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Seeking Insights: Email Structures and Contact Preferences

  • 1.  Seeking Insights: Email Structures and Contact Preferences

    Posted 22 days ago

    Hi everyone,

    My shop is looking to restructure our email structure and contact preference management in RE7, so I'm really interested in learning about how different foundations manage them. I'm specifically curious about the following points:

    1. Email Structure for Multiple Addresses: How do foundations handle emails when a constituent record contains more than one email address? What email types are being used? Do you have a particular system or protocol in place for managing multiple email addresses associated with one contact?
    2. Updates for Unsubscribed or Bounced Emails: When emails are unsubscribed or bounce back, what's the procedure for updating these records? Are there automated systems in place, or is it a manual process? I'm curious to know how different foundations ensure their contact lists stay up-to-date and accurate.
    3. Types of Contact Preferences and Management: What kinds of contact preferences do foundations typically offer to their constituents? And how are these preferences managed within the foundation's database or CRM system? Do users have the flexibility to customize their preferences easily?

    I believe there's a lot we can learn from each other's experiences and practices in this area. So, if you have any insights to share regarding these points, I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to drop a comment or share any relevant tips or strategies you've found effective in managing email structures and contact preferences at your foundation.

    Looking forward to the discussion!



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    Katherine Jensena
    The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health
    Katherine.jesena@lpfch.org
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  • 2.  RE: Seeking Insights: Email Structures and Contact Preferences

    Posted 19 days ago

    We are on BBCRM, so it's not completely apples-to-apples, but here are a few thoughts...

    1. We allow for multiple active emails on a record, but we usually try to have only one active of a specific type, and we only allow certain types to be marked as the Primary email. Personal, Business, and Assistant are valid Primary types, and each only have one active email. "Other" is a type that should not be Primary, but can have multiple active, and there is a place for a comment to explain further. The Primary may change or flip-flop as we get gifts or other engagement form the constituent.
    2. Updating bounced or invalid emails is done manually. We certainly have the capability to automate something, but our very detailed data entry staff prefer to lay eyes on the record. For example, if the Primary bounces, they want to choose another active email on the record to make Primary. Additionally, there might be an obvious typo in the email that can be corrected, rather than simply marking the email as bad. We used to delete these emails, but a few years ago we decided to keep them and end-date them, as it was another data point that could help use prevent the creation of a duplicate record.
    3. CRM has solicit codes (what the constituent does NOT want to receive) and mail preferences (opt-ins to specific mailings). We have campus-wide, as well as site-specific (campus schools and units) solicit codes for No Email, No Mail, No Phone, No Text, and each of these is specific to whether it is an Acknowledgement, Communication, Event, or Solicitation. To cover all of these options and allow for flexibility, we have a few hundred solicit codes, and any constituent can have any number of these solicit codes.

     

    One challenge we have is we integrate with SalesForce Marketing Cloud. If someone opt into a newsletter with a specific email address, we have to use the Primary email on the constituent, rather than that specific email address. There might be something more sophisticated we could do there, but currently it is what it is.

     




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