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| | The Un-Marketing Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | how do you manage your database with your client info | Views: 1593 | | Nov 18, 2005 5:43 am | | how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
sherry woodhouse | | I posted this on the ezezine board but then thought that this forum would be a more appropriate place to ask this.
This might be a silly question but do you have a separate database of your contacts or clients versus the info you have with ezezine/ConstantContact or whatever you use to stay in touch with people by email? I lost all my data when my harddrive died and I'm trying to start over - in a very organized way.
We have forms on our website to sign up for the ezine and also a form for them to contact us for a price quote. I was thinking that I'd have a detailed database in either Access or Excel for people who are my established clients. On the flip side, anyone who contacted us for more info or whatever other reason would be on the email list. I guess the decision will depend on whether I expect to do direct mailings or not. Email is cheap and in my business we get so many dreamers who contact us with no intention of using our services. For this reason, I thought I would limit mailings to former clients only.
How do you handle your contact info? Do you have both a database with all the contact info, birthday etc or do you keep everything in an email program only, or both?
I'll also post this on the marketing forum to see if anyone there has any input also.
Thanks,
Sherry Private Reply to sherry woodhouse | | Nov 18, 2005 2:17 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Andrew Barnes | | I use FastResponder as my autoresponder and subscriber lists, which informs me by email of new sign-ups. I then just copy this info into my RedBox PIM that allows me to do mail-merge individually of for a whole database.
I don't ever do this with the newsletter subscriber list as I just consider it bad manners to assume that they would welcome any messages outside of those they knew they double opted for.
I do however have a second list - 'Partner' program list, which, whilst utilises the auto for the double opt-in function, involves individual communication so transfering in this why is essential.
RedBox do a 30 day trial, and I really can't recommend it enough. I couldn't live without it. I'm not an affiliate (maybe in the future - too much to sort out already) so links are just here to help. It really is a vital part of my management system.
Autograph Your Work With Excellence.
AndyE Barnes
Launch Issue. Read On-line Now.
Working Together - We Win.Newsletter. Private Reply to Andrew Barnes | | Nov 18, 2005 2:37 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Mitchell Allen | | This is a tough one for me too, Sherry. If you're running more than one business, it gets worse. I manage the email lists okay, since the service provider keeps that; however, the contacts go into several - incompatible! - databases, depending upon their first "touch".
1. Telephone inquiries get written onto a contact sheet
2. Referrals and past clients are in Outlook
3. Active prospects are also in my cell phone (very inefficient)
4. For active real estate contacts, I have yet another database that automatically sends listings.
5. Business cards go into the "someday-I'll-put-it-in-Outlook" pile.
6. My Pre-paid Legal Services contacts go into a custom database that I wrote, because I needed an event-driven database, rather than a name-driven database. (I may not care WHO, but I need to know HOW MANY people are due for the next follow-up, the next training, etc.)
Regarding that last option, I wound up exporting all of those contacts into Outlook. I felt like I was re-inventing the wheel, once I took the time to learn Outlook. The calendar makes a passable event-driven solution once I learned how to the Contacts... button at the bottom!
I never bought any of the general databases (Goldmine, Act!) because I don't feel like learning another set of rules.
However, if there is the ULTIMATE contact management program, I guess I could learn how to use it.
I suggest you try to standardize on Outlook, or some other general purpose database/contact management program. At least there is a lot of third-party support for Outlook.
I don't like web-based, because you will have to ensure that your contacts are backed up locally to your hard drive, and then what's the point? Why not just use your local data? I think it should be the other way around: backup your local database to the web! (It's pricey. If I ever get around to it, I'll just use FTP to store data in a protected directory on my web host's servers!)
I hope somebody here has a solution other than Outlook. My main concern is that it is a favorite target of hackers.
The proposed solution must be programmable (VBA-like scripts)
must do e-mail, must manage events, should allow you to export to other files like Excel. Finally, it should have a way to synchronize with a variety of handheld devices.
MitchPrivate Reply to Mitchell Allen | | Nov 18, 2005 4:45 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Andrew Barnes | | Mitchell,
I really do think you should take a look at RedBox.
