Smart marketers use the holidays as a chance to reach out to their prospects and reconnect with their customers. What makes the holidays a great time to connect, is that these dates are recognized and celebrated, so you are on familiar ground. Holidays also give you a reason to reach out in a personalized, non-sales way to the people you want to stay in touch with.

The next few weeks, with Thanksgiving (oops, we missed the Canadian Thanksgiving in October), Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year’s, to name ... [Read more: Use Seasonal Greetings To Give Your Company a Lift]]]>

Smart marketers use the holidays as a chance to reach out to their prospects and reconnect with their customers. What makes the holidays a great time to connect, is that these dates are recognized and celebrated, so you are on familiar ground. Holidays also give you a reason to reach out in a personalized, non-sales way to the people you want to stay in touch with.

The next few weeks, with Thanksgiving (oops, we missed the Canadian Thanksgiving in October), Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year’s, to name a few, are a perfect time to contact the key peole you work with to let them know you are thankful for their business, wish them a safe and happy new year and mention you would like to work with them in the new year.  Remember, no hard sell here!

Here are a few quick tips to make sending your greetings a bit easier this season.

• Segment.  Ok, you have 15,000 contacts in your database, but you don’t really want to send to everyone, right? Segment your database and then create a group for the contacts you want to include on your list. You could use your ID/Status and look up all Customers, Prospects and Vendors as a example. Or combine a look up of Customers with sale revenue over X. (You do track sales revenue in your database don’t you?) Or maybe you have a “Holiday” field check box that can be updated, check it and that contact is on the list. All this work should be done in your ACT! database, not is Excell or Outlook. Why make work for yourself.
• Personalize.  The salutation field in ACT! is designed for this purpose. If using an email template (more on that later) customize it to include the “Salutation” field.  Your message will look much better than a generic “Dear Valued Customer” at the beginning.
• Labels and subjects. If you are mailing your greeting, use the label feature in ACT! (File > Print > Labels) and customize the label. hange the font to italics, or change the font to something less formal than Arial. If using email, create an inviting subject like “Holiday wishes from your team at ABC Company.”
• Record it.  After the work is done and the message is sent, record a history in ACT! that you sent each contact a holiday greeting. OK, you don’t have to do this one at a time. Create a lookup of all the contacts on your list, go to the Contact List view, and hit the CTRL+H keys at the same time. This brings up the Record History box and now record this as Type = Other, Result = Letter Sent, Regarding = Holiday greeting 2011 (or your specific greeting type.)

If you would like any help with getting your holiday greetings out this year, give us a call. We’ll help you get your message out.

PS:  If you are planning on emailing your seasonal greetings, it’s not recommended to send hundreds or thousands of emails from your domain. You need a tool that uses white listed servers. An ideal email marketing solution for ACT! is Swiftpage, which is built into ACT! as Sage Emarketing for ACT!. It is an inexpensive and effective marketing tool for your toolkit. We can help you get set up with a free 60-day trail version that will get you through the holidays.

As is my tradition around New Years, I like to reflect on the past year and think about what’s important in the coming year. Here’s my list of resolutions for the new year (and don’t be surprised if ACT! is mentioned in only a few of them.)

1. As I was thinking about this post, I re-read my resolutions from last year. What surprised me is that they are all relevant as we look into 2011. So my first ... [Read more: Top 10 Business Resolutions for 2011]]]>

As is my tradition around New Years, I like to reflect on the past year and think about what’s important in the coming year. Here’s my list of resolutions for the new year (and don’t be surprised if ACT! is mentioned in only a few of them.)

1. As I was thinking about this post, I re-read my resolutions from last year. What surprised me is that they are all relevant as we look into 2011. So my first resolution is to revisit that blog and apply any suggestions that make sense.

2. Create a plan. Yes, this sounds boring and basic, but in a business climate as unforgiving as this, can you afford not to have a plan? Rather than being a time-waster, a plan can save you time and save money by giving you a context against which to evaluate the relevance of your actions, not to mention help you stay on target.

3. Double down on what worked in 2010.  Whatever paid off last year is worth investing more resources, time and money in for 2011. Ask yourself what promotions got your client’s attention. What was your top-selling service or product and how can we get your clients to buy more? ACT! users, what does your Opportunities Referred By report tell you were your top referral sources in 2010?

4. Experiment with something new. Yes, this may make you anxious and take you outside of your comfort zone, but trying something new may be the best option. And the best new ideas often come from conversations with your clients, suppliers and employees. 

