by Amber Miller | Sep 29, 2016 | Blog, Entrepreneur, Infusionsoft
Hey there fellow entrepreneurs! We recently moved one of our clients from Infusionsoft to Simplero and wanted to give a big shout out to the product. While we still love, Love, LOVE, recommend, and use Infusionsoft…. we have to say we are very impressed with Simplero. The application is built upon the basis of being “simple” compared to a lot of similar products on the market. We’ve found it to be a great solution for those who are not quite ready for all that Infusionsoft has to offer. So let’s jump right into it – here are 10 basic features of Simplero we found to be pretty freakin’ neat.
- Each product also has a “freebie” order form. This is great for testing or for giving this as comp to clients without requiring a credit card.
- You can add a gift email and message on an order form – and it can be purchased for another person.
- You can create an order form that has a donation amount, which means the customer has the ability to add a custom amount to pay. Helpful for fundraising and collecting odd amounts.
- The unsubscribe page allows the customer and prospect to see what lists they are on and opt-out of the lists they want while staying on others they are more interested in such as; product updates on something they purchased from you.
- Terms and Service on order forms.
- Mobile responsive order forms
- You can broadcast to customers in their timezone.
- Mobile responsive emails
- No limit on account users!!
- Month to month subscription plans. No lengthy yearly subscriptions!
*Keep in mind. Infusionsoft does offer many of these features as well… but you do have to purchase additional integrations to make them available.
But hey! We can’t give you all of the good without letting you know some of the bad… here are a couple of features that Simplero does NOT have:
- No phone support. It’s all ticket based (we’ve had good luck with quick response times though!)
- No cart page or view cart page so that customers can add multiple products to their cart /order form.
- Does not include the advanced automation tools found in Infusionsoft Campaign Builder.
- Not as many integrations and plugins available.
- Not a full CRM
- Not as many email marketing features
All in all, it’s a pretty sweet product. If you’re interested in learning more about Simplero and how it could help your business, shoot us a note.
by Amber Miller | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog, Infusionsoft, Marketing
We were over at Infusionsoft’s blog the other day catching up on all the wonderful things they post over there when we came across this post, 5 Sales Promotion Ideas That Small Businesses Can Execute. They talk a lot about actual promotions you can do, duh, but what we liked most about the post was the information they shared about the details. Yah, you could throw a flash sale or offer a discount, but if you miss out on important details- it could end up killing your business instead of growing it.
The first part of the article talks about the execution. Before you announce any kind of promotion, it’s important to consider the who, what, why, where, when… you get the point. What kind of promotion do you want to offer? What is the goal of the promotion? Why are you offering this promotion? Understanding the reasoning behind the sale/promotion will help you decide what the best course of action your business needs to take to prepare and execute the sale/promotion.
They then go on to list a number of promotion types including flash sales, Buy One Get One Free (BOGO), coupons and/or discounts, tripwires, and recurring sales. Each point provides information on what each type of sale is, what type of customer it could target the most, and even includes several points on how to execute the sale to your own business needs.
All in all, we thought it was a darn good blog article and thought we should share with all our followers. It’s great information, and if you decide to implement some of these ideas to your own business, please let us know how it worked for you in the comments!
Read the full Infusionsoft blog article here.
by Amber Miller | Aug 8, 2016 | Blog, Customer Service, Infusionsoft
We encountered a rather large issue between Leadpages and Infusionsoft and felt we needed to share our findings since many of our customers use both of these programs together.
Referral tracking is not supported with Leadpages’ API integration into Infusionsoft.
This means Leadpages will only report clicks, not optins. The dashboard will only show you how many clicks you get on different pages but will NOT show the actual optins or attach them to Infusionsoft contacts for affiliate credit. This is because Infusionsoft handles referral data differently than a webform would, the API integration does not communicate properly. Keep in mind, this issue is contained to the Drag and Drop builder.
Luckily, there is a way to avoid the majority of these issues by implementing the Copy/Paste integration features into the drag and drop builder to allow the direct use of webforms. By doing this, referrals will be reported correctly within Infusionsoft.
If you are running across any integration issues or have any questions about this issue, please contact us!
by Amber Miller | Jun 29, 2015 | Blog, Featured, Infusionsoft
Considering taking your business to the next level with AUTOMATION? Don’t know where to start? Overwhelmed with all the options out there?
Here’s an informative, no-nonsense approach from Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer©, that compares two popular systems: Ontraport vs. Infusionsoft.
http://thesaleswhisperer.com/office-autopilot-vs-infusionsoft-by-an-infusionsoft-consultant/.
We here at Smart to Finish are knowledgeable and experienced business automation experts, and we can help you make an informed decision on the direction to take your business automation!
by Tina Walker | Mar 26, 2015 | 1Shopping Cart, Blog, Entrepreneur, Featured, Infusionsoft, Marketing
New Tax Rules for Selling to European Countries
If you haven’t heard, the European Union has new rules on value-added tax (VAT), which took effect on January 1.
