Navigating the Tumultuous Waters of AI, Ethics, and Accessibility

Hot take: I’m not ready to hop on the AI hype train just yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand how the possibilities of AI are there, even if much of it hasn’t been quite realized yet. AI has the potential to make our lives easier. AI will definitely increase productivity. Even if the mention of ChatGPT makes you want to roll your eyes so hard they fall out of your head and you won’t have to be subjected to another useless AI-generated “news article” littering Google’s page one search results, the technology is accelerating at an exponential rate and there’s no turning back now.

It’s just that for me, the very real harms—such as exacerbating racial discrimination in policing and surveillance and scraping struggling artists’ works without consent, to name only a few — still far outweigh AI’s currently novel but ultimately still tepid applications.

Reflecting on Three Sessions from Three 2023 Salesforce Dreamin’ Conferences

A rising tide will carry all boats, but what if you don’t have a boat to begin with? What if you are already struggling to keep your head above water, and the deluge comes?

And yet, after recently wrapping up a hat trick of conferences (Midwest Dreamin’, WITness Success, and Mile High Dreamin’) where the topic of  this year’s sessions and keynotes were inevitably dominated by some permutation of AI (an in particular, GenAI), three sessions that I attended have managed to, if not entirely change, then at least somewhat soften my bearish stance on the whole thing.

At the very least, they’ve given me a lot of food for thought around AI and accessibility: who gets to have it, who doesn’t, and what that ultimately means.

“Generative AI and Ethics: Safeguarding Privacy and Nurturing Trust in the Salesforce Ecosystem”

Robert Wieland, Mile High Dreamin’ 2023

At this year’s Mile High Dreamin’, Robert Wieland, an AI Ethicist and Senior Salesforce Engineer at Verisk Analytics, led his audience through a brief but fascinating history of AI development,  which actually started as early as 1966 with the creation of ELIZA, the world’s earliest AI chatbot. His tour through AI history’s highlights and lowlights centered less on the latest groundbreaking developments and more so on the philosophies, ethical concerns, and questions that have arisen as a result, which made for a refreshing change from the usual shock and awe sales pitches I usually hear when it comes to the wonders of AI.

AI’s ethics framework can trace its roots to the 1979 Belmont Report, which laid the ethical foundation for human subjects research in medicine and the social sciences:

  • Human Autonomy, or the respect for people’s decisions and not injecting bias or manipulation into the decision-making process
  • Beneficence, or how to minimize harm while maximizing human well-being and benefits
  • Justice, or how to ensure equitable access and the equal and greatest distribution of benefits

 “In the realm of AI, ethics involves the thoughtful consideration of the potential impacts of AI technologies on individuals, society, and the environment,” Wieland said. “It prompts us to assess how these technologies align with our shared values and to ensure their responsible development and deployment.”

When it comes to predictive AI and language models, the ethical and social risks are not insubstantial, Wieland went on to explain, something we’ve unfortunately already begun to see play out in an alarming number of ways: from producing discrimination, exclusion, and toxicity to being used for misinformation by malicious actors to the incidental environmental harm as a byproduct of the sheer amount of processing power needed to run these increasingly complex processes to the unintentional harm caused by humans overly trusting a language model or treating it as human-like.

While he’s not looking at the AI world through rose-colored glasses, ultimately Wieland ended his presentation on a more optimistic note. There are, after all, a number of very smart people trying to steer this ship for whom these ethical considerations are always top of mind, including Paula Goldman, Salesforce’s Chief Ethical and Human Use Officer, and Kathy Baxter, Principal Architect of Ethical AI Practice. Together, they put out five guidelines for responsible generative AI development to act as Salesforce’s North Star.

While it’s reassuring to know that Salesforce wants to responsibly balance innovation with ethics, I’m more skeptical than Wieland on this front: I can only place so much trust in a corporate or governmental entity’s ability to be self-accountable to their self-proclaimed principles, something for which even Salesforce is not without controversy. Wieland himself noted,  “Even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy,” in reference to the 2012 controversy where Target used customer data to predict when someone was pregnant based on their shopping behavior and market to them accordingly. As we’ve seen many U.S. states begin to roll back LGBTQ+ protections and legal access to abortion, just because something is law does not necessarily mean it is ethical or just. How will the power of AI be wielded in those instances?

