Email Automation
Implementing and Using Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Situation
The University of St. Thomas' Advancement Communications team was transitioning off its email and CRM platform of eight years to the Salesforce environment, where it would be using Marketing Cloud for email communication. While the team had six months to adopt Marketing Cloud, the team's Salesforce database would not be ready for up to two years. Thus, the team needed to create strategies for system implementation, data management, email design, personalization, and automation in order to hit its six-month deadline.
Task
Partner with IT experts to build a new Marketing Cloud business unit from the ground up while connecting constituent data from non-Salesforce platforms within the Marketing Cloud business unit. Data must then be presented within Marketing Cloud so non-technical communication team members could easily build lists and personalize emails. Ensure that data would also be accessible for use within Marketing Cloud's Automation Studio and Journey Builder tools. Then build email templates that would be accessible to non-technical content creators.
Execution
With the help of IT partners, we were able to implement our IP, complete warming, and establish user permissions in short order. Through Automation Studio, we built a series of SQL queries and file imports that moved user data from the old email platform into the Marketing Cloud system. Using the same series of automations, we connected Marketing Cloud to the university's system of record and used the data extension schema to organize data into fields that could be personalized within emails. I then created a single-column, mobile-friendly email template that utilized drag-and-drop editing for our content creators.
Results
The shift to Marketing Cloud has drastically improved the efficiency of email creation and distribution, resulting in more than three million emails sent in the last year. Additionally, the adoption of Litmus as an email review and approval tool connected to Marketing Cloud has completely eliminated the need for any revisions to be done outside of Marketing Cloud. The data extension schema has also allowed us to use Journey Builder even without a Salesforce connection, resulting in automated, more sophisticated lead generation through engagement splits and A/B testing.