Justin Jacques
MARKETING & AUTOMATION EXPERT

Blog

Get More Free, Highly Qualified Traffic to your Law Firm’s Website with this Simple Infusionsoft Campaign

Getting more highly qualified traffic to your site is actually pretty simple with this simple Infusionsoft campaign that I’ll go through below.

First, let me explain the source of this wonderful traffic - review sites. Review sites like Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and niche review sites for the fitness industry, are amazing sources of free, ready-to-buy traffic (more on this below).

The key is using Infusionsoft to create an automated, consistent process to grow your positive reviews, instead of letting reviews happen organically when your clients feel like it.

Being passive about your reviews can also result in any negative reviews bubbling to the surface. With a consistent process to drive more positive reviews, you can easily drown out any negative reviews, as well as improve your SEO, and increase your credibility.

Before we talk about the campaign, I want to emphasize why getting reviews is so important for your firm.

Reason #1: Free (High Quality) Referral Traffic

Paid traffic, like Facebook ads or Google Adwords, can be expensive and time consuming to setup and monitor. Organic referral traffic from review sites is completely free and, if you do this right, really easy to get.

I initially discovered this amazing traffic source in my first successful business, Indie Wedding DJ, a premium wedding DJ company charging the highest prices in a major city BUT still booked every weekend.

I’ve since implemented this for many of my consulting clients in different industries, including my clients that are lawyers, so don’t think this won’t work for you.

About one year after setting up this Review Request Campaign in Infusionsoft, I was able to COMPLETELY turn off my paid advertising for Indie Wedding DJ. While running that business I gathered over 100 reviews between Google and Yelp along with industry specific sites like Wedding Wire and The Knot. With this free traffic I had enough leads to book as many weddings as I wanted.

The reason - not only do you get traffic from review sites and get ranked higher in Google, you get highly qualified, ready-to-buy traffic.

I had 31.82% of people that came from Yelp, opt-in to check my availability. That is a ridiculously high conversion rate on an action like this.

People that came from Yelp saw my all my 5 star reviews and were much more likely to try and book me. They read about my client’s good experiences and wanted the same.

Reason #2: Credibility

Of course you’re going to tell clients how good you are. What business would tell people they’re bad? To get proof that you’re as good as you say you are, you need other people to say it to.

A lot of reviews will give your marketing message credibility. You can strategically display reviews on your site and put them in your initial emails to leads to support various points in your marketing. I would also suggest linking to the original review to show they’re real.

You can also get awards from these review sites based on your reviews. Display these awards on your website or in your signature to give you even more credibility.

Reason #3: It Makes Your Sales Process A LOT Easier

Good reviews will do part of the selling for you. If people have already seen your reviews, they’re going to be primed to want to work with you by the time they reach out to you, compared to completely cold traffic that just found you through search.

You won’t need to spend nearly as much time convincing people to hire you, which means not as many meetings, emails and phone calls.

If you don’t already have these profiles, sign up for them NOW! I recommend starting with a Google+ page, a Yelp page, and the top niche review sites for your industry if there are any (ex. www.ratemds.com for doctors).



Onwards to the campaign...

The key to the campaign is making the process as simple as possible for your clients to leave reviews.

  1. Decide on an appropriate time frame to ask for a review. This could be upon completion of a case or, if they’re on a retainer, after a certain time frame that will give you enough time to build a rapport with the client and have them experience what it’s like to work with you.
  2. Next setup an automated email that is set to go out at the time you decided above, asking them to fill out a simple, one question feedback survey. Emphasize how quick and easy this will be and that you really appreciate it.
  3. The survey link in the email should redirect to an Infusionsoft form asking them, on a scale of 1-10, how likely they are to recommend you to a family/friend or colleague/peer, depending on the type of law that you practice.
  4. Their answer to this question will dictate the follow-up:
    1. If the person answers 9, or 10, automate an email that thanks them and asks them to leave a review on one of your review profiles. Link to the profiles and give directions on how to leave the review. Make it as easy as possible because that’s the key to this whole process, making it quick and easy for the client.
    2. If they answer 7 or 8 then automate an email asking what you could have done better. This will allow you to improve your business, as well as minimize negative feedback on review sites since you’re reaching out to them and listening to their complaint, making it less likely they’ll take it to a review site.
    3. If they answer 6 or below, set up a task reminder to call this person. Find out what went wrong and see if there’s anything you can do to fix it. This will also minimize negative reviews.

That’s it! The only step that could require any manpower is putting them into the sequence when they become a client, otherwise the whole system is completely automated. Client’s I have set this up for, as well as myself, have managed to grow their reviews and traffic significantly.  

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in the campaign builder:

Setup the decision diamond as follows:

Promoter sequence-> Those that gave you a 9 or 10
Neutral-> Those that gave you a 7, or 8
Detractor-> Those that gave you 6 or below

Also note that I usually recommend 3-4 reminders in there after the initial survey request for those that don’t complete the survey after the first email.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Get More Free, Highly Qualified Traffic for your Fitness or Gym Website with this Simple Infusionsoft Campaign

Getting more highly qualified traffic is actually pretty simple with this simple Infusionsoft campaign that I’ll go through below.

First, let me explain the source of this wonderful traffic - review sites. Review sites like Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and niche review sites for the fitness industry, are amazing sources of free, ready-to-buy traffic (more on this below).

The key is using Infusionsoft to create an automated, consistent process to grow your positive reviews, instead of letting reviews happen organically when your clients feel like it. Being passive about your reviews can also result any negative reviews bubbling to the surface. With a consistent process to drive more positive reviews, you can easily drown out any negative reviews, as well as improve your SEO and increase your credibility.

Before we talk about the campaign, I want to emphasize why getting reviews is so important for your business.

Reason #1: Free (High Quality) Referral Traffic

Paid traffic, like Facebook ads or Google Adwords, can be expensive and time consuming to setup and monitor. Organic referral traffic from review sites is completely free and, if you do this right, really easy to get.

I initially discovered this amazing traffic source in my first successful business, Indie Wedding DJ, a premium wedding DJ company charging the highest prices in a major city BUT still booked every weekend.

I’ve since implemented this for many of my consulting clients in different industries, my fitness and gym-owner clients, so don’t think this won’t work for you.

About one year after setting up this Review Request Campaign in Infusionsoft, I was able to COMPLETELY turn off my paid advertising for Indie Wedding DJ. While running that business I gathered over 100 reviews between Google and Yelp along with industry specific sites like Wedding Wire and The Knot. With this free traffic I had enough leads to book as many weddings as I wanted.

The reason - not only do you get traffic from review sites and get ranked higher in Google, you get highly qualified, ready-to-buy traffic.

I had 31.82% of people that came from Yelp, opt-in to check my availability. That is a ridiculously high conversion rate on an action like this.

People that came from Yelp saw my all my 5 star reviews and were much more likely to try and book me. They read about my client’s good experiences and wanted the same.

Reason #2: Credibility

Of course you’re going to tell clients how good you are. What business would tell people they’re bad? To get proof that you’re as good as you say you are, you need other people to say it to.

A lot of reviews will give your marketing message credibility. You can strategically display reviews on your site and put them in your initial emails to leads to support various points in your marketing. I would also suggest linking to the original review to show they’re real.

You can also get awards from these review sites based on your reviews. Display these awards on your website or in your signature to give you even more credibility.

Reason #3: It Makes Your Sales Process A LOT Easier

Good reviews will do part of the selling for you. If people have already seen your reviews, they’re going to be primed to want to work with you by the time they reach out to you, compared to completely cold traffic that just found you through search.

You won’t need to spend nearly as much time convincing people to hire you, which means not as many meetings, emails and phone calls.

If you don’t already have these profiles, sign up for them NOW! I recommend starting with a Google+ page, a Yelp page, and the top niche review sites for your industry if there are any (ex. www.ratemds.com for doctors).

Onwards to the campaign...

The key to the campaign is making the process as simple as possible for your clients to leave reviews.

