Marketing, Small Business
“Do you have any tips for a first timer attending ICON?”
I do.
I attended my first ICON back in 2012, as a brand new Infusionsoft employee. And I’ve been every year since, and have been fortunate enough to speak at the last three (a snippet from 2014 and 2015, and a recap from 2016). I’ve attended both as an employee, and now also as a partner, and someone relying on Infusionsoft to run my business.
As such, I thought I’d share a few tips for making the most out of your ICON experience:
1. Set Goals
If you just sit back and wait for ICON to “happen” you’ll probably have a good time, and you’ll probably learn a few things; but you certainly won’t get as much out of it as you could. Spend some time before the conference thinking about what you’d like to walk away with – are you looking to make strategic connections, are you looking to focus on one specific part of your business, are you hoping for product training, etc. The more targeted you can get with your approach to the conference, the more it’ll deliver in return.
2. Visit the Expo
The expo area is where all the ICON sponsors are set up, and it’s usually centrally located so that you walk past it, or through it, as you’re navigating the conference. Yes, many of these people have something for sale, and it can be tempting to pull out your phone and pretend to check your messages in hopes that you don’t have to have a conversation, but hang on – we all need to remember that these businesses are all there because they solve a problem. Every partner who sponsors ICON offers a service, or software, or a solution to an articulated point of pain that real Infusionsoft users were struggling with. They do, or they wouldn’t be in business. So take a moment to check out the various solutions that are on display and see if there isn’t something that could make your life simpler, or your business more efficient.
3. Download the App
Yeah, there’s an ICON app, and you should download it. It makes it easy to track and plan an agenda, connect with other attendees, and vote for ALU in the Small Business ICON award. I say that sort of tongue in cheek, because I’m sure all three finalists are very deserving, but for real – I’ve been working with the African Leadership University for the last twelve months, and if their story compels you then I know they’d appreciate your vote!
4. Keep an Open Mind
This one is kind of obvious – but if you go into this event already having decided how or where it’s going to be valuable, then it’s very possible that you’ll completely miss something that could have been a game changer for you. All I’m suggesting is that you keep an open mind. In reflecting on my conference-going history I find I’m regularly impressed that some of the most valuable sessions I’ve attended were the ones that I stumbled into at the last minute, or even mistakenly, and not the one I had starred on the program ahead of time.
5. Save some Space to Network
Listen, ICON can be exhausting, as any conference can. But this is literally the largest Infusionsoft assembly on the planet. There are thousands of people who all have something in common – and the more you’re able to connect with the other attendees, the more likely you are to learn something, or forge a meaningful relationship that changes the future of your business, or the way you think about it. I’m not saying you need to stay out all night drinking lemon-drop martinis (though you certainly can), but I am saying that you should be open to connecting with people, going out to dinner with someone you meet, or attending one of the many networking functions hosted by the community surrounding this event.
6. Take Notes with Context
Take notes – obviously. But make sure to also include context for these notes. I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly had my fair share of ideas where I think to myself “I’ll definitely remember that” and then later I recall I had an idea, but I don’t remember what it was – well, this underscores the importance of writing things down. Leaving crystal clear instructions for your future self increases the likelihood that you’ll actually get shiz done. The reason I emphasize context is because when you’re listening to a presentation, or chatting with a fellow entrepreneur, it’s really easy to jot something down shorthand that makes complete sense to you – but then later when you’re looking at your trapper keeper full of notes it’s much harder to decipher your memento style scribblings.
7. Prioritize Comfort
I’m not saying you should show up in your favorite pair of lululemon sweatpants (though I wouldn’t blame you), but I am saying you should consider prioritizing your own comfort. It’s Phoenix, and it’ll probably be fairly warm – but most of the time you’ll likely be inside. This time of year is challenging because it cools down in the evenings, and breaks 100 during the day. So, between the cooler ends of the day, and the air conditioned conference center you’ll want a light sweater, or some sort of layer. Oh, and since you’ll be walking a fair amount, so you’re going to want comfortable shoes. It’s a tech conference, so you can reasonably expect a full spectrum from business casual to flip-flops and a t-shirt. Oh, and maybe toss an extra phone battery or charger in your bag, that’s saved my tail more than once.
