I don't suppose your prospects generally take the time to tell you that your decision maker has left their company and to please redirect all future sales and marketing communications to the new person who has replaced them. (Yeah right!) Maybe your customers even forget to do this.

Suppose there was a free service that automatically gives you a list of every one of your business contacts that is no longer with the firm you knew them to be with. Wouldn't this be handy!

People move on. And in business it's over 30% annually. With a long sales cycle, as well as the fact that some companies may not be in the market one year and then be serious buyers the next, staying in touch for the long haul is critical to the success of marketing and sales. Furthermore, relationships with current customers can hinge on the relationship you have with one person. If they go, you now have to start building a new relationship with someone who may be predisposed to taking your account elsewhere. Suffice to say that it is essential to know when your "contacts" move on!

Email is one cost effective strategy for identifying key contacts who may have moved on. Undeliverable email will automatically bounce back to the sender. And, unlike the postal service that charges for address change notification, this way is free! Besides, with B-to-B address change notification through the Post Office is only effective for telling you that the firm has relocated. It's not effective for personnel changes. What you need to do is email.

If you do a broadcast email, within 24 hours you've received notifications of not only bad addresses, but also for folks who are no longer with the company.

Using GoldMine's email rules, you can automatically file all those bad emails into an "undeliverable folder." By looking up email addresses (Lookup Menu > Details > email Address) or using eGrabber you can easily identify the records in GoldMine that you need to follow up and identify a replacement for, or at least a corrected email.

With this strategy in mind, "Return to Sender" takes on a new meaning and a new value!

Whether you have a big or small marketing budget…sometimes less is more. Here's what I mean.

Short, simple text-only communications to prospects and customers can be just as effective as expensive fancy marketing pieces. In fact, they can even be better. Consider these four drawbacks to more elaborate campaigns.

1. Today, the attention span of consumers is nearly nonexistent. The longer the message, the more appealing it needs be in order to pull the reader in.
2. It's difficult and expensive to produce an impressive or attractive marketing piece. Besides, with consumer expectations as high as they are, a campaign is more likely to fall short of any powerful or lasting impression anyway.  

3. In the time it takes to conceive, plan, develop, and produce even a modest quality campaign, the marketing opportunity can pass you by.  

4. The instincts of the consumer recognize any mass produced campaign piece as being just that, mass marketing, rather than a personal communication. In other words, consumers don't feel as though there is a real person on the sending end. Therefore, the affects of personalization are diminished. The recipient feels no sense of obligation to respond.

Consider the alterative classic guerilla marketing strategy. Quickie emails, letters and faxes. Good news for GoldMine users who already have the perfect tool for executing such campaigns.

The trick is to think of a compelling message and then create a highly personalized, extremely brief communication with one main key point and a clear call to action. I'm talking about a few sentences in an email. Or, two or three short paragraphs in a fax or letter. Nothing fancy - no big words, no strong graphics (a logo, maybe)! Use simple, sincere wording, phrased as though it was written by the sender to one person and one person only. This is the kind of marketing campaign that would not even be suspected as being a marketing campaign. Yet, it is a campaign with these major marketing advantages:

• It's easy and inexpensive to produce
• It can go to market in hours, much less days
• It works as effectively for ten as it does for a thousand
• The feel is personal by its very nature
• What you send gets read!!!

Since it is so easy to tweak the message, you can even target your campaigns based on details you have in GoldMine about your subject audience. So, less is more. And, since it's less expensive, your ROI should be more too!

Here is a tip to help you deal with the large volume of "non-deliverable email" one gets back as a result of doing a broadcast email with GoldMine. Rather than dealing with the returned (failed) email messages in your email center inbox, create an email rule that automatically files these emails into a special folder to be handled when you see fit.

Simply create a new rule for incoming messages that identifies emails with a subject that contains the various possible scenarios for undeliverable email. (There's quite a few, and new ones are continually being added.) As the rule's action, have it file the email to a special folder you've created beforehand for undeliverable mail. Remember to activate your rule just before doing a broadcast.

Also, don't forget to deactivate it a day or two after your broadcast. When you've got the time to clean up all those bad email addresses, go into the folder containing all your undeliverable email. To find the corresponding records in GoldMine, just lookup based on "details" for "email address" and type in the email address contained in returned message.

Bonus Benefit - Doing broadcast emails and going through your non-deliverables is a great way to learn about changes in prospect and customer records. With such a large percentage of turnovers in companies, keeping up with non-deliverable email is an effective tactic for alerting you of personnel changes so you can keep your database up-to-date.

  Before anyone started using the term CRM, direct marketers were using databases. And, while CRM is the latest buzz, direct marketing gurus have been telling marketers about database fundamentals before Elan Susser (inventor of GoldMine) wrote his first line of code. The fundamentals are still relevant. Fortunately, however, GoldMine makes it a heck of a lot easier to practice them.

On the other hand, just because we have a powerful tool in GoldMine, doesn't mean we're doing what we need to in order to maintain, enhance and use our database. Here are a few database fundamentals and the features in GoldMine that give you better ability to adhere to them:

Ultimately the most fundamental aspect of maintaining a good database depends on the users of it. The real moment of truth that will most greatly affect the quality of your database is every time one of your sales reps or telemarketers or administrators is entering contact information. Your CRM system is not going to spell check a name or address or phone number.

