Contact management is an essential part of building relationships both for business and personal. As a company or individual, there are a number of free or extremely cost effective SaaS (software as a service) options available to you. By using these tools, you can manage your own individual contacts or build a team database, accessible to your entire group.
With a CRM program, you can:
- Store contact details for companies and individuals
- Make notes on your clients and set to-do’s
- Manage leads and define a sales process for your entire organization
- Generate leads from your website using embedded forms
- Track online advertising campaigns
- Manage email marketing campaigns
Three of my favorite options for CRM software are SalesForce, Zoho CRM and BatchBook.
BatchBook is fast becoming my favorite CRM. I’ve been playing with all three options over the last month and I’m really impressed by their simplicity and incorporation of social media. BatchBook lists social media information about your contacts and clients including blog posts, twitter posts, Linkedin information and more, visible directly from their profile.
They also make it extremely easy to integrate with two of my favorite business applications – Freshbooks for billing and MailChimp for email marketing. Combined, these tools provide everything a small business needs to develop a successful sales and marketing process.
Pricing for BatchBooks starts at $9.95 a month and goes up to $99.95 depending on the number of users. They offer a free 30 day trial so you can test them out before buying. Sign up for your free trial here.
SalesForce is the original SaaS customer relationship management program. It’s cost effective, easy to use and integrates with just about any other online software. If you need your database to work with an online billing system, you can integrate with Freshbooks. If you need an email marketing tool you can integrate with MailChimp. If you need to track conversion data for your online advertising campaigns, SalesForce integrates with Google Adwords as well. They definitely have the most options available if online advertising is a big part of your business.
Many SalesForce features are standard with other CRM products. What makes them stand out for me is the community of third party developers who build value added products. This has both pros and cons though. The obvious pro is that you get access to many add-on tools that add functionality to your system. The con is that all these options can sometimes be overwhelming for the average user.
Pricing starts at $5 a month per user and goes up to $250 a month depending on the level of functionality. They offer a free 30 day trial so you can test different options before deciding on a plan. Sign up for your free trial here.
Zoho CRM is a great option for managing your contacts. Plus, they offer a free plan for up to three users that’s brilliant if you’re bootstrapping a new business. Not only is their price right for a start-up on a budget, but their tools are very sophisticated for basic use. Plus, Zoho also has their own suite of tools for invoicing, emailing, mobile access and spreadsheets that you can use in conjunction with their CRM.
Zoho CRM’s free package gives you access to all of their basic functionality for up to three users. Their other plans start at $12 a user and go up to $25 a user depending on the level of functionality. They offer a free 15 day trial so you can test it out the different options before deciding on which plan you want to go with. Sign up for your free trial here.
Final Thoughts
All of these tools are really fantastic choices for managing your relationships and offer their own unique options depending on what is important to your company.
- If you’re looking for an easy-to-use program that incorporates social media into it’s profiles and integrates with some really great tools, give BatchBook a try.
- If you’re interested in having more third party applications available to you and/or plan on marketing your business using online advertising, go with SalesForce.
- And, if you’re just getting started and free sounds appealing, Zoho is a great option with a ton of features.
