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So far Brendan Keating has created 4 blog entries.

Pardot Training: Connect Features to Sales and Marketing Strategy

Pardot (and marketing in general) does not suffer from a lack of resources; there are innumerable guides, blogs, white papers, walk throughs, opinions, perspectives, how to’s and how not to’s. 

The issue, more often, is that resources like these tend to look at features, functions, and ideas in isolation. They can struggle to show how features interconnect and can be adjusted to your unique strategy needs and requirements.

For me, a prime example of this is with Pardot Scoring and Grading. In 2015, as a brand new implementation specialist for Pardot, I spent a good part of my day googling questions. 

(This habit hasn’t changed if I’m honest. But cut me some slack — there is a lot to remember with Pardot.) 

Inevitably, I clicked on the first link from my Google search, which happened to be the Pardot Scoring and Grading Lab

The Pardot Scoring and Grading Lab is a fantastic resource; I will not have a bad word said about it. Countless Pardot admins have learned about Scoring and Grading by using its interactive and colorful features. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. It tells you how things work — not why you should care and what it means for YOUR business. 

Connect features to strategy through Pardot training

That’s where training comes into play. The best trainers will add context, outline use cases, talk through scenarios, and challenge your perceptions and ideas. 

As an example, let’s take a look at how marketing automation training can expand our understanding of and appreciation for Pardot Scoring and Grading.

How Pardot training fosters the curiosity, creativity, and confidence to connect features to strategy

1. Foster curiosity

Let’s say you were to enroll in the Sercante Scoring & Grading workshop. To start, we want to get you thinking about lead qualification in the right way and what it can mean for your business.

Our trainers utilize their “In the trenches” experience to highlight and discuss critical considerations, important caveats and varying methodologies of lead qualification

You’ll leave with a more holistic understanding of how lead qualification works. And your instructors will guide you toward creating a list of questions and topics to discuss with your colleagues and stakeholders after the course is over. 

2. Build creativity

With that holistic understanding in place, we’ll talk through practical use cases, scenarios, and powerful questions. 

You’ll walk away with a framework and tools to define and customize how scoring and grading can work for your business and fall in love with a future vision of lead qualification for your business.

3. Instill confidence

The final step is to instill confidence. We’ll talk about marketing automation best practices, run through step-by-step in-system demos, and test our knowledge with fun quizzes and unique scenarios. 

You’ll walk away with a renewed sense of confidence and a list of next steps and goals to help achieve your vision.

Empowered with the proper perspective, the right questions, goals, and an unbridled level of confidence, you’ll be ready to enhance or implement an effective lead qualification process for your business. 

Work toward your ‘aha’ moments

Whitepapers, blog articles, and Salesforce documentation are an important starting point. But you can unlock true potential by partnering with and learning from experienced and passionate individuals through things like Salesforce user group events and Pardot training courses.

Mike Morris had a great aha moment involving Pardot scoring categories. He combined knowledge from his friends in the community, which included blog posts from Erin Duncan and Skyler Nakashima, to connect Pardot features to a Sercante clients’ sales and marketing strategy. 

You can read about the Pardot Scoring Categories + Handlebars Merge Language peanut-butter-and-chocolate moment here, which explains how to use the features to power dynamic content.

Sign up for Pardot training courses

No matter where you are in your Pardot journey or what course you join, you’ll walk away with all of the tips, tricks, advice, guidance, goals and, most importantly, the confidence you need to be wildly successful. 

Interested in learning more? Check out our upcoming courses or reach out to [email protected].

The post Pardot Training: Connect Features to Sales and Marketing Strategy appeared first on The Spot for Pardot.

By |2022-01-18T19:02:40+00:00January 18th, 2022|Categories: Career Development, Community, revive|

3 Soft Skills That Make A Pardot Admin Awesome

User roles within Pardot are often discussed from the perspective of capabilities rather than core competencies. A quick google search for “Pardot Admin” will tell you what an admin has access to. Still, little guidance is given around the skills, perspectives and competencies that Pardot Admins need to be wildly successful. 

In our guide to being an exceptional pardot admin, we talked about perspective, how adjusting how we think, talk, and tackle Pardot can help unlock its full potential. This post will focus on competencies, notably how awesome Pardot Admins can simplify complexity and make Pardot accessible to everyone.   

Remove the Jargon

The Pardot Glossary contains 30+ terms; some are familiar, others are intuitive, and some are simply specific to Pardot. Talking about Pardot’s in terms your audience will understand will go a long way in making Pardot more accessible. A simple tip is to create an internal glossary that aligns Pardot terms with your internal verbiage and language. 

