Infusionsoft has two different ways of sending out mass emails to your clients.  Infusionsoft has a Broadcast email feature and a Campaign Builder feature for emails.  Unfortunately, it’s not always clear which one is the right choice for your current project.  This article tells you how to figure that out for any communication you are sending to your clients.

First – the email Broadcast feature is very comparable to the radio broadcast, hence the terminology.  In a radio broadcast, anyone who is within the range of the radio waves and who has the necessary equipment to take the signal from the air and translate it into sound, language or music receives the broadcast.  Everyone “in range” (or in the audience) will get the broadcast when it is sent to them.  It’s a mass communication delivered to the intended audience in real time or at the same time.

The campaign email is set up to deliver drip content to the audience that is selected to receive it.  In a campaign – recipients will receive the email when they are triggered. Simultaneously, another client may be triggered to receive a different email in that same sequence.  It’s akin to the dreaded cattle queue at an amusement park.  Everyone is walking along the line at the same time, but everyone is in a different position in the line.

So, keeping those differences in mind, let’s talk about a few situations where you would use a broadcast or a campaign email.  If you want to know how to set up a broadcast email in Infusionsoft, click on that link to be taken to my youtue channel.

Situation 1: Is this a broadcast or campaign email?

Problem: Creating a newsletter that you want to get out to your customers as they come aboard with your service.

Let’s assume the following circumstances are true:

  1. You either have the content or are going to be creating the content along the way
  2. The content does not have an expiration or is unlikely to change much
  3. You want a certain audience or everyone who comes on board to receive these emails
  4. You can delay or time the sequence with a delay timer or date timer.

In an instance like this, I would recommend using a campaign sequence. Campaigns are great for handing out information, articles, offers and so on that are evergreen.  Examples of this include things like a “Get to know me campaign” for a new subscriber, sending them emails that familiarize them with your brand, your offers or lead magnets.  You can have all your content ready to set up, or you can create it as you go along.  In this case, if you are sending these newsletters every 3 days, or every Wednesday, you just must have your new content prepped and in the sequence before the next send date.

Situation 2: Is this a broadcast or campaign email?

Problem: You’re creating a newsletter to send to subscribers that will go out with new content every week.  Perhaps it relates to seasonal offers, current events or otherwise fresh details that are not necessarily evergreen.  The following circumstances would be true:

  1. You either have content or are going to be creating the content along the way
  2. The content is not evergreen – seasonal offers, expiring coupons, flash sales and so on that are current
  3. You want a certain audience or everyone who comes on board to receive these emails
  4. You want everyone on the receiving list to receive the email at the same time

This case is better suited to a broadcast email simply because of the “current event” status of the content.  In this case, if you wanted to send out a notice that next Friday you are having an in-store sale, you can email your list with current info.  Broadcasts can also be scheduled for a one time send later; they don’t need to be sent immediately.  However, you’ll want to keep in mind that once you select the audience, those are the only people who will get that broadcast.

For instance, if you do an audience search for all your subscribers who purchased Widget Z and you want to send them a broadcast email in 3 days.  When you set the broadcast up 3 days in advance, anyone who buys Widget Z tomorrow will not be included on your list – it’s set.

Any email sequence CAN be made in a campaign, campaigns don’t have to be lengthy or even ongoing.

For instance, I have set up campaigns for clients that are only a week long.  One particular client has regular sales during specific months, February for instance, they send out a promo for a specific product let’s call it the Valentine’s day product, to which they send a specific set of emails to the customer base every February promoting the sale.  Use a tag or other action to get the lead into the sequence, then send a couple emails about a flash sale or promo, then the sequence is done until it’s ready to be used again next February.  At that time, we just change the tags out, remove the people from the sequence from last year if they haven’t been removed already, and then start fresh.  Rinse and repeat.

Any of these ideas can be expounded upon or used in your business.  If you have any questions or would like to schedule a free 30 minute call with me to discuss implementation in your own business, please do so by clicking here.