Strategy Checklist (Before you click):
Before rolling this out, gather your team and decide on the following business rules:
- Who belongs in the automatic Member List? Decide the membership type, status, or category criteria your saved report will use.
- Should the Opt-in List be self-service? Decide whether to make it visible in the Info Hub or even published to your website so non-members and uncovered members can join themselves.
- How will you handle removals? Because the GrowthZone-to-Community sync is essentially one-way, agree on a process for deactivating or removing contacts on both sides.
Adding a member group to a list is easy — you set up and save the report according to your criteria, add the individuals from that report to a list, and sync the list to the saved report so new members are added and dropped members are removed automatically. See the Smart List article for more details. But the synced list can’t be edited — GrowthZone will overwrite any changes when the report syncs — so opt-in members need a separate path. Marketing Automation bridges the two.
The Implementation Blueprint
Follow these phases to successfully roll out this strategy for your association. In this example you will set up three GrowthZone lists:
Phase 1: Build the three lists
Create the Member List, Opt-in List, and Destination List, each with a distinct role:
- → Member List: This list WILL be synced with a report and will automatically add individuals with an active membership and your other criteria of choice. This list will NOT be visible in the Info Hub, will NOT be synced to Community, and should not be manually changed by staff, as the nightly sync will overwrite any changes.
- → Opt-in List: This list will NOT be synced with a report, will NOT be synced with Community, and can be visible in the Info Hub (and even published to your website!) if desired, to allow non-members and/or members not covered under the member criteria/report to join. It can be manually managed in the back office by staff, and members can be added/deactivated/removed as needed.
- → Destination List: This is the list that both of the above lists will be added to, and will be synced with Community to create the group. This list will NOT be synced with a report and will NOT be visible in the Info Hub.
Phase 2: Combine the lists with a Marketing Automation workflow
When your lists are configured and populated (or ready to be populated), go to Marketing Automation and build the workflow that joins them.
- → Create a Marketing Automation workflow and name it for the Destination List that will be synced to Community.
- → Add both the Member List and the Opt-in List as source lists.
- → Add one step — “Add to List” — and point it to the Destination List.
- → Activate the workflow!
Phase 3: Understand the timing and the sync cadence
Now you have two disparate lists joined together and synced to Community under a single list. Know when each piece updates:
- Marketing Automation steps update once an hour, and lists synced to Community are updated “real time” upon changes.
- The Member List will update every night via the report.
- The Opt-in List will update as people join/are added. IMPORTANT: changes to this list should only be performed in GrowthZone. See the Pro-Tip below re: deactivations.
- The list-combination step will run once an hour if changes are detected to the Opt-in List.
- The combined Destination List will then feed into Community about once an hour IF any changes are detected.
Consultant Pro-Tip: The sync is one-way — plan your removals
The sync from a GrowthZone list to a Community group is essentially one-way, only adding new individuals to the group as they are added to the list.
If a member drops off the list, unsubscribes, or is removed from the list in GrowthZone in some way (for example, their membership is dropped), the list sync from GrowthZone to Community will not remove/deactivate them in Community. Let the report sync update the list in GrowthZone, then go to the affected Community group and remove/deactivate them there as well.