Act! Emarketing has come up here at KSC a lot this year – from this month’s webinar, to featuring it in our newsletter, to discussing the Emarketing enhancements available in the latest version of Act!. But some of you may be wondering “What the heck is e-marketing anyway, and why should I care about it?”

E-marketing is any marketing done online or digitally, but when we talk about Act! Emarketing, we’re specifically referring to e-mail marketing. Do you email your contacts about any of the following?

• Company news
• Industry news
• Promotions, discounts and sales
• New or improved products and services
• Insider information (how to’s, FAQ’s, etc.)
• Birthday, anniversary or holiday greetings

Then you’re already doing e-mail marketing! But if you’re still sending all your e-marketing messages using your regular day-to-day email client, you’re missing out on some great ways to improve your marketing efficiency and success.

Using a program like Act! Emarketing offers a number of benefits over your regular e-mail client when it comes to e-mail marketing:

• A more professional image
• Customizable mobile-friendly templates
• Easily personalized emails
• Tracking/analytics
• Reporting
• A better send process (your emails are less likely to be marked as spam)
• The ability to create & schedule email campaigns in advance
• Functions necessary to comply with legal requirements, such as unsubscribe

And, with Act! Emarketing, you can take advantage of powerful Act! capabilities:

• Easily access Contacts, Lookups, Groups, and Companies right from within Act! to quickly build targeted email lists
• Upload and host images and documents that can be used to personalize your emails
• Easily share images and documents in your email campaigns by embedding or linking to your hosted library
• Easily create simple webforms to capture leads from web pages, newsletters, emails, and more
• View emarketing results directly on each contact record within Act!

• View a prioritized list of recipients ranked by level of interaction – allowing you to contact those who are most interested in your message – right within Act!

 
Want to purchase the latest version of Act! and take advantage of all Act! Emarketing has to offer? Already have Act! Emarketing and looking for training in using it efficiently and effectively?

Did you know that your purchase of a recent version of Act! Premium (v16 and above) includes a basic Act! Emarketing account at no extra cost? Powerful, easy-to-use emarketing tools help you reach the right customers and prospects with the right message, so you can:
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• Grow your business
• Drive sales success
• Create customers for life

With Act! Emarketing you can create and send campaigns, analyze results and insights, and view comprehensive contact history – all within Act!

Take Advantage of Powerful Act! Capabilities

• Easily access Contacts, Lookups, Groups, and Companies right from within Act! to quickly build targeted email lists.
• View emarketing results directly on each contact record within Act!.
• Take notes, view complete history, and edit contact details to keep your data up-to-date – no synching, uploading, or downloading needed.

​Grow Your Business with Lead Capture

• Easily create simple webforms to capture leads from web pages, newsletters, emails, and more.
• Copy/Paste HTML into your web page, newsletter and more.
• Or, use a hyperlink to Act!’s hosted form.
• Extended and Basic forms included.
• Stay organized using Act! Group functionality.

 
Send Your Email with Confidence

• Ensure your message gets to the inbox, with our expert advice and handy strategic tips for higher conversions and improved deliverability.
• Our dedicated deliverability team manages sender reputation to ensure your emails are sent with outstanding delivery rates.
• Send personalized emails immediately or schedule for future delivery with ease. ​

New for Act! v18 - Act! emarketing has been greatly improved for Team use. As an administrator, you have greater control over who can send emarketing message with Call List filters and Act! emarketing permissions for send and Smart Tasks.
 
Want to purchase the latest version of Act! and take advantage of all Act! Emarketing has to offer? Already have Act! Emarketing and looking for training in using it efficiently and effectively?
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​We put out an email newsletter every month hoping that you will find it to be a valuable resource. Now it's your turn to help make the newsletter even better!

​Are there topics you would like to see us cover? Changes you think we should make? Act! features, functions or add-ons you would like to know more about? Take a short survey and let us know!

Valentine’s Day was first associated with romantic love by poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 1300’s, and since that time the February focus on relationships and love has continued to grow. So we figured this is the perfect time to highlight an 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. 

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 for a contact, you will see a list of related contacts under the Relationships tab for that contact. You can quickly go to any related contacts by clicking on their hyper-linked name. You can also edit a 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.

Looking for more information on how or why to utilize the Relationship tab or other Act! features? Contact us today by email at info@kristismith.com or phone at (847) 520-0860.

The first question you should ask yourself is “how can I tell who really likes us?”  Of course, off the top of your head you probably can name quite a few people with whom you do regular business.  But if you can set up Act! to tell you who is interacting with you and when, then you can get a clearer picture of who your best clients are.

Of course, what you consider your “best client” may vary.  Do you want to thank clients who buy a lot in net purchasing?  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!.
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Once you decide what your criteria is, you can set up Act! to stratify your clients.  Creating 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 your contacts labelled in this way, it’s easy to run a search for everyone who is an “A level” client or a “frequent customer.”
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From there it’s up to you how you thank your customers.  Whether you want to provide them with free, valuable white papers, send them hand-written thank you notes or do something else, making the effort is a guaranteed way to be sure you’re letting the clients who appreciate you know that the feeling is mutual.

Need help setting up client stratification? Contact us via email at info@kristismith.com or phone (847) 520-0860.

​If you use Act! emarketing, have you made use of Intelligent Call Lists? This feature allows you to find out exactly what happened after your Act! emarketing email was sent, including open rates, clicks, bounces, opt-outs etc. in easy-to-analyze graphs and detailed reports. Use what you learn to expedite follow-up, organize your leads and continuously hone your messages.

Learn more about the Call List Feature in Act! and how to use it.
 
Looking to get Act! emarketing, add the Call List feature to your Act! Emarketing subscription or need help utilizing your Call Lists?

Are you looking to increase sales, improve customer relationships or be more efficient in 2016? Maybe you’re interested in the latest marketing tools or learning proven marketing techniques. Following KSC on social media can lead you to some great resources. Check out a few of our recent posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:
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• 5 Must Haves to Revamp Your 2016 Email Strategy 
• Your ‘revenue roster’ could bring you riches 
• 10 Small Digital Marketing Strategy Hacks That Move The Needle 
• What Your 2016 Content Marketing Strategy Should Look Like 
• Boosting CRM uptake
• Organizing for productivity: 4 tips for minimizing distractions​ 

1) Create your lookup
First you will want to decide who will be getting cards and how you will organize them. We recommend either creating a group to which you then add all card recipients or selecting recipients by a commonality--all clients, all networking contacts, etc. Once you have the card recipients organized, create a lookup of those contacts. If you have your contacts marked off by ID Status already, you can simply create a lookup based on the relevant ID Status.

2) File>Print>Labels or Envelopes
From your lookup, go to the File dropdown and select Print. From the Print window, you can select either Label or Envelope (label if you will be printing address labels, envelope if you will be printing addresses directly onto your envelopes).

3) Select your stationery
Stationery companies like Avery make it easy to print directly from your computer. Act! has the dimensions of the most popular labels already saved as defaults. Simply select the product number that matches the labels or envelope size you have purchased, and Act! will print your labels so that they fit properly on the labels or envelopes you've selected. We can also help you create templates for envelopes or labels whose templates are not included in Act! if need be.

4) Preview and print
Once you’ve chosen your template, you can then preview your labels, save the document and print later, or print right away. It's that easy.

Do you need help using Act! to create holiday card or gift recipient lists, to create mailing labels or to print envelopes for holiday cards? Please Contact Us today. We’re happy to help!