CRM Michael TaylorMarch 20, 2015

Infusionsoft VS Salesforce – Who Will Win The Battle?

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Infusionsoft VS Salesforce – Who Will Win The Battle?

Infusionsoft VS Salesforce is a battle that has been ongoing for quite some time now and while these two CRM solutions have outperformed each other in various specs, they line up closely. In order to determine which platform will get the ultimate reputation, it is first important to look at how each meets both current and emerging business needs. For market automation managers and sales managers, there are specific needs that can help distinguish how either Salesforce or Infusionsoft serves them. Some focus ultimately on campaigns and building automation sequences while others use different techniques. Both Infusionsoft and Salesforce enjoy remarkable reputation and are suited to different types of businesses. To know who will win this battle therefore requires understanding their services, offers and features.

Infusionsoft VS Salesforce

Salesforce Services and Features
Salesforce is a software integrated with various services to support its delivery. It offers various automation and scheduling features and allows users to organize their marketing and tools needed to push their messages. Salesforce is a professional platform that offers all the needed timing and scheduling features such as automated calendars. It also offers communication frameworks that allow information sharing between inner circles and prospect clients. Salesforce helps users capture web leads and also through sending mass emails. Their Enterprise edition comes with training and access to insightful working environments that allow quick creation and implementation of various marketing strategies. Moreover, salesforce offers online task tracking and generating features that some businesses may find very useful. Since CRM (customer relationship management) is very crucial in sales and marketing, Salesforce offers a viable package to utilize in tracking and managing a number of customer relations issues. It comes in two main offers; professional and enterprise at $65 and $125 (per user per month) respectively. The enterprise edition has loads of advanced functionalities for businesses with complex CRM requirements and specifications. While this is the best version, some features (like customizable dashboards and quotes) are only available in the professional version. Salesforce offers offline access and workflow module at additional fees.

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Infusionsoft Services and Offers
When reading through several Infusionsoft VS Salesforce comparisons, it often seems like the former takes the day although many people are known to use the later. Infusionsoft delivers their services in a unique and different approach. While Salesforce often provides reliable packages, Infusionsoft offers a platform marked with sales and marketing approaches. It offers a platform for small businesses all the way up to large establishments. They have three price plans that include Standard $199 (per month for 2 users), Plus $299 (per month for 5 users) and Premier $499 (per month for 10 users). In the Plus and Premier plans, users can store up to 20, 000 and 100,000 contacts per month respectively. There is a $1,999 Kick-starter package as well. Infusionsoft offers automatic lead scoring and listing, automatic manual marketing tasks and prospect leads monitoring. They allow businesses to specify various criteria (such as demographics) in monitoring web activity and capturing prospect leads in the process. It also allows mail merging and lining up categories for demographics, lead tracking and purchase history to create highly targeted lists where you can emails to.

Infusionsoft Salesforce: Head-On Comparison

After looking at the offers of both CRM packages and platforms, it becomes easier to compare head on using specific fronts as follows:
• Cost affordability – Comparing the plans of both salesforce and Infusionsoft, it is clear that salesforce targets high-end businesses that have various advanced CRM specifications. The professional plan still offers a viable environment perfect for small businesses. However, Infusionsoft offer convenient affordable plans including Plus which saves you a lot of money on 5 users.

• Mail merging – Salesforce allows you to merge mails and different lists to create complex lists. Businesses can create a mail-merge and even acquire extended features activated through customer service. Infusionsoft also offers segmented mail-merge functionalities to form categories and targeted communications. Although both platforms offer convenient mail merging opportunities, salesforce makes it a little tedious. The process almost seems manual since you have to produce the CSV file then send it to salesforce.com and perform the merge in MS Word then send back the file to salesforce.com. While you can elude all this via extended services, Infusionsoft does not push you to that level.

• Sales opportunities – The end game of CRM is to have more sales through various means, chiefly marketing to a broader more targeted group. Infusionsoft allows businesses to capture customers from one place and track web activities. Although this may be perfect for small businesses, since you gain access to client information from a streamlined path, larger enterprises may not find it as opportune as salesforce. Salesforce offers a wide variety of paths and exposes the businesses to an array of sales opportunities. They also offer quotation and product catalogue features in different plans. Since Infusionsoft focuses on consumer-centered products and services, and salesforce opens the business to multiple opportunities, they both do quite well in this feat.

• Mass email services – Infusionsoft VS Salesforce often even out in terms of mass email services. However, there are some issues with both platforms. Infusionsoft has quite a number of rules that may limit importing email addresses. Otherwise, they still offer almost full-automation of everything else. It streamlines email-related tasks and has a spam scoring 99% feature integrate to ensure your targets get your messages in the mail inbox. Salesforce clearly wins here as it offers two modes to send mails. The outlook send option may not add files to salesforce database but the send-and-add button option does.

There are many other minor areas to compare although most of them fall under the above points.

Conclusion

Infusionsoft is a package that has strong support for API and therefore offers incredible opportunity to integrate it with your websites and applications. Nonetheless, it is not for every business and favors most small enterprises. If your activities involve frequently sending personalized emails and messages to prospect clients, then consider using Infusionsoft since it has a powerful automation built into it. Salesforce has a bigger and more reliable system for all types of businesses. Their package is designed for real marketing environments and offers wider sales opportunities. However, they have strict plans and require training, acquisition of additional services. So, who wins in a battle between Infusionsoft VS Salesforce; it really depends on the needs of your business.