Running renewal campaigns is an integral part of any publisher’s business. In a recent client webinar, we shared how to successfully conduct them with Multipub. Today, we’re sharing those steps with you.

1. Access the renewal campaign menu by selecting, Marketing > Campaign Menu > Process Campaigns.

2. From here, you can begin designing your ascii layout. Choose the fields you’d like to include in your correspondence with the customer. The output options are nearly endless when designing your format. Here, you can include messages, such as product comments, rate increases and separate prices for different terms, etc. The fields you’ve identified will then be exported to a .csv file on your spooler.

3. Now, it’s time to prepare your schedule. This is the most important step. Your work here will form the foundation for all of your ongoing efforts. We recommend you create a spreadsheet in Excel, like the one shown below. Start by selecting the dates on which you’ll send campaigns. Those are now your effort dates. Then, identify all of the expire pools. These are the dates a person’s subscription will expire. We’ve included a sample below. As you can see, the first chart is by expire date, and the second is by effort date. From the top version, you can quickly see when subscribers will be contacted about their renewal. Those expiring 9/1/18 will receive seven efforts, between March and September, before their subscription runs out. The lower chart shows which expire pools will be contacted within each effort. For example, those expiring between May and November of 2018 will all receive notices on May 1, 2018.

4. Now that you’ve created a master schedule outside of Multipub, it’s time to input it into the system. When entering the # Days Since 1st Eff, use intervals of 28 or less to accommodate the various lengths of each month. If you are sending efforts post expiration date, be sure and check Print Expired Subs. Also, don’t forget to indicate if the contact should be the subscriber or the Billto with each effort. You can even pair specific ascii forms with each one.

5. Next, you will begin processing your campaign. In this example, we used a single product code and source code. However, you may also manage your campaigns by a product type to include multiple products on a renewal notice or in a renewal series. You can also use multiple source codes if different subscribers should receive personalized offers, pieces, schedules, etc. As you enter your information, it will ask for a Date. This should be the campaign date, which becomes the name for the expire pool. We recommend using the expiration date for this.

6. Sorting campaign statements comes next. When asked for the Camp Date, you will typically enter the expire date, you defined in step five. However, leave it blank if you want to pick up all campaigns for all efforts/expire pools. On this screen, you will also enter the Effort Date, which is the date on which you planned to run the campaign statements. Always use the Effort Date from your schedule, so you can stay on track. If you run your statements early and use that day’s date as the effort date instead of the scheduled one, not enough days will have passed for the subscribers to be eligible for the effort when you run your next campaign. When choosing your Sort By, selecting Form Code will put everything in one file per ascii layout, while selecting Effort will allow you to see all product types produced for that effort.

7. Now, check your campaign efforts. On your spooler, you will find a Renewal Statement Summary. In it, you can see the number of efforts produced and verify your work.

8. Lastly, post your campaign. You must use the same criteria to post Campaign Statements as you did to Sort Campaign Statements. For example, if you sorted by Product Code, you must post by Product Code. We recommend you always look at the number posted.