July 2012 - Posts

• Building new email lists using List Builder

  Email marketing is a great way to connect with your customers and for customers to share your message with their networks.  The List Builder feature in Method, allows you to send email marketing from within Method and has now been updated with some handy new features.   Send emails to all your contacts In the original List Builder, emails were sent to all of your leads or customers within your Method account. While this worked well, it didn’t take advantage of the unlimited contacts feature we added a while ago.  This meant that if a customer had multiple points of contact at their company, only the main contact would receive the email. Now emails you send out are received by all the contacts at a company leaving no contact behind. Respecting opt-out preferences When building a list of contacts to send emails to, the List Builder now checks to see what the contacts’ preferences are set to for marketing and billing emails.  This ensures that contacts who aren’t supposed to receive emails are not added to the mailing list. Unsubscribe link Sometimes lead and customer contacts will request that you no longer contact them through email marketing.  Yes, it sucks but you want to respect their wishes.  Now the List Builder allows you the ability to include an ‘Unsubscribe’ link within your email.  If the recipient of the email would like to opt out of receiving your marketing emails, they can update their settings by clicking the  link.  The admin of that email campaign will automatically receive an email letting them know that a contact has updated their preferences and the activity comments are updated in Method CRM. Email preview In the previous version of the List Builder, you were unable to review the email template before sending your email.  Now you can preview or make changes to the template before sending your emails.   Helping with building your lists A new help center article has been published with details on how to use the List Builder and it provides you with some helpful suggestions.  We’ve also made a link to this article which can be accessed directly from the List Builder screen. Happy mailing! Danny Posted Jul 27 2012, 04:58 PM by Anonymous with no comments

• Gmail Gadget for Method CRM has been released

  Attention Google Apps and QuickBooks users! Google Apps has rapidly become the destination of choice for small and medium sized companies looking for hosted email, online spreadsheets, and a shared calendar. Even at Method HQ we dumped our Microsoft Exchange server, switched to Google Apps, and haven't looked back. It's one less thing for us to worry about and maintain.  Since Method CRM is made for small businesses using QuickBooks, it's no surprise that integrating with Google Apps has been a priority. After a successful beta period, I'm happy to announce that our Gmail Gadget has been released!   What it does Method CRM now works where you work: right inside Gmail. The gadget does a lot of things, but here are some highlights to get your juices flowing: An existing QuickBooks customer sends you an email When you click on the email, the gadget displays the contact's phone number, address, balance, QuickBooks transactions, CRM activities, opportunities, cases and documents. Plus, it gives you the ability to add activities, follow-ups, cases, opportunities and documents without even leaving your inbox. A new lead sends you an email A couple clicks of later and you've created a new contact and assigned a follow up activity and opportunity. You can even create a new QuickBooks customer or vendor directly from your Gmail inbox! A customer hasn't paid their invoice Generate a link to include in your email response so that they can easily view and pay their invoice online through the customer portal. A customer emailed about an issue they are experiencing Easily create a case, and have the attachments from their email included. Plus, if you're using SmartVault, the attachments flow through to your SmartVault Toolbar in QuickBooks. Now that's automation!   What people are saying "The MethodCRM google gadget is fantastic. We were expecting a simple way to move Gmail into our CRM. Our expectations were blown out of the water." -Mark Crews via Google Apps Marketplace review "This gadget was first released [in beta] just a couple of months ago and is already an awesome gadget with great features. I now use it throughout the day to record client emails as CRM activities and much more." -Selwyn van Rooyen via Google Apps Marketplace review "The gadget is a real time saver and a great extension of the Method Integration CRM system. If you are a QuickBooks and Google Apps user; adding Method Integration CRM and this gadget to your Gmail should be given some serious consideration." -Randall Dickey via Google Apps Marketplace review   Next steps Click here to install the Gmail Gadget from the Google Apps Marketplace. Note:you'll need to be a Google Apps user. Sign up for next week's webinar to see it in action. Wednesday, July 25th, at 2 PM Eastern (11 AM Pacific). Read documentation to learn more.   We're proud to get this out to you. I think you'll agree that it's some of the finest work we've done. I'm especially excited with the feedback I've heard when talking to beta testers - never before have I heard the word "love" used so many times about a product I've been involved with - that's a really good sign we've done something right! Oh, I should mention.....it's FREE and included in your monthly Method CRM subscription! Enjoy, Paul Posted Jul 18 2012, 12:03 PM by Method_Paul with no comments

• Server Maintenance - Sunday July 22nd

  The good news More and more companies are jumping on Method, and we're seeing a steady and consistent user base growth month after month. We don't do much advertising, so we can attribute most of this growth to word-of-mouth. So, THANK YOU for spreading the word and letting other small businesses know about Method! The bad news We've got to do a server infrastructure change to increase capacity and performance. Unlike past changes, this one requires downtime. When Date: Sunday July 22nd, 2012 Time : 2:45 AM to 4:45 AM Pacific Time (5:45 AM to 7:45 Eastern Time) We chose this date and time by looking at the times of lowest global activity. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience, Paul  Posted Jul 17 2012, 03:48 PM by Method_Paul with no comments