Since we are encouraging spring database cleaning this month, we thought this blog we posted earlier this year on 4 easy steps to clean out your database would be a helpful reminder.
One really great way to get the most out of ACT!, is to standardize your company’s usage. Do you have data entry standards? Here’s a great way to set some:
1) Toss the empties
Empty fields just tempt users to stow away data that doesn’t seem to have a home. Then the data, sitting in a mislabeled field, is report resistant—it isn’t organized so it won’t come up in a field search, and can’t be pulled into a report for analysis.
2) House the homeless
Look around your database. Just sift through some entries. Do you see a pattern in the data that is being tossed into “catch-all” fields? Create new fields to accommodate data you want to collect regularly, and move the data into the properly labeled fields where they belong.
3) Consult the staff
You may think you know what needs to go and what should stay, but maybe your staff thinks differently. Have a quick meeting about your current ACT! usage, what people are using, what they aren’t, and what they wish they could do differently. You should decide who is responsible for filling out which fields, and set up a standard by which people assign tasks to each other to facilitate smooth workflow.
4) Idiot-proof it
Where possible, consider setting up activity series to encourage the steps in a workflow plan. Every time someone adds a new prospect, does that mean your salesperson should make a call? Or if every time a support contract has an expiration date, should a renewal request call be made 8 months later? Set it up so ACT! asks you to schedule these things.
There are a number of ways to get your data to work for you--do you have any suggestions for keeping a clean database? Tell us about it in the comments!
Spring! A time when we open up the doors and let fresh air into our homes, welcome the nice change in weather, and say good riddance to cold weather and our winter clothes.
And your database isn’t too different. It can do with a little airing out, too.
We have given a lot of advice on how to clean up your database, but today I want to focus specifically on cleaning up contacts by ID/status.
The ID/status field is often used to track a database user’s relationship to a contact, basically by labeling the relationship. This way, you can keep your vendors straight from your clients, and your prospects separate from your networking contacts, while keeping them all in the same, convenient place. This way you can then pull up contacts by ID/status and review the relationships you have, and review which contacts you should reach out to again, which need a new ID/status, and which you may not need anymore.
We recommend you consider doing this now in preparation for summer. Some businesses slow down this time of year, or people cut their hours to spend more time outdoors. If you fall into this category, cleaning your database and renewing some of your connections in your downtime, may be a valuable way to spend your summer.
For instance, run a search in your database for everyone labeled a prospect. This is something that should be done with frequency if possible, but if you don’t, now is a great time to pull up prospects in your database and think about which ones may benefit from a little more attention—perhaps they fell off your radar, or told you they would be in touch—now is the time to give them another call. And those who have told you they are not currently interested in your services should be marked as dead prospects, this way you know that they have told you no, so you do not risk becoming a nuisance they would not consider should they need services in the future.
After prospects are examined, networking contacts is another group who you may want to review. With whom have you lost touch who provides you with valuable leads and business advice? Schedule time to renew your networking relationships this summer.
Also think of reviewing your clients and vendors. If you haven’t worked with someone in a long time, are they still a client? Perhaps you may want to put some time and energy into reinvigorating some of those relationships. On the other side of the coin, if you know that a client is now firmly an ex-client, you would do best to mark them as such under ID/status, so you do not mistake them for active clients when you send out freebies, newsletters, and the like. And your vendors? You want to make sure that the ones you are actually using are marked correctly—that way you don’t mistakenly call the person you used 5 years ago rather than your current choice!
Have you reviewed your database by ID/statuses recently? What did you learn in the process? If you could use some help organizing your database, please give us a call, at 847-520-0560.
Do you send out emails to lists of your contacts, only to get a lot of bounce backs? Are you afraid clients who you sparingly work with may move, leaving you with outdated contact information? We have a quick way for you to make sure your database is full of current contact information, so you don't waste money and time, or most importantly let valued contacts get away from you.
For those of you already using Swiftpage, you know how simple it is to send out a quick email template to a list of your ACT! contacts. But did you know you may also have this free template (found under global templates, called customer_incomplete contact info)?
