DonorPerfect and Constant Contact

Hello, and Welcome to our pre-recorded webinar on DonorPerfect and Constant Contact. Hello. My name is Sean Potero, and I am a training specialist here at DonorPerfect, where today we’re going to be going over the integration with our number one integration partner, Constant Contact. Read More

Hello, and Welcome to our pre-recorded webinar on DonorPerfect and Constant Contact. Hello. My name is Sean Potero, and I am a training specialist here at DonorPerfect, where today we’re going to be going over the integration with our number one integration partner, Constant Contact. They have perfected the art of mass email communication, and we partner with them for this task.

But why? 91% of people do check their email daily. Of this group, 88% of folks are checking it on their smartphones. For every 1000 emails that are delivered. $44 is raised, and 38% of online donors are inspired to give from an email. This information coming from the Pew Research Center. Hopefully you’re using one of DonorPerfect online donation solutions. You’ll create a constant contact list within DonorPerfect that then goes over into Constant contact.com there. You send out your emails, maybe encouraging folks to give, where a gift finds its way back into the database. Today, we’re discussing building the bridge from DonorPerfect to Constant Contact, just in case this is your first time enabling this feature, there are two different flavors of lists, either dynamic or manual, and there’s some additional options beyond just the list type.

From there, we can review the results in DonorPerfect and in ConstantContact.com as well, and as with all of our webinars, some of the features and fields seen here may be different than your own. When we look at the individual constituent profiles within DonorPerfect, everything is customizable on those screens, my setup is going to be a little bit different than what you’re used to seeing, and you may not be using Constant Contact, yet, hang on for the very end, I will give you some contact information to rectify that if you happen to not using Constant contact.com. Already, for those of you who are, you can find the DonorPerfect half of the bridge in mailings and constant contact email. From there, if this is your very first time enabling the feature, you are going to have to put in your username and your password only the first time.

And then from there, you’ll be encouraged to select your settings, starting off with number of months to sync campaign results history for your very initial synchronization with constant contact. If you have been using Constant Contact previously to setting up this integration, you can go back in time by a number of months and add onto the contact screen records of emails that were sent prior to the integration. Of course, once it is enabled, it will just do that, as a matter of fact, on the contact screen, if somebody receives an email, it will leave a record of it, unless you set number of months to sync to zero. Setting it to zero on the initial Sync will not only ensure that no contacts are created historically, but moving forward, that will be the case as well. We also have the ability to allow manual lists. The default list type is a dynamic list. The dynamic list has a selection filter on it that will determine the output when it automatically syncs every single night. But manual lists, you can pick and choose what is going to go on those and as such, these manual lists aren’t automatically updated. You have to manually select what is going to be on them for the nightly sync. We also have the ability to create new records in DP active only.

So for those of you that have been using Constant Contact prior to the connection to DonorPerfect, you may have folks over in constant contact com that are not in DonorPerfect, this option here will allow you to create donor profiles for them, given that they have an active email and Constant Contact always uses that email address as a unique identifier to match records dynamic lists, as I said, they automatically update nightly manual lists. Lists need to be manually established for that nightly sink. I’ll show you both ways a few moments when we go into the demonstration here, that dynamic list is going to require a selection filter every single night. That Selection Filter determines that the dynamic lists output.

You can’t manually pick and choose like you can with manual lists. No matter how that list is created, there are 12 standard fields that are going to carry, from DonorPerfect to Constant Contact, email, first name, middle name, last name, address, city, state, zip, country, home phone, business, phone and ID. However, if you want, you can include any field from the main table, any number of additional fields you could include. Let’s hop in here, into my database on the white ribbon at the top, the envelope that says mailings, we can click on and select the second option, constant contact email. The very first tab is going to have our campaign results, which would be the case if you’ve already built the bridge between DonorPerfect and constant contact. You only need to put in your login credentials once to establish the connection. Here we have email campaign results. We can see how many were sent, open bounce, opted out or forwarded. We can get some of this information over on content.com as well. We can create our lists over in list management. Here we can see all the lists that my colleagues have created, both dynamic and manual. We could edit or delete these as we see fit, but we can also add a new one here at the top left, the default type is dynamic.

I’ll leave it as such, and then I can create my list, and I can use an associated filter. These dynamic lists are going to need a selection filter, which is not the focus of today. If you need assistance building one of these selection filters, please reach out to the Support Department from the Help menu. In the blue ribbon at the top, you can select chat support, somebody will be able to assist you with this. Also underneath help, we have on demand webinars and knowledge based articles about the subject as well. Selection filters, a mechanism of reports found all over DonorPerfect narrowing the scope down on this case, I’m looking for, say, my alumni, and we can include their alternate secondary email addresses as well. From here, we can preview new constituents, see everybody who fits this criteria before creating the list, we now have a dynamic list with two people on it. As time moves on, if there’s any new profiles that meet that criteria, they will be added to the list.

There is also a manual list.

