3CriticalCampaigns_Ebook20 (1)

3 CCARMITP AICI GANLS EVERY Infusionsoft user needs

3 Critical Campaigns EVERY Infusionsoft user needs... IT’S A BIG STATEMENT...I KNOW! B ut, after years of implementing Infusionsoft and automation for everyone from Robin Robins (Technology Marketing Toolkit), Maria Andros, local attorneys, real estate agents, social media gurus like Mari Smith and Danny Page, franchised fitness gyms and independent owners, to everyone in between...I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve seen what works, and what simply isn’t worth your time trying to figure out. 1WARNING As we get into 2WARNING If you find 3WARNING Here’s the other the specifics, yourself saying, dirty little secret you’re going to “these are way with all three be tempted to say too simple”, campaigns. something along then good. Depending the lines of “Well, that’s a great That’s exactly what I want. on what marketing school idea for THAT business model, SIMPLICITY SCALES, of thought or influencer you but I’m business to business so it COMPLEXITY FAILS. follow, ALL of them advise wouldn’t work.” Or, “There are Before you spend hours, days, you to have these campaigns. just too many variables. These weeks, or months trying to figure Where most people get stuck campaigns are too simple for out how to over complicate these is in the nomenclature of these my SUPER complex business, campaigns, give “simple” a try. basic concepts. Case in point and/or clientele.” If that’s you, You might just be surprised is what I call a “New Contact I’ll ask you the same thing I with the results. Indoctrination” campaign. tell my kids when they say they It has been called “Welcome hate a food they’ve never tried. and WOW” or “New Prospect You can’t say something tastes bad Onboarding”, and any number when you’ve never had it. To you, of other silly names created to the business owner or Infusionsoft try and differentiate the same implementor, it goes like this. Do old tactic from others in the you have DATA to backup your space. I say “same old” not in pronouncement? No? Than give a negative way. “Same old” it a try before you say it tastes tactics can be the most effective bad…or doesn’t work. ;) ones. But, don’t allow yourself to be caught up in what to call these things. Just build and launch them!

COPY AND MARKETING STRATEGY VS. BUILD STRATEGY There is a big difference between copy and ALL of these campaigns use the Infusionsoft marketing strategy versus Infusionsoft build tagging strategy. I am not reinventing the wheel, strategy. The strategy around “what to say” and and the concepts of tags has been covered by “how to say it” is only briefly touched on in this PDF. other companies. But, if you’d like to pay I have included it so that you can have context on LongShip Systems to explain why and how tags placement in your campaigns. There are so many are used, we’d be happy to oblige. :) The books, blogs, and copywriting gurus available to campaign info is presented in “shoulds” and teach you “what to say” and “how to say it”, that “should nots”, as in “this is what this campaign I will only touch on it briefly. This PDF includes should be doing and how it should be set up”, screenshots of the actual campaigns I use with all and “this is what it should NOT do”. Easy of my clients, as well as the logic that makes enough? them work. Again, these should's and should not's are meant to be simple... super duper simple... so that you’ll actually do it.

CONTEXT I’m a firm believer in the adage, “there are few things as bad as good advice out of context!” So let’s set some general context to the campaigns we’ll be going through. I’m going to use a webinar as an example. Now, because this example is on webinars, you might be tempted to think, “I don’t do webinars, so this doesn’t apply to me.” I don’t want you to get caught up in that. There is a reason these three campaigns are so critical is that they apply to EVERY business model, strategy, or audience. So don’t let the context I’ve set qualify you out. In this book we’ll follow a new contact to your database. Let’s call him “Hotpants\". Hotpants has registered for an upcoming marketing webinar you’ll be hosting. As we plan for and follow Hotpants’s journey through our campaigns, you have to keep in mind that with automation we are required to paint with VERY broad brush strokes and generalizations. As such, every good Infusionsoft campaign makes two VERY big assumptions. 1 - Assume EVERYONE has been in a particular campaign before, and therefore we want to keep them out. 2 - Assume EVERYONE has not been there before and needs to be let in. Confused yet? It’s actually pretty simple once you have a repeatable process in place for every campaign. So, back to our example. Hotpants signed up for your Indoctrination campaign. This logic/assumption about webinar, so we have to assume that he has NOT been your New Contact Indoctrination campaign has to through your New Contact Indoctrination campaign. be made at EVERY conceivable entry point to your So when he starts in the registration sequence, we database to make sure everyone has a consistent assume that Hotpants and EVERYONE else who has experience and communication from you. registered has never been through our New Contact