  • To help get you started, we have created a Glossary Template with the most common Pardot Terms. Begin working with your colleagues to develop internal translations for each. 

Become Comfortable Giving Live Demos

Demoing Pardot live can be a daunting task for even the most experienced Pardot Admin. Still, it’s a competency that every Pardot admin needs. Showcasing features like progressive profiling, scoring & grading, and even reporting removes ambiguity, builds familiarity and paints a clear picture of how those features operate. Here are a few quick tips that have worked for me to build your confidence. 

  • Create a Quick Recording – Tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, Google meet or Loom all give you the capability to create a quick recording. Doing so gives you a chance to practice and gives you resources you can use again and again. 
  • Build a Resource – Why not create an internal landing page & form for your colleagues to play with? Doing so can help build excitement, familiarity and engagement with the features. 

Use Analogies That Work For You

Creating analogies forces us to think of features and functions differently. If you can think of relatable and easy to understand analogies, it means you know that feature back to front. 

Metaphors also make things a little more fun and less technical. One of my favourites is that grading is like Tinder; it gives you the ability to swipe left or right. Want to see a real-life example? Check out Lucy Mazalons ParDreamin session from last year.

Pardot Admin Mini-Series Workshops

Nurture Your Pardot Admin Skills

Simplifying complexity is a core competency and responsibility for any Pardot admin. Without it, we run the risk of lower adoption, utilization, and overall ROI of the tool. 

Are you looking to enhance your skills? Our Mini Series workshops are consultant-led, short-form, outcome-based session’s designed to empower you to be wildly successful. Whether you’re looking to enhance your reporting, nurture or strategy skills, we provide all of the essential tips, tricks, advice, best practices, guidance and, most importantly, confidence to take your skills to the next level.

The post 3 Soft Skills That Make A Pardot Admin Awesome appeared first on The Spot For Pardot.

By |2021-05-27T14:29:56+00:00May 27th, 2021|Categories: Uncategorized|

Sercante’s Guide to Becoming an Exceptional Pardot Admin

In 2004, I received a prestigious award  “Outstanding Achievement in The Field of Excellence”. If I’m honest, it was printed by my best friend— he’s much smarter than I, so I didn’t challenge it. You can win the award as a Pardot Admin using this template…that was an easy guide to write! 😁

While I genuinely believe each of you deserve the above award, I must admit that being an exceptional Pardot Admin requires a bit more work. It’s not a destination or an end state; it’s about enhancing and changing how we think, talk and tackle Pardot as power users. So let’s start with changing how we think about Pardot. 

How We Think About Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins think of Pardot as a finite resource. It sounds odd to say, but when we don’t take this perspective we run the risk of filling Pardot with ineffective, inactive, and wasteful resources. The great news is we can use Pardot to help manage Pardot, below are some of my favorite tools and resources to use

The Prospect Database Cleaning Guide – Let dynamic lists do the work for you and find disengaged or no longer relevant prospects in your database.

13 Spring Cleaning Tips – Game-changing quick tips that will help to keep Pardot moving smoothly!

• Set specific time aside to review your Pardot account, put it in your calendar now..I’ll wait.

Taking these steps helps to ensure we stay within our limitations, utilize features to the best of our ability, and work within Pardot as efficiently as possible.

How Exceptional Pardot Admins Talk About Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins advocate for Pardot as much more than an automation tool. They talk about it as a communication engine. Changing how we talk about Pardot within the business helps us identify new use cases and areas where Pardot can add value.

Changing the narrative means Pardot can become an integral part of important conversations like renewals, enablement & education, compliance, recruitment, and referrals. Starting those conversations can sometimes be daunting so here are some tips that have worked for me.

  1. Keep your message simple: At its core Pardot does four main things – measures engagement, models behavior in terms of segmentation and targeting, moves individuals with automated and personalized journeys and improves marketing with actionable insight and reporting. Use this as a conversation starter with other leaders in the business as to how Pardot might benefit them.
  2. Focus on alignment : Salesforce provides a lot of alignment guidance. This is one of my favourites as it talks about how Salesforce itself works to drive cross team alignment.
  3. Let Salesforce do the selling for you : Share webinars and Pardot demo sessions like the Pardot daily demo as a way to introduce colleagues to the wonderful world of Pardot.

How Exceptional Pardot Admins Approach Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins approach Pardot with a sense of curiosity, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to share. They appreciate that Pardot is continually evolving, innovating and changing. They are excited about the new opportunities those innovations bring and are willing to share their own thoughts, perspectives, and insights with the broader community. Taking on Pardot with any other mindset is an uphill and tiresome battle.

