This example shows URL's added to a fundraising form letter, suitable for eblasting to patron to ask for a donation with two embedded donation quicklink's.

In this example, there are 4 actual links:

• one behind the youtube button to take the user to listen to Bing Cosby's version of Brother Can you spare a dime? from the 1932 musical revuew New Americana
• a traditional text link behind NPR (National Public Radio) to give background on Ron Kapilow's notes on the song
• A button to give $50 one time with a donation quicklink to our sample web site
• A button to give $10 a month - I'd like to give a little for a little longer as a quicklink to a monthly recurring donation.

 

Making the sample form letter

The links (above) are part of this sample fundraising form letter created in Theatre Manager with the purpose of emailing to ask people to donate. It is based on patrons so that I could use a mail list to determine the people to send to - meaning it could be volunteers plus donors in past year, plus ticket buyers with cancelled shows, etc.

The general steps to create the letter were:

• Type the content
• Add merge field for the patron's name to make it feel personal
• Add the images by:
  • Clicking the cursor where I wanted an image to be placed
  • Drag the images onto the document from the desktop (company logo, youtube logo, $50 one time, $10 a month)
  • If you get the image in thr wrong spot, you can cut/paste it, or drag it.
  • If the image is too big, DOUBLE CLICK on it, click the size tab and indicate how you want it scaled (refer to the image to the right)
• once you have the document looking like you want it, you add a URL one of two ways:
  • for images (see sample instructions in the full document above)
    • double click on the image again
    • click on the link tab
    • Click on picture can be clicked - if you don't do this, then the image will not respond top clicks in the users mail client when sent as an email
    • Paste the URL into the area for the URL. NOTE: make sure you try the URL in a browser before pasting it here
  • for text links:
    • Highlight the text that you want the link to be behind
    • Right click to get the context menu
    • Select Insert Document Object
    • Select Hyperlink from the sub menu
    • The text hyperlink window opens

      NOTE: make sure to put the URL into the right field

      

 

What does the eblast look like?

It looks like a regular email sent to people. Theatre Manager tracks

• who you sent the email to
• and if they opened it or not

 

What does clicking on the donation buttons do

In the sample letter, I clicked on both buttons to show the effect and logged in. Because I clicked on them one at a time, both donations got added to a shopping cart as per the image below. The buttons below are included and active in case you want to try them.

This illustrates an e-blast with a one button donation ask for specific amounts. All the user would need to do is log in (or create an anonymous profile that you can merge later) and pay. A donation can be done in 3 button clicks.

This example shows 3 donation buttons placed inside your web pages at the top of the event list. Using this concept, these could be placed anywhere and would be themed to look like your web pages.

The example code is below the image

Sample code placed in tmTicketCustomPatronInstructions.html

While the code below could be placed anywhere in an appropriate web page file in Theatre Managers 'WePages' folder, the following was added to TMtemplates/tmTicketCustomPatronInstructions.html as an existing convenient way to place buttons at the top of the event list. Other good places to add donation buttons are:

• TMtemplates/tmCheckoutExtraMessagesEmail.html which is used by the confirmation email and typically has nothing in it.
• TMtemplates/tmCartEmpty.html which is displayed when the shopping cart is empty. For this situation, we'd suggest leaving the destination page as the cart.
• TMtemplates/rowCartDonationSuggestion.html which is displayed on the cart window suggesting that people make a donation - and in this case, you could add some 'quickdonation' options to make it easier for the patron. For this situation, we'd suggest leaving the destination page as the cart.

The TMtemplates/tmTicketCustomPatronInstructions.html file is used in all event lists and normally has nothing in it.

<div class="alert alert-warning fade in">    <!--#include virtual="TMtemplates/tmMessageDismiss.html" -->    Please consider a donation to the theatre during this time of need. All donations are tax deductible.    <br/>    <br/>    <a class="btn btn-info btn-sm" href="<field>F_HTML_FIREWALL</field>login?donationquick=1&amount=50.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&tmsource=sometag">    <i class="fa fa-usd">    </i>    50 one time    </a>    <a class="btn btn-primary btn-sm" href="<field>F_HTML_FIREWALL</field>login?donationquick=1&amount=250.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&tmsource=sometag">    <i class="fa fa-usd">    </i>    250 one time    </a>    <a class="btn btn-success btn-sm" href="<field>F_HTML_FIREWALL</field>login?donationquick=1&amount=10.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&frequency=1&has tmsource=sometag">    <i class="fa fa-usd">    </i>    10 a month - I'd like to give a little for a little longer    </a> </div>

This example shows 3 donation links placed in a web page. Using this concept, you can place them anywhere on any web site you want, such as you main marketing web site, facebook, any marketing partner, etc.

Three sample links are shown below that you can click on followed by the example web page in yellow.

• Donate $50 one time
• Donate $250 one time
• Donate $10 a month - a little for a lot

Note: the web page looks very plain because all stylesheet information has been removed for clarity. You may need to add your own style sheets to create buttons like the example code within Theatre Managers event list

 

Sample code placed a web page

The code below is a complete web page - including the head and body tags. You would only want to copy the links to place them into any of your existing web code such as facebook or wordpess sites

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title> Asking for a donation on a simple web page </title> </head> <body> Sample web page snippet asking for a donation. The links below have not been enhanced with any stylesheet themes <br/> <a href="https:∕∕tickets.artsman.com/TheatreManager/1/login?donationquick=1&amount=50.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&morning&tmsource=mysourcetag" target="_blank"> Donate $50 one time </a> <br/> <a href="https:∕∕tickets.artsman.com/TheatreManager/1/login?donationquick=1&amount=250.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&tmsource=mysourcetag" target="_blank"> Donate $250 one time </a> <br/> <a href="https:∕∕tickets.artsman.com/TheatreManager/1/login?donationquick=1&amount=10.00&param=altbtn=btnCheckout&frequency=1&tmsource=mysourcetag" target="_blank"> Donate $10 a month - a little for a lot </a> </body> </html>