It looks like this in the actual So, how do we do that? sequence. So now that we’ve moved Here’s the START tag we Hotpants over into the just applied to Hotpants that New Contact Indoctrination triggered his entry into our campaign, we have to make big New Contact Indoctrination automation assumption 1: campaign. “Assume EVERYONE has been in a particular campaign before, and therefore we want to keep them out.” In Hotpants’s case, he’s brand new to our database. So, when he enters the New Contact Indoctrination sequence, we apply a history tag that’s never removed from his contact record.

We then use this history tag as our “campaign gatekeeper” at the front end of our campaign, so that when Hotpants get that START tag applied to him in the future, our logic at the start is looking for the gatekeeper to funnel people in and out. This simple logic is used and reused throughout the “Three Critical Campaigns” and beyond to cover automation assumptions #1 and #2. Remember...simple scales, complexity fails. We want to find THE simplest way to reliably pull our automation off seamlessly. ORDER OF CAMPAIGNS PRESENTED. I’m presenting the “Three Critical Campaigns” in order of how Hotpants would be run through them with the obvious omission of the webinar campaign he joined our database through. The reason is that how and where you get new contacts is incredibly diverse. The “Three Critical Campaigns” apply to EVERYONE. The order is as follows: 1 New Contact Indoctrination 2 Cross-Sell/Downsell second 3 Long Term Nurture Cycler Think of them as top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. INTERNAL UPDATE FORMS Lastly, you’re going to be seeing all kinds of sending me these emails!” Or, you meet Hotpants internal forms in these campaigns. If you haven’t at a networking event, you tell him about this used internal forms yet, buckle up. They’re the super cool webinar you’ll be hosting, and he wants solution to the complication you’ve most likely in. In these instances the questions are, “how do experienced. Here’s the scenario. Hotpants I ADD, or REMOVE contacts to automation on a registered for our webinar. But then at some one-off basis?” point he wants out, and emails you saying, “STOP The answer? Internal forms.

I build internal forms into every campaign I build. They are the one-off solution to bigger automation processes. Here’s what they look like in the campaign builder. And here they are in action on a contact record. And here they are in action on a contact record. Now that we’ve covered some of the baseline logic and context for the “Three Critical Campaigns”, from here it’s actually pretty simple.

1 NEW CONTACT INDOCTRINATION.

NUMBER ONE: NEW CONTACT INDOCTRINATION. Call it a welcome campaign, indoctrination, welcome and WOW, or anything else today’s hot marketing expert calls it, this campaign is mission critical for EVERY Infusionsoft user. THE SHOULDS OF A NEW CONTACT INDOCTRINATION 1 23 Direct new contacts to OTHER Set expectations. Tell your story. sources, other than email, I’ve seldom seen someone get Story seems to be a hot topic to connect and follow you. upset with emails if I’ve told over the last couple of years. Direct new contacts to Linkedin, them, “I’ll be emailing you….”. Here’s your place in automation Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, It really is that simple. to actually do it! We know that if where ever they can stay in the contact has made it into the better contact with you and Indoctrination Campaign, that your brand. they’re new to you and therefore need to hear why you do what you do and how that’s different from your competition.

