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Something for the weekend - New InTouch Update

by Greg Strutton 3/7/2008 5:50:00 PM

We have just launched a new feature in the Email Module of InTouch. When creating an email campaign, you can now select a previously sent campaign as the content. It's been a long time coming and lots of our customers have been requesting this. We're happy now we have finally released it to everyone.

When creating an email campaign you'll see it here:
Creating an email campaign snippet
As you can see, the 'Email Template' now has two options you can select from. The default is Templates, which is a list of all the Custom Templates you can use, plus the default system templates. When you select 'Past Emails Sent', you'll see a full list of all the emails you have sent in the past. When you select an email, it will be loaded in the preview pane to the right so you get an overview of what it looks like.

Have a good weekend!

Category: Development & Technology | InTouch
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Why Small Companies can Act like Big Companies

by James White 2/9/2008 4:12:00 PM

Watching The Tonight program about Tesco's launch of Fresh and Easy in America made me think about the success of corporate giants and why many believe that large companies are destroying the small, local businesses and companies.Whilst there is no doubt that Tesco's buying power gives them a huge advantage in terms of the prices they can sell products for, I am not totally convinced that their entrance into local communities should mean the end for small companies. What Tesco do offer which many small businesses fail to even consider is good customer marketing. Tesco's clubcard scheme was the first modern example of a company asking customers for their name, contact details and asking for permission to communicate to those customers about special offers, promotions and news which they believe would be of interest to their customers. They then stored that information safely and sent simple communications to customers to thank them for their business and encourage them to visit again.

Why did customers sign up and agree to this? They trusted Tesco and the products they sold (many Small Business have huge amounts of trust and brand loyalty with their customers), they quite fancied receiving offers which could save them money and more importantly because TESCO ASKED THEM FOR THIS INFORMATION!!!!I see part of my job with CRM to be an evangelist about simple steps that Small Businesses can take to compete with organisations like Tesco. Its clear that none of us have the multi million pound marketing budgets that Tesco do but I get so surprised when I talk to small businesses and ask questions such as Who are your customers and How much business have they done with you in the last few months?

The answer to most of those questions is, 'I’m not sure', 'No idea' or even in some cases 'Why does it matter?'

Why does it matter? Because unless you can regularly remind these customers that your company exists, the chance is that a larger company which offers a similar product or service will come in and try to convince these customers to move away from you! And unless you have something so unique about you and your company that no one else can offer, customers could be tempted to look at other options with convenience and price becoming ever more important factors in consumer buying behaviour.

So how do you remind them about what you do? You firstly ask them whether its ok to store their customer data and information securely and then you ask them whether its ok for you to communicate (maybe once a month or once every other week) in a manner which suits them (by post or through email). If they are happy with your product or service and you give them assurances that their data will be held by you only, then there is every likelihood that they will agree. They did with Tesco and so why wouldn’t they do the same with a local company that they want to succeed and grow in their local community!!!

And how can small companies hold this information safely? By using an application like InTouch which is simple to use and can be accessed wherever you have an Internet connection, companies can record this information and then use it to send personalised communications to customers to inform them of what they do. By continually re-enforcing their name to those customers, your more likely to get those customers coming back and so keep the larger competitors at bay!

CRM make storing this customer data and then communicating a VERY VERY cost effective process! With packages starting at just £100 per year (with no training or installation costs), there is no concern about having to compete with large company budgets!

Take a look at InTouch but start marketing and your chances of staying alive will grow and grow!

Category: Email Marketing | InTouch | SMB Marketing
Tags: databases, existing marketing, secure data

InTouch Email Module Update

by Greg Strutton 2/6/2008 9:30:00 PM

Two new features have just been launched in the InTouch Email Module. Both features have been long overdue and it is great to see them finally live.

Email approval process.
Before sending an email out from InTouch the from address must now be approved in the system. This is a very easy process that doesn't take long to complete - simply add the email address into the system and an approval code will be sent to it. When the approval code is entered back into the system, the email address will be ready for use in your email campaigns. Each account has the ability to add up to 5 email addresses into the system for this purpose.
Why have we added this in? Well, simply because we have seen many of our customers send emails out from an address that either doesn't exist, has been spelled incorrectly or possibly, an email address that they do not control. We've also noticed a few customers sending a regular newsletter from different email addresses. You should always send regular communications from the same email address.

