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Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML

Marketers often overlook code literacy, outsourcing anything code related to website or email developers. But understanding some coding basics, such as HTML, benefits the everyday marketer more than they realize.

By learning the fundamentals of HTML, you can:

  • Better communicate your vision to the web developers
  • Understand how web pages are designed and where pieces of code need to go
  • Create richer, more engaging email and website content
  • Improve their search engine rankings

“But I don’t need to know how to code. It’s scary.”

That’s where we come in!

HTML coding basics for marketers

Hypertext markup language, aka HTML, is the code that tells your web browser what it should show when you go to a website. When you go to a webpage, your browser reads through the HTML tags and then presents it visually. This blog page even uses HTML to display its design and content to you in a way that is easy to read and understand.

With even the most basic knowledge of HTML code, you can better break up your page’s content in a way that will better engage your audience.

Code formatting

Each HTML tag you add must have a matching set of open and close tags. Without a close tag, any code you write will cause errors in how the info is displayed.

If we were to use the standard paragraph code, <b>, we would need to add </b> after we’re done.

<b>This tag makes text bold!</b> becomes This tag makes text bold!

HTML page structure

These tags will be utilized on every webpage. While you may not need to write them yourself, they are important to know and understand.

<head>

Any additional code for a page will go inside of the tag. This covers everything from general page design, additional styling, or Javascript code. Most tracking codes will go here as well.

<body>

This will be the main content for your website page.

<link>

If your page needs to link to a Cascading Stylesheet Sheet (CSS), it will do so inside of a tag.

<title>

Each page needs a title. What you place in the title tag will appear in search engine results as well as the name of the browser tab.

<div>

This is a structural element that goes inside the tag. Web pages and emails can be broken down into a series of nested tables. Div tags act as a single cell inside of this high level structure.

Building richer, more readable content

A main way marketers effectively use HTML is breaking up walls of text into something that is easier for a reader to sift through.

Content is meant to be read — not just for search engines to crawl. The more readable your landing page or email, the better your customers will understand the message you’re trying to convey. 

With HTML, you add rich text formatting to make key points stand out or build a list of reasons why your product is awesome.

Here are some important tags to spice up your copy!

Tag Write It Show It
<a> <a href=”(URL”)>Click me!</a> Click me!
<img> <img src=”(image URL)” />
<p> <p>A separate paragraph</p> A separate paragraph
<ul> <ul>
<li>A bullet point list!</li>
<li>No numbers!</li>
</ul>
A bullet point list!
No numbers!
<ol> <ol><li>A numbered list!</li>
<li>No bullet points</li>
</ol>
A numbered list
No bullet points
<b> <b>Bold</b> Bold
<i> <i>Italicized</i> Italicized
<u> <u>Underlined</u> Underlined
<h1> <h1>Fancy Title</h1> Fancy Title
<h2> <h2>Secondary Title</h2> Secondary Title
<br /> A line break<br />for readability A line break
for readability

Coding basics for stronger search engine optimization

SEO is the name of the online content game. Marketers are always on the lookout for ways to improve their search engine rankings. But HTML provides some simple ways to gain a boost – no hard thinking required.

The importance of alt tags

Google can do a lot of things except look at images. So how does it know what photos to show as relevant when I search for something online?

Alt text! Alt tags, also known as alt descriptions or alt text, describe the images you post to the search engine. They also allow customers who require certain accessibility tools to enjoy your more visual content. 

And if an image is taking a while to load (or doesn’t load at all), the alt text will display.

To add an alt tag to an image in HTML, you would use the following format:

<img src=”(Image URL)” alt=”A meme with the text Hello… is it alt-tags you’re looking for? over a photo Lionel Richie’s face”>

Use HTML header hierarchies

Search engines like it when pages lay out what is most important. When you utilize H1, H2, etc. tags on your page, you are laying out a table of contents of what content is connected and how important each piece is.

By placing a keyword in an H1 tag, compared to an H4 tag, you tell Google that the keyword in the H1 tag is one of the most important pieces of context about what is on your landing page.

All header tags can be stylized to make the most important ones stand out visually, which assist with readability.

