ACT! Add On | Ya’ Think?

ACT! Users Group for the New Economy

Some friends and I recently joked about the overuse of the phrase, “Now, more than ever . . .” applied to, well, almost everything. But we are challenged, in fact, to think about what we can do differently now to dig out, get ahead, and stay ahead. One easy solution is to use the systems we have in place more effectively. For others, it’s developing new systems to streamline and automate.

ACT! … [Continue reading "ACT! Users Group for the New Economy"]

Smart Notes for ACT!

One brilliant little app. Countless process improvements.

Smart Notes for ACT! enables “Hey! Pay attention to this!!” notifications that can accelerate sales, improve productivity, and impact customer retention.

This little ACT! integration is a simple, effective way to inform a user of important information when viewing a contact record. A field or a note update in ACT! may not be noticed by a busy sales rep or harried admin; Smart Notes for ACT! delivers the message right to the screen so it can’t be missed.

Check out the video to … [Continue reading "Smart Notes for ACT!"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 5 – Drip Marketing

As we all get stretched thinner to do more, the objective is for technology to free human beings to be creative, productive, and effective. Spending time and effort on tasks that can be automated is a poor use of intellect, is far more costly, and provides none of those benefits. Here’s what I like about Swiftpage Email Drip Marketing:

A sequence of targeted messages delivered to contacts at the right time
An auto-responder provides instant feedback to the recipient when survey information is completed
Campaign results are written back the contact … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 5 – Drip Marketing"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 4 – Email marketing

Even though I’m an ACT! Certified Consultant, I get that you can’t do everything you need to do effectively just in ACT! alone. A case in point: I strongly recommend to NOT use ACT! to manage email marketing campaigns and to use Swiftpage Email instead. We recommend Swiftpage rather than Constant Contact because it has a tight integration with ACT! and Constant Contact, regrettably, does not.

Naturally, we email from ACT! (using Outlook integration) for our regular emails at On the verge and, as a result, maintain a history … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 4 – Email marketing"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 3 – Dashboards

Dashboards were introduced to managers a few years back to consolidate data points into a single screen. Dashboards can contain top opportunities, today’s scheduled activities, histories of contact interaction, revenue year-to-date against a target, etc., all in a single view. Think of a business dashboard as where you view your business’ speed, RPMs, fuel level, and warning lights, sans bobblehead.

Essential Dashboard Peripheral Device

ACT! introduced a dashboard in version 2008. It … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 3 – Dashboards"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 2 – Reports

There are a lot of features in ACT! that are fun to use; report design isn’t one of them. ACT! installs with about 40 reports with which users can generate notes, history, activity, sales opportunities, company, group, and contact reports. Default reports can be customized to a greater or lesser degree (or new reports created) and then the report can be filtered at run-time by date ranges, record manager, etc. While simple reports in ACT! are fine for many users, ACT! reports don’t do a good job of … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 2 – Reports"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 1- Quoting

QuoteWerks integrates seamlessly not only with ACT!, but also with Microsoft Business Contact Manager, Goldmine, salesforce.com, Maximizer, SalesLogix, and otther CRM/contact manager applications. … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 1- Quoting"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT!

ACT! contact management software was introduced over 20 years ago. Although originally designed as the simplest of tools, ACT! has evolved considerably over the last few years. The changes in ACT! have been so significant, in fact, that it’s often lumped into the CRM category (erroneously, but we’ll get to that). Unlike enterprise-level applications, ACT! is contact-centric, with a focus on managing and maintaining interactions with individuals.

The current version of ACT! (2009, v 11.1) supports pipeline management, account-level management, manages relationships between contact records, and even has modest workflow capabilties. While … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT!"]

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