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If you’re a socially responsible business doing good for the world, you should be able to spread your message without it costing you an arm and a leg. I mean, aren’t there already enough barriers to entry for companies trying to do business the right way in today’s “cut costs at any means” world? We’re pleased to announce a 50% discount off our standard monthly fee for Soapbox Mailer for Salesforce to all B Corporations. With Soapbox Mailer, organizations can send mass emails directly from within Salesforce, complete with campaign analytics, integrations with Facebook and Twitter, reporting, and a ton of other features. Starting today, companies no longer need to pay ridiculously high rates to send professional mass emails to customers and prospects. For many B Corporations using Salesforce, this could easily mean a 90% savings in their mass email costs versus other services. And with a transaction rate of only $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent, you won’t need to worry about cutting down your list just to stay within a budget. To learn more about Soapbox Mailer, just hop over to our Soapbox Mailer for Salesforce Web page.
During the next few weeks, these pioneers will work closely with our team to continue knocking out bugs and polishing final features for the premiere release of our email marketing service for organizations using Salesforce. Interested in learning how your organization can save more than 90% in email marketing costs (sorry Vertical Response), and pay as little as $0.10 per 1,000 emails you send? Want to sign up to be part of the next batch of Soapbox Mailer pioneers? Just mosey over to our Soapbox Engage website to learn more about what we’ve got cooking on the skillet. Giddy-up!
Data cleanliness and data integrity. Ah, such fun things to work on, right? Kind of like spring cleaning, but for some reason all the more frustratingly painful. Since spring is coming early here in North America, we thought it could be useful to share some new insights we’ve had on this topic of data cleanliness, especially for inbound data to Salesforce. A few of us penguins worked through this last night and today as we’re gearing up for a new release of our Soapbox Engage products, and I thought I’d share some of the highlights of a good brainstorming session that could be useful for others thinking about matching rules. Our discussions generally broke down into three main areas: 1) Matching scenarios to keep in mind 2) Matching rules 3) Data updating rules Let’s dive in to our best practices…
My goodness, time certainly does fly by. Today, PICnet marks its 11th birthday, and we’re excited to celebrate it with our growing community of non-profit and socially responsible business clients. Heading into our 12th year, we’re hot on the pioneering trail with a number of new products, including updates to our Soapbox Engage service and the new Soapbox Mailer. This is all part of our efforts to make technology affordable and accidental-techie friendly so that organizations can be more efficient. Before you send us a big bouquet of congratulations flowers, brand new hybrid vehicles, or eco-friendly private jets as celebratory gifts, we’ve got another gift in mind… If you have a PICnet penguin in your office, if you’ve ever participated in NTEN community efforts, or if you want to celebrate PICnet’s birthday without going through the hassle of buying us all new hybrid cars, please support NTEN’s scholarship fund to help send 50 organizations to the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference. Thanks to all our clients, partners, PICnetters, friends, and family who have supported us during the past 11 years. Here’s to another year of innovation, penguin fun, success…and eye-poking at over-priced competitors.
We’re doing a bit of work creating user-friendly and affordable engagement tools for non-profits. Much of this work is connecting our Soapbox services to Salesforce’s Nonprofit Starter Pack (NPSP). A goal in our integration is to make it as seamless as possible for organizations to use the NPSP out of the box with Soapbox. One of the things we’ve documented are the record types utilized by the NPSP. These record types are important, as we’re able to have our Soapbox service pass event registrations, petitions, donations, and more through Salesforce. This seemed a little difficult for us to find, and we’ve been seeing some inconsistencies in the creation of record types in the NPSP (I think others have as well), so I thought we’d document what we’ve found.
Have others found similar differences between these NPSP installations?
Ask any economist, and you’ll likely hear the same response: as markets mature, consolidation tends to occur. So, while it’s big news, it’s not necessarily surprising to hear today’s announcement that Blackbaud is purchasing Convio. These two publicly traded corporations have been in the non-profit technology space for a long time, and I congratulate their boards on coming to such an important agreement. Now, let’s get to the real business at hand: what can be done now to ensure technology service prices go down, not up, in an era of mega consolidation? Our answer: a fresh approach with a dose of healthy competition.