45 Containsataminimumtwoemails,butnomore Consider the overall email delivery scheme than three. of potential entry points. Email one accomplishes 1 and 2 of our SHOULD Here’s what I mean. You need to consider every list, and sets up context for your story in emails email from ALL marketing and sales campaigns. By default, I set email 1 to go out one hour after two and three. the contact joined my database, and then emails 2 and 3 to come out at a specific time each day following. SHOULD NOTS OF NEW CONTACT INDOCTRINATION 12 Sell ANYTHING. Talk specifics about HOW our new contact I almost want to punch myself in the face for got into the campaign. this one because you should always be selling. Here’s a big place people overcomplicate However, let the campaign the contact opted in for automation. Using the Hotpants example, a lot do the selling for you. In our example, Hotpants of times people will try and work out how they registered for a webinar. We’ll let THAT campaign can say something along the lines of, “I see you handle the selling. Indoctrination has its own job. signed up for our webinar”. Don’t bother trying to figure out how to pull that off. Remember, paint with broad brush strokes. Go with an opening line like, “Hi, Hotpants, I see you’re new here.”. And that’s it.

2 CROSS-SELL/ DOWNSELL CAMPAIGN

NUMBER TWO: CROSS-SELL / DOWN-SELL Let’s go back to our context for these three campaigns. Our new contact, Hotpants, registered for our webinar. In addition to the webinar specific campaign, we added him to our New Contact Indoctrination campaign where we connected him to other sources of contact with us. We set expectations about what to expect from us. Next, we told him our story, setting context for what we do and why we do it, and letting the webinar campaign do the selling for us. At a high level, Hotpants has one of two outcomes from the webinar campaign. He either bought our offer, or he didn’t. Again, V E R Y broad generalizations. Now we enter the The Cross-sell/Downsell campaign. Let’s say Hotpants does NOT buy. Where does he go next? Nurture? Broadcast list? Newsletter? The Cross-sell/Downsell campaign is the middle ground of your automated funnel. Before we move leads to the very bottom, we want to make at least one more direct play to get him to buy something. Anything. Here’s how we set it up.

First, at the end of our webinar campaign automation we apply the START tag that will send Hotpants into the Cross-sell/ Downsell campaign. Once Hotpants is in the new campaign, we have two assumptions we have to make. 1. Hotpants has already bought the product we are going to offer him. 2. Hotpants has already seen/ been through this same sequence. If the answer to either of these assumptions is YES, then we send Hotpants on his way OUT of this campaign and off to the next one. With those two logic points checked, now we can get into the shoulds and should nots of a Cross-sell/Downsell campaign.

THE SHOULDS OF A CROSS-SELL/DOWNSELL CAMPAIGN 12 Cross-sell/Downsell campaigns always go Sell something...anything! between a lead entry point and your long How you position the sale is internally up to term nurture list you, but one of the biggest mistakes I see in The Cross-sell/Downsell campaign is a structured these middle-of-the-funnel campaigns is people place that maintains a level of selling-focused not being willing to assert the sale. Again, there content that’s reportable and functions are all kinds of strategies on HOW to sell at this automatically. This should be used before we send point in your funnel, so pick one that feels right contacts off into the no man’s land of newsletters and try it. and promotional broadcasts. THE SHOULD NOTS OF THE CROSS-SELL/DOWNSELL CAMPAIGN 12 Try and speak to specifics about how the Make offers to contacts who already have the contact got to this point in the funnel. thing you’re about to pitch them. Don’t try and get fancy with logic like, “if the Remember to paint with broad brush strokes in contact came from this entry point I want to say these automated funnels. Assume EVERYONE XYZ. BUT, if they came from this other part of entering your Cross-sell/Downsell campaign has the funnel I want to say ZXY.” Trying to plan for the thing you are about to offer. these outcomes bogs you down in extra content you’ll have to write and logic you have to plan for. Wait until you have data to back up that kind of customization. This is the basic campaign structure that will allow you to accommodate either outcome. But, for the sake of our context we’ll assume that Hotpants was NOT a buyer off the webinar. Before we send him off into the no man’s land of monthly newsletters and broadcast lists, we’re going to automate a “downsell” offer.

