Use a Contact Database But Make It Easy To Use The Contact Data You Capture
Surprisingly in this day and age a large number of small businesses are still guilty of not even keeping a customer or prospect database, with many still relying on Microsoft Outlook to keep adhoc information. This might work initally for a very small business when the business owner is involved in the day to day operation and may often know all his customers by name. But very quickly if the business is to grow in any way at all it becomes vitally important to keep contact informtion and notes on each prospect and customer so you aren’t left relying on your brain remembering every minute detail.
There are a number of software packages and online services that let you maintain a customer database, or for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and using one of these will bring you on the right road to maximising your existing customer base and converting the most prospective customers.
However one failing with the majority of these systems is that even if you have captured the data there is still quite a lot of work involved in using that data to send communications to the contacts held in it.
A number of these systems can facilitate email, however when it comes to sending postcards or letters or SMS messages these systems cannot do it. Often they expect you to export the contacts for printing on address labels or some kind of mail merge function. The big failing with this as we see it is this is still very time consuming and not easily managed once your contact list grows to more than a few hundred.
This limitation is the key reason why businesses that have captured this information still do not often use it to the best of their ability.
Autopilot Marketing Systems can change this. At the core is a robust contact management database, but where it differs is with the integration to send letters, postcards, emails and SMS messages built into it. Sending a message, or a sequence of messages to customers and contacts is now much easier. All fulfillment is automated so you don’t get bogged down in the menial tasks of printing out and sticking address labels.
The result is better communication with clients and contacts which can’t help but strengthen relationships and increase sales.
