Improving Your Affiliate/Chapter Email Communications

One of the constant struggles I see in affiliate/chapter-based organizations can be summed up as:

• HQ: Why am I the only one who can send email?
• Chapter/Affiliate: Because the tools you give me are too complex and we can’t dedicate the time it takes to becoming an expert like you.

• Chapter/Affiliate: Why do I always have to wait for HQ to send my emails?
• HQ: Because I need to ensure that it gets done right and you don’t go rogue.

• Both: We aren’t productive and message timing suffers.

I agree this is an oversimplification of the issue, but it speaks to the challenge of getting the right tool into the right users hands to solve a business problem, and in this case a consistent business problem I see is, “How does HQ optimize the relationship between chapters/affiliates when it comes to managing email communications?”

To solve this problem, we developed a new email tool called Email Express and made it available to Luminate Online clients back in February of 2012. So how does Email Express help to tackle the above issue:

• A completely separate UI – no getting lost in fundraising, content, site settings, etc. All users see is Email Express.
• A wizard-based approach to creating emails that steps the user through composing, customizing, and sending.
• The ability for an admin to create templates with varying levels of “locking” for components within the email.

Does this sound like something that will help your organization manage email communications? If so read more about Email Express (Convio Community Login Required).

Thanks for your time!

Oh…one last item to note: While this was specifically designed to address the email communications model within an affiliate/chapter based organization, Email Express is a great tool that can be used outside this model. A perfect example is how some organizations are looking to use this with volunteer staff, or other internal staff who have a need to send their own email but not the time to learn the full Email Marketing product.

You can keep up with us on Twitter by following @bbsupport; we use the hashtag #bblum when we discuss Luminate. Take a look at our Twitter Guide for more information.

Do you have questions about Email Express? If so, leave a comment below!