Before I review Nanacast, I need to explain a bit about myself so you can see my “angle”.
In the past decade, I’ve obtained over 12 certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA. I have learned Coldfusion, PHP, XHTML/CSS, MySQL, SQL and other languages. I’ve also messed with nearly every CMS out there. From Joomla to Drupal to CMSMadeSimple to WordPress and everything in-between.
In the past 6 months, I’ve also dived into the world of InfusionSoft as a web developer. Specifically, my biggest client made the switch and I came along.
I have a unique “eye” into marketing and the technical side behind it. I’ve sat along on 6 figure launches and seen the tactics and work involved.
It’s because of this unique insight that I chose Nanacast as my own personal delivery platform.
Why? Well…for many reasons. But the single biggest reason is simple.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
-Walt Disney
One of the best things you can do with Nanacast is “get started”. Literally.
As a marketer, everything is handed to you on a silver platter.
- Want to create a membership? It’s included.
- Want to create a product? It’s easy.
- Want to secure download links & video files? Done.
- Need to manage affiliates? It’s there.
- Dimesales, Firesales, Powerful Coupon management? It’s really, really there.
- Want unlimited 1-click OTO’s, Upsells & Downsells using Authorize.net? You guessed it…it’s included. (Paypal will never properly support this).
So what’s missing?
The only thing missing is an autoresponder. But that’s not a bad thing. You see, one of my highlights in my career was managing an email list of 50 million customers for one of the largest companies in the world. So I know exactly what needs to be done to maintain email on whitelists to secure inbox delivery. Guess what…it’s not easy. Or cheap.
This job is best handled by professionals like Lyris, Aweber, GetResponse, MailChimp and iContact. Email delivery is a business within itself and requires careful attention by dedicated professionals. Trying to be all things to all people is not always the best idea. Josh Anderson from Nanacast knew this. So instead of building an autoresponder, he chose to directly integrate his platform with Aweber, GetResponse and other popular Autoresponders in the Internet Marketing community. If someone buys your product, Nanacast will move them into your list. AND…if they cancel, Nanacast can remove them from the list and optionally place them in a brand new “cancel” list. Beautiful.
Nanacast is NOT for Beginners
There’s a reason Nanacast carries the $97/mth price tag. It’s primarily targeting intermediate to advanced marketers. Marketers that realize the importance of 1-Click Upsells but don’t want to take their chances with the non-existent support in Butterfly Marketing or the massive cost of maintaining and implementing InfusionSoft (you need to purchase a separate Upsell Solution for them). Marketers that want to hit the ground racing at 100mph. Which brings me to that quote once more.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
-Walt Disney
The true power of Nanacast is within it’s ability to deliver an entire business quickly…and without additional investment. A beginner could have a membership up and running within hours…without even needing a host. Insane.
Nanacast is a no-brainer. If you have detailed questions about it, shoot me an email. I’ll be glad to cover it on this website.
How easy is it to take your data from Nanacast to another solution? One of the things that worries me about using a closed solution is that if I move elsewhere I will lose a fair amount of data. Brought home to me the other day when Traffic Geyser informed me that if I cancelled my account with them for whatever reason any work I did for clients, specifically their very neat Premium Video Player (overlays clickable links onto video) would be lost.
Also as my company gets bigger I will ultimately want to have our ecommerce solutions running on our own customised systems.
I have been playing with DigitalAccessPass.com at the moment which is very impressive, including one click upsells and downsells on paypal and authorize.net. With a one off payment it beats nanacast hands down on price, although doesnt yet have some of the advanced features of Nanacast (Kunaki, hardcopy book etc), although they are working on Kunaki integration and it works well with both WordPress Blogs and html sites. Anyway would be interested to hear your thoughts, as you appear significantly more techie than me!
Justin, everything is exportable via CSV. As for your member content, it’s all hosted on your website or Amazon S3…so you don’t lose anything. Nanacast only hosts the “text” and links to the products securely via Amazon S3.
The DAP guys are putting out a good product. However, it’s going to be a lot more hands-on than Nanacast. That means slower time to market.
