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Take Control of Your Communication Through Automation Way back in 1998, when I was part of the team that was launching Register.com, something happened that really changed my perspective on email, and put in focus its incredible power—power to shrink time, power to shrink distance. I was on the phone with a person in Canada, discussing a joint venture. As we were finalizing the terms of our agreement, she was emailing her designer in Los Angeles to give him the OK to send out a banner for us to use on our site.
The designer in L.A. sent the banner to our web team, in an office on the other side of town, and our webmaster then emailed me to let me know it was up. I was able to see the updated page before I even finished my conversation with my partner in Canada! Of course, in 2003, this is old news. Email is practically ancient technology in today´s world of wireless communications. But at that moment in the 1990´s, it suddenly became clear to me what we now take for granted: Email is a powerful tool. But a powerful tool is one thing. Being able to maximize your effectiveness is quite another. About that time, I made another "discovery." I began using Qualcomm´s Eudora email program, which has turned out to be one of the most powerful email client on the market. It allowed me to take the next step along the road of managing this powerful tool by having me keep track and categorize the messages I was sending and receiving. Again, all of this is very ordinary in 2003, but in 1998, it was the beginning of a real understanding of how I could leverage the incredible medium of email. However, there seemed to be something missing in terms of management. For example, I wanted to be able to send email to a lot of different people for different reasons on a regular basis. I had numerous contacts, so many in certain areas, that it was impractical to use Eudora. Besides, compiling these contact lists was a time-consuming process. Each time I received an email from someone I wanted to add to one of my distribution lists, I´d have to cut and paste their email address in to each list and so forth. I thought, "There has to be a better way." And eventually, I found it. It was software that I used up until a year ago called Extractor. It allowed me to extract email addresses from a large text file, which made it extremely easy to do in a short period of time what used to take me hours. There were other elements to the software—it checked for and removed duplicates and it allowed me to create autoresponders to emails (I never got this last part to work exactly the way I wanted, but I was still pretty impressed by the capability). It cost what seemed like an outrageous amount of money, certainly more than I had ever spent on a single piece of software, but I was so convinced of its value that I spent the money. And, under the circumstances, it performed as well as I could have expected it to. The combination of Eudora, which managed my emails, and Extractor, which allowed me to create list and extract multiple email addresses, allowed me to manage an important part of my communication process. But all the while, I was keeping notes, a "wishlist" of things I´d like to see in the software that it didn´t do. Every time I would come across a new product, I´d run it through my wishlist to see if it did those things. Up until a year ago, nothing seemed to be able to do all of the things I wanted it to do. I also saw, when looking at the latest extractor programs, that prices hadn´t gone down very much. What was worse, several of these programs are actually services—you buy the software, but then you have to pay an additional monthly fee to use it! That didn´t sit very well with me (call it the frugal Midwesterner in me—once I pay for it, I don´t think I ought to be charged for it again and again!) Because I understood instinctively that if I didn´t take control of my communications—meaning email—from the very beginning, a few things were going to happen: I´d be wasting far too much of my time with routine tasks, important messages might be forgotten or overlooked, and email would take over my life. Using the folders and filters available through Eudora might allow me to manage the incoming mail, but managing my outbound communication was something else again. As a member of the press, I am at an advantage when it comes to new products—often, companies send me books and software for review. It gives me the opportunity to try new programs as soon as they were available. That´s how I came across the Mailloop Software. I compared Mailloop to my "wishlist," and to the comments and wishes I had heard from other business people through the years. The software seemed to do what I wanted it to do, but I had waited too long to try it and my introductory copy had expired. Convinced that the program would do all the things I wanted, I decided to go ahead and make the investment to buy it, even without the trial. And the rest, as they say, is history. Every one of the email automation packages I had received and reviewed came with a website invariably filled with hype, clearly directed at "online marketers." The examples they used were not relevant to me, or to anyone I knew. I was able to see through them because I was trying to look beyond the hype to find the tools I needed. Mailloop is no exception. If anything, it may have more hype attached because it has such a long list of benefits, and their marketing people feel the need to hype each and every one of them. I went through each item and determined how it was relevant and useful to me and my business. What features were important in an email management program, and how to they translate into real life results? Here is a non-commercial example for you. I´m involved in Toastmasters, and we wanted to be able to automate as many of the elements of our Toastmasters club as possible. It´s a volunteer-based organization, and all of us are busy with other things—we needed to streamline our process so we could maximize our efforts, so our time with Toastmasters could be spent becoming better communicators, not better clerks and typists. We needed to manage multiple email lists: one for members, another for people who have visited our site recently, and a third list for Toastmasters across the country. I send an email after each meeting to our local membership list, reminding them of our next meeting and asking to sign up for any available agenda items. Before the meeting, they receive a reminder message. The list of guests receives an