How Mailbutler’s CRM feature Contacts supports freelancers and entrepreneurs to run a successful business

Email has long been an essential part of freelancer and SME strategies. 

Of course, it’s long been one of the best for ROI, with up to $45 return for every $1 invested. Email is also nearly 40 times as effective for gathering customers as Facebook and Twitter combined. 

It’s no wonder then, that email is the first stop when it comes to growing your business. After all, what better way to reach and nurture hundreds, or thousands of people at once?

Particularly now, with covid-fuelled socially distanced working, and more people communicating online than ever before.

Challenges faced by freelancers and entrepreneurs in managing contacts

• Volume of Contacts: As businesses grow, so does the number of contacts. Keeping track of every client, prospect, and colleague can become overwhelming.
• Lack of Personalization: With numerous contacts, it's challenging to remember specific details about each one, leading to less personalized interactions.
• Time Management: Manually entering and updating contact details is time-consuming. Plus, searching for specific contacts or details can waste precious time.
• Data Consistency: Ensuring that contact details are up-to-date and consistent across platforms can be a challenge.
• Integration Issues: Many freelancers use multiple platforms for different tasks. Without proper integration, contact details can become scattered.

Check out our CRM webinar discussion for more info:

How Mailbutler's Contacts addresses these challenges

• Centralized Database: All contacts are stored in one place, making it easier to manage and search for specific contacts.
• Personalization Features: With the Notes & Tags feature, users can attach specific details to each contact, ensuring more personalized interactions.
• Efficiency: Features like Email Templates save time by eliminating the need to start from scratch every time.
• Email Categorization: Tag emails to quickly identify their context, such as 'Prospect' for potential leads or 'Urgent' for immediate follow-ups.
• Advanced Contact Management: Using Mailbutler's tagging feature to categorize contacts by interaction history, preferences, or other criteria for efficient customer management.
• Contact Finder feature: Mailbutler's Smart Assistant ensures that you never miss out on saving a contact. In just a few clicks, you can fetch all relevant information about your email correspondent and integrate it into your Mailbutler Contacts.

Power of AI in your Inbox

Tired of manually managing your email contacts? Let Mailbutler’s Smart Assistant do the work for you, ensuring every contact is saved and organized effortlessly!

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The double-edged sword of rapid email growth

It’s this magic that is one of the email’s biggest strengths – and weaknesses. Once you start having all these different conversations with customers, prospects, and colleagues…your inbox starts to get really cluttered, really fast.

The brain too. Your poor old hippocampus has to remember every person’s needs, motivations, and the relationship you have with them. 

That’s why Mailbutler gives you Contacts. In this blog, you’ll discover some of the many ways you can use this feature – from right inside your inbox.

We’ll look at how it helps you run your business, builds customer relationships, and gives you more of that oh-so-precious resource – time. 

Ready? Great – let’s start by looking at Notes. 

The Notes feature acts like your second memory

Attach your thoughts and comments to each of your contacts, and you can refer back whenever you need to, such as while replying or chatting to them. You can also share Notes with colleagues, so they can quickly get to know who they’re speaking to. 

Being able to recall small details will make all the difference when it comes to closing deals. Particularly at the growth stage, when you’re building and nurturing relationships, and probably pitching against competitors.

Imagine how happy your recipients will be when they don’t have to repeat themselves every time they talk to someone new!

Ok, now you can remember everything on an individual basis about who you’re emailing. The next challenge is to find the time to write emails. After all, always starting from a blank page can become laborious.

That’s when you can use Mailbutler’s Email Templates. Create a few for different growth use cases. Pitches, onboarding, inquiries…all the things you do to run a business.

You’ll then be on the way to building an awesome reference library to refer back to.

Optimizing email timing for better engagement

Let’s say you’ve freed up some time to write your emails. Brilliant! Your next challenge is to find when is the best time to send your emails.

Some recipients may open their inbox only at certain times, or when they’re traveling.

So, to maximize your chances of getting replies, click on the Sidebar>Contacts>the person you’re contacting. You can see how the sidebar serves you with the crucial insight you need.

This data gets even more powerful when you consider that Mailbutler’s Email Tracking feature also tells you when, how often, and on which devices your emails are being opened.

On top of this, if you use an IMAP or iCloud email address in Apple Mail, you can see precisely who has opened your email if you send a message to multiple recipients.

Once you have this form of CRM information, you’ve opened the doors to getting really targeted with your email strategies.

Enjoy watching all those leads come in and seeing your customer base grow!

Related post: Apple Mail Contacts

Streamlined workflows with Mailbutler

Earlier we said Notes is like your second memory. So you always remember everything about the people you’re emailing. Here’s a way to have your own personal assistant, reminding you of… pretty much anything.

Maybe during a call, you’ve promised to follow up on something. Or an email conversation has resulted in you thinking, ‘Hmm, I need to act on that before our next call’. 

Then, well, you know how it often goes. Maybe you check the time and realize you have another meeting right now.

A colleague might ask, ‘Do you have a minute to discuss something?’ perhaps you have to respond to a customer immediately. 

Before you know it, you’ve forgotten what you meant to follow up on. For situations like this, Tasks is your friend, colleague, and partner.

Create a task, and add all the things you need to remember. How about a to-do list to deliver everything you’ve promised your customer?

A deadline by when you need to have a piece of work finished? Maybe a reminder to yourself, to follow up on a conversation with a prospect?

Sure, it will take you a few seconds to add your notes or tasks. But these sorts of workflows will save you so much time, help you stay organized (with less stress!), and generally give your contacts a good impression of you and your business.

Transforming email data into actionable insights

Engaging with customers individually offers invaluable insights into their preferences and behaviors. This personalized interaction ensures that you tailor your services for an optimal customer experience. However, as your business scales, maintaining this level of personalization becomes a challenge.

Sending out bulk emails often leaves you in the dark about how recipients interact with your content. Questions arise: Are they opening your emails? Which format—HTML newsletters or plain text—resonates more with them?

The answer lies in leveraging data. Modern email software systems, including ours, embed a pixel in sent emails. When a recipient opens the email, their mail client requests this pixel from our server.

This mechanism allows you to track email opens, providing a clearer picture of your email campaign's effectiveness and guiding your future strategies.

Over to you

That’s it! Hopefully, this has shown you how easy it is to get started with Contacts. Dive straight in and see for yourself! If you have any questions or feedback – please let us know!

Are you a freelancer who's spending so much time organizing and juggling different clients, that you barely find time to do your actual work? Mailbutler helps you break out of this vicious circle with "Contacts".

Read more about it in our article: How Customer Relationship Management Helps Freelancers.