It ha contacts, calander, tasks, expenses, anniversaries, notes and planner.
It has an internal & external link function so you can link any external file or other record to each other, than view these as a visual tree type (kind of) scematic. Each link has a 'project' title, so you could name a project as say - follow-up/date, then link all relevant contacts to a to-do or calander entry. view in the scematic, and you have it all there.
Oh yea. You can syncronize it for Palm and Pocket PC, and export to Outlook, CSV and tab delimited.
RedBox
Autograph Your Work With Excellence.
AndyE Barnes
Launch Issue. Read On-line Now.
Working Together - We Win.Newsletter. Private Reply to Andrew Barnes | | Nov 18, 2005 5:56 pm | | re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Tracy Collins, Web Designer | | Mitchell,
Why not use Access for your contact management? Then you can put all your business cards, referrals, active prospects, etc into one database and it lets you search on specific criteria you want. I believe it is also compatible with Excel or you could just use excel for the same thing. I think Access has VBA capabilities. Another software program that I have heard about but don't know personally yet is Lotus Notes. Just my .02 cents.
Tracy Collins
Collins' Administrative Services
http://www.freewebs.com/cas2005
Private Reply to Tracy Collins, Web Designer | | Nov 19, 2005 2:14 am | | re: re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
sherry woodhouse | | Thanks all for the replies. I'll look into these options and see. I know I need to do something because so far things are just stagnant. Leads are falling by the wayside - and what is the point of generating them if I don't follow-up on them.
Like Mitchell though I really wasn't or am not looking forward to learning another new program. But if I have to I will. I do have the Office suite programs -- Access, Excel.
Do you know if Access will let you have one main database but then "sub-databases" within that database for different types of contacts. For example within the database there are travel agents, people looking to do weddings, people looking to go on vacation. Say I want to enter info for a travel agent, can I pull up a form with only what I need to enter data for travel agents as opposed to getting a form with datafields that have nothing to do with travel agents. I'd want something where people could move from one "sub-list" to the next as I felt was necessary or as my relationship with them changed. I don't want to have many separate lists going on at the same time otherwise some people would be entered many times. I hope I'm not making this too complicated.Private Reply to sherry woodhouse | | Nov 19, 2005 8:59 am | | re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Linda Bohrnerud | | Hi,
I use DayTimer Organizer. I don't think it is available anymore. It has my address book, my calendar, to do list, etc., etc.
All of my entries have categories, so I can filter on friends, or family, or tax clients, or QuickBooks clients, or whatever. One of the things I like about it is that I can link every entry having to do with a specific person to that person's address book entry.
As with RedBox, I can link external files. It links to Palm devices and can export CSV (I don't remember if it does tab delimeted, but I think so), as well as import CSV. I can also do mail merge and invoke any mapi compliant email program.
I think one of my favourite things is having it dial the phone for me. Then I tell it to log the call and it opens a window that allows me to write notes about the phone call.
Unfortunately, one of these days I will have to get something newer, because it was written to run under Win95.Private Reply to Linda Bohrnerud | | Nov 21, 2005 5:50 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Mitchell Allen | | Hi Everyone,
This is an interesting thread!
Andy, I may check out Redbox. Our team is trying to figure out the best fit for Real Estate Agents, including access to the IDX (home listings) on our local MLS.
Tracy, I did write my custom contact management program using Access 2000. Remember me mentioning that I wanted an "Event" manager? My program was geared towards my MLM clients and recruits, but I was playing around with expanding it to include real estate. At some point, however, I felt like I was reinventing Outlook - only in a cruder fashion.
Sherry, Access does exactly what you want. The technical term is "filtering" and all good databases let you filter information. Access is a relational database, compared to Excel which some people use as a flat-file database. I am not very good with Excel as a database, because I learned Access first and, by comparison, Excel can't measure up.
Be sure to try the database wizard, if it's installed. It has a generic contact management database as one of the options. Wizards are a breeze to use, but can be tedious. Also, you sort of have to know ahead of time what type of information you need to keep, because it's hard going back and redoing fields. (One idea is to run through the wizard with an eye to seeing what it offers, jot down notes, then run it "for real" the second time with a different file name.)
