Mailing lists are a great way to organize your communication when it comes to accounts, contacts, leads and opportunities. Using a mailing list, you can email an entire list of contacts in one go.
Creating a New Mailing List
To get started, go to Member > Mailing Lists. Here is where you can find any pre-existing lists and create new ones.
Click New to begin creating a new list.
Name your mailing list - Be sure to name it something that will later help you and your team identify whom you’re mailing or why; without needing to open up the list. In this guide, we’re creating a mailing list that includes virtual clients; so this is what we’re calling it.
Check the Active box if you want to start using it right away.
Save your changes. This will take you back to the Mailing Lists section in Operate.
Now click the name of your newly created list to open it.
Here is where you can see the information associated to your mailing list and add members to it.
The Information area shows you the list name and whether it is active or not.
The System Information area displays who has created/updated the list and when.
The Mailing List Filters area shows a list of filters created for this Mailing List. These filters will determine which Contacts are added to your Mailing List.
Filtering Mailing Lists
Mailing Lists can be updated with members by adding one or more filters, which retrieve the corresponding records. Therefore, you do not need to add existing Contacts to the list one by one; nor do you need to create any new Contact records here. Your contacts will need to be added to Operate first (see how to), then the mailing list filter will pick them up. When adding new Contacts to Operate, you will not need to update the mailing list either. As you add Contacts, they will be picked up by the list as long as they fulfill the filtering criteria.
To add a new filter that pulls members into your mailing list, click the New button, under the Mailing List Filters section.
Next, name your filter and select an object: This includes combinations of: accounts, contacts, leads and opportunities. For example, to create our virtual clients mailing list, we will select Accounts and Contacts. This selection allows Operate to show you the relevant filters below.
Now select filters according to your needs. For our list, we will select the Account Client Type as the FieldName; equals as the operation and Virtual as the value. You can add as many filters as you need - simply use the New button to add more filters; or the Add Logic button to specify 'AND' and 'OR' conditions for your filters, which change the default 'AND' relationship between each filter. You can also click Remove if you no longer want a particular filter.
When adding logic, it’s good to know that:
'AND' ties two fields together, so that your list contains both or all fields (e.g. 1 AND 2 AND 3).
'OR' will make your list display either one field or the other, depending on your selection. (e.g. 1 OR 2 OR 3).
You can combine 'AND' and 'OR' in more complex expressions, in which case you can use parentheses
For example: If you would like to create a mailing list that contains virtual clients who have an active license and who either have a balance greater than £500 OR who pay by direct debit, you would set up the filters as shown below:
Press Search when you have finished adding your filters.
Operate will now display a list of Contacts that match the filters you applied. If you would like to opt someone out, simply check the Opt Out checkbox next to their record.
Save your filters when you’re ready.
Note on Location Filters
If you are filtering your mailing lists by location (Using the 'Account Location' or 'Contact Location Name' options) and you later decide to edit the name of the Location record that your filter is based on, then you will need to reapply the filter. Once you edit your Location, please come back to your mailing list record, edit the filters and find the one based on the Location. You will notice that the selection is now empty. Please select the new Location name to reapply the filter. You can edit Mailing List Filters by following the steps shown above, within the dedicated Filtering section.
Our team is working on a better solution for this situation. If you need assistance in the meantime, please feel free to get in touch.
Updating a Mailing List
Go to Member > Mailing Lists and click on the name of the one you want to update.
Actions
You can edit the list name by clicking Actions and selecting Edit.
Delete the list by clicking the Delete option.
Create a copy of your list by clicking the Copy option. This will open up a new mailing list record which is already filled out by the information in your original. You can use this to make slight changes without having to populate everything if the data in an existing record is usable.
Use the See Events option to view an audit trail of all changes made to the mailing list record.
Deleting filter records
You can delete multiple filters in one go by ticking the box next to the filter and then clicking Delete above the list. To delete one filter at a time, simply click the red "x" icon next to it. Any of these options will ask you to confirm your choice.
Deleting Contacts from the list
As long as a Contact record matches one of your applied filters, then the list will display it in the members search list that you pull up when applying the filters. So it is not possible to actually 'delete' a contact from the list. However, you have two options if you no longer want particular contacts to be included:
Remove the filter that pulls the contact record.
Opt out contacts by ticking the box next to them.
Using Your Mailing List to Send Mass Emails
Creating Email Campaigns
Once your list has been created, you can use it to send emails to the Contacts it includes. This can be done with the Email Campaign feature, which this article discusses in detail.
Exporting Mailing List Data
It is currently not possible to export the actual Contacts that are included into a Mailing list. If you would like to take your Contacts' details and use them in an external application, for example, you can create a list view using the same filters as your Mailing List and export that list instead. A list view will give you the flexibility of choosing which columns/data to include in your export.
You can export the list of Mailing Lists or Mailing List Filters to a .csv file if you like. Simply select all items or just the ones you want to export; and click the Export option. This will not include the data within the records, only the columns displayed by the actual Operate list. For example, the list in the screenshot below will export a .csv file containing the Mailing List Name, Active (Yes/No), Created By, Creation Date and Record Type.
