In any kind of business, you need
be able to track your contacts, for sales,
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.
Here we go with a few of our favorite contact
managers.
Microsoft
Outlook
ACT- Activity Contact Manager
But our favorite package for
anyone who needs a contact manager and auto-reponder
and newsletter manager is called Postmaster.
Read all about it below.
Post-master
- what it does to automate your life.
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 for my business!
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. Still
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 my business 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 my new
business. He said no for today, but said I
should contact him 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 our main site at http://www.mynewoffice.com/ 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.
Questions? Contact me!
John Davin
jddavin@mynewoffice.com
You have my best and warmest
wishes for success.
Read more about
creating your own web site here...
