Mailing List and Lead Management

[Mike G.]

I am in the process of looking for a program to manage my mailing lists and leads. I need something that lets me import lists which I will later export to send to a direct mail printing company. Because I may be getting lists of different types (inherited, absentee, high equity, whatever) or even a list with the same criteria in the future, it is quite likely that there will be duplicates from one list to the next.  I would like the software to be able to identify (and optionally remove) these duplicates based on the property address when I import a new list or manually enter an individual lead; I obviously don’t want to send out multiple letters/postcards to the same person in a given mailing. I would also like the software to be able to identify (and potentially remove) entries with the same Owner Last Name and Owner Mailing Address – this is for the case when someone owns multiple properties.

I would have thought this would be something inherent in CRM programs, but a look at a program like Zoho reveals that it does not do this at all. Any recommendations on a software package (or online hosted service) that handles this kind of duplicate entry removal for list management? Do I need separate list management and CRM programs, or is there a solution that provides both list management and lead management functionality?

It seems like an obvious thing to want a central database of all the people you are mailing, with the ability to have subsets of lists.  And also, when you get a returned letter or someone asks to be removed, that person gets flagged so that you don't mail them.  There must be some program out there that does this, right?

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

[Jerry Puckett]

I searched far and wide for a crm/ campaign organizer as I manage multiple lists. I couldn't find anything out there that did just what I wanted so I built my own.  It has enough bells and whistles to get the job done, and also helps to automate the follow up process.

I laid out some details in podcast #21 and have dozens of clients who use it. Its really just a glorified spreadsheet set up on google docs so as to be in the "cloud". The key to it is in organizing your workflow in a very practical way.