When you search for ‘SMS’ in the Apps section of the Infusionsoft Marketplace you see these results on Page 1, in order:
- Fix Your Funnel (aka Automated SMS Conversions)
- TimeFusion (because of the Messenger version)
- Call Loop
- Text Engine
- PlusThis (SMS notification is included in the suite of services)
- Social Fuse
(Plus a few more that are specific to functions like event management or integrating to Dental office management systems.)
I know that each of these 6 apps are very capable and worthy of consideration by an Infusionsoft user who wants to incorporate SMS messaging into their business.
But there are some key differences between them and there’s not a single choice that would be a perfect match for all Infusionsoft users.
So I want to summarize the research I developed while putting together the SMS messaging capabilities in TimeFusion Messenger. Everything stated below is based on publicly available documentation; I have not subscribed to and used all of these services.
Service Categories
Four basic categories of SMS functionality emerge after studying these services:
- Notify, Announce, Inform
- This is the capability to send an SMS from an Infusionsoft campaign. It could be notifying of a status change or an appointment, or announcing a new offer/sale, or providing some other pertinent information. And in the case of appointment reminders, it’s especially useful to be able to set the send time for the SMS based on a date and time stored in custom fields since the timers available in Infusionsoft fall short there.
- Any business who collects mobile phone numbers from their clients and prospects could gain value from this.
- Correspond
- This is the capability to engage a personal SMS-based interaction with a customer who replies to an SMS that was sent from an automated campaign. It also includes the capability to manually send an individual ad-hoc message to a single contact, receive a reply, and continue the interaction via SMS while having the conversation recorded in the contact record.
- This is especially useful for “direct sales” businesses and any that cultivate personal relationships with their prospects and clients.
- Lead Capture
- This is the multi-step inbound message processing capability that allows you to capture prospect information, create contact records and trigger automation without requiring manual involvement.
- This is especially useful to people who send offers to large lists and want to capture leads from SMS replies, or speakers who address large audiences and want to capture leads by inviting the audience to send an SMS.
- Mass Broadcast
- This is the short-code based service with scaled pricing that accommodates sending very large batches of messages.
- Not commonly needed by Infusionsoft users since Infusionsoft primarily targets small businesses.
Comparing the Apps
OK, now let’s consider the 6 apps in light of those categories. For each of the 6 I’ll offer my view of the categories where it is capable, and provide a total cost to send 1000 messages in a month in the U.S.
- Fix Your Funnel
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Strong, including send timing based on a date/time custom field
- Correspond: Not capable
- Lead Capture: Strong
- Mass Broadcast: Capable
- Overall: A very extensive suite of SMS features missing only the personal relationship dimension.
- Cost: $89.00 (4 cents/message or less, depending on package)
- TimeFusion Messenger
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Strong, including send timing based on date & time custom fields
- Correspond: Strong
- Lead Capture: Not capable
- Mass Broadcast: Not capable
- Overall: Focused on the messaging needs of small businesses with direct sale business models, and the appointment reminder needs of TimeFusion users. Not useful for Lead Capture.
- Cost: $33.50 (0.75 cents/message)
- Call Loop
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Good, but not able to set send time from custom fields
- Correspond: Not capable
- Lead Capture: Strong
- Mass Broadcast: Capable
- Overall: A very extensive suite of SMS features but missing timed notifications and the personal relationship dimension.
- Cost: $49.00 (5 cents/message or less, depending on package)
- Text Engine
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Good, but not able to set send time from custom fields
- Correspond: Not capable
- Lead Capture: Strong
- Mass Broadcast: Not capable
- Overall: Nicely focused on SMS messaging and not bundled with other services. Missing timed notifications and the personal relationship dimension.
- Cost: $43.50 (0.75 cents/message)
- PlusThis
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Good, but not able to set send time from custom fields
- Correspond: Not capable
- Lead Capture: Not capable
- Mass Broadcast: Not capable
- Overall: I suspect this is the mostly widely adopted app in the Infusionsoft marketplace. So it’s a “no brainer” to also use it for SMS if you already have it for the other services in their suite, as long as you don’t need to set the send time from a custom field or need personal reply handling.
- Cost: $87.00 (5 cents/message)
- Social Fuse
- Notify, Announce, Inform: Good, but not able to set send time from custom fields
- Correspond: Not capable
- Lead Capture: Strong
- Mass Broadcast: Capable
- Overall: Very cool, patented lead capture capabilities
- Cost: $99.00 (packages only, no per-message pricing)
A Different Target
So TimeFusion Messenger is clearly targeting a different Infusionsoft user than the other five apps, and that is not an accident. TF Messenger was designed based on input from these two constituencies:
- TimeFusion users, who need a way to send an appointment reminder shortly before an appointment occurs, when the time is stored in a custom Text field.
- Small businesses, such as the insurance agencies who are Agency Automate clients, with direct sales business models – they frequently express the need to engage personally any time a customer replies to an SMS sent from Infusionsoft.
I hope this overview is helpful to people looking to choose an SMS service that integrates with Infusionsoft. And if you see something incorrect in the information please make a comment or email me and I’ll get it corrected.
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