Why Two-Way Integration for Email Marketing Solutions and Salesforce Is Essential for Nonprofits

Many nonprofits using Salesforce also use email marketing solutions like MailChimp and Constant Contact to communicate with their supporters. These are incredible tools that give them the ability to engage and communicate at scale.  

However, many organizations struggle to create an impactful communication strategy due to the lack of integration between these solutions.  As many users know, most integrations between these tools and Salesforce are static one-way integrations. This means that supporter data is only pushed in a single direction from Salesforce into the email marketing solution where the communications are sent. Insightful engagement data such as opens, clicks, and communication preferences continue to sit within the email marketing solution once a campaign is sent, never making its way back into Salesforce where they can be further acted upon. This one-way integration may prevent an organization from making appropriate adjustments to their communication cadence which can lead to missed opportunities, or even worse – frustrated supporters. 

Throughout this blog, we’ll explore some of the hurdles nonprofits encounter with native one-way integration and reveal how two-way integration can empower them to make the most of their supporter data in Salesforce.

One-Way Integration: The Barrier to Creating Impactful Donor Communication 

Without two-way integration between their email marketing solution and Salesforce, organizations often face a myriad of challenges: 

• Limited visibility: Data silos and restrictions from one-way native integrations prevent organizations from seeing the full picture when it comes to their supporters’ overall level of engagement, preferences, and behaviors.  
• Manual processes and time wasted: Organizations spend too much time and effort consolidating or reconciling data between systems and struggle to keep up with the demands of donor outreach. 
• Outdated, stale information: Since email data cannot seamlessly synchronize between systems, organizations risk relying on inaccurate information that erodes supporter trust and delays timely communication.  
• Lower ROI: Budgets are tighter than ever, and organizations need to make every donor dollar count. Instead, organizations have invested heavily in Salesforce and email marketing solutions but still miss out on data-driven opportunities to more effectively engage and nurture donors. 

Salesforce and your email marketing solutions are interdependent. So, all the information that lives in Salesforce should be used to personalize email messaging to donors, and all the email activity–what readers open, click on, and subscribe to–should be used to further build each supporter’s unique profile in Salesforce. 

If these two systems are siloed – your organization could miss key opportunities to nurture donors and grow your impact. 

Two-Way Integration: The Key to Building Stronger Relationships with Supporters 

In a data-driven world, it’s imperative to be able to get your supporter history, preferences and insights all in one place within Salesforce. 

This is where the power of two-way integration comes into play. Omatic empowers nonprofits to send accurate and complete data both ways between Salesforce and email marketing solutions, facilitating timely, personalized, and engaged communication with supporters. 

• Save valuable time while maintaining control. Omatic lets users take the wheel and determine how much automation they want, giving organizations full control over how and when data is sent between systems. 
• Gain a complete and up-to-date supporter view. Omatic’s two-way integration ensures that supporter data remains consistent across Salesforce and your email marketing solution, eliminating guesswork, duplicates, or delayed data entries. This enables teams to operate more efficiently and deliver timely donor outreach. 
• Eliminate blind spots. With a unified view of supporter data within Salesforce, organizations no longer need to bounce between systems to access specific information. Teams can fully leverage Salesforce and email marketing data holistically for personalized outreach. 
• Send the right message at the right time. By gaining insight into subscription preferences and recent interactions, organizations can better tailor their outreach to resonate with supporters’ interests and preferences. 

Conclusion  

It’s hard enough to fundraise – the way your systems speak to one another shouldn’t make it harder.  

For nonprofits, integrating email marketing solutions with Salesforce is essential for maximizing donor engagement. However, one-way integrations ultimately prevent organizations from truly understanding their supporter base, which can lead to a decrease in trust and many missed opportunities. By adopting two-way integration solutions like Omatic, organizations can ensure that they’re using the right information to focus on what matters most to their supporters—leading to stronger support and a meaningful step forward in advancing their mission. 

Curious how Omatic can help you make the most of Salesforce and your email marketing solution? Reach out for a demo or learn more here.