Mailing List Procedure

Options
Colleen Dunne
Colleen Dunne
Tenth Anniversary
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
We have a mailing list of about 3500 for our newsletter.  Some of our recipients are two different people who live at the same address.  Like brothers who live in a community or students who have visited our school and parents who have donated who have individual records.  I am hesitant to send only one copy to a house because if there are forwarding addresses we will never know but on the other hand want to portray we are good stewards.  How do others handle this both in procedure and how do you use your database to manage it?
Tagged:

Comments

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    We send to both parties at the address unless requested not to.  I think today most people realize mailing lists generated automatically and see that newsletter is addressed to different individiuals.  We also have several individual donors at one company address - they each get their own.



    However, if requested to not send duplicates have a plan for how to handle it.  Most use solicit code.  It's very irritating to me that my husband and I are still getting two copies of an orgs newsletter when I've requested they only send one.
  • Candace Chesler
    Candace Chesler
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Colleen - 

    One technique I have used to manage mailing lists is to be careful about Organizational Relationships.  The Primary Contact recieves copies of all mailings that are sent to an organization.  I also have relationships labeled event invitations, newsletter only, acknowledgement and of course, employee.  So for event invitations - the organization might recieve three copies addressed to three people; The Primary Contact and the two coded as "event invitation".  Newsletters are sent to the Primary Contact and all people coded as "newsletter only" - and - possibly the event people if the newsletter talks about a recent event.

    I use the acknowledgement relationship as the person to recieve the correspondence related to donations from the organization.  

    My business rule is to never send anyone coded as "Employee" any mailings.  That way I can let the Development staff know how many of our constituents are employed at a specific organization without mailing to them.  



    I think it is fine to send multiple pieces of mail to a household when the constituents are not married/partnered - AND - the constituents are clearly two different people.  As you said - that way you can get address forwarding information if a constituent has moved.  

    One last thought - any time I create a mailing list - I write a formula to compare addresses and then review any address that is duplicated to make sure that the recipients are really two different people.  
  • Andrea Clark
    Andrea Clark
    Tenth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic First Reply
    We will mail to different individuals at the same address.  However, if they are spouses with different accounts, we will mail to head of household only and use an additional addressee/salutation that has both their names.



    I like the idea of using different types of relationships to indicate which contact gets what kind of mailing.  Do you use contact type for this or an attribute?
  • Candace Chesler
    Candace Chesler
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Andrea -

    I see that I was mixing up my terminology.  I don't use attribute - I use the Contact Type.

    Within the group of constituents who are related to an organization - I have Contact Types of:

    Primary

    Event Invitation

    Acknowledgement

    Newsletter

    Employee



    Most of these people have a Relationship with the Organization as an Employee - and then a contact type.  I suppose it's overkill to have a Contact type of "employee" - - that I then never include in mailings - but I do.

    My exports for mailing lists include the specific Contact Type that shoud be included for the particular type of mailing.

    Hope that helps clarify.

     
  • Mark Guncheon 2
    Mark Guncheon 2
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    How do you handle a constituent who is more ethan one type of contact? We have a primary contact who is also the golf contact but not the gala contact. That person is also the employee giving contact. How do you code them?
  • Jennifer McHale
    Jennifer McHale
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    We use attributes to indicate which mailings a contact relationship should receive.
  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Great thread!

    We take advantage of just sending to the head of household for all mailings.

    We also use the relationship contact types to control the number of mailings to organizations.

    As a independent high school we often have the same alumni address as the parents. Appeals are sent to all solicitable constituents. Still using send to head of household functionality. We include giving history on our reply cards so it does not make sense for us to bundle them for non-partnered/married couples. We have several mailings where we only sent one postcard, invitation, or magazine per household. Particularly the magazine that costs more than $10 for international postage each. We can knock 600 to 1000 pieces out of these mailings using the process I'm about to outline. Our mailing list is around 6000 pieces just to give you a scale.

    We are not concerned with address forwarding as we stay USPS Move compliant at all times. Every 95 days our addresses are processed through the national change of address (NCOA). We update our database with the changes.

    I'd love feedback on the system I set up 8 years ago. Initially it took a some time to set up. Now it takes a few hours a year to maintain.

    I used pivot reports to identify the shared addresses as for years addresses were not properly linked in RE so it seemed the safest way to identify. For the records that share addresses we add an address attribute to the address that is in common on all records. If it is just spouses or partners we do not do this. If there is a third constituent at that address we add this to all shared addresses. The attribute is called "Family Mailing" attribute (fma). We date it with the current date (shortcut F3). The description is a text field and we enter "The Smith Family" or "Smith/Johnson Household" if they don't share the same last name. We copy and paste the same addresses so they all match perfectly. If someone shares an address but they clearly need their own copy (Perhaps they are all teachers at the same school or have contacted us to get separate mailings) we code them as "aaNo" in the fma description. It is in the values of the majority of our constituency to not be wasteful. We have some constituents that live on a small island and have requested on 1 piece of mail that they will share. They do not all have the same address, so the way I handle those is code them with a "Z_" at the start of the name so I can pay special attention as often I don't look at the names as I'm working the list to get rid of the duplicates.

    It takes under 20 minutes to make sure I have no more than one of the same address in our mailing and that they still feel personal. Our mailhouse can find the duplicates but they can not give the personal touch. This includes a follow up pivot at the end of the mailing. Anyone that was missing the attribute is caught and saved so RE can be updated for the next mailing.

