Blogging, eMail, eQuipping, MailChimp, MPD, Newsletters & Written Correspondence

Managing Your Mailing List


Managing Your Mailing List

When do you remove someone from your prayer letter list? The answer was “never” in my early years of being on staff with Cru. That may be your answer. And that’s fine.

If financial partners have not given for many years, do you remove them?  You only have so much time, energy, and resources. If you want to cut some names, do it. Don’t spend a lot of energy on “what-ifs.”

We have more options now than I did in the 70s and 80s. We don’t have to remove someone when we could offer a different option.

If you decide to contact people first, I hope my journey gives you some tracks to run on.

Our Story in Brief

I had been on staff for seven years when Mike and I married in 1982. Immediately, our combined list of names was over 400! We worked with that for three months before we decided we couldn’t maintain that big list. We settled with around 200+ names and stayed close to that level for decades.

I started our ministry blog, MikeandSus.org, in 2007. I use MailChimp to send out prayer letters from the blog automatically. I was adamant that all financial partners receive a paper prayer letter.

I started acknowledging that some people prefer emailed letters only a few years ago.

In January 2024, I ordered three months’ worth of postage for prayer letters. (I use USPS.com for commemorative stamps). The $300 bill derailed my thinking.

It was “full steam ahead” for several days as I made some changes.

A few points first before I share what I tried:

  • We value everyone on our list, but the time and expense I give each one varies.
  • I appreciate our U. S. Post Office and the services they offer. We have good relationships with our carriers.
    • The “address service requested” has been disappointing for the last two years. (See NOTES)
  • Mike and I don’t have to be penny-pinchers. When we make decisions, stewardship is the track we run on. If it’s easier or more effective, I’ll spend the time and money to mail paper prayer letters.

Analyzing Your Team

Let’s travel together to see what ideas you want to adopt. I don’t have one answer for all Cru staff. Each of us is unique. Our tools differ. Our team, which God has given each of us, is a mosaic of families, entrepreneurs, farmers, churches, single women, and more.

I know you’ll ask God to keep you on track as you work on this project.

Who Is Who?

If you haven’t done this, take some time to look over your list of names. You will divide your team differently. Here are my rough categories (fund-appeal thank-yous are in addition to this plan):

  • 23 families and churches provide half of our finances – they receive two greeting cards and two thank-you notes annually.
    • 7 (30%) of these receive their prayer letter as an email.
  • The 46 remaining donors on our list receive one greeting card, and one thank-you.
    • 21 (46%) receive their letter via email.
  • 85 families on our paper mailing list donate occasionally or not at all.  These folks make up 55% of our “paper list.”
  • 185 additional families receive our MailChimp emails through MikeandSus.org blog posts.
  • 44 more friends receive a Facebook alert to read our prayer letter. (We have a Facebook prayer page for 175 people, which I want to use more.)
  • Our prayer letter also automatically posts to LinkedIn. I haven’t figured out the level of engagement here yet.

We now mail 154 paper prayer letters (41% of our total) and send 226 email versions (49%). That’s 380 names, a number which we could not manage over 40 years ago. Automatic posts from MailChimp make it super easy. (I check at least twice yearly to ensure MailChimp recipients are opening our prayer letter emails. If they’re financial partners and not opening, I move them back to receiving paper prayer letters.)

I send thank-yous and greeting cards to 69 people annually.

Costs to Consider

MailChimp is still free for up to 500 contacts. You don’t need to have a blog site to use it. If you want to use MailChimp’s SMS service, it’s available with a paid plan.

Of course, other email services, like Epistle ($12 per month), are available.

I’ve written about the U. S. Post Office’s plan, Delivering for America. They want to balance their budget at the end of ten years. The plan includes postal rate hikes every six months. First-class goes up 2 or 3 cents each time. At that rate, first-class stamps might be over a dollar at the end of the plan.

First-class
27-Jan-2019 55
29-Aug-2021 58
10-Jul-2022 60
22-Jan-2023 63
9-Jul-2023 66
21-Jan-2024 68

I looked for people I could switch to email newsletters. I will also use more postcards for greeting cards and other correspondence. Postcards currently cost 53 cents to mail. (See NOTES for links to attractive postcards.)

Steps I Took to Manage Our Mailing List

Consider the Following

As I looked through our names, I found the following.

  • We have one donor whose gifts were eight years apart. I kept them.
  • I knew some non-givers were very faithful in prayer and following our ministry. I kept them on board.

How I Cut Back on Our Paper Mailing List

I set a guideline of five years to decide whether to prune someone from our mailing list. I looked over each name. We had over 200 names for our paper prayer letter.

FIRST GROUP

I picked out 54 names who had an email address. I emailed them asking if they preferred an email or a paper prayer letter. (A few of these were receiving a paper version and a MailChimp version. 27 replied. They all said email was okay. Those who didn’t respond, I moved into the next group.

SECOND GROUP

I made a form and enclosed it in 75 prayer letters. I also included a stamped postcard. I wrote their name in the return address area and made labels for our address. I asked them to return the postcard with answers to:

  • What is your email address?
  • What is your phone number?  Do you accept texts?
  • May we send our prayer letter to you via email?

I knew I wouldn’t get all these postcards back. It didn’t matter. The postcards were eye-catching and were just the ticket to bring in responses. (See NOTES for postcards.)

RESPONSES TO THE POSTCARD STRATEGY

Out of 75 sent, I received:

  • 9 emails – gathered 9 new email addresses. They all want MailChimp letters.
  • 2 texts – 1 new address to add to MailChimp and 1 family member informing me his step-dad passed a year ago.
  • 5 postcards – 4 agreed to MailChimp; the last asked to be removed.

So, between the two groups, 41 ministry partners agreed to switch to an email prayer letter.

We’re sending a prayer letter in two weeks. If some folks held on to their postcard, they might mail them in.

It’s not the end of the line for this project. We’ll challenge some former donors later this year.

Now, it’s your opportunity to get on board.

NOTES:

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