8. Build a Follow-Up Campaign
You’re going to meet people and you’re likely going to exchange business cards. One easy thing to do is create a follow-up campaign for those you meet. I’m not saying you should automatically subscribe them to all your promotions, but maybe create a simple follow-up to make sure they know what you do, and have your contact information – then, make sure that campaign is triggered by a tag so you can snap a picture of their business card and easily launch it from the Infusionsoft Mobile App on your phone.
Here’s a simple campaign structure you can use (or you can download this one): Create a trigger tag for people you meet at ICON, build a campaign where that tag starts things off – use a sequence to set their leadsource (if they don’t already have one), and to send a follow up email – possibly one with a soft call-to-action for something like your blog updates.
9. Book Time to Take Action
You’re more than likely going to have a handful of ideas during the course of ICON, but when you get back to your business, how are you going to find the time to implement those ideas? It’s really easy to get caught up digging through your inbox once your out-of-office comes down, or tackling the list of things that piled up while you were gone – so make a plan. Find space on your calendar to implement new ideas. You may not know what the ideas are yet – but reserve some time to research interesting topics you may want to look into, to install new plugins for your website, or to build out a nurture campaign structure you heard Greg Jenkins outline at 1:30 on Tuesday in room 120D.
Many of these ideas have been circulated recently and in years past, throughout the Infusionsoft community and various Facebook groups as advice for first-time ICON attendees – and while I wrote this list on my own, I can’t ignore that it certainly overlaps with some of the suggestions you may see floating around. But regardless of where each suggestion originated, the fact remains that this is pretty sound advice for attending any conference, and I hope it helps make your ICON experience as productive (and enjoyable) as possible!
Guest Posts, Marketing, Small Business
Another valuable contribution from Patrick Foster, an ecommerce consultant and writer at ecommercetips.org. If you missed the first part of this post, you can read that here.
In our last blog, we looked at how ecommerce marketing is in constant flux. It’s important as marketers to stay true to core brand values, but also explore new avenues where we can. These next three ecommerce marketing trends are all about using social media and video to create a sense of connection with customers. Read on to find out how you can move on from simple personalization.
Ecommerce marketing in 2017 is not just personalized, it’s personal; competition is hot, and creating an emotional connection is critical to success. We’re going to look at the most people-centric marketing techniques of 2017 and introduce some new concepts that might challenge your idea of what ecommerce marketing is capable of.
User generated content
US clothing brand ‘Free People’ let their customers do they talking with product reviews and photo uploads of themselves wearing garments. This simple, user generated site content is helpful for other customers, it builds a sense of community and it aids in attracting loyal customers.
Image Credit: Free People
User generated content comes in many forms, but the premise is that it creates a personal connection between brand and consumer, and so long as the content is positive, it provides a peer to peer recommendation/approval platform that money just can’t buy. The personal picture uploads can also be tagged on other platforms like Instagram and Pinterest creating multi-channel content that’s more likely to reach people via the platforms they prefer.
The personal power of video
Where Free People have used the photo craze to engage their customers, other ecommerce brands use video very effectively. Take ASOS as a point in case. Online shoppers can see a desired garment modeled in front of them by using the catwalk feature. This is a great way to communicate more about your products and give your customers something that’s useful and may well lead them on the path to a purchase.
Image Credit: ASOS
But video can be used by brands in incredible ways – imagination is the only limit. Thought leadership content is often created using video as a medium; product unboxing and beauty reviews as well as a ton of user generated gaming content is all available at the touch of one or two small buttons and a screen. A mobile phone is often the only piece of equipment required to make engaging, quality video that’s easily shared. Social channels like Instagram, SnapChat and Facebook are owning this format and making it very personal indeed. In fact all social channels have become more video oriented in response to what audiences want.
If you’re ready to jump in a little deeper, why not seek out a local freelance videographer or content agency,or social strategist and talk about how video could be used to help increase sales. Video is fun, engaging, accessible and incredibly popular. It can often say everything you want to in seconds rather than minutes or even hours – and it’s great branding.
