If you've worked with Egen Consulting in the past, you probably have one or two icons on your menubar that are not standard icons.  I particularly like to add the "refresh" icon and the "synchronize now" icon to my clients' menubar to save them a few mouse clicks.  Check out the step-by-step tutorial in the video below to see how you can add YOUR most commonly used menu items to your menubar and get back some click time!

  'Tis the season to send greetings and good wishes! If you have a digital database, like Act!, this is where the time and effort you put into keeping your Act! database up-to-date really pays off! Here are 3 options: 1. Use Act! Marketing Automation (AMA) - a Basic version is part of every Act! subscription. Act! Marketing Automation is an email marketing service that enables you to send beautiful, personalized email with colorful images, links, and tracking capability. All you need

Did you know that you can view a Google map to a contact's address from within Act!? This feature has been part of Act! for a while now, but when I show it to clients they often aren't aware of its existence.    The icon shows up on the small icon toolbar with the blue background on the Contact Detail screen.  It looks like the Google map pin (teardrop-shaped marker icon). Clicking that opens a direct link to the contact's address in Google Maps. From there you can get

When I think of marketing automation, I immediately think of a mechanism that will market to my contacts without my intervention. If you have an Act! subscription, you have a basic level of Act! Marketing Automation that allows you to create and send emails. However, if you subscribe to the "Complete" or "Advanced" tier of Act! Marketing Automation you have access to a powerful, automatic e-marketing engine.  What do I mean by "automatic"?  Well, for me this means that if I add a

Why Consider Writing Plain Text Sales Emails? In studies online, it was found through A/B testing that the more images in an email the fewer open and click rates the message had. It's not surprising if you consider that we typically receive so many marketing emails with images that we (or at least I) delete a large majority without reading more than the subject line and sender. However, when I receive a personalized email with mainly text, I'm much more likely to read through it because it

You might be wondering if you should plan an upgrade to Act! v24.  Here are the highlights of this release: New 64-bit Architecture Windows 11,  Office 2019, and SQL 2019 Compatibility Redesigned Office Integration - Act! v24 uses 64-bit integration for Outlook and Word add-ins 200+ priority bug fixes  Check out the full list of items included in v24 at https://help.act.com/s/article/Whats-new-in-Act-v24-prem. Before you rush to upgrade to Act! Premium v24, we want to

In the past few months, you may have been prompted to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. BE CAREFUL, and do your due diligence before you upgrade.   Windows 11 has hardware requirements that older computers may not meet, and some of your software programs may not yet be compatible with this new operating system.  If you are NOT on v24 of Act! Premium/Premium Cloud/Pro, please DO NOT upgrade.  The only versions of Act! that are certified as compatible are v24 Premium or

One of the important things to do after sending out a marketing campaign is to find and fix (if possible) emails that have been reported as bounced.  There are a variety of reasons why emails bounce.  A mailbox can be full.  A person has moved on and the email is no longer valid. The email server you are trying to send to is not live or working anymore.  It is worth while to take the effort to look at these bounced emails - these are not opt outs.  The person you are