We’re using a new slang term around the Silverline offices – Slacktivation. This combo of Slack and activation refers to our work as an official Slack-first Customer 360 launch partner for media. 

The goal of Slacktivation is for Silverline’s media clients to get more value from leveraging Salesforce and Slack together. We often see media organizations using one or the other but not in tandem. Or they are relying on Slack only for messaging and are missing out on the full potential of its capabilities.  

By developing the best practices of Slacktivation, media organizations can empower users to sell faster and as a team. Here we’ll share the benefits and use cases of pairing Salesforce and Slack so your business can ultimately close deals faster, drive more sales pipeline, and provide the best client experiences. 

A centralized location for communication and collaboration

Does your organization have multiple discussions about media planning, pricing approvals, and campaign execution happening over email, while driving to a client, or even in the office bathroom? And despite all these conversations, everyone still scrambles at the last minute because nobody knew a campaign was launching next week. 

Sound familiar? These are challenges that many media companies face because they lack a centralized location for communication and collaboration. 

Media organizations know the importance of bringing sales, pricing, and media planning teams together throughout the sales cycle. This real-time collaboration is critical to providing a client with flawless campaign execution. But campaigns are constantly evolving, and it can be challenging for teams to stay up to date on the latest developments. 

By using Slack for Media, which is powered by Slack and Salesforce Sales Cloud, organizations can automate and centralize everything from knowledge processes to watercooler conversations. Once fully implemented, Slack for Media gives stakeholders increased transparency and improved insight into every aspect of your business from one centralized location.

Starting your Slack for Media journey

With Salesforce and Slack, media organizations are better enabled to foster communication and collaboration along the entire sales journey from crawl to walk to run. Start with a strong foundation focused on quick wins that provide high value by tackling business flow challenges that are easy to solve. Use Slack for Media to transform your media organization by improving upon your current use cases, such as: 

• Deal support requests: Provide support for media planning and integrated marketing teams by auto-creating Slack channels for specific deals to jump-start collaboration. 
• Approvals: Accelerate deal approvals from management for rates and pricing or special insertion order terms and conditions. 
• Planning: Easily create a rollout strategy and plan, including guidelines for use, training and user adoption, and communication guidelines.
• Upfront collaboration: Ensure a smooth upfront with dedicated Slack channels for deals, pitch events, activities, and presentation docs.

Slack for Media provides standardized integration flows to address common media use cases, plus the flexibility to develop tailored solutions for your organization’s particular needs. Some of the helpful Slack for Media features include:

• Media Planning Coordination flow: This flow provides everything your sales team needs to ensure they respond to client requests quickly and accurately. It automatically creates categorized Slack channels to support the media planning and pitch process, and brings together team members across sales, pricing, media planning, and other teams.
  
  The flow provides your sales teams with a centralized location to collaborate with internal and external partners to streamline the media planning process. Media Planning Coordination can be used to develop a customized pitch deck with an integrated marketing team, quickly respond to RFPs with a tailored media plan, or manage pricing, discounting, and other approvals.
• Insertion Order Execution flow: Facilitate the handoff between sales and post-sales teams once an insertion order is signed and ready for campaign setup. The Insertion Order Execution flow is designed to break down silos and build transparency between your teams by:
  • Providing a robust description and supporting documentation for newly signed insertion orders.
  • Ensuring that your ad ops team is receiving the most up-to-date details and discussions with the client to help better tailor campaign setup and management.
  • Reducing reliance on email and water cooler conversations that can get lost or forgotten.
    
• Daily Sales Digests: Daily Sales Digests are an invaluable tool that provides sales management with insight into the rapidly changing landscape of your sales team’s activities and how deals are progressing. Whether it is upfronts, scatter, or responding to new RFPs, Daily Sales Digests allow sales management teams to identify areas where they can provide additional support throughout the sales process. Daily Sales Digests enable your team to stay up to date on every deal and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

Slacktivate with Silverline

For media companies, the stakes have never been higher. Implementing technology solutions such as Slack for Media will make or break your ability to recognize and monetize new opportunities as the media landscape further evolves.

Silverline has extensive experience building industry-leading applications for some of the world’s most prominent media, gaming, and entertainment companies. Get more from your Salesforce investment and start your journey to Slacktivation.