How Can Salesforce Maximize Your Marketing Automation Potential?

The landscape of marketing is undergoing a significant transformation with the integration of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, leading to the emergence of an intriguing trend – the automation of time-consuming tasks. Among the various platforms available, Salesforce has witnessed a remarkable surge in adoption for marketing automation, owing to its ability to deliver substantial benefits that outweigh the associated costs and efforts.’

In recent years, the accessibility of marketing automation platforms has soared to new heights, thanks to the proliferation of third-party vendors and rapid technological advancements. These platforms act as invaluable allies, streamlining the sequential phases of the marketing process by taking charge of repetitive tasks that once drained resources and impeded efficiency.

In this article, we delve into the world of CRM-based marketing automation, exploring its powerful capabilities. We take a detailed look at how these tools effectively navigate each stage of the buyer’s journey. As we continue, we uncover the reasons why marketing teams around the world value Salesforce’s suite of automation tools. 

Why do You Need Marketing Automation Software?

Marketing automation software plays a pivotal role in streamlining and automating various repetitive tasks within the marketing realm. Its functionalities encompass multichannel messaging, lead nurturing, personalized customer journeys, and data aggregation, among others. For marketing teams burdened with heavy workloads, these automation tools offer immense value by simplifying the tracking of customer engagement and the handling of unqualified leads.

Image: Salesforce Marketing Automation In Action

Let’s explore the specific areas where marketing automation and personalization software prove invaluable in alleviating the challenges faced by marketing teams:

1) Smooth Scaling: As organizations expand, marketers often face pressure to achieve large-scale outcomes within limited timeframes. Marketing automation tools come to the rescue by automating lead nurturing processes, freeing up marketers to focus on more strategic endeavors.

2) Optimized User Engagement: Automation tools facilitate the capture, tracking, and management of leads throughout the sales and marketing funnels. By employing retargeting and recirculation capabilities, marketers can ensure that buyers receive the most relevant content, maximizing engagement and driving higher ROI.

3) Robust Sales Funnels: Marketers have a primary responsibility to eliminate any leakages in the sales funnel that could hinder the customer journey. Marketing automation software provides a solution to this challenge, enabling smooth lead conversion and nurturing, resulting in a seamless progression through the funnel.

4) Personalized Lead Experience: Each buyer’s journey demands a personalized approach. While awareness-building strategies are crucial in the early stages, effective targeting requires customized workflows tailored to each specific lead. Marketing automation software empowers marketers to pre-configure workflows that cater to individual leads, delivering a more tailored and compelling experience.

By leveraging marketing automation software, businesses gain the benefits of increased efficiency, scalability, and enhanced personalization in their marketing efforts. 

How Salesforce Enables Marketing Automation

Salesforce stands out among its competitors by offering a comprehensive suite of meticulously designed tools that specifically cater to automating various phases of marketing workflows. These Salesforce automation tools empower marketing teams to identify target audiences closely aligned with their brand, curate appropriate content, and automate triggers based on customer behavior, thereby driving effective marketing actions.

Continuing its remarkable streak, Salesforce has once again been recognized as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (SFA) Platforms. This prestigious accolade is bestowed upon software providers whose solutions excel in automating and capturing sales activities, while also streamlining client interactions and eliminating mundane tasks.

What sets Salesforce apart is its innate ability to deliver a self-sufficient connected customer experience while effortlessly incorporating the necessary automation. Regardless of where a customer finds themselves in their buying journey, Salesforce automation tools adapt dynamically, ensuring a personalized and engaging experience that aligns perfectly with the product or brand being showcased.

The Salesforce Automation Toolkit

Salesforce’s suite of marketing automation software and cloud-based tools transforms marketing processes, bringing enhanced efficiency and streamlined operations. These tools serve a range of functions, automating tasks such as team collaborations, process visualization, database segmentation, content strategy, rollout planning, and buyer data analytics. Let’s explore some standout marketing automation tools developed by Salesforce:

1. Flow Builder:

As an intuitive Salesforce interfacing tool, Flow Builder enables marketers to manipulate records, send emails, create data visualizations, and leverage the capabilities of the previous Process Builder and Workflow tools. With advancements in technology and increasing demands from employees and customers, Flow Builder has gained significant popularity. Unlike previous flow construction methods that may have lacked debug information within the tool, Flow Builder provides a streamlined experience.

Image: Flow Builder

Flow Builder serves as a robust solution for creating business logic that automatically collects and manipulates data, simplifying complex business processes. It offers five types of flows that can be set up:

• Screen Flows: Embedded with user interface elements, these flows allow specific inputs from users.
• Schedule-Triggered Flows: These flows run in the background and are automatically launched based on predefined timeframes and batch record frequencies.
• Auto-Launched Flows: Triggered by invocation from other flows, subflows, or set schedules, these flows are versatile in responding to record changes and other events.
• Record-Triggered Flows: Executed either before or after a record is saved during creation, updating, or deletion processes.
• Platform Event-Triggered Flows: Configured to run in the background upon receiving platform event messages or notifications.

2. Einstein Next Best Action:

As a component of the Einstein Platform, Einstein Next Best Action (ENBA) plays a pivotal role in creating robust AI-powered assistants for a wide range of use cases. This tool enables marketers to leverage vast amounts of customer data to deliver highly personalized experiences.

