Would you like to know how you can literally market while you sleep?  No matter what we are doing day or night, our systems and those we design for our clients enable us to grow our list of contacts, organize them into groups, and automatically communicate with them based on the kind of information they are asking to receive.  Hence, while our various marketing strategies grow traffic to our site, our site is working to convert visitors who give us permission to market.  And we follow up with email and other means of staying in touch with people.  Magic?  No.  Just magical and affordable software that you too can use to leverage your time and money.  Hence, we market while we sleep and so can you.

So far I’ve shared with you that it’s essential for growth-oriented businesses to leverage professional  web design that does more than simply pose as an online brochure.   WealthNet clients want websites that generate leads.  Which means the sites we design are created in a way that enable an ever growing number of visitors to become leads through specific conversion disciplines.   I’ve shared with you the primary means of driving traffic to your site and how to impact conversions.  Our goal throughout this series is to help you learn how to create and manage an ever-growing pipeline of people who will want to do business with you.

This week I want to share with you an incredibly powerful technology that enables us to collect, organize and communicate with the many new visitors that give us permission to market.  (We practice what we preach and implement for our clients.)

Now that you have more traffic coming to your site, and your site enables you to collect contact information with permission to follow up and communicate with prospective customers or clients, how do you manage these contacts in a simple and affordable way?  Welcome to the realm of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and permission-based email marketing technology.

As you will notice looking at the WealthNet website, we offer several ways for people to give us permission to follow up with them.  We currently offer a free eBook, a website analysis, and a free subscription to our newsletter.  So what happens to the information that we collect on these forms?  How do we organize all new contact information?  And how do we follow up with everyone on an ongoing basis?  I am glad you asked.

1. How do we collect new contact information?  When visitors to our site enter their contact information on any of the forms, also known as web forms, this information is automatically added to our contact management system which is Infusionsoft.  The forms on the site include html code that automatically sends the contact information to our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and email marketing system, Infusionsoft.  (We are licensed, certified consultants with Infusionsoft.)  Infusionsoft is a magical piece of software that lives on the internet and works 24/7 on our behalf.  In fact, it’s not really software that lives on our servers.  It’s referred to as SaaS or Software as a Service.  And it’s the future of software living in the now.  When you think of SaaS, think of Google apps, Quickbooks and other technology companies that allow you to use their software over the internet.  If you’ve heard the term Cloud Computing this is essentially what people are referring to.  Instead of using software that lives on your hard drive or server, you’re using it over the internet.

2. How do we organize our contacts?  What’s the point of doing internet marketing, traditional networking and making sales calls if you don’t organize your contacts in a disciplined fashion?  Most people we talk with are using a contact management system that lives on their hard drive or server such as Outlook, ACT, or Goldmine.  Or at least they are trying to keep up with the growing stack of business cards that sit on their desk because they don’t make the time to get them into a system.  So what about automating this process so your list can grow automatically?  Here’s how we do it.  When you enter your contact information into one of the forms on our site we organize each contact into groups.  Infusionsoft calls them tags.  This enables us to know what specific information you as our new contact would like to receive from us.  Some people want the eBook.  Others a website analysis.  And many people simply want to receive our newsletter, WealthNet Wisdom for Entrepreneurs.  Once new contacts are automatically organized, we can provide timely and highly relevant information via email.  Everyone in our system is tagged according to the kind of information and follow up we think they want to receive going forward.

3. How do we follow up with the people in Infusionsoft?  If you’re not consistently following up with the people in your contact management or CRM system you might as well close your doors now.  Consistent follow up is essential to growing any business.  As we constantly grow our list of people with whom to follow up and communicate, it’s important that we do so in several ways.  First, we follow up by emails that are automated to give the person the information they want when they want it.  So if you download our current eBook, “The Art of Business Development” you will receive an automated and personalized email thanking you for downloading the information.  And our system is designed to automatically send you more personalized email follow up as part of a series.  As an example, this email was created in advance of the time or date it is to be sent by email and is done through Infusionsoft.  Many of our email communications are managed through an Action Sequence we have created in advance.  The Action Sequence is one of Infusionsoft’s most powerful features.  Not only can we create many series of emails that communicate with our contacts, we can adapt the series to each person based on their response.  For example, if someone receiving the eBook emails one day requests a meeting with us or becomes a client, they are typically moved to another group and the previous Action Sequence is stopped.  Once this person moves to a new group or tag, a new and more appropriate Action Sequence can begin.  This ensures that email follow up is relevant and personalized.

It’s also important to tell you that in addition to following up with people by email, we also follow up with phone calls, occasional faxes, and personalized direct mail.  And so should you if you care about cultivating relationships to grow your business.  The key to following up with people is to be politely persistent, consistent and to do so in various ways that suit your business model, budget and the preference of the people in your system.  (Yes, you need a great system if you haven’t figured this out already!)

All successful marketing has a purpose.  You build your website to generate leads by driving traffic to a professional web 2.0 design that includes forms and other means for people to contact you based on their preference.  You collect new contact information through your forms and people calling you directly or emailing you because it’s easy to find your phone number and an email address on your site.  And you must have the discipline to organize new contacts in a system such as Infusionsoft that helps you follow up consistently while leveraging time through affordable technology. This is how you can market while you sleep because all of these activities can be automated.

Success in business is about discipline.  If you are disciplined with your internet marketing strategy your traffic and list of contacts will grow.  Then it’s your responsibility to manage these contacts and move them from lead to prospect to customer or client.  Whether you operate your business yourself or you have a team of sales professionals working on your behalf, managing this process is essential to growing your business.  Leveraging technology such as Infusionsoft enables you to use one system (application) to manage contacts, lists or groups, calendar, relevant email marketing, and even your e-commerce and affiliate programs affordably and efficiently.

We have found that the best way to market and grow is to leverage very affordable technology that provides various functionalities in one place.  Infusionsoft is unique and powerful because it allows us to use one system to capture new contact information, organize it efficiently, and follow up consistently.  Depending on the needs of your business, Infusionsoft and other software applications can make your life much easier.  It’s simply a matter of matching the technology to your business model which is something we can help you do.

Next week I will share with you part five of the series, “How to Grow Your Cash Flow by Leveraging the Internet.”