#8217;s follow-up sequences and automation take Autoresponders to the next level. Plus, you can do more than just send email &#8212; Letters, faxes, voice mail, and more are all supported.
Nearly anything that happens in Infusionsoft can trigger [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Automation &amp; Multimedia Marketing Overall Grade: A+</h4>
<p>Infusionsoft&#8217;s follow-up sequences and automation take Autoresponders to the next level. Plus, you can do more than just send email &#8212; Letters, faxes, voice mail, and more are all supported.</p>
<p>Nearly anything that happens in Infusionsoft can trigger an Action Set &#8212; A group of actions that can including adding the contact to a  follow-up sequence:</p>
<ul>
<li>A new opt-in via a web form</li>
<li>A purchase</li>
<li>A recurring charge that failed</li>
<li>A specific date passed (A birthday or an event date)</li>
<li>A click on a link in an email message</li>
<li>A manual trigger by one of your sales or support employees</li>
<li>An event external to Infusionsoft that triggers via the software API</li>
</ul>
<p>Action sets can include many actions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Tagging a contact to segment your database</li>
<li>Sending a single email to a contact</li>
<li>Adding the contact to a follow-up sequence (multiple emails or other media)</li>
<li>Assign the contact to a specific sales or support employee</li>
<li>Create a task for an employee</li>
<li>Create an Opportunity Record</li>
<li>Create an Order</li>
</ul>
<p>Follow-up sequences let you schedule a sequence of follow-up activities for a specific contact. People are busy, and staying in touch helps them learn about your company and use your products. More on <a title="Infusionsof Follow-up Sequences" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-is-great-for-email-and-follow-up/" target="_self">how to use Follow-up Sequences &#8230;</a></p>
<p>Follow-up sequences can contain many types of multimedia and activities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Email messages</li>
<li>Fax (There is a per fax fee)</li>
<li>Voice Message (There is a per message fee)</li>
<li>Letter (You have to pay for printing and postage)</li>
<li>Fulfillment (You have to pay for fulfillment costs like the product or printing, shipping, and handling)</li>
<li>Add a task to one of your users</li>
<li>Run some other Action Set</li>
</ul>
<p>There is a lot of flexibility regarding how and when each of these follow-up activities happen. You can add rules that control most activities and can have people automatically removed or switched to another follow-up sequence.</p>
<p>In working with Infusionsoft customers, I have always been able to create workable follow-ups and automation.  Sometimes it takes a little creativity, but there&#8217;s usually a way.</p>
<p>Automation and Multimedia follow-up are truly strengths of Infusionsoft.</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-customer-relationship-management-crm-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-customer-relationship-management-crm-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:50:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[CRM]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=315</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Integrated CRM Overall Grade: A
The best thing about Infusionsoft is that it integrates together most of the tools you need to run your small business. If you or your employees regularly speak directly with customers, then having a good CRM system becomes invaluable.
Infusionsoft&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Integrated CRM Overall Grade: A</h4>
<p>The best thing about Infusionsoft is that it integrates together most of the tools you need to run your small business. If you or your employees regularly speak directly with customers, then having a good CRM system becomes invaluable.</p>
<p>Infusionsoft&#8217;s CRM has all the things most small businesses will ever need:</p>
<ul>
<li>An individual record for each contact</li>
<li>The ability to associate contacts with companies</li>
<li>Tracking of tasks and appointments</li>
<li>Capture of contact history &#8212; Emails, phone calls, notes, purchases (If you use the Infusionsoft shopping cart), etc.</li>
<li>Import contacts from other systems</li>
<li>The ability to add custom information to each contact or company</li>
<li>Calendar</li>
<li>Send email directly from the CRM screen</li>
<li>Opportunity management (With the $299 per month Deluxe version). Track specific sales opportunities through your sales pipeline.</li>
<li>Billing and Invoicing  (With the $299 per month Deluxe version). Create orders and invoice clients.</li>
<li>Integration with Outlook. You can use Outlook for many CRM functions and still have all the information stored and sync&#8217;ed with Infusionsoft</li>
</ul>
<p>In my work with Infusionsoft users, I have not found any feature gaps or problems with the CRM functionality. There are other more flexible systems available, but they are also more expensive!</p>
<p>You can use the CRM for your support team or your sales team.</p>
<p>The only time I would say Infusionsoft&#8217;s CRM is not a good fit if you have a large number of users. Beyond the 2-5 users that come with their packages, each user adds another $59 per month. If you have more than 25 support or sales users, you&#8217;ve probably outgrown Infusionsoft.</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Email Marketing Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-email-marketing-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-email-marketing-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:46:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[eMail Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=289</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This post is one section of an extensive review of Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft Email Marketing Overall Grade: B+
Email marketing is one of the best features of Infusionsoft. They do a good job with deliverability, and have all the common functions you need to execute effective email marketing campaigns.
