I have been using Infusionsoft for four years now… that is right, I AM A BADASS (see proof to the right). I have also set up Marketo, OfficeAutoPilot, HubSpot and other systems for my clients over the years.

Infusionsoft has become very powerful and the usability has improved tremendously.

For 90% of the small businesses out there, Infusionsoft is the best solution. Even if money was not an object, I would still choose Infusionsoft over Eloqua (and Eloqua costs about 8 times more money). The reason is simple, Eloqua, like many other marketing automation platforms, doesn’t have a CRM, Affiliate Module, Order Forms and Shopping Cart. It’s kinda like having a sick whip without wheels. Granted if you run a B2B business and your lifetime customer value is in the tens of thousands or more, you will likely want to spring the green for Eloqua and plugin SalesForce for the CRM piece. However, very few businesses fall into that bucket.

In my opinion, HubSpot is a waste of space at the moment. Why anyone would spend $400 per month for HubSpot (1K-10K list size), when they can get WordPress and Google Analytics for free, plus an Infusionsoft account and do 10X MORE and do it FASTER, still eludes me.

If you want to learn more about Infusionsoft, I wrote an article earlier in the year, the title says it all “The Most Important Piece of Software That We Use“.

Begin Wicked InfoGraphic

End Wicked Infographic

Download PDF: Top 20 Marketing Automation Software Solutions

My good friend Shane MeLaugh has put together an excellent webinar about outsourcing.

Don’t worry, he is not selling anything… this webinar is what I call “safe-content.” Don’t be a freeloader though… it’s just not polite or respectful. Shane is running a business, just like you and I. So, if you enjoy the video, “Like” this post on Facebook, or “Tweet” about it, using the button on the left-hand side, and make sure to check out Shane’s Blog in the “Learn More About Shane” section below.

Ultimately, Shane is leveraging the law of reciprocity, not crappy fear based marketing tactics like so many online marketers do. This is a process known as paying it forward and it’s how I believe all good marketers do business.

Enjoy the presentation:

Resources Mentioned:

• The Content Authority – great article writing service
• IM forums mentioned: Backlinksforum, Warriorforum, Wickedfire
• oDesk – for finding workers for all kinds of jobs and projects
• vWorker – same as oDesk, but a little more complex (good for larger projects)
• Google docs – to create and share your project details with workers
• For wireframing your projects: Pencil Project (free, Windows and Linux), Mockingbird, Balsamiq

Learn More About Shane:

• IMImpact Blog – Internet Marketing (IM) Impact
• Get Access to More of Shane’s Free Content (Opt-In Required)

Shane lives in Zurich, Switzerland. He and I became friends about 4 months ago. I found one of his blogs and really liked the content. I emailed him to connect, stating we were on similar paths and should mastermind together every couple of weeks. Since then, we have come to call each other friends. Shane was sharp, and recognized that I was methodical in the way I built our relationship. He asked me one day, so I wrote a post about it in my notebook, How To Build a Mastermind Network.

Imagine we are at the race track in the 1940s, and I appear on the scene in a ’90s Lamborghini Diablo. You could put the best driver in the world against me, and I would beat them without even leaving 2nd gear or breaking a sweat.

Just like me in a Diablo, a person with less skill can beat an expert while putting in considerably less effort if they have the right equipment.

Why put yourself at a disadvantage? Why not get the best? It is usually because of money. Well, I am here to tell you that 9 times out of 10 that excuse is complete baloney. Most people do have enough money, they just aren’t willing to cut their expenses. So it is not money, it is a prioritization issue. And when you factor your time into the equation (the extra time you will need to invest by using inferior tools), you will discover that you are actually spending more money by using them.

Liberation from the daily grind is no longer just about being a good delegator, that is a recipe for skyrocketing expenses and laborious management duties. The real secret that everyone is chasing is good automation. And it really isn’t that much of a secret. It is usually just the elephant in the room that no one seems to see.