Let’s get meta with meta tags

Meta tags may not directly impact your SEO rankings, but by adding in appropriate meta descriptions, this tells search engines like Google know what to display on their search results page. The more accurate and correct the meta description on the results page, the higher the chance someone will click on your website’s link because your result looks more relevant to the searcher.

If you don’t set a meta description yourself, Google then gets to guess what content to put here based on what exists on your page. Also another reason why header hierarchy is vital.

These type of tags usually fall under the main <head> tag for a page and look like the following:

<head>

<title>Let’s Get Meta</title>

<meta name=”keywords” content=”HTML, Meta Tags, Meta Description, Metadata” />

<meta name =”description” content=”Answering all of your questions about meta tags!” />

</head>

Basic coding is not so scary, right?

Simple coding doesn’t have to be scary. Knowing the basics of HTML makes a difference when it comes to having stand out landing pages and email copy. And understanding how code works will help you communicate with your web developers.

If you want to learn more about code that helps marketers, check out Code School for Marketers, a 6-week interactive online course to give you the tools to improve your code literacy!

Original article: Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Coding Basics: A Marketer’s Friendly Guide to HTML appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-07-03T18:50:47+00:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Forms & Form Handlers, Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|

Look Before You Leap: Preparing for Salesforce & HubSpot Integration

Your team finally has approval to connect Salesforce & HubSpot. Soon you will have all the data you’ve wanted to perfect your nurtures and segmentation! 

But before you can access that sweet treasure trove of data each system is hoarding, you have to build the bridge between them. The gap between the two can be daunting and look like a far distance to leap across at first. And if you jump too soon, you might fall way in over your head.

Rick Astley falling

Thankfully we’ve got some gear to make that first trek across safer.

Check your equipment before connecting Salesforce & HubSpot

Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot have a unique way of communicating with each other. There are a lot of moving pieces with any type of Salesforce integration, so it is important to check your available tools and make sure you understand how to use each of them.

Sales Cloud and HubSpot Object Connections 

HubSpot uses different names for common Sales Cloud objects. For one, Salesforce fields are called “properties” in HubSpot. But HubSpot also has “objects” that work the same as they do in Salesforce.

On a normal integration, HubSpot automatically connects its 3 main objects with the 4 heavy hitters in Sales Cloud.

Salesforce Object HubSpot Object
Lead
Contacts
Contacts
Account Company
Opportunity Deals

One big important thing to note is Leads and Contacts in Salesforce are connected to the same 1 object in HubSpot — Contacts. You will be able to map fields from both Contacts and Leads to a single HubSpot property.

When you set up your bridge between the two sets of data, you can select whether a new Contact in HubSpot creates a new Lead or Contact in Salesforce. This lets you continue your normal lead generation strategy, just with leads coming in from a new source.

There are additional object connections you may make, though it may require some extra work inside of Sales Cloud. The Activities object will let you track the activities a HubSpot contact has done, such as submitting a HubSpot form or clicking on a HubSpot email, back into Salesforce. You also have the option to sync custom objects from Salesforce with HubSpot.

Field Mappings 

HubSpot and Salesforce disagree on one important thing. While Sales Cloud uses “fields” to display values and content about a contact, lead, account, or opportunity, HubSpot calls the same thing a “property” in its own system.

HubSpot properties are the basis for almost all automation in HubSpot, and they work almost the same way as fields do in Sales Cloud. You can set a property to be a text value, a numerical value, a picklist, etc just like you can create fields inside of Salesforce.

Each property can then be mapped to an individual field inside of the Salesforce object. Only Company properties can be synced with Account fields, for example. For Contact properties, these can be synced with either Lead or Contact fields.

But what is the great “source of truth” — two systems of data are talking to each other, but who has the authority to make a change to a record? Well when you set your field mappings, you can choose which system has the authority over each field.

