This playbook is a collection of best practices, resources, and general recommendations specifically designed for a typical Marketing nonprofit employee. Whether you are managing Email communications, physical mail, or SMS, this guide will provide a high-level overview of the key tools available in Virtuous CRM to help you get started. Because Virtuous is a customizable platform, each organization can adapt settings to meet their unique needs, ensuring a tailored and impactful experience. Use this playbook as a roadmap to navigate the platform’s core features that may be relevant to your role.
Table of Contents
- Design Settings
- Contacts vs. Individuals
- Campaign and Project Overview
- Sending Communications
- Automation Workflows
- Forms
- Responsive Dashboard
- Reviewing Email Activity and Reports
- Resources and Support
Design Settings
This is where you can lock in the various attributes that make up your brand identity such as brand colors and your organization’s logo. This can be managed in the Design Settings, typically set up during the initial Virtuous Giving setup process.
Contacts vs Individuals
The central building blocks used to track the various types of supporters, their relationships, and all other important data are Contacts and Individuals. As a Marketing user, this is an important distinction to ensure you are targeting the right people at the right time. The manner in which you target an audience may vary depending on the type of data used to define it.
For example, a communication geared toward Donors would likely go out to a Contact list, while a communication geared toward Volunteers would likely go out to an Individual list.
For an overview of Contacts vs Individuals, please reference this infographic.
Campaign and Project Overview
As a high-level summation, Campaigns and Projects function as the tracking structures to track and report on the effectiveness of your fundraising efforts and the resulting fund allocations, respectively.
The Campaign structure serves as a flexible framework to track and report on various aspects of your fundraising efforts. Campaign Communications and Segments provide the tracking mechanisms to report on the effectiveness of each effort that makes up a complete Campaign. The Segmentation feature will provide the data you need for direct mail with granular grouping, which will enable you to create a range of messaging that reflects each group responsively. The use for Segments and Segmentation is an intentionally flexible feature that can be used for tracking purposes. These can also be used in custom URL formatting to track which versions of communications prompted a donation from a supporter.
The Project structure serves as a framework to track what your incoming funding will be used for. Just as it's important to tailor Campaign messaging to fit the audience, communications referring to a specific Project can be just as value-driven. Leaning on the Project Donor Query Type will help you directly identify different groups of Contacts based on their Project-specific donations, which may tell you about their interests as they relate to your mission. Best practices regarding targeting recipients is provided further in this article.
Sending Communications
The Virtuous platform equips your team with several channels of communication. How you prepare and deliver your messaging differs depending on the channel and exact messaging. Each channel is briefly outlined below along with a selection of resources.
Email Communications
Targeting the appropriate audience is just as important as the actual message being delivered. Email Lists, Queries, and Subscription Preferences are three features that can work in tandem to create more specific and dynamic audiences to better reflect the message being delivered.
- Email Lists are used as categories of content that supporters can subscribe to.
- Queries, included Nested Queries, are used to further refine your target audiences. Nested Queries will allow you to combine different data types to further refine your target audience beyond the fields available in a Contact or Individual query.
- An Individual can subscribe or unsubscribe to different categories of content using the Subscription Preferences made available.
Email Design
Leaning on a suite of Email Templates that cover the scope of your recurring messaging will allow you to focus on tailoring your email contents and spend less time fine tuning the appearance and design of your email. Below is a short list of typical Email Template use cases.
- Newsletter Template
- Project Update Template
- New Donor Thank You Email Template
- Donor Impact Updates
You’ll notice there are two general categories of Email Templates available. Virtuous Templates are available as a starting point with pre-formatted design and spacing. Creating New Email Templates will be located in Organization Templates.
In addition, utilizing Email Groups to categorize the different types of messages internally will allow your team to stay organized. Below is a short list of Email Group use cases.
- Donor and Project Updates
- Newsletters
- Community Sponsor Communications
- Corporate Sponsor Communications
For additional guidance on using Email Groups, please refer to this Support Article.
Direct Mail
Delivering a Direct Mail piece can be an important piece of a high impact marketing strategy. The targeting and delivery manner functions differently from Email Marketing. With Mailing Addresses being tracked on the Contact level, Direct Mail is also tracked on the Contact level. Using the Segmentation feature in the Campaign structure will allow you to sort your selection of Contacts into specific audiences. When exporting the necessary information to create your Direct Mail content, the field “Segmentation Segment Code” can then be referenced to include the exact audience each Contact is matched with.
SMS Messaging
The third general channel of messaging available via the Virtuous platform is SMS messaging, otherwise known as text messaging. For an SMS to be successfully delivered, an Individual must have a Mobile Phone Number on file that has opted-in to receiving text communications.
Please note that the SMS feature is a premium feature that requires a paid subscription.
Letters on Demand
Pairing Direct Mail efforts with the Letters on Demand feature allows your team to create and send physical mail content without ever touching a piece of paper. The LOD feature can be built into an Automation allowing you to craft a full Campaign, including physical mail, all in one place.
