Using a constituent list to build an appeal segment

In this article:

Why use a constituent list to populate an appeal segment?

Building an appeal segment, even for expert Little Green Light users, usually involves some trial and error. For this reason, we recommend pulling together the constituents for each appeal segment as a standalone constituent list, rather than adding constituents to each appeal segment using a search. NOTE: The latter approach adds constituents to the segment every time you adjust the search.

Using a constituent list to populate your appeal segment doesn’t change anything about how your appeal segments work, in general. For example, the order of the segments still determines who appears in which segment.

There are several additional benefits to using constituent lists for your appeal segments:

  • List Manager makes it possible to create a standalone set of lists you can easily view or update
  • When building an appeal segment, it is not as easy to use the regular Advanced Search interface or to add or remove individual constituents as it is when creating a constituent list using List Manager
  • List Manager gives you more clarity into and control over who is included in each list
  • Your segments will always contain only the constituents you added to your list
  • By getting things right in your constituent list, there is no need later to delete constituents from your appeal who were inadvertently added to it
  • It is easy to use a constituent list to populate an appeal segment—all that’s required is to add your segment to your appeal, search for the correct list to populate it, and save
  • Lists can be re-used for the following year’s appeal (for example: If you use a list containing “2019 donors”, next year when you build your appeal you can use these same donors by re-using the “2019 donors” list)

Steps for using a constituent list to populate an appeal segment

  1. Create your appeal, but don’t add constituents to it yet

  2. Plan your appeal segments by jotting down who you want to include in each segment

    NOTE: For an in-depth explanation of how to segment a successful appeal, read Six Steps to a Successful Appeal.

  3. Create a list type to indicate that the lists you are about to build will be used for appeal segments. You can name the list type “Appeal segment” or another name that you prefer
  4. Build a list for each segment
  5. Assign the list type you just created to each list that you build
  6. When you have built a list for each segment, add the segments to your appeal
  7. As you are creating each segment, search for the correct list to populate it, as shown here: