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CASE STUDY – How Keap / Infusionsoft enables smaller businesses on a budget to have a powerful, automated online marketing system that until recently only larger rivals could afford.

I first became involved in online marketing in 2009, previously I was a direct marketer – direct mail and printed catalogues. The first online venture I was involved with followed the course that most new and smaller business undoubtedly still follow.

A client of mine wanted to migrate from offline direct marketing to online marketing. We had a small email list – only 1,200 addresses. So using a simple and inexpensive email sending platform and PayPal “Buy Now” buttons off we set. Within days we were generating orders and all appeared rosy.

Then came the issue of fullfilling the orders which proved difficult when exporting raw data from PayPal and this also made customer service tricky and time consuming. And you could forget the thought of generating any meaningful reports. Then when we wanted to conduct targeted campaigns to new customers we found we could not because we now had two, separate and unlinked databases – one for orders and one for email addresses.

This is where I see many new and smaller businesses finding themselves. First they create an online shop, then they need to fulfil orders, then they want to use email marketing and maybe use affiliate marketing. But as I had quickly discovered, if you use separate systems and databases that do not “talk” to each other then you quickly get bogged down with IT issues. Often the business gets “stuck in the mud” with online marketing and any thoughts of online success soon disappear.

I quickly realised that having separate databases and systems was a recipe for future headaches which I did not want and so as a marketer I then looked to find a cost effective solution to automate online marketing activity and generate sales.

I found the solution by following and observing how the internet marketing gurus conducted their marketing – and this was with Keap / Infusionsoft.

Then with Keap / Infusionsoft at my disposal the world of internet marketing opened up to me. One central database and dashboard enabled me to control and automate the marketing program.

Below are just the headline benefits;

• Email Marketing – highly targeted, automated sequences. Able to build sophisticated online campaigns that integrate with offline marketing.

• Ecommerce – shopping cart, one page order forms, credit card and PayPal payments.

• Affiliate Marketing module

• Customer Service

• Lead management

• Opportunity identification

• Continuity/ Subscription / Membership programs.

• Digital and physical product fulfillment

As a result of acquiring Keap / Infusionsoft and deploying the email and affiliate marketing tools that I now had at my fingertips I took my client from zero online revenue to £500,000 within 5 months. In addition we generated an email list of over 300,000 records. My next step with Keap / Infusionsoft was to develop a subscription product which was marketed to the email list and this alone generated £100,000 revenue in the first year.

As a result of my e

If you are considering affiliate marketing to increase your online sales, but don’t know much about it, perhaps this short introduction will help you to make your decision.  Affiliate marketing can serve to help you as a merchant by working together with internet publishers or “affiliates” to promote and sell your products. Many retailers have realized some wonderful profits with the use of affiliates.

Affiliate marketing takes place when a merchant becomes affiliated with one or more online publishers who promote the merchants business on their own websites for some type of payment. Affiliates typically work from commissions based on their role in the merchant’s sales.  This takes place in a few different ways. Affiliates may get paid a commission when a viewer clicks a link on their blog or site and is taken to the merchant’s site in order to do business. The commissions can be based on a sale that is made through the affiliate’s link or might be based on a fixed amount for each visit, whether a sale is made or not.  Affiliates might use ordinary methods of advertising through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or Pay-per-Click options, or any other type of advertising method that is common to their site or blog. Since it is in their best interest to promote your product or service, a mutually satisfying relationship can be formed between you as the merchant and your affiliates. The bottom line is that with the use of affiliate marketing, you can watch your sales increase without spending out money on extra advertising, and you will only be paying commissions on actual sales.

There are a couple of ways of finding affiliates to work with. You can either find your own affiliates and get them set up with the terms you prefer for helping to market your service or product, or you can use the services of an affiliate network or affiliate manager.  Affiliate networks and affiliate managers have access to many publishers, as well as ratings on their past performance. They can assist you in choosing the affiliates that are best suited to your type of business and the manner in which you want to compensate them. If you decide to look into some affiliates on your own, there are some things you should consider. You should try to find affiliates whose blogs or websites are in some way relevant to your business.  You should also focus on those with high web traffic and which are good at promoting products.

The use of affiliate marketing may be the single most important step you take in promoting your business, so choose your affiliates wisely.