  1. Decide on an appropriate time frame to ask for a review. This could be upon completion of contract or package of sessions, or if they’re an ongoing client, like a gym member, after a certain time frame that will give you enough time to build a rapport with the client and have them experience what it’s like to work with you.
  2. Next setup an automated email that is set to go out at the time you decided above, asking them to fill out a simple, one question feedback survey. Emphasize how quick and easy this will be and that you really appreciate it.
  3. The survey link in the email should redirect to an Infusionsoft form asking them, on a scale of 1-10, how likely they are to recommend you to a friend or family member.
  4. Their answer to this question will dictate the follow-up:
    1. If the person answers 9, or 10, automate an email that thanks them and asks them to leave a review on one of your review profiles. Link to the profiles and give directions on how to leave the review. Make it as easy as possible because that’s the key to this whole process, making it quick and easy for the client.
    2. If they answer 7 or 8 then automate an email asking what you could have done better. This will allow you to improve your business, as well as minimize negative feedback on review sites since you’re reaching out to them and listening to their complaint, making it less likely they’ll take it to a review site.
    3. If they answer 6 or below, set up a task reminder to call this person. Find out what went wrong and see if there’s anything you can do to fix it. This will also minimize negative reviews.

That’s it! The only step that could require any manpower is putting them into the sequence when they become a client, otherwise the whole system is completely automated. Client’s I have set this up for, as well as myself, have managed to grow their reviews and traffic significantly.  

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in the campaign builder:

Setup the decision diamond as follows:

Promoter sequence-> Those that gave you a 9 or 10
Neutral-> Those that gave you a 7, or 8
Detractor-> Those that gave you 6 or below

Also note that I usually recommend 3-4 reminders in there after the initial survey request for those that don’t complete the survey after the first email.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Get More Free, Highly Qualified Traffic to your IT Services Website with this Simple Infusionsoft Campaign

Getting more highly qualified traffic is actually pretty simple with this simple Infusionsoft campaign that I’ll go through below.

First, let me explain the source of this wonderful traffic - review sites. Review sites like Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and niche review sites for your industry, are amazing sources of free, ready-to-buy traffic (more on this below).

The key is using Infusionsoft to create an automated, consistent process to grow your positive reviews, instead of letting reviews happen organically when your clients feel like it. Being passive about your reviews can also result any negative reviews bubbling to the surface. With a consistent process to drive more positive reviews, you can easily drown out any negative reviews, as well as improve your SEO and increase your credibility.

Before we talk about the campaign, I want to emphasize why getting reviews is so important for your business.

Reason #1: Free (High Quality) Referral Traffic

Paid traffic, like Facebook ads or Google Adwords, can be expensive and time consuming to setup and monitor. Organic referral traffic from review sites is completely free and, if you do this right, really easy to get.

I initially discovered this amazing traffic source in my first successful business, Indie Wedding DJ, a premium wedding DJ company charging the highest prices in a major city BUT still booked every weekend.

I’ve since implemented this for many of my consulting clients in different industries, including IT services and consulting, so don’t think this won’t work for you.

About one year after setting up this Review Request Campaign in Infusionsoft, I was able to COMPLETELY turn off my paid advertising for Indie Wedding DJ. While running that business I gathered over 100 reviews between Google and Yelp along with industry specific sites like Wedding Wire and The Knot. With this free traffic I had enough leads to book as many weddings as I wanted.

The reason - not only do you get traffic from review sites and get ranked higher in Google, you get highly qualified, ready-to-buy traffic.

I had 31.82% of people that came from Yelp, opt-in to check my availability. That is a ridiculously high conversion rate on an action like this.

People that came from Yelp saw my all my 5 star reviews and were much more likely to try and book me. They read about my client’s good experiences and wanted the same.

Reason #2: Credibility

Of course you’re going to tell clients how good you are. What business would tell people they’re bad? To get proof that you’re as good as you say you are, you need other people to say it to.

A lot of reviews will give your marketing message credibility. You can strategically display reviews on your site and put them in your initial emails to leads to support various points in your marketing. I would also suggest linking to the original review to show they’re real.

You can also get awards from these review sites based on your reviews. Display these awards on your website or in your signature to give you even more credibility.

Reason #3: It Makes Your Sales Process A LOT Easier

Good reviews will do part of the selling for you. If people have already seen your reviews, they’re going to be primed to want to work with you by the time they reach out to you, compared to completely cold traffic that just found you through search.

You won’t need to spend nearly as much time convincing people to hire you, which means not as many meetings, emails and phone calls.

If you don’t already have these profiles, sign up for them NOW! I recommend starting with a Google+ page, a Yelp page, and the top niche review sites for your industry if there are any (ex. www.ratemds.com for doctors).

Onwards to the campaign...

The key to the campaign is making the process as simple as possible for your clients to leave reviews.

  1. Decide on an appropriate time frame to ask for a review. This could be upon completion of a contract/project or, if they’re an ongoing client, a certain time frame that will give you enough time to build a rapport with the client and let them experience what it’s like to work with you.
  2. Next setup an automated email that is set to go out at the time you decided above, asking them to fill out a simple, one question feedback survey. Emphasize how quick and easy this will be and that you really appreciate it.
  3. The survey link in the email should redirect to an Infusionsoft form asking them, on a scale of 1-10, how likely they are to recommend you to a colleague or peer.
  4. Their answer to this question will dictate the follow-up:
    1. If the person answers 9, or 10, automate an email that thanks them and asks them to leave a review on one of your review profiles. Link to the profiles and give directions on how to leave the review. Make it as easy as possible because that’s the key to this whole process, making it quick and easy for the client.
    2. If they answer 7 or 8 then automate an email asking what you could have done better. This will allow you to improve your business, as well as minimize negative feedback on review sites since you’re reaching out to them and listening to their complaint, making it less likely they’ll take it to a review site.
    3. If they answer 6 or below, set up a task reminder to call this person. Find out what went wrong and see if there’s anything you can do to fix it. This will also minimize negative reviews.

That’s it! The only step that could require any manpower is putting them into the sequence when they become a client, otherwise the whole system is completely automated. Client’s I have set this up for, as well as myself, have managed to grow their reviews and traffic significantly.  

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in the campaign builder:

Setup the decision diamond as follows:

Promoter sequence-> Those that gave you a 9 or 10
Neutral-> Those that gave you a 7, or 8
Detractor-> Those that gave you 6 or below

Also note that I usually recommend 3-4 reminders in there after the initial survey request for those that don’t complete the survey after the first email.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Get More Clients in Your Fitness Business or Gym WITHOUT More Leads or Adspend

Getting More out of Your Current List and Traffic

If you're like most trainers or gyms, the majority of your leads will come to you at the top of the sales funnel, in the research stage. They want to get fit, lose weight, get strong, etc. so they start looking at options, doing internet searches, etc. Hopefully you're making a low commitment offer on your website to get them into your funnel and get their contact info - free pass, free session, guide, report, recipe book, etc.

Once you get them into your sales funnel, what do you do next? Since most of your prospects are still doing research, it could be awhile before they are ready to sign up with you.

So what should you while they're researching and deciding? If you’re like most, you follow up a few times after getting their contact info and that’s about it.

If you’ve got Infusionsoft, this is where you can leverage it to really crush your competition, plus get way more out of your current ad spend.

You do this by creating a nurture sequence, which is a series of touch points that nurture your leads until they are ready to buy. This could be emails, phone calls, and direct mail.

With Infusionsoft you can completely automate your nurture sequence, meaning it’ll cost you absolutely nothing once you set it up ­- no extra manpower, money or ad spend.

What is a Good Nurture Sequence? 

A good nurture sequence will provide value for your leads AND allow you to stay in front of them until they are ready to move forward and buy from you. What’s important for a good nurture sequence is that you build it long enough.

It should be at least as long as your average sales cycle. If you don’t know the length of your sales cycle at this point and you’re selling high ticket packages or long-term contracts, which most are in this industry, then start with six months.

As you create content over time, you can always add to the length. With Infusionsoft, and marketing in general, it’s better to just get started and create something rather than waiting until you have the time to create the perfect campaign.

How To Build a Nurture Campaign

  1. Create an Outline - Decide how long you want to make the campaign. The length depends on how long your sales cycle is. Generally the higher the price point, the longer you want it to run. Aim for a minimum of six months.
  2. Decide on the frequency. Start with the first couple emails closer together, ~1­-2 days apart, then start spacing them out further and further. By the 6 month mark, you can space emails out every 2­-4 weeks.
  3. Looking at a calendar, figure out the number of emails you need to write based on your outline above. You can also fill in the form below to get the Nurture Sequence Planning Tool to help you plan out the content and frequency of emails. It's a handy spreadsheet I put together to make the sequence easy to visualize.
  4. Brainstorm a list of email topics based on the suggestions below. I like to also create the subject lines when I’m doing this. Having the subject lines makes it really easy to write the emails after.
  5. Put the email topics in order that you want to send them and put them into the calendar outline.
  6. Start writing emails using the options below or re-use previously written content from places like your blog. When you’re done put them into Infusionsoft and integrate the new nurture sequence into your main sales sequence.