The pricing is competitive, too. For 25,000 emails per [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>NOTE:</strong> This post is one section of an <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<h4>Infusionsoft Email Marketing Overall Grade: B+</h4>
<p>Email marketing is one of the best features of Infusionsoft. They do a good job with deliverability, and have all the common functions you need to execute effective email marketing campaigns.</p>
<p>The pricing is competitive, too. For 25,000 emails per month, MailChimp charges $250 (1-cent per message is a typical cost). But, that&#8217;s just for sending the email messages. Infusionsoft gives you the whole product (CRM and everything else) for $199 &#8212; And that includes 25,000 emails per month.</p>
<p>Why an B+ instead of an A+?</p>
<ul>
<li>They stick a message at the bottom of each message that says &#8220;Delivered by Infusionsoft.&#8221; They&#8217;ve been talking about letting you pay extra to get rid of this, but that doesn&#8217;t seem reasonable to me.</li>
<li>The messages come from Bounce@Infusionsoft.com. You can&#8217;t change this. <a title="Emails with Bounce in the title" href="http://ideas.infusionsoft.com/forums/3978-infusionsoft-product-ideas/suggestions/34365-stop-adding-sender-bounce-infusionmail-com?ref=title" target="_blank">More on this problem &#8230;</a></li>
<li>Most of the reports you&#8217;ll want are available, but they could be easier to use.  <a title="email reporting" href="http://ideas.infusionsoft.com/forums/3978-infusionsoft-product-ideas/suggestions/33801-enhanced-email-reporting-by-template-?ref=title" target="_blank">More on this &#8230;</a><br />
Also, there&#8217;s no real support for split-testing messages.<a title="split-testing email messages" href="http://ideas.infusionsoft.com/forums/3978-infusionsoft-product-ideas/suggestions/33332-a-b-split-testing-for-email?ref=title" target="_blank"> Supposedly, this is in the works &#8230;</a><br />
You can&#8217;t access the email statistics via the API</li>
<li>The base product doesn&#8217;t offer email spam scoring so you can check for messages that are likely to get trapped by spam filters.</li>
<li>You can&#8217;t easily have an HTML page that mirrors the content of the message. So, you can&#8217;t do a &#8220;Click to see this in your browser&#8221; link.</li>
</ul>
<p>For many small businesses, these are mostly annoyances. Improving your follow-up and communication with customers can be very valuable &#8212; Even if it isn&#8217;t perfectly branded and smooth.</p>
<p>Infusionsoft Email Marketing probably isn&#8217;t a good fit for you if:</p>
<ul>
<li>You spend a lot of time and energy on your brand and customer experience, and you want your messages &#8220;just so.&#8221;</li>
<li>You are an analytics wizard and you want to know everything about email deliverability, email metrics, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are a couple of other nice features that I should mention:</p>
<ul>
<li>There&#8217;s a plugin for Outlook that lets you integrate Outlook with Infusionsoft. You can even use Outlook to send email through Infusionsoft! It&#8217;s only available for Outlook, though. This really helps if you are using the CRM features in Infusionsoft.</li>
<li>You can include trackable links in a message. You can use this to trigger Automation and Segmentation events.</li>
<li>You can setup sequences of emails that happen according to various rules. For example, you can setup a sequence that goes out every 4 days after someone completes an opt-in form on your website.</li>
</ul>
<p>Here are a couple of other articles from Greased Skid:</p>
<ul>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-is-great-for-email-and-follow-up/" target="_self">Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft Outlook Integration" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/infusionsoft-outlook-integration/" target="_self">Infusionsoft Outlook Integration</a></li>
<li><a title="eMail Deliverability Reports in Infusionsoft" href="eMail Deliverability Reports" target="_self">eMail Deliverability Reports in Infusionsoft</a></li>
</ul>
<p>If I missed anything, or you disagree, please leave a comment. If you want to see an example of an Infusionsoft Email, complete the form at:</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:52:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=280</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I am an Infusionsoft consultant (CMAC), and I work with a lot of Infusionsoft customers. If I hated Infusionsoft, I wouldn&#8217;t be in this business! It&#8217;s got it&#8217;s strengths and weaknesses, and since I work with it every day, I&#8217;m going to try and help you decide if it&#8217;s a good fit for you.
