You already collect data on your prospects and customers. Your prospects and customers expect you to use this data. In today’s digital marketing world, you don’t need to be afraid to use the data you collect to personalize a message to your audience. You need to think of your audience list as a collection of individuals, with each of them having different needs and interests.
With Marketing Cloud, you can easily create an email with dynamic content, based on the interest of an individual. For example, in a hands-on session for the Marketing Cloud, I created an email that will send a personalized graphic depending on the individuals interest in Hiking, Camping, Climbing or Biking. There is a complete demo built at ntoretail.com where you can experience the power of Marketing Cloud (and also Heroku).
The hardest part is building the custom content. Once that is done, it becomes very easy to send an email that speaks directly to the individuals interests. When I mentioned previously about creating an email with dynamic content during a hands-on session, it only took me 10 minutes because the content was already there. The integration between Marketing Cloud and Sales or Service Cloud is so robust that you can build a report in Salesforce (with the necessary required data points) and send a (Marketing Cloud) email to the records that are part of that report.
You have the option of creating emails with static content or with dynamic content. While it is easier to send static content, I encourage you to start doing dynamic content. Start with just one or two pieces of content then as you become more familiar it will be easier to expand. You also have the option to create content every time you create an email or you can create content that can be used over and over.
In this session, I also saw the power of analytics in the integration to Salesforce. You can see your email metrics right inside Salesforce just by clicking a tab and manipulating the drop down for date and/or the data points you would like to see (as shown in the image below – click to enlarge).
Then when clicking into the lead or contact record you can drill down into the individual metrics for that particular person (as shown below). On an individual record you can see the delivery, open rate and activity summary without ever leaving Salesforce.
At Dreamforce 2015, it has been said that Marketing Cloud is the fastest growing cloud out of all the clouds under the Salesforce roof. Furthermore, Marketing Cloud is gaining market share and other solutions are losing market share. It is obvious that Marketing Cloud has truly been integrated into the fold of the other Salesforce Clouds.
Scott Roose is a certified Pardot Consultant and also holds an MBA in Marketing from Regis University.