For those of you new to Swiftpage, you can get more information on the email marketing tool (also known as ACT! E-Marketing) right here. It's as easy as pulling up a list of contacts and sending this email off to them. Your contacts take it from there. The email asks all contacts who need to update their information to fill out the attached survey. They fill out the survey and then you can either have the completed forms sent to your email (so maybe you could send a thank-you email), or you can just set your survey result options to update records in ACT!. This way you save time not fielding results from contacts whose records are up-to-date, and have a really quick and simple way to get the new information revised in your database. You can choose to edit the template to include your company's branding, or send it as-is. It doesn't get much easier than that, does it? Do you have any ideas on how to make this process run even smoother? Tell us about it in the comments!
Have you hired anyone new lately? Have you moved around any staff members, or reassigned responsibilities? While we tend to make small changes in staff responsibility from time to time, and only occasionally make large changes like adding on to our staff, any team that is working closely with a CRM should be considering how these internal changes are going to affect the way they use their database. Databases tend to work best when tailored to fit a business. That is why we help people design custom databases comprised of the fields that are most important to a company’s business goals. And what we often find, is that with these custom databases come custom responsibilities. If your firm has decided it is important to track the date when contracts are received, who is the one who is in charge of this process? And better yet, who will check to verify those contracts have been attached to the appropriate ACT! records? Outlining the processes that need to happen in your database should be the first step. Asking yourself, “what does my database need to do to aid in growing my business” and listing from there is a great place to start. Then once you have a list of things that should be happening within your ACT!, you can start delegating. Make up a list of duties each staff member is in charge of, and pass the list around. When everyone is on the same page, you are able to work in tandem much more efficiently. Take staff suggestions and you may find that some will suggest changes in practices you may not have considered, which turn out to be more efficient. Last but not least, make sure there is someone responsible for database maintenance who sets aside time to 1) verify and 2) review. Verification is basically just quality assurance—the staff member can pull up some quick searches just to make sure data is being inputted as assigned. This helps keep you organized and preps you for your next review. A review is exactly what I’ve described for you here! So all you really need to do is keep this article close at hand, so you can review your database usage every so often (depending on how many users and how much data your database sees, you can review once a year, once a quarter, or during your business’ slower seasons). Sometimes we feel a little like a broken record over here, but with database maintenance you can never do too much! And maintaining the roles that are given to each database user is one of the best ways to assure your ACT! software gives back as much as you put in. Do you have any questions about the way you are using ACT!? We would be happy to assist. Call our office at 847-520-0860, or email us at info(at)kristismith.com.
Since we are now at the end of February, the month we’ve dedicated to talking about showing love to clients, we would like to offer one last tip on ways to keep your clients feeling valued. We want to talk about your newsletter. Are you sending one out? If you are, what is its purpose? Of course a newsletter in its most basic sense, is just a letter sent out to keep your clients and networking contacts informed about your business. Your clients and colleagues want to know what you are doing new, so keeping them in the loop should continue to be one of the main objectives of your newsletter. But that should not necessarily be the driving force behind your newsletter. A good newsletter is the kind that gives back to your clients. It doesn’t drone on about your achievements (which is not to say they should not be acknowledged) nor does it list all of the sales prices you are offering right now (which is also not to say you can’t mention a few), but what your newsletter should do first and foremost is provide valuable information to your clients. For instance, because we work with ACT! software, we know from our support calls that people are often looking for DIY answers to challenges they run into while using the software. And when we get several people asking the same question, we like to respond by including that answer as a tip in our newsletter. Additionally, we like to address questions that take a little longer to answer here in our blog. Then in our newsletter, we link to our most recent blogs, so clients can find our newest ACT! tips and tricks. What else can you include in a newsletter? Coupons, white papers, free offers, and anything else that clients in your industry will find useful. Using your newsletter as a means to reach out and give value to your clients can also have added benefit for you. If your clients learn that your newsletter is helpful, they will open it more often and see some of the more profitable items you may also toss in there, like featured pricing or a paid seminar. And if you are an ACT! user, one of the best ways to send out your newsletter is with ACT! E-marketing, also known as Swiftpage. ACT! E-marketing makes it super easy to narrow down which contacts you want to send your letter to in ACT!, and allows you to send out graphic rich email templates to a large number of contacts in one send without getting your email address blacklisted as Spam. For more information regarding ACT! E-marketing, call us at 847-520-0860, or check out this page on our website.