Since I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I am an Infusionsoft consultant (CMAC), and I work with a lot of Infusionsoft customers. If I hated Infusionsoft, I wouldn&#8217;t be in this business! It&#8217;s got it&#8217;s strengths and weaknesses, and since I work with it every day, I&#8217;m going to try and help you decide if it&#8217;s a good fit for you.</p>
<p>Since I may work with you in the future, I want to paint a realistic picture of where it&#8217;s good and who it will work for. It&#8217;s not good for me to have to tell clients &#8220;No, Infusionsoft can&#8217;t do that.&#8221;</p>
<p>In case you don&#8217;t know, <a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/dysglp/cbishop/blog" target="_blank">Infusionsoft</a> is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Email Marketing product. It gives you a database to store all your customers, and makes it easy to send follow-up email messages to them. Since most businesses don&#8217;t do a good job of following up, this can really boost your business.</p>
<p>Their system is specifically targeted at small businesses. The typical starting price is $200 or $300 per month (At the higher price, you get more contacts and features). This price includes 2 users, so if you have more than two salespeople who will use the system, you&#8217;ll need to add additional users at $59 per month. Infusionsoft is not recommended for companies with more than 25 users!</p>
<p>Infusionsoft is very aggressive with it&#8217;s sales and marketing. I understand their desire to sell their product, but I think it would be better if they were more consultative in their sales approach. The sales people seem to say &#8220;Yes&#8221; to almost any question regarding the capabilities of the system. I think their sales and marketing aggressiveness is the number one reason for Infusionsoft complaints.</p>
<p>So, I&#8217;m going to try to help with a balanced review of their features and service. I&#8217;m going to go through each of these in the next several days, and if a link isn&#8217;t active, please check back.</p>
<p>And, if you are or become an Infusionsoft user, please <a title="Contact Greased Skid" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/contact_us" target="_self">Contact Us</a> when you need some help!</p>
<p>Comments are always welcome here, so if you have a specific question, please leave a comment.</p>
<h2>Infusionsoft Features</h2>
<ul>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft Email Marketing Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-email-marketing-review/" target="_self">Email Marketing Grade: B+<br />
</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft CRM" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-customer-relationship-management-crm-review/" target="_self">Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Grade: A</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft Smart Automation &amp; Multimedia Marketing" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-automation-multimedia-marketing-review/" target="_self">Smart Automation &amp; Multimedia Marketing Grade: A+</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft Shopping Cart" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-shopping-cart-storefront-review/" target="_self">Shopping Cart Grade: D</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft Affiliate Module" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-affiliate-module-review/" target="_self">Affiliate Module Grade: C-</a></li>
<li><a title="Infusionsoft double your sales promise review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-double-your-sales-promise-review/" target="_self">Double Your Sales Promise Grade: B+</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Infusionsoft Technology and Support</h2>
<ul>
<li>Technical Support</li>
<li>Customer Support</li>
<li>Software API</li>
<li>Overall Architecture</li>
</ul>
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		<title>How to Send SMS Text Messages from Infusionsoft</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/how-to-send-sms-text-messages-from-infusionsoft/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/how-to-send-sms-text-messages-from-infusionsoft/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:22:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=257</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It IS possible to send SMS text messages as part of a follow-up sequence from Infusionsoft!
There are a couple of tricks, though.

You have to buy an external SMS text messaging service like Clickatell.
Set the To address for the template to: sms@messaging.clickatell.com, and all messages get sent to this address.
In the body of the message, embed [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It <em><strong>IS </strong></em>possible to send SMS text messages as part of a follow-up sequence from Infusionsoft!</p>
<p>There are a couple of tricks, though.</p>
<ul>
<li>You have to buy an external SMS text messaging service like <a title="Clickatell" href="http://www.clickatell.com/" target="_blank">Clickatell</a>.</li>
<li>Set the To address for the template to: <span style="color: #800000;">sms@messaging.clickatell.com</span>, and <em><strong>all messages</strong></em> get sent to this address.</li>
<li>In the body of the message, embed a custom field with the contact’s SMS phone number. The number should be unformatted to match Clickatell’s requirements.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can&#8217;t use one of Infusionsoft&#8217;s phone number fields because it automatically formats the number and Clickatell won&#8217;t work right! But, if you just use a Custom field, then everything will be OK.</p>
<p>I made this work with Clickatell&#8217;s <a title="Clickatell SMTP API" href="http://www.clickatell.com/developers/api_smtp.php" target="_blank">SMTP API</a>, by sending an email template like this:</p>
<blockquote><p>user:xxxxx   <span style="color: #800000;">{Your specific Clickatell info}</span><br />
password:xxxxx   <span style="color: #800000;">{Your specific Clickatell info}</span><br />
api_id:xxxxx    <span style="color: #800000;">{Your specific Clickatell info}</span><br />
to: 448311234567  <span style="color: #800000;">{Insert the custom field data here}</span><br />
reply:youremail@yourdomain.com<br />
text:Meet me at home                             <span style="color: #800000;">{This is the message you want to send}</span></p></blockquote>
<p>I hope this helps. There&#8217;s also more on the <a title="Infusionsoft Blog" href="http://www.infusionblog.com/infusionsoft-insider/how-to-automate-text-message-marketing-with-infusionsoft/" target="_blank">Infusionsoft Blog</a>.</p>
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		<title>eMail Deliverability Reports</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/email-deliverability-reports/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/email-deliverability-reports/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:57:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=253</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mike asked a question about eMail Deliverability Reports in Infusionsoft:
First of all, as a newbie to Infusionsoft, its good to find your site and the pdf download (the analytics clickable links helped already).
