Marketer’s Space: Supercharged Workflow with Zoho CRM Integration

Marketer’s Space: Supercharged Workflow with Zoho CRM Integration

Hello Marketers!
Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space. Today, we’ll explore how integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Campaigns can help you create smarter, more personalized Workflow. In this post, we’ll look at a specific use case to demonstrate how this integration enhances triggers like Custom Date Field, Criteria Match, and Added to List - making your campaigns more precise and impactful. 
An event management company that caters to corporate clients wanted to automate personalized anniversary offers for employees from high-budget firms exactly one week before their special day. To achieve this, their sales team first created a custom module in Zoho CRM named Corporate Event Contacts, capturing details like:
  • Name, email, and phone number
  • Employee’s birthday, partner’s birthday, anniversary date
  • Event preferences, guest count, and budget

Syncing CRM Modules for Richer Contact Data   

Once the data was ready, the marketing team connected Zoho CRM with Zoho Campaigns. Then they went to Contacts > Sync Services, set up a new sync, selected the Corporate Event Contacts module, and synced it to a list named Corporate Event Contacts inside Campaigns. Though adding to a list is optional, we suggest doing so as it will be useful later on.
Then they map the fields. By using the Map More Fields option, they ensured all custom fields, including date and budget fields, were also synced. This step was key for triggering personalized Workflow later.

Triggering a Workflow Based on Custom Dates   

Zoho Campaigns has the Date Field trigger in Workflow, making it easy to run timely campaigns.
In the Workflow, they chose the Anniversary Date field (synced from Zoho CRM) as the trigger and set the Workflow to start 7 days before the anniversary. This was done by toggling the “Allow contact entry before selected date” on. It allowed the marketing team to send out reminders and offers well ahead of time, giving clients enough room to plan and book their event.
This automation ensured timely outreach with zero manual follow-up.

Add Criteria for Precision Targeting   

Zoho Campaigns lets you further refine entry into Workflow by toggling “Set criteria for contacts to enter the Workflow”. Here’s how they used it effectively:
  • Budget greater than 2500: To focus only on high-value leads
  • List Membership = Corporate Event Contacts: To ensure the Workflow applied only to contacts from the custom CRM module
This step highlights the value of syncing CRM contacts to specific lists, allowing precise audience targeting. By now, you’ve achieved three actions using just one trigger - setting the custom date field, targeting the list, and applying the budget criteria. You can play more with the “Add Criteria” feature to enable even finer targeting and create highly specific workflows.

Delivering the Campaign with Email Action   

Once the trigger was set, they added a Send Email action to the Workflow. This email was tailored with personalization elements such as name, event theme, and booking links.
With everything configured and activated, the Workflow ran automatically, delivering personalized campaigns to the right contacts at the perfect time.

Why This Matters for Marketers

  • Automate communication based on CRM data
  • Use custom fields to segment and personalize messages
  • Drive more engagement and bookings without manual effort
If you’re already using Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns, this is your chance to unlock the full potential of Workflow powered by CRM data.
Stay tuned as we bring more CRM-powered ideas in our upcoming posts. Until then, happy campaigning!

Regards,
Pearlin Nitika
User Education | Zoho Campaigns