Create maps of your patrons using free online tools

Nicholai Burton — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:20:00 GMT

Check out the guest post I wrote today on The User's Edge blog. I explain how to use the RE Export module and a free service called Map a List to create a Google Maps mashup. These tools are not RE-specific though; you can run Marketing Mailing queries and generate a spreadsheet of address info, enabling you to get a visual of where your season ticket holders or major sponsors live.

What do you think? Do you find it useful to be able to visualize trends about your patrons on a map?

Send an SMS blast to patrons using free online tools

Nicholai Burton — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:51:00 GMT

You've used Patron Edge for a while, gotten the hang of Marketing Mailing, and are pretty good at generating lists for brochures and email blasts. But have you considered the possibility of using the system to send out an SMS blast to the mobile phones of your subscribers? In the past, if you wanted to send email to a mobile phone, you had to figure out how to format the email address properly in order to hit the phone, and of course every carrier uses a different format. There's a free service out called Flipout (by California-based company Teleflip) that lets you send an email - like 8432166200@teleflip.com - and it is sent to the phone as an SMS.

To use:

Sign up for the Flipout service
Create your list via Marketing Mailing and save it as a CSV file. Make sure that you're using the Restrictions feature of Patron Edge and only sending messages to patrons who have opted in. Receiving unsolicited text messages is one of my pet peeves, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Open the file in Calc or Excel and strip out any characters like parentheses or hyphens. This is easy to do with a quick Find and Replace
Append the text '@teleflip.com' to the end of the phone numbers. This can be done by adding a new column that contains only this text and then using a simple Concatenate formula. See this link for an example if you do not know how to concatenate fields
Use your favorite email merge application to send out the message.

You have to get a little creative with the CSV file, but once you've done it a time or two it becomes second nature. Are you currently sending text messages of any kind to your patrons? What are the reactions or what techniques are most effective? Leave a message in the comments.

The Spotlight : Marketing Mailing

Create maps of your patrons using free online tools

Send an SMS blast to patrons using free online tools