Linda, for what it's worth, I have always advised computer users to stick with what works best for them. Unless you run into a compatibility issue when you upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP, there is no reason you have to give up your Daytimer's software. (I still use Access 2000, Outlook 2000. Those were compelling upgrades from their earlier versions. I personally see no reason to go to version 2003 - or whatever Bill is calling his suites these days.)
Cheers!
MitchPrivate Reply to Mitchell Allen | | Nov 22, 2005 3:10 am | | re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Linda Bohrnerud | | Mitchell,
I'm in agreement with you about hanging on to software that works. I'm not big on upgrading to the latest version. I'd be happy using Quattropro for DOS ;) But, I am starting to notice some problems with DTO2000 running on XPpro. I'm afraid the next OS will break it.Private Reply to Linda Bohrnerud | | Nov 23, 2005 11:57 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Jessica Sellers | | We use Constant contact to send emails to our students. I love how it handles unsubscribes. For example, we update our contact lists fairly frequently, so if someone asked to be unsubscribed, and then even if we accidentally tried to add them in again, Constant Contact would recognize the email and would not put it back in. I also love how you can time when messages get sent out.
We also send out mailers on a monthly basis to potential clients and we use Excel for that because I can easily use it in mail-merges in Word. Ideally, though, I think we will switch all our contacts over to Access or a custom database when I get some time to work on it. I like Access because you can more easily look up information based on a set of guidelines. For example, I could pull up a list of Realtors in San Francisco out of a file that has San Francisco, San Bernadino and Salt Lake Realtors without having to sort them out. And yes, you can convert Access files to Excel.
P.S. Anyone know a good custom database?
Private Reply to Jessica Sellers | | Nov 24, 2005 1:11 am | | how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Debbie Fortier-Success Leaves Clues | | P.S. Anyone know a good custom database?
Hi guys..
Excellent thread here.
We built our own customized database/autoresponder/contact manager and more all in one.
Complete with task manager, appt maker, sites our visitors viewed, diary/history, email notifications, desktop and cell-phone alerts and still more.
The Combined efforts of several people maintain and upgrade it as needed.
We keep adding new features to it and since 2003, we have never had any problems or glitches.
We keep it up to date or ahead of the internet changes and it is worth a million but not for people outside our biz.
It makes contact manager and isoregister obsolete.
Complete compliance above the Spam Act with features internet dummies understand.
Perfect for the newbies and seasoned marketers.
Since 2003, it has never been offline a second allowing anyone anywhere to access and view our biz details.
State of the art ahead of it's time and something needed in our Ten Trillion dollar market for simplicity.
Should a version become available to the public, we will keep you posted.
Until Then HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
May your Holidays Be Safe and Your Tummies Full!
((((Hugs))))
Debbie
PS) Will show you the current version by pm only Private Reply to Debbie Fortier-Success Leaves Clues | | Nov 24, 2005 5:59 am | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Karri Flatla | | Sounds like you definitely need more than just a "flat" or one dimensional database (ie. lists only). I use Business Contact Mangager which integrates with my Outlook 2003. It lets me categorize and sort contacts based on different criteria as well as do mail merges. I haven't explored all of its functionalities yet but so far it seems quite powerful. Only drawback is that it is still rather "new" and there are the odd bugs.
You could always have someone custom design a database for you in Access along with form interfaces, etc. to make it user friendly. Access is probably one of the more powerful tools out there in terms of custom applications.
I am definitely going to check out this RedBox program being discussed here! Sounds like a great find.
Take care,
Karri Flatla, B.Mgt.
snap! virtual assistance inc.
Don't just outsource. Outsmart.
Sign up for Outsmart, the free newsletter
for small business with big purpose. Private Reply to Karri Flatla | | Nov 24, 2005 7:15 pm | | re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Andrew Barnes | | Karri & others,
I'm glad people are going to take a look at Redbox. It really is the best I have ever come across.
I mentioned earlier in a different thread, that I had applied to be an affiliate before, but was rejected (probably as my site was in it's very early days).
Well, I am very pleased that they have now accepted me following my new application (I must have done something right with the site ;-} ).
