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Contact Managers
help you increase your effectiveness in business.
If you're working any kind of business, you need be able
to track your contacts, vendors and other contacts. You
need to know who you talked to, when you talked to them,
when you should follow up with them again, and then how
to quickly reach them, via phone, cell phone, fax, e-mail
or even your e-zine or newsletter.
Here are a few tools that will automate the process. Some
of the programs run on your pc, some are based on the
Web so you can access them anywhere, anytime. Even if
they are on your local computer, you can still set up your computer for access from any other
computer, with these tools.
Of course there are many software programs that will
help you become more organized and effective. The screenshots
below show you one of my favorite programs.
However, if you would like to test drive a contact manager
at no cost, I highly advise this program. Best of all,
you can have a 30
Day Free Trial of EasyOfficePro. It Is Also A Complete
Microsoft Office 2003 Alternative.
Here are a few screenshots of a more expensive program that
I use. The basic ideas and functions are the same.
As I've mentioned, one of my goals in life has been to
organize my customer list and automate my marketing campaign
with a newsletter and tickler system.
A few months ago, I discovered a program called Post-Master.
Post-master is my dream come true - an automated marketing
system, including an address book, tickler system and an
automated e-mail responder, which is in effect my new, automated
newsletter or e-zine!
The software tracks the following information for me:
·Names
·Addresses
·Phone numbers
·E-mail addresses
·Birthdays and special events
·Personal information, such as names of spouse, children
etc.
·When I should follow up with the prospect with a letter
·A chronological list of when I talked to the customer and
what we discussed, going back in time as long as I wish!
I enter all the information about the customer one time,
and it's there forever. If I can't remember how to spell
a contact's name, I simply enter the first few characters
of their last name or e-mail address, and it pops up with
all the names that start with those characters.
There are certainly many contact managers available today,
but the benefits of this program is the fact that I can
then sort or search by most of the above fields and market
to each of those sorts or searches via e-mail and my e-zine,
or e-newsletter!
Here's a summary of the program,
and we'll talk about the e-mail e-zines at the end
of the review.
The address book:
The address book tracks all of the details as mentioned
above for addresses and phone numbers, etc. If I'm not at
home with my computer but need to work,
I set up my computer at home for remote control,
so I can call my computer via modem and then I can access
the information from my computer at work! If you choose
the Internet based version, you can access your information
from any Internet ready computer. What a time saver and
convenience if you travel!
The tickler system:
The notes section will allow me to track when I talked
to the client and what I talked to them about! The system
allows me to keep almost unlimited notes in a word processor
type application that automatically enters the date when
I open the file, and allows me to enter in the data. Every
time I open that respective contact, say John Davin, the
system moves the oldest data to the bottom, and I can enter
new information at the top.
Here's how it looks, with the oldest contact information
at the bottom of the file.
And here's how you should track the customer information,
with the oldest news at the bottom of the page. Notes for Bill Smith:
7-1-2000
Bill finally signed up for Hand Technology! Glad I kept
sending him e-mail via my new automated e-mail responder.
He'll thank me later! Guess I better enter his name in the
automated e-mail newsletter for people who've signed up
to help him build his business!
5-19-2000
Talked to Bill, said now is not a good time financially.
He has e-mail now. Cool. Keep him on the list he says. Entered
him in post-master for the free newsletter. He'll get 52
messages over the next year, one each week telling him about
a new aspect of the program. We'll keep working on him,
since it's just a matter of entering his name in the database.
6-4-1999
Talked to Bill about Hand Technology AGAIN. He said wait
6 months, so I will.
Asked me to fax him more information, he does not have
e-mail yet. Ouch.
6-1-1999
Talked to Bill about Signing up for Hand Technology, the
on-line computer store. He said no, I will try again later.
He wants me to fax him more information. Have put it in
my task manager/scheduler for tomorrow. Wish I had an easier
way to send him this data.
The scheduler:
The scheduler keeps track of my meetings. I simply look
at the calendar, choose the day and time of the meeting,
and set a timer to go off on that date. Easy to use, it
saves you a lot of time and a lot of embarrassment from
forgetting meetings. I also use it as my tickler system
for sales.
The tickler system:
It's important to realize the importance of special events
like birthdays and wedding anniversaries. In any marketing
campaign, you want the customer to feel that you know him
or her, that they and their family are important to you.
What better way to do so than to automatically send them
an e-mail birthday card each year? When you add your customer
in your post-master system, be sure to ask them for this
information so you can start the process correctly right
from the beginning. Enter the date of their birthday as
a flag so that on
that day, you get a notice telling you to contact them.
There are plenty of programs that will allow you to send
a free birthday or anniversary
card, right from the Internet, at no cost to you. You might
even go so far as to enter them in a program like http://www.reminder.com
that takes care of the project for you. It's too easy, for
such a kind thought. You should feel guilty for considering
this easy to use marketing tool!