My question is, is there a way to get an email deliverability (opens/clicks/hard and soft bounces etc) for all emails sent over a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Mike asked a question about eMail Deliverability Reports in Infusionsoft:</p>
<blockquote><p>First of all, as a newbie to Infusionsoft, its good to find your site and the pdf download (the analytics clickable links helped already).</p>
<p>My question is, is there a way to get an email deliverability (opens/clicks/hard and soft bounces etc) for all emails sent over a certain period?</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;d love to see Infusionsoft improve their reporting or open up more of the data to the API so I could create better reports.</p>
<p>One report you can run is the Email Batch Status report (Under Reports &#8211;&gt; Marketing Reports). Then, click the View button to see the report.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not obvious, but you can click on the pie charts to get more detail! If you want a more detailed explanation, please download my free special report: <a title="Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/infusioncon/" target="_self">Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results</a>. Key number 6 has some detailed information on how to use the pie charts and get all the information.</p>
<p>You can also request new features at <a title="Subit Ideas to Infusionsoft." href="http://ideas.infusionsoft.com" target="_blank">ideas.infusionsoft.com</a>.  They do pay attention and do implement some of the requests!</p>
<p>Please leave a comment if you have other questions!</p>
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		<title>WordPress with Infusionsoft Web Forms</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/wordpress-with-infusionsoft-web-forms/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/wordpress-with-infusionsoft-web-forms/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:22:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Web Forms]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Wordpress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=226</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Conrad asked about using Infusionsoft web forms inside of WordPress:
Can I put Infusionsoft forms in a Wordpress blog?
Is there a plug-in?
This is actually quite easy, and here&#8217;s a movie that shows you how to use Infusionsoft Web Forms in WordPress:

Basically, the steps are:

Create the Web Form in Infusionsoft
Click the &#8220;Gimme the Code&#8221; button, select all [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Conrad asked about using Infusionsoft web forms inside of WordPress:</p>
<blockquote><p>Can I put Infusionsoft forms in a Wordpress blog?</p>
<p>Is there a plug-in?</p></blockquote>
<p>This is actually quite easy, and here&#8217;s a movie that shows you how to use Infusionsoft Web Forms in WordPress:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.greasedskid.com/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/default_video_player.gif" /></p>
<p>Basically, the steps are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Create the Web Form in Infusionsoft</li>
<li>Click the &#8220;Gimme the Code&#8221; button, select all (ctrl-A), and copy (ctrl-c)</li>
<li>Create a WordPress Post or Page and click the HTML tab in the WordPress editor</li>
<li>Paste in the Infusionsoft web form code</li>
<li>Edit the web form code to clean it up or style it if you want</li>
<li>Switch back to Visual mode and add other text, images, etc.</li>
</ul>
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		<title>Automation and Follow-up with Infusionsoft</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/automation-and-follow-up-with-infusionsoft/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/automation-and-follow-up-with-infusionsoft/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:12:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[eMail Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing Automation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=216</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Malcolm asked about marketing automation and follow-up:
Email campaigns based on purchases
Generate a “send person A written Thank You card″ or something like that.
I have no e-commerce or web-based sales… I just want something to manage email and real mail campaigns based on clients’ potential interests or recent purchases or referrals.
I’d also like to provide people [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Malcolm asked about marketing automation and follow-up:</p>
<blockquote><p>Email campaigns based on purchases</p>
<p>Generate a “send person A written Thank You card″ or something like that.</p>
<p>I have no e-commerce or web-based sales… I just want something to manage email and real mail campaigns based on clients’ potential interests or recent purchases or referrals.</p>
<p>I’d also like to provide people the opportunity to “request information” off my website so I can (A) send them info, and (B) capture their contact info for additional contact later to try to win them over as a client.</p>
<p>Once you DO get someone as a client, how do you track their change in status?</p>
<p>Much of our business is run off a SQL database kinda program I suspect there would be a lot of manual data entry or updating as our clients buy things or refer people or what have you.</p>
<p>Since much of my business is run on a different program, I wonder if automating my email and regular mail campaigns is kind of like looking for a unicorn.</p></blockquote>
<p>In another post, I described how <a title="Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/infusionsoft-is-great-for-email-and-follow-up/" target="_self">Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up</a> &#8212; This is really a strength of the product!  This post goes into detail on how you can define customer follow-up sequences that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Send written Thank You cards or other physical packages</li>
<li>Send different messages or items based various rules involving customer interests or recent purchases</li>
<li>Have multiple steps over time to stay in touch with your prospect</li>
</ul>
<p>But <span id="commentauthor-78"> Malcolm </span>also raises another question. What if you already have a customer database you&#8217;re using to manage your business? Depending on your situation, there are two fundamental options:</p>
<ul>
<li>Replace your existing customer database with Infusionsoft. As long as your database is clean and well structured, you can easily import all your customer information. Infusionsoft allows you to create up to 100 custom fields for your specific situation. Amd, if you need to, you can integrate Infusionsoft with your external applications with the API.</li>
