Renewal Reminders based on specific time cadence

[Anonymous]

This may be either really obvious and I'm looking for the ketchup bottle right in front of my face or it's not possible.

Here's what we want to do. Most of this is for background. I am only stuck near the end.

We want to send an email out to customers and have them select when they would like to be notified of their renewal (30 days, 45 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc.).

I have that part down. Let's assume that choice will populate a field on their contact record just to frame this question.

What our team wants to then do is send out a reminder email based on THAT choice. So, the idea would be that Marketo will know to send an email 30 days before someone's renewal if that was their selection (or 45 days or 60 days, etc.).

That is the part I am stuck on.

Any way to do that?

Alternatively, I thought if the field could somehow populate the date to send. So, if their renewal is January 1st, it would put December 1 in the field and then we would somehow have a program running to send on that date.

So two questions:

1) What's the best way (or only way) to record their choice?

2) Is there a way (and if so, how) to have Marketo use their choice to send out the renewal email reminder?

Thank you in advance.

[Chris_Johnston · Accepted solution]

You would need to use a tokenized Advanced Wait Step.

Use a Date Token in a Wait Flow Action - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

In order to populate the date, you could try using an Excel Formula for the field value. ie. Renewal Date - Selected time. I've never done this but it is how I would go about it.

Using Formulas in Marketo

[Anonymous]

Thank you. I think that first option will help, although using Formulas will help with other things.

I misunderstood the initial request slightly. They want the reminder to go out x number of days after the initial purchase and then repeat every x number of days (these are for cartridge replacements). So, if they select 45 days, email 1 goes 45 days after purchase, email 2 goes 90 days after purchase, etc.

Would I just have the advanced wait step for email 1 then a normal wait for 45 days, then send the email, wait 45 days, send email, etc. or is there a better way to have the recurring email send?

[Chris_Johnston]

I would batch them into 3 separate campaigns. The 30 day, 45 day, 90 day campaign and just use regular wait steps from the start. Have it so that each night a batch runs and based sort based on what is selected and put in the appropriate campaign. No need to get complicated with wait steps if its always x days from a known date.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Chris. That is what I was thinking as well and just keep it simple.

The first send has to do a lookup of their purchase date and form selection but then I can move them into the recurring campaign from there and just have the wait step at the start of it.

Appreciate you noodling this through with me.