Chatbots
A chatbot is effectively a program that translates a user’s command or question and returns an answer. Lots of digital companies use chatbots to more efficiently help customers on their website. Those little bubbles you see pop up when you’re browsing a site, asking if you need help, or if you want to talk? They aren’t there so you can chat to a random stranger about your day, they’re a bot that is there to efficiently move you on to the next stage of your buying journey.
Of course, we also have voice activated chatbots like Siri, Cortana, Alexa and others. These bots are becoming more and more sophisticated, and as your connected devices collect more data about you, they’ll be even more effective at responding to your requests. AI is the next leap in the technology of our lives and it will have a massive impact on the way we shop. Chatbots are already being used effectively in marketing around the world and this Nordstrom mobile chat bot, reported on in December 2016 via GeekWire is a great example of how.
For now, get familiar with chatbots and how they may be able to help you more effectively meet the needs of your customers when they are browsing your ecommerce site.
Hopefully that’s given you some food for thought and you’ve enjoyed our ecommerce marketing series! I’d love to hear what kind of marketing technology and software you’re using to scale your ecommerce stores, and if you’ve used any of the methods mentioned in this post?
Patrick Foster, ecommerce entrepreneur, coach & writer.
I currently create and share ecommerce content for entrepreneurs and business owners. I’m especially interested in the emerging technology for online marketers.
Guest Posts, Marketing, Small Business
Today’s contribution comes from Patrick Foster, an ecommerce consultant and writer at ecommercetips.org.
We are already into the third month of Q1 2017 – gasp. And there are a lot of emerging ecommerce marketing trends you should be considering as part of your strategy. Building and defining a loyal customer base is critical to the success of your ecommerce brand, and keeping up with the latest trends in communication methods can be tedious. With so many channels, platforms and content types – how can you ensure your marketing is personal and effective? Here is the first blog of our content series looking at ecommerce marketing and personalization in 17/18.
Ecommerce marketing in 2017 is not just personalized, it’s personal; competition is hot, and creating an emotional connection is critical to success. We’re going to look at the most people-centric marketing techniques of 2017 and introduce some new concepts that might challenge your idea of what ecommerce marketing is capable of.
Email is in vogue
Before we get into the really crazy stuff, let’s not forget the humble, yet effective email. You heard it here first kids — email is back in vogue.
It’s always been there, doing its job and not taking much of the limelight. And despite suffering through somewhat of a dark period of black hat tactics like spamming and phishing, the simple yet effective email has redeemed itself.
There are such a huge range of CRM systems and specialist email platforms on the market, such as Infusionsoft – that there really isn’t any excuse not to be collecting your customer’s basic contact details, and communicating with them regularly. A streamlined CRM system is the first step toward making your online data work for you. It will save you time, effort and hassle and you’ll be able to make much more granular decisions based on the conversations you have with your customers.
Email is a really simple and often underrated way to offer added value during the purchase journey of your customer.
Actionable data and AI
Big data, the IOT (Internet of Things), targeting, re-targeting, tracking, advertising and cookies: it’s all ecommerce marketing – and it’s all based on data analysis.
Collecting data on your customers and your site are crucial for your brand; but what is data if it can’t be actioned and properly deployed? It’s nothing but a useless bunch of names and numbers. In 2017, data is about helping brands get even more personal with and closer to consumers.
Marketing is driven by data — this isn’t a new concept. But with more connected users and devices globally, data is driving advanced personalized marketing and advertising. The IOT is making it possible for ecommerce brands to learn about customers in real-time, and send marketing instantly to consumers in the right place at the right time.
Smart devices, AI and Wi-Fi connected gadgets can read data in a room, from temperature to light, and pass it on to other connected devices. The IOT has gone well beyond personal to the point where our tech is making choices for us. For marketers, harnessing the data and using it in the right way is going to be the real challenge.
Facebook and social shopping
Have you noticed the little shop front icon on your Facebook page? That’s Facebook Marketplace. Relaunched in 2016, Marketplace connects users in your locality with items for sale. The feature makes product suggestions based on search history and other data that Facebook collects from your personal profile.
