Use Mailing Channels for more flexible mailing subscriptions

Allowing your users to choose the mailings they want to is important for retaining good relationships with your members.

Mailing channels, within Hubb, enable your users to subscribe, or unsubscribe, from specific mailing content. Every Hubb web site has one mailing channel by default. Leaving your web site with only the default mailing channel limits your users to either receive all mailings from your site or receive none at all. This could lead to users unsubscribing from all your site mailings just because they are receiving one or two emails that they aren’t interested in.

For example if you send out a monthly newsletter you should set up a new mailing channel, so if a user chooses to unsubscribe from that mailing they are still on your main mailing channel for general mailings, and any other mailing channels you've setup that they are subscribed to.

Mailing channels allow your members to state their preferences for the type of the communications they want to receive from you.

However, they have always been default opt-in, which is no longer allowed by GDPR.

Mailing channels are now grouped under consent fields. The user has to have agreed to the overarching consent before they can receive communications through the associated mailing channels.

Under Site Settings > Users > Consent & Mailing Channels we have added two consent questions by default for you. These are:

Consent to hold data:

“I consent to my personal information being stored and used by {your organisation} for administration purposes. I understand that I can withdraw my consent at any time. Further information is available in the {your privacy policy}.”
 

We have added this consent question as an example of the sort of consent you might want to seek for some types of data processing. However, for many churches who are just maintaining records of members,  this won’t be necessary as you will consider that legitimate interest is a better lawful basis for holding the data. If this is the case then you can simply delete this field.

And

General Communication Consent:

“I consent to {your organisation} contacting me with updates. I understand that I can withdraw this consent at any time.”

With the General Communication Consent question you can have different mailing channels so that once someone has given their consent they can further refine how they receive your communications.


Our default consent questions and an additional mailing channel

You can edit each consent question and mailing channel by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the screen. You can delete them by clicking on the red bin icon as well.

Using the + button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen you can add consent questions and mailing channels. Here are the instructions for adding them to your site.

Again, this consent question is an example of the sort of question you might need to ask. For many churches this will be sufficient as a general purpose consent to be contacted, but for larger churches or others that send out a wider range of mailings, it may be desirable to add further questions to provide better choice about the types of communications that your members would like to receive, and to ensure you have adequate consent for the ways that you want to use the data.


Add, edit and delete consent questions and mailing channels

 

Adding a Consent Question:

Go to Site Settings > Users > Consent & Mailing Channels and hover over the blue + icon at the bottom right of the screen and select ‘Consent Question’. You can also use the blue tasks button at the top right and select the same task.


Adding a consent question

1) Give the field a title:
The title isn't shown to your users, but is used to identify the field in listings

2) Keep it set to visible to users:
Uncheck this box to stop the consent field appearing to users. It will still appear to administrators in the web office. This is useful, for example, if you no longer want to collect this consent, but you want to keep a record of the consent you already have, or if you don't want to collect the consent online (e.g. because it is collected via a paper form)

3) Write your consent question:
Give details about what you are asking consent for. You can include links to further information (for example detailed terms and conditions), but this text should contain the important details about what the user is consenting to.

4) Click SAVE

 

Adding a Mailing Channel:

Go to Site Settings > Users > Consent & Mailing Channels and hover over the blue + icon at the bottom right of the screen and select ‘Mailing Channel’. You can also use the blue tasks button at the top right and select the same task.


Adding a mailing channel

1) Give the channel a name

2) Give the channel a description

3) Group the channel under a consent question

4) If required, you can add an image for the mailing channel.

5) Select the available correspondence methods:
The available correspondence methods are the different ways a user can be contacted. Each user, with login access, can select their preferred correspondence method for each mailing channel.

6) Set the default correspondence method:
If the user doesn’t state a preference for this mailing channel, the default correspondence method is the one that is automatically selected for each user once they have given their consent to the parent consent question.

7) Click SAVE

 

Enabling Consent and Mailing Channels

Once you have configured your consent questions, you need to make sure they are seen and answered by people who sign up on your website.
To enable your chosen consent questions go Site Settings > Users > Registration Form.

You can set the consent section of the form to ‘Yes’ to request the information, and set if you want to list all consent fields, or to just add certain ones you want by choosing ‘Custom set of fields’.


Enabling Consent and Mailing Channels

These consent questions will now appear on your registration form on your website.
 

Why would I not want to add all of them? You may need to use different consent questions for the different way you hold and manage data for things like: Profile editor module Payment groups Check-In We have built consent questions so you can pick and choose the questions you need for all circumstances.