Overview:
There's a way for members to easily opt in or out of communication from your church. Follow the instructions below to see how this works and customize this as needed for your purpose.
Create a New Form for Communication Preferences
Creating a Public Form will allow for members to be able to change their preferences themselves, without you having to make changes to their profile. It's recommended that you use a multiple-choice field in your form for the opt-in/opt-out. You could share this form as a link in your email communications and even share this on your website or new visitor pages. We recommend having at least a name and an email field to help associate this form to a profile, and then have a multiple-choice field for opting in and opting out of communications.
Create a New Profile Field matching your Form Field
In order for this form field to update the profile field, you'll want to make sure these fields match exactly. Our article on Updating People from Form Entries is a great guide to ensuring your form submissions are updating your people's profile fields.
Consider what Tag you will use
The purpose of creating a tag here is to group together those that wish to receive your communications. You may want to add a new tag to start from scratch, or you may already have an existing tag of people you wish to continue using. If you have an existing tag of people in it, make sure that they have the profile field option selected "I want to opt in to receiving notifications" before proceeding, as you might accidentally remove these people from the tag entirely in the next step. This update could be done easily by going to your tag and Updating Multiple People at Once with the profile field change.
Set up your Smart Tag
Now it's time to set up your Smart Tag!
- Click on the Account Settings (
) > Automations
- Click "+ Add Task"
- Select "Smart Tag"
- Choose "Select Filter" > select your created profile field > check the box for "I want to opt in to receiving notifications."
- Select which tag(s) you'd like that filter to automatically assign to.
- Select whether or not you'd like anyone who does not match that filter to be removed from that tag (if you choose this option, any existing individuals in that tag who do not fit the criteria will be removed and the tag will have a "locked" icon next to it.
- "Add Task".
Adding this Form to your Newsletters
Share this form as a link and add this link to the bottom of your email communications as shown below. You may want to link the form to the text "please click here". Save any templates you regularly use with this new unsubscribe form for future use.
Start Emailing!
Your opt-in and opt-out communication system is now complete! Remember, you'll want to start emailing your group directly from your tag. Don't forget to share that "Communications Preference" form with your members or you can even choose to update this field yourself.
Additional Tips:
- When in People, the Update People button from the Action Bar allows you to mass update the field for "Do Not Email." This may be a regular practice you'll want to start doing for any profiles that have "I want to opt out of receiving notifications" checked on their profile. For more information on the Do Not Email feature, see Unsubscribing a Person From Bulk Texts and Emails.