5. Fire your D-grade clients. This may seem radical when you feel like every dollar of revenue is important, but high-maintenance, low-margin clients suck time and resources from more profitable clients. Make a list of your clients (ACT! users had better already have this in place) and then give each of them a grade. Again, with ACT!, ID/Status is a great way to do this (Client-A, Client-B, etc.) For everyone below a C, create a plan to turn them into A’s. By the way, another benefit of this strategy is the discipline of evaluating each client’s potential value to your company and plan a client specific strategy for raising C’s to B’s and B’s to A’s.

6. Get rid of the “Lookie-Loos”. Fill your funnel with prospects that will actually buy from you. Have you been working on prospects that no longer return your calls or e-mails? Remove them from your hot list and put them back into your marketing funnel (ACT! drip marketing, do I hear you calling?) Then, only call on prospects where you know: a) the pain you solve for them, b) their budget, and c) who can me the buying decision. Separating “Lookie-Loos” from the real buyers will increase your sales productivity.

7. Leverage your brand. In 2011 it’s more important than ever to avoid becoming a “me too” brand. It’s time to distill your “secret sauce”–what you bring to your clients that others don’t. Next let’s go back to resolution #5 and figure out the profile of our ideal client. (You are tracking those characteristics in ACT!, aren’t you?) Combine your secret sauce with your target client profile and you are ready to gear your marketing to that niche. 

8. Expand your marketing. Insanity is . . . you know, doing the same thing and expecting different results. Keep in mind that marketing today includes traditional media and social media. Don’t be timid, try a new marketing approach, especially if it makes you stretch. Keep yourself on the growing edge and keep refining your marketing as you find things that work.

9. Expand your network. Even if you’ve embraced LinkedIn and Facebook, face-to-face is still important to close new business and get referrals. Back to ACT! again, take a look at who referred clients to you last year; what clients have relationships with the same vendors? . . . a single coffee or lunch with a “center of influence” or vendor could lead to many new clients. Need some inspiration? Check out John Jantsch’s best selling book The Referral Engine and learn how to turn on the referral faucet.

10. Shift your brain. For resolutions to occur, everything must start with an internal shift of your mindset. Resolve that the glass is once again half full and keep your mind free of self doubt, worry or fear.

Let me know what you think of these ideas as well as other resolutions on your own list for 2011.

Previously on this blog we discussed that ACT! 2010 is  not compatible with Office 2010.  While still not fully supported with ACT! 2010, Office 2010 users do have some options (see next paragraph).  This is good news for ACT! 2010 users but even better news is that Sage ACT! 2011 fully supports MS Office 2010 32-bit edition.  For more information on Sage ACT! 2011, check out http://www.aspen-tech.com/SageACT2011.html. 

This new ACT! Knowledge Base Article (ACT! by Sage ... [Read more: Office 2010 & ACT!]]]>

Previously on this blog we discussed that ACT! 2010 is  not compatible with Office 2010.  While still not fully supported with ACT! 2010, Office 2010 users do have some options (see next paragraph).  This is good news for ACT! 2010 users but even better news is that Sage ACT! 2011 fully supports MS Office 2010 32-bit edition.  For more information on Sage ACT! 2011, check out http://www.aspen-tech.com/SageACT2011.html. 

This new ACT! Knowledge Base Article (ACT! by Sage Compatibility With MS Office 2010) details the options available to ACT! 2010 users and how to set it up.  Basically, here’s what you can and can’t do when you have ACT! 2010 and Office 2010:

Can…

• Send email from ACT! using Outlook 2010
• Record email history to ACT!
• “Quick Attach” messages to ACT!
• “Attach to ACT! Contacts”

Can’t…

• Integrate the ACT! Calendar with Outlook 2010
• Export to Excel 2010
• Use Word 2010 as your Word Processor

Knowledgeable users of ACT! know that, when used correctly, you can get much more done with ACT! than without.  The introduction of Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011, gives us a break out tool that will unlevel the playing field.

For years our clients have been asking for a tool that would use logic to automate tasks.  An example might be to automatically send a renewal email 45 days before the expiration of a service warranty contact.  Or have ACT! automatically schedule a call when you haven’t touched a top client’s record in 60 days.  Smart Tasks in ... [Read more: Sage ACT! 2011 – Smart Tasks Automate Processes]]]>

Knowledgeable users of ACT! know that, when used correctly, you can get much more done with ACT! than without.  The introduction of Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011, gives us a break out tool that will unlevel the playing field.