Image: ENBA

Once a customer has viewed a specific product, ENBA springs into action, generating AI-driven recommendations that appear on the customer’s dashboard. This feature proves particularly effective for customers who have added items to their cart but haven’t proceeded to checkout. The recommendations encompass various possibilities, including:

• Custom Bundle Offers: Customers may receive personalized bundle offers that combine the product in their cart with a recommended product that complements it seamlessly.
• Reminders and Notifications: If a customer has shown interest in a particular service but has not taken further action, ENBA can automatically send reminders and notifications to re-engage them.
• Automated Communications: ENBA enables marketers to automate communications with customers, highlighting the benefits and support they would enjoy if they were to opt for a specific service.

3. OmniStudio:

When it comes to omnichannel sales strategizing and service offerings, marketers can rely on OmniStudio as their go-to solution. This tool, part of Salesforce’s Einstein Automate suite, empowers marketers with drag-and-drop functionalities, enabling even non-technical professionals to quickly acquire the necessary skills.

OmniStudio unlocks a range of capabilities, including:

• Rapid Deployment: Marketers can swiftly set up organizational and industry-specific process deployments, automating customer interactions with the brand or product.
• Streamlined Workflow Configuration: With intuitive drag-and-drop configurations, marketers can easily establish workflows for various marketing campaigns.
• User-Friendly Interface: OmniStudio’s “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) interface makes it effortless to customize marketing workflows and automate enhancements to the customer experience.
• Data Visualization: By integrating OmniStudio with enterprise data and systems, marketers gain the ability to visualize business performance-related data. These valuable insights can then be used to make improvements to ongoing marketing campaigns.
• Comprehensive Dashboards: Leveraging dashboards, marketers can gain an end-to-end view of the overall customer journey. This holistic perspective enables effective gap resolution and the derivation of actionable insights.

Image: OmniStudio

OmniStudio offers two types of enablements that greatly enhance engagement and customer journeys:

• Flexcards: These card-like structures, known as flexcards, display contextual data with a focus on what consumers may see. Flexcards are lightning web components that can be added to Salesforce pages, providing valuable information on community pages or lightning pages.
• Omniscripts: On the other hand, omniscripts allow the inclusion of multiple stages within workflows, along with the ability to gather inputs. Marketers can utilize omniscripts to build comprehensive forms, including login pages, registration pages, and full wizards. While flexcards display outputs, omniscripts handle inputs.

With its practical functionalities and user-friendly approach, OmniStudio empowers marketers to optimize engagement and create seamless customer experiences.

4. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement or Salesforce Pardot:

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE), formerly known as Pardot, is a powerful B2B marketing automation tool. As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, it offers a user-friendly experience, allowing new users to quickly grasp its functionalities without the need for extensive training.

Image: Salesforce MCAE/Pardot

Pardot empowers marketers in various key marketing activities, tailored to the specific needs of different business verticals:

• Customer Engagement Tracking: MCAE enables the comprehensive compilation of prospect activity logs across multiple touchpoints, including websites, forums, blogs, and landing pages. This valuable feature provides insights into prospects’ interactions and engagement levels.
• Flexible Forms: Marketers can effortlessly create intuitive forms to capture information from fresh prospects or enhance existing records. Pardot allows for the customization of forms and the inclusion of specific details that may have been missed in previous interactions.
• Automated Email Marketing: With Pardot’s automated email journey capabilities, marketers can generate targeted mailing lists and automate email communication based on customer-specific triggers, idle times, and other predefined actions. This seamless automation aligns with lead nurturing efforts and enhances customer engagement.
• Prospect Scoring: Pardot offers prospect scoring functionality, enabling marketers to assign scores to prospects based on their actions. These scores reflect the level of implicit interest prospects demonstrate in the presented products or services, aiding in prioritizing lead management.
• Audience Segmentation: Leveraging audience segmentation features, marketers can group prospects based on demographic characteristics, such as age, job title, and website behavior. Segmented lists enable precise targeting, allowing marketers to send tailored emails to specific groups or exclude specific segments. Verifying email addresses ensures improved email list quality.
• Grading: Pardot facilitates the grading of prospects, ranging from A+ to F, based on how closely they align with criteria defined in the marketing strategy. This grading system helps prioritize leads and allocate resources effectively.
• Lead Qualification: Pardot applies general rules to determine lead qualification. If a prospect reaches a score of at least 100 and achieves a grade of B+, they are considered a qualified lead. Marketers can set up automation rules based on their specific marketing criteria to streamline lead qualification processes.
• Social Media Marketing: Pardot enables comprehensive tracking of the customer journey associated with social media posts on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Any prospect interaction with these posts is recorded and stored in their engagement history, providing valuable insights into social media engagement.
• Performance Analytics: Marketers can leverage the B2B marketing analytics feature in Pardot to segment and visualize marketing campaign performance and prospects’ data. By gaining authorization and utilizing the Pardot connector, marketing team members can create comprehensive B2B metrics dashboards in the CRM analytics studio, facilitating data-driven decision-making.
• Multi-channel and Search Marketing: Pardot seamlessly integrates with third-party marketing tools like Google Ads and Google Analytics, enabling the creation of multi-channel marketing strategies. Marketers can track keywords, access SEO analytics, and monitor competitor performance through Pardot’s search marketing capabilities.

Selecting the Ideal Marketing Automation Tool for Your Business

With numerous options available, it’s crucial to choose a platform that aligns with your needs. When it comes to choosing the right marketing automation tool, Salesforce stands out as a proven leader. With its ability to generate high-quality leads, foster continuous engagement, and accelerate the buyer journey, Salesforce is the ideal choice for maximizing your marketing success. Take the next step towards enhanced lead generation and seamless integration by scheduling a free consultation with Unthinkable today. Trust in a solution that propels your marketing efforts to new heights.