And there’s two ways that we can add to a manual list. One way is by name. If we have somebody in mind, we can look up their name or their email address and then click on Search or even looking for an exact match, and then we can select who we want to be included. We can include both Julie’s and then add them to the list, we also have a selection filter, or again, we can choose a selection filter to determine the output, but now with a manual list, because it is going to require us to check off which ones we want to include or not include.

Our selection filter does not need to be so precise as a dynamic list would. We can add or move people as we see fit, still with the option to include their secondary addresses before adding them to the selected list. So.

There we go. The Selection Filter isn’t saved on here, but we still can see everybody that’s included with a running total at the top. We can also always go back and change our setting if we want to after the initial setup, any number of months to sync above zero will ensure that on the contact screen, contact transactions are being created. Here we have the option to allow manual lists and the ability for constant contact to create new donor profiles. Down at the bottom, we have all of the additional fields that are being pulled from the main screen in DonorPerfect over to constantcontact.com I would consider adding salutation. You can include some of these other fields as well if you’re recording that information, and if you think it will be useful in an email. Perhaps your organization relies on memberships. We could include some additional membership information. If I click on Create new field from the mapped value drop down. I can find my field of interest, all of these from the main screen. In this case, I’ll go with expiration date for memberships and save mapping. We could do this with any field on the main screen.

And now we wait overnight. These lists will sync with constant contact.com it’ll pull those 12 fields, in addition to any custom mapped fields from DonorPerfect, over into Constant contact.com there is a shortcut to Constant contact.com. The white ribbon at the top. Very last option, second to last is apps, nine dots with the drop down of all of our Connected softwares. Very first option is going to be constant contact. From there you go over into their software, one by a different company, and Constant Contact is separate from us, and from there, you can create and design the emails or sending them out. There is a separate support department for constant contact. I’ll have that information at the end. Hopefully you’re using one of doing a perfect online forum donation solutions, and in those Constant Contact emails, you can point them towards a donation page where that information is going to find its way back into DonorPerfect Those gifts, as well as optionally contact transactions. With this enabled on the contact screen, you will be seeing a record of emails that are sent out. There is a read only section with constant contact specific fields in it. With that information in DonorPerfect, you can then use those fields in an easy report or an export template, and you can also find this information in constant contact.com as well.

Let’s go to one of our constituent profiles here and take a look at some of the fields that are going to be at play here. Email address is a hidden criteria of all lists. No matter how you’re picking and choosing, who goes on there, we’ll have to have an email address for them, and Constant Contact does have its own section. Some of these are read only fields that constant contact updates. But if you wanted to opt somebody out of an email, they could always opt themselves out by clicking on unsubscribe at the bottom of an email. Or you could do it for them by checking off the do not email checkbox and clicking, save overnight, they’ll be opted out. And then there is the contact screen, where we can see emails that have gone out previously. And if I edit one of these, these were made automatically by the integration, we can see dates, activities and Constant Contact, again, has its own section with Read Only fields that the integration fills out and completes so.

So because we are working with two different softwares for this process, there are two separate support departments that you can reach out to if you need help with constant contact that is building an email template, maybe scheduling it or running some reports over there, they do have a phone number that you can call in for assistance, 855-854-8609, you can also reach them by calling partner support at constant contact com, if you need help with anything on the DonorPerfect side of things, if there’s an issue with the nightly sync issue, missing campaign info and DP or assistance creating those email lists using the Selection filters, you can reach out to DonorPerfect support at 215-628-4343, or by email at DP support@software.com at software.com email and phone is an upgraded support package. If you’re paying for that, you can certainly call or email them for everybody else, everybody has access to chat support from the blue ribbon at the top, go to the question mark bubble that says help, and then chat support from there if you need assistance with the DonorPerfect side of things. And again, that integration is found underneath mailings, constant contact email for the DonorPerfect side, where we create our lists that then go over into apps and ConstantContact.com. 

Now if you don’t have a constant contact account, reach out to this number here, 800-848-3279, speak to an account manager that will work on getting a account created and added to your invoice with DonorPerfect.

If you already do have an existing Constant Contact account, and you would like that account merged with your DonorPerfect account, so that it’s all on the same invoice, you can reach out to Constant contact.com and speak to them at 855-854-8609, so to recap, if you’re using Constant Contact already, get That nightly saying turned on, go in there, log in, get your credentials, get some lists going, whether they’re dynamic or manual. If you need help with those dynamic lists and the selection filters do, reach out to the Support Department. They’ll help you out with that.

And it’s a good idea to put those selection filters in a separate folder of their own, especially these dynamic lists, they do have a ongoing purpose, and as these selection filters are also a mechanism of other areas in DonorPerfect like reports, you wouldn’t say want to accidentally use a constant contact filter on a report that you then modify, for the sake of your results on that report, you’re also modifying a dynamic list, so put them all in a constant contact folder, keep them separate. Everybody will know this one has an ongoing purpose, and then from there, certainly send out newsletters if you want to, but ideally, maybe you’re using a DonorPerfect online form where they can donate and get that get those donations back in to DonorPerfect. If you have any questions, please reach out to the appropriate support department. This has been DonorPerfect and Constant Contact. I’ve been Sean Potero, thank you so much. Have a great day.