Cleaning Inactive Supporters from Database

Brittany Larson 2

My organization is interested in clearing out some volunteers(/constituents, to use the Luminate term) from our email list who have been inactive for a long time, to get rid of some of the "drag" on our list. I am wondering if other organizations have done this recently before, and if you have any recommendations on doing so. I am wondering two major things:



1) How far back we should look; should we remove anyone who hasn't opened an email this year? Should we remove anyone who hasn't taken an action in three years? What have others decided was the best course of action in identifying truly inactive constituents?



2) I am wondering of the logistics of how to identify those to remove if we look at data from further back than one year. I know Luminate Online does not keep action-taker data forever, so I am wondering about how people get around this potential data problem. How do we identify someone in LO that hasn't taken an action in three years? 



Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! 



-Brittany

Erik Leaver

I'm assuming you don't mean you want to physically remove the records from your database. This can be done (and we've done it) but you need to work with support to permanently remove records from your database.



But we do identify "lapsed supporters" those that haven't taken an action, made a donation, or opened an email in the last year using engagement factors to score supporters. I know you mention three years as a benchmark but that seems a really long time.



At least once a year our lapsed supporters receive a 3 part email reengagment series. Those that don't open or respond are put into a special group that we don't email to anymore (on very special occasions where there is a breaking crisis or an issue they took action on is highly visible in the news, we may email them. We also run facebook ads to these people from time to time for reengagement).



There are some good resources out there for reengagement series. The for-profit world pays more attention to these typese of series than non-profits, but non-profits are paying more attention as people who don't open your emails really affect your overall deliverability. 



See: http://powerthruconsulting.com/blog/email-deliverability-for-non-profits-and-campaigns/

http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/12-5-of-email-doesnt-get-to-in-box/

http://act.everyaction.com/get-2015-nonprofit-email-deliverability-study



You'll need that type of data to help convince decision makers -- there's tremendous pushback on cutting lists.



But it's worth it, in our 2013EOY campaign we sent 1 million fewer emails than our 2012EOY campaign, but had the same number of email opens as we did in 2012. By elimiating those who weren't engaged, we were better able to reach those who are engaged.

Brittany Larson 2

Thanks Erik, this is great information, thanks for sharing! 

Jessica Sotelo

We are in the process of setting up a re-engagement series for people who haven't opened/clicked an email within the past 24 months.  If they don't open/click through a message in this series, we will stop emailing them.


I'm in talks now with LO as to the best way to "mark" these non-responsive records so that they stop getting email from us (simply creating a suppression group is not best practice) and allows the user to get back into the email stream automatically if they take action/donate/fill out a survey that opts them into email.


Since your original post, have you had any luck in your cleaning process?


Jessica

Brittany Larson 2

We have not made much progress since my last post (had a big campaign come up so this was put on a back-burner), but we are also working on a re-engagement strategy for our lapsed people. I tried something a bit different at the end of the year, and targeted our inactive supporters on our email list with a Facebook ad trying to get them to take action. I used their email addresses we had on file to create a custom audience. We were able to re-activate some people through these ads, and actually got them to take an action, but not as many as I was hoping for. My guess is that the people who don't tend to open and read our emails are people who  also don't click on many ads in Facebook, even when they recognize the organization. 


I am very interested in marking these inactives in Convio, as you mentioned in your response post, Jessica. If possible, please keep me updated on that process and how it works for you!


Brittany

Jessica Sotelo

Hi Brittany,


It turns out that the best way to handle non-responders *is* to put them into a group (which we have set as a default "do not email" group in all of our email campaigns).  This group is based on engagement factors--so if a constituent ever opens an email, clicks through, or re-engages in some way, they'll automatically be removed from this dynamic group, and begin to receive messages again.


Jessica

Sarah Royal

Anyone care to share the exact query they run to create such a group to email (and then subsequently suppress?) -- along the lines of "hey, we noticed you haven't opened our emails in a while. if you wish to still receive them, click here -- otherwise, we'll let you go." I want to periodically scrub the list, but give them a heads-up -- not just simply set an 'inaction' and remove them.


Thanks!

Jessica Sotelo:

Hi Brittany,


It turns out that the best way to handle non-responders *is* to put them into a group (which we have set as a default "do not email" group in all of our email campaigns).  This group is based on engagement factors--so if a constituent ever opens an email, clicks through, or re-engages in some way, they'll automatically be removed from this dynamic group, and begin to receive messages again.


Jessica