Nurture Email Topic Ideas:

  • Stories (from you, your business, your clients, etc)
    • Client success stories - describe the pain your client was in before they found you and how amazing their transformation was after working with you.
    • Big wins at your company ­- awards, successes, celebrity endorsements, publicity.
    • Note: Generally you want to write emails about your clients and their needs, but it is good to show social proof and credibility too. Just ensure that you explain how your announcement/story helps your client. For example, If you are talking about winning an award, remind your potential clients that you provide (the best, most interesting, etc.) product or service available and how that helps them.
  • Objection handling
    • These are my favourite types of emails to use. Just use common objections that leads have to working with you or getting a membership. 
    • You can break this up into multiple emails and just do 1 email per objection
  • Case studies
    • Try to get specific with these. What specific problem did you solve for your clients? What results did they get from it?
  • What makes your business better than your competitors
    • Talk about the consequences of using your competitors and the advantages about working with you specifically.
    • You can also write an email about what your clients should look for in a gym/trainer. All of the things that you offer/do will then conveniently meet the criteria that you are telling them to look for.
  • Good content that will help their business/life
    • Send them ideas or strategies without pitching anything, just as a way to be helpful.
    • A great source of content for these types of emails is your blog.​ Many blog posts are relevant for years. You can write short emails that link to useful posts that have already been written.
  • Why they need your product/service
    • What benefits they’ll get when they go with you.
  • Simple check in emails
    • Every month or two, send a simple check in email. It only has to be 1-­2 sentences, just checking in to see if they have any questions or need any help.
    • Also, if they reached out to for a specific reason, it’s a great idea to remind them that the problem that they were looking to solve is probably still a problem.
    • Example - they still need get out of debt/declare bankruptcy and they need a lawyer to help them through the process. Reiterate the consequences of delaying this decision.
  • How their life/business/etc will change when they buy
    • This is more story­telling. Talk about the transformation a person can expect when they work with you.
    • Dig deep to describe the meaningful changes, i.e. not about how they’re going to save $100 working with you but how you’re going to change their life because they'll feel better every morning, sleep better or feel more confident.
  • News/Current Events
    • Link your business to relevant content in the news
    • This can be tricky because if the topic is irrelevant in 6 months then it’ll be strange to send it but if the story is big enough, you can also keep it in your nurture sequence for awhile before it gets too old
  • Offline Nurture
    • You can also add in offline touch points to nurture your leads. These can include direct mail, phone calls, or webinar invites.

Below is an example of a 6 month nurture sequence:

Next Steps

Once you create your schedule and outline the topics you’re going to cover, you have to write the content. This could take you a month if you don’t already have a lot of content written for your business. If you do have some stuff written, leverage as much of it as possible. You can always tweak and add to your nurture sequence later, the point it to just get something up.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Get More Clients in Your Law Firm WITHOUT More Leads or Adspend

Getting More out of Your Current List and Traffic

If you're like most law firms, the majority of leads will come to you at the top of the sales funnel, in the research stage. They need a lawyer so they start looking at options, doing internet searches, etc. Hopefully you're making a low commitment offer on your website to get them into your funnel and get their contact info - free consultation, assessment, guide, report, etc.

Once you get them into your sales funnel, what do you do next? Since most of your prospects are still doing research, it could be awhile before they are ready to sign on with you.

So what should you while they're researching and deciding? If you’re like most, you follow up a few times after getting their contact info and that’s about it.

If you’ve got Infusionsoft, this is where you can leverage it to really crush your competition, plus get way more out of your current ad spend.

You do this by creating a nurture sequence, which is a series of touch points that nurture your leads until they are ready to buy. This could be emails, phone calls, and direct mail.

With Infusionsoft you can completely automate your nurture sequence, meaning it’ll cost you absolutely nothing once you set it up ­- no extra manpower, money or ad spend.

What is a Good Nurture Sequence? 

A good nurture sequence will provide value for your leads AND allow you to stay in front of them until they are ready to move forward and hire a lawyer. What’s important for a good nurture sequence is that you build it long enough.

It should be at least as long as your average sales cycle. If you don’t know the length of your sales cycle at this point and you’re selling high ticket services or retainers (min $500), which most are in this industry, then start with six months.

As you create content over time, you can always add to the length. With Infusionsoft, and marketing in general, it’s better to just get started and create something rather than waiting until you have the time to create the perfect campaign.

How To Build a Nurture Campaign

  1. Create an Outline - Decide how long you want to make the campaign. The length depends on how long your sales cycle is. Generally the higher the price point, the longer you want it to run. Aim for a minimum of six months.
  2. Decide on the frequency. Start with the first couple emails closer together, ~1­-2 days apart, then start spacing them out further and further. By the 6 month mark, you can space emails out every 2­-4 weeks.
  3. Looking at a calendar, figure out the number of emails you need to write based on your outline above. You can also fill in the form below to get the Nurture Sequence Planning Tool to help you plan out the content and frequency of emails. It's a handy spreadsheet I put together to make the sequence easy to visualize.
  4. Brainstorm a list of email topics based on the suggestions below. I like to also create the subject lines when I’m doing this. Having the subject lines makes it really easy to write the emails after.
  5. Put the email topics in order that you want to send them and put them into the calendar outline.
  6. Start writing emails using the options below or re-use previously written content from places like your blog. When you’re done put them into Infusionsoft and integrate the new nurture sequence into your main sales sequence.

Nurture Email Topic Ideas:

  • Stories (from you, your business, your clients, etc)
    • Client success stories - describe the pain your client was in before they found you and how amazing their transformation was after working with you.
    • Big wins at your company ­- awards, successes, celebrity endorsements, publicity.
    • Note: Generally you want to write emails about your clients and their needs, but it is good to show social proof and credibility too. Just ensure that you explain how your announcement/story helps your client. For example, If you are talking about winning an award, remind your potential clients that you provide (the best, most interesting, etc.) product or service available and how that helps them.
  • Objection handling
    • These are my favourite types of emails to use. Just use common objections that leads have to working with you. 
    • You can break this up into multiple emails and just do 1 email per objection
  • Case studies
    • Try to get specific with these. What specific problem did you solve for your clients? What results did they get from it?
  • What makes your business better than your competitors
    • Talk about the consequences of using your competitors and the advantages about working with you specifically.
    • You can also write an email about what your clients should look for in a law firm in your industry. All of the things that you offer/do will then conveniently meet the criteria that you are telling them to look for.
  • Good content that will help their business/life
    • Send them ideas or strategies without pitching anything, just as a way to be helpful.
    • A great source of content for these types of emails is your blog.​ Many blog posts are relevant for years. You can write short emails that link to useful posts that have already been written.
  • Why they need your product/service
    • What benefits they’ll get when they go with you.
  • Simple check in emails
    • Every month or two, send a simple check in email. It only has to be 1-­2 sentences, just checking in to see if they have any questions or need any help.
    • Also, if they reached out to for a specific reason, it’s a great idea to remind them that the problem that they were looking to solve is probably still a problem.
    • Example - they still need get out of debt/declare bankruptcy and they need a lawyer to help them through the process. Reiterate the consequences of delaying this decision.
  • How their life/business/etc will change when they buy
    • This is more story­telling. Talk about the transformation a person can expect when they work with you.
    • Dig deep to describe the meaningful changes, i.e. not about how they’re going to save $100 working with you but how you’re actually going to save them thousands because you’re reliable and they don’t have to chase you around every month trying to get updates.
  • News/Current Events
    • Link your business to relevant content in the news
    • This can be tricky because if the topic is irrelevant in 6 months then it’ll be strange to send it but if the story is big enough, you can also keep it in your nurture sequence for awhile before it gets too old
  • Offline Nurture
    • You can also add in offline touch points to nurture your leads. These can include direct mail, phone calls, or webinar invites.

