Sixty-Five Percent of Small Businessse Say 'Following Up With Leads' Biggest Failure in Marketing Efforts

Leads Going Cold Seen as Biggest Gap, According to Infusionsoft Survey

PHOENIX, AZ (May 14, 2008)—Surveying the landscape of small businesses across the U.S., and amid concerns over the need to grow sales while reducing expenses, small business owners say the number one frustration they face daily when it comes to sales and marketing is the inability to consistently follow up with prospects. In a survey of entrepreneurs across the U.S. conducted by small business marketing automation software provider Infusionsoft, 65 percent of small business owners cite an inability to consistently and efficiently follow up with leads as the top concern.

The survey indicates a growing frustration among small business owners and marketers with closing an immediate sale, saying that they forget the nurturing process and instead let leads simmer. Small businesses increasingly seek a way to automatically capture and court leads until they are ready to buy, thus allowing the business owner to work on strategically growing the business.

Infusionsoft, a leader in marketing automation software for small businesses, reports that small businesses want to send more email to customers and prospects, capture information from web visitors, prospects, and then automatically follow up with those people.

The following is a list of the top 10 marketing-related frustrations as cited by small business owners in the 2008 U.S. Small Business Marketing Frustration Survey (ranked in order of importance):

1. Too difficult to follow up with cold, warm and lukewarm leads consistently and efficiently
2. Can't properly track and manage prospects and customers
3. Need to integrate online and offline marketing efforts
4. Poor email deliverability
5. Too much manual grunt work in the sales and marketing process, no automation
6. Can't track sales activity
7. Lack of centralization, too many different programs and systems
8. Too costly to maintain servers and IT staff
9. Too difficult to manually manage multichannel campaigns
10. One-dimensional marketing

The survey asked small business owners across the country to choose their top marketing-related issues from a list and then rank them in order of importance, recording results from 1,000 respondents. Infusionsoft conducted the survey via email and phone to organizations with 2-100 employees from January 1, 2008 through April 30, 2008.

"These findings are telling for understanding the challenges a small business owner faces," said Clate Mask, President and CEO, Infusionsoft. "Small business owners are trying to figure out how to make their marketing more effective amid the reality of smaller marketing budgets, limited time to manage campaigns, smaller organizational infrastructure, and longer to-do lists. So these results are eye-opening to understand just how simple, yet real their daily frustrations are with converting more leads into sales."

Automation of marketing and processes enables the small business to convert more leads into customers, grow the business without the need to grow staff, and increase sales from existing customers.

Automated Follow-Up Marketing for Small Business
Marketing automation software from Infusionsoft is built for small businesses. The web-based software allows small businesses to track contact details, capture leads automatically from their websites, send emails, execute multi-step and multi-channel campaigns, distribute leads to salespeople, and create orders and fulfillment tasks. Infusionsoft is capable of handling prospect and customer marketing communications, from one-off emails to complex multi-step, multi-channel campaigns that would be nearly impossible for an individual or group of individuals to do without an automated system.

"The benefits of marketing automation are huge," said Mask. "It's the difference between having a struggling small business that is just going day to day, trying to make a go of it and on the other hand rapid, consistent growth and really building a much stronger business that doesn't require the business owner to be at the center of it."

About Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft, the leader in marketing automation software for small businesses, is revolutionizing the way small businesses grow. There are 10 million small businesses in America that need an easy-to-use, affordable, powerful software solution that increases sales while freeing up their time. The company's follow-up marketing software answers that need by helping small businesses automatically convert more prospects to customers, get repeat sales, and grow their business without growing staff. The privately-held, Inc 500 company, based in Gilbert, Arizona is funded by Mohr Davidow Ventures. For more information, visit www.infusionsoft.com.