Anyway I digress, it is time for me to get to the point…

Some people use aWeber and similar solutions, others use 1ShoppingCart or one of the many other solutions that are on the market. If you do a little research, you will quickly realize that most marketing automation tools come from either infomarketers or companies with no real marketing experience. They have little infrastructure or long term planning in place as well.

This is what makes Infusionsoft unique, they have:

• grown from 3 guys in a garage to a team of 143 people in only 7 years.
• gone from 0 to over 22 million in annual revenue during the process.

Do you think they might have something special going on? I can tell you for certain, they do. They have something very special. They have the equivalent of a Diablo in the ’40s, today. Plus, they specialize in helping small business owners with 1 to 15 employees.

I will be 100% upfront with you as I always am, Infusionsoft did have a rough patch for the last couple of years, in my opinion. Any company that grows that quickly is bound to have some fallout. Hence my not promoting them for several months. Plus, when you are that successful the haters tend to pop up out of the woodwork.

But you can rest assured that Infusionsoft is firing on all cylinders now.

Find Out What Infusionsoft Can Do For Your Business

Watch a Live Infusionsoft Demo Today – It’s the Quickest and Easiest Way to Understand What Infusionsoft Can Do For Your Business!

Seriously, if you are stuck and can’t figure out why you can’t move your business forward, Infusionsoft is likely one of the missing ingredients. I would bet that traffic is also a stumbling block, but that can be cured by following up properly with the leads you already have in your pipeline. If you don’t have a couple hundred leads in your pipeline… you might want to consider changing careers, unless you are working with really high-ticket items.

Feel free to leave a comment on this post and I will gladly field any questions you have. I have two Infusionsoft applications, one for jiveSYSTEMS and the other for AskFlywheel. I have also been a CMAC (a certified Infusionsoft coach) for several years now and keep an open mind by continually testing the other solutions on the market, so I am in an excellent position to advise you.

What Does the Panda Update REALLY Mean?

• Crappy sites with low quality backlinks and no traffic have been significantly devalued.
• Professional sites with high quality backlinks and real visitors have been pushed up the search results.

Take a Look at Our Results in Search Engines Post Panda

It may interest you to know that in the past 45 days (June 1st to July 15th), I have actually moved jiveSYSTEMS up the search results. Not just a little but, but a lot; a total of 15 positions for 3 competitive keywords: “video email“, “video email marketing“, and “video email software“. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can go to Google yourself and verify the results!⁴

Now I have already discovered that our competition has been reading this blog, and are quite frankly copying many of the strategies that I reveal. So for those of you who like more details, please know that I do best to share as much as possible, openly and with full transparency. However, I must keep some information private, hence the above image only including 3 of our keywords. I am working with about 20 keywords, and we are moving up the rankings quickly for all of them!

How To Rank Higher in the Search Results

Ranking high in the search results isn’t a mysterious art form. All you need to create is high quality relevant content that people what to read and share. You then put that content on your website(s) and distribute it around the internet, after which it is just a case of rinse and repeat⁵.