For years our clients have been asking for a tool that would use logic to automate tasks.  An example might be to automatically send a renewal email 45 days before the expiration of a service warranty contact.  Or have ACT! automatically schedule a call when you haven’t touched a top client’s record in 60 days.  Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011 now does that and much more. 

The ideas are just starting to flow on how to use Smart Tasks.  Check out these blogs on Sage’s site.  Liz Hendon, a respected colleague has also written an interesting blog on some creative uses of Smart Tasks. 

The technology behind Smart Tasks is Microsoft® Windows® Workflow Foundation.  With this strong foundation, the potential for Smart Tasks is all on the up side.

Look for more posts on the potential for Smart Tasks.  Let us hear from you on your ideas for what you would like to automate.

Whether you’re gearing up to send a special turkey day greeting, a holiday card, or an email to ring in the New Year, it’s important to use your ACT! database as a great resource to make this much easier and save you time. 

First, do you have a way of identifying which contacts in your database should receive your greeting?  If not, that’s the first step.  A good way of doing this is with a “Greetings” field in your ACT! database that has a multi-select dropdown.  Here’s a step-by-step on how to set that up:

1)      Make sure ... [Read more: Getting Your ACT! Database “Holiday Ready”]]]>

Whether you’re gearing up to send a special turkey day greeting, a holiday card, or an email to ring in the New Year, it’s important to use your ACT! database as a great resource to make this much easier and save you time. 

First, do you have a way of identifying which contacts in your database should receive your greeting?  If not, that’s the first step.  A good way of doing this is with a “Greetings” field in your ACT! database that has a multi-select dropdown.  Here’s a step-by-step on how to set that up:

1)      Make sure you are logged into your main ACT! database with an administrator’s user account. 

2)      Also ensure that there are no other users logged into your main ACT! database as this procedure does require the database to be “locked”.

3)      Click the Tools menu and go to Define Fields (at this point if anyone is logged into your database it will prompt you to lock them out).

4)      On the left side of the Define Fields window under List Tasks, click Manage Drop-Down Lists.

5)      On the left side of the Manage Drop-Down Lists window under Drop-Down List Tasks, click Create Drop-Down List.

6)      Enter “Greetings” as the name of the list and if you only want administrators and managers to be able to control the list values, uncheck the box at the bottom for “Allow users to edit items in this list”.  NOTE: Never leave “Automatically add new items user enter to the list” checked.  This will cause you to have misspellings and different variations of the same value.

7)      Click Next.

8)      Add your list values and when you are done click Finish.

9)      Click the Home button to get back to the main Define Fields window.

10)   On the left side of the Define Fields window under Field Tasks, click Create New Field.

11)   Enter “Greetings” as the name of the field, check the box to “Use Drop-Down List”, select your “Greetings” list and click Next.

12)   Check the box for “Limit to List”, check the box for “Allow Multi-Select”, click Finish and then click Close.

13)   Now that the field is created in the database, you need to add it to your layout so users can begin to choose who should receive which greetings.  To do that, use the following ACT! Knowledge Base article about Designing Layouts in ACT!

Now that you have your Greetings field added to your database and layout, your users can begin to populate that field on each of their contacts’ records so you know who should get which mailings.  Once that field is populated, an easy way to see who should get each greeting is to use a group in ACT!.  For this example we’ll use Thanksgiving:

1)      Click the View menu in ACT! and choose Groups.

2)      Once in the Groups view, click the Groups menu and choose New Group.

3)      Give the new group a name such as “Greetings – Thanksgiving”.

4)      On the Contacts tab of the group, click Add/Remove Contacts.

5)      From the Add/Remove Contacts window, click Edit Criteria.

6)      Here you’ll want to add a line for the Contact field Greetings where it Contains Thanksgiving:

7)      After adding that line, click OK on the Group Criteria window and click OK on the Add/Remove Contacts window.

Now you have a group built in your ACT! database for everyone who should receive your Thanksgiving greeting and it’s easy for your users to manage who should be in that group. Since this group uses criteria, as your users change the Greetings field in the ACT! database, contacts will be added and removed from this group appropriately.  Just repeat this process for your other greetings.

CONGRATULATIONS!  Now you have your selection of contacts to print labels for post cards or envelopes, to send to your local print shop, or to do an email blast using SwiftPage Email.  If you’d like further assistance with any of those items, let AspenTech know how we can help.