Do you have an Infusionsoft campaign building process?
If not, well, that’s ok because I brought my good friend Gregory Jenkins back to share his 9-step Infusionsoft campaign building process for you.
Greg recently wrote another great post on nurturing subscribers on our blog here. He’s a good dude, so you can expect to hear more from him here.
Ok, let’s dive in. Take it away Greg.
I’ve been building marketing campaigns and funnels since the campaign builder was first introduced in March of 2012. And there are dozens of philosophies on where you should start, or how you should build your campaigns, or even the naming conventions you should be adopting. And here’s the deal, there isn’t one single recipe that works for everyone.
Every business is different, just like every person is different. Some people want to really roll up their sleeves and build their own campaigns, while others want to hire an expert and are totally comfortable being hands off in the process.
The reality is that it doesn’t matter who does the building, all campaigns follow a similar sort of progression while they’re being developed. Here are the 9 Steps in the campaign building process that I outline when I teach the campaign builder fundamentals in my CB: Chapter One course.
1. Decide Your High Level Milestones
Before you start driving, you want to know where you’re going. You can use whatever analogy you want, but when you set out to build a campaign, you have to know what you’re trying to accomplish. Then, work backward from there to determine what the benchmarks are along the way that indicate we’re making progress.
Example: If I want new members for my Platinum coaching package I know that before they sign up they usually have a consultation with me. And before they have a consultation with me, they need to have requested my 10 Tips PDF.
Milestone 1: Request PDF
Milestone 2: Consultation
Milestone 3: Purchase Platinum Coaching Package
2. Map Out Your 30,000 ft Overview
Now that you’ve identified your high level milestones, start by laying out your campaign. If you’re using Infusionsoft, you’ll do this in the Campaign Builder, if you’re not using Infusionsoft yet then you can do this in your platform of choice, or on a whiteboard, or even on a piece of paper.
3. Define Your Milestone Settings
Here’s the thing about automation. Some things take place offline, I get that. I’ve got a little saying “It doesn’t need to happen online, but online needs to know that it happened.”
If you want to run automation based on an action that took place, somehow your system needs to know that it took place. So, this is where we get to decide how we are tracking the things we’re tracking. In Infusionsoft, these are called Goal Settings. Basically it’s what the system is looking for to measure which milestones have been achieved.
Example: Well, in order for someone to request our PDF, they’ll be submitting a web form. The consultation that we schedule takes place over the phone, so to tell Infusionsoft about it I’ll be applying a note. And finally, the final milestone is achieved when the contact makes a purchase.
Milestone 1: Request PDF Goal Type: Web Form
Milestone 2: Consultation Goal Type: Note Template
Milestone 3: Purchase Platinum Coaching Package Goal Type: Online Purchase
Note: The reality is that we could get much more granular right here. You could track whether or not they clicked on the PDF, and we could track when they schedule the appointment as well, but the challenge is to remind yourself what you need first. Get the first version of your campaign live, and then you can improve it over time.
4. Add Your Sequences
Infusionsoft calls them sequences, but no matter what system you use, this is simply the process that drives your prospects from one milestone to the next.
So, this is where you deliver the PDF and then encourage them to schedule a consultation. Or, after the consultation, it’s where you follow up with them and encourage them to become a Platinum Coaching Client.
5. Configure Each Element
Now you configure the high level milestones (goals) and build the actual processes connecting the high level milestones (sequences). Each sequence will look different for each business. Sometimes it’ll be three emails, other times 30; and sometimes it’ll just be a phone call and no emails. It’s extremely important to keep your Call To Action really consistent. Drive them toward the next milestone. Don’t try and jump ahead.
6. Mark as Ready
Once you’ve prepared your sequences and written your copy, it’s time to mark all elements as “ready”. Again, this will look different depending on your platform, but this is where you give everything a final review, clean up any typos, and prepare everything for launch.
7. Publish Campaign
Pretty straightforward. Once all the campaign elements are ready, it’s time to publish. This part always gives people a little angst – remember that publishing a campaign doesn’t necessarily mean people will magically start flowing into it.
People can only enter a campaign by achieving a goal, or by manually being added. Publishing simply indicates the campaign is ready for contacts.
8. Test and Launch
Now it’s time to test this bad boy. The easiest way to test it is by adding yourself to the campaign in the way that a contact would, usually that means you need to achieve the entry point goal. So, if that’s a web form, it’s time to go fill out the web form.
Then, confirm the the remainder of the steps have scheduled appropriately, and watch yourself progress through the campaign so you can experience it the way a contact would.
Pro-Tip: I recommend saving yourself time by processing campaign steps manually from the campaigns tab on the contact record, rather than waiting for each step to process naturally.
Once you’ve tested it to your satisfaction, it’s time to launch. This part will vary as well, but usually it means you’re either sending out a message to your audience, or adding a web form to your website, or tweeting out a link to a landing page. Whatever the process, it’s important to get some live contacts through your funnel.
It probably won’t be perfect. But as they say, done is better than perfect. The sooner you launch, the sooner you’ll begin learning from it.
9. Measure and Improve
This is perhaps the most important step. Many people build campaigns and they think that at some point it’s going to be “done”. But just as your business is constantly evolving, so too should your campaigns be. Remember to establish key performance indicators so that you can measure the health and success of your campaigns. If you notice certain elements aren’t performing the way you want, don’t hesitate to iterate on your campaign with additions or improvements.
Like I said at the beginning, every business will find their own process or rhythm that suits their needs; but the nine steps I’ve outlined here will more than likely show up in one way or another.
I think by and large entrepreneurs tend to get in their own way when it comes to this stuff. We’re all passionate about our businesses, and we all want our campaigns to be perfect; but sometimes the act of letting go a bit and just launching can really be quite liberating.
Whether you decide to hire someone to do it for you, or are looking to learn and understand it yourself, the sooner you go live to sooner you’ll begin to grow.
Version one is better than version none.
About The Author
Greg Jenkins is the founder of Monkeypod Marketing, where they focus on providing empowering entrepreneurs through educational events and online courses. Prior to starting Monkeypod Marketing, Greg worked at Infusionsoft as a curriculum developer and lead trainer for Infusionsoft University. Greg lives in San Diego and loves hiking, traveling, binging netflix and enjoying craft beer. But you could probably switch those last two verbs too.