With each individual property, you are given 4 options on how the data should go if there is a conflict between what’s in a Salesforce field and the corresponding HubSpot property:

  • Prefer Salesforce unless blank
    Salesforce is the Source of Truth, unless the Salesforce field happens to be blank. Then HubSpot will write its own value into this field in Salesforce. From there, it will only update the field if the value is updated in Salesforce.
  • Always use Salesforce
    Salesforce stays the Source of Truth no matter what. Even if the value is blank in Salesforce, HubSpot will not write its own value into that field.
  • Two-way
    Both systems act as the Source of Truth. This revolves entirely around which system had the most recently updated value — if a property was updated in HubSpot 1 day ago, and the Salesforce field has not been updated in 1 week, HubSpot will write its value into the Salesforce field.
  • Don’t sync
    HubSpot and Salesforce will not talk about this field at all. If one value changes in Salesforce or HubSpot, the other system will not be notified or updated.

Salesforce & HubSpot integration limitations to be aware of

You will also need certain privileges in Salesforce to complete this bridge. Generally, having the Salesforce admin role or the HubSpot Integration Permissions set covers all the bases. But make sure you have access to the following abilities in Salesforce:

Action items before take off

Now that you’ve checked and understand your tool set, you might want to get Salesforce and HubSpot talking right away. But it’s important to take a breather. Once the two start communicating, they will talk all the time and major changes to one may no longer be possible. 

Do a Salesforce Field Audit

Comb through the fields in the 4 major objects in Salesforce that will talk to HubSpot. Make sure that you keep track of the following information for each field:

  • Field Name
  • Field Type (text, number, formula, etc.)
  • Any picklist values 

Once you have gone through the field audit for your Salesforce objects, now create properties in HubSpot that match all of the fields you want to make the two data powerhouses talk about. The property type needs to match the type of field in Salesforce. Picklist values will also need to match to prevent any sync errors.

Free template alert!

We’ve set up a handy spreadsheet template to get you started! (click ‘Make a copy’ and share to your own drive)

Connect Custom Objects

One great part of Salesforce is that you can highly customize it. HubSpot understands that flexibility is key, and thus has a way to connect custom objects your team may use.

HubSpot only allows for up to 10 custom objects to be synced though, so prioritize which objects are most needed for marketing if you must choose between several options — even if it feels like picking a favorite child. 

Focus on the custom objects that your HubSpot user team will need the most. Do they need to know customer support case numbers? If not, maybe keep a custom Service app unconnected.

Be sure to do an audit of fields for any custom objects you will be syncing as well!

Now you’re ready to go

Integrations can be tricky. The giant opening between your two systems can feel quite cavernous. But as long as you take a moment to inspect your gear and know the basics of the two systems, you will be more than prepared to bridge the gap between Salesforce and HubSpot.

Reach out to us if you have any questions or share your experience preparing for the Salesforce and Hubspot integration in the comments section below.

Original article: Look Before You Leap: Preparing for Salesforce & HubSpot Integration

©2022 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Look Before You Leap: Preparing for Salesforce & HubSpot Integration appeared first on The Spot.

By |2022-06-22T15:16:56+00:00June 22nd, 2022|Categories: Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|

A Coffee Lover’s Guide to Default Pardot User Roles

When you have a ton of users in Pardot, controlling who has access to what they can view or edit takes time. But no one wants to spend a whole day setting up Pardot user role details and permissions.

Thankfully, Pardot comes with default user roles to quickly set up which users can view and edit certain types of content and data. 

Each Pardot user role comes with a predefined set of permissions. This allows you to quickly assign users and saves you time to grab a cup of coffee.

Default Pardot user roles = More time for coffee

Having trouble understanding the difference between the four default Pardot user roles? We’ve got you covered. 

Choosing Pardot default user roles is similar to how I determine which type of coffee to drink. 

Perhaps I need to control all of the coffee for everyone in addition to my own. So, I’d be the admin by making a big ol’ pot for my team. Or, I may need to get a straight shot of caffeine from espresso like a Pardot Sales user needs a lightning path to prospect records and 1-1 email sends.

Either way, the default Pardot user roles offer a straightforward method of doling out permissions and access to your Pardot users.

A Pardot user role for everyone

Here are the four default Pardot user roles.

1. Administrators

Need access to everything in Pardot? Pardot Administrator user roles let you view, create, edit, and even delete anything and everything. 

Think of the Pardot Admin user role as your highest authority on what stays and goes — they adjust Pardot settings and control your general Pardot structure.

