Before you think CRM, think ToDo List. In a earlier post I have a quick overview and review of Remember the Milk (RTM) as a ToDo list package. It is very powerful and has grown up over time so that it now has almost every feature you might need. I love it. For $25 as year it will synch everything between your smart devices and your desktop. RTM wasn’t designed to be a CRM tool, but it handles the “Customer Relationship” tasks very well. You have to cheat a little to get meaningful reports, but so far it has worked very well for me. This article is split into two sections. This section focuses on bulk Moving Leads out of Aweber (an autoresponder company) into Remember the Milk. The other section talks about using Remember the Milk as a CRM tool once you have leads in Remember the milk. You can view that article here: https://halepringle.com/using-remember-the-milk-as-a-basic-crm-tool/ Background: Here is my situation: When I originally wrote this I was running a Lead Co-op using Internet Marketing strategies to generate leads for the Network Marketing business I own. Step #1. I start with a fairly standard Squeeze Page and an Ethical Bribe:
Squeeze Page and eBook on Network Marketing http://HalePringle.net
Step #2. I drive traffic to this page using Solo Ads, PPC, Ad Swaps, JVGiveaways, etc. (2020 update: these are lousy sources for people serious about changing their lives/ Most of the leads I generated didn’t have two pennies to rub together.) Step #3. The information about the leads is collected in AWeber Step #4. AWeber shines at sending pre-set follow-up emails and one-time broadcast emails. I use AWeber to send the leads a series of pre-created emails about Dr. Hale, Network Marketing, the company I work with, etc. Step #5. I need to track the results from my various ad sources and my phone calls, one-on-one emails etc. Step #6. I want to call those people who left their phone number Steps 5 and 6 can’t be done in AWeber and that is where Remember the Milk (RTM) comes in. I’m not going to try to write out a full manual, but I will show you how I use RTM to help me handle reaching out to prospects and leads. This is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) function that usually you pay a lot for. I’m going to walk you through my process. NOTE: You can use RTM as a CRM even if you aren’t using AWeber. A lot of what follows is how I convert the AWeber export into something I can bulk import into RTM. You can certainly do the bulk import part without AWeber. Note: Scroll down to the header that says COPY/PASTE INTO NOTEPAD if you are note using Aweber. BTW – I am assuming that Excel is fairly new (or completely new) and I’ll try to explain each step in detail. You can Google for deeper explanations if something is confusing. If that fails, contact me and I’ll help you. 2020 Update. If you have a Gmail account (and they are free tp create), you have access to Google Sheets, Google sheets is a very powerful online spreadsheet system and it will do everything I describe here. I collect emails addresses and phone number from squeeze pages on my web sites. Some of these leads I want to follow-up with using the phone. Here is how I do that.Pick the List You Want To Export
#1 – Pick the list you want
#2 – Click on Manage Subscribers (note that the drop down has hidden the count J . It is much higher than “3”)
Click on the Export as CSV Button
At the bottom of the screen there is an Export as CSV (Comma Separated Values) button. Click that.
Open the File in Google Sheets, Excel (or an equivalent) What I want to do is create a text file formatted so that I can insert my rows into RTM automatically. Here is what I want is lines that look like this. Pattern: Name phone state http://email_address Example: Joe smith 555 555 5555 FL http://myemail@gmail.com This will create a task called “Joe Smith 555 555 5555 FL and put the email address into a slot called URL. I cut and paste the phone number into Skype to make calls. (I do have the $60/year version that lets me have unlimited calls in the US and Canada. I have modified my Skype setting so that it reports my cell number as the Caller ID when I call people. I use the State info to tell me what time zone the people are in.The Process: AWeber to Spreadsheet to Email to RTM
NOTE: If you are not using AWeber, you can skip to the other article https://halepringle.com/using-remember-the-milk-as-a-basic-crm-tool/ You can also scroll down to the major header “Copy and Paste Into Notepad” if you have a bunch that you want to import. Here are the steps I go through to get my text file. There are a number of steps here, but if you know Excel (or are willing to learn) they become pretty natural and they take MUCH less time than manually entering the information for each lead.- Reformat the Phone Column (See Below)
- Find your last version and sort on column D. Figure out the last leads in that group (If you don’t know how to sort, make sure the “Home” tab is clicked and then click on the column header for Column D – it has a “D” in it. That will highlight the whole column. Now up in the right corner of the menus is a button called “Sort and Filter”. When you click on that you will be offered an option to expand the sort to include the whole table. You want to do that. Sorting one column by itself would mess up the table and you wouldn’t be able to see when an individual signed up.)
