Defining Housefile

Dustin Alexander 2

Hello, 

 

Our Development and Marketing Teams are starting work on a plan to set specific targets to build our email housefile annually. 

 

Part of that for me is coming up with a defining what our total housefile is to get an idea of what our Housefile to email housefile ratio is. 

 

The problem is we have 5 different databases that collect constituent data in various areas of our nonprofit.  Some of the questions that come to mind.

 

1. Of our entire housefile what would we define as active housefile?  Constituents that have had an action with us in the last XX months? Do we include everyone since the dawn of time?
2. In our email housefile if we have had no action with a specific email for X number of months do we continue to keep that email active or do we no longer keep that email active. 

I think define what an active Housefile and active email housefile is important I just have no idea what is a good metric for this.  Any suggestions?

 

Thank you. 

Kent Gilliam

Hi Dustin,

 

So we look at any email that you can still reach their inbox as an active email record. That's what your billing is based on in your Blackbaud LOM contract. Now saying that there are several orgs I've worked with who simply want to cut the "dead weight" of those who are never even opening emails. While I understand that want I don't typically recommend it because you just never know when you might catch them at the right time with the right message that makes them take action. Without even knowing it you could remove a millionaire's account. 

 

I recommend evaluating your housefile by using the Email Response Rate Segmentation Task and setup a few of your Engagement Factors to track email response. You can do things like score people 1 point for each time they open an email over XX number of days. Then you can query this and with a config like, "email status equals 'accepts email' AND status does not equal 'removed' AND Engagement Factor X 'is not blank'." This will easily show you how many constituents are not even opening your emails. This Task is not retro-active so you'll have to set it up now and then evaluate in 12 months or whatever you want to look at. 

 

Here's some info on that task: http://help.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=Admin_Task_Administration#Creating_EmailSegmentation_Task

 

Hope this helps!

Kent

Danielle Johnson

All good things to investigate and question. For many the focus is on revenue generation without attn to HF which directly impacts it!

 

New research is coming out that shows that inactive records, like the example you described where someone hasn't opened an email in XX months actually impacts your spam rating. No longer is growth the only factor to consider, but engagement is key too. In fact the arguement could be made that engagement is more important than growth because engagement will almost always = action like making a gift or signing up to be a volunteer.

 

So when I was fundraising I would consider active offline or online, someone that has taken some form of action (made a gift, opened an email, engaged with on social media, attended an event) within the last 2 years. For email records where you've seen NO activity for 24 months I would run what's called a drip re-engagement campaign. Multi-part campaign with subject lines that are clear and all about "do you still want to hear from us" or "hear about what's new" or "we haven't heard from you in a while". Drip just means it is a slow campaign that happens over time, not something that is run over 2 weeks, but perhaps 5-6 weeks targeting just those 24 month records.

 

While you're crafting a strategy around HFB growth, check out this article about engagement and how lack of engagement can damage your spam ratings. This is powerful information that can back up a strategy about better, more targeted content and make engagement part of your housefile/email growth strategy.

 

https://litmus.com/blog/3-steps-to-successful-subscriber-reengagement#email