ENEWS > SPRING 2008

Listen to Your ACT! Guru
Delivering Your Marketing Message With ACT!

Reaching out to new prospects and keeping in touch with customers are the fuels that feed the sales fire. Sadly, most small business owners can’t find time to proactively promote their businesses. The good news is that ACT! can automate these time-consuming tasks to keep the phone (and the cash register) ringing!

Quickly Finding Your Audience
When building your ACT! database, it is very important to categorize your relationships as they are entered into ACT!. When designing your database – begin with the end in mind. If you need to quickly find your customers to send a newsletter or new product announcement, make sure you categorize them as you enter their information into ACT!. The built-in ID/Status field is a great place to keep this information. You can modify the drop down choices by clicking the “Edit List Values” box at the bottom of the drop down box to add, modify, or delete the out-of-the-box options.

Depending on your organization, you may need to add additional custom fields to your database. For instance, if you serve multiple industries and would like to send targeted marketing pieces, you should add an Industry field to your database with an associated drop down list of appropriate choices. A user with a security level of Administrator or Manager can click Tools | Define Fields to add, modify, or delete ACT! fields.

Now that your ACT! contacts are categorized, you can quickly locate them by using the powerful ACT! lookup feature. For instance, clicking Lookup | ID/Status will bring up the ACT! lookup dialog box. Simply type the appropriate category (Customer) and click OK to locate all of your customers.

Taking a Snapshot of Your Marketing Campaign
To set the stage for future marketing campaign analysis, many ACT! users perform the optional step of creating a group. Creating a group allows you to “memorize” the list of customers at a moment in time. Later you can look back at the group to determine which contacts received the marketing communication, how many opportunities were created, and how many opportunities resulted in new business.

To Create a Static Group:
Click Groups | New Group. (This action automatically takes you to the Group detail view and creates a new group). Type in an appropriate group name (2008 Spring Mailing, March 2008 Newletter, etc). Next, add the customers from the lookup by clicking Groups | Group Membership | Add/Remove Contacts.

At the Add/Remove Contacts dialog box, click the Contacts button in the Static members area. At the Select Contacts dialog, click the drop down area in the Select From box and choose Current Lookup. Then click the >> button to add the contacts to the “selected contacts” display. Click OK.

Do It Yourself Marketing Automation
Now that you have selected your audience, you can use the ACT! Mail Merge feature to personalize your message. Click Write | Mail Merge to start the easy to use mail merge wizard. At the “Select Output” wizard page, select Printer for printed pieces or E-mail to send a broadcast e-mail. Click Next. At the “Select Template” wizard page click the Browse button to select an appropriate marketing template. At the “Select Contact” wizard page, click the Selected Group radio button and click the drop down arrow to choose your newly created group.

Click Next and Finish to either print or send the template via e-mail.

To generate Envelopes or Mailing Labels, simply click File | Print. Under Printout Type, you can select the Labels or Envelopes icon and pick the appropriate label or envelope size. Click the Print button. At the Define Filters dialog, click Current Lookup and click OK.

Outsourced Marketing
Many small business owners use a print house, fulfillment center, or on-line service to generate and mail direct marketing pieces, post cards, or brochures. To easily provide an industry standard “text” file (.txt, .csv, ascii, or delimited file – funny how they call it a standard, huh?), follow these steps: From the Contact Detail View, click the View Groups/Companies button (in the upper right). Select the appropriate group and click OK. Click View | Customize Columns (or right-mouse-click and select Customize Columns). The fields in use will appear in the right hand column. Available fields will appear in the left hand column. Click to highlight a desired field from the left and click the “right arrow button” to add it to the displayed fields list.

Click Tools | Export to Excel® to send a contact list with the appropriate fields to Excel. Once the list is sent to Excel, you can click File | Save As and select an appropriate name and location for the file. Make sure to click the Save As Type drop down to select Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt) or CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv).

ACT! Add-on Vendors to the Rescue
To save additional time and increase the quality of your marketing campaigns, you owe it to yourself to check-out the E-mail and Direct Marketing add-ons for ACT!. High Impact eMail 4.0 Professional by TemplateZone, RemarkableMail by C2 Business Advisors, and Swiftpage Email are robust solutions that fully integrate with ACT! You can find more information by visiting the ACT! Add-On Solutions page at: www.act.com/products/solutions/.

For more help with automated marketing campaigns, seek out an ACT! Certified Consultant. They are specialists at helping organizations get the most out of their ACT! investment .

Steve Stroz, ACT! Certified Consultant
Gold Coast Advisors, Inc.
www.goldcoastadvisors.com

3 Mail Merge functionality is available using the ACT! Word Processor, but not using Microsoft® Word.

4 In ACT! Premium for Web, this feature may behave differently.

5 ACT! Partners are third-party vendors. Sage Software and its affiliates are in no way liable or responsible for claims made related to the services provided by third-party vendors. Sage Software does not warrant or guarantee the quality of third-party services. Please direct inquiries regarding warranties to the appropriate third-party vendor.

6 ACT! Partners are third-party vendors. Sage Software and its affiliates are in no way liable or responsible for claims made related to the services provided by third-party vendors. Sage Software does not warrant or guarantee the quality of third-party services. Please direct inquiries regarding warranties to the appropriate third-party vendor.

Did you find this article useful? Let us know: ines.newby@sage.com