CommunitySuite's campaigns functionality has two primary functions: communication lists and events management. A campaign can be used to build a communication list, manage an event including online ticket registration, or both. You can also use campaigns for auctions.
Marketing Campaigns
Campaigns is CommunitySuite's list building tool. Marketing campaigns are used to build lists for mail and email communications. You can quickly generate mailing labels and export contact information for a mail merge. If you utilize the Mailchimp integration, you can push an email list from a campaign to Mailchimp.
You can export contact information from many areas of CommunitySuite, but since campaigns is a communications tool, there are some built-in features that help ensure accuracy in your list.
- Deceased profiles cannot be added to a campaign.
- When a profile is marked Do Not Mail, Do Not Email, or Do Not Phone, the contact info that is marked Do Not will not be available on exports and will not sync to Mailchimp.
- When a household and one or more members are added to the same campaign, you can easily remove duplicates so that you only mail to the household.
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Event Campaigns
Campaigns also serve as CommunitySuite's event management tool. Campaigns allow you to do the following:
- Create free and paid tickets.
- Sell tickets both manually within the system and on the online donation portal.
- Manage RSVP guest lists.
- Manage requests and groups such as food preferences and table assignments.
- Record event attendance.
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Historical Campaigns
The historical type is used during the migration process to classify past campaigns that are no longer in use. This is used to keep a profile list intact, but it will not allow for any ticket, groups, or request information.
Auctions
The auctions functionality in campaigns offers a streamlined way to generate bid sheets and process auction items.
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Communication and Reporting
After profiles have been added to a campaign, mailing labels and lists can be created; and mail and email information can be exported. Financial reports specific to campaigns are also available.
Campaigns Settings and Initial Setup
There are three types of campaigns consisting of marketing, event, and historical with each having unique functionality. Campaign categories are user-defined and are essentially an organizational structure for campaigns. If your foundation uses MailChimp, the MailChimp API Key and List Name are found in Campaigns Settings. Content for online tickets can be configured in Campaigns Content.