Bringing Digital Forward with CRM & Salesforce
Since its formation in 2016, the mission of the Enterprise CRM & Salesforce team within Information Technology Services (UK ITS) has been committed to leveraging data to create increasingly personalized and sophisticated digital marketing and communications. These efforts and partnerships have contributed to record enrollment and retention rates at UK, supported public safety through COVID-19 response and outreach, and increased engagement with university alumni and donors.
What is CRM & How Does UK Use It?
CRM, or constituency relationship management, solutions have become increasingly popular in digital marketing and sales. The University of Kentucky leverages Salesforce.org as the enterprise CRM solution, facilitating interactions with various audience types including, but not limited to, prospective students, currently enrolled students, alumni, donors, patients and employees. There are three distinct CRM’s utilized across constituent groups at UK. Broken out into Academic, Health and Philanthropy & Alumni CRM verticals, the use of Salesforce has brought a new level of sophistication to how UK interacts with its various audiences. Through automated workflows, campaign management, personalized communication and a built-in project management within Salesforce CRM, UK has created a high-tech system for maximizing touch points and interactions with students, faculty, staff and alumni.
Taking Operations Forward
Imagine you are a high school student that has expressed interest in attending UK. Through combined tools within Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud, you will receive a series of just-in-time messages from UK with information tailored especially for you—when to apply for financial aid, what majors might interest you, upcoming events and more.
Integrated Strategic Communications and Psychology major, Makenzie Purdom said the personal touch made a big difference. “I really appreciate that the UK emails are so personal. When they use my name and show content related to my interests in the emails, it feels like they really care about reaching me.”
Marketing Cloud is not the only Salesforce tool that uses data from the CRM to enhance University operations, Salesforce Call Center Lite, a custom-built application within Salesforce CRM, empowered personal telephone-based engagement with students on a large scale. Call Center Lite was used to call over 30,000 students from more than 200 UK employees across the university and continues to be used by Enrollment Management and Student Success for frequent student outreach. Most recently, a call center campaign was deployed to contact students who had been impacted by the Eastern Kentucky Flooding. The University also depends on the data housed in the CRM in collaboration with data visualization tool, Tableau to empower high level marketing strategy and effectiveness for admissions and retention at UK.
In a recent article by Salesforce.org entitled University of Kentucky Readies For A New Marketing Frontier, UK is pointed out as an exemplar for other institutions.
Tyler Gayheart, Executive Director of the Enterprise CRM & Salesforce team, looks forward to expanding the utilization of CRM at UK.
“Our teams have the distinct opportunity to solve some of the most interesting and complex challenges at UK. Through the use of these digital tools, we aim to complement the existing constituent experience at UK. Our constituents expect a streamlined and modern digital experience. Through coordinated teamwork and creative problem solving, we are able to achieve innovation in outreach, marketing and operational efficiencies with our partners.
If interested in learning more about the applications of CRM and Salesforce tools, contact the Enterprise CRM & Salesforce team at salesforce@uky.edu.