Marketing and marketing automation with Salesforce has undergone significant changes this fiscal year. Ryan Strynatka, SVP and GM for Social Products for Marketing Cloud, hosted a panel of experts in the marketing space at this year’s Dreamforce for Marketing Keynote entitled ‘The Age of the Intelligent Marketer’ which recapped that journey and showcased where Salesforce is headed for Winter and Spring 2019.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: AI and the IoT
Ryan kicked off his talk with thinking about the big picture: the impact AI and IoT on consumers. Today’s consumers are more empowered than they’ve ever been, with more choices than they’ve ever had before. Based on this landscape, we need to be deliberate about how we engage with and serve our customers’ needs to keep pace with that evolution.
Over the 10 years that I’ve been involved in the marketing technology space, the ability to identify a target audience and engage with them at every step in the sales lifecycle has been the Holy Grail of data capture for marketing. Whether it’s through predictive content on websites, email communications, and campaigns, or even the channels/devices on which customers want to be engaged, every enhancement to AI and IoT capabilities push for a deeper focus on the customer and take us one step closer to that Holy Grail.
I wasn’t at all surprised when Ryan revealed that 79% of consumers said the service a company provides is as important as its products and services[1]. In our Marketing Automation practice, our team believes that successful marketing automation is about the entire customer journey, from initial brand awareness to becoming a brand evangelist or advocate. Our customer’s ultimate moment of truth is where their customers have an unparalleled experience with their brand because strategies, operations, and technologies have converged into a meaningful and well-orchestrated point of interaction.
What Technology is Required for the Connected Customer?
Salesforce has been working in the marketing space with their Customer Success Platform for 20 years, partnering with customers and partners like Silverline. The Customer Success Platform and the 360-degree view it promotes is a gold standard in the CRM space. The Salesforce Platform allows you to map a customer sales lifecycle from acquisition to onboarding, to growing with the customer and helping them evolve into brand advocates.
Powered by the intelligence of Einstein and enabled with Trailhead, the Customer Success Platform now can bring in your Enterprise data with MuleSoft. Salesforce is covering more of your customer touchpoints than ever and ensuring you keep those high-value interactions working for you.
Where Does Marketing End and Service Begin?
The edges of marketing are blurring together with service. The traditional role of marketing has been to generate sales leads, but with the evolution of both the customer and technology, marketing has been stepping into the realms of customer retention and advocacy.
Intelligent marketing builds brands and grows ROI. Marketing must give the customer the right information, in the right channel at the right time, with the right respect paid to privacy issues and concerns. That’s a tall order to fulfill, and it’s tough to gauge and measure success.
Announcing Datorama Marketing Intelligence to Salesforce
Comprehensive data reporting and analytics on campaigns has traditionally been a real gap within the marketing automation space. Propensity marketing is the #1 ask with our clients at Silverline, followed closely by the need for consistent campaign attribution models. The acquisition of Datorama is a positive step towards the ability to create a comprehensive, 360-degree view of customers that will give your business the actionable, robust data you need to get the best ROI possible.
Datorama’s mandate is to:
- Connect and unify marketing data sources
- Visualize AI-powered insights
- Report across channels and campaigns
- Collaborate and act to drive ROI
All these tenets work together to create a single source of truth for your marketing efforts, baked into the Customer Success Platform.
The Marketing Keynote showed us that Salesforce has been a consistent trailblazer in the CRM and marketing automation space. As we move into Winter and Spring 2019, I invite you to subscribe to our blog as we continue to explore Silverline’s Marketing Automation Practice and how we can partner with your business. Contact us to schedule a demo from a member of our team or to build a custom marketing automation solution.
[1] Salesforce: State of the Connected Customer, 2018
