Summary
To support our company’s term-over-term growth, I designed and launched a fully automated renewal campaign in Marketo – tied directly to $6M+ in influenced revenue annually. This multi-step program dynamically adjusted based on academic calendar, engagement, and Salesforce status, enabling timely outreach, reducing churn, and increasing upsell potential.
What I did
- Collaborated closely with the sales team to identify renewal patterns, term timing preferences, and the kind of messaging that resonates with instructors
- Designed the campaign strategy for schools on both semester and quarter systems, with logic branches tailored to each academic calendar
- Segmented out white-glove and non-standard accounts to allow for manual outreach while automating the rest
- Connected Salesforce fields (renewal status, finals date, start date) to Marketo via custom logic to time each message accurately
- Built a five-touch email cadence:
- 30 days before finals (light tone)
- Custom intervals between 21 and 7 days from term start, increasing urgency
- Final email emphasized action before students return
- Created unique email content for each stage—starting casual and ramping up urgency based on the academic calendar
- Built logic to exit contacts automatically from the flow when Salesforce status changed from “Renewal” to “Requested” (i.e., they filled out the form)
- Left unresponsive contacts visible to sales reps via their Salesforce reports, ensuring full-cycle handoff
What I learned
- How to build highly personalized, calendar-sensitive campaigns at scale
- How to create reliable cross-platform logic between Salesforce and Marketo
- The importance of co-designing with sales to ensure automation supports—not sidelines—their workflows
- How strategic timing, tone, and sales-aligned messaging can move the needle on renewals
