Parking Lot Post: Email Marketing 101 in Online Express

Rachel Nigro

Happy Friday everyone! Huge thanks to all of you that attended our Getting Started with Online Express webinar, Email Marketing 101, yesterday! You had some great questions and a few of them I wanted to post a bit more about here: 

So we can add link to our social media? What about something to share to constituent own social media?

Yes! Online Express has social media buttons that you can add to your emails to allow users to visit your facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social sites. Unfortunately, there is not currently a "Share this email" button in email, but we do have an idea that I'd encourage you to vote for here: "Add 'Share this email' with social media contacts to Email Marketing."

Since these emails appear under "Appeals" of a constituent record, is Online Express actually adding these to our "Appeals" table in RE? Will this be an available Appeal to select when we're entering gifts?

Yes, the email will be added to the Appeals table in The Raiser's Edge when you click "Add this data to RE" after sending an email. This way, if you'd like to enter gifts that may have come in as a result of that appeal, you can do so. If you don't want to attribute gifts to an email appeal, but do want to track what communications a constituent has received on their Appeals tab, one suggestion would be to mark the Appeal record as "inactive." That way, The Raiser's Edge would not allow you to enter a gift associated with that appeal.

What happens when a user opts out? Is there anything I need to do to update their constituent record?

When a user opts out of an email, Online Express will automatically remove that email address from any future emails. On the constituent record, you will see that the request is included in the response to the Appeal when you add email stats from Online Express to the record.


It’s important to note Online Express DOES NOT select:

• Do Not Contact (DNC) on the Phone/Email record in The Raiser's Edge
• Requests no emailon the Bio 1/Org 1 tab because a constituent might opt-out of mass marketing, but still want to receive other emails from your organization.

If you'd like to mark this on the constituent record, Online Express does have an Unusable Email Addresses area that can help you manage updating records as constituents opt out. From this area, you can click View record to go to the constituent record and mark it according to your organization's policy for tracking email opt outs: 


If you delete the email address, mark the email address as inactive, or mark the constituent record either inactive or deceased, Online Express will cross the email address out and display a green check mark:


For more information about this, we have a great article here with some additional examples: Email addresses in my Unusable emails list are crossed out with a green checkmark

Does Blackbaud offer an email append service that works in conjunction with Online Express?

Yes! Blackbaud offers a service called EmailFinder that may help you to acquire new email addresses from constituents in your Raiser's Edge database (aka constituents you'll be able to email in Online Express!) For more information about our Data Enrichment services, you can contact your organization's account manager or click here to read more. 

How have other organization managed having another list of constituents to send emails to but are not in RE?

Online Express will only allow you to send to constituent records that exist in The Raiser's Edge. You won't be able to upload a .CSV file or spreadsheet to be able to email an outside list through Online Express. We do have an idea here to send to emails that don't exist in The Raiser's Edge. I would encourage you to add your vote here if you'd like to see that added as a feature! In the meantime, if you have any advice for how you do this, comment below!


I hope this information is helpful! Have a great weekend! See you at our next webinar!

Meriellen Joga

I've seen the following statement in a couple of different locations but am a bit confused on what it means.


       It’s important to note Online Express DOES NOT select:

• Do Not Contact (DNC) on the Phone/Email record in The Raiser's Edge
• Requests no email on the Bio 1/Org 1 tab because a constituent might opt-out of mass marketing, but still want to receive other emails from your organization.

Does this mean that Online Express will NOT use an email if the Do Not Contact (DNC) flag is checked or that it's still going to use that email even though the DNC flag is checked?


Thank you,

Meriellen Joga

mjoga@newhampton.org

New Hampton School

Rachel Nigro

Hi Meriellen Joga‍!


In this context, we mean that Online Express will not automatically mark those items on a constituent record (Do Not Contact (DNC) on the Phone/Email and the Requests no email checkbox on the Bio 1 Tab) when a constituent opts out of your email. 


If you're looking for more information about which email addresses will be supressed from an Online Express Email, here are some great articles: 

• Which email addresses are automatically suppressed from mailings? (Details how the mail server will automatically suppress email addresses that return a hard bounce, a spam complaint, and/or have unsubscribed from previous Online Express emails) 
• How does Online Express handle DNC, Inactive, and Primary settings on emails in The Raiser's Edge? 

I hope this is helpful information! Let us know if you have any additional questions! 

Meriellen Joga

Thanks!  That's exactly what I was looking for.