This week I’ve got a post from a close friend of mine, Mychal Edelman.  In his own words, Mychal has made every mistake in the “Infusionsoft book”. He was an Infusionsoft user first, and over the last 3 years has trained, implemented, and designed strategies in the software through a variety of roles.

I think what has made Mychal’s path to becoming an Infusionsoft expert so rapid is his constant curiosity; about what is possible and about what other people are using it for. Well, that, and watching every video resource Infusionsoft offers. (Which he fully recommends for you as well)  Without further ado, here we go:

Starting with Infusionsoft? Don’t forget these 3 things:

-Mychal Edelman, Technical Account Manager for Trusted Advisors, Infusionsoft

There isn’t a step-by-step formulaic approach to launching Infusionsoft. Many of the things you need to know are just passed down from user to user, almost like tribal lore in the marketing automation community.  However, across all the customers I’ve worked with, I have noticed a few lessons that have popped up more than once-

1. The Health of Your Database = The Health of your Marketing

They say that the money is in the list, but really, the money is in understanding your list.

As you get started, it is very difficult to plan out all the different levels of segmentation you will need up front.

So, start with basic segmentation that will allow you to adjust your messaging to be the most successful. Tags have the flexibility to be added as you need them. I have a general rule for when deciding if a tag needs to be created, you can use it too- “If you need to have a different conversation with a certain group of people, you probably need to create a tag for that group”.

As a T-shirt retailer, it may be very helpful to know what style, color preference and specific purchase histories (Purchased: Large, Red, V-neck) are tied to customers; and Infusionsoft is more than capable of recording that information. However, if we don’t know those things about our contact database yet, we should consider using information we either do know, can assume, or can learn easily through research. In this T-shirt example, the first versions of segmentation could potentially include tagging contacts as “Male or Female” and “T-shirt size”.

Knowing whether or not the contact who receives your communication is a man or a woman allows you to have the most targeted conversation you can have right now. As you begin to learn more about your database, conversations can get more and more specific as you start to create and cultivate the tags in your system.

Want to see how using this simple segmentation example can increase your revenue by 141%?

2. Half Built Infusionsoft Campaigns Don’t Work

If you came to Infusionsoft University while I was an instructor, you may have heard me say this over and over: “If you half build bridges in Infusionsoft, you’re gonna’ have a bad time”. I say it because it’s true!

Infusionsoft is a robust solution and it CAN do a lot of things for you. It is beyond important to focus on building and implementing whatever is going to have the greatest impact on your business. IE: What is going to save you the most time? Have the highest ROI? ETC.

Will creating a lead capture form and putting it on your website be more productive than sending out an invite for next month’s webinar? You have to make decisions like this quite frequently in Infusionsoft. Make sure that once you prioritize your list of “to-do’s” you stick to it.

Starting projects without launching them is a danger I must warn you about. I can’t tell you how many half-built campaigns I’ve seen, and guess what, they all earned the same amount of money…zero.  It is imperative to launch (even when you know the copy or design is not perfect) so that you can start to see results. Remember, version one is better than version none.

3. News Flash! You won’t break Infusionsoft

I remember the first time I logged into Infusionsoft, I felt like a bull tip toe-ing around a china shop. “If I publish this…am I going to break something? Are all my customers going to get an email they shouldn’t?” The fear wasn’t warranted. I am giving you permission to click on everything. 🙂

The more accurate (and less anxiety inducing) analogy should have been a child building a sandcastle on the beach. In Infusionsoft, even if you accidentally knock over some sandcastles…there is plenty of sand around to build another one.

I want to be clear that mistakes do happen, and I’ve seen people send emails they didn’t intend to, but this is by far the exception and not the rule.

You or your implementer need to get into the sandbox and start playing around. The campaign builder is the perfect place to do experiment. Click, drag, create, edit…the builder has that have tremendous flexibility. (Hey, start with the free trial of Greg’s CB: Trilogy course if you’re looking to ramp up your confidence!)

Most of the amazing campaigns I see have had double digit iterations made to them, within these iterations are plenty of edits that remove the bad stuff and keep the good.

Don’t like the copy of an email? Change it.

Need a webform? Build it.

Need a to know who clicks a particular link? Tag it.

Procrastination is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of results. Get out of your own way and start clicking. It’s the only way.

You can leave your comments below or reach out to Mychal on twitter at @MychalEdelman