Step-by-Step Plan

1. Keyword Research - Keyword selection is critical; some keywords are very competitive, whereas others are not. Look for hidden gems – longtail keywords that have lots of traffic and no competition. To do keyword research, you basically type in words related to your products into a keyword research tool and it spits out keyword ideas, gives you an idea of the competition you are up against, and how much traffic you will get from a given ranking in the search engines.  You can use Google AdWords Keyword Tool for free and get pretty good results. I use a paid tool called SECockpit for my keyword research because it goes deeper and searches faster; another thing I like is that it gives me a detailed breakdown of traffic estimates based on placement, which no other tool on the market that I have tested can do (e.g. a placement of 1-3, 4-7, 8-10).
2. Content Creation - You need an archive full of A+ content weaved around your chosen keywords (articles, video, webinars, ebooks, and more). I would lean more towards video content because it is more engaging. Plus, you can create 1 video and upload it to multiple video sharing sites (YouTube, MetaCafe, etc.).
3. Setting Up or Optimizing Your Site – The more sites the merrier! However, they all have to be on different servers or blocks, otherwise Google will devalue the sites. The key is creating a structure that converts visitors into revenue, content into opt-ins, and opt-ins into sales. You also want to add floating social buttons to make your content easy to share. We are using a WordPress plugin called Sharebar on the left side of this blog. WordPress is my platform of choice for building websites. A insider tip is to only use WordPress themes that are built on Frameworks. Most of the themes on the market are not built on a Framework. This means they do not get updated as frequently if at all. The best development houses have a framework and then create several themes based on it. This means they can update the framework cost effectively, as it will update across all of their themes. StartBox is a brand new framework that looks fantastic for building a website and a blog, although I have yet to use it. I have built several websites using WooThemes, they have a lots of themes to choose from. If you are looking to build landing pages, launch funnels, and membership sites, check out our “Stuff We Recommend” page.
4. Distributing Content to the Internet – Article sharing sites, web 2.0 properties, video sharing sites, forums, and more. One trick is to leverage sites like Posterous⁶, where you can setup a blog that will automatically syndicate your content to other sites. If you are savvy, you will create multiple identities and mimic the behavior of real people as closely as possible. When syndicating content, after using tools like TrafficGeyser and TubeMogul, I have switched back to manual video submissions, as I feel they are more natural and I am certain Google is smarter than these tools. This is why I recommend that 80% of your content distribution be manual. I feel you get more SEO Juice when you manually submit your content and mix up the subject lines and keywords, as it looks more natural.

Never Stray From My TCA Formula

If what you are doing doesn’t fall into one of these 3 buckets, STOP DOING IT. Also, make sure to create balance between each area. I like to focus on generating traffic for a few days, and then improving conversions, and then customer support.

Conclusion

SEO is not for everyone, it is a long and laborious process. 95% of business owners would be better investing their time in building relationships and their referral/JV network. For my clients (the few that I do consult with still), I only recommend SEO if they get a capital infusion or have a stable and profitable revenue stream. This is because SEO efforts take about 3-9 months to mature, so they need to be in for the long haul; on the flipside, the results become exponential once you reach the tipping point.

Footnotes

We’ve been pushing really hard for search engine rankings, and it’s been paying off. We’re currently result 2 in Google for “video email marketing“, result 5 for “video email software“, and result 10 for “video email“, and we are rapidly approaching number 1 for all these results.

Updates Made

• Removed Banner Ads – I removed all the banner ads from our pages because they create a leak in pagerank and therefore our position in the search engines. I moved our banner ads to a page that is called “Stuff We Recommend“, which has a very different impact on both perception and the way page rank flows. Banner ads show globally (on EVERY page) on most themes. Each banner you have on your blog is basically one outbound link for each page they’re on. That’s a lot of outbound links, folks. The Google Panda update also adds fuel to the fire when it comes to banner ads, as it is believed the new algorithm doesn’t take fondly to sites with lots of banner ads, potentially because it is an indicator of an affiliate site.
• Relocated Categories – I moved our categories from horizontal (across the top) to vertical (on the right sidebar). I read an article that talked about how we sort information better when it’s vertically laid out, as opposed to horizontally.
• Added a Tag Cloud – I added a tag cloud underneath the new vertical category display that shows the most used tags. In the past, I’d tag our posts appropriately, but they didn’t really do anything for anyone because no one saw them. Now, with the visual tag cloud, we hope that it will aid in the navigation of the blog.
• Re-categorized Posts – I filed all our content differently, reducing the amount of categories and making posts easier to find.

With updates this major coming out rarely from Google, it’s wise to stay informed on how it can affect your business. If you are currently doing (or want to pursue) organic search engine marketing, you need to watch this video.

Take a look at the changes we made to our blog, as a result of the Panda Update.