Below is an example of a 6 month nurture sequence:

Next Steps

Once you create your schedule and outline the topics you’re going to cover, you have to write the content. This could take you a month if you don’t already have a lot of content written for your business. If you do have some stuff written, leverage as much of it as possible. You can always tweak and add to your nurture sequence later, the point it to just get something up.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Sell More in Your IT Services or Consulting Business WITHOUT More Leads or Adspend

Getting More out of Your Current List and Traffic

In the IT services and consulting industry, most of your leads are not ready to buy immediately. Typically your leads will get quotes from different companies, take the time ro review them all, and likely present the options to someone else before they sign a contract with you. Sometimes things get busy during that process, and they put off the decision for months. They might wait so long that they just start the search again when they get back into it. 

So how does your IT company deal with that? If you’re like most, they follow up a few times after the initial quote and that’s about it.

If you’ve got Infusionsoft, this is where you can leverage it to really crush your competition, plus get way more out of your current ad spend.

You do this by creating a nurture sequence, which is a series of touch points that nurture your leads until they are ready to buy. This could be emails, phone calls, and direct mail.

With Infusionsoft you can completely automate your nurture sequence, meaning it’ll cost you absolutely nothing once you set it up ­- no extra manpower, money or ad spend.

What is a Good Nurture Sequence? 

A good nurture sequence will provide value for your leads AND allow you to stay in front of them until they are ready to buy. What’s important for a good nurture sequence is that you build it long enough.

It should be at least as long as your average sales cycle. If you don’t know the length of your sales cycle at this point and you’re selling high ticket services or packages (min $500), which most are in this industry, then start with six months.

As you create content over time, you can always add to the length. With Infusionsoft, and marketing in general, it’s better to just get started and create something rather than waiting until you have the time to create the perfect campaign.

How To Build a Nurture Campaign

  1. Create an Outline - Decide how long you want to make the campaign. The length depends on how long your sales cycle is. Generally the higher the price point the longer you want it to run. Aim for a minimum of six months.
  2. Decide on the frequency. Start with the first couple emails closer together, ~1­-2 days apart, then start spacing them out further and further. By the 6 month mark, you can space emails out every 2­-4 weeks.
  3. Looking at a calendar, now you can figure out the number of emails you need to write based on your outline above. You can also fill in the form below to get the Nurture Sequence Planning Tool to help you plan out the content and frequency of emails. It's a handy spreadsheet I put together to make the sequence easy to visualize.
  4. Brainstorm a list of emails based on the suggestions below. I like to also create the subject lines when I’m doing this. Having the subject lines makes it really easy to write the emails after.
  5. Put the email topics in order that you want to send them and put them into the calendar outline.
  6. Start writing emails using the options below or re-use previously written content from places like your blog. When you’re done put them into Infusionsoft and integrate the new nurture sequence into your main sales sequence.

Nurture Email Topic Ideas:

  • Stories (from you, your business, your clients, etc)
    • Client success stories - describe the pain your client was in before they found you and how amazing their transformation was after working with you.
    • Big wins at your company ­- awards, successes, celebrity endorsements, publicity.
    • Note: Generally you want to write emails about your clients and their needs, but it is good to show social proof and credibility too. Just ensure that you explain how your announcement/story helps your client. For example, If you are talking about winning an award, remind your potential clients that you provide (the best, most interesting, etc.) product or service available and how that helps them.
  • Objection handling
    • These are my favourite types of emails to use. Just use common objections that leads have to working with you. To get more ideas, talk to your sales team and see what common objections that experience are.
    • You can break this up into multiple emails and just do 1 email per objection
  • Case studies
    • Try to get specific with these. What specific problem did you solve for your clients? What results did they get from it?
  • What makes your business better than your competitors
    • Talk about the consequences of using your competitors and the advantages about working with you specifically.
    • You can also write an email about what your clients should look for in a product or service like yours. All of the things that you offer with your product/service will then conveniently meet the criteria that you are telling them to look for.
  • Good content that will help their business/life
    • Send them ideas or strategies without pitching anything, just as a way to be helpful.
    • A great source of content for these types of emails is your blog.​ Many blog posts are relevant for years. You can write short emails that link to useful posts that have already been written.
  • Why they need your product/service
    • What benefits they’ll get when they buy
  • Simple check in emails
    • Every month or two, send a simple check in email. It only has to be 1-­2 sentences, just checking in to see if they have any questions or need any help.
    • Also, if they reached out to for a specific reason, it’s a great idea to remind them that the problem that they were looking to solve is probably still a problem.
    • Example - they still need someone to manage their system back-ups so reiterating the consequences of not having an IT services company do that for them.
  • How their life/business/etc will change when they buy
    • This is more story­telling. Talk about the transformation a person can expect when they work with you.
    • Dig deep to describe the meaningful changes, i.e. not about how they’re going to save $100/month working with you but how you’re actually going to save them thousands because you’re reliable and they don’t have to chase you around every month trying to get updates
  • News/Current Events
    • Link your business to relevant content in the news
    • This can be tricky because if the topic is irrelevant in 6 months then it’ll be strange but if the story is big enough, you can also keep it in your nurture sequence before it gets too old
  • Offline Nurture
    • You can also add in offline touch points to nurture your leads. These can include direct mail, phone calls, or webinar invites.

Below is an example of a 6 month nurture sequence:

Next Steps

Once you create your schedule and outline the topics you’re going to cover, you have to write the content. This could take you a month if you don’t already have a lot of content written for your business. If you do have some stuff written, leverage as much of it as possible. You can always tweak and add to your nurture sequence later, the point it to just get something up.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at justin@justinjacques.com

Get More Free, Highly Qualified Traffic with this Simple Infusionsoft Campaign

Getting more highly qualified traffic is actually pretty simple with this simple Infusionsoft campaign that I’ll go through below.

First, let me explain the source of this wonderful traffic – review sites. Review sites like Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and niche review sites for your industry, are amazing sources of free, ready-to-buy traffic (more on this below).

The key is using Infusionsoft to create an automated, consistent process to grow your positive reviews, instead of letting reviews happen organically when clients feel like it. Being passive about your reviews can also result in more negative reviews bubbling to the surface. With a consistent process to drive more positive reviews, you can easily drown out any negative reviews, as well as improve your SEO ranking and increase your credibility.

Before we talk about the campaign, I want to emphasize why getting reviews is so important for your business.

Reason #1: Free (High Quality) Referral Traffic

Paid traffic, like Facebook ads or Google Adwords, can be expensive and hard to figure out on your own. Organic referral traffic from review sites is completely free and, if you do this right, really easy to get.

I initially discovered this amazing traffic source in my first successful business, Indie Wedding DJ. Click here to read the story of how I leveraged Infusionsoft to become a premium service.

About one year after setting up this Review Request Campaign in Infusionsoft, I was able to COMPLETELY turn off my paid advertising. While running that business I gathered over 100 reviews between Google and Yelp along with industry specific sites like Wedding Wire and The Knot. With this free traffic I had enough leads to book as many weddings as I wanted.

The reason – not only do you get traffic from review sites, you get highly qualified, ready-to-buy traffic. yelpI had 31.82% of people that came from Yelp, opt-in to check my availability! That is a ridiculously high conversion rate on an action like this.

People that came from Yelp saw my all my 5 star reviews and were much more likely to try and book me. They read about my client’s good experiences and wanted the same.

Reason #2: Credibility

Of course you’re going to tell clients how good you are. What business would tell people they’re bad? To get proof that you’re as good as you say you are, you need other people to say it to.

A lot of reviews will give your marketing message credibility. You can strategically display reviews on your site and put them in your initial emails to leads to support various points in your marketing. I would also suggest linking to the original review to show they’re real.

You can also get awards from these review sites based on your reviews. Display these awards on your website or in your signature to give you even more credibility.

Reason #3: It Makes Your Sales Process A LOT Easier

Screen Shot 2016-03-18 at 11.25.27 AMGood reviews will do part of the selling for you. If people have already seen your reviews, they’re going to be primed to want to work with you by the time they reach out to you, compared to completely cold traffic that just found you through search.

You won’t need to spend nearly as much time convincing people to book you, which means not as many meetings, emails and phone calls.

