Skip to main content

Track Engagement with Campaigns

Learning Objectives

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

  • Define what campaigns are in Salesforce.
  • Give an example of how a nonprofit could use campaigns.
  • Identify the important sections of a campaign record.
  • Prepare to run a campaign in Salesforce.
Note

Salesforce for Nonprofits includes both integrated platform solutions and managed packages. This badge covers Nonprofit Success Pack, a managed package. To learn about other Salesforce for Nonprofits solutions, see Salesforce for Nonprofits Basics.

It’s Time to Mobilize!

Several recently elected city council members introduced policies to install what No More Homelessness (NMH) considers to be “hostile architecture” — design features created specifically to deter people from sleeping in public, such as slanted benches.

NMH, a (fictional) nonprofit dedicated to supporting community members experiencing homelessness, believes this type of installation doesn’t address the root causes of homelessness and only makes life harder for those already struggling. To defeat the measure when it comes up for a vote, the NMH team plans to mobilize supporters to convince the city council that the proposal isn’t an effective way to address homelessness in the community.

NMH team members express dismay about the hostile architecture in the park.

The team is hard at work designing an awareness campaign and training workshops where clients, volunteers, and engaged supporters learn how to organize and advocate. This is an organization-wide effort for NMH, led by the communications and advocacy team, but with an associated fundraising effort, too. Let’s follow along as the organization uses campaigns in Salesforce to coordinate its No More Hostile Architecture initiative.

What Is a Campaign?

Campaigns are a planned set of communications, be it digital or analog, that move people toward a specific goal, like asking citizens to vote a particular way, volunteer, donate, or buy a tote bag. 

In Salesforce, you can track and manage these efforts with the campaigns object. (If you’d like a refresher on what an object is, head over to the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) Basics Trailhead module linked in Resources before moving on.) 

NMH uses campaigns in Salesforce and Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) to track fundraising and advocacy communications, event attendance, and volunteer shift registration. And the team is relying on campaigns again as they launch their efforts to stop hostile architecture in their community.

The Benefits of Using Campaigns

Just about everyone on staff at NMH runs some type of campaign and could benefit from the campaign management technology in NPSP. 

The development team manages ongoing fundraising campaigns in email, direct mail, social media, and in-person and digital events. Not only do they create and keep up with these campaigns, but they also manage a major (and particularly effort-intensive) annual end-of-year appeal. To finance the purchase of a new building, the team is running a capital campaign, culminating in the organization’s first-ever gala. And, of course, advocacy takes money, so they are testing a fundraising campaign around the hostile architecture issue.

The NMH communications and advocacy team is in constant dialogue with NMH stakeholders. Their communications are sometimes spontaneous, but the team also works hard to develop strategic outreach with community-partner groups. They work with the NMH programs team to run educational and informational campaigns via email and at community events, which in turn often generate new volunteers or donors. And let’s not forget the upcoming advocacy training workshop. While the programs team is responsible for the training material and day-of logistics, the role of the communications and advocacy team is to generate interest, invite attendees, and manage RSVPs and pre-event information.

The NMH team meets to plan campaigns for the year.

Each team uses the Type field on campaigns to indicate if the campaign information relates to fundraising, events, marketing, advocacy, or volunteer activities. NMH’s spectacular Salesforce Admin, Gorav Patel, also collected requirements from each team and added custom fields and process automations for each type of campaign. 

Now everyone has tools tailor-made for their needs — no more workarounds at No More Homelessness!

The Anatomy of a Campaign Record

Now that we understand the benefits of using campaigns in NPSP, let’s check out an individual campaign record. 

A campaign record contains the important information related to a specific campaign — the campaign name, costs, start and end dates, meetings, mailings, calls, and other tasks and activities you need to manage the campaign. 

A campaign record also links to important information about the people related to the campaign, including the contact information for whomever you plan to include as either leads or contacts, the total number of leads and contacts, and response rates. For a fundraising appeal, the campaign record can also include tallies on donations pledged and collected (more on that later).