It always warms our hearts to see our organizations get the support they deserve. Earlier today, a new link appeared on the Google.com homepage. “‘Tis the season. Google supports organizations that are changing the world.”
The reason? The Google Foundation announced a $40 million grant allocation to non-profit organizations, including our Soapbox client, Polaris Project, to help tackle important challenges around the world. One of their key areas of focus, “fighting human trafficking and modern-day slavery,” is the cornerstone of the work done by our friends at the Polaris Project.
As a certified B Corporation, socially conscious business practices run deep in our DNA. We believe that companies can be even more successful by looking beyond their bottom-line when delivering services and creating products. More businesses should take into account their impact on the planet, their people, and their customers. That’s why we’re excited to be part of the Hitachi Foundation’s 2011 Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs Program. The program, “identifies and supports inspiring young entrepreneurs who are operating businesses that create greater economic opportunity and help to improve the lives of low-wealth individuals in America.” At PICnet, we’ve enjoyed helping this next generation of entrepreneurs better understand how to more effectively utilize the Web to spread their brand and ideals, while also reaching new customers. There’s a lot to be learned from these socially responsible entrepreneurs, and tonight, we’ll celebrating their success in Washington, DC, along with our friends from the class of 2010…like Back to the Roots. Thanks to PICnetters Amber and Tim for leading forward on the effort to analyze these entrepreneurs’ websites, and provide them tips to be more effective. Congratulations to the 2011 class of Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs!
The Salesforce.com adoption rate within the non-profit sector continues to grow. To be specific, more than 11,000 organization! With this growth comes a new community of Salesforce consultants focused on helping organizations use these tools effectively. We’ve sat down with many of these consultants, and listened to their hopes, concerns, and ideas. How can we help organizations use these to their highest benefit? What are ways we can help organizations be more efficient with their data processing? For example, right now it can be time-consuming and sometimes difficult to importing data into Salesforce, especially in real-time from external Web resources. Think donation pages, event registration pages, petitions, etc. In tough economic times, organizations are also feeling a budget pinch, and they’re not in a position to invest in custom Web development to connect to their Salesforce instance. Well, have we got a little pain relief for everyone. With our recent release of Soapbox Engage, Salesforce consultants can bolt on ready-to-deploy donation pages, event registration pages, web forms, and even searchable directories…all of which talk to Salesforce in real-time. Even better, consultants are able to keep clients’ CFOs happy with extremely affordable services. What makes Soapbox Engage such a good fit for Salesforce consultants?
Organizations are always looking for ways to increase engagement with their constituencies and donors. A popular way to move supporters up the ladder of engagement is through events, where you’re able to provide a richer experience. With the high-touch opportunity that events provide, it’s no wonder organizations are trying to host fundraisers, happy hours, galas, and more with potential donors in these tight financial times. Too often, however, the time needed to setup the right systems to collect event registrations and communicate with attendees takes organizations away from their core competencies. Salesforce.com makes managing attendee data much easier than the offline spreadsheet or pencil/paper sign-up sheets; however, it still takes time to build compelling Web pages, migrate the data into Salesforce manually, and process credit cards offline. With our Soapbox Engage service, we’re providing organizations with an affordable and easy events registration tool for Salesforce.com. In only a few minutes, your organization can:
Rather than investing weeks and thousands of dollars hiring a technical consultant to write code from scratch, or having to manually copy/paste data into Salesforce manually, organizations can save tons of time and money using our Soapbox Engage service for event registration. Interested in learning more? Sign-up today for our limited free beta period (October – November 2011) or view our Soapbox Engage website for more information.
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Just a few minutes ago, a small group of non-profit pioneers received the call from the head of the wagon train to blaze the trail towards the first release of our new 
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