Luminate Online vs. Constant Contact

Suesan Daily

We just switched over to Luminate Online and I know they have an email marketing aspect to it. We also have a constant constant account. I don't want to have to many hands in Luminate and don't want to start adding a lot of "stuff" in it. I just don't know which is better, to use Luminate for all of our email blasts or keep constant contact. Currently, our constant contact has a few thousand names. I know that we want to cut costs but not sure eliminating constant contact is best. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Crystal Bruce

Suesan Daily:

We just switched over to Luminate Online and I know they have an email marketing aspect to it. We also have a constant constant account. I don't want to have to many hands in Luminate and don't want to start adding a lot of "stuff" in it. I just don't know which is better, to use Luminate for all of our email blasts or keep constant contact. Currently, our constant contact has a few thousand names. I know that we want to cut costs but not sure eliminating constant contact is best. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Moved to Luminate Community. Thanks!

Philip Nawrocki

Hi Suesan,


What else are you using Luminate for? Are you collecting donations through it? Are you using TeamRaiser or Events?


I would think you would want to merge everything into Luminate(LO). This way you don't have two unsubscribe lists to maintain. Additionally, you can get a better idea of what your donor is doing if you use LO e-mail. The transactions/interactions with e-mail and your site flow into LO to help you market to them. You can see all this info in Cons 360.


Are you exporting lists to Constant Contact? If you use LO and Raiser's Edge, then your sync should be able to take care of a lot of this, depending on how you set it up.


And like you said, you are already paying for LO e-mail.


Let me know if that helps.


Thanks,


Phil

Suesan Daily

We have started to use Luminate for our donation collection and will begin using it for events. What I am afraid of is that a bunch of old emails will be imported into Luminate and creating a mess. We currently have a few thousand in CC and not sure what is the best way to go. We have several people who send email blasts and I am just trying to keep the data clean and not have to many hands in the bucket.

Chris Cain 2

Philip Nawrocki:

Hi Suesan,


What else are you using Luminate for? Are you collecting donations through it? Are you using TeamRaiser or Events?


I would think you would want to merge everything into Luminate(LO). This way you don't have two unsubscribe lists to maintain. Additionally, you can get a better idea of what your donor is doing if you use LO e-mail. The transactions/interactions with e-mail and your site flow into LO to help you market to them. You can see all this info in Cons 360.


Are you exporting lists to Constant Contact? If you use LO and Raiser's Edge, then your sync should be able to take care of a lot of this, depending on how you set it up.


And like you said, you are already paying for LO e-mail.


Let me know if that helps.


Thanks,


Phil

to piggyback on Phil's point - consolidating on a single tool definitely makes it easier to manage from a reporting and constituent-preferences perspective. And if you are conducting fundraising with Luminate, there is a big benefit to using Luminate email, especially for donation appeals. By linking to Luminate giving forms from Luminate messages, you can maintain solid reporting and source tracking, as well as "auto-logging-in" constituents, which will pre-fill known information on the donation form, and also enable you to use dynamic ask amounts.


-Chris