How Do You Welcome New Clients?
When patrons become associated with your organization, either by purchasing tickets or signing up to receive information, do they receive any kind of introductory materials? How do you go about getting lists of new people who have expressed this interest? One great, fully-automated way is to use the Welcome Letter feature within Patron Edge. Not many organizations are aware of what this is or how it works, but it can really save time in getting a list of new folks. When a CRM record is created, there is a field called Welcome Letter in the client details section; in order to include this record in a welcome mailing, be sure this field is set to Yes.
After records have been created, go into Administration, Client Management, Welcome Letter. This will throw up some options to help narrow down the list of clients to include in the mailing, like when the record was created or a ZIP code range. Run it a couple of times on small sets of clients to get an idea of how it works, and make sure to uncheck the Save to CSV File option until you know the list has who you want. When the file is generated, the Welcome Letter flag on client records is updated so that they do not receive a letter multiple times. When the list looks good, check that box to Save to CSV and click Generate. Now you have a file with the same information that is listed in the report; you can take this into your favorite mail merge application and create letters or labels to send a welcome package. Following is one scenario showing how cool this feature can be:
A client comes to your organization for the first time to see a show or an exhibit. He had a great time and signs up for your mailing list. At the end of the day, you generate welcome letters and run the CSV file through your preferred mail merge program. If you don't use MS Office, I highly recommend doing your mail merge through the free, open-source OpenOffice.org suite (you may want to wait a couple days to download it though; version 3.0 just came out this week and their site is being hammered from the huge demand). One version of the letter is for those who have email addresses and the second one is for those who do not; the second letter is nuanced slightly differently to encourage the client to give you his email address. Along with the welcome letter, your packet includes a brochure about your history and mission and a schedule of upcoming events. Now here's the nice bit; you throw in two teaser coupons for a nominal discount that the client can give to a friend. Some clients will use the coupons for themselves, but for the most part those who had a good time and signed up to receive information from you are the same kind of folks who will talk you up to their friends. You've just gotten free advertising from a credible source, and even better is that you can now track the coupon's effectiveness as a marketing tool!
Add this into your welcoming process for new folks. Come up with something awesome and creative, and most importantly be sure to share your experience in the comments. The Spotlight currently has about 200 regular readers and I know there are some good ideas out there!