Admin users are granted full access to all data and assets. So, avoid a Pardot horror story and assess which team members really need to see and adjust everything.

2. Marketing

Marketers are gods of creation. The Pardot Marketing user role lets them create all of the marketing assets they need to effectively convert prospects and nurture leads with content.

Inside Pardot, they can create lists, forms, landing pages, email templates and view prospect data. And they avoid technical setups or integrations to focus on building the tools their team uses to get messages out.

3. Sales

Sales teams need to be able to view prospect data and make changes to individual prospect records. But that’s basically it.

The Pardot Sales user role gives them everything they need to send one-to-one emails and view, edit, or export information for their assigned prospects. It’s a “read only” user role in terms of having the ability to make major changes to the Pardot instance or manage marketing assets.

This way, sales teams don’t get overwhelmed by Pardot’s numerous features. They can focus on what they do best — talking to prospects and closing opportunities.

4. Sales Manager

Someone with a Pardot Sales Manager user role keeps a high-level eye on the sales pipeline and checks in on their team’s progress. While a Sales user in Pardot only sees prospects assigned to them, a Sales Manager can see all prospects and visitors.

They can assign prospects and send one-to-one emails to better support their team sales wizards.

How to assign default Pardot user roles

In many cases, determining which roles to assign your Pardot users should be straightforward with the default user roles available. You can click through the user role profiles to see exactly which features are available to users with those roles. 

You’ll see that the user role profiles have checkboxes, which you can use to create custom Pardot user roles. Custom Pardot user roles are available with Pardot Advanced Edition Available or for an additional cost in Pardot Plus Edition.

While Pardot user roles are simple, defining the best role for a user is sometimes not easy. Certain use cases call for certain types of user roles. But there are questions you can ask yourself while adding users to your Pardot instance and determining their user roles to be sure you’re assigning the right roles.

Ask yourself these 4 questions to determine the best default Pardot user roles

1. Does this user need to adjust any settings in Pardot?

They should be an Administrator. Your power users can take care of your Pardot instance with an admin role.

2. Does this Pardot user also have a Salesforce user license?

It’s best practice to make sure that your Salesforce users are set up with the Sales or Sales Manager roles. Even if they likely will never log in to Pardot, you can create a user with one of these roles in case they need access in the future.

3. Does this user need to create or edit Pardot forms, email templates, or landing pages?

Make sure they have a Marketing user role, which lets them edit, view, and create marketing assets.

4. Should this user only be able to access data for their assigned prospects?

Sales users can only see prospects that are assigned to them, unlike Sales Managers who can view all prospects in Pardot.

You can also check out the full list of each default Pardot user role permission set on Salesforce Help.

Now you’re the Pardot user role assignment barista extraordinaire

As the Pardot admin, you control whether your users help you pour for the team as another admin, or if they just need a round of espresso shots to focus on day to day sales tasks. But deciding which type of coffee you give your users doesn’t have to be difficult.

Pardot’s default user roles are a great starter set to stock in your coffee bar. While you can mix and match pieces of them to create custom user roles, sometimes a user just needs a classic cup of coffee.

Have a fun story to tell about your experiences with assigning Pardot user roles? Tell us about it in the comments. Or, reach out to Sercante if your situation calls for the professional-grade coffee beans.

The post A Coffee Lover’s Guide to Default Pardot User Roles appeared first on The Spot for Pardot.

By |2022-02-18T19:57:55+00:00February 18th, 2022|Categories: Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|

A Coffee Lover’s Guide to Default Pardot User Roles

When you have a ton of users in Pardot, controlling who has access to what they can view or edit takes time. But no one wants to spend a whole day setting up Pardot user role details and permissions.

Thankfully, Pardot comes with default user roles to quickly set up which users can view and edit certain types of content and data. 

Each Pardot user role comes with a predefined set of permissions. This allows you to quickly assign users and saves you time to grab a cup of coffee.

Default Pardot user roles = More time for coffee

Having trouble understanding the difference between the four default Pardot user roles? Well, we’ve got you covered. 

Choosing Pardot default user roles is similar to how I determine which type of coffee to drink. 