<li>Keep your existing customer database, but synchronize the contact information with Infusionsoft. This may require using the Infusionsoft API to keep everything up to date.</li>
</ul>
<p>Infusionsoft will only email contacts that are imported into your Infusionsoft application. So, you can&#8217;t avoid keeping all your contacts in Infusionsoft.Either way, giving people the opportunity to “request information” off your website is simple. You just create an Infusionsoft web form and put the code on your website. Then, the propspects information is automatically captured in Infusionsoft.</p>
<p>For more information, see our special report: <a title="Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/infusioncon/" target="_self">Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results</a>.</p>
<p>And, thanks again for the great question, Malcolm!</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft is Great for Email and Follow-up</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-is-great-for-email-and-follow-up/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-is-great-for-email-and-follow-up/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2009 22:39:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[eMail Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Follow-up]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=207</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Adam asked about using Infusionsoft primarily for eMail and Follow-Up:</p>
<blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote>
<p>Follow-up up eMail campaigns are a real strength of Infusionsoft!</p>
<p>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&#8217;ll trigger a Follow-up Sequence or Action Set. If this is your plan, I expect that Infusionsoft will work wonderfully for you!</p>
<p>Follow-up sequences are one of the best features of Infusionsoft. You can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Setup a sequence that includes multiple messages and even multiple types of media (Fax, direct mail, gift fulfillment, etc.)</li>
<li>Specify the delay between steps in a sequence</li>
<li>Schedule steps forward or backwards from a date or event</li>
<li>Have a sequence trigger a follow-up phone call from your sales team</li>
<li>Cancel the sequence when your prospect responds (Or put them in a different sequence)</li>
</ul>
<p>Here&#8217;s how you would typical use a follow-up sequence. Let&#8217;s say a customer buys a product from you. You use that event to trigger a customer satisfaction follow-up sequence like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Day Zero: Dear Customer, thank you for buying our product &#8230;</li>
<li>Day 7: I hope you&#8217;re enjoying your new product. Did you know it can &#8230;</li>
<li>Day 30: Please complete our survey and let us know how the product can be better &#8230;</li>
</ul>
<p>It&#8217;s also great to complement your eMail messages with direct mail, and Infusionsoft can easily handle this as part of a follow-up sequence.</p>
<p>There are a lot of great ways to trigger a follow-up sequence, a specific action, or an ActionSet.</p>
<ul>
<li>A <strong>follow-up sequence</strong> is a sequence of actions or events that with set time delays (Like I described above)</li>
<li>A single <strong>action </strong>can be things like sending an email, assigning a task to a salesperson, sending a direct mail piece, etc.</li>
<li>An <strong>Action Set</strong> is a set of actions, but there are no set time delays or sequence. These are essentially just a group of actions.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of the ways you can trigger any of these are:</p>
<ul>
<li>A prospect fills out a web form on your website</li>
<li>A customer buys a product</li>
<li>A user manually causes a trigger (Example: a salesperson finishes a phone call and puts someone in a follow-up sequence)</li>
<li>A person clicks on a link in an eMail message</li>
</ul>
<p>I hope this helps Adam and any other current or prospective Infusionsoft users. There&#8217;s a lot you can do! It make take something to set all this up, but once you do, it&#8217;s wonderful.  Usually, the hard part is doing the serious business thinking about how you actually want things to work.</p>
<p>There are some other ideas in our Special Report: <a title="Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/infusioncon/" target="_self">Infusionsoft: 7 Keys to Top Results</a>. Check it out, and let me know what you think.</p>
<p>And, keep those questions coming!</p>
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		<title>What is the Infusionsoft API?</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/what-is-the-infusionsoft-api/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/what-is-the-infusionsoft-api/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 13:52:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[API]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=167</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John recently left me a question asking:
What is API? I just signed up with InfusionSoft and I&#8217;m pretty annoyed at their support. I put a ticket in on Wednesday - to fix a ticket they did not fix earlier in the week - and 48 hours have passed and I have not heard a thing. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>John recently left me a question asking:</p>
<blockquote><p>What is API? I just signed up with InfusionSoft and I&#8217;m pretty annoyed at their support. I put a ticket in on Wednesday - to fix a ticket they did not fix earlier in the week - and 48 hours have passed and I have not heard a thing. I am not at all happy with them.</p></blockquote>
<p>API stands for Application Programing Interface. That helped a lot didn&#8217;t it!</p>
<p>An API is a way for two different computer programs to communicate with each other. Sometimes you want to do this to integrate two systems and have them work together. Or, you might use an API to extend a system and add new capabilities.</p>
<p>If you want some examples,  Joe Manna posted his ideas on <a title="Ways to use the Infusionsoft API" href="http://www.infusionblog.com/product-service-related/19-more-ways-to-use-the-infusionsoft-api/" target="_blank">ways to use the Infusionsoft API</a> on the Infusionsoft blog.</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Complaints and Review</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-complaints-and-review/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-complaints-and-review/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:59:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=145</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[IMPORTANT UPDATE, March, 2010:
The post below was a quick review of Infusionsoft. I have since created a much more extensive review of Infusionsoft.
