Infusionsoft Pushes the Right Buttons for Small Business Marketing

Summary: Infusionsoft knows exactly how to sell marketing automation to small business: promise more revenue, less work, strong support and a low price. The system is designed for entrepreneurs, not full-time marketers.

Since marketing automation for small business was on my mind last week, I checked in with the good folks at Infusionsoft, whose 15,000 customers make them leaders in the field. I ended up chatting with Scott Martineau, company founder and VP Product Management. It was a helpful conversation for a few reasons.

It solidified my understanding that Infusionsoft is aimed at REALLY small companies – typically four or five employees, and very rarely more than 25. Typical clients are selling business services such as training or consumer services such as landscaping, dry cleaning, legal help and niche publishing. Those companies have no dedicated marketing staff and often no specialized sales person. This makes them significantly smaller than buyers of most of the systems I write about – which is something to bear in mind when looking at how Infusionsoft does things.

It showed that Infusionsoft has mastered the art of a clear, simple value proposition: “Fix Your Follow-up, Double Your Sales. Guaranteed.” Um, any questions? That particular headline is inside their site, but the one on the main page (“One ‘Killer App’ to Grow Your Business Fast”) makes a similar promise about growth.

(As to the guarantee itself, the company Web site says “When you use Infusionsoft to fix your follow-up with prospects and customers, you will double your sales. If after 12 months you have not doubled your sales and you’re not confident with the progress you’re making, you can cancel the software and we’ll refund half of your first year’s subscription fees.” Although there were originally some conditions on the guarantee, the company removed them all last month.)

As Infusionsoft’s main headline reinforces, small businesses want as few systems as possible. Martineau said that Infusionsoft typically replaces separate CRM, email, shopping cart and possibly affiliate tracking systems. But this is where it’s worth remembering that Infusionsoft is working with very small businesses: larger firms might have greater need for separate systems.

Even Infusionsoft doesn’t attempt to do everything. It doesn’t run the company Web site (which most small businesses have someone else do for them) or provide accounting (a market dominated by Intuit QuickBooks).

Nor, more surprisingly, does Infusionsoft provide inbound marketing (search engine optimization, paid search tracking, Web analytics, detailed activity tracking, blogging, etc.) features to help generate initial Web leads. I can think of a few possible explanations: Infusionsoft clients don’t do much inbound marketing, or they let their Webmasters do it for them, or they are happy with free tools like Google Analytics. Marketers at larger companies may be more demanding. Martineau said his main priorities are elsewhere, in better email and general ease of use.

Small businesses need marketing support. Infusionsoft’s original solution was personal set-up assistance funded by a $2,500 to $5,000 implementation fee. But of course the fee itself was a barrier to sales. Infusionsoft has therefore invested heavily in making its system even easier to use and in providing extensive self-help features such as video tutorials. With those in place, it last month stopped charging the set-up fees.

The capstone of Infusionsoft’s self-help is the Campaign Launchpad, which is worth a look no matter where you work. Launchpad leads users from general questions about their marketing goals to specific instructions and materials for predesigned Infusionsoft campaigns. It won't replace a real marketing consultant, since it can’t analyze whether you’ve made sound decisions. But it’s an excellent resource for people who need help in getting started. The Launchpad is open to everyone, not just Infusionsoft users.

Many small businesses will pay for help when the value is clear. For them, Infusionsoft has developed an array of small-ticket service options, such as a $299 “data transition service” to import existing customer lists. This lets business owners purchase exactly what they feel they need. Martineau said he expects about half of Infusionsoft’s new customers will eventually purchase some sort of paid service.