CiviCRM

CiviCRM free open source Customer Relationship Management software designed primarily for use by non-profit organizations, to assist in maintaining relationships between their supporters and constituents. 

The design and approach of how CiviCRM works is designed more for the non-profit realm, however with a little bit of hacking it can be modified for use by any marketing operations.  Given its open source nature and that it has detailed documentation from pretty much every perspective (end-user, office user, techie admin, developer) makes this entirely possible.

CiviCRM includes modules for case management, event management, contact management, member management, and fundraising (or similar) campaigns.   It has robust bulk-mailing functionality which can make it a useful center for starting a direct mail campaign. With some modification, fundraising campaigns can be converted to sales campaigns since in a transactional sense, they are essentially the same.    CiviCRM also provides integrations with several payment gateways, which are typically used for events and memberships but could work with any sales-oriented activity as well.

Advantages of CiviCRM include the ability not only to keep a record of contacts or customers, but also enables keeping track of interactions between them.   The fact that it is free open source means that there are no licensing costs or fees for modification; many plugins and modifications exist.

CiviCRM is designed specifically to integrate with existing content management systems, and includes modules which have been built and tested in WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

CiviCRM boasts a wide range of different features that can be invaluable for fundraising and marketing organizations.

Dashboard

CiviCRM provides a customizable dashboard providing the ability to create quick links and/or include content about donors or customers on the main page.  Below is a basic default configuration (out of the box) using Drupal.

Here’s another configuration example:

Contact Management 

If you have a large list of donors, CiviCRM provides a basic database for keeping records in one place. 

For each individual contact or “constituent” (in CiviCRMS lingo), you can store a wide range of information including interactions, mailings, event attendance and more for each individual record.

 

You can see information about relationships between your donors.  From a direct marketing perspective, this can potentially save some expense, such as not sending two mailings to the same household.  In direct interactions, this can be helpful in establishing rapport between you and your customers.

 

Email Marketing

One of the major features in CiviCRM which is directly related to the goals of direct marketers, is the ability to send bulk mails directly from your contact lists. You can construct emails in HTML and in text (providing options for different mail readers) and can create various personalizing features into a set of templates. A/B testing is particularly useful for identifying whether one marketing method works better than another.

Your lists can be segmented into groups, such as those with specific interests, and emails can be scheduled to run at specific times.

 

Email tracking 

Emails can be tracked to identify which ones are opened as well click through rates for links contained within your messages.   You can also monitor your bounce rates and unsubscribe events.

Here is a view of an interface for setting specific messages within responses.

Here’s a view of a tracking screen.

 

Tracked activity will then show in a grid, so you can see how a particular person has responded to a mailing or event or any other activity.

Activity tracking

Reporting

CiviCrm has over 40 built in reports and is easily modifiable to create more.   Below are some examples used for contributions. These could easily be modified to track sales.   Files can be printed in PDF or HTML formats and can be exported as CSV.    

One of the more useful features is that reports can be integrated back into the application to create new groups or segments, which can then be acted upon later, such as for a targeted mailing. 

Data can be displayed as a table or in a pie or bar chart.

CiviCRM can be a valuable alternative for non-profit organizations wishing to make use of a flexible and free open source framework for managing donor relationships.   It boasts many features which can be of great use for fundraising and marketing purposes.

Overall, CiviCRM can be an excellent tool for organizations and fundraisers with limited physical capital but robust human capital, willing to spend the time to modify it to their needs.    Once built, it can be extremely useful, and a considerable amount of money could be saved down the line. Its strong support makes this possible.

CMS:

• WordPress
• Drupal
• Joomla!

 

Payment systems:

• Stripe
• Paypal
• iATS
• TSYS

 

Bulk email:

• CiviSMTP
• Mailchimp