If you don’t already have these profiles, sign up for them NOW! I recommend starting with a Google+ page, a Yelp page, and the top niche review sites for your industry (ex. www.ratemds.com)

Onwards to the campaign…

The key to the campaign is making the process as simple as possible for your clients to leave reviews.

1. Decide on an appropriate time frame to ask for a review. This could be upon completion of a contract/project/course or, if they’re an ongoing client, a certain time frame that will give you enough time to build a rapport with the client and experience working with you.

2. Next setup an automated email asking them to fill out a simple, one question feedback survey. Emphasize how quick and easy this will be and that you really appreciate it.

3. The survey link in the email should redirect to an Infusionsoft form asking them, on a scale of 1-10, how likely they are to recommend you to a friend.

4. Their answer to this question will dictate the follow-up:

      1. If the person answers 8, 9, or 10, automate an email that thanks them and asks them to leave a review on one of your review profiles. I use a very specific formula for this email to make it as easy as possible because that’s the key to this whole process, making it quick and easy for the client.
      2. If they answer 6, or 7 then automate an email asking what you could have done better. This will allow you to improve your business, as well as minimize negative feedback on review sites since you’re reaching out to them and listening to their complaint, making it less likely they’ll take it to a review site.
      3. If they answer 5 or below, set up a task reminder to call this person. Find out what went wrong and see if there’s anything you can do to fix it. This will also minimize negative reviews.

 

That’s it! The only step that could require any manpower, otherwise the whole system is completely automated. Client’s I have set this up for, as well as myself, have managed to grow their reviews and traffic significantly.  

If you’re interested in having me set this up for you, I can do it within 1-2 business days. Just click here to book a time to discuss whether this campaign is a good fit for your business.

The 3 Questions You Must Ask Your Adwords or Facebook Ads guy… Before you hand them thousands of dollars

If you’re currently running Facebook or Google Adwords or if you’re even THINKING about running either, you need to read this.

I’ve had several clients come to me after wasting thousands of dollars on Adwords or Facebook ads with online ad agencies. I keep seeing these agencies make the same mistakes over and over, at the expense of my clients so I wanted to write this as a warning.

If you’re looking into working with an online ad agency make sure you ask the 3 questions below before signing a contract.

If you’re already working with an agency and they’re not doing these 3 things, go back and ask them to. They’re necessary to set up to ensure your campaigns are actually profitable. Some of these agencies provide metrics that are misleading and can make you think the campaigns are more successful than they are….

Running Facebook or Google Adwords

A lot of clients have told me they’re scared to run online ads because of unsuccessful attempts in the past. The reality is, it’s not that hard to setup a profitable campaign. It’s simple planning and analytics. Depending on the price point of your core offer, they can take time to start generating a profit but you can definitely see a positive ROI within a month or two.

At the end of the day if you know your prospect, the campaign is properly planned out and the WHOLE process is tracked (more on this below), then online ads can be a great way to increase leads.

Question 1: How to do you track the success of an ad campaign?

Recently, I suggested to one of my Infusionsoft clients that we should add his Facebook campaign data to his dashboard. Up until this point they weren’t tracking sales from Facebook ads, just the number of leads collected.

After checking out his account I realized he had spent over $14,000, resulting in only 6 sales. Because of the high price point of his offer, he has made enough to cover the cost of the ad spend but just barely. Considering the amount that they were paying the agency to run the ads, they were losing thousands every month.

The problem was that the agency was sending reports on number of leads.

My client didn’t realize the ads weren’t profitable because they were driving a lot of traffic and generating thousands of leads. It was a mistake to assume that these leads converted to sales at the same rate as other lead sources.

How To Fix This

You need to set up complete end-to-end tracking on your ad spend if you don’t have that set up already. You cannot just track clicks or even leads because leads from these ads may not convert as well as other lead sources (your website, trade shows, inbound calls, etc.).

Your ad agency should be providing reports on clicks, leads and sales. If you’re agency tells you that they are not responsible for sales then you’re working with the wrong agency!

When I run Facebook or Google ads for my clients, I deliver a simple, easy to read, monthly report on campaign results. If that’s not something you’re getting already then start asking your ad agency for it.

Question 2: What is the process you use to create ad campaigns?

I have two other clients that have worked with the same large SEO and Adwords company. This company is becoming notorious for outsourcing the work to people who have no idea what they’re doing. **I won’t name any names but if you’re wondering if it’s your ad agency then give me a call. I’ll let you know over the phone.

This company’s only promise is cheap clicks. They specifically told one of my clients “It’s not my job to get you leads”. This is after she spent $1000 on ads with them (note that this does not include their fee) and she didn’t get a single lead. They don’t think about online ads as part of a larger marketing funnel, they just use them to send you traffic, usually low quality traffic, and what you do with that traffic is your responsibility.

The problem is that cheap clicks are easy because you can use curiosity or big promises to get someone to click through, only for that traffic to be disappointed in the next step of the sales funnel and bounce. This makes CTR (click through rate) a terrible metric of ad results.

For the highest conversion rate, you need congruence between the ads and follow-up messages. You cannot treat the ad like a stand alone marketing piece. It’s one step in a bigger sales funnel and needs to be treated that way.

How To Fix This

Ads need to be created with a bigger marketing plan in place. Before the ads are created you should know exactly who the target audience is, what offer will be made to convert the prospect to a lead (opt-in, book an appointment, etc) and what offer will be made to convert the lead to a client. Only after those are clearly defined, should the ad be created.

Whoever is creating your ads should recognize the importance of the complete marketing plan and should be asking questions to review your sales funnel before they create the ads. If they don’t then that should be a red flag.

Similar to Lesson #1, they should also be emphasizing the conversion rate to a sale as success of a campaign, not an opt-in or lead. If they just want to setup the ads for you and send you traffic, this will almost definitely be a waste of your money.

If you’re already doing complete end-to-end tracking of your ad campaign and it’s profitable then you can continue to let it run.

If you’re not sure about sales data from these ads, I would suggest setting that up first. If the ads aren’t profitable and the ad agency didn’t consider your whole sales funnel before creating the ads, I would consider switching to another provider.

If you’re looking for a help with building ads within a complete sales funnel, then send me an email. This is something my team and I do a great job with because we work together to ensure all parts work together, from ad to landing page to the sales follow-up in Infusionsoft. You can easily see the positive ROI each month on your IS dashboard.

Question 3: How often are you monitoring and optimizing campaigns?

Another client showed me their Adwords campaign one day when I was in their office helping them with Infusionsoft.

Very quickly I noticed a problem costing them over $500/month. They were paying for hundreds of keywords that were unrelated to their service and weren’t making them any money. In this case, they did have about 10 profitable keywords but the rest were just burning money. Luckily they were still making money on the overall project. They were just wasting a lot too.

Facebook and Adwords need to be regularly monitored for performance and optimization. Even with successful ads, ad burnout happens over time, where they just aren’t working anymore.

Agencies should be providing regular monthly reports of ad campaigns so you can ensure there’s no wasted ad spend on ads or keywords that aren’t performing. And again, you should understand what these reports mean and how they relate to sales.

How To Fix This

Campaigns cannot just be setup and left to run. They need regular monitoring and optimization. However, ads should not be touched every day or even every week. They need to be run for at least a few weeks to collect statistically significant data. Once they’ve been running for about a month, you can turn off low performing ads or keywords and optimize the rest.

For Facebook ads, this could mean changing the image, headline or body copy.

For Adwords, this could mean changing the keywords, header or body text.

For both ad types, you could also change the landing page, opt-in offer or follow-up process, which is also why it’s better to work with someone on the full sales funnel and not just the ads.

When I run ads for my clients, we deliver a simple, easy to read, monthly report on campaign results. If that’s not something you’re getting already then start asking your ad agency for it.

If you’d like help with ads and like the idea of complete transparency on your ad spend then send me an email at justin@justinjacques.com or click here to book a time to talk about your ads.

The Best Email Marketing Automation Software

The Art of (6)

There are a lot of different marketing automation platforms available in 2016. So many that’s it’s easy to become overwhelmed and confused about which one’s right for your business. This post should help!

I gathered experts on each of the email automation softwares discussed below so you get a thorough look into each of them. Other posts or reports on the best marketing automation software are typically written from the perspective of a consultant for one of the softwares. This means the post is completely one-sided, in favor of that consultant’s software preference and skims over the other softwares.