Marketplace is yet to achieve any impressive milestones, but that’s not to say social media hasn’t already begun to change the way we buy and sell online. Peer to peer recommendations, product shares, page likes, Facebook advertising, in-stream video advertising, Instagram advertising: the list goes on. And brands are loving it. But being in front of your audience when they want to research products or make purchases is key.
There are a number of out-of-the-box website solutions you can either purchase, or use for free, to set up your ecommerce brand. Great. But not only can you sell via your integrated website, you can now sell directly through native applications. As audiences walk around or sit at their desks constantly connected to brands via their mobile devices, it makes sense their shopping habits should shift there too. To be in front of your audience and have a personal connection with them, join the native-revolution of engaged ecommerce brands who are connecting via social channels and apps.
Pinterest’s buyable pins are driving ecommerce sales founded on a deep understanding of visual content, where selling and social stories become almost unrecognizable. But it’s not just the social channels muscling in on online sales, even the big ecommerce brands are ‘going native’; Shopify’s integrated Facebook store allows subscribers to reach their audience, via – you guessed it, Facebook. The Shopify integration allows customers to buy and track orders through messenger – another interesting development in conversational commerce.
You now have the opportunity as an ecommerce business to integrate with native applications via standalone ecommerce platforms and with social media platforms’ own marketplaces. Which one will prevail as the most popular for audiences is something to keep an eye on, and to conduct brand strategy conversations around.
Native developers and brands are coming together to make ecommerce simpler for the consumer, and much more highly targeted. Brands will have to decide whether to leverage the opportunity of selling directly to customers via native platforms, or put their efforts into keeping them on site, where the data is, and leverage that data to increase revenue.
Some of these personal marketing tactics, especially AI influenced, are still a little too close to home for some of us, but it’s interesting and exciting to think what the not too distant future of ecommerce will look like. Ecommerce marketing is a dynamic mix of getting the most out of tried and tested methods like email, and exploring new ground like AI. Whatever you do, make sure that you focus on bringing in customers; keep evaluating your marketing ROI. Read on in blog number two!
Keap, Software Updates
It’s no secret that I love Infusionsoft.
And while I do believe that Infusionsoft is the most powerful small business marketing automation tool on the planet, I also, like most of us, always have a list of things that I wish it would do differently, or better.
I love Infusionsoft, of course, but I wanted to share a list of my current frustrations for a few reasons.
- My hope is that it will help raise awareness of some issues, and help you avoid them before they become problems for you.
- If you’re frustrated with Infusionsoft, I want you to know that you’re not alone. Yes, I love Infusionsoft. But by my count, I’ve raised 70 support tickets with Infusionsoft since I left in May of 2015. It’s not perfect.
- My goal is to model a transparent and productive way to highlight concerns, issues, and feature requests with the hope that it may help Infusionsoft address them.
Caveat: I don’t work for Infusionsoft anymore, and they may not endorse this as productive, but it should be said that I have already, directly or indirectly, communicated every item on this list to employees at IS.
Dear Infusionsoft, thanks for all you do. But also, please…
1. Give us an “Any Time” option for timers.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in the August 2017 update. Thank you!
This, to me, feels like a really easy win for Infusionsoft. Right now if I want to set a delay of a few hours or minutes, I need to also choose a time or time range. If I don’t care what time it happens, and I just want to let it run after X hours, then I have to configure “Between 12:00 am and 11:45 pm”, which is just plain clumsy.
2. Give us conditional snippets in emails.
This one is a little more of an ask, but I’d really love the ability to add a snippet to the email builder, and then choose conditions under which that content appears. This would give us as marketers the ability to send one message, but include different call-to-actions for different segments of our audience.
3. Add an HTML snippet to the new builder.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in the November 2017 update. Thank you!
This one is straightforward. Please bring back the ability to add an HTML block to our emails. This was available with the legacy builder, and the functionality hasn’t yet been added to the new email builder. If it’s easier, I’d also accept more widgets that simulate the some of the common reasons for needing an HTML snippet (e.g. Adding a tracking pixel, embedding a table, coding untracked links, etc).
4. Stop clearing out my search results when I leave that page. Preserve them (like it used to) for when I return.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in an October 2018 update. Thank you!