I would be so pleased, therefore, if you when going to take a look, if you could first go to Studio -V5.com to have an in depth look at the product. Then if you could go over to my ORDER PAGE to download your trial copy.
You get to try it out for 30 days. If you decide to then purchase (from with in the program, or from bookmarking the order page, it is actually a little cheaper for you this way as well.
Thanks a lot.
Autograph Your Work With Excellence.
AndyE Barnes
New Audio Edition. On-line Today.
Working Together - We Win.
Newsletter. Private Reply to Andrew Barnes | | Nov 27, 2005 4:23 am | | re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # | 
Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | Mitch & Sherry,
I would like for you both to take a look at FreeCRM.com. This a web-based Customer Relations Management tool. The free version comes with advertising. The paid version comes with no advertising, free tech support and enhanced services. But, you two seem interested in a better and more efficient way to handle your customers. This could be it. Granted, this program likely offers more than you need. After all, it is designed for multiply users from the same company. But, since it is a FREE product, I think it is ideal for small to mid-size businesses as well.
For example, if you wanted to do a cost-effective email program, FreeCRM can accomodate you. The disclaimers you need to be in compliance with the Can Spam Law are there. The ability to address folks by first name is there. There is a reason why this program is highly regarded in the CRM industry. Being freely available is not the only reason. Do check it out.
Lamar Morgan
CDMM
FREE Power Networking PDF Private Reply to Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | Nov 30, 2005 4:04 am | | re: re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Mitchell Allen | | Hi Lamar,
Thanks for the suggestion. FreeCRM is a perfect example of why I don't like web-based solutions. Choosing the professional version over the free one is a no-brainer. The cost doesn't bother me: most of the software I use in my Real Estate business is subscription-based.
What bothers me is being asked to pay for basic services that I already have. For example, 128-bit encryption. I have a Blowfish DLL on my hard drive that I can plug into any of my VB projects and get 448-bit encryption. I downloaded it for free! (sidebar: I only know that Blowfish hasn't been cracked)
Comparing the other "premium" offerings (except tech support):
Unlimited Storage - I have that now (160GB hard drive)
Synch with Palm and Outlook - I do that now
Microsoft Office Integration - So does every other program I use
XML Web services - while this is nice, I can do this with Access 2000
Email campaigns - I have Aweber for that
Email Capability - Aweber does that with aplomb
Audit Trail - Again, I have that in Access 2000
Alerts and Notifications - Outlook Reminders and VB6 projects
Sticky Lists - Are they serious? Outlook Today, for Pete's sake!
Saved Import Maps - Very useful, I do it with Access 2000
Custom Quick Create - no comment, except "custom quick" sounds like an oxymoron
Predictive Dialer - this doesn't help me, personally
No Advertising - that's black-mail!
99.9% uptime - I have 100% uptime :)
Keep in mind, I am not trashing CRM. It does almost all of the things I mentioned in my previous post (the exceptions being programmability and event management). It's just that those exceptions prevent CRM from being a compelling upgrade for me.
I looked at RedBox, and came to the same conclusions.
I want the power of Outlook and the flexibility of Access 2000 combined. (Ever try to design a view in Outlook? brrrr!)
MitchPrivate Reply to Mitchell Allen | | Nov 30, 2005 7:12 am | | re: re: re: re: how do you manage your database with your client info | # |
Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | Mitch,
You have a lot of tools - including a 160GB hard drive - that I believe most people do not have. Therefore, I can understand why you do not need a program like FreeCRM. However, for folks who do not have the huge hard drive and all the other "bells and whistles" they you do, FreeCRM might be appropriate. In fact, it just might be overkill for a lot of folks. It is obviously designed for SMB's. While I assume it could be used for for one-person home businesses, it is designed for a business that has a salesforce of many people.
From what I have been reading, FreeCRM is the most popular web-based CRM progam on the Net. Does FreeCRM win the popularity contest because it is free? I doubt it. I think the popularity is due to the fact people realize the program gets the job done. People use the program because it works.
Lamar Morgan
CDMM
Creating a buzz for business Private Reply to Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | |
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