It’ll take you awhile to read through it but it’ll be worth it! Marketing automation software can transform your business if setup properly. You can make more money, make your current clients happier and get a lot more organized.

One more helpful note, setting up marketing automation software can be difficult but with the right consultant you can transform your business. I’ve included recommended contacts for each of the marketing softwares below so you can get up and running within a few weeks.

INFUSIONSOFT

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

Infusionsoft is a marketing automation software. It can automate a lot of your sales funnel, as well as other admin tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, referrals, surveys and invoicing, as well as offline marketing like direct mail and text messaging.

Other features include:

  • CRM
  • Ability to run affiliate programs
  • Shopping Cart
  • Time-based Autoresponder
  • Action-based Autoresponder
  • Landing Pages
  • A/B Testing
  • Plus a large marketplace of add-on apps

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

Infusionsoft gives automation to small businesses at an accessible price point. Unlike some of the other options, Infusionsoft offers a great package for only $199/month.

Another great benefit to Infusionsoft is the clear visual layout of processes. It looks like a mind map, so when you build of your funnels and processes, you can see the step-by-step flow easily.

Lastly, Infusionsoft has a huge marketplace of add-ons and consultants. If there’s a feature that you feel is missing in Infusionsoft, you can likely find an app or customization to do that pretty easily.

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

The biggest disadvantage to Infusionsoft is the steep learning curve. This is the #1 complaint. When you get it setup it’s an amazing tool but a lot of people are too overwhelmed at the beginning and get stuck. The simplest solution for this is to hire a consultant for a few weeks to help walk you through it and get it fully setup and running.

There’s also no free trial with Infusionsoft, your only option is to pay the kickstart fee of $1495. Click here to instantly book a free 15 min demo and strategy session with Justin Jacques, an Infusionsoft Certified Partner, to see if Infusionsoft is right for you before making the leap.

Pricing

There is a $1495 setup fee with monthly pricing packages below:

http://www.infusionsoft.com/pricing

Screen Shot 2016-02-17 at 2.04.39 PM

Who is Infusionsoft Best For?

Infusionsoft is really ideal for small businesses of less than 20 people. More than that and it may no longer be cost effective compared to enterprise solutions, which are designed specifically to work for large businesses.

It’s also an amazing tool for online businesses that do a lot of selling online. It will replace a lot of the tools that you’re using to sell online and put them all into one software, making it easier to see and track your full sales funnel. It can do some offline marketing/tracking but it wasn’t designed primarily for that.

Because Infusionsoft automates a lot of sales and admin tasks, it’s great for anyone ready to hire a VA. It has 100% consistency and reliability and is priced better than a good VA.

Who is Infusionsoft Not For?

As mentioned in the previous answer, its not a great solution for large businesses with more than 20 people or a sales team larger than 6. It’s also not for very new businesses, likely the price point is too high and it’s too complicated for what you need. When you don’t have very many leads, you can handle most of the sales process manually or with simple tools like Mailchimp.

Businesses with minimal online presence will also not get their money’s worth from Infusionsoft. The main benefit is online automation, specifically with the sales funnel. If you don’t do any online selling or lead capture, I would not advise Infusionsoft.

Lastly, it cannot give very specific granular metrics, like open rate at a specific time/day.

Learn if Infusionsoft is Right for You

If you want to learn if Infusionsoft is right for your business, click here to instantly book a free 15 min demo and strategy session with Justin Jacques, an Infusionsoft Certified Partner. He can quickly help help you decide if it’s best for you businesses size and industry.

You can also email or call him at justin@justinjacques.com or 416-819-0924.

Mailchimp

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

Mailchimp is an email marketing software with very basic automation and no CRM. The automation is strictly time-based, meaning you can schedule emails based on timing, like when a contact joined the list or day of the week. You can’t send emails based on actions like Infusionsoft, where you can automatically send an email if they clicked a link or watched a video.

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

Mailchimp is a great starter tool, it’s inexpensive or free and very easy to use. No consulting required to get this tool setup. It also does not require a double-opt in, unlike some of it’s direct competitors like iContact. You can easily import a list without requiring them to opt-in again.

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

Unlike some of the big guys (Pardot, Infusionsoft, Hubspot), there is no CRM in Mailchimp, along with some of the other big features (shopping cart, affiliate programs). To do anything besides email marketing you will need separate softwares. It’s just one small piece of the puzzle and it can become chaotic after a while having so many disconnected moving parts.

There’s also no action-based automation, meaning you can’t send follow-up emails based on certain actions that an email subscriber takes. This is a really cool feature of tools like Infusionsoft because it can increase conversions by segmenting your list based on how engaged they are in your content.

Lastly, this solution is only cost effective if you are sending a low volume of emails. It can become pretty expensive ($2000+) if you have over 500,000 subscribers. Again, it’s great for the new marketer but eventually one of the other tools on this list becomes a much better option.

Pricing

No setup fees for Mailchimp, just the monthly pricing based on the number of contacts. Go to the link below to get an estimate based on your contact link:

http://mailchimp.com/pricing/growing-business/

Screen Shot 2016-02-17 at 2.06.06 PM

Who is Mailchimp Best For?

If you’re ready to start incorporating a bit of automation then Mailchimp can do just that.
Mailchimp is great if you don’t have a lot of leads and have the time to manually walk them through your sales funnel.

Mailchimp is also great if you’re doing more email blasts to a subscriber list, rather than repeatable sales emails. If you have a newsletter business where the content is created weekly than Mailchimp can easily do this for you.

Essentially it’s a great tool if you’re at the point where you have more time than money. Once these variables are reversed, look at one of the more automated solutions.

Who is Mailchimp Not For?

You might want to look at the alternatives on this list if you feel like you’re starting to drop the ball with leads. If your business is growing and you’re stressed about consistently following up with leads and you need more automation with a CRM to track your current customers and prospects, then Mailchimp is NOT for you.

You should also look to the alternatives on this list if you need more lead tracking or have enough traffic volume and customers to properly evaluate conversion and email data. By this I mean, you have more than 10 people getting your emails because obviously the results of that data won’t be statistically significant.

 

Salesforce + Pardot

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

Salesforce has been named a Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management, due to Pardot’s marketing automation functionality, ease of use and strong integration with Salesforce.

Salesforce Pardot offers the following key features:
Lead Generation using forms, form handlers, landing page, email and search campaign integration
Lead Management using lead qualification, grading, scoring, tracking and various automation capabilities
ROI Reporting by tracking Opportunities generated from various marketing initiatives
Sales Intelligence such as marketing activities log, tracking, analytics, alerts and notifications
Integration with data vendors, social media tools and webinar platforms.

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

At the moment Pardot is still sold as a separate solution from the Salesforce CRM, however it augments Salesforces’ capabilities. This makes it very easy for companies to deal only with one vendor for all the sales and marketing needs of an organization.

The Salesforce Engage functionality, launched in April 2015, provides the ability for sales reps to send marketing campaigns from mobile devices based on templates. This is very useful for travelling sales reps who use extensively mobile devices and the Salesforce1 application.

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

Many of the clients would like to see stronger integration with the Salesforce Campaign Object, which will allow more marketing management and reporting directly in Salesforce CRM.

Pardot is still a separate database than the Salesforce CRM. The two systems need to be synched so both sales & marketing can use the same data nexus. We hope to see a tighter integration with Salesforce now that more Salesforce resources are allocated towards Pardot.

Pricing

As of August 2015 the pricing tiers for Pardot are split into
Standard starting at $1000/month for up to 10k contacts
Pro starting at $2000/month for up to 10k contacts
Ultimate starting at $3000/month for up to 10k contacts

In addition, companies also work with specialized Pardot Consulting organizations to help them with implementations, training and managed services in order to make the most out of what it has to offer.

Who is Salesforce+Pardot Best For?

Salesforce Pardot works best for small and medium size organizations currently using Salesforce CRM who are thinking of extending their CRM functionality to include marketing.

Salesforce Pardot was adapted quickly by the B2B technology vertical but is growing quickly in other verticals like travel and retail.

Who is Salesforce+Pardot Not For?

Organizations which do not use Salesforce CRM will require additional resources to use Pardot within their demand generation infrastructure. It is recommended for people already using Salesforce in their business.

