Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

To me, it seems that one of a company's most valuable assets is it's prospect list - and that will be stored in some form of database. As a marketer, you will need to be able to access this info.

You will probably need to know how to use the "data" functions in Excel as well, and you should understand the difference between .csv files and standard Excel files. And. you may need to learn to use one or more of the popular Contact Management systems, e.g. ACT!. I frequently use Excel to move data from one program to another - for example, you might obtain a mailing list with the field name, "Company" - and your contact management system calls that field "Company Name" - Excel gives you an easy way to make that change.

You may also need to know how to do a mail merge, e.g. integrate that database with a word processing letter.

Hi jmasterson:

As a marketer you need to know the most popular database formats, you need to know how to import and export between different programs and how to create a database from a Word or plain text document. You need to know how to exchange files between Outlook, Excel and Access, and contact management systems such as ACT!

So, I would suggest you learn, at a minimum how to do this with Word, Outlook, MS Notepad, Excel, Access and ACT! or Goldmine.

It is absolutely necessary to understand this to be an effective and expert marketer.

I use databases everyday using the above applications. I would say my level of expertise is advanced, I learned these skills years ago and continue to improve on them, there is always something new to learn.

I hope that helps!