New Donor integration program -- Action Track or Attribute?

Faith Murray

Hi, All! My org is implementing a complicated new "Donor Welcome" program, which involves entering all new donors into a 12-step, individually-tailored communication process over the span of a year before integrating them into the regular mailings. In this setup, for example, a donor who came on board in January would receive Mailing #1 in Feb, Mailing #2 in March, etc.... while a February new donor would receive Mailing #1 in March and Mailing #2 in April .... with different mailing tracks based on the holiday seasons.


So I'm trying to decide which would be better - Action tracks or Attributes?


I haven't used Action tracks much, but liked the fact that they auto-proceed onto the next Action in a pre-set series, and if coded correctly could be used to pull a mailing list. However, Actions seem most useful for one-on-one communications, and our Welcome program would be a bulk process handling between 700-1000 new people each year. Also, with that many Actions, it would really clutter up my Home page, unless I left the "Auto-remind" criteria blank.


Because of the clutter problem, I am inclined instead toward Attributes right now -- a group of 12 Attributes for each new donor (one for each mailing), using the date column to mark what date the mailing should go out, and pulling the mailing lists off the Description/Date information. After a year, the Attributes would be deleted when no longer needed. The one drawback I can see is that entering that data correctly might become confusing for other data entry personnel, and so all new donors would need to be entered through Constituent Batches that had the correct Attributes entered as default columns.


Thoughts/advice?

Gina Gerhard

Faith - Wondering instead of structuring this for all 12 attributes you could just have one attribute with the 'Next Mailing' -- so you only would be capturing what is 'next' and assume that the prior actions have been done.  

• Does it matter to capture the actual dates each prior mailing went out or just knowing that they were sent?
• ex: Next Donor Welcome Mailing:  Mailing #3 (so you'd know they already got #1 and #2)
• Since you're managing the mailing schedule, you would know when Mailing #3 is scheduled
• Then you would only need to query anyone who had 'Mailing #3' for your list?

Faith Murray

Gina Gerhard:

Faith - Wondering instead of structuring this for all 12 attributes you could just have one attribute with the 'Next Mailing' -- so you only would be capturing what is 'next' and assume that the prior actions have been done.  

 

I thought about that, but unfortunately, the mailing setup is too complex to leave it at one attribute. With nine different types of new donors each entering into 12 different months, tailored by holiday season and first gift type, there are more than 48 different possible mailing track combinations. The entire mailing plan needs to be entered as soon as the donor is entered into the database, or else it will be too complicated to keep track what mailing to give that person next.


Who knows, maybe we are over-reaching, lol. But we're really trying to get into the individualized communications thing. Our new donor retention, and our event donor conversion, are lower than we'd like, so this is our attempt to keep them on board a little better.

Gina Gerhard

Faith Murray:

Gina Gerhard:

Faith - Wondering instead of structuring this for all 12 attributes you could just have one attribute with the 'Next Mailing' -- so you only would be capturing what is 'next' and assume that the prior actions have been done.  

 

I thought about that, but unfortunately, the mailing setup is too complex to leave it at one attribute. With nine different types of new donors each entering into 12 different months, tailored by holiday season and first gift type, there are more than 48 different possible mailing track combinations. The entire mailing plan needs to be entered as soon as the donor is entered into the database, or else it will be too complicated to keep track what mailing to give that person next.


Who knows, maybe we are over-reaching, lol. But we're really trying to get into the individualized communications thing.

 

Faith - This just seems so complicated it almosts begs for some type of simplification if possible (I know that's your question!).  Wondering if perhaps the segmentation feature in Mail could be used if you can categorize your donors into the 9 categories by logic?  That might then simplify at least part of this program?

Karen Stuhlfeier

 Do you have NXT or are you thinking about getting it? Actions are really easy to report on in NXT and from those report lists you can easily add new actions or create lists of constituents that can also be saved as a static query in RE. You can also make lists based on attributes (or custom fields as they're called in NXT), but it sounds like actions would make the most sense for you in both RE and RENXT. If actions and action tracks are set up well they can be really helpful and a really good way to measure your progress. 

Faith Murray

Gina Gerhard:

Faith - This just seems so complicated it almosts begs for some type of simplification if possible (I know that's your question!).  Wondering if perhaps the segmentation feature in Mail could be used if you can categorize your donors into the 9 categories by logic?  That might then simplify at least part of this program?

 

Hmm... - it's a possibility, with a little restructuring. That seems to shift the complexity from entering new donors to pulling the monthly mailing list instead, but, perhaps that is better since I'm the only one who pulls mailing lists so I only have to rely on my own accuracy. Okay, let me back up this process a little bit and pick your brain. I'm not as fluent in Mail or Action Tracks, because we only just began using more of its features about a year ago.


1) Is there any feature in Mail that would allow if/then merging/exporting based on Attribute Description?

2) If you put an end date on a constituent code (let's say we create a "New Donor" code), will the filter feature in Mail exclude that constituent once the end date has been reached?

3) Can you add an Action Track automatically during a new constituent batch, or is that something that must be done later using a Query then Tools?


This will help me figure out how flexible my options are and if I can use a combination Attribute/Action/Mail method ....

Faith Murray

Hey, Gina, thanks! I think I've got it. You're right, Action tracks and Mail will be the way to go. I just experimented and, by combining Action Tracks with a Donor Type Attribute, I only have to make 12 Action Tracks and can assign the Action Track via Query each month and use the Follow-up Letters Mail Export to get my monthly mailing list.


Sometimes just talking it through can be a big help - thank you!


Faith