Infusionsoft’s Market Platform Gets Smarter, More Automated

For Infusionsoft, the sales and marketing automation software provider, timing is everything. Emails generally don’t arrive at the wrong place, because they typically bounce if they don’t reach the intended recipient. They can, however, arrive at the wrong time, which erodes their impact or can result in them being ignored altogether.

[Learn more about email marketing: 115 DIY Email Marketing Tips]

Infusionsoft addressed that thorny issue when it recently unwrapped the new fall 2016 enhancements to its platform. Among them is a feature that helps marketers to deliver emails at the appropriate time, regardless of which time zone they call home.

The company has added geotargeting capabilities to its automated sales and marketing campaign system, which provides intelligent, time-based email delivery to users’ contacts. The Infusionsoft platform can now automatically capture and store time zone information based on the end-user’s browser.

It not only takes the guesswork out of managing and scheduling email marketing campaigns, it allows businesses to gain more insight into their customer base, and it adds a personal touch that email communications often lack, said Brina Kaiser, product marketing manager at Infusionsoft.

Once the platform collects a contact’s geographical information, “you can view that information when you look at a contact,” Kaiser told Small Business Computing. This seemingly simple insight unlocks a great deal of potential in terms of localization, she added. Noting that a middle-of-the-night email “seems suspicious and feels robotic,” Infusionsoft can help a burgeoning company’s emails avoid an unfortunate encounter with the delete key (or the dreaded left swipe email clients), she added.

Infusionsoft small business sales and marketing platform

Smarter Quotes and Invoices

Infusionsoft adds another major addition: quote and invoice automation capabilities in Campaign Builder. This feature lets you create and modify complete marketing campaigns using simple drag-and-drop interface. “You don’t have to think like a software developer,” Kaiser said. “You don’t have to learn to build an engine to drive a car.”

Now, marketing software can set in motion predefined follow-up tasks based on a contact’s responses, like issuing a payment. Or to extend the car metaphor, it’s like getting behind the wheel of a vehicle with some autonomous driving capabilities.

Contacts get the immediacy they expect and small business marketers get to reclaim time that would have otherwise been spent replying manually. And the less time the quote or invoicing process waits for an employee to return from an extended lunch hour, the faster a business gets paid. Further saving time, you can now save default fields for your quotes and invoices, including email subject lines, email body content, and terms and conditions.

Most entrepreneurs “didn’t get into business to chase down invoices,” she added. “Time is money for every human being, but even more so for the small business owner.” In fact, Infusionsoft not only helps small business owners improve their cash flow, but also their work-life balance.

On average, Infusionsoft’s customers reclaim seven hours a week, said Kaiser. Better still, they’re “taking five more vacation days a year.”

The Power of Automation

Automation’s impact on a small business cannot be understated. In a recent survey of 600 Infusionsoft customers, most (82 percent) said they expect higher revenues this year by embracing automated business processes. Fifty-two percent said they are planning to add another employee.

Automation is also a mood-booster. Nearly all (96 percent) respondents said they were optimistic about their company’s future.

“The survey showed those who use automated marketing are confident in their ability to grow revenue and add staff in the coming year,” said Clate Mask, CEO and co-founder of Infusionsoft, in prepared remarks. “This is not a ‘shot in the dark’ guess, but rather an informed assessment of their business’ vitality, prospects, and the power of the technology within their grasp.”

On-Demand Analytics

Also new this fall is a Campaign Dashboard Widget that offers at-a-glance insight into the effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns. Metrics include sales figures, lead scoring, and more.

Once again, the aim is to help small businesses get more done and get the whole team on the same page, faster. “You can instantly share dashboard widgets,” said Kaiser, versus “wasting time and billable hours trying to get the data where it needs to be.”

Finally, clinics and other healthcare organizations can use Infusionsoft without worry. The platform is fully compliant with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

[Don’t miss: Infusionsoft’s Safe, Mobile-Friendly Path to Email Marketing]

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Small Business Computing. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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