The automated e-mail responder and e-zine manager.
The real beauty of this program is the ability to set it
up as an e-mail responder and subsequently an automated
e-zine and (e-mail based newsletter).
Everything is completely automated, from start to finish.
I can tell the system to check my e-mail, and look for key
words. For example, if it sees the words "subscribe
newsletter", then the system automatically grabs their
name and e-mail address, and does 3 things.
First of all, it automatically sends them a welcome e-mail
letter, with information about how to get a free website
with coolebiz! Next, it adds their name to the category
called "newsletter". Finally, the system starts
sending the customer a series of
e-mail messages, automatically, without me even knowing
about it! Here's an example of how I write one of the messages
that the system will send out to the prospect!
Why would you need this system?
Well, first of all, you can automatically maintain, track
and contact all of your prospects and customers from one
program. In addition, all of your scheduling tools and appointments
are in one program and one location. Even if you're out
of the office or on vacation, you can still access it via
the Internet if you purchase the version of the software
that is stored on the Internet. Now you're able to access
it anytime you have access to the Internet, from any location!
But that's just the beginning. What we've mentioned so far
is great, but keep reading, it gets better.
Why do I like the system?
That's easy. I can set up as many different message categories
as I like, which means I can maintain as many different
mailing lists, autoresponders and e-zines as I need, which
is of course one for each affiliate program! I can even
copy members of one group to another, and quickly send them
all an e-mail by simply sending e-mail to the group. Remember
how I said it's just as easy and the cost is the same to
send e-mail to one person as it is 10,000? That's because
I own Postmaster!
Finally, if you've studied sales and marketing, you may
know that you have to make contact with the average person
7 times before they make a purchase from you. Of course
it's worth your time to make a lot of long distance calls
if you're selling an item with a huge markup, or building
a downline, but usually it is not cost effective. A better
plan is to take the time to create an e-mail based newsletter
for your customer list and start sending out a free weekly
or monthly newsletter.
This will help build new business and repeat business.
If you also have customers and downline members who are
not very active, you will be surprised at how your customers
and downline members come alive and start showing interest
again, and how many sales you and your team will start to
make. You simply need to keep your products and services
in front of them on a regular basis, with free educational
and motivational. Everyone likes free stuff too, right?
If you can throw in some specials or freebies that would
be great too.
In the old days, you had one product and sales was a numbers
game. You had to take a lot of "No"s to get a
"Yes", a sale. But with new technology like Postmaster
(if you work it right) you start out making contacts as
friends, feeding them free information along the way. By
the time you hit them with a hard core request for a sale,
you've already sent this person dozens of messages about
you, your ideas on quality products and service, and the
prospect already knows you and trust you.
They have a much higher probability of trusting you at your
word that this is a sound program or product, and probably
will sign up right away if they need the service or product.
Of all the marketing programs you could implement, this
is the number one program that will provide results both
in the short run and the long run. It's a priority. Buy
it now, learn it, implement it to educate and motivate your
team and your customers, and reap the rewards!
Because the program automatically sends out the letters
for you, and all you have to do is study the new products
on the marketplace, write articles about the programs, copy
them to Postmaster, and send out a regular, automated, professional
newsletter with interesting information for the users, why
would you not do it?
SUMMARY:
The basic premise is that you educate your prospective clients,
giving away free, valuable information, and then be ready
to close the sale. It's about building relationships and keeping
in touch with those relationships. Of course there are many
marketing plans, but the one we present here is one of the
very best ways to market for repeat sales
on the Internet.
In this plan, the true goal should be to provide free information
and education about a topic or product at no cost, thereby
introducing yourself to the customer, allowing your company
to establish credibility with the customer for the company
and its products, then is ready, willing and able to deliver
a quality product when the customer is ready to buy. That's
the goal.
Follow that rule and you've made a sale.
Now
here's my closing and favorite thought regarding the Internet.
Where else (but on the Internet) can you open a new store
or second location for your business at a fraction of the
cost of a brick and mortar building, be open almost overnight,
be open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, reduce your
overhead, reduce the number or required employees, accept
credit card payments electronically, market inexpensively
to millions, drop ship products you don't even carry in
inventory - the very next day, then mine customer data to
create latent sales, and possibly become a millionaire?
Only on the Internet!
How true! Now, if we've told you a bit more than you wanted
to know about this Internet Marketing thing, we're sorry,
but it's all very simple. It' about simplifying and automating
everything you do, and letting the money come to you!
You might also be interested in our free "How to start
a business on the Internet," worksheet, which is attached
to the back of this book. If you do not see it here, you
can find it at:
http://www.mynewoffice.com/businesshelp
It has many free business tools, including everything you
read about in this book and hundreds more, complete with
links to the sites of the business tools. Some of the business
tools also allow you to get them at no cost when you give
referrals, another bonus.
You
have my best and warmest wishes for success.
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A wish for successful
computing to you!
Sincerely,
John E. Davin
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