- Take your current version and sort on column D. Delete everyone you already have in the earlier version. (Highlight the whole area and right click in the area and choose “Delete the entire row” from the options offered.)
- Reorganize the columns so that you end up with name, phone, region, email and country at the left side of the table. (See Below)
- The “Region” column contains the “State” in the U.S. It will be blank for non-USA. Manually insert something like XX or UK or Foreign in those that are from countries. These are ones you don’t want to try calling on the phone.
- Insert a blank column to the left of the email column (Click on the header for a column so that the whole column is highlighted. Right click and choose the “Insert” option.)
- Click on the Formulas Menu option. Click on “Insert Function” at the very left. Choose “Text” as the Category and Concatenate at the function. Press OK. Type http:// in the text 1 box and +F1 in the second text box and then click OK. You should have a column with the email addresses preceded by http:// BTW I know that this should really be mailto:\\ but RTM will put this into a slot called URL and recognizes it as an email if you click on it.
- Highlight the name, phone, region, email columns and click on Copy button.
- Paste these into Notepad.
- Manually remove spaces from any lines that are very long.
- Copy and paste all the lines into an email and send it to RTM. You can find the email address in RTM under “Settings” à “Info. Use “inbox” as the Subject line of the email. I’ll talk more about what I do inside RTM later.
- Save the File – use a name that tells you the source and the date. You need to be able to find this file later.
Make Columns Wider in Excel
An important feature is how widen a column. The default is about 10 characters and that isn’t enough for columns like the Email Column. If you mouse over the header of a column, you will see the cursor change to an icon with arrows pointing left and right when you go over the line separating columns. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the icon to the right to make the column wider and to the left to make it narrower.Reformat the Phone Number Column
Click on the T Column header. That should highlight the whole column. Right Click somewhere on the column and choose the “Format the Cells” option. This screen will pop-up. Choose “Special” and “Phone number”Moving a Column.
To Move a Column- Click on the header which highlights a whole column.
- Click Ctrl-X or right click and choose CUT. You will see a dotted line around the whole column.
- Click on the header of the column to the right of where you want the original column moved. This will highlight the second column. The original column still has the dotted line around it.
- Right click on the column and choose “Insert Deleted Cells
Modify to Email Address to include http://
Insert a blank column to the left of the Email Column
#1 – Click on the header (near the D) to highlight the whole column)
#2 – Right Click on the column and choose “Insert”
Excel will insert an empty column to the left of the one you highlighted.Put http:// at the beginning of each email address.
Not Shown – Click on the header of the Empty Column you just created so that it is highlighted.
#1 – Choose the Formulas Menu option
#2 – Click on “Insert Function”
#3 – Choose “Text” as the category
#4 – Choose CONCATENATE – as the junction
#4 – Click on OK
Finish the Concatenate Formula
If it just enters the value for the first Cell Do this.Copy Formula to The Rest of the Column
#1 – Click on the cell with the formula in it and press Ctrl-C or right click and choose Copy
#2 – Click the cell below the cell with the formula and drag the mouse down to highlight the rest of the column
#3 – Click “Insert Copied Cell” The “+” you put in front of the +E1 tells Excel that it should change the number to match the row number when you do things like this copy. So Row 2 becomes +E2, three becomes +E3 etc.