    Briefly the process involves sorting the list first by the following items in this order: fma, country, state, city, address1. I use conditional formatting on the address1 column. I filter on the highlighting and remove just the fma (not the entire row) where the addresses are not highlighted. I resort. I then delete all but 1 of the duplicated addresses. There will be a few addresses like PO box where I'll need to delete the fma as they appeared to be duplicates but they were not. Then I do the final pivot to make sure there are no additional duplicate addresses and save the changes to be made in RE. One last sort and then I copy the fma and paste over the addressee.

  • Matt Page
    Matt Page
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    Do people tend to use the mailing facility on RE or just export and do it in Excel? We currently do the latter but I wonder if the mailng facility would be a better option. That said, it doesn't seem to have a built in format that produces the kind of thing our mailing house would want.
  • Matt Page
    Matt Page
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic

    Elizabeth Johnson:

    Great thread!

    We take advantage of just sending to the head of household for all mailings.

    [snip]

    I used pivot reports to identify the shared addresses as for years addresses were not properly linked in RE so it seemed the safest way to identify.

    [snip]

    Thanks for posting this Elizabeth. Would you mind elaborating on how you use pivot reports to identify the shared addresses?



    Thanks



    Matt
  • Aldera Chisholm
    Aldera Chisholm
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Photogenic

    Matthew Page:

    Do people tend to use the mailing facility on RE or just export and do it in Excel? We currently do the latter but I wonder if the mailng facility would be a better option. That said, it doesn't seem to have a built in format that produces the kind of thing our mailing house would want.

     If we are doing invitation lists, say for a gala, we would export to excel (including the constituent number in export so I can re-import if there are lots of changes) and allow our team to review to look for additional/removals. However, for our direct mail appeals, I use the Appeal Card function within mail to create lists which I give to my mail house for processing. However, Appeal Cards only seem to work for individuals, so I can't use that technique to pull organizations, so I do those separately.
  • Gina Gerhard
    Gina Gerhard
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Photogenic
    Matthew - We have a sort of 'decision grid' to decide whether to produce a mailing using Export vs. Mail. I'm sure I've missed some, but off the top of my head here's my top items.



    Basically:
    • Export
      • This is the big kahuna and you can usually access almost any field for exporting.  
      • We probably use this most often.
    • Mail
      • Can be more convenient and easier to use for basic purposes, especially for staff who aren't experts in RE.
      • The biggest drawback is that you have access to only a limited number of fields, so depending on what you need for your mailing you can often disqualify mail right off the bat.

    Features Mail does/does not have:
    • Mail has 'shortcut' formats - for envelopes, labels, name tags, donor acknowledgement letters, etc. so it's often more convenient.
    • Mail does have a 'Filters' tab which is often an easy way to include/exclude based on some basic criteria. 
    • Address - you have to make sure to understand the Indiv Address and Org Address tabs (it's like address processing)
    • Organization addresses - for business addresses, the organization name and position field do not come over with the address block. You have to make sure to select them from the Constituent information fields (a common error).
    • Segment
    • Handling contacts
  • Denise Sanders
    Denise Sanders
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
    This is great, Gina!  I hope you don't mind if I copy it and modify it for our use.  Thanks for sharing!
  • Gina Gerhard
    Gina Gerhard
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Photogenic

    Denise Sanders:

    This is great, Gina!  I hope you don't mind if I copy it and modify it for our use.  Thanks for sharing!

    Please feel free to share away!  I'm sure there are more things to be added as well ....
  • Matt Page
    Matt Page
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    Thanks for all your replies everyone, particularly your "grid" Gina. It kind of reflects my own feelings that you have to mix and match a bit.



    Since posting I've also discovered that the "Quick Letters" section also allows you to export instead of just print.



    Matt
  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Matthew Page:

    Thanks for posting this Elizabeth. Would you mind elaborating on how you use pivot reports to identify the shared addresses?

     

    I'd be happy to share something before the week is over
  • Elizabeth Johnson
    Elizabeth Johnson
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Matthew Page:

    Elizabeth Johnson:

    Great thread!

    We take advantage of just sending to the head of household for all mailings.

    [snip]

    I used pivot reports to identify the shared addresses as for years addresses were not properly linked in RE so it seemed the safest way to identify.

    [snip]

    Thanks for posting this Elizabeth. Would you mind elaborating on how you use pivot reports to identify the shared addresses?

    Thanks

    Matt

    Hi Matt,



    Here is a video of how I create the pivot in Excel 2010 to locate duplicated addresses. I have attached it to "my content" and it is public as well as the YouTube link above. It is particularly good at helping to locate addresses that may be duplicate but the entry is not identical as in the last example of the video. Similarly this is a useful tool to locate misspelled city names using data from the sample database - they really stand out when you are comparing cities by state and/or country.



    Also useful, if you trust that your data is entered consistently, is combining the conditional formatting function with the auto filtering based on color. 



    I hope you find this helpful,

    Elizabeth
  • Matt Page
    Matt Page
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    Hi Elizabeth,



    Thanks for posting this and sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Still getting used to the new forums.



    I hadn't realised that you could click on Pivot Tables like that to get specific results. What a useful feature. However did I miss it? I can see myself using that a lot from now on. And that really helps me get my head around how you manage addresses etc and will really help when it comes to sorting out our spouses etc from here on in.



    Many thanks,



    Matt

Categories