Learn if Salesforce+Pardot is Right for You

Contact Dan Radu, the Founder and Principal Consultant of Macromator Inc., a marketing technology consultancy focused on helping organizations with Pardot and Salesforce. You can find more information at the following links:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0rXYlzc1wo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danradu2000
Marketing Automation Toronto MeetUp: http://www.meetup.com/Marketing-Automation-Toronto/

 

Ontraport

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

ONTRAPORT is an all-in-one, business-building platform that helps businesses and entrepreneurs run and grow their business. It handles everything small businesses need to conduct business online, easily.

ONTRAPORT features:

  • A robust customer relationship management system (CRM) giving users the ability to create contacts and relational sub-contacts
  • A flexible, responsive website and landing page builder (for mobile or tablet viewing)
  • Email marketing and SMS marketing automation tools
  • Secure online payment processing
  • Affiliate marketing programs
  • Membership website integration with WordPress
  • Lead scoring and tagging
  • Upsells during the purchase process
  • Ability to move contacts to different campaign sequences based on behaviors
  • Import contacts without making them re-subscribe

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

A great new feature of ONTRAPORT is the ability to create custom objects, where you can link custom record types to a related sub-contact record. For instance, a veterinarian office might have a dog owner as the main contact. With custom objects, they could list pet names and relate them to the owner’s contact record.

You can link records for companies, bids or quotes, sales opportunities, courses and students, trips, or any other data. Every custom object has its own API and you can even automate follow-up around these custom records using ONTRAPORTs powerful automation.

As with any CRM system, you expect the ability to see a historical record of a contact. ONTRAPORT has a visual color-coded system that allows you to see in a glance, exactly what interactions that contact has done, whether opening an email, completing a smart form, or being added to a fulfillment list.

Rules and global rules are one of the key automation drivers of ONTRAPORT. Users have the ability to create powerful if/then rules within an automation sequences. Additionally, global rules can be created, that are applicable when certain criteria are met and are not tied to a contact being within a sequence. Each rule has an if/ then trigger component and can be stacked together to create complex automations.

Other ONTRAPORT key features include:

  • An easy to use interface with stylized templates for landing pages and emails
  • A/B split testing for landing pages and emails
  • Smart form builder for web forms
  • WordPress integration
  • Link and campaign tracking
  • Membership WordPress websites
  • High-deliverability rated email servers – ONTRAPORT takes this very seriously
  • 2-way SMS messaging
  • Ability to take payments in installments, reoccurring subscriptions, and the customer can change the quantity amount for purchase
  • Create PURLs (generated personal URLS) and custom individual coupon codes
  • Postcard builder and fulfillment for mailer marketing campaigns
  • Stellar support and development team

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

One of the biggest roadblocks to overcome is the web form builder. So many of clients want a horizontal opt-in bar that runs above or below a hero image on their websites. These currently have to be custom coded with CSS, which can be tricky if you have a mobile responsive website or don’t know CSS. Not impossible, just a bit of a hassle.

You do not have the ability to change a tag name, you must create a new one, add the new one to anyone who had the old tag, and delete the old tag. This can be cumbersome.

ONTRAPORT has a metrics dashboard that can be customized, but it doesn’t drill-down where you can look deep into the data. The reporting feature could be more robust.

You can create sales forms if you want to sell 1 product per purchase through ONTRAPORT. Other than using an upsell form, if you want a customer to have the ability to add other separate items to a cart and pay for it in one transaction, then you must integrate with a shopping cart. Currently ONTRAPORT integrates with UltraCart, WooCommerce, Samcart, ClickBank, and 1ShoppingCart. Most cases with these integrations, the purchase history is pushed into a contact record in ONTRAPORT; however it depends on the API.

The CRM portion of ONTRAPORT is geared more toward a business owner user rather than a sales team, like for instance, InfusionSoft’s CRM. It can be set up to have a more sales force friendly workflow, but does not come that way out of the box.

The affiliate area (also called Partner Program) that is auto-generated with PilotPress (the proprietary WordPress plugin for membership websites) needs a major facelift in my opinion. ONTRAPORT has been working very hard on the template area for landing pages and I’m hoping they will turn that attention to the auto-generated pages for PilotPress soon. Frankly, I think InfusionSoft has a much better looking and easier to understand affiliate area for logged in affiliates.

Pricing

Unlike some marketing automation systems, ONTRAPORT is not a module-based where you have to purchase more add-ons to get new features; everything is included in the monthly price. There is no required setup fee. There’s also a 90-day no-risk money back guarantee.

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Who is Ontraport Best For?

ONTRAPORT is designed for entrepreneurs or service-based small businesses such as:

· Consultants
· Coaches
· Authors
· Instructors
· Speakers
· Doctors
· Lawyers
· Real Estate Agents
· Artists/Artisans/Creatives

If you want to add online courses through membership sites to your business offering, ONTRAPORT is an excellent solution.

You don’t have to have a huge list of contacts to get started with ONTRAPORT. Generally when you reach that top end of the email marketing systems like Aweber or MailChimp (1500-2500 email contacts) and you’re ready to move to the next level of marketing automation, then you may great fit for ONTRAPORT.

Who is Ontraport Not For?

ONTRAPORT is not a best fit for strictly retail product-based business at this time. Enterprise businesses will want a larger-scale solution.

Learn if Ontraport is Right for You

If you want to be sure ONTRAPORT is the right move for you, contact Julia McPherson (Julia@innerspacemarketing.com or (469) 219-9608) for a free 15-minute demonstration and no-obligation discussion around your business growth.
Once setup, if you feel overwhelmed, you may want to consider hiring a Certified Consultant, such as Julia, to help you map out a campaign flow and get more complex systems in place.

She currently offers 5 free consulting hours, a $500 value, for anyone purchasing ONTRAPORT with her affiliate link. Those 5 hours could be one-on-one training, troubleshooting or used to set up a few more complex sequences in your new system. You can learn more about her and her ONTRAPORT services at http://innerspacemarketing.com/.

 

Aweber

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

AWeber is one of many products called “Autoresponders.” Their original purpose was to send a sequence of emails to people. That sounds easy, but as soon as you have hundreds of people starting the sequence on different days it becomes a nightmare. What Autoresponders are expected to do has grown over the years until today the “send emails” portion is only one piece of a large set of functions.

Feature #1 – Collecting email addresses. The input side of AWeber is where a lead’s email address (and optionally other information) are collected and entered into a database that is called a list. You can have as many lists as you want where the subscribers in each list have something is common e.g. they asked for a certain free eBook or they bought a certain product. Obtaining a person’s email can be as simple as having them email @Aweber.com. It can also be as complex as creating a very pretty form and inserting directly into Facebook.

Feature #2 – Sending a sequence of follow-up emails. In addition to the complexities of sending subscribers a sequence there are issues with a) deliverability – SPAM filters and corporate firewalls make getting emails to people a constantly evolving process, b) handling SPAM complaints, c) staying compliant with International Laws, d) automatically handling unsubscribes, and e) insuring that the people sending the emails are not spammers themselves

Feature #3 – Sending one-time emails to selected groups of subscribers. AWeber does this with Broadcast eMails and you can schedule these as far in advance as you care to go.

Feature #4 – Reports. There are numerous reports available to help you deliver you newsletters or marketing material better.

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

AWeber is one of the most popular and reliable Autoresponders on the market today. These ease of use and support rival anyone in the industry. Aweber is also one of the most tolerant systems you can find.

Many Autoresponder companies do not like MLMers, Internet Marketers and the list goes on and on. AWeber is zero tolerance if you are spamming, but they are not overly restrictive about what you can send emails about.

While there are many other advantages, one big one is integration with other software packages. Aweber integrates with a very large list of softwares (e.g. Facebook and PayPal), not all but more than most autoresponders.

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

There are a couple of things that could be improved.

Integrating better with WordPress – AWeber’s HTML code to insert into your website makes it very difficult to avoid having empty lines between the fields you ask your leads to fill out. Since you really want to keep important things on your webpage “above of fold” (available without scrolling down), these extra blank lines are annoying.

It would also be nice to have the ability to move a subscriber from one list to another when they take a specific action (like click on a link in your email). Features like this are available using third party enhancements, but it would be nice to have it built in.

Pricing

AWeber has a free 30 day trial period. It is $19.95 per month until you have over 500 subscribers, then the price increase, as shown below:

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Who is Aweber Best For?

