Doing double duty

Doing double duty

Doing double duty

Do you, or your company, use a CRM application? Or do you employ an email marketing communication app (such as SwiftPage, Constant Contact, iContact or MailChimp)?

What about a service that allows you to send out printed postcards and greeting cards in the mail, such as SendOutCards.com?

Using SendOutCards you can mail one or more greetings cards from a list of thousands of designs. And you can upload your own custom designs. But its contact manager (if you can call it that) is pathetic. It's nothing more than a simple list.

Ditto for Constant Contact. Now CC has a lot more features such as an Event Manager and a Survey Manager. But its contact list is essentially brain-dead. Same thing for MailChimp.

Welcome to the world of multi-purpose applications.

Sage's ACT! connects with SwiftPage; it's a competitor to Constant Contact. Not only can you send out targeted email communications, but the results (opens, clicks, etc.) can be returned to you to find out who's interested and follow up with them. We could go on and on extolling the virtues and benefits of ACT! It's our favorite.

Also, check out sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer's own CRM application called Ace Of Sales. It's a rather full-featured CRM app with a complete communication portion that lets you send out branded emails, post cards (that get mailed for you), greeting cards and a special type of greeting card that has 2 of your business cards attached, with perforations. Pretty slick.

A very competent CRM app with a very robust email marketing component is InfusionSoft. Its feedback component is top notch.

SalesNexus is an ACT! look-alike that also has a strong email marketing component. If you know ACT!, you'll know how to use SalesNexus. It's competitively priced and very competent.

You'll be seeing a lot more of this. This is a growing trend. The functionality of email marketing systems will see their database/CRM portions grow beyond mere "dumb lists". And you'll see traditional CRM apps grow their communications portions by leaps and bounds. Because customers are demanding these features. And the developers are listening and coming up with new features and benefits.

Keep your eyes open.

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