Sara Swiatlowski
If you work with Blackbaud™ CRM Marketing Efforts frequently you know that there can be several steps to set up a new marketing effort and that list of steps grows when efforts become more complex. No matter the complexity of an effort, the setup always includes using segments to determine which constituents will ultimately end up in your mailing. Did you know there's an often overlooked feature that will help you save time when you are working on your marketing effort set up.
Segment Groups can help to make your life a little easier in a couple of different ways when it comes to setting up your marketing efforts.
You can add segments to a marketing effort in bulk by first adding those segments to a Segment Group. By doing this you can set up your source code and add an ask ladder one time for the group instead of each time you add an individual segment.
Segment Groups are also a handy tool when it comes to refreshing the segments for your effort. Once you’ve added segments to a group you can refresh the group as a whole instead of performing the refresh action on each individual segment. The group refresh can also be added to a queue process if you need to refresh a bunch of static selections and then the segments they are associated with.
To create a Segment Group go to Marketing & Communications, Acquisition and Segmentation Tasks, Segments and then navigate to the Groups tab.
What does this look like in action? Let’s look at a quick example! I have a mailing that I send out each month to new donors. It includes four segments that break down my new donors by giving ranges. I’ve added those segments to a new Monthly New Donor Segment Group. This allows me to add these easily to my Marketing Effort each month.
Now, when you're adding segments to a marketing effort, you can select the segment group.
Add the Segment Group details for your mailing
You can also refresh the segment group before you calculate the marketing effort totals instead of refreshing segments one-by-one or through a queue.
We hope these tips will save you a little time when you are creating your efforts!