3 LONG TERM NURTURE CAMPAIGN

NUMBER THREE: LONG TERM NURTURE (LTN) CYCLER Welcome to the bottom of your automated funnel. The bottom, done right. Following the path of Hotpants, he opted in to see your webinar, and you tried to sell him there. He didn’t bite. So, we made a second attempt with a cross-sell campaign. Still no action. So now he enters the LTN campaign, BUT, this LTN campaign is different. Remember our two big automation assumptions? 1. Assume EVERYONE has been in a particular 2. Assume EVERYONE has not been there campaign before, and therefore we want to before and needs to be let in. keep them out. These assumptions remain true in a well structured LTN campaign, but now I’ll complicate the assumptions one step further. Let’s assume Hotpants opts in for your next webinar. What then? Do we stop LTN so Hotpants can stay focused on getting to the webinar and buying? Do we risk pulling him out of LTN fearing that if he doesn’t buy the second time around that when he re-enters LTN, we’ll repeat the same content he’s already seen? The answer to the first question is YES. If Hotpants re-opts in for the next webinar, we don’t want to confuse him with mixed messages, so we want to pull him from LTN. The answer to question two is this. Build a smarter LTN campaign.

We need to add on to the campaign logic we’ve already established. Our LTN campaign is subdivided into smaller sequences, with each sequence having gatekeeper logic guarding the entry point of each sequence. This way, Hotpants can enter and exit the LTN Cycler without ever seeing the same content twice. On top of this, and this is a real problem in the Infusionsoft space, proper set up allows you to not only set reliable gatekeeper logic, but it also allows you to track and measure the effectiveness of the content you’re sending out. Imagine that! So now Hotpants can come in and go out of your Long Term Nurture campaign with the assurance that he’s never seeing the same offer twice.

THE SHOULDS OF A LONG TERM NURTURE CAMPAIGN 1 23 LTN should be set up so that Track what is and is not Provide value so you stay you know what your leads working in the campaign. welcome in the inbox, but and prospects are getting. One major drawback to living don’t forget to sell. Living broadcast to broadcast broadcast to broadcast as a LTN Two big mistakes I see with will drive you nuts trying to keep strategy is that there’s typically LTN is that it is either always up and remember what to send very little to no reporting built in selling something, or never and when to send it. Structured to see what’s working long term. selling anything. It really is that content allows you the peace of Having a process in place to extreme. A simple formula to mind to know your contacts are know at what point in the LTN follow in your LTN is to include getting something. process someone buys will pay 3 emails in each sequence off in the long run. Emails 1 and 2 are value, and email 3 pitches a product or service connected to the value you’ve been building in emails and 2 Just remember this little mantra, “value, value, offer.” THE SHOULD NOTS OF A LONG TERM NURTURE CAMPAIGN 1 23 Live off broadcasts. Rely exclusively on you to Only communicate to the Yeah, I know, I already basically provide the content. database when you have said this. But it bears repeating. If you’re having trouble trying to something to sell. Some of the biggest names you figure out what more to say and A quick way to become know and follow live like this sell in a LTN campaign, look no unwelcome in someone’s inbox is and then hire LongShip Systems further than affiliated products to always be selling something. to come in and try to make and partners. Connecting your Take the time with your LTN to sense of untraceable emails and database to complementary build a storyline about a product conversations. Broadcasts have offers not only frees you up or offer before you ask people to their place, and that’s typically from writing all that content or take out their credit card. in an email provider that is not creating new products, but it Infusionsoft. also allows you to be seen as a connector to your database.

CONCLUSION No matter what stage of Infusionsoft use you’re currently in, brand new, old hat, infuriated contributor, on some combo of any of three... Remember, it’s important to alway take a big step back and evaluate the “necessity” of what your trying to accomplish. The most high performing Infusionsoft users I’ve worked with over the years have a number of shared character traits regardless of industry. 1 2 They aren’t afraid to get it wrong. It’s nerve They’ve learned the value of simplicity. racking to learn to trust automation, but thanks to the second character trait they share they make life easier on themselves. 3 4 They make decisions in their apps based They outsource the stuff they aren’t good off their own DATA, NOT what they’ve at, or that doesn’t bring them joy. They been told they “should be doing” by the learned through trial and error that they’ll newest marketing wizard. make more money if they stop trying to be everything to everyone. If however you’re committed to figuring this thing out on your own remember the two the LongShip Systems Motto, Simplicity Scales, Complexity Fails. Your business and life are complicated enough as it is, don’t make it harder on yourself.