I’m proud to share with you the improvements we’ve made to the e-commerce functions of Infusionsoft. As a part of our commitment to make our e-commerce offering better for our users, we have made three substantial changes in our 2012 Winter Release.

A lot can happen in only four months with our target user methodology and laser focus in delivering on specific goals and benefits for our users.

For the e-commerce features, we went after three specific benefit statements. Along with these, I’ll also share how we delivered on them in this release.

“I want all of my products and subscriptions in one place so that I may easily search and quickly add new/edit existing.”
To make finding products easier, we introduced a new way to search. Users may now filter products by several types of criteria including name, SKU, product type, purchase method, price and more.

“I want to transition my business into Infusionsoft without losing the benefits of my previous system.”
For people who found managing products and subscriptions in Infusionsoft a little daunting, we heard you! Most notably, we combined subscriptions and products. Subscriptions may be created as a separate recurring product like they were previously. In addition, users may now offer multiple subscription plans for the same product. This change gives users more flexibility with the creation of product offerings.

“When a customer visits my site and makes the decision to purchase a product I want the buying process to be smooth from purchase to fulfillment.”
A lot of the work here was performed behind the scenes, where our developers made substantial improvements by “re-factoring” the underlying e-commerce engine. The result is that our e-commerce features are much more reliable, flexible and easier for us to build on for future developments.

In the video below, Mike Bast from our Training team gives you a tour of these e-commerce enhancements that you’ll find in our 2012 Winter Release:

All three of these e-commerce enhancements help our users better manage the products and services in their business and more importantly, sell more of them. Please let me know what you think of these enhancements!

In our Fall Release, we’ve made significant changes to our E-Commerce Setup Wizard so it helps new users quickly configure their settings so they can sell products and services online. We’re also making foundational changes to our e-commerce architecture now so we can do even greater things with it later.

For the past four and a half years, I have had the pleasure of working with our customers in a few different capacities.  My first introduction to marketing automation was when I helped customers transition their businesses into Infusionsoft, and then I moved into training and documentation. These experiences have cultivated a deep passion and understanding for improving the user experience within the software, specifically with our e-commerce platform.

As a product manager, I still get to speak to our users, but instead of consulting or instructing, I now listen carefully to our users about their businesses. I’m interested to know more about how our users are doing business, what systems they are trying to automate and ultimately, the benefits they seek.

And users are seeking a better ecommerce platform.

In the coming months, Infusionsoft will implement several enhancements for e-commerce. For the Fall Release, we focused on the main setup page as well as performed “under the hood” work that will positively impact products later this year.

We redesigned the E-Commerce Set-Up Wizard. One specific benefit we developed for is, “I want to easily transition my entire business over to Infusionsoft from my previous e-commerce solution.”

E-Commerce Set-Up Wizard: It’s Even Easier to Sell Products and Services

In order for this to occur, users had to go through a series of hoops and confusing error messages. Now, we lay the setup process out in a logical, step-by-step format. Products and product categories should come first, then payment options, and then your storefront (including layout) and order forms. Shipping options, discounts and more come later.

When setup is complete, we have a launch section that allows you to grab links to your products and cart. A link to your order forms, in addition to order form shipping options have now been included in this setup page to allow consolidation and easy access to all ordering and e-commerce needs.

In addition to this enhancement, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes. Many users have expressed their need for a more robust e-commerce platform. For the past several months, my team and I have researched this area deeply and formed our attack plan. It involves thoughtful prioritization, many design mockups and a discipline to deliver the most value to the majority of our users.

This won’t be a quick or easy process, but we’re up to the challenge.

Our developers are refactoring, or “cleaning up” the e-commerce code on the back-end. This means coding a feature again from scratch, adopting the best practices in code and performance making our e-commerce features best in class down the road. This process requires a substantial investment of time, but will render a big win for users and our company.

Our e-commerce code is in a transformational process. We understand that there are many more benefits users are seeking, beyond what we have done in this release, and we are committed to addressing these needs. In order for us to accomplish these benefits, we must have a strong and solid foundation on which to build upon. This clean-up work will drive focus for our next release at the end of the year regarding products and subscriptions (and a few other pleasant surprises) and will set the ball rolling for big changes next year.

I’m curious about your take on using Infusionsoft for e-commerce and our renewed focus to make it better. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

[Image credit: andresrueda]

About four years ago I worked as a Project Coordinator for a telecom provider in Phoenix, Arizona. My role was simple: Take a phone system that a business purchased, configure it to meet their day-to-day operations and leave some room for growth. I was tasked to recommend certain features and functionality with the phone system to help streamline certain processes that needed re-vamping or retired altogether. 

