Kristi Smith Consulting | Business Solutions That Make Sense
  • Home

Prepping your Database before the Holidays

9/21/2011

 
Picture
As a kind gesture to friends, networking partners, and clients, holiday cards are a nice way for a company to say they are thinking about the people who make their business possible.  And organizing your database ahead of time can make the holiday card send out a much easier task.

What are the best ways to prep your database?  A few months before you want to send out your greeting cards, assess who you would like to include in your mailing—are you sending cards to networking contacts and gift baskets to clients?  Think about who you would like included in your mailing, and mark them in your database.

How should you mark them?  This is up to you.  We recommend creating a group in ACT! called “Holiday cards 2011” (or similar) to make things easy.  Once you have your list of persons receiving cards complete, it is a good idea to verify that you have their correct mailing info.

Updating records is a smart move everyone should do periodically.  An easy way to accomplish this is to send out a mail merged email template asking clients if the address listed is their current mailing address, and asking them to reply with up to date information only if it is not current (Swiftpage users should note that we offer a premade template in a bundle that does just that.  Click here for details).

Verifying addresses before your holiday mailing means you save money on cards that may otherwise have been returned to sender.  Once you have a list made up, you may choose to send a mailed greeting card or maybe a Swiftpage email template.  If you choose the former, you can set up your labels for printing in advance.  If you choose the latter, you won’t have much more work to do—Swiftpage makes it easy to send out email blasts to large groups of people with only a few clicks.

Prepping your database in advance of the holidays can save you time and money—making it an administrative priority can help.

Do you have any tips for seamless holiday mailings?  Share with us in the comments.

Sage ACT! 2012 Available Now—Would you like to learn more?

9/7/2011

 
Picture
Are you interested in ACT! 2012 and want to do some product scoping?  Here are a few places you can rely on to get the skinny on 2012:

1)  Call our office
Kristi is always happy to talk to you about what ACT! does best.  Feel free to call our office to have a conversation about the new ACT! 2012 features and whether they are right for you.  We can be reached at 847-520-0860. And if you are in need of an ACT! feature that hasn't been incorporated into ACT! yet, let us know that too. We may be able to create it for you through our customization work, or there may be an add-on product that can add that feature to your database.

2)  Check out our website
Our website has been updated with plenty of specs for the new features included in 2012.  Read about it here.

3)  Sign up for a free webinar demo
Kristi is giving complimentary web demos of ACT! 2012.  You can log on and simply watch, or you can ask questions for Kristi to answer in real time as she walks you through the new product.  Upcoming demo dates include:

Thursday, Sept. 8th 1:00pm Central
Tuesday, Sept. 20th 11:00am Central
Tuesday, Oct. 4th 1:00pm Central
Thursday, Oct. 20th 11:00am Central

Click here to register!

How to Find Your Unattached Email Messages

9/1/2011

 
Picture
Have you ever noticed this icon in your Windows System Tray? Or maybe you know you sent a client an email, but it isn’t showing up in the client’s history record and you don’t know why?

The envelope with the red X icon is an alert informing you that the ACT! Quick Attach process has failed for one or more emails; meaning, you have Outlook emails that failed to attach to a contact record in ACT!.

At times, ACT! is unsuccessful in attaching an email message to an ACT! contact record  - perhaps your network connection was lost or the contact does not exist in your ACT! database or maybe it is a new email address for one of your current contacts.

Unsure of what action to take next, ACT! will hold the e-mails for a period of time allowing you to decide how to best handle them.

To review and clear the Quick Attach alerts:
  1. Double-click the Quick Attach Failed icon (envelope with a red X) in the system tray to open the Outlook Quick Attach portal window.
  2. Click the ‘Not Attached Messages’ tab at the top of the window.
  3. Select the unattached message(s) and choose the action you’d like performed from the toolbar options:
    Retry Attach – The program will try once again to attach to the appropriate contact record.
    Attach to ACT! Contact – Opens the Attach Email to Contacts window where you can manually enter the contact record you’d like the email attached to.
    Attach to New Contact – Opens a New Contact window where you can create a new contact record and have the email attached to that record.
    Remove – Deletes the email message from the list without attaching it to a record.
  4. When you are finished, click Close.

If you don’t see the icon in your system tray, then you don’t have any recent messages that failed to attach.

    Loading

    Picture
    Subscribe To Our Newsletter


    Archives

    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    August 2010
    April 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009


    Categories

    All
    8x8
    ACT! 2011
    ACT! 2013
    ACT! Activities
    ACT! Add On
    ACT! And Outlook Integration
    ACT! Backups
    Act! Connect
    Act! Customization
    Act! Database Maintenance
    ACT! Dynamic Groups
    Act! Emarketing
    Act! Features
    ACT! For Events
    ACT! For Mobile Devices
    Act! For Web
    Act! Personal Info Tab
    Act! Personalization
    Act! Premium
    Act! Premium Cloud
    Act! Promotions
    ACT! Reports
    ACT! Searches
    ACT! Social Media
    Act! Technical Support
    ACT! Tip
    Act! Update
    Act! V16
    Act! V17
    Act! V18
    Automated Marketing
    Automation
    Browser Issues
    Business Ethics
    Business Hours
    Business Humor
    Business Intelligence
    Business Tools
    Call Lists
    Chrome
    Cloud Communications
    Cloud Hosting
    Contact Layout
    Contacts
    Content Marketing
    CRM Integration
    Customer Appreciation
    Customer Relationships
    Customer Retention
    Database Conversion
    Digital Marketing
    DIY
    Drip Marketing
    Duplicate Entries
    Efficiency
    Email
    Email Marketing
    Events
    Export
    Exporting To Excel
    FAQ
    Favorite Contacts
    Favorite Lookup
    Fill The Pipeline
    Filtering
    History List
    Holidays
    How To
    Import
    Integration
    Intuit
    Labor Day
    Leads In ACT!
    LinkedIn
    Microsoft Office
    Mobility
    Newsletter
    Opportunities
    Organization
    Outlook Integration
    Payment Processing
    PayPal
    Payroll
    Productivity
    Prospects
    Queries
    QuickBooks Online
    QuickBooks Payments
    QuickBooks Payroll
    Relationship Building
    Sales Pipeline
    Sales Review
    Slack
    Social Media
    Social Media Marketing
    Spring
    Strategic Planning
    Subscription
    Summer Projects
    Swiftpage
    Sync ACT! To Mobile
    Task List
    Technical Issue
    Technical Support
    Trade Shows
    Training
    Upgrade
    Upgrade ACT!
    Voice Over Ip
    VOIP
    Web API
    Web Browsers
    Webinar
    Web Info Tab
    Windows 10
    WuFoo

Kristi Smith Consulting     |    (847) 520-0860    |    info@kristismith.com


This Web site is owned by Kristi Smith Consulting, LLC. Kristi Smith Consulting, LLC is independent from Swiftpage and is not authorized to make any statement, representation or warranties or grant any license or permission on behalf of Swiftpage regarding any product, service or Web site content. Certain materials made available on or through this Web site are owned by Swiftpage and cannot be used without the prior written permission of Swiftpage; such materials have been released to KSC as a Swiftpage Authorized Business Partner and are used with permission from Swiftpage ACT! LLC. | www.swiftpage.com | All images displayed are the property of Kristi Smith Consulting and may not be copied or used without prior written authorization from a Kristi Smith Consulting administrator.