Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an enterprise marketing automation platform that offers robust ways to personalize, automate, test and optimize email campaigns for The Ohio State University. Audiences cover internal (students, faculty and staff) and external (alumni, donors and friends; recruiting and admissions) communications. SFMC users will find support and training resources here.

The Benefits of Email Automation

Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is the university's enterprise marketing automation solution. With the capabilities offered within SFMC, we are enabled to improve our marketing and internal communication efforts through A/B testing, personalization, automated journeys and omnichannel strategies. Note Salesforce Marketing Cloud is one offering from Salesforce available and your use case may need other Salesforce tools.

  • Training support and resources including video and live training 
  • Modular design solutions for email templates meet Ohio State brand guidelines and accessibility standards 
  • Modular template content-sharing tactics for centralized storytelling support 
  • Personalize emails with user-relevant content 
  • Analytics and reporting to measure email success 
  • Improve messaging to encourage opens and clicks with A/B testing tactics 
  • Create automated messages across online channels based on audience behavior such as page views, donation activity, event attendance and responses 

Getting access to SFMC

Beginning fiscal year 2025 (7/1/2024), the cost per license is supported by select central university partners.  There is no cost for individual licenses for most colleges and units. As a best practice for the use of SFMC and email, each college or unit should organize an email support team. Not all use cases need a separate team member executing bulk email sends. Each requested use case will be evaluated and it will be determined if your area needs a licensed SFMC user. 

Many partners utilize shared working spaces within SFMC, mainly due to audience overlap (Advancement, University Community, Recruiting, etc.).  The separate working areas in SFMC are called business units (BU). There is a separate fee to create and maintain a separate working space for a college or unit. The use case determines the need for this type of work area. See more information on business units and their audiences below under "Additional Resources".

When partners are ready to move forward, notify OMC Email Marketing with a list of who will need access, and for what purpose(s). We will schedule a meeting to discuss complex use cases. The Moving to Salesforce Marketing Cloud page has more detail on moving to SFMC and setting up an email team.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud email support options

The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) offers two support options for Salesforce Marketing Cloud requests. One is to evaluate your use case and determine the appropriate training and/or capability support. The other is to bring in the OMC internal agency, Scarlet Studio, to provide email support. 


Scarlet Studio email support:

  1. Backup Coverage — Need backup for your team? Scarlet Studio support is there as an extension of your team. 
    1. SFMC user is out of the office and coverage is needed for a specified length of time
    2. Plan for support, we will meet with you to ensure proper alignment with your needs
  2. Execution Support —Your team is preparing the email strategy and need execution support.
    1. Email sending with metrics, may include A/B testing
    2. Email template build for other approved messaging platforms
    3. Journey (automation) support and implementation
    4. Email module creation for sharing with the community
  3. Strategy Support —Email can be complex, we are here to support you.
    1. Review your email marketing and communications efforts and data, then make strategic recommendations to optimize your efforts going forward
    2. Build email reports for your team
    3. A/B testing planning
       

Salesforce Marketing Cloud New User Onboarding

To gain access to the university's instance of SFMC, you must first reach out to the Office of Marketing and Communications Email and Automation Team. After a conversation about the use case, you will be assigned the new user onboarding training in BuckeyeLearn. 

There is SFMC specific training to support the onboarding to the tool and to emphasize Ohio State branded email templates. Most training is assigned by the OMC Email and Automation team within BuckeyeLearn. Training is video-based with the addition of quizzes and an assignment. The certificates from the training will need to be shared with the OMC Email and Automation team via email. At the end of the process a Docusign SFMC user agreement will be signed.

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

  • College/Unit name?
  • How many licensed users does this detail apply to? (lastname.#)
    • Does the user have experience in SFMC or SF CRM?
  • What audience(s) will you be sending to (University Community, Advancement, Recruiting students, External to the university)? 
  • Frequency of email sends? 
  • Size of audience? 
  • What email tools is your college/unit currently using? 
  • What is the requested timing for access to SFMC? 

Please copy this information and answer the questions in the email to the OMC Email and Automation team to request access. 

How-To Resources

Additional Resources

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