Airtable as a CRM tool - Guidance on getting started

Ask the community Base design
#1

Hi - Still new to Airtable and navigating the options it provides when wanting to better organize our small company. I would really like to know if it is a viable CRM tool based on the following:

  1. We have various types of contacts. They could be classified as “investor”, “mentor”, “alumni”, etc and, in some cases, may be assigned more than one category.
  2. We hold events and I would like to be able to indicate participation for each contact. Again, in some cases, they will have attended multiple events or at different roles at various events.
  3. When we send large emails, I would like to be able to select recipients based on various filters on the above two items.
  4. When we conduct classes, we would love to publish a gallery showing those who attended that specific event. I currently have one gallery created but it was done specifically for a cohort and not from our larger list of contacts. Can you create multiple galleries from one large base?

My head is spinning trying to determine the best path forward and I’d like to know if what I’m envisioning is possible with Airtable or if I should look elsewhere.

Thanks!
Courtney

#2

Welcome to the community, @Ad_Astra_Ventures!

Yes, all 4 of these things are definitely possible & easily doable in Airtable. It would probably be the perfect tool for what you’re looking to do! :slight_smile:

If you have a budget for this project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable developer to help you create this system, please feel free to send me a private message or contact me through my website at ScottWorld.com.

#3

Thank you, Scott. Unfortunately, no budget. I’ll be building this on my own which I’m confident I can do. Can you tell me if I simply start by inputting our contacts into a “Directory”? (Learning the AirTable terms with Workspaces, Directories, and Bases…)

Thanks again for your response. At least you’ve given me confidence to keep going with AirTable as our solution.

Thanks!
Courtney

#4

You’re welcome! Glad I could help! :slight_smile:

“Directory” is not an Airtable term. But you could create a table called “Directory” and tnen enter your contacts there.

#5

Hi Courtney

yes, you could start with one table for contacts, and create a multi select field for the different types of contacts. Then perhaps a separate table called “Events”, and link the events table to contacts. when setting up the link, you can select whether to allow multiple links or a single link, so that a contact can be linked to more than one event.

Then you can create filtered views using the type and event fields for your mailouts.

You can also create multiple gallery views, each filtered and sorted separately.

Steve

#6

Steve - This is great feedback. As a total newbie to AirTable, do I start by creating something similar to an Employee Directory (though contacts are NOT employees) or do I start a “base” and choose a template? Just making sure I start the initial set up correctly so I don’t have to redo things later.

#8

Yes, it would be similar to an employee directory. It’s very easy to change field names or add/remove fields. You can play around with different table/field designs until it has the structure you want.

You might want to start with a template to get some ideas of how others have done things, and then modify it.

Another resource I used when designing a crm was some useful youtube videos which I found here:

CRM video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtyJXfOQc_g
He has a whole range of videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/GarethPronovost/videos

(I’ve got no connection to him at all!!)

Steve