Sugar CRM - Sweetening Your Manual Linkbuilding

Sugar CRM is an open source Customer Relationpship Management system. CRM systems allow for the management of contacts and communication with contacts. It's primarily used for sales people and database/direct marketers. The software also has a lot of applications to linkbuilding.

If you are going after serious links it's going to take more than an email or even a single phone call to do it. Big time links often require calling, following up, and then following up, and then following up some more. You might also want to go back to that site for more links in the future. When you do, you'll wish you remembered what that lady's name was, what she does at the organization, and some interesting facts to get the small talk going.

That's where CRM comes in. It tracks all of that for you. That way you can call up and say, "Hey, Sue - it's Webster. Remember me? Good. How are your piano lessons coming? Great. I've got another project I'm working on and it made me think about you guys. blah blah blah. For some links it will be overkill, but not for the really crucial ones. Universities, quality .org's and .gov sites are disorganized, slow, and nobody ever knows who works on that F*$%ing links page. Most of them don't even know they have a links page initially. Many follow ups will be needed.

Furthermore, the software is open source which opens up loads of customization options. Could it track social media efforts? Could it track relationships with bloggers? It does have RSS ;) If someone wanted to get fancy they could develop a version of Sugar CRM just for tracking links and social media. They'd be famous, and possibly rich if they could milk the attention in the right way.

If you want to download the free version go here.