Here’s a template for a simple subscription management system using Salesforce.com and Marketo.

Ultimately how you do this is based on your business, your audience, and what messaging you think they will want.

Step 1: Establish privacy rules internally as well as in compliance with CANSPAM and other local laws.

Step 2: Translate these rules into standard operating procedures for staff (Sales, Customer Service, and Marketing) and place these rules into your CRM.

Step 3: In your CRM, Create checkbox fields or Yes/No/Blank picklists corresponding to each channel, topic, or newsletter you intend to offer.

For example, Newsletter 1=T/F; Webinar Invitations=T/F and so on.

I prefer human readable fields using the Yes/No/Blank option in Salesforce. If you use this field option, your label can say “Newsletter Subscription: Yes” so it is clear to everyone.

Some marketers recommend offering Topics rather than specific emails or channels. That’s up to you. Personally, I like to know what I’m signing up for, so a Topic choice is less appealing. I’d much rather sign up for “Webinar Invitations” or “Special Events” than a topic on “China” because I’m not sure what I will get with “China.”

Step 4: Create corresponding SFDC Campaigns to each checkbox. Then add Member Status=Opted In/Opted Out with both set to Responded. Remove the other options. (Keep in mind you could create a Channel Tag called Subscriptions with similar progression statuses. Then you can control a Lead’s preferences using a Program.

Step 5: Create a Form called “Subscription Preferences” adding the fields from Step 3 with clear Labels. If you’re planning a more complicated system such as what Marketo built, you will need a web programmer who can use javascript and jquery.

Step 6: Create a page named “Subscription Management” with the SEO friendly page name on its URL: “subscription-management”. Add the Form you made from Step 5. Here’s where your web programmer will need to do the fancy javascript and jQuery if you want to do things like pre-fill the person’s email from the Unsubscribe link, or add many options with special formatting.

I believe this link should be available from your Privacy page as well as from your email unsubscribe link. Make life easy for people; let people sign up as they please or you risk nasty emails and FTC complaints which could have been avoided.

Write clear copy explaining what the Lead can expect from each channel. For instance “Newsletter” is not as good as “Economics Newsletter Delivered Each Thursday”. Many recommend copy encouraging the Lead to stay on the lists.

You can also add a “throttle option” that enables Marketing Suspended for a period of time; or alternately, restricts the number and frequency of emails from your company.

Restricting the frequency or number of emails is a little harder to manage on the backend. For instance, at EIU, the company policy was to send no more than 2 promotional emails per month (this excluded opted-in content). To do this properly would require a clear naming scheme or counting system in the database.

Step 7: create one or more workflows which are triggered by a Fills Out Form on this page. If someone changes their Newsletter flag to “Yes” then the Change Campaign Member Status changes to “Opted-In” while changing Webinar Invitation to “No” changes their Member Status to “Opted-Out”.

Step 8: Setup standard Smart Lists based on the Opted-In/Out member status for each channel. Train your team to use these lists as part of their targeting efforts. Remember you can nest these lists with your Segmentations or Geographic lists.

Step 9: test this. A lot.

Step 10: Migrate your records to the new system using Marketo flow actions.

For instance if your previous system simply had Unsubscribe=True/False then you will need to invite your database to opt-in to each channel. (This is the only legal option).

If you had an existing series of fields, simply use a Marketo Flow action to move a checkbox=True to Newsletter=Yes along with the corresponding Change Campaign Member Status=Opted In.

Step 11: once you are ready to go live, add a link to this page on your Privacy page. Then go to Admin>Email and adjust the Unsubscribe links with the correct page URL.

Example Subscription Pages Using Marketo:

• Marketo’s Subscription Management Page – what people often look to as the template for doing this in Marketo.
• Economist Intelligence Unit Subscription Management – this is my basic system with a standard Marketo Form and Landing Page.
• Bersin’s Subscription Management Page – also a good example of using standard Marketo Forms and Pages.

• How to build subscription management using javascript

Many of us in the B2B demand generation space are targeting the same companies: Global 2000, Fortune 1000, and Fortune 500/100/50.

In other words, large companies with complex problems, multiple functional areas, and global operations ripe for us to solve problems for.

In Marketo, though, you need to filter these firms out to do three things:

• Score leads who match from these firms.
• Route these high value leads over to sales
• Segment these leads for nurturing, dynamic content, or whatever.

And wow is it painful to copy and paste that list in from Hoover’s or other databases. So here you are, the lists, in an easy to copy format. Many thanks to Jason Long for the Fortune 500 list and for reminding me to find my files :).

