Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a marketing automation app that costs less than most apps in this genre (see article below), a new legal research tool, a powered iPad Pro stand, and a VPN that works on all major platforms. Don't miss the next issue.
In the beginning, lawyer rainmakers spent significant time keeping their Rolodex up-to-date. Then personal information managers (PIMs) moved these contacts into software. This century gave us client relationship management software and then marketing automation software, often with high price tags.
Nutshell … in One Sentence
Nutshell is cloud marketing automation software priced significantly lower than most such products.
The Killer Feature
Nutshell enables you to create a sales process for your firm. For example, if your firm spans several practice areas you can assign leads for each practice area to a different partner. Nutshell can ingest contacts from the forms on your website to trigger these assignment rules. Email templates enable you to send elaborate messages to leads with one click. Nutshell can automatically create a set of tasks for each new lead and assign them. You can also manually add tasks such as creating a proposal.
Other Notable Features
In addition to its web form capabilities, Nutshell can import contacts from any source, including Outlook. Nutshell can also extract contact information from scanned business cards. You can categorize contacts with tags. Thanks to an integration with Zapier (sold separately), you can send contacts from Nutshell to a practice management system such as Clio, and also to Office 365 and Google Contacts.
Nutshell offers click-to-call functionality. After verifying your identity and telephone number, you can click the Call button for any contact to place a call from your computer that looks like it's coming from your phone. Nutshell logs the call in that contact's activity timeline. You can optionally record calls too. Click-to-call also supports several VoIP services, enabling you to place calls through apps such as Skype, RingCental, and Kixie.
As noted above, Nutshell contains basic email marketing tools. It also integrates with MailChimp (sold separately) if you need more functionality and reporting. Other features include threaded discussions, integration with Gmail and Outlook for capturing email conversations, and extensive reporting to help you analyze your sales process and forecasts.
What Else Should You Know?
In addition to using Nutshell in a web browser, you can also use it in the Android and iPhone app. Nutshell costs $20 per user per month for the Starter version. The Pro version, which you'll need for sales process automation, click-to-call, and implementation assistance, costs $35 per user per month. Learn more about Nutshell.
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