I decided to check in with some of my pals in communications within the design industry to hear what they had to say.

 

Daniel Carfora-Hale

Daniel Carfora-Hale (CPSM, LEED AP BD+C) is a Senior Associate at Huntsman Architectural Group 

How do you manage your mailing list?
Within the past year, our firm has migrated a Microsoft Access database to a cloud-based CRM system which also serves as a central information platform for personnel, firm, and project data.

What CRM do you use?
We use Cosential as our CRM system; it was specifically designed for the architecture, construction, and engineering professions, which makes it unique compared to other CRMs on the market.

Is it a good fit?
Cosential is built on a robust central information platform or architecture.  It has the ability to pull data from A/E/C accounting software such as Deltek, e-mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook, and social media networks such as LinkedIn. Seeing we utilize all of these systems for different purposes, Cosential offered the potential to work seamlessly with existing resources.

We have experienced a few hiccups with syncing between Outlook and Cosential.  We started with a beta test group prior to implementing the CRM firm-wide, and it was here we noticed inconsistencies with syncing of contacts from our mail server to the Cosential server.  For any firm looking at a new CRM system, it’s advisable to inquire about support for major third party software your company already uses and how often the CRM developers create updates and patches.  The frequency of code fixes can point to system disruption down the road.

What unexpected benefit have you found using it?
Cosential has a unique feature that allows users to tag e-mail messages and associate them with a specific project pursuit.  This can be especially useful when you are searching for information about a project and are able to expand the search criteria to communication from everyone involved on that lead.

What would your ideal CRM be able to do that it doesn’t do now?
We were hoping to find a system that would allow new record entries into the CRM system to be done on mobile devices, as this is the more common way we now keep track of contact information. The ideal CRM would be able to sync user-selected data and centralize it so it can be shared among employees, in and out of the office. We were looking for a solution that would manage records-updating with some control and intelligence; one where changes to a single record made by multiple users would not compromise the accuracy of the data.

 

 

Julie Satterwhite

Julie Satterwhite is the Chief Marketing Officer at Rutherford + Chekene

How do you manage your mailing list?
We use a “Rutherford + Chekene Rolodex,” which is a firm-wide master contacts list housed in Outlook. Marketing and administrative staff update the Rolodex manually when companies and contacts move. We also categorize each contact with key words. When communicating to our clients, we sort by relevancy to topic when managing the mailing lists. For instance, if we are looking to share an e-blast focused on higher education, we often choose only our clients who have interest/play in that market.

What CRM do you use?
Deltek.

Is it a good fit?
For accounting, project management, and timesheets, it works well. For marketing, we have found it less useful, because R+C is primarily focused in San Francisco, so we use more simple applications. As always, data is only as good as the accuracy and the amount of information entered. Always a challenge for firms, unless you have a designated database manager for Deltek.

What unexpected benefit have you found using it?
Deltek has a project review function button which helps us identify where projects are in the design and construction process. I also like the autofill feature on the timesheets, which lets you quickly copy prior timesheet data.

What would your ideal CRM be able to do that it doesn’t do now?
I’d love to find a more simple, intuitive CRM where there are faster reporting formats. Often CRMs are so robust that the details required to populate fields or generate reports is overly cumbersome, creating apathy around usage.

 

 

Joe Lawton

Joe Lawton is the Director of Marketing + Graphic Design, Sr. Associate at Valerio Dewalt Train Associates

What CRM do you use?
Our team utilizes a system known as Insightly. It’s a cloud-based program that integrates fairly seamlessly into Gmail. It allows us to track everything from contacts to opportunities. The entire office has access to the system – which means we are all held accountable for keeping it updated. In fact, every Monday morning, we open Insightly at our all-office meeting and run down the opportunity list together, providing everyone in the office the chance to stay up-to-date on current efforts.