email before each meeting reinviting them to upcoming meetings. The third list, with hundreds of names, receives an email every quarter inviting them to participate in our meetings if they are in the New York area. All of these messages—hundreds and hundreds of them—can be handled with a simple click of the mouse. Each message needs to be sent directly from me to each individual recipient, not as part of a mass mailing. This way, the member/guest knows they are getting a message from Toastmasters, not being "spammed." This also means that my message will reach their inbox, it won´t be filtered into the junk mail by email filters. People know that I have taken the time to address them directly, and that sends an important message in its own right. It´s also important for me to be able to remove duplicate addresses from my list. Members who have already given me their email may fill out an online form or participate in a survey which requests their email address, and without the ability to quickly and easily scan for duplicates, members might quickly find themselves receiving multiple messages, which is always an annoyance. Worse yet, someone may be accidentally omitted. Either way, our objectives would not be met. Likewise, if people move, change addresses, or ask to be taken off the list, I needed to be able to clean up the database with a minimal amount of fuss. We wanted our software to allow us to subscribe and unsubscribe people from our list right on our website, too. The bottom line is that we wanted to automate repetitive chores that would otherwise eat into the time that we have available to learn communication skills. At the same time, we´re making it possible for a small number of us to run our club more efficiently, increasing the time we can devote to our club´s activities. In my own experience, I have found that it is absolutely crucial to be able to manage that most important tool of business communication—email—whenever and wherever I am. Technology has finally caught up to the way I wanted to live: I want to be 100% productive and totally effective working from anyplace I choose to be. Whether I´m in New York or Costa Rica, California or Kentucky, I am able to manage my email seamlessly. Other small and family business owners agree-- now, a son in college can help manage the business from his dorm room, and a sister on maternity leave can still be in touch with colleagues in the field remotely. I wanted to make sure I could understand how to make the software work. With the mail extractor program I had been using, I was always afraid that I´d push the wrong button and I´d cause something to blow up. The Mailloop software comes with video explanations, so I can watch the video on my monitor showing me step by step what I need to do. An instruction manual and email tech support made it even easier to demystify the tasks I wanted to perform. And once you´ve learned it, it´s a simple matter of repetition. I wanted to be able to reply to incoming mail with exactly the right message. I didn´t want everyone coming to our web site to get the same impersonal auto-reply. I wanted to be able to customize the messages. After we published "Doing It Right" Realize Your Company's Potential being able to automate specific inquiries for information became even more important to me. People who want to receive an interactive excerpt from the book can get one automatically, and we can handle our follow-up with them differently than people who just want to be added to our announcement list. Every business has products, services, or frequently asked questions that can be handled via autoresponders, and they can get important information to your customers on demand without requiring you to type the same messages yourself over and over again. Another businessman I spoke to wanted to be able to capture and store contact information, and extract email addresses from various types of files. He had recently bought a Cardscan machine which imports information from business cards to build his database, but he wanted to be able to send personalized emails to the contacts he had gathered at a recent trade association meeting. If you´re like me, and you´ve gone to hundreds of these trade organization meetings where you´ve dolled out your card by the dozen and had your badge scanned at practically every booth, only to find that no one ever follows up, you can understand why—it´s a daunting task when you have to do it one person at a time! By scanning this information into the Mailloop software, you can get mail out immediately, turning suspects into prospects into customers, rather than losing out on these opportunities. The next item on the list is to have multiple newsletters and messages. I spoke with a man who had hired someone to manage his newsletters because he didn´t have the time to do it himself. He wanted to send one newsletter to key accounts, which needed to be specialized and personalized, another to prospects, which needed to be fairly general, and a third to customers who had purchased from a specific line to introduce them to new products from that line. All three lists required different information pitched in very different ways, with differing degrees of personalization, the goal of each being to sell deeper and deeper to different audiences. Mailloop was the one product that appeared to answer all of these requests. After looking at it, watching the videos, reading the manual, after doing all of the things I did to determine whether or not it was the tool for me… it passed with flying colors. I´m sure there are products out there that are just as good. I´m sure there are other products out there that do the same things, but I´m very satisfied with the results I´ve achieved from Mailloop and feel no need to look any further. Mailloop is priced at three hundred and seventy nine dollars, with the option of paying in four monthly installments. For a great deal more information, visit this link: EmailAutomation
Wayne Messick can be reached via email or at http://www.FamilyBusinessStrategies.com. Wayne knows how the emotional climate in a family business impacts the decision-making process and he will transfer this valuable knowledge to your audience. He demonstrates to attendees of trade association events how to map out their company vision, how to incorporate the Internet into their plan, and how to address the challenges of involving (and placating) all family members in the process. They walk away with an outline for a viable plan that will take their business to the next level. << Back to Homepage |