Assuming your "house file" of prospects and customers is one of your organization's most valuable assets, are you treating it as such? Who in your organization is responsible for seeing to it that you're doing what should be done in order to maintain, enhance and use your database?

Being a better marketer is a lot easier with GoldMine. And, while GoldMine can't turn you into a marketing genius, it sure can help you to work like one!

Not too long ago faxes would be announced each time one was received. Nowadays, as email inboxes and snail-mail boxes get bloated, targeted broadcast faxing is still a medium that reaches decision makers with a hard-copy printed page. Unlike email that is often deleted based on the subject alone before it's even viewed, faxes deliver a complete message with graphics. This helps them get attention.

While CRM solutions gain greater adoption, most organizations are still just catching on to the potential that a fax server offers. That's going to change, especially as the technology's integration with CRM matures, and as the software offers more robust features.

Using Internet faxing with OmniRush (formerly FaxRush), you can reach contacts for $.09 a page, far less than the cost of even, "bulk" direct mail. Internet faxing doesn't rely on a modem or tie up phone lines to transmit; it goes out over the Internet and rings at the receiver's fax machine like an ordinary fax. The volume is virtually unlimited.

With OmniRush, faxes can be merged like MS Word documents during the broadcast process so each fax is personalized. Adding a fax-back form to the document makes it easy for recipients to respond. Always offer an "opt out option" in at least 9-point size font.

Fax numbers tend to be more readily available than email addresses. It's an especially viable communication medium for B-to-B marketers. Integrated with your other communication channels, it can build business and reinforce current customer relationships.

The strong economy can't last forever! Some economist say a mild recession is a good thing - in the way evolution thins the herd. If you plan to be one of the survivors, you better have CRM and the discipline to use it!

CRM is designed to help you with the things that are more important than ever during tough times:

• Analyzing the efforts and effectiveness of your marketing and sales
• Targeting audiences with relevant messages
• Tracking and accessing information · Servicing customers
• Working effectively as a team · Communicating internally and externally
• Automating functions for greater productivity

In a weaker economy, the time frame in your sales cycles can extend, making persistence and follow-up an even greater success factor. It is said that, "sales is a contact sport." And, in a soft economy you need to make more contacts. The tools available in GoldMine give marketing and sales what they need to reach out and stay in touch with prospects and customers. Otherwise time consuming tasks like literature fulfillment, letter and email merging, etc, can all be automated for greater productivity, volume and consistency.

Working harder isn't enough…you also have to work smarter! With the analysis and reporting tools built into GoldMine you can do both.

Even with sales automation technology, some sales people just aren't going to make it. This doesn't have to be a negative thing. Some businesses make a practice of "quartiling" their sales reps. Quartiling is simply splitting your sales force up into four groups by volume. When times get tough some organizations let go of the lowest performers (the bottom 25%), either to make way for new reps or to simply cut expenses. It also allows the organization to devote more resources to their the agents with a greater likelihood of success. Either way, GoldMine's territory realignment tool makes it easy to re-distribute leads, accounts, and transfer scheduled activities from one rep to another.

When the going gets tough, hopefully you already have CRM and you're leveraging its benefits. If you already have CRM but you're not using it like you could, follow the advice of business guru and best-selling author Michael Gerber and take some time to "work on your business, rather than in it." If you don't even have CRM, get it, before the economy gets you!

A 1997 study by Cahners Publishing of 40,000 sales inquiries showed that only 11% of people bought within 90 days of their initial inquiry. About 17% bought between 4-6 months after their inquiry. And another 25% bought 6-12 months after inquiry. Almost 50% took a year to make a purchase. Do the math and you realize that those who end up buying 90 days after their inquiry represent four times more sales opportunities than shorter-term prospects.

You've heard it said that an effective lead handling process must build-in future follow-up. Touching a prospect periodically over 18 months after they show up on your radar screen has several essential benefits:

• Greater likelihood of being there when your prospect is making a buying decision.
• Developing recognition of your products/services and company.
• Maintaining your database accuracy as your learn of personnel and address changes.
• Informing prospects of special promotions, awards, announcements, new products and other information that may trigger a response.
• Each prospect communication can build credibility and leave a positive residual affect; thereby strengthening the impact of future communications.

A common mistake is leaving lead follow-up to the sales force. Sales people primarily communicate on verbal channels (phone and appointment). While very powerful, the sales force may not deliver enough frequency and coverage. To achieve the repetition lead follow-up requires companies may have to use direct mail, broadcast fax, broadcast email, and public relations.

GoldMine is the perfect tool for lead follow-up. The sales force and marketing share and update the same database. Their individual efforts compliment the others; leading to better overall results.

Do your sales and marketing people meet regularly to discuss ways to improve their cooperation via the database? Does marketing advise sales about campaigns? Do the sales people capture the information that is vital to targeted marketing campaigns?

If you want your prospects to remember you and buy from you by reaching them periodically for a longer time frame, GoldMine is the perfect tool.