The system is pretty great, as we can keep track of everything on an opportunity from the schedule, overall program, and market sector to whether or not we won or lost the effort. My favorite aspect of the system is the ability to tag contacts and track emails that are being sent in and out. Everyone is assigned a specific Insightly email that automatically can be linked on messages so it copies our emails into the system. In addition, we also have the option for a series of buttons to be visible in Gmail to push email to Insightly and to create new opportunities directly from an email. All of this is very helpful in allowing others to see what communication is taking place in relation to a specific opportunity or a specific client.

Is it a good fit?
For a company like ours, where there isn’t necessarily a specific person working on new/current business development, it is a very helpful resource. Eases the pressure of one person to manage and maintain everything.

What unexpected benefit have you found using it?
I love being able to reference the contact lists when needing to provide client reference information and also when we are building up special event mailing lists. I don’t have to dig in multiple people’s contact books, and it is super-easy to export lists from tagged content.

What would your ideal CRM be able to do that it doesn’t do now?
Remind me of how long it has been since I’ve talked with a client, collaborator, or strategic partner. Time flies by, and you often get behind on staying in touch with everyone.

 

 

Julia L. Oseland

Julia L. Oseland (CPSM) is the Marketing and Business Development Director, Associate at Architectural Resources Group 

How do you manage your mailing list?
I look at a mailing list as a living and breathing creature that needs love and care for it to thrive. It is always growing and evolving. While we know a mailing list isn’t really alive, I still believe you need to treat it that way. And, like a living creature, it is also never going to be perfect. Once I came to terms with this, I started to relax.

To manage my firm’s mailing list, we circulate the list twice a year to our internal clients. They add their new contacts and let us know if people have made a move, and then my team will make the updates. We track the bounces (hard and soft) so my internal clients will know who didn’t receive the last mailing.

We house our mailing list in MyEmma. This digital mail house allows us to segment the list into different groups and categories, which is very helpful when preparing a targeted marketing campaign. When we import new contacts, MyEmma removes duplicates. Many of our contacts have relationships with multiple employees. This program lets us assign primary and secondary relationships to one particular contact. We also segment the contacts by market sector – again, a real asset for a targeted marketing campaign.

All I can say is, the mailing list is never perfect. It has to be constantly reviewed and scrubbed, and the marketing team has to care about its health and welfare to keep it thriving. It’s truly a labor of love.

What CRM do you use?
I have used Deltek Vision throughout the majority of my marketing career. It can be a robust client relationship management application if you manage it well. In my experience, no matter what CRM program you invest in, it is only useful if is nurtured and maintained. Garbage in, garbage out is the old adage, and it’s true.

Like the mailing list, a CRM program is also a living, breathing creature, and someone needs to care about it for it to work to its fullest capacity. I believe the responsibility of the maintenance and upkeep of CRM should be on the marketing department to maintain consistency and standardization and to keep the information current. If the program is maintained well, it can be an extremely helpful tool for the firm.

Our clients are becoming more and more interested in the nitty gritty details of our project history and want to know pretty much everything these days. If you don’t have a CRM program to house this information, how do you store this important information? In Excel? Not a great alternative which has huge liabilities, but I know many of us in the industry rely on this.

A feature that I have really liked about Deltek Vision is that everything is hyperlinked – clients, contacts, projects, project team, consultants – this feature allows you to navigate from one info center to another, yet everything is ultimately connected and linked. Just like the mailing list, whatever CRM system you use, it needs to be nurtured and cared for. If managed well, you can actually find out some amazing marketing intelligence with one click of the mouse.

Is it a good fit?
I think Deltek Vision is a good fit for a medium-sized to large company. It is not a cost-effective option for smaller firms.

What unexpected benefit have you found using it?
Having a tool that can track the history and timeline of the life of a client relationship is powerful. People come and go, but if a firm embraces CRM, you can pretty much query for anything you want to know without having to pick someone’s brain. It becomes the one-stop shop for all your client management information.

What would your ideal CRM be able to do that it doesn’t do now?
I’d love to have a CRM help automate the proposal preparation process. I know that would require a lot of work up front and a lot of data scrubbing, but wouldn’t it be amazing if you could have a project named consistently on everyone’s resumes, instead of multiple versions of the same thing?