I came across some complaints about Infusionsoft on Jon Gales blog today. This reminded me that I&#8217;ve been meaning to write a review on Infusionsoft. So, here&#8217;s a review of Infusionsoft mixed with [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="ImportantNote"><strong>IMPORTANT UPDATE, March, 2010:</strong><br />
The post below was a quick review of Infusionsoft. I have since created a much more <strong><a title="Infusionsoft Review" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/infusionsoft-review/" target="_self">extensive review of Infusionsoft</a></strong>.</div>
<p>I came across some <a title="Complaints about Infusionsoft" href="http://www.jongales.com/blog/2009/01/12/infusionsoft-is-awful/" target="_blank">complaints about Infusionsoft</a> on Jon Gales blog today. This reminded me that I&#8217;ve been meaning to write a review on Infusionsoft. So, here&#8217;s a review of Infusionsoft mixed with some comments on Jon&#8217;s experience!</p>
<p>I am an Infusionsoft user and a Certified Infusionsoft consultant (CMAC). I&#8217;m not an employee of Infusionsoft, but I would like to see them succeed. I think some of Jon&#8217;s comments are right on, and some of them go way too far. Now, here are some specifics:</p>
<ul>
<li>Jon said: <span style="color: #993300;">&#8220;Their API is one of the most difficult I’ve ever integrated with&#8221;</span> Yea, it could be easier. I&#8217;d rather they used SOAP instead of the older XMLRPC. And, I wish the API really allowed full access to everything in Infusionsoft &#8212; There&#8217;s some data you just can&#8217;t get to. Still, for the things you <em><strong>can </strong></em>do with the API, I&#8217;ve not found it hard to work with. He complained about having to make 4 calls do do something. What I do is just wrap up the 4 calls into a single function &#8212; After that, it&#8217;s only one call!</li>
<li><em><span style="color: #993300;">API requests then aren’t processed in real time</span>. </em>I&#8217;ve run into this problem, too! I think Infusionsoft should be able to do customer-related things like email and transactions immediately. That&#8217;s what my customer expect.</li>
<li><span style="color: #993300;">&#8230; technical staff had no idea of really huge gaps in functionality</span>. and later on, <span style="color: #993300;">They say whatever they need to get you off the phone</span>.  I really disagree with Jon on this one. I&#8217;ve found the support people really bend over backwards to help you. I&#8217;ve never felt like they were trying to get me off the phone. Yea, some are more knowledgeable than others, but they will go get help when appropriate.</li>
<li><span style="color: #993300;">There’s only one guy here who deals with the API</span> That&#8217;s right, Justin is the API Guy. He&#8217;s the one who deals with the heavy duty technical questions on the API. I have found Justin to be consistently responsive and helpful. In my experience, there aren&#8217;t a lot of companies who make someone this capable so easily available. Justin even posted his direct contact information in one of the responses.</li>
<li><span style="color: #993300;">Infusionsoft found this post &#8230; and has been busy getting in touch with me.</span> I see this as a positive thing.  How many companies wouldn&#8217;t bother to search the web for users who are having trouble? Infusionsoft has been growing very quickly and they definitely have problems. I&#8217;ve certainly been frustrated by them! If there was a good alternative, I would tell you. If it&#8217;s out there, I haven&#8217;t found it yet.</li>
</ul>
<p>OK, enough about the post on John Gales blog. What&#8217;s good and bad about Infusionsoft? I may expand on this later, but here&#8217;s a quick list:</p>
<p><strong>The Good</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Integration. Having CRM, eMail, and Shopping Cart all integrated together is great! It really save a bunch of time over trying to use separate systems.</li>
<li>Automation. With a little creativity, you really can use this tool to automate a lot of your business.</li>
<li>The Power of the System. I am continually amazed at the things you can do with Infusionsoft. It really is powerful. Of course, it does take some effort to learn it and use it well.</li>
<li>Support. As mentioned above, I have found support to be very helpful. It can take a little effort to find the right person, but even outside of the official support team, Infusionsoft employees will try to help.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The Bad</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Shopping Cart is too limited. The shipping options are too limited and tt doesn&#8217;t support Fedex/UPS shipping.  Also, the storefront is pretty limited. As long as your needs are basic, though, it is fine.</li>
<li>Reports are a real weakness, and you can&#8217;t get data via the API. This is probably my biggest complaint. I believe in testing and leveraging data. It&#8217;s there, but I can&#8217;t get it in a usable form. I think this is a priority that is being addressed in an upcoming release.</li>
<li>The user interface could be a lot better. Some of this is due to the power of the system, but sometimes, functions just seem to be in the wrong place.</li>
<li>Documentation is behind. The documentation seems to lag behind the capabilities of the system, and this makes it harder to get things done.</li>
</ul>
<p>Those are my top good and bad items. If you want to see more, leave a comment and I&#8217;ll address your questions.</p>
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		<title>Twitter for Small Business and John Jantsch</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/twitter-for-small-business-and-john-jantsch/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/twitter-for-small-business-and-john-jantsch/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:57:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=142</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Jantsch of  DuctTape Marketing wrote a recent post on Twitter and small business (http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/03/31/all-tweet-and-no-cattle/).
His main point is that small businesses should get the basics of business in place before chasing the latest hot idea or fad. I have to agree!
