Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

I went through a similar dilemma a while back.

Eons ago I used FileMaker Pro, loved it and wanted something similar, on a smaller scale for my current needs. Unfortunately, the price is too steep and I would need to invest too much time to learn the new version of FileMaker.

In the end, it comes down to what you need to do now.
And because you do not want to spend time again moving to a different system, you also need to think about what you will probably want/need in the future.

Is it for business or not?

I have a small business and do not have a very large number of contacts.
But as a small business owner I would appreciate
- the extra marketing power and
- the time saved,
that a good contact management system would provide.
And this would be on my top priority once I could invest in this.

The result of my research was that I learned that the best solution for both contacts and marketing is the most expensive:
- Infusionsoft
Others like me say this stands well in front of everything else out there today. But it is not in my budget right now.

I decided to follow those who do not invest in the contact management with marketing options. Basically waiting before I take the plunge and make the investment. I found similar people using Outlook - with extra with tools.

In the end I followed a recommendation I heard from Rich Scheffren and got
- ClearContext for Outlook - www.clearcontext.com
There are 2 versions, a 30 day trial period and the expensive version is at $90.

I like this. It works well with Outlook. It gives me all the help I need now, and increases my productivity.
I did spend a long afternoon setting it up to work for me. But in the end this has saves me time every week. I have made this work for my current contact marketing and it gives me a stronger contact management tool than Outlook alone.

Not free. But you can give it a try. Use it to think about:
- what you need now
- where you want to go later on
- what you are prepared to invest today

Hope this helps.

I use ACT by Sage. I do not know if you can access it remotely, but it is a great tool for keep track of contacts. It also interfaces with my quickbooks to help me keep track of slaes orders, etc.

Mike