Office of Marketing and Communications

Salesforce Marketing Cloud | Subscription Audience

A subscription-style audience in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) originates from a sign-up form on a college or unit's website or an external gathering of email addresses for a specific email communication. This web form inputs the contact information into the list (data extension-DE) within SFMC. The subscribers can be internal to Ohio State, external or a combination thereof. The email communication the audience subscribed to must have an opt-out process to comply with the federal CAN-SPAM Act. The great thing about the subscription area of SFMC is that it provides the opt-out functionality.

Audiences that fall into subscription email communications:

  • The recipients explicitly opt-in to a specific email newsletter or communication
  • The audience may be affiliated with the university in several ways – or not at all – their subscription is not dependent on any affiliation or recruitment status
    • Business contacts
    • University committee or community
    • Combination audiences of internal or external (facutly/staff and students)
  • Audience can opt out of the email communication

How to request a subscription audience for SFMC

Enter the details needed in the subscriptionrequestform in Workfront(1 subscription audience per entry). The email and automation team will evaluate the details and reach out with questions and next steps. We are currently supporting single subscription audiences only.

Examples of use cases:

  1. Ohio State Bulk Tool users with external to Ohio State audiences or combination audiences. (Internal-only transactional message audiences apply to the University Community Business unit)
    1. Support for this tool will be sunset in FY2025
  2. Units that are moving away from or have been blocked from using Mailchimp or Constant Contact or other bulk email tools that have applicable audiences
    1. Mailchimp, Constant Contact or other email marketing tools are not approved by legal and meet the audiences that fall into a subscription (See above section for audiences). Note: SFMC is Ohio State's official email tool. Other email-sending tools do not align with the user agreement standards set by Ohio State's legal department.
  3. Colleges/units with complex or multiple audiences that fall into subscription will need to wait for subscription 2.0 to be available
    1. A Buckeye360 project will be set to develop a complex form structure that connects to SFMC
  4. Internal audience Community or Committee communications. Subscription can replace listservs and removes the list maintenance tasks.

 

SFMC Internal communications versus subscription-based audiences

Not all communications sent to internal audiences (osu.edu/osumc.edu email addresses) are transactional in nature. Each committee or special group could need to send to their members or invite to events. At Ohio State, transactional internal communications are messages sent to faculty, staff and current students as a condition of their employment or enrollment.

Emails that are voluntary in nature (i.e., not transactional, not required due to employment/enrollment) require a subscription and a method to opt out, regardless of the intended audience.

Examples of internal communications versus subscription-based communications to internal audiences

Internal communications

Subscription-based communications to internal audiences

On Campus Today

Student Life Center for Belonging and Social Change newsletter

Ohio State News Alerts

Association of Staff and Faculty Women newsletter

Messages from leadership 

Buckeye Wellness Innovator newsletter

Departmental emails to faculty/staff employed by that area or students currently enrolled in one of that department’s classes/majors/minors

Departmental emails to faculty/staff NOT employed by that area or students NOT currently enrolled in one of that department’s classes/majors/minors

Annual conflict of interest (COI) disclosure request

Solicitations to faculty, staff or current/students based on their employment/enrollment status and not based on alumni status or previous donation history

Training, security or software notifications

Athletic ticket opportunities

HR, Financial aid, health insurance notifications

 

This list is not comprehensive, but a starting point to understanding the difference between the two types of communication. You may change your approach to your communication once you move into Salesforce Marketing Cloud. For questions on your specific use case and how it should be approached, please reach out to emailmarketing@osu.edu.

Once the subscription is implemented in SFMC, a college/unit agrees to:

  1. Honor opt-outs
  2. Maintain the stated purpose and frequency of sends or notify emailmarketing@osu.edu of changes
  3. To notpurchase or scrape the internet for email addresses to build subscription lists. This method of gaining email addresses violates the CAN-SPAM Act and the SFMC user agreement
  4. Use Salesforce Marketing Cloud as the university's legally approved email service provider and discontinue use of other bulk email tools where applicable
    • Aligns to single subscription that utilizes a webpage sign-up form
    • SFMC in the university instance is able to provide email support for a few audiences. For more information
Sample SFMC subscription web form
This is a sample of a web form that gathers audience details for SFMC subscription email communications

College and unit responsibilities to prepare for SFMC subscriptions:

Each subscription will need an owned web location (page, form) where new subscription opt-ins can be acquired

  • There will be a meeting with each College/Unit to discuss the webform functionality
  • Colleges/Units with a web support team may need to slate this work into the project schedule. 
    • Developer details for the form build
      • Two API calls required in the form code.
        • API for Salesforce CRM object connection
        • API for real time email address validation through Validity Everest
  • OMC’s Martech team can assist in the form creation matching the following criteria:
    • The web page is in BUX and is managed by OMC’s Martech team
    • Aligns to single subscription that aligns to cloud page form

College/Unit/Committee will commit to at least one active user license in Salesforce Marketing Cloud along with compliance to required training and user agreement to gain/maintain SFMC access

  • If there is not a SFMC user on the team, there is an option to work with Scarlet Studio to execute the email(s)

Answer standard SFMC onboarding questions for the subscription, including the name of the unit creating the publication and how often emails will be sent (e.g., The Office of Marketing and Communications’ Ohio State Impact newsletter sends relevant story content from the osu.edu/impact site to subscribers weekly.)

  • College/Unit name?
  • How many licensed users does this detail apply to? (lastname.#)
    • Does this user have SFMC experience?
    • 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? 

 

For existing subscriptions transferring from other email platforms after initial setup of the new form and necessary SFMC training provide a .csv file of current subscribers’ email addresses and any other identifying demographic information (i.e., first name, last name, email address):

Note: The list update process is the same as the initial list load to SFMC, the Buckeye360 team will need 24-48 hours to update the list. 

  • Submit list upload request to Buckeye360 team for adding to the backend of SFMC
    • Submit to OTDI buckeye360support buckeye360support@osu.edu
    • What to include in the list for uploading to SFMC
      • Current subscribers
      • Email addresses
      • First name (optional, if the field is not populated for all records we suggest a default value "constituent")
      • Last name (optional)