Sage publishes the below image to outline the product differences, but we want to provide more information to compare and contrast the products and features.

So to assist in selecting the right product for your business below are 7 things to know before you buy:

1. The number of active users is a determining factor, the Pro product has a limitation of 10 active users in a database. This means if you have more than 10 users you will need the Premium product. If you purchase the Pro product and need to add the 11th user or more you will need to purchase Premium upgrade licenses for the existing Pro licenses – provided your are within Sage’s Upgrade Policy. Therefore, if your business is growing it would make sense to purchase the Premium product over the Pro at the on-set.

2. The Pro product has Windows only licensing, Premium has dual licensing for both Windows & Web (including Web Mobile) access. Sage ACT! Premium allows you to do your own web hosting (without the monthly fees of other competing products) where you can deploy the web product with database access through your intranet or internet. With Sage ACT! Premium Mobile you can travel light and stay connected by accessing your Sage ACT! Premium contact, calendar and opportunity (with the release of Sage ACT! Premium 2013) details from your iPhone®, iPad® or Android™ device.

3. The Premium product has Field Level Security that allows you to limit the access to certain Contact, Opportunity, Group and Company fields by users and teams. You can grant full access to those that need to update the field information, read only to those that need to see the information but cannot change the data, or no access to a field which means they cannot see the field within the database or reports. This is a valuable feature if your business works with social security numbers, credit card information or other sensitive data.

4. The Premium product has Record Level Security that allows you to limit the access to Contact, Opportunity, Group and Company records by users and teams. This is a powerful feature if you want your salespeople to see only their records, sales managers being able to see the records for their direct reports, by territories or if you want to divide the records by different departments or job responsibilities.

5. Both the Pro and Premium products have the database synchronization feature in which you can create remote databases that synchronize to your master database for disconnected/offline data access. The Pro Product only allows Application Synchronization which means that when a remote synchronizes to the master the ACT! program needs to be open and logged into master database – this is not ideal if the master database is hosted on a server or an unattended machine. The Premium product comes with Synchronization Services (network and internet) which allow the synchronization to occur without the ACT! program being open, the service runs on a host machine/server and listens for the synchronization connection.

6. The Dashboard is available in both products but the Pro version has a limitation of being only able to view the current user activity and opportunity information, filtering for a different user or multiple users is not an option. With the Premium product you can create Dashboard with multi-user, team, territory, region, and/or department views.

7. With the Premium product network users have an additional feature of being able to include other users and resources in their activity scheduling and checking on their availability. This is a helpful feature if your business has meetings or calls with your customers or prospects that involves more than one of your users of ACT!.

Bonus Item: Sage ACT! Premium vs. Sage ACT! Premium with SQL 2008
There are no feature differences between the Premium product and the Premium with SQL 2008. The only difference is that the the Premium will install SQL 2008 Express as the database engine and the Premium with SQL 2008 will install SQL 2008 Standard as the database engine. There are no forced metrics as to when to select the Premium with SQL 2008 but a general guideline is Premium with SQL 2008 is preferable when you have 20 or more concurrent network users or more than 100,000 Contact Records.

You can purchase the latest Sage ACT! CRM Software products with current discounts and promotions from our Sage ACT! eStore at www.actplatinum.com and if you have any additional questions please send us a Contact Us form.

The post Sage ACT! Pro vs. Sage ACT! Premium – 7 Things to Know Before You Buy appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.

SAGE ACT! PRO 2012 2 DAY PROMO
New License: $201.99 Less $20.19 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $149.95 Less $14.99 eStore Discount

SAGE ACT! PREMIUM 2012 2 DAY PROMO
New License: $384.00 Less $38.40 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $251.00 Less $25.10 eStore Discount

SAGE ACT! PREMIUM 2012 w/SQL08 3 DAY PROMO
New License: $461.00 Less $46.10 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $307.00 Less $30.70 eStore Discount

If you are already using ACT! 2012 you can take advantage of the 3 day sale by purchasing additional licenses at the promotional price.

ACT! 2011 and ACT! 2010 users can take advantage of the 3 day sale by purchasing upgrade licenses at the promotional price and upgrade to the latest features.

Due to the new Sage ACT! Upgrade Policy, if you are using ACT! 2009 or older you will need to purchase new licensing for the 2012 products.

The post Sage ACT! 2012 Discount – 2 Day Sale Ends June 21, 2012 appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.

To encourage customers in taking advantage of upgrading or adding seats Sage is offering an additional discount for the next 3 days. During this time there will be extra savings on Sage ACT! 2012 Pro, Sage ACT! 2012 Premium and Sage ACT! 2012 Premium with SQL Standard 2008 New and Upgrade Licenses. Below lists the 3 Day Promo Pricing with the May 10% eStore Discount and can be found on our eStore.

