We talked about CRM programs a year ago in Getting Sales Departments Organized and about E-mail marketing services this past March. But no company has done a good job putting the two together and adding a serious amount of automation until Infusion Software and their Infusion CRM product line. The Infusion people have taken two things many small businesses find difficult and aggravating (sales management and marketing) and combined them into one. While you might expect the result to be twice as bad as the two separately, they seem to have made things twice as easy and more than doubled your chance of success.

Let's talk about mindsets. Some believe marketing is everything (multilevel marketing schemes pushing worthless products) and some believe marketing is nothing (build a better mousetrap and the world beats a path to your door). The first group often crosses the line into fraud and should be in prison. The second group often goes bankrupt with a warehouse full of mousetraps. Smart companies know the difference between the extremes, and growing companies lean toward more, not less, marketing.

When you get serious about better marketing, where do you go for help? Books give information, but you still have to put your marketing systems in place. Marketing and business coaches give personalized help, but you again still need the marketing systems. CRM software tracks customers and prospects, but doesn't give you the marketing system.

Here's where I find Infusion sitting at a fortuitous crossroads for companies ready to move up the marketing ladder. They offer online CRM software with all the typical features. They extend that with built in marketing systems that help you find prospects, put them into a customized marketing process you create, and track every contact and response. When the prospects become customers, Infusion then manages your e-commerce activities, ties Order Entry into invoicing and Accounts Receivable, and even helps with collections.

"We have a different approach for sales and marketing software," says Clate Mask, President of Infusion. "Different from most CRM software which acts as a repository for data, ours is more like a robot for customers. We want our software to do things for companies, not have them fight to get to their data." The term Mask likes to use is "marketing autopilot."

James Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area.