Those of you used to sending emails probably don’t do much with the Address Processing & Name Format settings in your GAIL marketing efforts and event communications. However with the holidays quickly approaching and an abundance of postal mailings being planned, we want to make sure you have all the right resources to get those beautiful cards into the hands of your constituents!
Short & Sweet:
Address Processing Option: ASRV – Primary & Residence
Name Format: Events – Preferred Name Format
Which Address Processing Option should I choose?
The Address Processing option determines the hierarchy in which GAIL will look for address information on the constituents included in your communication. General User Preference is the default option, and should only be used when sending email communications.
For a mailing that you would like to be delivered generally to your constituents’ home addresses, we recommend changing the Address Processing to ASRV – Primary & Residence.
This setting will look to see if the constituent has designated a preferred mailing address and if not, it will look for a residential address on file. It will also automatically exclude any constituents who do not have a mailing address on file so that you don’t have to manually purge your export file of constituents that you cannot mail to.
Which Name Format should I choose?
The Name Format is the setting that determines how a constituent’s name will display in the addressee field. Generally with a communication such as a holiday card, it is considered common courtesy to include spouses on the addressee line, even if they are not your alumni/donors.
In order to force spouses onto the mailing list even when they don’t meet your selection criteria, you should set the name format to Events – Preferred Name Format. If you’re looking for more info on how this specific name format functions, you can read up on it here.