Plain Text Alternative Email.
This is something that we used to have in the system and have now replaced with a better version. When sending any HTML email campaign, you should always include a plain text alternative. Many of the firewalls out there will reject your email before it even reaches the recipient if it doesn't provide a plain text version. What this means is, when you have created your HTML email, you can then take just the text content to be sent along side. If a recipient hasn't got an email client that displays HTML emails, or they have disabled the feature, then they will still be able to read your content. We have added a button that will process your HTML email, take out all of the HTML and leave you with the textual version in just one click!

Category: Development & Technology | InTouch
Tags: email, update, intouch, improvement, plain text, approval

New InTouch features

by Greg Strutton 2/6/2008 9:01:00 AM

On Monday we launched a new documents module. This has been in planning and development for a while and we were having lots of feedback from all our customers about how they would like this facility. It would be great to hear any comments about the module. We spent a long time researching what people want and we hope we have got it right.

We also updated the menu bar at the top of the InTouch system. As we are adding more and more features and functionality into the system, we needed more space to accommodate them all in the navigation. We have moved away from a graphical menu and have restyled a text based menu. We are very happy with the results, but again, it would be great to hear your feedback.

There are also many more updates/improvements coming soon!

Category: Development & Technology | InTouch
Tags: intouch, documents, menu, new module, update

Our Blog

by James White 1/28/2008 8:50:00 PM

Thanks for taking a look at our CRM Blog. This site will be where we post our news, thoughts and viewpoint on the email, sms and CRM marketplace in general. It will also be where we post thoughts about the direction CRM is taking.

So what are CRM's plans then for 2008? Well, we believe that 2008 is going to be a key year for hosted systems. With high speed internet access growing in the workplace, the home and on the road (through the deployment of new high speed 3G modems that Vodafone and 3 are pushing) we believe that getting access to your customer information, documentation and key data at anytime in anyplace will be key. Therefore, we will be looking to make InTouch your 'one stop shop' for key customer information, documentation and communication information. We will be looking to ensure that from wherever you access InTouch and on whatever device you access it, the system remains as simple and easy friendly to use as it does now. Within our new release of InTouch (V4.20) we will be allowing all Pay Monthly customers to share documents and files between each user, so making InTouch a go to place for users to access files and contact information.

During the course of the next few months, we will also be looking to

Enhance our communications functionality (with continued improvements made within SMS and Email)
Enhance our sales and prospect information to allow all InTouch users to record information on where leads came from and how these can be assigned to key users
Ensure that InTouch can be accessed from mobile platforms (such as Windows Mobile 6)
Interface InTouch with telephony systems to ensure that the application grows as IP Telephony system usage grows
Interface InTouch with other key business applications such as Google and Accounts Packages

These are just some of our future plans but we want to know what other functionality our customers want. We hope that the introduction of our 'User Community Group' at the start of April will allow InTouch users to share thoughts and ideas on what InTouch offers and what additional features would add further value into the system.

So, keep an eye out for new releases and also an eye out for my thoughts on why Hosted Platforms are going to be the Small Businesses friend over the months to come!

Nuture your customers and watch them grow!

James

Category: Company News | InTouch
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New Email Templates Added

by Greg Strutton 1/15/2008 6:01:00 PM

Just a quick note to let you know we have added 12 new email templates for you to use in the InTouch CRM tool.

It is a series called 'Block Fade' and there are two different layouts (single column & two column) with six colours each (Blue, Brown, Dark, Green, Orange & Silver).

Here is a thumbnail of the single column and two column orange templates as an example.

We hope you enjoy them and more will be added in the near future!

Category: InTouch
Tags: email, templates, intouch

InTouch CRM - Email Content Editor update.

by Greg Strutton 1/12/2008 6:06:00 PM

A few customers commented and we also noticed people were spending a long time creating a great looking email, then, clicking the links in the menu bar or hitting the back button in the browser without clicking the save button. So, in an instant, all their hard work is lost. Well, we looked into this problem and came up with a very simple solution. A small script has now been placed on the edit content page of the email section to stop users clicking away without saving. It just pops up a message to remind you to save the content before you navigate away. You have the option to close this prompt and navigate away without saving, or, save the content.

The save buttons have also changed. There are now three buttons underneath the email content editor.
The first is to just save as you edit. So clicking this will refresh the edit page saving all your changes
The second saves all the changes and takes you back to the email options screen.
The third and final button takes you back to the email options screen without saving any of the changes.

Category: InTouch
Tags: feature, update, email