Mail Lists

Mail Lists are a group of patrons who did something in common, such as

• Bought a ticket to a specific event,
• Made a donation to a specific campaign,
• Bought a ticket AND made a donation,
• Bought "X" out of "Y" events (potential subscribers),




Mail Lists can be used for external or internal purposes.

Externally, they provide the ability to target market to a group of patrons. To illustrate, a "musicals" mail list could be created for all patrons who like musical productions. Use this list to send personalized letters, print labels, create reports or ask for donations. Mail lists can be manipulated in many ways. For example, you could use the "musicals" mail list to create another mail list that includes everyone on the musicals mail list but excludes people who have purchased tickets to the current musical.

Internally, they may be used to create a list of donors over a specified amount, a list of ushers or actors, or donors to a specific campaign. These are lists for internal purposes to be used by the staff and may (or may not) be used for some kind of mailing.




Try building a Mail List of all the Donors in the database using a Database Query. Try manually adding a patron to an existing Mail List through the Patron Window.

Data presented in a Mail List

It is important to remember that a Mail List provides "A List of Patrons Who..."

For example, if you are creating a list of donors of more than $500, the list won't provide you with the donation amounts. It only provides you with the patrons who fit the criteria. Likewise, a Mail List of patrons who attended 4 out of 6 shows will not tell you what shows they attended - only that these patrons attended that number of shows. This information is obtainable by using reports - but Mail Lists will only provide the patrons who fit the criteria.

As a rule of thumb, we like to say "If your question is about 'WHO,' such as 'I want to know who...' then your answer lies in a Mail List. If your question is about 'WHAT' or 'WHEN,' such as "I want to know what someone gave...' then your answer lies in a Report."

With that said, Mail Lists provide:

• Patron Number
• Patron Type (Individual, Company, School, etc.)
• First Name
• Last Name
• Formal Name
• Company
• Title
• Source (how they were added to the list)
• Primary Phone
• Primary Fax
• Primary Email
• Website
• Address Line 1
• Address Line 2
• City
• State/Province
• Zip/Postal Code
• Country
• Among other values drawn from the Marketing tab of the Patron Record.



There are 5 different ways to add a patron to a Mail List

• Adding Patrons to a Mail List Through a Database Query
• Adding Patrons to a Mail List Through a Ticket Purchase
• Adding Patrons to a Mail List Through the Batch Function
• Adding Patrons to a Mail List Through the Patron Window
• Allowing Patrons to Subscribe or Unsubscribe Via the Internet

There are also some very interesting things you can do with Mail Lists such as:

• Print customized Mailing Labels
• Obtain a Google map of the patron addresses
• Use the Mail List as criteria in a Report
• Merge a Mail List with a Form Letter

For the Donor Mail List, use the "Donation Data For a Patron With Each Gift" file in Step 9. Your criteria in Step 13 will look like this:

From here you can: Return to learn about navigating in Theatre Manager. Learn about adding a patron to a Mail List. Jump to Reports.