In our last post, we flexed the right-side of our brains. Now it’s time to hit the weights on the left-side and learn about the world of supporter nurturing, Leads, and data cleanliness.
I know what you’re thinking. “What the heck are Leads? I’m not running a cold call sales center, I’m working at a non-profit and we want to raise money not sell cars.”
I totally understand, and if you’re not already using Leads in Salesforce, I’m here to blow your mind. Ready? Nearly every organization I’ve met can, and should, use Leads. Leads are not about sales. They’re about folks with whom you want to build a relationship but you haven’t qualified yet to determine if a relationship is mutually valuable.
Good data management starts with good data entry. Your goal is to ensure that you’re reducing as much noise and clutter in your database, and Leads is a fantastic landing zone for all that data.
You’re probably collecting all sorts of data that needs to be reviewed, scrubbed, cleaned, updated, etc before it finds a final home in Salesforce. Guess which object is perfectly positioned to help you in this effort? That’s right, Leads!
When you’re looking for apps that integrate with Salesforce for donations, event registrations, and more, make sure they send their data first to the Lead object. This gives you a standard object to store and review this data in case there’s any sort of data collision or problem. For instance, if you want to make sure that Bob Smith’s donation is matched properly to Robert Smith in your Contacts, allowing a human to be able to review the data in a holding zone would be super helpful. The Leads object allows for such utility, and even better, Salesforce’s built-in Lead conversion process makes it easy to then turn those Leads into Contacts!
Using Leads allows you to keep clean data, review data that’s “dirty”, and provides a home for prospective supporters. It’s your utility object, and if you’re not using it already, well, now you have three new reasons to check it out!
In our next post, we’re going to be talking about converting these new supporters into donors, and demystifying the unknown world of payment processing with Salesforce. Grab your finance friends, this one is going to be exciting!
Happy engaging!
Other posts in this series
- Simple online engagement secrets every savvy Salesforce organization should know
- How Salesforce Campaigns can rock your data world
- Get inspired by beautiful website + Salesforce integrations
- You are here >> Improve supporter nurturing by making Salesforce Leads your friend
- Raise more money with Salesforce by demystifying online payments
- Gain supporters faster by going beyond Salesforce Web-to-Lead forms
- Increase community engagement without pressing a key through drip marketing
- Protect your Salesforce org from spam with one simple trick
Donations
Events
Petitions
Forms
Shop
Directories