The last decade was the decade of “the social”. Priebatsch tells us that this next decade will be the decade where “the game” framework is built. He breaks games down into 7 “game dynamics”, and gives real-world examples of 4 of those. If we take these game dynamics and apply them to communications and marketing, we can steer people’s behaviors and reshape their patterns.

“Seth Priebatsch: The Game Layer on Top of the World”

Take Action and Implement

Games are all around us, and whether we are aware of them or not they have a massive impact on our society and the world. From the extreme of the War Games the military conducts with thousands of troops that involves the cooperation of many nations, to coupons from the local supermarket.

Do you leverage any games with your prospects, clients, and team? Think about how you could apply game dynamics to motivate people to achieve specific goals. If you are like me, the games you will come up with at first will be time and cost prohibitive to implement, involving special registration features with points being award for all sorts of actions. However, what follows will likely be some simple game layers that can be implement quickly and easily.

“There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business doesn’t. Here’s what science knows. One, those 20th century awards, those motivators we think are the natural part of business, do work but only in surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two, those if-then rewards often destory creativity. Three, the secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things because they matter. And here is the best part. Here is the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does,. If we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century. If we get past this lazy, dangerous idealogy of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe, maybe, we can change the world. I rest my case.”

-Dan Pink: Author of a trio of provocative, bestselling books on the changing world of work.
Quote taken from “Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation”

Once grasped and applied, the concept that Simon reveals will be a “pillar of geometric growth” (PGG) for you and your company. The more PGGs you establish at the foundation of your business, the greater and more enduring your success will be.

“People Do Not Buy What You Do, They Buy Why You Do It”

Take Action and Implement

Think about why you do what you do… what is the purpose / why do you exist? Ask that question on a personal and business level. Do you communicate that message to your friends, colleagues, customers, and prospects?

Backstory

Since we started our first major paid marketing campaign, we thought it was fitting to make the topic of today’s Post-Up game “Free Ways to Generate 100 New Members,” a modest target for new members that will keep us focused on ideas that are quick and easy to execute. We decided not to make the goal time-bound because this is the first stage of brainstorming.

We’ve been in business for almost 3 years. Up until now, we have generated all of our members from referrals and a few JV webinars. We have kept our marketing activities to a minimum because we almost imploded after our first co-sponsored webinar about 2 years ago that generated over 300 new members 60 minutes. Since then, we have been building out our internal knowledge base and the infrastructure of the company to ensure we can handle surges of new customers when we switch on the spigot again. I can’t say that we have it all figured out yet, but we do have a solid piece of software and a training program that enables business owners to build trust into their sales process by leveraging video email, and when you have trust you have sales!

For those of you who do not know what we do here at jiveSYSTEMS, here is a snapshot:

We can teach you how to shorten your sales cycle and increase conversions by supplementing text-based emails and autoresponder sequences with video email messages. The jiveSYSTEMS video email software has a rapid-authoring workflow that allows you to record straight from a webcam or flip style camcorder, and also creates mini landing pages with customizable exit links to make the videos actionable. Plus, video emails sent through jiveSYSTEMS can be viewed on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android devices.

The Exercise

Step 1 – Sit in silence for 10 minutes and write our ideas down on a bunch of sticky notes.
Step 2 – Present our sticky notes to each other and stick them on the board.

Will Franco aka Flywheel posing for his mug shot

Step 3 – Organize the ideas into the categories.

Reed “Propellerhead” LaFerriere giving you the big cheese

Step 4 – Prioritize the ideas.

The final product in less than 30 minutes

Conclusion

Ideas can be generated, organized, and prioritized more efficiently and effectively by leveraging sticky notes, a big whiteboard, and creating a simple game around the process. The result greatly exceed that of a conversation alone. We identified 5 key areas that will have a positive impact on our goal of generating 100 new members. You will notice none involve selling or sales – we don’t believe in that approach. Our goal is to educate business owners about the value proposition of our service so they can make an informed decision, resulting in a low churn rate and a high level of member satisfaction.

P.S.

