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All About Direct Mailing, Email, and Phone Lists

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All About Direct Mailing, Email, and Phone Lists: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1677764

Let's say you've got your big Annual Fund drive coming up, you've cleaned your data, and you're ready to connect with your donors! So where do you start?

In this article, we'll think about hot to target and communicate with specific segments of your patron base by using Reports and CRM Snapshots.

If you're not familiar with Reporting yet, make sure to check out our Getting Started with Reporting resources.

Plan your mailing list

Before running forward to the Reports or CRM Snapshots tab, answer the following questions about your mailing list:

  1. What am I doing with this list?
    • Are you sending a hard mailing, such as a flyer, letter, or voucher? Are you sending an email campaign? Or are you planning to make some phone calls? Do you plan to track this mailing with a Campaign?
  2. Who am I getting in touch with?
    • Who are you targeting with this list? In other words, what kind of filters do you plan to use? Are you sending this only to patrons who made a donation this year? Do you need to exclude people who bought tickets to a specific show? Is this a list of subscribers?
  3. What information do I need to my mail merge or telemarketing list?
    • What fields need to be used in the content of the letter, email, or phone call? For example, do you need to see each patron's mailing address to send them a physical letter? Do you need the specific name of the package each subscriber purchased so your telemarketers can have that information during the call?

In other words, for question 3, do you only need fields from the Accounts and Contacts objects, or do you also need fields from Donations or from Tickets? If you're not sure, don't worry! Here are some examples:

  • Account Fields
    • Billing Address
    • Donation Roll-ups
      • Last Donation Date / Amount
      • Amount Donated This Fiscal Year
    • Household Formal Address / Salutation Name
  • Contact Fields
    • Email Address
    • Cell Phone
    • First Name, Last Name, Nickname
  • Donation Fields
    • Donation Amount
    • Close Date
    • General Ledger Code
  • Ticketing Fields
    • Ticketable Event Name
    • Event Instance Date
    • Effective Ticket Price

Based on your mailing list plan, decide what kind of report to start from

Now that you know exactly what you need, follow the flow chart to figure out what report to start from.  Each ending point (diamond shapes) have a corresponding section below, where we've linked to some relevant Help articles.

Mailing List Plan Flowchart

The Basics: Using Filters

No matter which report you start from, you'll need to be able to add and manipulate filters.  If you're unfamiliar with editing the filters of a report, this Help article will help you get up to speed.

Using Cross Filters

Cross filters can be used to quickly filter reports based on related Donation, Ticket, Campaign Member, or Membership history.  For example, you can filter your "Confirmed Opt-In Contacts" for ticket buyers of a specific event.  Sound useful?  Check out this Help article to get started.

Starting from "All Confirmed Opt-In Contacts" Report

The filters and cross filters articles above can be used to build targeted email campaigns, as well.  However, sometimes you might find yourself wanting to send emails to people on multiple reports, with different sets of filters. If that's the case, we sending your email using multiple Emma Groups or MailChimp Static Segments.

The following articles can be helpful as you build an email list:

Starting from "All Contacts" Report

The filters and cross filters articles above will help you to build lists of Contacts for mailings or phone campaigns.

Additionally, the following articles can be helpful as you build a Contacts list, especially if you'll be using Campaigns:

Starting from "All Accounts" Report

The filters and cross filters articles above will help you to build lists of Accounts for mailings or phone outreach.

If you plan to also do NCOA with your mailing, then check out this helpful article:

Starting from CRM Snapshots

If this is your first time using a CRM Snapshot, check out this Help tab article to get started.  The article, and the tab itself, should guide you in creating a list with the filters you need.

While using CRM Snapshots, you may find some of the following articles helpful:

Starting from "Door List" Report

The filters and cross filters articles above will help you to build lists starting from either the Door List Report or the Who's Sitting in What Seat Report.

The following articles can be helpful as you work with these reports:

Starting from "All Donations by Fund" Report

The filters and cross filters articles above will help you to build lists starting from the All Donations by Fund Report.

Additionally, when starting from the All Donations by Fund Report, make sure to make note of Donation Record Types so that you don't double count money from things like Grants (where you can have Grants and Grant Payments) or Pledges (where you can have Pledges and Pledge Payments). The following article helps explain what Record Types are and why they're important:

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