TypePad (http://www.typepad.com), the premier blogging service, today announced an integration with the popular invoicing service, FreshBooks (http://freshbooks.com). The integration allows TypePad small business owners to take customer orders directly from their blog and automatically create FreshBooks estimates and invoices.
The integration is powered by FormSpring (http://formspring.com), an online data collection and management application. FormSpring empowers customers to build custom forms for lead generation, quote requests, surveys, event and contest registration and much more.
“Small businesses spend a lot of time and money getting prospects to visit their websites, but it’s all wasted if the prospects leave without contacting you,” says Sunir Shah, Chief Handshaker at FreshBooks. “By making it easy and obvious to place orders from TypePad websites, the FreshBooks widget for TypePad will close more customers for small businesses.”
TypePad users can create a FreshBooks widget by opening a FormSpring account, creating a customized form using the drag and drop form builder and then integrating the form on the blog with a simple click.
“With small businesses increasingly using TypePad blogs as their sole web presence, it’s important to work with partners like FreshBooks to provide business-specific functionality to our bloggers,” says Claire Alcock, product marketing manager at TypePad.
The TypePad services team (http://www.typepad.com/one/typepad-services.html) is already saving time and effort as a result of using the FreshBooks widget. “Customers interested in our Blog Power Launch and Tune Up services can fill their contact information directly on the blog, and their data is entered automatically into FreshBooks. Now we can invoice much more efficiently once the service is complete, saving time for the customer and the TypePad team,” says Alcock.
FreshBooks, TypePad and FormSpring are all members of The Small Business Web (http://thesmallbusinessweb.com), a collaboration of small business software providers that are integrating to make life easier for businesses.
To learn more about the FreshBooks widget for TypePad go to http://community.freshbooks.com/addons/view/typepad_order_forms/.
About TypePad
TypePad is Six Apart’s premier hosted blogging service. Launched in 2003, TypePad now hosts millions of blogs by professionals and small businesses, from published authors to designers, artists and entrepreneurs. Known for its beautiful designs and intuitive, easy-to-use interface, TypePad is preferred by the most influential voices on the social web. Learn more about TypePad at http://www.TypePad.com.
About Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd. is a leading social media software and services company and maker of the TypePad premier hosted blogging service, the Movable Type social publishing platform, and Vox, a free blogging service for friends and families. Six Apart Media provides advertising solutions for leading brands and influential bloggers and Six Apart Services offers a wide range of web site development services dedicated to helping publishers and corporations thrive in today’s social media landscape. Founded in 2001, Six Apart is a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, and offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York City. For more information, visit the Six Apart corporate web site at www.sixapart.com.
About FreshBooks
FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that helps entrepreneurs, freelancers and small businesses in more than 100 countries save time, get paid faster, look professional and focus on what they love to do — their work. Since 2004, FreshBooks has touched over 1,000,000 lives and according to its 2007 customer survey, 99% of FreshBooks users recommend FreshBooks to others seeking an easy, effective billing service. FreshBooks, a service of 2ndSite, Inc., has its headquarters and development center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
About FormSpring
FormSpring empowers organizations to easily collect, manage and use information online. Launched in 2006, FormSpring’s drag and drop form builder is used by customers worldwide for contact forms, surveys, order forms, event registrations and more. FormSpring serves a range of customers including small business, nonprofit, education, state and local government, and corporate departments. FormSpring is located in Indianapolis and can be reached at www.formspring.com or http://twitter.com/formspring.