27 March 2009 - On the evening of 25th March at the Radisson Hotel Belfast, Garry MacDonald and Nicki Bury of Haybury Marketing presented their 'Turning your contacts into sales' seminar to 35 local business people on how to un-tap the hidden value in your customer contacts.
Judging from the feedback forms completed on the night everyone took something of value away with them to take back to their business and try for themselves.
As the evening was 'sales and marketing' focused, following the seminar and after some refreshments Garry went through a practical demonstration of the Customer Relationhip Management (CRM) software that he uses in conjunction with his Tartan IS colleagues, Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager (BCM). Highlights of that BCM package (which is part of Office 2007: Small Business and Professional versions) and its salient features now follow:
New Features in BCM 2007
Welcome to Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, which combines the familiar appearance of Outlook with great new and updated features.
Customization - Tailor Business Contact Manager for Outlook to fit your business needs by customizing forms, lists, and reports.
Marketing Campaigns - Manage and measure the effectiveness of the marketing content that you create. Promote your brand, quickly see which Marketing Campaigns help you generate more business, and improve customer satisfaction. If you have created Marketing Campaigns before, Business Contact Manager for Outlook helps you distribute the Marketing Campaigns more effectively. If you're new to marketing your business, Business Contact Manager for Outlook guides you through the process.
Business Projects and Project Tasks - Manage your time and business better by using the Business Project feature. Business Projects give you a single place to store all related project information, tasks, and assignments so that you can quickly see who's doing what project task, and its due date. Easily share project information across your company. For example, you can assign project tasks to colleagues, which they can see in their To-Do Bar.
Offline - Take your data with you on your portable computer so that you can see how your business is doing at any time. View reports, follow up with customers, create new Business Projects, or just update Account and Business Contact information. When you return to your office, it is easy to synchronize the information.
Business Contact Manager for Outlook E-Mail Marketing Service - By combining the power of the E-mail Marketing Service* with Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you can send specifically targeted e-mailings to your customers, and keep track of the responses to your e-mailings. The E-mail Marketing Service is free to try and provides a cost-effective and powerful way to reach your customers in a personal way. To use the E-mail Marketing Service, create a Marketing Campaign, and then select the Campaign Type as E-mail and the Delivery Method as E-mail Marketing Service.
Home Page - Get a complete view of critical information through the centralized home page. This customizable home page helps you summarize your important business metrics and prioritize business tasks.
Leads or prospects - Differentiate leads or prospects from existing Business Contacts, and create customized reports.
Search Folders - Use Search Folders to gather Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, Business Projects, or communication history items into a folder based on your criteria, such as all Business Contacts with an Excellent rating.
Improved Features!
Reports - Use one of the more than 50 reports to see the state of Accounts, Business Contacts, leads, Opportunities, activities, Business Projects, and Marketing Campaigns. Use the new report filtering capabilities to easily sort and filter data, and then export it to Microsoft Office Excel 2007 for further analysis.
See your accounting data in Outlook - Download Office Accounting Express for FREE to view your customers' financial history, bill for your time and create quotes and invoices, directly in Outlook with Business Contact Manager. Get Office Accounting Express for FREE now!
Sharing of customer data and communication history across your business - Sharing Accounts, Business Contacts, leads or prospects, and Opportunities gives you and your colleagues a rich view of all communications that your company has had with each customer. This feature gives everyone the shared customer history data that they need to respond faster and serve customers better.
Opportunities - Quickly organize, manage, and track all of your Opportunities, including details such as sales stage, potential value, and estimated close date, so you can assess potential sales and make better-informed business decisions.
Communication History - Enjoy immediate access to the history of your customer interactions. Items stored in the Communication History folder include business notes, phone logs, Opportunities, Business Projects, tasks, e-mail messages, appointments, and files. It's easy to share this communication history with your colleagues.
Import and Export - Easily import and export data from or to various applications and formats, including ACT!, QuickBooks, Access, Excel and many others. The enhanced mapping capabilities make it simple to transfer information from other applications that may have different fields than Business Contact Manager for Outlook.
*The E-mail Marketing Service is available only in select markets.