Send a Single Promotional Email

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Explain the three parts of an email campaign.
Name two CAN-SPAM requirements.

The example marketing effort described in this unit can be accomplished in Starter and Pro Suite, and Marketing Cloud.

One-Time Email Promotion

As the Alternative Energies Expo approaches, the sales and merchandising teams at Ursa Major Solar, a supplier of solar components and systems, are thinking about how to engage the attendees. In addition to staffing their booth in the marketplace, they’re hosting a mixer event on the first evening. To spread the word, they plan to send a one-time email invitation.

Luckily, Ursa Major Solar has just the right digital marketing tools for success. In this module, you see how the team uses Salesforce email marketing, marketing automation, and marketing analytics to achieve its goals.

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Plan an Email

Merchandiser Taylor Givens and sales reps Erin Donaghue and Lance Park come together to think about the message they want to send. Here’s what they need.

Information about the mixer and a draft of the email text.
Pictures and descriptions of the night’s door prizes.
Criteria to segment the recipient list.
Some target KPIs.

Erin wants to reach new leads and current contacts. The team decides to target new leads from the past 90 days and contacts created during the past few years. They’ll personalize the message and include a link to a landing page with more information. The team wants to see strong opens and click-throughs.

Review Prerequisites

Before starting, Taylor makes sure they’re all set up. Here’s what to consider before you set up your own email.

To send promotional emails, you need consent from every recipient. Make sure that you import or manually add consent statuses (Opt In or Opt Out) for each lead and contact. If the Consent Status field for anyone in your segment is blank, they can’t receive your email.
To use Einstein Send Time Optimization, someone with the System Administrator profile must enable it on the Einstein Send Time Optimization page under Einstein for Marketing page in Salesforce Setup.

Build and Send an Email

Taylor logs in to Salesforce to create the marketing email. On the Campaigns page, he clicks New, names the marketing campaign AEE Event Invitation, and chooses the Single Email campaign option. The campaign record outlines Taylor’s tasks, which make up the three parts of his marketing campaign. He’ll target an audience segment as the start trigger, add content, and set the schedule for the email send.

The campaign record has three sections with headings Start Trigger, Content, and Schedule.

Build a Segment

The necessary setup is complete and Taylor’s team is ready to start working on the invitation email. To send the email to their target audience, they need to build a segment. Let’s dig into how it works.

From the campaign, click Select Segment, and then click New Segment.
Name the segment Recent Leads and Contacts.
Select Visual Builder, and then Standard Segment.
On the segment canvas, expand the Attribute Library and drag these attributes from the Related Attributes section. Then, set the AND/OR selector.

Lead | Created Date: Last Number of Days = 90
Account Contact | Created Date: Is After = January 1, 2020
Selector: OR

The segment canvas shows a lead filter and a contact filter using the OR selector.

Save the segment, and then return to the campaign record.

Edit and Personalize Email Content

To add customer information into an email in Marketing Cloud, an admin must first configure and select a data graph in Salesforce Setup. When that’s complete, a user can select from primary and related object fields, such as names or engagement, to use as merge fields in an email.

In the Content section, click Edit.
On the Email | Settings tab, enter information for the invitation email.

Title: AEE Event Invitation
Description: Invitation email for AEE mixer event
Message Purpose: Promotional
Subject Line: Come See us at AEE, [firstname]
Preheader: Kick off AEE right with tapas, drinks, and door prizes from Ursa Major Solar.

Customize the default styles for the entire email or in specific components.

In the Style panel, switch the Color Scheme to Custom, and try setting the background to another color. The colors update for all of the components in the email. To revert, go to Color Scheme and select Inherited Color Scheme.

In the center email layout, click a component to edit text or replace images or add components as needed. (Watch examples in this video playlist)
Add a paragraph block to the footer of your email, and make sure it includes the Physical Address and Unsubscribe merge fields, which are required to meet CAN-SPAM regulations.

The Subject Line and Preheader sectionEmail Settings panel shows form fields with content settings and Add Merge Field button highlighted.

Finalize and Schedule an Email

To review the design or send yourself a test email, click Preview in the editor toolbar.
To save the message and get it ready for the campaign, click Publish.
Don’t worry, publishing the email doesn’t send it yet!
Back on the campaign record, click Schedule.

Enter 12:30 AM on July 10, in US Pacific Time.
Turn on Einstein Send Time Optimization, and then enter 72 hours in the timeframe field.
Click Save.

Back on the campaign record, review your work and then click Activate.

Example email layout

The invitation segment is refreshed overnight on July 9, and emails begin queuing for send at 12:30 AM. Einstein Send Time Optimization (STO) identifies an ideal time for each recipient to receive the email, and sends their email at that time. Over the next 3 days, Ursa Major’s targeted leads and contacts receive invitations at a time that works best for them.

Invitation Outcome

Leading up to the event, Taylor monitors engagement on the AEE Event Invitation marketing campaign by checking reports. Personalizing the subject line and using STO seems to have boosted open rates, and the click-throughs are looking good.

During the event, a handful of guests tell Erin and Lance that they had more than one event that night, but chose Ursa Major’s mixer because of the door prizes that were promoted! Taylor meets some walk-ins who aren’t in their database, and asks them to sign up for future promotional emails.

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Send a Single Promotional Email

Learning Objectives

One-Time Email Promotion