In doing all of this high-quality online marketing, it's extremely easy to lose track of where you are with it all. It is highly recommended that you implement a system that will allow you not only to record what has been done (preferably as easily and automatically as possible), but also to drive the marketing effort. Although, the important aspect of whatever system you implement is that it is relatively easy to use and that it doesn't get in the way of getting the message out.

Many people starting out in business use Outlook in the first instance, as it allows them to record prospect details, and, with the addition of Business Contact Manager, run email campaigns and track some results. However, Outlook with Business Contact Manager is not a fully-fledged CRM solution, so we would recommend looking at an alternative. Throughout the book, we have championed the use of open source software, and in that arena, one of the best CRM solutions is SugarCRM. In fact, some Asterisk-based systems have SugarCRM bundled as an optional part of the installation. Of course, there are other open source solutions too, such as vtiger, Compiere, Concursive, and others.

While SugarCRM may take a bit longer to configure for your particular purposes in the first place, it is more likely to cope with a high degree of growth over time, saving you the disruption of switching from one system to another. Within SugarCRM, you can define marketing campaigns over varied media with or without prospect lists. So whether you're running a magazine ad or a highly-targeted email campaign, you can record the information in SugarCRM and track what happens after the campaign runs. For campaigns with prospect lists, you can record relevant activity manually (useful for phone calls or inbound emails). However, it also has the capability to run an email campaign for you, from sending personalized emails to tracking all activity, including clickthroughs. Of course, all this activity is recorded automatically, and available in future if the prospect calls up. This can really add an element of professionalism to even the smallest Asterisk consultancy.

For further reading, see Implementing SugarCRM, Michael J.R. Whitehead, Packt Publishing.

Of course, once a prospect becomes a customer, SugarCRM has all the functionality needed to track activities with that customer, including support tickets.