Hello,
I am looking for some help/advice on CRM systems.

For a small marketing agency, what is the best way to keep track of new business contacts?

It would be for two primary users, with six others occasionally logging in. We would like to keep track of interactions with new business prospects. Email correspondence, dotMailer email newsletters, notes and pitching status should all be included.

What kind of CRM systems would you recommend?
Salesforce seems like functionality overkill, but something beyond an excel sheet would be nice.

I’d appreciate any assistance.

I've heard positive things about Sugar CRM (see http://www.sugarcrm.com).

Kate Mayfield (http://mayfieldsolutions.co.uk/) knows about this stuff and has done a report on the market - see http://comparecrmreport.com/default.aspx

Hi,

I've used Sugar CRM, Highrise and Salesforce over the years.

Sugar saw us well in the early days, but required a lot of customisation, although that was years ago.

I'm a big fan of 37 Signals, having used Basecamp for years. We used Highrise for about a year and found it the simplest and quickest system to use, although it had limited functionality that we began to require as the business grew.

I use Salesforce now, but its been expensive to customise to our needs and it does a lot more than perhaps you require.

I would check out Highrise, its great value, intuitive to use and extremely quick to get started.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for all the help!