Execution is essential in effective marketing. No matter how clever the strategy or idea, it&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>John Jantsch of  DuctTape Marketing wrote a recent post on Twitter and small business (<a title="Twitter for Small Business" href="http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/03/31/all-tweet-and-no-cattle/" target="_blank">http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/03/31/all-tweet-and-no-cattle/</a>).</p>
<p>His main point is that small businesses should get the basics of business in place before chasing the latest hot idea or fad. I have to agree!</p>
<p>Execution is essential in effective marketing. No matter how clever the strategy or idea, it&#8217;s usually consistency and persistence that gets business results.</p>
<p>I think human beings want to imagine there&#8217;s a magical way to get results. And, the latest fad or technology gets annointed as &#8220;The Answer.&#8221;</p>
<p>Do you find yourself running around chasing the latest big thing?</p>
<p>Or, do you have a system for doing the boring things that will make a difference for your business?</p>
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		<title>Tracking User Responses with Infusionsoft and Google Analytics</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/tracking-user-responses-with-infusionsoft-and-google-analytics/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/tracking-user-responses-with-infusionsoft-and-google-analytics/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:23:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Analytics]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Tracking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=136</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Infusionsoft is great for managing your customers and opportunities. And it automates the follow-up process that is frequently broken in small companies!
Still, some of the tracking and reporting functions could be better. I know Infusionsoft is working on some improvements, but in the meantime, here&#8217;s a way to use Google Analytics to track user responses. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/demo/cbishop/Demo" target="_blank">Infusionsoft</a> is great for managing your customers and opportunities. And it automates the follow-up process that is frequently broken in small companies!</p>
<p>Still, some of the tracking and reporting functions could be better. I know <a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/demo/cbishop/Demo" target="_blank">Infusionsoft</a> is working on some improvements, but in the meantime, here&#8217;s a way to use Google Analytics to track user responses. Here&#8217;s what you do:</p>
<ol>
<li>Create a &#8220;Trackable Link&#8221; in Infusionsoft. (You probably already know how, but if not, enter a question and I&#8217;ll do a post on it!)</li>
<li>In the Trackable Link, add Google Analytics tags to the URL like this: <a title="URL Example" href="http://www.GreasedSkid.com/index.php?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;utm_campaign=tracking" target="_blank">http://www.GreasedSkid.com/index.php?utm_source=<span style="color: #993300;">blog</span>&amp;utm_medium=<span style="color: #993300;">web</span>&amp;utm_campaign=<span style="color: #993300;">tracking</span></a></li>
<li><span style="color: #993300;"><span style="color: #000000;">Merge the Trackable Link into your eMail follow-up messages.</span></span></li>
</ol>
<p>Your eMail audience will receive a message with the Infusionsoft link. When they click, Infusionsoft will forward them to the link and include the Google Analytics tags. Then, inside Google Analytics, you can see how many people clicked the link, where they went on your site, etc. Even better, Google Analytics stores the tags in a cookie, and can report on conversions and transactions based on the tracking tags!</p>
<p>Google provides a handy <a title="URL Builder Tool" href="http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=55578" target="_blank">URL Builder</a> tool that makes it easier to create the URL. Really, all you need to decide is what information you want to track. Typically, you might have:</p>
<ul>
<li>utm_medium: This says how the message got to the user. For an email message, you might just set this to <span style="color: #993300;">email</span>.</li>
<li>utm_source: This indicates who the user is. You might set it to the name of one of your segments.</li>
<li>utm_campaign: This indicates the campaign or follow-up sequence the message belongs to.</li>
</ul>
<p>One more thing. When you create the Trackable Link in Infusionsoft, you will often want to add an action to tag the person.That way, you can see who is interested in which topics. This is how you can actually automate the process of getting to know your customers.</p>
<p>For an example of how all this works, go to <a title="InfusionCon" href="http://www.greasedskid.com/infusioncon/" target="_self">GreasedSkid/InfusionCon</a>.  Enter your information and click Download. Don&#8217;t worry about a flood of spam, you&#8217;ll get a message asking how frequently you want to hear from us again. And one option is to not send more information!</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, each of the links is trackable and assigns a tag. Each link also has the Google Analytics tracking.</p>
<p>Happy Tracking!</p>
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		<title>Infusionsoft Outlook Integration</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/infusionsoft-outlook-integration/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/infusionsoft-outlook-integration/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:37:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=131</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is a 4:50 video demonstrating the new Outlook integration feature of Infusionsoft.
See the Video &#8230; (It&#8217;s best to click the Full Size button before watching the video.
Infusionsoft offers CRM features along with eMail marketing, follow-up automation, and a shopping cart.
Outlook integration lets you access the CRM features and link eMail messages to Infusionsoft &#8212; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Here is a 4:50 video demonstrating the new Outlook integration feature of <a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/demo/cbishop/Demo">Infusionsoft</a>.</p>
<p><a title="Outlook Integration Video" href="http://www.screencast.com/users/editweapon/folders/Jing/media/6410d372-ff47-4483-8d58-991d378ac50a" target="_blank">See the Video &#8230;</a> (It&#8217;s best to click the Full Size button before watching the video.</p>
<p>Infusionsoft offers CRM features along with eMail marketing, follow-up automation, and a shopping cart.</p>
<p>Outlook integration lets you access the CRM features and link eMail messages to Infusionsoft &#8212; All without leaving Outlook!</p>
<p>It&#8217;s still a beta, and there are even some glitches in the video, but it definitely makes it easier to use Infusionsoft.</p>
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		<title>Regularly schedule a marketing day to work ON your business</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/regularly-schedule-a-marketing-day-to-work-on-your-business/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/general/regularly-schedule-a-marketing-day-to-work-on-your-business/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:40:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=127</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just got back from InfusionCon, the Infusionsoft users conference. If you don&#8217;t already know, Infusionsoft combines CRM, eMail marketing, and a shopping cart all into one integrated system!