To put it simply, ANY businesses selling digital goods and delivering them electronically to customers in European Union member countries will be required to collect and pay VAT based on the VAT rates of the country where the customer is located and does apply to businesses based outside the EU who sell to consumers in the EU.
So what does that mean to you? Well, if you are selling digital products to European Countries, it might be something you want to have us setup in your tax settings to collect the tax for those specific countries.
What are the consequences if you don’t? This is a new thing, so we are not sure on that and would probably advise asking your accountant.
If you want help with us setting up your shopping cart so that you are in compliance, contact us at assist@smarttofinish.com, we are happy to help.
by Amber Miller | Nov 16, 2014 | 1Shopping Cart, Blog, Ezines, Infusionsoft, Marketing, Social Media, Training
Is your email marketing a well-oiled machine? The simple 5 step email marketing plan.
Now, if you are like any other business online you more than likely incorporate email marketing into your marketing arsenal. You need to ask yourself, are your emails creating the sales you need them to create to sustain your business? Most online business owners would answer no that that question. I am going to share with you a proven system to get your email marketing working for you like the power house that it should be.
First, let me be clear you don’t need the biggest most expensive piece of software and you are not going to need a mega list to see results from this simple 5 step plan.
Each and every email that you send out needs to have one of five clear and understandable purposes.
Indoctrinate– This email is to teach them who you are.
Engage– This email it to engage with your leads and get them to purchase your products/services.
Ascend– This email is to get them to purchase additional products/services from you.
Segment– This email will tell you what they want to purchase next.
Re-engage/Win Back– This type of email is to bring them back into your sales funnel.
Each one of these emails is dependent on the previous email which creates 5 different stages of email marketing.
The process looks something like this:
Not utilizing this simple 5 step email system can be a very costly mistake. Once you understand this email system and how each email works you will be able to create dynamic auto responders that work.
Each step must be done in a specific order because you can’t have one without the other. For example you can’t have engagement from your list until you have introduced yourself. And you can’t segment your lists until you have engagement. Make sense?
Let’s take a closer look at each step in chronological order.
Step 1- Indoctrination (Introduction)
Once you have a lead that has opted in what do you do?
The first step in the 5 step process is going to be to introduce yourself and your organization. In this first email you are going to indoctrinate them into your system/processes.
This first email is going to:
- Tell them who you are
- Tell them what you and your organization stand for.
- You are going to tell them why you are different.
- You want to let them know what they should expect from you.
- Let them know how often they will hear from you.
- And let them know what they should do next or what the next step is.
- This type of email they will only receive one time
Step 2- Engage with your lists
The purpose of engagement emails is to convert your leads into customers. These emails should be making offers to your lists. Your engagement emails should be a series of emails spread out over a designated period of time.
Step 3- Ascension
Every customer you obtain through your engagement series should also receive an ascension series. This is a great way to cross promote other products/services you have or offer higher ticket products/services once you have built trust with lower level products/services.
One great example of this is to offer free content then quickly move to offer additional higher level content by offering a pro level or upgrade.
Step 4- Segmentation Emails
Now the goal of segmenting your lists is to get your potential customers to raise their hand (so to speak) and show a level of interest into something you are offering them.
When they do show interest via an open, click or opt-in they will be placed within the appropriate Engagement Series. This does mean you may have several Engagement Series created for different purposes. For example let’s say you sent an email to Linda and Jim about your free report. Linda opened the email and downloaded the free report. Once she did that it triggered an action in your auto responder to say Linda is interested in this subject/product. Once that has been triggered she is automatically going to receive an upsell offer to a related product/service that you offer.
Now Jim was not interested in this free report which let you know 1 of 2 things 1) he was not interested in this product/service 2) he didn’t have time to open it. The next email could be one of 2 things 1) a new offer 2) the same offer presented in a different way.
Segmenting your lists and moving them through the sales funnels for the different products and services you have can set off a chain reaction of sales.
Stage 5- Reengagement/ Win Back Emails
Okay, now what do you do when your lists lose interest and stop opening or clicking on the emails that you are sending to them?
If you said leave them alone you are making a HUGE mistake. Doing this can and will leave sales just lying on the floor and can results in huge income just lost.
If you want to capitalize on your low hanging fruit it would be in your best interest to set up an auto responder that is designed to re-energize your tired lists. This process brings them right back into your funnel and throws them back up into steps 3 and 4.
One way of doing this is to threaten to take something away if they do not take action now. Another way would be to tell them you miss them and offer them something of value for free if they take action now. Another way to do this is if you offer a free trial moved to a paid service. You could re-introduce the free trial by “extending their free trial”. There are several creative ways of doing this.
If you are looking to have a professional team to create, implement and manage your email auto responders series for you contact the Smart To Finish Virtual Assistant Team. We offer professional email marketing support including Infusionsoft virtual assistant support and can assist you in tailoring this 5 step sales process to your specific needs.
written by – Skye Hawk, Smart To Finish Diva
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