Raina's Biztalk posts

A Workshop Idea: Understanding Web Search Keywords

I've done my own website, through www.citymax.com and I've done my own web marketing, by the seat of my pants. (and using Google AdWords.)

Google AdWords is fairly easy to set up, and their free metrics/reporting options provide a lot of information.

However, as a novice at this, I need help understanding all of this information! I need help understanding the reports, understanding how to choose focused keywords, understanding which key search words are causing which search results, etc. etc.

If one of you biznik's out there is a pro at this stuff who'd like to hold a workshop or seminar, I believe you'd find a lot of us interested in attending!

-Raina

Questions about CRM, exchange servers, and Outlook

OK, I'm throwing myself to the mercy of anyone on biznik.com who's working in sales, or IT, or both, who might know the best approach for CRM issues.

I want an easy way to see and track everything at a glance, from lead generation and pipeline figures, contact phone and email history, to inside sales activities, customer service communications, appointments set, certain tasks involved during projects, and if possible, issue tracking after a project is complete (i.e. Mrs. Jones drapes were 1" too long and sent to fabrication for re-hem. Re-install scheduled blah blah date)...

Is there ANYthing that either plugs IN to Outlook or easily interfaces with Outlook, that can achive this?

What is your opinion of stuff like this? http://www.vtiger.com/products/crm/microsoft-outlook-integration.html or sugar.com?

Note: we are using www.mailstreet.com for pay-per-month MS exchange server hosting of our outlook data www.goodlink.com to keep the exhange server talking to the cell phones

I’m taxing Outlook to the max. I’ve got the task lists with thousands of things in it, sorted by category, for everything from managing my pipeline, creating marketing action plans, tracking business development phone calls and emails, and project management for existing orders plus issue resolution after-orders. I’m married to the Outlook thing at the moment (for contacts, email, notes, and tasks) because it works with mailstreet.com which works with goodlink.com which basically means I’m like an “enterprise server” class setup between my home/work/computers/laptop/phone. Am I already doing it the best way for a two-person show?

But I spend a lot of time tracking my pipeline in my head, trying to remember who I called when, putting call notes on calendar pages, can’t really easily see things at a glance, etc.

If there’s someone you know who’s a dedicated geek to this topic and you’d like to forward them this message for an opinion that would be great.