AWeber is best for small to medium sized companies. It even works well for large companies who do not run completely on internet based applications.

Who is Aweber Not For?

If you are a small club with no resources and no plans to grow, there are some free services that will probably meet your needs.

On the flip side, if your company is developing into an online giant with hundreds of products and are into upsells, downsells, One-Time-Offers and the like, there are some companies that handle complex systems and campaigns better.

Learn if Aweber is Right for You

Contact Hale Pringle (halepringle@gmail.com) or visit his website http://HalePringle.com.

AWeber also has an affiliate program. Since it is free to join anyone can make some ongoing money by promoting AWeber (My link is http://HalePringle.com/aweber 🙂 )

To receive a free copy of the eBook “AWeber: Quick Start” (Updated in August of 2015) click here: http://halepringle.com/aweber-quick-start-offer

 

Marketo

Summary of Key Features (what the software does)

Marketo is a marketing automation platform for businesses to manage and engage leads over time. The goal is to automate the process of engagement so that a manageable portion of leads can be given to sales reps for closing.

Marketo’s key features include:

  • Lead management: routing, processing, and sorting leads.
  • Lead Scoring: ranking leads based on behaviors and demographics.
  • Email and email tracking.
  • Website behavior tracking.
  • Easy to use Landing Page and Form builders and collectors.
  • Email and Landing Page AB Testing Tools.
  • Sync leads between Marketo and CRM.
  • Notify Sales of potentially hot leads.
  • Engage leads at the right time with the right message with Nurturing and Dynamic Content.
  • Tracking and reporting on leads, lead lifecycle, and revenue performance

In other words, Marketo is a complete B2B marketing platform.

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

Marketo is best used as a marketing automation platform to manage and engage with thousands of leads over time. Marketo provides excellent tools in this regard as well as connections to many other tools, including CRMs. It integrates well with any website platform or CMS.

Marketo continually adds new features and is generally responsive to the needs of its customer base and future market needs, thus the tool improves while remaining
easy to use.

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

As with any marketing automation platform, Marketo requires a certain amount of setup by experienced marketers or marketing technologists. A lack of training and preparation to use Marketo, especially in smaller firms is a chief cause of dissatisfaction with Marketo.

The ability to look at list/lead and client analytics is possible, however, not easy to get. This is largely true for the other platforms as well.

Pricing

Marketo pricing is based on the number of Email Addresses (Leads) in the database and the level of features you subscribe to. Each level offers additional tools to manage or target leads better. Payments are quarterly or annually and based on monthly pricing. There are no per email fees.

Pricing can be found at http://marketo.com/pricing

Who is Marketo Best For?

Marketo’s pricing options mean that it is a great service for organizations from SMB to Enterprise. I recommend Marketo usually when a firm has 20,000-30,000 leads and wants to push leads to sales reps automatically.

High growth technology firms or media firms with an expectation of a large lead influx should also use Marketo’s advanced lead management capabilities.

Who is Marketo Not For?

Very small firms with one marketer or under 20,000 leads will find Marketo to be too powerful. To use the system effectively requires training, implementation, and content. Very small businesses should consider the resources required to make any marketing automation software useful to grow the business. Marketo may require more resources up front and distract from the growth plan for a business of this size.

Marketo can be used by any firm in any industry, including Universities and non-profits. The keys to success are a steady stream of great content and a dedication to using the tool.

Many firms choose to hire a consulting agency to assist with implementation, training, and even running Marketo day-to-day. Hiring a Marketo consultant or implementation partner can be done via the LaunchPoint marketplace or by contacting a provider directly. I provide marketing automation consulting, alignment, and implementation packages as well.

Each implementation is unique, however, full implementations costs often begin at $15,000. Consultants usually range from $125 to $250 per hour. Remember to work with consultants you trust, who align well with your culture, and who deliver quality.

Learn if Marketo is Right for You

Contact Josh Hill at Marketing Rockstar Guides for more info.
+1.617.564.3079
jdhill@marketingrockstarguides.com
http://www.marketingrockstarguides.com/

 

Hubspot

Summary of Key Features

HubSpot is on a mission to replace the world’s annoying, interruptive marketing with marketing that people love. HubSpot software is the most powerful, tightly integrated and comprehensive marketing software available, putting personalized inbound marketing into the hands of any business.

  • HubSpot is an all in one online marketing software including tools for:
  • Blogging
  • Email marketing
  • Social Monitoring, Publishing & Reporting
  • Analytics
  • Lead Scoring
  • Workflows

Main Benefits of the software and Key Selling Features

  1. It makes difficult, big-data easy to understand. It also helps people understand the many ways they can segment their lists in order to have the right conversation with the right people at the right time.
  2. It is mobile responsive out of the box for all pages as well as email marketing.
  3. It saves marketers time with automated drip campaigns, workflows, and competitor analysis.
  4. Lastly, Hubspot provides a lot of marketing education for its cusomters, like these:
  • Academy.HubSpot.com
  • They have extensive classes on all of the tools inside Hubspot
  • They do bi-monthly webinars on strategy and tactics to accomplish inbound marketing
  • The HubSpor professors are knowledgeable, friendly, and easy to learn from

Disadvantages (features that could be improved)

The main dashboard should be more customizable to make it easier to look at customer/lead stats. You should be able to add more info about the stages your leads are at or see where the leads are coming from.

Hubspot also does not have a members site option and it cannot run e-commerce.

Pricing

Pricing can also be found here: http://www.hubspot.com/pricing

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Who is Hubspot Best For?

The best fit for Hubspot are small to medium size businesses. They do have an enterprise version for larger clients but most use the professional version.

Learn if Hubspot is Right for You

Contact Marcus Sheridan (marcus1@thesaleslion.com) at The Sales Lion to see if Hubspot is right for your business.

How To Devour Your Competition

You’ve got leads coming in but what are you doing to convince them to buy?
 
If your business is like most, you’re probably talking to a lead once, maybe twice then forgetting about them if they don’t reply.
 
There are a couple of reasons why you’re not following up more:

  1. You don’t want to waste your time with unresponsive leads
  2. You’re worried about being annoying or pushy
  3. You or your staff forget to follow up (you don’t have a system)

Let me explain why these reasons for poor follow-up are holding your business back.

Why are some leads unresponsive?

When you send a reply to an inquiry and don’t hear back, it can be very frustrating and seem like a waste of time to keep contacting them.

But here’s the problem, a lot of those people ARE still interested, they just get distracted with other things.

Here are some of the reasons that people have told me that they did not get back to me right away:

  • they are getting ready for a baby (their own baby to be born)
  • their friend just passed away
  • their parents were sick
  • they were crazy busy at work
  • they were moving offices or houses
  • they were on vacation

These are just a few of the reasons. Everyone’s busy and if you only send one email, you are going to lose the business to someone who is regularly following up. They’re likely not going to dig through their emails and compare all of the initial offerings, but just want to make a decision. The one in front of them is an easy choice.

Not only that, but a lot of people are just not organized and your reply gets lost in their inbox.

If you keep a tidy inbox, you are in the minority. Most people have 100s of unopened emails in their inbox from different businesses. The intention is usually there to go back to those unopened emails, but they usually just get pushed down into the depths of the inbox and no action is taken.

If you don’t believe me, have a quick look at how many emails are in one of your friends or colleagues inboxes. Just yesterday, I saw a friend had almost 2000 unopened emails in his inbox!

It’s no wonder that your email gets lost in the shuffle.

Maybe you’re afraid of being annoying?

This is a logical and reasonable feeling.

However, you should not be sending an email every day until your leads get back to you. After your initial emails, you can be helpful instead of annoying by sending simple reminders every week or two.

I’ve actually had clients who said that they hired me because they liked that I regularly followed up with them. They said it made them feel like I would be organized when working with them.

Do you and your staff simply forget to follow up?

This is extremely common. It’s hard to keep track of who should be receiving what follow up.

This is why I invested in Infusionsoft for my DJ business (a long time ago). The results that I got by regularly following up with leads was so amazing that I fell in love with the software and now help other business owners implement it.

Next week I’ll get into the details of what a follow up should look like, but for now, if you want to learn more about building a follow up system in your business that converts leads to clients, click here to apply for a FREE 1 hr consultation with me.

 

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