We use a special Ceramicsteel whiteboard that doesn’t ghost. You can learn more about our whiteboard in the post The Ultimate Whiteboard: Melamine, Porcelain, or Ceramicsteel?

Video hosting

In TrafficGrab, James Schramko explains his “Spaghetti Bowl Map.”

What is TrafficGrab?

TrafficGrab is a “Systematic Traffic Grabbing Strategy” that will teach you how to get traffic by DOMINATING THE SEARCH ENGINES AND CONTENT DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS – REALLY REALLY FAST!!! You can study the course in about 5hrs to 7hrs, 12hrs if you want to go over the information a couple of times before applying it to your business. I invested about 7hrs to study the materials.

Should I Buy TrafficGrab?

If you have 3-5hrs per week to dedicate to dominating the search results and content distribution channels, then Yes… YOU SHOULD BUY TRAFFICGRAB!

Are There Any Hidden Costs?

TrafficGrab is an information product, it is not a piece of software. In my eyes, when I bought TrafficGrab, I expected to buy a couple of tools to assist me in automating repetitive tasks; some would say that is a hidden cost, I call it logical. When you buy a car, you usually have to buy oil, tires, and brakes, even if you have a warranty.

Just like the course, the tools and software James Schramko recommends are very affordable, so no need to worry about losing your shirt here. Plus, you don’t have to use any of the tools. You can leverage many of his strategies with good old fashioned spit and polish (and still get great results!).

What is the Best Way to Learn More About TrafficGrab?

Follow these instructions, precisely:

1. Click this link that says “Learn More About TrafficGrab“
2. Resist the urge to skip ahead and watch the entire first video.

James is giving you PURE GOLD for FREE, including the first 3 chapters of the course. Don’t discount the information and skip ahead based on the misguided principle that nothing good comes for free. If you are jaded by the internet marketing mafia, get over it. Don’t label this new generation of information marketers in the same manner. Give them a chance and I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised and smiling all the way to the bank.

Are There More Products and Services Out There Like This One?

Yes, there are lots! I am in the process of hunting them down. They are hard to find; it’s akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.

As I am sure you are aware, much of the information on the internet is junk and spam, so I am sifting through it piece by piece. Each time I find something that looks good, I buy and test it. If it works, I will add it to this blog.

In the coming weeks I will be writing a post about the landing page system that I use for WordPress. I’ve been testing several landing page systems from the free all the way up to the $2,000 per year standalone products. One of the systems I’ve been testing really shines above the rest; it costs less than $100 total and can be used to design everything from landing pages and evergreen launch funnels to stunning membership sites with a few clicks of a mouse (zero coding knowledge required).

Infusionsoft produced this webinar, but it is applicable to everyone in the business world. The content is truly groundbreaking because it is the first time the concept of Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) has been explained in 60 minutes. To put that into perspective, people can spend years, even decades, and still not grasp the concept of LCV.

This webinar is hosted by VP of Customer Service and co-founder of Infusionsoft, Scott Martineau. He is also the major driving force behind the creation of the content. I have a lot of respect for Scott; we’ve met a couple of times at InfusionCon. He is generous with his knowledge and humble in delivering it. For the record, he started Infusionsoft in 2001, and in less than 6 years the company was grossing over 20 million dollars. Based on those facts, I will leave it to you to decide if this webinar is worth your time. I had to get special permission to publish it in our blog, and Infusionsoft reserved the right to revoke it, so don’t fanny about, hop on to it.

Instant Access to the On-Demand Recording (no opt-in required)

What you’ll learn:

• A proven methodology to develop your overall marketing strategy
• Specific questions you should ask about your marketing plan
• A clear picture of where you can find the low hanging fruit in your marketing and sales
• Suggestions for the most important campaigns you can implement today
• The motivation and resources you need to start making tactical changes

Instant Access to the On-Demand Recording (no opt-in required)

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[I am using WP Post Footer Library for my Snippets]

Tech Rant

This is the first video I have produced using my awesome zero-ghosting whiteboard.  The camera is at an angle to reduce the glare from the lighting and this annoying window in the corner of the room that always seems to let in light at just the right angle to mess up my shot.