To be successful, I needed to get down and dirty, and get to know the business inside and out. In theory, it seemed so simple, but really, it wasn’t. No matter how prepared I was, there was always some certainty that the business I was spending time with wasn’t.

I introduce to you, process mapping and flow-charting.

The most successful and easy phone installs were the businesses that had all processes, voicemail trees and floor plans charted out and ready to go. When I came to Infusionsoft, I worked with new clients who were starting their own business from scratch. In order to provide some clarity to those few that were struggling, I encouraged them to create a flow chart that mapped out every daily task and function they performed. After they finished creating the flowchart, I could review it, and suggest some time-saving improvements and shortcuts. I could see where in their processes they would need to implement a follow-up sequence, the types of steps needed (email, task, fulfillment) or if they could use a pipeline for better workflow.

Some clients stated to me that they did not have a process to map, as they were only starting out. I found that statement to be false. We all work from routines, whether in our personal lives or in everyday business encounters.

Here are some questions to ask when starting out with Infusionsoft:

• Where am I getting my leads from? (Advertising, website, etc)
• Once a lead contacts me or appears interested, how do they contact me?
• When I hear from a prospect, do I send an email? Schedule a meeting? Send a letter?
• If a customer is not interested in my products/services, what do I do with their contact information?
• How do I always stay “in front” of my prospects?
• When a prospect does do business with me, what do I do to ensure their loyalty? Do I offer any upsells?

I have proven advice to those who are starting with Infusionsoft: 

Take a step away from the software and answer those questions. I recommend to write down the answers on a piece of paper, type them out on your computer, or create a flow-chart to help you visualize your business and gain a better understanding of where improvements can be made.

You can find a variety of free programs on the Internet to help you map out your processes. Here are a few that I have tried and found quite easy to use:

1. Gliffy: Web hosted and easy to use (the free version allows up to three flowcharts)
2. Flowchart.com: web hosted and contains pre-built templates to choose from
3. Bubble.us: By far the most user-friendly flowchart software out there, although lacking in some functionality. They are implementing updates soon.
4. Open Office.org: contains similar features to Microsoft Office products, including Visio (you will need to download)
5. EdraSoft  — Completely free and easy to use; choose from many different templates.

Be sure to review the terms and conditions of using these products as they may have specific licensing for commercial (business) uses. Nevertheless, as an individual, you’re fine to use these services.

Let’s take a look at a sample flowchart. The example below outlines a process submitted to me by an actual client over a year ago.

If an appointment was set, and a business deal made, then my client had another process ready to go for those individuals.

By looking at his flowchart, I was able to see how he could use Infusionsoft to get all of these processes automated. When a prospect calls in, he could create a Response Form. The response form could contain checkboxes, three to be exact. Each checkbox would trigger a follow-up sequence, depending on the checkbox. One checkbox was for those whose appointments were scheduled less than three days out, the next checkbox was for those individuals with the appointment date greater than three days and the third checkbox triggered a “Request more information” sequence. Each checkbox initiated a sequence, and the sequences could be built around a particular date. To initiate these processes, he needed simply to check a box.

He could have used the Pipeline, and completion scenarios as well. My mind was abuzz of excitement as I explained that the seemingly time-consuming tasks he accomplished manually could actually be automated. I could see the “light bulb” go on as my client soaked all of this in, and he became enthusiastic to get all of these processes setup in his application. Here is how the above example could look in Infusionsoft.

We call this experience the “Infusionsoft moment.”

As you can see, there are limitless possibilities with Infusionsoft; it’s all about your plan. What’s yours?

Are you using Infusionsoft creatively? Share your ideas! Follow the Infusionsoft Training department on Twitter @InfusionHelp. You may also email your ideas to fusebox@infusionsoft.com!

As an entrepreneur, you understand the importance of maintaining a positive relationship with your customers and subscribers. A better customer experience means more revenue and increased customer loyalty. The same idea applies to those individuals who are considering making a purchase from your website or establishment. Your lead generation efforts are all for nothing if you don’t follow a set of suggested practices. These are the basics; rather, the essentials of great email marketing.

The team who creates content for the Fusebox aims to provide you with articles to help you adopt suggested sender practices, Infusionsoft’s Acceptable Use Policy, in addition to managing spam complaints, email boundaries and threshold levels. You might have heard us mention this (and other topics) in our Don’t Pee in the Pool Campaign last month.

As such, we occasionally encounter questions about obeying the suggested practices, regrettably, these concerns revolve around the general lack of understanding around legitimate commercial email. Let’s take this classic:

“I send email every day to friends and family — Why are there so many rules around sending a simple email?”

Sending an email seems as innocuous as going to the grocery store or making a phone call. In reality, bad email-sending habits not only reflect your reputation as a business owner, but also the reputation of Email Service Providers (such as Infusionsoft) from where you send your messages. Unfortunately, we burden the effects of poor sending practices and do our best to leverage the relationships with providers to deliver messages for our thousands of customers.  This applies to both unconfirmed opt-in, confirmed opt-in, platinum and transactional IP pools.

