Transitioning to the Communication Planner

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The TargetX Communication Planner offers the opportunity to build dynamic, multi-channel communication plans. We suggest evaluating your current communication strategy (or developing one if you still need to), identifying which ongoing campaigns can be revamped to align with your plan, and determining areas where you can initiate new efforts.

Crafting a Communication Plan Strategy

A communication plan outlines how you will communicate important, timely information to key audiences. When designing your communication plan, answer the following questions:

Who should receive the information?
What information is communicated?
When should the information be delivered?
1. On a specific date? On an ongoing basis?
Where will the communication be shared? (e.g., email, SMS, regular mail)
How do you want to segment reporting? (e.g., by entry term, student type, student stage, program, etc.)

Based on your answers to the above questions, you can begin to identify the audiences you need to reach and the number of campaigns necessary to organize your segments. It can be helpful to think about a goal for each campaign. For example, is this campaign driving applications? Yield? Or interest?

Defining your Transition Plan and Timeline

To define your transition plan, begin by deciding what to build first. Rather than attempting to move everything simultaneously, identify logical segments and focus on one group at a time. That way, you can continue using your existing campaigns while building new ones for a smooth transition.

Take the following into account as you prioritize what to build first:

What campaigns are actively running, and when will they be finished?
Is there a logical cutoff point for ongoing campaigns?
What campaigns are planned that you can begin building for a future start date?
Are there any campaigns that can be combined in the Communication Planner?
What is the timeline for your transition?

Think about your approach to segmenting recipients. Are you considering transitioning campaigns according to:

Entry term?
Student type?
Student stage?
Program?
Other criteria?

Review Existing Campaigns

Identify which campaigns and audiences from your existing email campaigns you would like to build for use with the Communication Planner.

Audit Campaigns

Begin by running Campaign Reports to review how current your Campaigns are and the Templates they reference:

Run a Salesforce report: Broadcasts with Campaign with columns Broadcast Name, Campaign Name, Campaign: report ID, Campaign Email Template, Campaign: Last Broadcast Date.
Sort newest to oldest or filter out campaigns with a broadcast date older than a year.
Use the list of related Templates and report IDs to review content and recipient Reports.

For details on running Reports using the legacy TargetX Email tool, see Reporting on Email.

Consolidate Campaigns

Review and analyze your Campaigns to determine if they can be consolidated:

Review any Campaigns that overlap either by Recipient or Content.
Analyze whether Campaigns can be combined into one Campaign with segmented Tracks.

Review Existing Templates

Identify which templates from your existing email campaigns you would like to build for use with the Communication Planner.

Audit recently used templates

Run a Salesforce report: Broadcasts with Campaign with columns Broadcast Name, Campaign Name, Campaign Email Template, Campaign: Last Broadcast Date.
Sort newest to oldest or filter out campaigns with a broadcast date older than a year.
Use the list of related Template IDs to review and audit templates currently in use.

Update templates older than a year

After reviewing your Templates, update any vital information on older templates, such as Dates, Names of Programs, Faculty, or Staff, and refresh the content to meet your current needs.

Consolidate templates

The new template editor allows the building of conditional content rows and saved reusable content.

Search for chances to consolidate Templates by incorporating conditional and reusable content to reduce the creation and upkeep of templates. For example, you can use Conditional Content to consolidate similar communications.

Build Communication Plans

Once you’ve completed your review, it’s time to start building your new Templates, Campaigns, and Tracks in the Communication Planner. For details, see Creating Communication Plans.

Deactivate Old Campaigns

After building your new Templates, Campaigns, and Tracks in the Communication Planner, you must deactivate your old Campaign(s). The next step to transition to the Communication Planner is to open a support ticket to have your configuration transitioned to use the new Communication Planner.

Refer to the following resources for additional information:

Managing TX SMS During the Transition to Salesforce

TX SMS will continue to be managed in the TargetX Home application while we transition the tool into the Communication Planner within Salesforce.

The Communication Planner supports one-way outgoing SMS messages (also known as Bulk Messaging). Responses to outgoing SMS from campaigns will not be viewable in the Communication Planner or TX SMS. One-on-one SMS communication will continue to be managed in TX SMS during the transition of TX SMS into Salesforce. Continue using TX SMS until the tool is fully transitioned into the Communication Planner within Salesforce.