For once, I am actually using my prosumer camcorder (Sony HDR-SR11) and video lighting (two softboxes and a boom light).  Frankly, I could have used the Q3HD flipstyle camcorder which costs $250 and a couple of $30 natural light desktop lamps from HomeDepot (as opposed to $1,000 for my Sony) and most people would not be able to tell the difference, even when comparing the footage side-by-side… but I went ahead and bought the expensive stuff because I didn’t know any better at the time, so I feel I might as well use it.

When I learn how to do side-by-sides in Sony Vegas (the editing software I use), I will show you how little difference there actually is between $2,000 worth of equipment (Sony and 3-piece light kit) and $310 (Q3HD and 2 natural lights from HomeDepot).

P.S.

I am merely explaining the core success strategy which you should build upon.  In the video, I mentioned that you should put a P.S. at the end of a post and then link to a page (conversion point).  I believe I said “every post”, but please don’t take me literally.  If you don’t have somewhere to send people, it is okay – you can always go back and add a P.S. in the future.  Plus, if you link to a conversion page every time, your community will catch on quickly.  The ultimate goal is to provide value every step of the way.  

From what I have seen, the studies and testimony that promote the efficacy of plain text emails are usually from email blasters, not inbound marketers.  Of course, plain text emails are going to outperform HTML emails when sent to an unqualified list- the HTML version of the email will have information missing because the recipient needs to click “display images” for the message to reach its potential.

In contrast, when the email or follow-up sequence is sent to an opt-in list or group of contacts that know and trust you, leveraging visual language, which can only be done through an HTML email, increases comprehension and retention.  This is because people you know and trust will enable images for all of your email messages.  Using HTML allows you to format the email using eye-leading formatting (header, bulletpoints, call-outs, columns, pictures, etc.) so the recipient can scan the message quicker than if it were in plain text.

Granted, there is a small band of infomarketers that leverage plain text emails, but only the elites do so successfully.  Plus, I firmly believe the elites would make more money if they sent HTML emails to specific segments of their community.

Thoughts to consider

1. People gravitate towards visual language – information that gives them more substance in less time.  Plain text simply cannot compete with HTML for this purpose.
2. Organized knowledge is also becoming a major factor in the evolution of communication, the knowledge worker’s role, and the transference of knowledge.

At present, I have not discovered anyone who has made the connection between organized knowledge as applied to marketing.  By organized knowledge, I don’t mean simply creating an eBook or course- everyone and their uncle is doing that… I mean creating a tailored communication based on a persons psycho-demographic and behavioral profile to increase their engagement, improve their comprehension and retention, and ultimately increase conversions.  DISC, “a behavioral profiling system,” is the closest expert advice relating to this subject that I have found.  In actuality, I must admit the majority of the pieces exist, but they have not been combined into a system of organized knowledge that can be readily understood and applied.  Currently, the largest portion of the knowledge exists within teams inside large corporations and the speakers that educate them (e.g. Jim Cecil, founder of NurtureMarketing).

To be clear, I am not talking about creating emails one by one

These tailored emails can be created in advance to build follow-up sequences.  You can automate the delivery of the emails by using systems like Infusionsoft and Eloqua.  Plus, you can adapt the system automatically based on predetermined actions they take on your site and in your emails.  The theorist inside of me wishes I were a professor and had some interns (and the backing) to prove my theory so I could benefit email recipients everywhere and educate marketers.

Increasing conversions

To me, everything in business is about conversions, even emails to customers.  The conversion goal could be to increase customer satisfaction, help them understand the software better, build goodwill, etc… but nevertheless, a clear goal is held in mind and constantly tracked.

The really question it always boils down to for me is ROI

“How much time can I afford to invest to build out this communication in relation to the goal, or the expected communications impact on my goal?”