  1. Get Connected : Pardot’s Trailblazer community is a collaborative space where you can ask questions, share insights and get the latest news on webinars and new resources.
  2. Get Involved : Pardot user groups are customer organised groups that meet in person ( when allowed) and virtually to network, share ideas, tips, tricks and advice on how to get the most out of Salesforce

Exceptional Pardot Admins can think about, talk about and approach Pardot in highly valuable ways. If the possibilities of being exceptional at Pardot excite you, why not join us for a Pardot Admin Bootcamp? Our 6-week, consult-led virtual course will give you all the practical learning as well as tips, tricks, advice and, most importantly, confidence to become an exceptional Pardot Admin.

The post Sercante’s Guide to Becoming an Exceptional Pardot Admin appeared first on The Spot For Pardot.

By |2021-05-18T16:05:37+00:00May 18th, 2021|Categories: Uncategorized|

Sercante’s Guide to Becoming an Exceptional Pardot Admin

In 2004, I received a prestigious award  “Outstanding Achievement in The Field of Excellence”. If I’m honest, it was printed by my best friend— he’s much smarter than I, so I didn’t challenge it. You can win the award as a Pardot Admin using this template…that was an easy guide to write! 😁

While I genuinely believe each of you deserve the above award, I must admit that being an exceptional Pardot Admin requires a bit more work. It’s not a destination or an end state; it’s about enhancing and changing how we think, talk and tackle Pardot as power users. So let’s start with changing how we think about Pardot. 

How We Think About Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins think of Pardot as a finite resource. It sounds odd to say, but when we don’t take this perspective we run the risk of filling Pardot with ineffective, inactive, and wasteful resources. The great news is we can use Pardot to help manage Pardot, below are some of my favorite tools and resources to use

The Prospect Database Cleaning Guide – Let dynamic lists do the work for you and find disengaged or no longer relevant prospects in your database.

13 Spring Cleaning Tips – Game-changing quick tips that will help to keep Pardot moving smoothly!

• Set specific time aside to review your Pardot account, put it in your calendar now..I’ll wait.

Taking these steps helps to ensure we stay within our limitations, utilize features to the best of our ability, and work within Pardot as efficiently as possible.

How Exceptional Pardot Admins Talk About Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins advocate for Pardot as much more than an automation tool. They talk about it as a communication engine. Changing how we talk about Pardot within the business helps us identify new use cases and areas where Pardot can add value.

Changing the narrative means Pardot can become an integral part of important conversations like renewals, enablement & education, compliance, recruitment, and referrals. Starting those conversations can sometimes be daunting so here are some tips that have worked for me.

  1. Keep your message simple: At its core, Pardot does four main things – measures engagement, models behaviour in terms of segmentation and targeting, moves individuals with automated and personalized journeys and improves marketing with actionable insight and reporting. Use this as a conversation starter with other leaders in the business as to how Pardot might benefit them.
  2. Focus on alignment: Salesforce provides a lot of alignment guidance. This is one of my favourites as it talks about how Salesforce itself works to drive cross-team alignment.
  3. Let Salesforce do the selling for you: Share webinars and Pardot demo sessions like the Pardot daily demo as a way to introduce colleagues to the wonderful world of Pardot.

How Exceptional Pardot Admins Approach Pardot

Exceptional Pardot Admins approach Pardot with a sense of curiosity, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to share. They appreciate that Pardot is continually evolving, innovating and changing. They are excited about the new opportunities those innovations bring and are willing to share their own thoughts, perspectives, and insights with the broader community. Taking on Pardot with any other mindset is an uphill and tiresome battle.

  1. Get Connected : Pardot’s Trailblazer community is a collaborative space where you can ask questions, share insights and get the latest news on webinars and new resources.
  2. Get Involved : Pardot user groups are customer organised groups that meet in person ( when allowed) and virtually to network, share ideas, tips, tricks and advice on how to get the most out of Salesforce

Exceptional Pardot Admins can think about, talk about and approach Pardot in highly valuable ways. If the possibilities of being exceptional at Pardot excite you, why not join us for a Pardot Admin Bootcamp? Our 6-week, consult-led virtual course will give you all the practical learning as well as tips, tricks, advice and, most importantly, confidence to become an exceptional Pardot Admin.

The post Sercante’s Guide to Becoming an Exceptional Pardot Admin appeared first on The Spot For Pardot.

By |2021-05-18T16:05:37+00:00May 18th, 2021|Categories: Uncategorized|