The LOD feature can also be used to deliver a physical Receipt, which functions in the same manner and is referred to as “Receipts on Demand.”
For a guide on creating a Receipts on Demand Template, check out this Support Article.
Please note that the Letters on Demand feature is a premium feature that requires a paid subscription.
Automation Workflows
Virtuous Automation Workflows can provide a suite of functionalities to enable a continuous and Responsive stream of content. The Steps structure of an Automation allows you to define different conditions for series of communication like a drip campaign while Virtuous manages much of the legwork. Pairing dynamic Queries with a well constructed Automation Workflow can reduce administrative time and allow your team to spend focus on the actual content. There are 9 Best Practice Templates available in-app that can be customized to better fit your specific needs. Please note that these templates are intended to be a starting point and typically call for updates and customization before being turned on.
Bulk Email vs Marketing Automation Email
An important distinction to understand is the role of a Bulk Marketing Email and a Marketing Automation Email. A Bulk Marketing Email will deliver the same message to a selection of Individuals at the same time. A Marketing Automation Email will deliver a similar message to a specific Primary Individual when triggered by the appropriate action.
Forms
A variety of Forms are available for use in the platform. In particular, a Lead Form is a flexible means of gathering data and opt-ins from supporters. Below is a short list of possible uses for a Lead Form.
- General Interest Form
- Email Sign Up and Preferences
- Survey with a Custom Collection
For instructions on how to create a new Lead Form, check out this Support Article.
All Form submissions come through the Gift and Contact Import Tool to ensure any matching or updates are completed before being committed as official data.
As an example, if a supporter completed a Lead Form to be added to the Volunteer Newsletter Email List, an Automation Workflow can deliver a Marketing Email with the upcoming Volunteer Opportunities 3 days after they completed the Form. As a reminder, an Individual Form Submission Query can be nested into a Contact or Individual Query to use as targeting in an Automation Workflow.
Responsive Dashboard
The Responsive Dashboard provides a selection of Widgets that readily display valuable insight into the various parts and impact of your messaging and content. Below is a list of the Responsive Dashboard Widgets and their potential value.
- Touchpoints per Contact - This Widget summarizes Event, Tasks, Email, and Direct Mail touchpoints on a rolling basis.
- Web Visitors - This Widget displays the total number of unique visitors to your website each month, broken down by known visitors and unknown visitors.
- Digital Engagement - This Widget displays the performance of your website and email content, displaying the combined total of all email clicks and unique web visitors for each month on a rolling basis.
Note: Several of the Responsive Dashboard Widgets require the Responsive Listener to be active on your website. If you are unsure if this feature is active, sync with your Database Administrator. The Responsive Listener also collects website activity and connects it to existing supporters in your database.
For more details covering the Responsive Listener, check out this Support Article.
Reviewing Email Activity and Reports
As a Marketing User, you may be interested in seeing Email statistics. The Standard Report titled “Rolling 12 Month Email Activity Report” provides an overview of your Emails sent in the form of two graphs. One represents the open rate versus click rate per month while the other is a chart that includes statistics like “Total Emails Sent (per month),” “Total Unique Opens,” “Total Unique Clicks,” and more.
For a full rundown of this Standard Report, check out this Support Article.
An excellent resource for granular Email communication data is the Sent Email Query. This Query type provides email specific fields that allow you to review the exact details of email sent to each Individual. A few high-value fields include “Marked as Spam,” “Unsubscribe,” “Delivery Status,” and “URL Clicked.” As a best practice reminder, you can nest a “Sent Email Query” into a Contact or Individual Query, which means you can create follow-up communications based on previous email engagement.
Resources and Support
As you work in Virtuous, you may need additional guidance beyond this playbook. You have a handful of options to access further training and knowledge!
Support Center
The Virtuous Support Center is the central hub for all instructional documentation regarding how the platform functions, when to use each feature available, and a collection of best practices to lean on. When searching for content in the Support Center, it’s best to structure your inquiry as a question. Most articles are titled in question format, such as “How Do I Enter a Gift?”
Virtuous Training Academy
The Virtuous Training Academy is your one-stop shop for instructional videos structured in chronological order.
Chatting with Virtuous Tech Support
After reviewing the content available in the Support Center and Training Academy, you may need additional support on your specific use case. You can reach out to the Virtuous Tech Support team for one-on-one guidance.
For guidance on submitting a quality Support Ticket, check out this Support Article.
For directions on how to review your open Support Tickets, check out this Support Article.
Professional Services
Need help structuring your Campaigns, Giving Forms, or something else? Virtuous Professional Services can help your organization strategize and set up Campaigns that allow for improved Donor segmentation, optimize your Giving Forms, build custom Reports, and more! Click here to learn more about our Professional Services offerings, or contact your Customer Success Manager to get started!