Office of Marketing and Communications

SFMC | Salesforce Marketing Cloud Migration

The below information is to assist Ohio State internal partners in moving from Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Emma, Outlook (for specific use cases), or other email service providers (ESPs) that do not align with the university's standard terms and conditions, as determined by the legal department. The information shared is to start a conversation and give time to determine the best path for each college/unit. The Office of Marketing and Communications' Email and Automation team will assist with the plan for each area.

The Office of Marketing and Communications’ (OMC) Email and Automation Team

We are here to support and understand email use case(s) across the university and guide the onboarding for Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC). Our role includes governing email best practices, consulting on strategy and template alignment, troubleshooting issues, and introducing new tools and capabilities to the marketing community at Ohio State. Our team will onboard and train all users of SFMC under the university instance. The training for the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) will partner with Strategic Enrollment Marketing (SEM) for recruiting and admission support. There are other instances of Salesforce within Ohio State — it is important to understand if your college/unit has its own instance. We do want to clarify that our team does not support Microsoft Outlook or other third-party bulk email platforms. We can support email best practices for these tools. Our team runs the Email Community of Practice meeting, please visit the webpage and request to join the community to stay informed.

Before we start talking about licensing and access, there should be a discussion with leadership and other areas of the college/unit. We suggest a streamlined approach to email planning and execution. This discussion should cover who currently has access to Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) and other email tools. It is best practice to have a central email execution SFMC super user for each college or unit. We also advise all SFMC users in the same college or unit to support each other as much as possible.

How many SFMC users does your area need? Not all individuals executing email should have a license for Salesforce. Approved users are based on use case review. SFMC is more complex than Mailchimp or Constant Contact, etc. Users that send email sporadically (less than once per month) may need to rely on other licensed users for the email-sending action. See below for the reasoning for a central email super user for support of infrequent sends.

Below are the guidelines for the centralized email support model

If a unit has a dedicated person to build and send emails, they should be the first resource for all emails being sent from the college/unit.

This is important to align to best practices in a few areas:

  • Emails are built correctly for optimal deliverability (footers, preference links, etc.)
  • Proper college/unit exclusions are applied
  • Emails are stored in the correct folder(s) within SFMC
  • Proper unit reviews and approvals are completed
  • The content creation and strategy for email can come from many sources. It is suggested that a workflow be established for efficient email building and deployment.
  • Not sure who your unit’s email contact is? Reach out to the OMC Email Marketing team at emailmarketing@osu.edu to understand your unit’s contacts.

Central Advancement is currently working in this model to coordinate sends and strategy support. Please note Advancement IT has a ticketed process in place to complete list requests for alumni, donors and friends (ADF) audiences.

  • Central Advancement is available to advise on the audience, email best practices, review and share feedback on content, etc., as it relates to alumni, donor and friends emails.
  • If a unit does not have a dedicated advancement email person, a request can be submitted via Advancement Marketing and Communications (studebaker.79) for support if resources are available.

What information is needed for access to SFMC?

Use case(s) questions for you and your leadership to determine, we ask these of all users/each user: 

  • How many licensed users does this detail apply to?
  • What audience(s) will you be sending to? 
  • Frequency of email sends? 
  • Size of audience? 
  • What email tools is your college/unit currently utilizing? 
  • What is the requested timing for access to SFMC? 

Below are the four areas of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and the audiences. Use cases should align to one or more of these areas.

 

Advancement audiences (Alumni, Donor, Friends) 

  • Alumni communications 
  • Donor solicitations 
  • Friends, specific groups of people that have a relationship with Ohio State 
  • Invitations to events 

All emails have an opt-out/preference center link in the footer. The TAS database holds advancement audience records, there is a process to request a list for this area of SFMC 

 

University Community audience - University Internal communications only (osu.edu, buckeyemail.edu and mail.cotc.edu addresses) 

  • Communicating with students and/or faculty/staff 
  • Data is connected to internal systems and updates multiple times a day 

 

Subscription (available in spring 2024) – (webform utilized to gather audience – will need developer assistance)  

  • Constant Contact and Mailchimp, etc., users with emails that go to contacts with a relationship from outside of Ohio State (not students, faculty/staff) 
  • The Marketing Technology team will assist with requirements for building a web form for each email/audience 
  • The web form will validate each email address in real-time 

 

Recruiting (CRM and Journey training are needed as the last step) 

  • Strategic outreach to prospective students

Getting access to SFMC

The cost for a user license for the University instance of SFMC is $550 annually, fourth quarter cost is $225, per individual for FY24. 

