Mailing Lists

Mailing Lists know:

Mailing lists allow you to pull from Contacts, Constituents, and Donors to create a list from which you can generate letters or emails.
 

Create a Mailing List

 

Step 1: Find the Mailing List table in any workspace under Mailings and click +New in the command bar. 

Fill in the form. Save.

• Name: Name this mailing list. This is a required field.
• Purpose: An optional field where you can describe the purpose of this mailing list.
• Description: An optional field where you can further describe this mailing list.
• Remove Duplicates: choose the method by which this list should be deduplicated. 
  1. Email address = duplicates will be determined based on email address.
  2. Physical address = duplicates will be determined based on physical (mailing) address. 

Typically, Remove Duplicates by email address would be used for a list meant for a mass email and Remove Duplicates by physical address would be used for a list in which the intent is to send letters.

 

Step 2: Add mailing list members. Mailing list member is a record type that is stored in a table called Mailing List Members.

There are several paths by which mailing list members can be added. 

Depending on how many records you have selected, this process may take a moment. A progress bar will appear at the top of the page where you can track the progress and when the process is complete, you will see a message confirming that the members were added.

Users will be prevented from adding inactive records to a mailing list. When the Add to Mailing List function is run, it will validate that all selected records are active and display a message to the user if it finds inactive records.

Mailing List Members

Let’s take a look at mailing list member records. All fields in these records will be locked except for Salutation. You may update salutation at any time. All other fields in Mailing List Member are populated based on its connected Contact, Constituent or Donor record. 

For example, in a donor’s mailing list member record, you will find the address, a lookup to the Donor record, a lookup to the Donor’s Primary Contact, Secondary Contact, and Donor Constituent (if applicable). The member type will be either Contact, Constituent, or Donor, depending on the connected record. 

Update Addresses

In that case that a Contact, Constituent, or Donor’s address was updated since they were added to the mailing list, you will need to run the Update Addresses function.

*It is best practice to run this process before using the mailing list, each time you go to use it.*

This process will look at the connected Contact, Constituent, or Donor record for each mailing list member and ensure that the address listed in those records matches the address in the mailing list member record. If the address does not match, this function will update it.

On the mailing list record, click Update Addresses. Choose Start to start the process.

Depending on how many members are in your list, this process may take a moment. A progress bar will appear at the top of the screen where you can track the progress. When it is finished, you will see confirmation of success.

Remove Duplicates

On Mailing List records, there is a button to Remove Duplicates. This button will removed duplicates based on the selection in the Remove Duplicates field – by email address or by physical address.

Remove Duplicates by email address: This process will look at the email addresses and remove duplicates by member type. Meaning, contacts with the same email address will be considered duplicates, but a Contact and a Constituent with the same email address will not be considered duplicates. 

This process will deactivate mailing list member records which are considered duplicates. For Donors, the record with the highest Total Commitment will be kept and for Contacts and Constituents, the oldest record will be kept. 

Note: this process deactivates the mailing list member record ONLY. The related Contact, Constituent, or Donor records will NOT be deactivated. 

Remove Duplicates by physical address: This process will look at the physical address fields and remove duplicates by member type. Meaning, Contacts with the same address will be considered duplicates, but a Contact and a Constituent with the same address will not be considered duplicates. 

If your mailing list is set to remove duplicates by physical address and includes Donor records, the process will also take Primary Contact and Donor Constituent into consideration. For example, two Donors with the same address but different primary contacts will not be considered duplicates.

This process will deactivate mailing list member records which are considered duplicates. For Donors, the record with the highest Total Commitment will be kept and for Contacts and Constituents, the oldest record will be kept. 

Note: this process deactivates the mailing list member record ONLY. The related Contact, Constituent, or Donor records will NOT be deactivated. 

Remove Duplicates flow chart

The Remove Duplicates functionality is also outlined in the chart below.

 

Generate Letters

From the Mailing List record, you can generate letters.

When you set up your Letter Template, make sure the regarding view is a Mailing List Member view. For help generating letters or setting up letter templates, please refer to the Generating Letters in CRM knowledge article.