Let’s take a look at one of NMH’s fundraising campaign records: 

The sections of a campaign record

Highlights Panel (1)

A quick glance at important campaign information. Your Salesforce Admin customizes what appears here, so you see what’s most relevant to your organization.

Related List Quick Links (2)

Quickly view and take action on objects related to campaigns. Personalize what links appear here from the personal settings found from your user icon.

Campaign Details (3)

Fields for campaign name, type, status, dates, budget, and more. Ask your Salesforce Admin to add custom fields if you want to track additional information about your campaign. Click Related to see other important records and data associated with the campaign.

Activity Timeline (4)

Tasks, meetings, calls, mailings, emails, and any other action related to the campaign.

Additional Sections (5)

Each section highlights additional information about the campaign. Depending on your organization, this might include data on donations, campaign members, or aggregate data on related campaigns.

Clone with Related (6)

This button allows you to create a copy of the campaign record with its related records, like custom campaign member statuses, which we’ll discuss in the next unit. This saves time creating several similar campaigns.

Prepare to Create a Campaign

Campaigns require some set up, but thoughtful planning before you enter campaign data will help you take full advantage of this powerful object and its related features. Here are a few things to think about.

Consider the entire campaign lifecycle in Salesforce

Shepherding campaigns through the entire campaign lifecycle typically involves five steps: 

  1. Create the campaign.
  2. Create a target list of recipients (or campaign members).
  3. Run the campaign.
  4. Track responses.
  5. Analyze campaign effectiveness.

You don’t need to know how to manage every step right now, but it’s good to start thinking about campaigns in phases. When you’re ready, you can check out resources that are available to help you through each step. For now, let’s stick with preparation. 

Get permission to create and manage campaigns

Access to campaigns and campaign records, like anything in Salesforce, is controlled by the profile permissions and sharing settings managed by your Salesforce Admin. At most nonprofits, everyone can see campaigns and campaign data, but not everyone can create or edit campaign records. Your Salesforce Admin needs to enable the marketing user option in order for you to manage campaigns. 

To check if you have this permission, click your user icon and click Settings. Under the My Personal Information menu section, click Advanced User Details. On this page, look for the Marketing User checkbox. If this is checked, great! Continue on and learn how to create and edit campaigns. If your job requires you to create campaigns and this box isn’t checked, reach out to your admin.

The Marketing User checkbox on the Advanced User Details page

Decide on a naming convention

It’s easier for everyone on your team to find, read, and report on campaigns if the names are consistent. Start by thinking about the types of campaigns you run and how they relate to each other. Will they be one-off or serials? Will campaigns run as-needed or on a regular recurring schedule? Will you use just one channel, like email? Will you mix it up across channels with social media, direct mail, and roller derby ads? 

NMH has decided on [Type]: [Month] [Year] - [Short Description] as the standard format for the campaign records relating to their upcoming advocacy training workshops. For example, the upcoming advocacy training workshop is Event: June 2021 - Advocacy Training Day and a planned fundraising appeal is Direct Mail: Feb 2021 - NMHA A.

NMH also organizes campaigns by grouping them into campaign hierarchies, so it needs two standards — one for parent campaigns and one for child campaigns, like the upcoming advocacy training event. Parent campaigns at NMH use general and descriptive names (with the year) that refer to the tactic, while child campaigns stick with the [Type]: [Month] [Year] - [Short Description] format. For example, the parent campaign for the upcoming series of workshops is Advocacy Training Days 2021. The child campaign, Event: June 2021 - Advocacy Training Day, will roll up to it. 

Want to know more about parent campaigns and how you can use them to create campaign hierarchies? Well, you’re in luck. We cover that in the next unit.

Resources

Keep learning for
free!
Sign up for an account to continue.
What’s in it for you?
  • Get personalized recommendations for your career goals
  • Practice your skills with hands-on challenges and quizzes
  • Track and share your progress with employers
  • Connect to mentorship and career opportunities