Again, I’m not asking for anything new on this one, I just want the old functionality back. Up until a few months ago my search results would stick around until I clicked “Start Over”. Sometimes that’s not a big deal, but if you’re having to rerun the same search multiple times because the system keeps dumping your criteria, then it can cost you time, and increases the opportunity for human error.
5. Let us adjust the width of our columns in emails.
The ability to easily have two and three columns is one of the best features about the new email builder. But the problem is that it always splits your columns into 1:1 or 1:1:1 ratios. It’s be nice to be able to manually adjust the width for each snippet to form our own custom layouts.
6. Let me use campaign merge fields on web forms and landing pages.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in an update since this article was originally posted. Thank you!
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what it would take to make this real, but it feels like it should be possible. To be clear – I’m not asking to be able to use contact merge fields, but rather I want to be able to use campaign merge fields. Here’s why: Let’s say I’m hosting an event, and I have a series of emails promoting the event, and I’m driving my prospects to a landing page so they can RSVP. Well, I’m likely going to use Campaign Merge Fields to save myself time in building the campaign. That way if I need to update the date, I can just change it in one location and it updates the whole campaign. It’d be great if that updated my landing page in addition to the emails.
7. When I use a merge field in a subject line, don’t push it to the end of the subject line.
This is probably the most minor annoyance on this list, but for some reason any merge fields you are adding to your subject line get pushed to the end of the subject line, then you need to copy and paste them to where they go, or just learn to add them as you write.
8. Let me add tags to a category when I create them from within the email builder.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in an update since this article was originally posted. Thank you!
When I create a tag in the campaign builder, on a goal or in a sequence, it prompts me to categorize that tag as I go. But, if I create a tag from within the email builder (on a link or a button), it does not prompt me to categorize that tag. Tag categories are important, and usually more important than new users realize, so emphasizing best practices as users are creating tags can save a lot of headache down the road.
9. Allow, or prompt even, us to categorize our campaigns as we name them. (The way you can with tags.)
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in an update since this article was originally posted. Thank you!
The campaign builder was introduced roughly 5 years ago, and since then, I’ve been telling people “Don’t worry. They’ll build in folders, or categories, at some point. It’s logical. Just be patient.” And boom, I’m thrilled we’ve finally got them. But it shouldn’t be so laborious to categorize my campaigns. If this is going to be a best practice, it makes sense to me that we’d be prompted to categorize our campaigns as we create them. Something like this:
10. When I go from a list back to the campaign, don’t default to the edit tab, return me back to the reporting tab.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in an update since this article was originally posted. Thank you!
This one drives me nuts. You’re working along, checking up on your campaigns and running reports, let’s say you’re several layers deep looking for the group of contacts who have received an email in the last 30 days, and then you click into the report, and when you click “back to campaign” you’re defaulted all back out to the edit tab of the campaign. Just take me back to the reporting tab, like it used to do, pleeeeeease.
11. Give me an option to dismiss this, and not be prompted again.
SOLVED: Infusionsoft addressed this in a November 2018 update. Thank you!
I love that tag goals can retroactively find contacts who would have been added to this campaign, and that you can choose whether or not you want to add them. So, well done, and thanks for that. But, it gets a little annoying for the campaign builder to ask me every single time I publish. Seems like maybe it’d work to give me a “dismiss” option so that it doesn’t ask again? Like so:
———-
Okay, as I said previously, this isn’t a comprehensive list. It’s just a few things off the top of my head that feel like they’re worth addressing. I love Infusionsoft, and I have a number of friends who work directly on making product improvements; so I hope this blog post is received in the constructive manner in which it was intended. Don’t worry, once they’ve tackled this list I’ll be doing my best to prep another one!
For anyone wondering, I used Loom for the brief video recordings in this post. Loom is a Chrome plugin, it’s free, and it’s great. I recommend downloading some sort of free screen capture tool, it makes it easier to communicate with technical support if you’re able to document bugs or issues as you see them.
If any of these jump out at you as being important, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below! Or, if you want to share your own list, I’d love to hear that too! Thanks for reading.