SAGE ACT! PRO 2012 3 DAY PROMO
New License: $189.00 Less $18.90 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $140 Less $14.00 eStore Discount

SAGE ACT! PREMIUM 2012 3 DAY PROMO
New License: $384.00 Less $38.40 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $251.00 Less $25.10 eStore Discount

SAGE ACT! PREMIUM 2012 w/SQL08 3 DAY PROMO
New License: $461.00 Less $46.10 eStore Discount
Upgrade License: $307.00 Less $30.70 eStore Discount

If you are already using ACT! 2012 you can take advantage of the 3 day sale by purchasing additional licenses at the promotional price.

ACT! 2011 and ACT! 2010 users can take advantage of the 3 day sale by purchasing upgrade licenses at the promotional price and upgrade to the latest features.

If you are using ACT! 2009 or older…
Don’t Miss Out! Now is the time to take advantage of the additional May 16-18 savings and current upgrade policy pricing before it expires on May 31st.

The post Sage ACT! 2012 Discount – 3 Day Sale Starts May 16, 2012 appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.

You need to know that effective June 1, 2012 Sage will be changing their Upgrade Policy for ACT!. Sage is adopting a new Upgrade Pricing qualification based upon their Support Obsolescence Policy – which is current version plus the two prior releases.

What this means is on June 1st you will qualify for upgrade pricing only if you are upgrading from current release (Sage ACT! 2012) or the prior two releases (Sage ACT! 2011 and Sage ACT! 2010) – and keep in mind that this will apply with each future release.

Don’t Miss Out! If you are using ACT! 2009 or older now is the time to take advantage of the current upgrade policy pricing.

You can save over half off* of the standard MSRP for New Pro and Premium 2012 products by purchasing your Upgrade by the end of this month – savings are outlined below.

*Half Off Savings Based on New License Standard MSRP, Current May Upgrade Price and May 10% eStore Discount:

SAGE ACT! PRO 2012
New License Standard MSRP: $269.99
May Upgrade Price: $149.95
10% eStore Discount: -$14.99

SAGE ACT! PREMIUM 2012
New License Standard MSRP: $549.99
May Upgrade Price: $269.95
10% eStore Discount: -$27.00

If you are using ACT! 2010 and ACT! 2011 you can also take advantage of the May Upgrade Promo pricing.

ACT! 2012 users can purchase additional licenses at the May New License Promo Pricing found on our eStore.

The post Half Price Sage ACT! 2012 – Upgrade Policy Changing Soon appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.

Once in place, when you send your campaign through the e-mail marketing service you will have the option to select the social media outlet(s) to post to. When you post to your social media account(s) you will see an entry containing the E-mail Subject Line and a link to the E-mail Message used for the campaign. Your Friends, Followers and Connections will be able to interact with the post by liking, commenting, retweeting, sharing and so on.

The Social Media Sharing feature also allows you to include links for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in the footer of your e-mail campaigns. With the click of a corresponding icon the e-mail recipient can post a link to your e-marketing message directly to their social network site.

Use social media sharing to increase the reach of your e-mail campaigns. You will need to have Sage E-marketing, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts before you can start using social media and email marketing together. If you need help setting up your ACT! program, Sage E-marketing service and social media accounts – contact us for our service plan information to get started.

The post Sage ACT! + E-marketing + Social Media > Boost Your Reach appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.

E-Mail – Send e-mail campaigns directly from your database to contacts, lookups, groups and companies – no managing a separate database with an outside company. You can easily design branded messages or import and edit existing templates using a simple online editor. When you send your e-mail blast with Sage E-marketing you can track who opened, clicked a link, bounced, suppressed (opted-out) and the results are downloaded directly to your database and is searchable and viewable on the Marketing Results tab for your contacts. You can also view online graphical and detailed reports about each send.

Drip Marketing - Take your e-marketing to the next level with Drip Marketing that gives you the ability to create multi-sequence campaigns of messages that are automatically delivered to your ACT! contacts. Drip Marketing uses intelligent technology to send messages to contacts based on their interactions with previous messages and/or based on field content in your ACT! database.

Surveys - Unlike other e-marketing services who charge an additional fee for the survey feature, Sage E-marketing offers Survey and Web Form capabilities with each service level. By using Surveys you can have your contacts sign up for your e-newsletter, register for an event, or provide their contact information and since the survey feature is integrated with your database, you can download your contact responses with the click of the mouse.

Click here for Sage E-mail Marketing and Drip Marketing for ACT Price Plans. You can also compare Sage E-marketing for ACT vs. Constant Contact vs. Vertical Response.

Sage E-Marketing 60 Day Trial:  Team Level (including the Send As, Scheduled Send and Call List features) for 1 or more users and Platinum Drip Marketing for 60 days. Note: The daily send limit is 50 for the account during the trial period.

SIGN-UP TODAY! Sign-up through us and we will setup your account and send you an E-Marketing for ACT! Reference Guide to help you get started.

The post E-marketing Solution For Sage ACT! Users appeared first on Sage ACT! Consultants - Sage ACT!, ACT! E-marketing, Social Media Blog.