Your company purchased Marketing Cloud Engagement, and you’re thinking that now your marketing will take a new turn and you’ll get results that were previously out of reach. Sounds great, right? The Salesforce team showed a shiny demo where every step of digital transformation felt crystal clear. The use cases they demonstrated looked familiar, and you felt ready to go.
But then they leave, and you’re face-to-face with this new platform, wondering: “Okay… what’s next?”
In this article, we’ll guide you through what to expect when you’re about to start a Marketing Cloud Engagement implementation project and how to approach it without unnecessary stress.
You’ve Got Marketing Cloud Engagement, Now What?
Your company has decided to step up its marketing automation game, but how do you approach such a big change? You start with use cases.
Below are some best practices to help you define use cases that will set your future technical implementation up for success.
Start by Defining a (Business) Goal
It sounds simple, but in reality, it’s not. You likely have many goals you want to achieve with your new marketing automation setup. So where should you focus? There are two ways to look at it.
Imagine you’ve just learned how to drive. You got your license, but your first car is a Porsche. Not bad for starters, or is it? Your answer already defines your approach to marketing automation, and here’s how.
As a first-time owner, how will you use it in the first few months? Will you use it for groceries and then weekend family visits, or are you planning a Eurotrip next month? Let’s pause here – this is exactly where you identify the right business case.
If your goal is to start from zero and end up in Italy with your Porsche next month, that requires a very different approach than starting with groceries to build confidence.
If you want to fully test the capabilities of your platform, you need to be ready.
- Your marketing team must be onboarded.
- You need a marketing champion to drive adoption.
- Your IT team must be aligned, not just technically, but also on the business purpose.
- And you must plan ahead.
With AI, it feels like technology moves fast, but whether you like it or not, change still takes time. It requires stakeholder management, shifting priorities, and realistic timelines. Build in buffer time, you will need it.
The Alternative Approach: Start Small
Salesforce best practices recommend starting with “groceries”, then moving to “weekend trips”, and eventually building up to “Italy”. So what if you just want to experience what it’s like to drive a Porsche?
For some decision-makers, a test drive isn’t enough, but it exists for a reason. Starting small, with a well-defined use case, even if it’s not “business perfect”, is still valuable. If your goal is simply to “drive to the supermarket”, that’s already enough. You have a clear objective, and that clarity matters.
If your marketing team has a specific need they understand well, that’s a strong starting point. The same foundational steps apply, but with a smaller goal, execution is faster and simpler. After a few “rides”, your confidence grows, and the risk of an “accident” decreases.
In summary: define your goal clearly. From the very beginning, answer this:
What is the business goal of this use case?
- Are you building customer relationships?
- Increasing sales?
- Running seasonal promotions?
- Following up with customers?
- Something else?
Applying the car analogy, you’ll understand that the (business) goal can be very different, according to the route you’ll take.
Steps to Build a Use Case
Congrats! You’ve identified your use case. Now let’s shape it so everyone involved is aligned. Your core team should include marketing colleagues, IT, the Sales department, and potentially Service colleagues. This is your minimum setup.
Now, let’s define the key elements:
- 1. Name your use case: Make it clear and descriptive so everyone understands it.
- 2. Define your business objective: This is your north star; it guides everything that follows.
- 3. Set KPIs: They should be clear, measurable, and realistic, and need to be defined from the start.
- 4. Define the trigger: What initiates the use case?
- A one-off email?
- A series?
- A multi-channel journey?
- A CRM trigger?
- 5. Identify your target audience: This is often the biggest challenge. Ask:
- Do we have the right data?
- Is consent captured and up to date?
- How large should the segment be?
- Where and how is this data stored?
- 6. Choose your communication channels: This reflects your “route”. Are you going to the supermarket or all the way to Italy?
- Email, SMS, push, or multi-channel?
- How often will you communicate?
- For how long?
- Is it tied to a campaign or lifecycle?
- 7. Prepare content: This includes templates, visuals, copy, translations, messaging, and CTAs.
- Who delivers it?
- How long will it take?
- Should you outsource it?
Your content must align tightly with your business goal. Every “pit stop” should reflect your destination.
- 8. Measure your success: This is just as important as defining the goal. Prepare this in advance.
- How will you track success?
- Do you have the right tools?
- Do you need integrations or dashboards?
- Who is going to measure it and how often?
- 9. Identify dependencies: Marketing automation involves many moving parts.
- Data availability
- Access management
- Cross-team collaboration
- External support
Just like maintaining a car, these elements ensure your journey actually happens.
How to Make Your Use Case Happen
Once your use case is defined, here’s the reality: you’re only halfway there. Now comes execution.
Despite how simple it might have looked at the initial presentation of Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Engagement can’t be compared to a simple car. There are many processes behind the scenes that you need to keep in mind in advance.
Think of it this way: if you buy a Porsche, you don’t use cheap oil or random mechanics just because they’re on the street you live on. You invest in proper maintenance. Marketing automation is the same. You’re not just buying a tool, you’re committing to a new way of working.
To make your use case work:
- Your data must be ready and accessible.
- IT must be fully onboard.
- Marketers must be engaged and trained.
- Sales, service, and data governance teams must be aligned.
- Leadership must understand the ongoing investment required.
A mature marketing automation setup requires experienced professionals, people who know how to get the most out of the platform. Dependencies aren’t just internal. You may also need:
- Creative agencies for content production.
- Consultants or implementation partners to guide you.
- External expertise to help you avoid early mistakes.
This is what prepares you for the next phase: the actual technical implementation and activation of your MCE use case, so you can finally drive the car, whether it’s just a ride to the supermarket or a full-on Eurotrip to Italy.
Final Thoughts
This article outlined how to approach a Marketing Cloud Engagement implementation by focusing on defining and building your first use case. The goal was to go beyond a purely technical perspective and instead look at marketing automation as something that shapes how you work.
In reality, it’s not just a tool – it’s a vehicle that helps you move from one point to another more efficiently, comfortably, and with greater impact.