Perhaps I need to control all of the coffee for everyone in addition to my own. So, I’d be the admin by making a big ol’ pot for my team. Or, I may need to get a straight shot of caffeine from espresso like a Pardot Sales user needs a lightning path to prospect records and 1-1 email sends.

Either way, the default Pardot user roles offer a straightforward method of doling out permissions and access to your Pardot users.

A Pardot user role for everyone

Here are the four default Pardot user roles.

1. Administrators

Need access to everything in Pardot? Pardot Administrator user roles let you view, create, edit, and even delete anything and everything. 

Think of the Pardot Admin user role as your highest authority on what stays and goes — they adjust Pardot settings and control your general Pardot structure.

Admin users are granted full access to all data and assets. So, avoid a Pardot horror story and assess which team members really need to see and adjust everything.

2. Marketing

Marketers are gods of creation. The Pardot Marketing user role lets them create all of the marketing assets they need to effectively convert prospects and nurture leads with content.

Inside Pardot, they can create lists, forms, landing pages, email templates and view prospect data. And they avoid technical setups or integrations to focus on building the tools their team uses to get messages out.

3. Sales

Sales teams need to be able to view prospect data and make changes to individual prospect records. But that’s basically it.

The Pardot Sales user role gives them everything they need to send one-to-one emails and view, edit, or export information for their assigned prospects. It’s a “read only” user role in terms of having the ability to make major changes to the Pardot instance or manage marketing assets.

This way, sales teams don’t get overwhelmed by Pardot’s numerous features. They can focus on what they do best — talking to prospects and closing opportunities.

4. Sales Manager

Someone with a Pardot Sales Manager user role keeps a high-level eye on the sales pipeline and checks in on their team’s progress. While a Sales user in Pardot only sees prospects assigned to them, a Sales Manager can see all prospects and visitors.

They can assign prospects and send one-to-one emails to better support their team sales wizards.

How to assign default Pardot user roles

In many cases, determining which roles to assign your Pardot users should be straightforward with the default user roles available. You can click through the user role profiles to see exactly which features are available to users with those roles. 

You’ll see that the user role profiles have checkboxes, which you can use to create custom Pardot user roles. Custom Pardot user roles are available with Pardot Advanced Edition Available or for an additional cost in Pardot Plus Edition.

While Pardot user roles are simple, defining the best role for a user is sometimes not easy. Certain use cases call for certain types of user roles. But there are questions you can ask yourself while adding users to your Pardot instance and determining their user roles to be sure you’re assigning the right roles.

Ask yourself these 4 questions to determine the best default Pardot user roles

1. Does this user need to adjust any settings in Pardot?

They should be an Administrator. Your power users can take care of your Pardot instance with an admin role.

2. Does this Pardot user also have a Salesforce user license?

It’s best practice to make sure that your Salesforce users are set up with the Sales or Sales Manager roles. Even if they likely will never log in to Pardot, you can create a user with one of these roles in case they need access in the future.

3. Does this user need to create or edit Pardot forms, email templates, or landing pages?

Make sure they have a Marketing user role, which lets them edit, view, and create marketing assets.

4. Should this user only be able to access data for their assigned prospects?

Sales users can only see prospects that are assigned to them, unlike Sales Managers who can view all prospects in Pardot.

You can also check out the full list of each default Pardot user role permission set on Salesforce Help.

Now you’re the Pardot user role assignment barista extraordinaire

As the Pardot admin, you control whether your users help you pour for the team as another admin, or if they just need a round of espresso shots to focus on day to day sales tasks. But deciding which type of coffee you give your users doesn’t have to be difficult.

Pardot’s default user roles are a great starter set to stock in your coffee bar. While you can mix and match pieces of them to create custom user roles, sometimes a user just needs a classic cup of coffee.

Have a fun story to tell about your experiences with assigning Pardot user roles? Tell us about it in the comments. Or, reach out to Sercante if your situation calls for the professional-grade coffee beans.

The post A Coffee Lover’s Guide to Default Pardot User Roles appeared first on The Spot For Pardot.

By |2022-02-18T19:43:50+00:00February 18th, 2022|Categories: Salesforce|