• Fortune 500. [xls]
• Fortune 1000 Company List [xlsx]
• Global 2000 Company List – with name variations for “Contains” and “Is” lists. [xlsx]

After working with a few companies now, I have seen various Salesforce and Marketo combinations. Each one has its unique characteristics, workflows, and record types. In the end, few things are truly unique, except in how each is managed.

I am continually surprised at how few firms are taking advantage of SFDC Campaign Hierarchies. Even if you have Revenue Cycle Analytics or are using Marketo Programs full capabilities, someone in your firm is using Salesforce as the database of record.

So why use Salesforce Campaigns and the hierarchy feature?

Easy. Using campaign hierarchy lets you do several key things faster if your SFDC Administrator has done her job:

1. Group campaigns by channel, year, or whatever makes sense for your firm.
2. Roll up campaign data to quickly see totals, averages, and metrics directly in Salesforce. So if you click on Webinars 2012, Salesforce instantly tells you the total count on Leads, Contacts, Conversions, Opportunities, Costs, and Won dollars.
3. Grouping campaigns makes it easy to see what you have already done this year and in other years.
4. Grouping campaigns can make your dashboard or report creation easier.
5. You can clone Campaigns more easily for each type of campaign, even when you use Marketo Programs. Why? You’ll know where they all are.

Here’s my Quick Guide to Using SFDC Campaigns. [pdf]

Enjoy!

Whether you are preparing for a new marketing automation solution or switching to a new vendor, you will need to do diligent research on the available options. To do this, I have created two documents to help you in your quest for sales funnel bliss.

Preparing a Marketing Automation RFP

You will likely need to go through a request for proposal process to make sure you have fully evaluated each vendor’s capabilities. These helpful documents should make the RFP process move faster, at least on your end. Using these documents, several vendors quickly submitted completed RFPs to me which had far more detail than they offer on their websites.

• RFP Cover Letter Example [doc]
• RFP Feature Matrix [xls] and new 2014 [xlsx]

Feel free to edit the letter and matrix to meet your own business needs. It is best to find out at the start of the process what a vendor is able to do now, and what their roadmap looks like over the next year. You may find it better to grow your ability to use the system along with their feature list, rather than have to install features you are not ready to use. For firms switching to a new vendor, it is important to understand the reasons for the switch (technical, capabilities, or cost) and how much the new vendor will help you make the transition.

Managing the sales process

During your evaluation process, be sure to ask as many questions as you can come up with to ensure you understand what you are buying. Many salespeople are happy to help, while a few will find too many questions a sign of a “tire-kicker.” My bias is toward salespeople who will explain everything or find me a technical sales consultant to answer those questions. Unresponsive or irritated salespeople are not a welcome part of my team, internally or externally. A vendor is there to help you solve your lead funnel problems, not for you to buy their product on their schedule.

As you narrow down the vendors, ask two or three of the best to come in for a full sales presentation with your marketing, sales, and technical teams. For larger firms, you may want to have these as separate meetings so each team can ask the questions they want. Successful meetings mean you have coached your teams as well as the vendor team on what to expect. I have found pre-coaching your own team will let you cover more ground during a vendor call while exposing unspoken concerns your colleagues have.

Negotiation Tips

My friends in automation firms will hate me, but you can use their sales pressure to ask for additional concessions, such as free months, an email IP address, more customized training, or free trials of add-ons.

A few vendors offer free trial months, however, those usually involve the entire integration process to work well, effectively ensuring you will buy their solution. Be careful if you want to test their system with your own data. Ask if you can upload your own data on a standalone instance instead of integrating the system up front. Run a few campaigns or test lead scoring systems. Use the month to better understand how automation works with their tools so you are better prepared for potential pitfalls or workarounds. No vendor is perfect, so make sure your deal-breakers involve fundamental issues of functionality or price.

Good luck with your funnel construction!

PS: here are a few additional resources for those considering automation solutions

• Sirius Decisions (research)
• DemandGen Resources

If you’ve ever made a form anywhere, then you know how hard it is to fill in state and country values in just the right way. Fortunately, we’ve done some of the hard work to save you time. These lists can be used to copy and paste values directly into Marketo filter choice boxes or into a Marketo Form or even a Salesforce Report Filter.

Here are lists of countries, industries, and states formatted for easy copy-paste to Marketo multi-select boxes or to the Marketo Form Editor. Be sure to adjust these lists for your own needs. Enjoy!

• Country and State ISO Code List for Marketo choices [xlsx] [Corrected misspellings, Sept 10, 2016]

Remember, you’ll need to know some advanced form options to use the above.