InfusionCon was interesting &#8212; Part multi-level marketing rally, and part how to really make marketing work for your small business.
There were plenty of great ideas, and I&#8217;m [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I just got back from InfusionCon, the <a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/demo/cbishop/Demo">Infusionsoft </a>users conference. If you don&#8217;t already know, Infusionsoft combines CRM, eMail marketing, and a shopping cart all into one integrated system!</p>
<p>InfusionCon was interesting &#8212; Part multi-level marketing rally, and part how to <em><strong>really </strong></em>make marketing work for your small business.</p>
<p>There were plenty of great ideas, and I&#8217;m going to share the highlights with you over the next few weeks.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s one great idea: <strong>Regularly schedule a marketing day to work ON your business</strong>. If your business is like mine, there&#8217;s just no end of things to do &#8212; Client projects, administration, sales follow-up, web administration, etc.</p>
<p><a title="Infusionsoft" href="https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/demo/cbishop/Demo">Infusionsoft </a>let&#8217;s you automate your marketing and other aspects of your operations! Even though Infusionsoft makes a lot of things easier, you still have to write your copy and set things up. That where Marketing Days come in. You just have to schedule time to do this stuff.</p>
<p>I actually started my version of this idea before InfusionCon. I let all my clients know that I would no longer be available on Fridays unless there was a real emergency. I got very little resistance, and so far, there&#8217;s only been one &#8220;emergency&#8221; that took about an hour to handle.</p>
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		<title>Flip Video for Interviews</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/video/flip-video-for-interviews/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/video/flip-video-for-interviews/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:29:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Video]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Video Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=87</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Next week is Infusionsoft&#8217;s InfusionCon user meeting, and I am bringing my Flip Video HD. The plan is to interview power users at the conference and to see how they&#8217;ve used Infusionsoft and other marketing techniques to get results.
If I have time, I&#8217;ll upload some video from the conference. Otherwise, look for them in about [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Next week is Infusionsoft&#8217;s InfusionCon user meeting, and I am bringing my Flip Video HD. The plan is to interview power users at the conference and to see how they&#8217;ve used Infusionsoft and other marketing techniques to get results.</p>
<p>If I have time, I&#8217;ll upload some video from the conference. Otherwise, look for them in about a week.</p>
<div id="attachment_94" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 79px"><img class="size-full wp-image-94" title="FlipVideo minoHD" src="http://www.greasedskid.com/wp-content/uploads/flipvideo.jpg" alt="FlipVideo minoHD" width="69" height="148" /><p class="wp-caption-text">FlipVideo minoHD</p></div>
<p>Along with the FlipVideo, I&#8217;ll be using my trusty Velbon Monopod. The FlipVideo has great quality, but no image stabilization. A tripod would solve the problem, but it&#8217;s too bulky. The monopod is just right. It&#8217;s weight helps stabilize the video, or you can just extend the leg to the floor.</p>
<div id="attachment_93" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 185px"><img class="size-full wp-image-93" title="Velbon Monopod" src="http://www.greasedskid.com/wp-content/uploads/velbon.jpg" alt="Velbon Monopod" width="175" height="175" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Velbon Monopod</p></div>
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		<title>Helen asked: Please explain the email complaint summary report.</title>
		<link>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/helen-asked-please-explain-the-email-complaint-summary-report/ </link>
		<comments>http://www.greasedskid.com/index.php/infusionsoft/helen-asked-please-explain-the-email-complaint-summary-report/ #comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:20:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clarke Bishop</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Infusionsoft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.greasedskid.com/?p=91</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In Infusionsoft, the email complaint summary report shows the number of messages sent, the number of complaints and the percentage of complaints for each day.
You enter the date range that you want to see when you run the report.
A &#8220;complaint&#8221; occurs when someone hits their &#8220;This is Spam&#8221; button. Not all email programs and providers [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In Infusionsoft, the email complaint summary report shows the number of messages sent, the number of complaints and the percentage of complaints for each day.</p>
<p>You enter the date range that you want to see when you run the report.</p>
<p>A &#8220;complaint&#8221; occurs when someone hits their &#8220;This is Spam&#8221; button. Not all email programs and providers have this, but Google, Hotmail, AOL, etc. all do.</p>
<p>The report can be misleading. You might send out a batch to 1,000 people on Monday, then 20 per day for the rest of the week (For a follow-up sequence). The problem is you might get some complaints on the large batch that went out on Monday, but they come through on Tuesday or Wednesday. In other words, the data just shows what happens on each day &#8212; Not which message triggered the complaint.</p>
<p>So, you really have to average the data over time to get an idea what is really happening.</p>
<p>Some people are just lazy and hit the Spam Complaint button when they want to unsubscribe. You should, at least, make your unsubscribe link obvious so that people will hit that instead of the Spam button.</p>
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