For example, when I tried them, I had to rebuild PHP on my VPS server to include “PDO”. That took my entire business down for 45 minutes while my server was rebuilt. I also found the plugin conflicted with my preferred video plugin “HANA FLV Player”. Finally, my VPS server slowed down considerably after installation. I got a refund and moved on.
Also, DigitalAccessPass charges a monthly fee after the “support period” is over. Read the fine print.
Just wanted to know if Nanacast is just as good, or better than, Fusion HQ. Would be interested in your thoughts.
Cass, I’m not familiar with that solution. Sorry.
Another person asked about them. I haven’t tried the service and cannot comment. I’ll keep a close eye on them.
Hey Jesus
Your insights on Nanacast are valuable – thanks. They helped me decide on that solution. I am sure it is the right one.
However, I have spent 3 solid days trying to integrate Nana with Aweber with my blog – at heymalc.com: and I have to say their training is not crystal. 😐
(BTW, I am not a beginner.)
I’d be happy to pay for some help in how to integrate these three elements the best and save me chasing my tail so much. I’ll do the work: just want some strategy advice.
Can you help, or recommend someone?
Many thanks mate
Malc
Shoot me an email at http://ezsupport.zendesk.com with more detail. I’ll see if I can lend a hand of recommend someone.
Hey Jesus – thanks for your response (from October) and sorry I missed your generous offer. Have now done the integration but changed to GetResponse as AWeber insist on every level of my 3-tier membership having a double optin. Rubbish!!
My current view: Nanacast has a bit of a learning curve. It is not for beginners (as you say). But on the positive side it has many, many good features: the support is quick, accurate and helpful; and it is well priced.
Cheers and best wishes
Malc
I found this review in mid 2010 when I was trying to decide on Nanacast. I set it up and have been using it since, departing from a WordPress / Wishlist Member Pro solution.
Now I’m back and considering InfusionSoft, and thinking it through again. Here’s what’s bothering me about Nanacast:
1. I want to be able to pull up a customer record, see all that the customer has purchased, and then act on it. What I can get in Nanacast is a keyword string matching search on email address or last name or whatever field, and in return I get a listing of possible matches spanning memberships and contact records. You can sort of spot the repeat customers presuming they used the same email address. And then you can do a convoluted export and import into your email list manager (I use Mailchimp), and find a way to send out a targeted offer. But I think I’m wanting those InfusionSoft Action sets or profiling or triggered prompts or whatever it does that makes it automated.
Question: am I missing something? Anyone affirm this desire is something InfusionSoft can satisfy?
2. I want Nanacast.com checkouts to send an order through to Paypal and actually work. Instead, I get money sent into Paypal but Paypal doesn’t tell Nanacast that the order was paid for, so Nanacast.com doesn’t show a thank you page and trigger an email receipt, and my Paypal paying customers send me angry emails asking why they’re getting stiffed. Surely, paypal integration could be solved. Nanacast seems to think it’s an unlikely outcome to ever achieve.
Question: am I missing something? Why can ejunkie.com just work with paypal all the time, and nanacast.com seems unconfident about it ever reliably integrating with paypal?
There’s more I could see, more I’m looking at, but these are two important topics. Welcome feedback from the Nanacast users and InfusionSoft users who read this…
1. Patrick, good, good questions. It sounds like you need a CRM. In a nutshell, InfusionSoft does show a customer purchase history and functions more as a CRM. You can also email people that have bought X item or not. However, if they use different emails to buy, you still need to “merge” their records in the backend. However, to accomplish this, you would need to dump MailChimp and use InfusionSoft’s built in AR exclusively. Otherwise the export/import will drive you nuts. This can be accomplished in Nanacast by simply adding/moving people from one email list to another. I know for a fact this is automated in GetResponse because I do it all the time. I move prospects to buyer’s lists on checkout. And I move refunders from buyer’s lists to “save the sale” lists and eventually to a “pitch” list. It’s all on autopilot.
2. I’ve run hundreds of sales through Paypal and never received a single problem with account creation or delivery. Seriously. I’ve found their Paypal integration to be very reliable. If you are experiencing problems with Paypal now…I don’t see how using another provider will resolve the issues. If Paypal doesn’t send the IPN call to Nanacast reliably, how are they going to send it to InfusionSoft? Maybe a merchant account is a better route?