While we do offer platinum IPs, using them won’t necessarily improve your deliverability. In fact, if you’re a novice email marketer, odds are you could just dig your own grave with a weak email reputation. That said, everyone, no matter their experience level should consider the following points for their next email campaign. 

Here are some discussion points around this topic, surrounding delivering commercial email:

1. Given that you send a thousand emails, you are allotted only one spam complaint. The magic number in the industry is one-tenth of one percent … 0.1%. At Infusionsoft (including many ESPs), If you get two or more complaints from those 1000, your account may be flagged for review.
2.  No ISP should be treated the same. Each ISP manages unique complaint rate thresholds. They vary between .1 and .5%. The agreed industry standard is .1%. My advice is, don’t market to the thresholds, market to what your customers and prospects want.
3. An unsurprising 20% of surveyed respondents admitted to using the “Report Spam” button to unsubscribe from senders. Source: Email Sender and Provider Coalition (2007)
4. It may be tempting to assume permission.  Don’t! ReturnPath’s Stephanie Colleton advises the after effect is likely to receive more spam complaints, an irresponsive list and weakened metrics. Very valid points, especially when it’s more important than ever to deliver value to recipients and measure the effectiveness (open rates, click-though rates, conversion, etc).
5. The better path to have a cleaner and more active list.  One can achieve this by simply obtaining upfront permission, sending a confirmation message, delivering targeted value to recipients. In addition marketers should not bury the unsubscribe link (possibly, include it on the top); and always provide delivery options with respect to content and frequency.

Within Infusionsoft, you can keep track of your spam complaint rate by regularly checking the Email Compliant Summary report located within your Infusionsoft application.  This report keeps track of the number of emails sent per day and the number of ISP spam complaints registered. We highly recommend that you take advantage of this report to ensure that you are keeping the spam complaints down to a minimum of 0.1%. Our Email Compliance Specialist, James Thompson, wrote an in-depth article on keeping spam complaints down. I seriously recommend that you read it. (And now that I’m serious, go ahead and print it, too.)

Email deliverability is much more than managing Spam. It’s doing good by your subscribers and being even more respectful. I would recommend that you should treat every email as if it were your last — leave a great lasting impression with your subscribers. A great way to do good is to offer insightful perspective and not tasteless pitches. An example of this is the Infusionsoft Vault. It’s a great example of finding the balance of useful information and a blend of nurture marketing.

As you can see, we’ve published quite a few articles about email delivery, but we’re always on the hunt for more. If there is anything else concerning email deliverability that you would like to see on the Fusebox, let us know in the comments below!

At InfusionCon this year, the Infusionsoft Training team received a great deal of comments from many of you about how the Fusebox has helped you learn Infusionsoft. In addition to the positive comments, we also heard your suggestions for improvement on the articles and videos you would like to see added.

We have been hard at work getting more relevant and useful content in the Fusebox that will help new and current customers get help with the setup process. In the interest of letting you know what we’ve done, here is what we accomplished in the first quarter of 2009:

• Email Resource Center — We added over 20 articles that will help you understand email marketing and how to become a better email marketer and more.
• Getting Started Checklist -A helpful step by step guide inside your app that contains relevant links and videos to help you get setup quickly and efficiently; all from day one!
• Release Notes and Highlights -Wondering what changes are coming from the Product Management team? We now give you a Highlights page and separate page detailing ALL bug fixes, changes and enhancements on the Fusebox. These are highly important so you can see what’s happening in the next software update!

As I said earlier, we’re always working on adding more content to the Fusebox as well as giving you more options for live Webinars.  I’m also happy to inform you that a new User Guide is coming, with added content and up-to-date features and functionality. You’re always welcome to post ideas and questions directly inside the Fusebox or even on the blog. We’ll review them and work on getting helpful and useful content out to you, the loyal entrepreneurs and small business owners.

So here is what we are working on for this quarter (Q2):

• Add Webinars that will discuss eCommerce, affiliates and the opportunity/sales process and work flow. These are really useful and would be great if you could get your whole team who uses Infusionsoft watching.
• Introduce more video articles, such as more video content built around certain processes and business automation (i.e. “trip wire marketing”, using trackable links with an event, lead scoring, etc.)
• Transition guides to easily help you understand jargon from other applications vs Infusionsoft verbiage (1Shopping Cart, Salesforce, etc.)
• Update the User Guide so it’s current with the latest features, processes and terms.

We are also updating articles and videos on a regular basis. Make sure you follow @InfusionHelp on Twitter to get the latest updates and happenings in Training!