NXT Email Marketing (vs MailChimp)

Mercedes McCay-Read
Mercedes McCay-Read
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 PowerUp Challenge #1 Gift Management Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

Hi. I've been tasked with looking into NXT Email Marketing since it's part of our subscription. I've gone back through most of the older posts and just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

  • Are we still unable to send to Org contacts within the Org records? I think I saw somewhere that that was an issue.
  • Looks like with Query in NXT I would now be able to create a query of everyone in RE with an email address and send to all of them without having to first create a list? Is that correct?
  • Do you know if we are now able to email all emails on a constituent record rather than just the one marked primary?
  • I assume we still can't see what link someone clicked on?
  • Can they opt out of specific mailings? Like opt out of newsletters but still receive event notifications?

We currently use MailChimp for our newsletters and other mass communication but maybe we should consider moving to NXT but I'm not 100% convinced. Plus the person who sends our newsletters isn't in house so I assume I'd need to give him permission to access NXT marketing? Could I still be the one to control the list/query that it gets sent to?

Thanks for any and all help with this.

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Comments

  • Catherine Burns
    Catherine Burns
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Mercedes McCayRead

    Hi Mercedes.

    What are you trying to achieve by changing? What features of MailChimp emails do you most value.

    My biggest reason not to use NXT Email Marketing is that the fields are extremely limited and do not include salution or supporter ID. Preferred name is available if you use that instead of salutation, but we use that for nicknames. Not having more advanced fields exclude NXT email marketing for us.

    I have found platforms like MailChimp and Campaign Monitor much more flexible than NXT Email Marketing. If you want more integration with RE you might like to check out Red Arc's Email Marketing Connector.

  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown Community All-Star
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 5 PowerUp Challenge: Product Update Briefing Feedback Task 3 bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    @Mercedes McCayRead - I agree with Catherine - if MailChimp is working for you, why change?

    Here's answers to some of your questions:

    • It is not currently possible to send emails to relationship records (spouse, contact, etc.)
    • You'd need to create a static query, and then link it to a list to use it to send an email.
    • Not natively, but there's a work around - if you copy the draft for the same number of email types in your system, you can send each copy to a specific email type.
    • It is not currently possible to see the specific links folks clicked on.
    • It is an all-or-nothing opt-out system, if someone opts out on a newsletter they are opted out of everything.
    • Anyone building or sending emails will need to have an account in RE NXT.
  • Christine Robertson
    Christine Robertson Community All-Star
    Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Mercedes McCayRead MailChimp has far more functionality with segmentations, consent (opt in and opt out) options, the ability to include contacts and non-constituent individuals, etc. Unless your cost for MailChimp and any connectors you're using is an issue, I think you would lose far more than you will gain by switching.

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