Copy and Paste Into Notepad (or another text editor)
NOTE: Start here is you are not using AWeber. BTW You can enter prospects into Remember the Milk one at at time. You don’t have to bulk import. Use your mouse to highlight the first four columns (name, phone, region and the modified email address column we just created). If you are not using AWeber, you may copy and paste this data from somewhere else. Copy and paste into a Notepad file Manually remove spaces in long lines. Your email will wrap very long lines. RTM will see that as two lines and create two tasks. Neither one will be complete. Again you want lines that look like this (as one long line) John Jones 555-555-5555 CA http://hisemail@gmail.com You don’t have to have the elements in this order. I just like to have the name first.RTM Email Address to Send “Tasks” to
#1 – Click on Settings
#2 – Click on Info
#3 – Copy the “Import Email Address
You need to put this into your email system as a Contact. I called mine “RTM Import”.Send Tasks to Remember the Milk
- Start an email to your RTM Import address
- Enter “inbox” in the Subject Line
- Copy and paste the contents of your Notepad into your email
- Erase any extra lines including your signature block. You are going to get one task per line, so make sure that each line is one of your leads from AWeber.
- Send the Email You will find these new tasks in Remember the Milk;
Moving Several Leads into Remember the Milk at One Time
In the previous article I covered getting a properly formatted list out of Aweber. In many cases you may want to create a text file of prospects and enter all of them at one time. I;m going to start there.The Process
What I want to do is create a text file formatted so that I can insert my rows into RTM automatically. Here is what I want is lines that look like this. Pattern: Name phone state http://email_address Example: Joe smith 555 555 5555 FL http://myemail@gmail.com This will create a task called “Joe Smith 555 555 5555 FL and put the email address into a slot called URL. I cut and paste the phone number into Skype to make calls. (I do have the $60/year version that lets me have unlimited calls in the US and Canada. I have modified my Skype setting so that it reports my cell number as the Caller ID when I call people. I use the State info to tell me what time zone the people are in. Note; I purchased an upgrade to Skype. It lets me make calls anywhere in the US and Canada for free. I went into the settings and changed the phone number that appears to the person I’m calling. Their caller ID shows my cell phone number. Using Skype this way allows me to use a headset and is easier for me that using a cell phone to make lots of calls. When I sit in front of my computer, my hands want to be on the keyboard. Making Calls with Skype lets that happen. I can also use Skype’s “Recent Calls” list to count how many calls I’ve made today.Copy and Paste Into Notepad (or another text editor)
NOTE: Start here is you are not using AWeber. BTW You can enter prospects one at at time. You don’t have to bulk import. Use your mouse to highlight the first four columns (name, phone, region and the modified email address column we just created). If you are not using AWeber, you may copy and paste this data from somewhere else. Copy and paste into a Notepad file Manually remove spaces in long lines. Your email will wrap very long lines. RTM will see that as two lines and create two tasks. Neither one will be complete. Again you want lines that look like this John Jones 555-555-5555 CA http://his-email@gmail.com You don’t have to have the elements in this order. I just like to have the name first.RTM Email Address to Send “Tasks” to
Import Email Address #1 – Click on Settings #2 – Click on Info #3 – Copy the “Import Email Address
You need to put this into your email system as a Contact. I called mine “RTM Import”.Send Tasks to Remember the Milk
- Start an email to your RTM Import address
- Enter “inbox” in the Subject Line
- Copy and paste the contents of your Notepad into your email
- Erase any extra lines including your signature block. You are going to get one task per line, so make sure that each line is one of your leads from AWeber.
- Send the Email.
Final Preparation Steps In Remember the Milk.
The tasks will arrive in the Inbox, which is not where you want them to be. However it does let you finish your prep work. Here are my final steps.- Select ALL (will put a check mark on all of them)
- Tag them all with a tag that describes the source (e.g. solo-9-13 for a solo ad run on 9-13)
- Make them all due on a particular date.
- Move them to the LIST where you want them.
Thank you for putting so much into this post Hale. I went a spent the time to play around with RTM based on your article here. I have set it up, just with the free version so far as a CRM. I like the versatility of RTM to be able to add your own tabs, etc.
Thanks once again for your great advice about good tools to use. Hope to catch you again on the small group webinar.
Regards,
Ross.
Ross Freiberg recently posted..Why Do We Need To Do Business Planning?
Ross,
I’m glad you like it. I’d love for it to have a “more professional” name, but it sure does the work.
Talk to you Thursday (errr make that Friday for you 🙂 )
Dr. Hale