  • FY25 cost per license is supported by central university budgets 
  • There is a fee for units requiring a separate Business Unit setup, but many of our partners utilize shared spaces due to audience overlap (Advancement, University Community, Recruiting) 

When partners are ready to move forward, simply notify OMC Email Marketing with a list of who will need access, and for what purpose(s) (see use case questions above and include those details).

The email and automation team will help you:

  • Make sure user licenses MOUs are in process
  • Get moving with training – we provide BuckeyeLearn training as well as live (virtual) sessions, web resources, and SFMC office hours to make sure you have the support you need

Detail needed for the MOU(s) FY24 only:

  • How many licenses are needed?
  • Manager Approver Name.# (Required)
  • Fiscal Contact Name.#:
  • Expense Account details (Cost Center data)
  • Balancing Unit (ex: BL0000):
  • Fund (ex: FD0000):
  • Additional Work tag (ex: FN000):
  • Primary Department:
  • College/Unit:

SFMC capabilities

  • Anything done in Mailchimp/Constant Contact can also be done in SFMC (plus more) 
    • Subscription use cases will be ready in SFMC spring 2024 
  • University-approved brand templates are available for all to use in SFMC, with easy drag-and-drop functionality 
  • SFMC is ready to send to internal Ohio State audiences 
    • Connected data is set up to allow for filtering 
    • There are specific requirements needed to align each college/unit to the proper set of data for their areas 
  • SFMC is already set to allow Advancement users to send communications to anyone in The Advancement System (TAS), consists of alumni, donors, and friends details
    • TAS data training is assigned and must be completed before access is granted to the TAS database 
    • TAS data is synchronized daily to SFMC 
    • List requests for all Advancement sends 
    • Lists can be segmented based on any data available in TAS (e.g., all donors to college and unit funds in the last 5 years). There are solicit codes created for each area for commercial message emails 
    • All emails to recipients associated with a TAS ID (for Advancement outreach) must be sent via SFMC 
  • Admissions and Recruitment are in the Salesforce CRM. The Strategic Enrollment Marketing (SEM) team leads this area of Salesforce 
  • Buckeye Business is a separate area of Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
    • Data is connected to the CRM
    • File uploads with email addresses and other data fields are allowed
  • OTDI has a separate area of Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
    • Data is connected to the CRM 
      • Internal data is also connected and able to be filtered 
  • College of Arts and Sciences is a separate area of SFMC 
    • Advancement 
    • CRM - Recruiting 
  • College of Medicine is a separate area of SFMC with data from 
    • Advancement 
    • CRM – Recruiting 
    • Separate IP address to allow sending from @t.osumc.edu (t. indicates a Salesforce domain for email)
  • Fisher College of Business is a separate area of SFMC with data from 
    • Advancement 
    • CRM – Recruiting 

Training for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Here are few details about the new training process to help with the timing and planning. Complete the newly assigned BuckeyeLearn training modules that are video-based with the addition of quizzes and surveys.

Introduction to Email – available to all (45 min)

Step 1

The Introduction to Email 45-minute video is an overview of general email knowledge. Anyone can access this training module, we recommend this training to all marketers and content creators.

SFMC Beginner Training – as assigned

Step 2
This video is an introduction to the SFMC interface. Sign the SFMC user agreement in BuckeyeLearn. (Keep this for your records as well as providing to the OMC email team for proof of completion.)  

Brand template system for email

Step 3
After the initial BuckeyeLearn training step, there will be a notification from the OMC Email and Automation Team to invite you to an in-person (virtual)  training  session(s).  Scheduled monthly for templates. Users such as designers or content creators that will not be sending email or building audiences can attend this session.

Audience specific training

Step 4
Also after the initial BuckeyeLearn training step, the communication from the OMC Email and Automation Team to invite you to an in-person (virtual)  training  session(s).  Scheduled monthly specific audience types that align with your use case. (Ex: advancement, internal communications, subscriptions, etc.)

Journey/Automation training

Step 5
Specific use cases will require Journey Builder training. This additional training is for users of Salesforce with strategies that include automation for email (and SMS where applicable). Recruiting use cases align to this step of training. Strategic Enrollment Marketing partners with the OMC Email and Automation team on the recruitment details.

Support for SFMC

Ongoing support available

The OMC Email and Automation team provides ongoing support as needed. There is also a bi-monthly Email Community of Practice (ECOP) meeting. This regular meeting provides updates on the email industry and Ohio State email use cases among other topics.