Go Paperless - Batched & Scheduled Email with Conga Conductor

Paper is a dying medium, and my inner tree hugger couldn’t be happier about it.  As technology evolves and we find more and more ways to replace paper, printing documents is becoming the exception rather than the norm.  That said, even some of the most tech-savvy nonprofit organizations still rely heavily on paper-based communications.  Monthly newsletters, membership renewals, thank you letters, tax receipts and event invitations – far too many of these important touchpoints involve physical paper.

There are many compelling reasons to go paperless, but these three are particularly important for nonprofit organizations in the digital era:

1. Cost Savings – The cost of working with paper can be surprisingly high.  For example, Chicago-based UCAN was able to save roughly $10,000 per year by converting a number of paper-based processes to digital mediums.
2. More Effective Communication – Email is instant, cheap and everywhere.  Spam filters can sometimes be a pain, but it sure beats waiting for days at a time to communicate with stakeholders.
3. Sustainability – Creating and using paper has a huge environmental impact.  Going paperless means a lighter carbon footprint and a sustainable future.

Here at Conga, we help a lot of nonprofit organizations streamline document generation processes to maximize their investment in Salesforce.  I’m excited to introduce Conga Conductor, a tool that allows you to batch and schedule the creation and delivery of documents, presentations and reports.  Conductor is an awesome time-saver that can deliver significant ROI, but it can also play a key role in the process of going paperless for both commercial and nonprofit organizations alike.

Batched email is a prime use case for Conga Conductor.  For example, let’s say I need to send personalized giving statements that include a variety of Salesforce data and content related to each member of my organization.  I can use Conga Conductor to generate and deliver hundreds of professionally-formatted HTML emails to every contact who requires a statement.  This could happen on a scheduled basis so that the process doesn’t require manual attention, or I could set up the solution to run on demand whenever I choose to launch it.

There are two main ways to approach a batched email use case. For some organizations, it’s preferable to simply send an email without an attachment.  In this case, data and content from anywhere in Salesforce could be merged into the body of an HTML email and automatically delivered en masse.  However, you could also opt to merge a document and attach it to each email.  With either of these two approaches at your disposal, Conga Conductor offers considerable flexibility around the way you might choose to communicate with your various stakeholders.

Best of all?  Conga Conductor (and Composer) are available for free trials with technical support included.  If it sounds like Conductor could help your organization in its noble quest to go paperless, you can check it out with no obligation.  Just keep in mind that Conga Conductor is an add-on to Composer, so you’ll need to enable a free trial of both applications to experience the full glory of batched and scheduled automation.

And even if Conga Conductor isn’t the right tool for your organization’s specific needs, I encourage us all to take a long, hard look at existing paper-based processes that are ripe for change.  It’s time for both the commercial and nonprofit communities to get serious about saving money and the environment in the digital era.

Robert Boyd is the Product and Partner Marketing Specialist at Conga.