While you probably realize that trying to sell a snow blower to a Floridian is a waste of company time and money, a lot of companies are making similar mistakes every day. Most companies create one marketing piece or ad and send it out to their entire customer list, forgetting that while one segment of their client base may be excited to receive the latest savings on dog toys and treats (for example), their cat lovers are underwhelmed and frustrated by another meaningless ad in their inbox. The ad simply isn't relevant to the cat lover's needs. One of the most crucial elements in marketing is to deliver relevant marketing campaigns - marketing ads and promotional pieces that directly relate to what the recipient wants or needs. Using Sage E-Marketing for ACT! (SEMA), you can easily create a highly-professional, graphic-rich ad announcing the newest dog toy on the market and another ad informing cat owners of the upcoming cat food sale. You can use SEMA to create a variety of relevant marketing pieces designed to cross-sell, up-sell, and promote your latest company news and offerings. Then using ACT!, you can segment your customer list into various marketing campaign groups. Last week, we discussed stratifying your clients to track and analyze the different clients you have. Stratification is just one way that we can start to segment our clients and improve our marketing efforts. Similar to the stratification field, you can create a 'marketing campaign/group' field to designate groups(s) that each of your customers belongs to, ie. Dog Lover, Cat Lover, etc. Once you've designed your marketing template for a particular group, it is extremely easy to perform a lookup of all customers belonging to that group and send your relevant message to them. Not only will relevant email marketing separate you from other companies, but your customers will understand and appreciate that you value their interests. And that's a great way to earn customer loyalty! Interested in learning more about email marketing best practices? Visit our ACT! White Papers and Articles page. How have you used ACT! to market to your customers/clients? Let us know in the Comments below!
February is often equated with its most romantic holiday, Valentine’s Day, and in particular, with showering your loved ones with tokens of your affection. Along this vein, we started wondering how often we, as small businesses (and really anyone else who works closely with their clients) make it a point to reciprocate the love we get from amazing clients. When clients come back to us time and again, they are letting us know they appreciate what we do. This Valentine’s Day, we want to talk about how to return that kindness.
The first question you would want to ask yourself, would be, “how can I tell who really likes us?” Of course off the top of your head, you probably can name quite a few people who you do regular business with or those who sing your praises. But if you can set up ACT! to tell you who is interacting with you and when, then you can get a clear picture of who your best clients are.
And what a best client is to you will vary. Do you want to thank clients who buy a lot in dollar amount? Or is it the clients who are consistent return customers? Or do you have clients who always make contact with you around the holidays? All of these things can be tracked in ACT!.
Once you decide what your criteria is, you can set up ACT! to stratify your clients. Having a field called “prospect level” or “client level,” gives you a place to track what kind of client you have. You can then choose a method of tracking them. You could go with a hierarchical classification, like assigning clients “A” through “D” status, or you can use descriptors, like “frequent customer,” or “loyal promoter.” Once you have these labels on your contacts, it is easy to run a search for everyone who is an “A” level client, or anyone who is a “frequent customer.”
From there, it is up to you how you thank your customers. Whether you want to provide them with free, valuable white papers, or send them hand-written thank you notes, making the effort is a guaranteed way to make sure you are letting the clients who like you know that the feeling is mutual.
In order to keep your stratification records current, we recommend updating them monthly. If you would like to set up a report with complex stratification criteria, we can help! Contact us for information on custom reports at 847-520-0860, or info@kristismith.com!
 Valentine’s Day was first associated with romantic love by poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 1300’s, and since that time its focus on relationships and a’mour has continued to grow. So we figured this is the perfect time to highlight a newer ACT! feature, aptly named, the Relationship tab.
The Relationship tab allows you to create and document existing influential relationships between contacts in your database based on criteria, such as family relationships, contacts belonging to the same professional association, etc. Instead of creating separate groups for small-member associations consider using the Relationship tool to link the members.
Creating a New Relationship
1. From your contact's record, click on the Relationships tab and click Relate Contact in the top left corner of the tab. The Relate Contact dialog box appears.
2. Choose the contact(s) to relate to your current contact, by selecting them from the dropdown in the ‘Relate (contact) to’ box.
3. Under the Define Relationship section, first choose the relationship of your contact to the contact(s) you are linking them to. Then choose that contact's relationship to your current contact. Note: The relationship-type list contains pre-defined relationship types, but you may change or add to these values by clicking Edit List Values at the bottom of the list. You may also just type the relationship description directly into the field.
