Organizing and Automating Your Contact Process
At the very least, you will want to be able to email all your prospects and clients at the click of a button. This is what a contact management system (CMS) does for you. Your database of clients and prospects adds tremendous value to your business! This is not a list you can buy...it's one you will carefully cultivate.
There are a lot of choices for a CMS system and the list is growing. Depending on how technical and big you want to grow you can spend a lot and go with InfusionSoft which has every bell and whistle imaginable or spend nothing and start with Mail Chimp. MailChimp is FREE for the first 2000 contacts (as of this writing) and 9 out of 10 stagers have less than that many leads, so it should work well to start for your business.
Quick Steps to Getting Started with MailChimp
1. Click on the link and create an account with MailChimp
2. Create a List called "Realtors" where you can upload your Wave Marketing Realtor contacts. Consider creating an "Auto Responder" campaign and attaching it to the "Realtors" list to drip follow-up emails automatically.
3. Create a List called "Clients" for all clients to be added to, as well as friends and family. This list is your redesign list and you should consider adding an auto-responder campaign about your approach to redesign.
4. Create newsletters monthly to both lists. Send open house announcements to the Realtor List. Send fun redesign articles to the Clients list.
The important thing is staying in touch!
I've used every kind of CMS available for simple emailing and there are pros and cons to each. I think when you're just starting out, it's best to go with a free, simple to use MailChimp program and then you can always GROW into something else down the road. If you're one of those people who like to research everything before committing then take a look at: GetReponse.com, Aweber.com, ConstantContact.com and Emma.com.
Since technology is always changing, I will always have my favorite technologies listed in the HSR Library under Technology and Business.