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 Insider Tips - 13 Angela Vink, Davidson Communications, learned some valuable lessons at the beginning of her career -- some painful and some rewarding : Building a database is really hard work and keeping it up to date with regular "check ups" is no one's idea of fun. However, with a really good database/contact manager, you can have vital information at your fingertips at all times. The following are a few tips that will help your database become more than just a computerized mailing list and more of a contact manager. 1. When setting up a new company, communications or otherwise, one of the most gruelling challenges is the creation of a contact database. The work of entering names, titles, addresses and phone numbers correctly into your database seems like a never-ending task…but then, one day you realize, it's over! You even expanded into E-mail addresses and Web sites and completed all those too! You now have the database of your dreams, and it probably contains hundreds or perhaps thousands of vital contacts, not to mentions hours of sweat on your part. However, the updating of a database is as important as the preliminary compilation. In one of my first entry-level public relations jobs, I was given the task of updating the media database. I called each media outlet and attempted to confirm every contact name and title. It quickly became apparent that this database hadn't had a thorough "cleaning" in at least five years. Not only was I embarrassed, on behalf of my high-profile employer, to find that a large portion of the list was completely out of date but also that several of the contacts had in fact died, some as far back as five years earlier! It took a lot of time (and humiliation) to get all the facts I needed but it did finally get done. The moral of this story: Update your database a couple of times annually which will keep the job from becoming overwhelming if left untended for years. 2. Make sure you're in tune with any personnel changes in your particular industry by paying attention to media notices of all sorts: appointment notices; hot business news stories, etc. The comings (and goings) of the people in your business require you to make quick changes to your database. It's also a good time to send a note of congratulations to a friend or acquaintance who's moved up in their world, or moved into a whole new industry altogether. 3. Another good idea is to track personal milestones in the lives of your business associates. You can use the alarm settings in your contact manager to notify you a week before a particular birthday so you'll be sure to remember to buy that card and get it in the mail. We know a public relations executive who does exactly that and, though recognized as a bit of a ploy, everyone enjoys receiving the cards. You can note marriages, deaths, births, and in fact, such information can be added to your database so you won't find your foot firmly planted in your mouth the next time you meet up with contacts and associates. You don't want to ask, "How's the family," if it's been all over the papers that the wife has run off with a tennis pro and taken the children too. Check out Angela Vink's bio at Head Credits.
Davidson Communications is busy updating its own database. Go ahead ... submit some names and numbers. The more, the merrier. |
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 INSIDER TIPS - 13 |
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