4. You can type in any notes or details regarding this relationship in the Details section.
5. Click OK when finished.
Managing Relationships
Once you have created a relationship, you can edit them as needed and use the links to quickly go to the related contacts. Under the Relationships tab for your contact, you will see a list a related contacts. You can quickly go to that contact by clicking on their hyper-linked name. You can also edit the relationship by double-clicking on the line item for that relationship, or highlighting it and clicking Edit Relationship. By right-clicking on a related contact, you will find options to relate, edit, or remove relationships, create lookups and more.
** The Relationship feature is available only in ACT! 2009 and later versions.
Have you used the ACT! relationship tab yet? Tell us your thoughts.
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January, as we’ve discussed, is a great time of year to make changes to your processes and revamp the way you approach your CRM. So with the end of the month upon us, we thought we'd leave you with one last tip to clean up your ACT! (clearly that pun is unavoidable).
One really great way to get the most out of ACT!, is to standardize your company’s usage. Do you have data entry standards? Here’s a great way to set some:
1) Toss the empties
Empty fields just tempt users to stow away data that doesn’t seem to have a home. Then the data, sitting in a mislabeled field, is report resistant—it isn’t organized so it won’t come up in a field search, and can’t be pulled into a report for analysis.
2) House the homeless
Look around your database. Just sift through some entries. Do you see a pattern in the data that is being tossed into “catch-all” fields? Create new fields to accommodate data you want to collect regularly, and move the data into the properly labeled fields where they belong.
3) Consult the staff
You may think you know what needs to go and what should stay, but maybe your staff thinks differently. Have a quick meeting about your current ACT! usage, what people are using, what they aren’t, and what they wish they could do differently. You should decide who is responsible for filling out which fields, and set up a standard by which people assign tasks to each other to facilitate smooth workflow.
4) Idiot-proof it
Where possible, consider setting up activity series to encourage the steps in a workflow plan. Every time someone adds a new prospect, does that mean your salesperson should make a call? Or if every time a support contract has an expiration date, should a renewal request call be made 8 months later? Set it up so ACT! asks you to schedule these things.
There are a number of ways to get your data to work for you--do you have any suggestions for keeping a clean database? Tell us about it in the comments!
_ As a business, setting goals for the new year is a must for annual growth. Often we reach for new products and services to point us in that right direction, but have you looked at trying to get more out of what you already have? Have you thought about what else ACT! could do to help you reach your goals? This month we will be offering you suggestions for getting the most out of ACT! to help you grow your business. Put Your Dashboard to Work How often do you use your Dashboard? Do you know what it can do? Your Dashboard has the ability to serve as a place in ACT! where powerful reporting info is all aggregated on one page, based on what will be most useful to you. It can be a way to focus on your most important goals, every day when you first open ACT!. To set up a Dashboard for optimum usefulness, think about what kind of data you should be looking at everyday in terms of reaching your goals. Are you looking to get more hands-on with your Salespeople this year? You can set up your Dashboard to track their activities and opportunities and have the information displayed in graphs and charts. Or perhaps you are a sales person, and you want to track your goals. You can likewise display your activities and opportunities via your Dashboard, and set up graphs that will give you a visual idea of how productive you have been thus far, and more importantly, how much more you need to do to reach your targets. You can learn how to edit a preexisting Dashboard here. Or learn how to create new ones here. Don’t Lose an OpportunityAre you currently using Opportunities? Do you use them to track products and services your company sells, or do you also use them to actually track when you have an opportunity to sell products and services? Tracking a prospect’s interest in what you offer will help keep you organized as you go through the sales process. Marking your opportunities by stages, means you have a quick way to tell what needs to happen next. You can pull up your opportunities list, and filter them by sales stages for easy follow-up. Did someone express interest in getting services from you, but said they didn’t have budget? Reevaluating your opportunities means you may be able to breath life into deals you thought were closed or stagnant. And to get even more power out of ACT!, you can create a recurring activity on your calendar to “Evaluate ACT! use” once a year. And of course if you find there is something you would like ACT! to do for you that it isn’t, please give us a call! How are you working with ACT! differently this year? How will ACT! help you reach your goals?
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