Building lists is on most business people’s radar and if you’re not already doing it then I would recommend that you consider it. Keep track of your customers and keep in touch with them. Increased engagement leads to increased sales (if you do it right) – everyone’s a winner! There are loads of different options for this including:

Email Marketing

Mailchimp
With the features brought out in June 2013 Mailchimp has become even easier to use. As a free tool for businesses (for a limited number of emails) this is a fantastic starting platform for email marketing and in some cases the main emailing solution even for larger businesses. It offers lots of integrations so can be a very useful tool for your business.

Aweber
AWebber is very popular among network marketers and is a great, affordable way to manage your communications.

 

CRM Solutions

Infusionsoft
One of the ‘big boys’ of CRM and much loved by many businesses worldwide, this is my current CRM platform for The Holistic Directory. It is chokka block with features including ecommerce, affiliate schemes, email marketing and so much more. For the less tech-savvy there is plenty to get your head round but if you’re serious about taking control of managing your customers and automating your workflow this should definitely on your list of possible solutions.

Salesforce
One of the most used CRM systems on the market – many different packages to suit all budgets and businesses. I used this for 18 months for 2 different businesses and would recommend it. It’s a piece of kit that offers a LOT of features so a strategy to use it effectively for your business is essential.

BatchBook
This is a great solution for businesses and offers integration with Mailchimp and social networks among other things. Definitely a CRM solution to be considered.

Capsule CRM
Another excellent CRM solution with a whole heap of integrations with accounts packages (incl KashFlow), email marketing (like Mailchimp). This also offers all the things you would expect from a good CRM solution including managing sales pipeline, customers and tasks.

Other CRMs that you might want to investigate further with yourself:    ACT   |   SugarCRM   |   Pipeliner 
(N.B. I’ve not used these last 4 myself but have been recommended them by others)

For something a little different  Nimble  actually integrates with with a whole load of other apps (see here) including most of the above suggestions. Nimble is more about connecting your social stream with your CRM – think Hootsuite combined with CRM facility… pretty cool.