6 minute read time
Multiple Sclerosis Limited Accelerates Personalization and Fundraising with Salesforce Integration
Multiple Sclerosis Limited is the go-to provider of information, advice, and support for people affected by multiple sclerosis in Australia. The organization is a combined entity of the ACT, NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania with over 60 years’ insight into how to live well with progressive neurological conditions.
The nonprofit offers vital support and services for people living with multiple sclerosis while the search for a cure continues. It uses email marketing extensively as a way to engage donors, raise awareness, offer support, and promote its events. Switching to Campaign Monitor and completing a key integration with Salesforce has delivered a number of important benefits:
- A smoother, more intuitive user experience
- Faster access to critical subscriber data
- Endless personalization in one click
The cornerstone for cross-channel nonprofit communications
Affordability, scalability, and powerful results make email the perfect channel for many nonprofit initiatives from fundraising to championing important causes.
Among other missions, Multiple Sclerosis Limited uses email as a core way to raise funds and engage participants for a wide variety of events, from readathons to cycling challenges. A single event, from the beginning of the registration period through post-event, might include 60 or more emails sent out!
“Email is sort of in this weird phase where some people think it’s dead and no one uses it,” says Amy Mulder, Communications Coordinator for the organization. “But then we see it’s the most popular way for people to communicate with nonprofits. It’s where we get most of our fundraising from; people are really engaged with it.”
Though email is MS Limited’s greatest fundraising tool, it doesn’t work in a vacuum. The organization uses individual phone calls, SMS, social media, and other channels to keep its community engaged and push its mission forward.
Key integration makes MS a force to be reckoned with
One key development for Multiple Sclerosis Limited’s events program since joining with Campaign Monitor is the app’s Salesforce email marketing integration.
The integration between two of a marketers’ largest and most powerful engagement tools offers a suite of potent capabilities. With this integration Multiple Sclerosis Limited can:
- Easily build beautiful, branded email campaigns with Campaign Monitor’s drag-and-drop email builder
- Send targeted email campaigns to their contacts in Salesforce
- Measure how email campaigns drive pipeline and influence closed opportunities
- View email statistics directly within Salesforce
- Map Campaign Monitor email fields with Salesforce
- Automatically add subscribers
https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/qa8elerdtv?
Shortly after moving events and fundraising communications to Campaign Monitor, Mulder initiated the Salesforce integration. The result: easier access to key data in a fraction of the time.
Previously, the email team had needed to go through half a dozen approvals and get support from their IT team to analyze data on different subscriber segments and use it to personalize messaging. The process could take as much as a week for a single email campaign. Now that the two systems can safely pass this information back and forth, the data is available on demand.
“The integration adds a level of seamlessness,” said Mulder. “The participant lists for our events, such as a bike ride, is updated every hour, so I can just create a segment saying everyone participating in this event, who has raised, say $100, show them this specific copy. It’s so easy. I’ve got more time to think in those strategic ways because I don’t have to be manually handling data.”
Turning “zeros” into MS heroes with dynamic content
MS Limited is fortunate to have an engaged, generous community that comes together time and again for support and activism. But like many nonprofits, MS Limited has a consistent challenge with convincing new contacts to take that first step, like registering for an event, completing an online profile, or reaching their first fundraising goal. It’s the “abandoned cart” of the nonprofit world.
Mulder says getting people off zero is huge to helping them build momentum, reach higher goals, and continue participating in future events. “Asking for money can be very awkward for some participants. We want to remind them that it’s easy, that they just need to share that they’re participating, and people will naturally support. And we provide everything they need to begin sharing; personalized email templates and social posts.”
The nonprofit incorporates dynamic content into emails adjusting to subscribers at this “zero” state to provide encouraging messaging and motivation to get the ball rolling. Campaign Monitor’s dynamic email content capabilities mean Mulder and her team can now add personalization like this with minimal time and effort. That means each recipient, whether a newcomer at zero or an experienced veteran, gets a customized experience tailored just for them.
“I can send one campaign, and have content in each email adapt to what we know about the subscriber,” says Mulder. “So if they identify as female, and they’re motivated by the challenge of the physical event they’re participating in when they open we can show an image of a woman overcoming the challenge. It’s so simple with Campaign Monitor, I can do it with a click.”
During an email campaign for the 2020 Gong Ride Virtual event, Mulder created an email using dynamic content that allowed them to personalize the graphic within the email based on their personal distance they would be riding during the event. By adding in this level of personalization through dynamic content, the MS Limited team was able to reach a click-through rate double their average. And even more, with a simple retargeting email to those who had not opened the previous email, they were able to achieve a click-through rate 5% higher than the average.
Upgrading email service providers
Much of Multiple Sclerosis Limited’s success and improvement in user experience has come since migrating from its previous email service provider, Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
“Campaign Monitor is very easy to learn,” Mulder said. “When I first started at MS Limited we were using Marketing Cloud, and we were encountering a lot of problems involving ease of use. It wasn’t very user friendly. But then I got to work with the Campaign Monitor platform and I thought ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing!’”
After making the switch, Mulder has more independence and flexibility with her communications and personalization. The intuitive interface and powerful Salesforce integration means she can act quickly without relying on other parts of the organization to get her job done.
“It is so user friendly. Going to Campaign Monitor from Marketing Cloud was so refreshing. Because if I have this for my events, I don’t have to rely on IT anymore,” she said.
Learn more about Campaign Monitor vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Wrapping up
We’re honored to get to work with nonprofits championing important causes around the world like Multiple Sclerosis Limited. Learn more about their mission and work on their site, and consider contributing, volunteering, or registering for an event.
Find other great case studies in nonprofit email marketing here.
