Use this link to share with your colleagues:
How to Track and Use Email/Mail List Preferences: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1292823
Your patrons opting in to receive your marketing emails won't always want every single email you send out, so tracking what types of emails they want (e.g. "Pops", "Family Friendly", etc.) is a good idea. That way, you can send more targeted, and therefore effective, emails!
In this article, we'll show you how to:
- Build the "Mailing List Preferences" custom field (if you haven't already)
- Edit a patron's Mailing List Preferences on their Contact record
- Build an email list report with the Mailing List Preferences field
Let's go!
Above: How your "Mailing List Preferences" field will appear on your PatronManager signup form
Build the "Mailing List Preferences" custom field
First things first: we need to have a place in our system to store our patron's preferences! We recommend a multi-select picklist field called "Mailing List Preferences", and we'll show you how to build it below:
1. Head to Setup via the gear in the upper right
2. Go to the Object Manager tab, then search for and click on "Contact"
3. Go to Fields & Relationships, then search "mailing"
We're checking to see if you've already built this field. If you have, then you should continue to use the field you've already built.
If you don't see a field, like in the image below, continue with these steps.
4. You need to build the field? OK, click New Field
5. Choose Multi-Select Picklist, then click Next
This is the only time we'll ever recommend a multi-select picklist!
Multi-select picklists are generally pretty hard to utilize. They don't really work in formulas, and they're just generally pretty messy.
For this purpose, they're great, though; when people use your signup form, they'll be able to change their preferences there - and those preferences will get reflected on their Contact record when you qualify that Contact.
6. Fill in the form as follows
- Field Label: Mailing List Preferences
- Values: choose "Enter values"
- Enter the list preferences you want your patrons to choose from, separated by a return
- Display Values Alphabetically: if some values are more important than others, leave this unchecked; if you like alphabetical so things are easy to find, check this
- Restrict Picklist: check this
- Visible Lines: how many lines will be visible on the Contact record; 4 is fine
- Field Name: fills in automatically
- Description: enter a description that helps explain what the field is for, for you and your team
- Help Text: this will pop up next to the field on the Contact record - add something that makes sense for your colleagues
- Required: leave this unchecked
- Click Next!
7. Click this top box to make the field visible to everyone at your organization, then click Next
8. Add the field to appropriate Contact page layouts and click Save
We recommend everything but "TBQ Contact" - you'll want to be able to manually edit this field for all your patrons.
Ready to add this field to your signup form? Jump over to our How to Use the PatronManager Signup Form article!
Edit a patron's Mailing List Preferences via their Contact record
You'll edit the field just like any other; follow along below:
1. Search and click on their Contact record via the global search bar
2. Find the Mailing List Preferences field and click the pencil next to it
Don't see the field? You might need to add it to the page layout!
3. Move values back and forth as needed, then click Save
4. Done!
Build an email list report with the Mailing List Preferences field
Now that you've done the work to collect your patrons' mailing list preferences, you definitely want to send them targeted emails! Below, we'll show you how to build a Contacts report for use with Emma Groups, MailChimp Static Segments, or Campaigns.
1. Go to the Reports tab
2. Select All Reports on the left, search "confirmed", and find the Collected or Confirmed Opt-In Contacts report; now click the drop-down arrow to the right and click Edit
3. Before you do anything else, Save-As!
4. Fill out the pop-up and click Save
- Report Name: something like "Email List - Mailing Preferences" should do; you want you and your colleagues to use this in the future whenever you're making a similar report
- Report Unique Name: fills in automatically
- Report Description: tell your colleagues what this should be used for
- Folder: if you have a Marketing or Email Lists folder, use that; if you don't, just make sure it's in a folder everyone can access (that is, not "Private Folder")
- Click Save!
5. Go to the Filters tab, then search for and click on your Mailing List Preferences field
6. Choose "includes", then enter the values you want to show up on your list and click Apply
Multiple values separated by a comma act as an OR; in the example below, we'll get Contacts who have Pops or Education (or both) selected.
7. Click Save & Run
