For years, my clients in information marketing and other fields struggled with “the list management question” — “the software question”, for which it seemed there was no good answer. For our own businesses, we used a cobbled together combination of off-shelf and custom programs. At one point, a company I owned an interest in invested well over $200,000.00 trying to get a software system built to do everything required for our approach to marketing, but after a year of false starts and disappointments, we gave up. Many have claimed to have it; none have. So I was very reluctant to endorse any system.

However, finally, somebody has put all the pieces together into a system that actually works. It is the system used at Glazer/Kennedy Inner Circle, by many of my private clients, and it is now the answer I give to the question. In fact, now my answer to any and all questions about software for list and marketing management is: called Infusion.

The issues for the businesses I’m associated with and for my clients are:
accurate tracking; list segmentation and management; automated multi-step, multimedia marketing sequences; speed; ease of use; reliability and support. Long before I agreed to endorse Infusion, it was phased in and used extensively by Bill Glazer, for both the Glazer/Kennedy Inner Circle businesses and Bill’s other publishing businesses. I kept waiting for the anguished cries out of Baltimore as the system failed in one way or another. I waited nearly two years before I stopped holding my breath and accepted the facts that (a) somebody’d finally delivered a single system that did everything necessary under one roof, and (b) it was reliable.

As to speed my clients using Infusion tell me how it saves them time and facilitates rapid-fire implementation — I even see them, at coaching meetings or seminars, go off in a corner with their laptops and implement what we’ve worked on instantly.

As to support, I’ve worked enough with Clate and Scott at Infusion to assure you they are not (just) “techno geeks”. They understand my kind of marketing, they understand the information marketing business, as well as understanding their own system’s full capabilities. This is a huge asset with any vendor. I recommend graphic artists, printers, other vendors with basic knowledge about my kind of marketing — even when it costs more to use them vs. using ordinary, ignorant vendors — because of the more valuable time saved.

With regard to database management, list segmentation, tracking, getting complex campaigns implemented, it’s a “priceless” benefit to have software system support from people who not only know the software but actually grasp what we’re trying to do with it — which is abnormal. This is a very important point, and it affects many different aspects of our businesses. When we put on conferences, they may look to hotel staffs, meeting planners, audio-video vendors like other conferences — yet what we actually do, and require, is night and day different from the typical corporate or trade association conference, in part because everything must facilitate optimizing on-site sales and revenues. Just in getting an envelope stuffed right, there are problems! Most mailing houses deal with clients for whom the order the pieces are stuffed don’t matter. To us, it’s critical. And so on. So anytime I can direct a client to a vendor who has already been educated and trained to understand what we really do, what we really need — and even suggest things, be creatively and constructively helpful — I do so. In this category, I can make only one such recommendation: Infusion. That’s why theirs is the only software I’ve lent my No B.S’ and ‘Renegade Millionaire’ brand identities.

About “price” ---I frankly have no idea where Infusion falls in any kind of price comparison with other software. I consider it irrelevant for several reasons and think you should too. First, as far as I know, there’s nothing available to make a true apples-to-apples comparison with. A number of people have claimed they have something “just like Infusion” or “even better than Infusion” and “cheaper”; upon close inspection by marketers I trust who understand these matters thoroughly, all have proven false; all lacking in one significant way or another.

Second, whatever money might be saved by stitching together two or three components from different systems on hiring teen-age geeks to jury-rig something for you is really dumb money. You need all the functions engineered into Infusion to develop and run a max-profit business. This was built ground up for us — for direct marketers using my kind of marketing, operating continuity, forced continuity, ascension, renewal, affiliate, etc. businesses, using multiple media, using online and offline media, tracking results on several levels (not just cost per lead or cost per first sale), and precisely segmenting lists. To save a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars a year by settling for a system NOT expressly engineered for all these purposes is like getting a bargain price on a cow you intend saddling and racing in the Kentucky Derby. Such savings are simply asinine.

Third, the last place to pinch pennies is with the care and feeding of your ‘herd.’ If you do not yet grasp that this is the only asset you own or will ever own of real value, then you’ll make lots of mistakes having to do with being cheap in the wrong places. You really should not trust the organization and management of your herd(s) i.e. your lists and the information you have, grow, maintain and use about the customers on those lists to just anybody roaming around out there. This is the lifeblood of your business.
Finally, based on all the feedback I get from all my clients who switch to or start out with Infusion, from beginners to very sophisticated marketers with $5-million to $50- million businesses, I’m quite sure Infusion is under-priced for value delivered.

In the interest of complete disclosure, incidentally, out of roughly a hundred clients I know and work with, who have their entire information businesses run with the Infusion systems, I’ve heard three kinds of reviews: First, and foremost, a lot of praise, for the system, for it bringing everything together in one place, and for the support. Second, a reaction that actually mirrors mine, based on what I see firsthand in the companies I’m directly associated with: it is NOT perfect, but it is far superior to anything else anybody’s ever invented — sort of like democracy and marriage. Third, from only two clients, complaints about one thing or another. One of these is a chronic complainer who has never had positive things to say about any vendor except me as long as I’ve known him. The other client seemed like he had legitimate disappointment with a couple things the system wouldn't do that he, rather uniquely, needed.

To be totally fair, not everybody agrees with me. I do have clients, even a couple associates who prefer and use other systems; who are deeply entrenched with systems they acknowledge as inferior but are unwilling to switch from; who feel Infusion is “over-built” for their needs. So, not everybody I work with uses Infusion, and I wouldn't want to convey that impression, I would say this, though: the smartest people I know and work with, running the best, fastest growing, largest and most profitable information businesses ALL use Infusion.. Of the top ten, not one exception.

I doubt anybody will ever build the truly perfect system. I’m sure nobody will ever satisfy everybody. I required neither to finally lend my endorsement. The overwhelming majority of info-marketers making more money, having better data and information, getting things done faster, and operating relatively free of stress surrounding the management of their lists and data was and is enough for me. However, Infusion does guarantee its products and services, and you should ask about the guarantees. I never recommend or refer unless clients are protected by guarantees. And I might add, there are damn few software companies willing to guarantee anything at all.

Dan Kennedy

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