“Tech for Good: AI’s Role in Uplifting Marginalized and Underserved Communities”

Jaye Cherenfant, WITness Success 2023

Jaye Cherenfant is a Salesforce Administrator, tech enthusiast, and AI strategist who spent over a decade empowering Black students in the U.S. and South Africa before founding her own sustainable gardening business and then later launching Vista Tech Solutions, LLC, a tech consulting company.

As a Black, neurodivergent woman in tech, Cherenfant understands the vital importance of leveraging technology for beneficence, especially when it comes to serving the marginalized and underserved. In her session, she was especially concerned with how AI can inherit societal biases, further discrimination, and lead to data privacy violations that disproportionately impact BIPOC communities.

One of the best ways to begin to address these concerns, Cherenfant argued, is to ensure that tech teams, especially AI teams, diversify: Black people need a seat at the table.

But that’s far easier said than done. As of 2021, Black representation made up less than 10% of the STEM workforce, while Black women only represented 2% of the tech industry. These figures also reflect the STEM pipeline, where Black students make up only 9% of STEM degrees at all levels. According to a report from Jobs for the Future, the primary reasons for STEM underrepresentation are “systemic and structural barriers that Black learners confront from an early age into adulthood.” This includes a lack of access to a quality education and resources, which, in the U.S., are allocated based on wealth.

According to 2023 Pew Research, over half of Black households make less than $50,000 in the U.S, with 30% of Black households making less than $25,000.

One cascading effect of these inequities, Cherenfant pointed out, is a growing Digital Divide between children from low-income households and their more affluent peers, a disparity that worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Pew Research Center, almost 60% of lower income families experienced at least one of the following digital access obstacles during the COVID-19 school shutdowns:

  • Having to use a mobile phone to complete schoolwork
  • Needing to use public Wi-Fi to complete schoolwork due to unreliable or no internet connectivity at home
  • Being unable to complete schoolwork due to not owning a computer

As the pace of technological innovation keeps accelerating, those who cannot access the knowledge and tools needed to contribute to these advances in hopes of shaping the discourse, nevermind merely being able to keep up with them, will fall further behind and eventually be shut out of these critical spheres altogether.

So where does that leave us? Where can we even begin to address these challenges? Cherenfant advocates that one’s activism can begin locally, from collaborating with her children on generative AI art projects to volunteering at local groups and community-driven events to introduce the community, and especially the youth, to the world of AI and practical AI applications. Giving underrepresented groups access to, knowledge of, and skills to use AI is the first step to giving them that much-needed seat.

My feelings on this are, as ever, somewhat mixed. On one hand, giving marginalized people equitable access to privileged white spaces to empower themselves and others  is crucially important to AI’s future and mitigating the growing harm that systemic biases like flawed racial profiling software and “predictive policing” algorithms are perpetuating.

On the other hand, as Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Can we ignore how, despite assurances, companies are actively replacing or attempting to replace human creative labor, including already underrepresented Black creative labor, with generative AI to the point where even Hollywood has sat up and taken notice? Or how these technologies still betray their systemic bias even when they are being used by Black creators because of the inherently biased data sets they’re trained on?

I don’t know what the right answers are, or if there even are any to be had right now. If the goal laid out in our AI Ethics framework is to make sure AI is doing the greatest amount of good with the least amount of harm, what is an acceptable level of harm and who gets to decide what that is?

“How to Create Accessible Digital Marketing Assets”

Cara Weese, WITness Success 2023

While Cara Weese, CRM & Marketing Automation Strategist at Sercante (and, in full disclosure, one of my most favorite coworkers ever), did not directly address AI during her presentation, her topic was one that runs in the same circles of AI discussions nevertheless: accessibility, and in this case, specifically for those with disabilities.

Weese set the stage for her presentation by sharing her own powerful story as a person with a disability, which further drove home the point that people with disabilities aren’t an imaginary segment of the population to be treated as an afterthought or, worse still, acceptable collateral damage if the cost proves too high or the effort too bothersome to be ADA-compliant. In fact, according to the World Health Organization, 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the world’s population, have a significant disability. 

If us marketers don’t center accessibility-first strategies in our work, Weese said, we not only exclude a not insignificant portion of the population, we also risk a number of repercussions from missing opportunities to expand our customer base, create positive associations with our brand, encourage inclusivity in others, and improve our quality ranking score and SEO. 

And if that wasn’t convincing enough, businesses who fail to comply with ADA regulations are liable for some hefty penalties should their non-compliant practices be reported.

As Donald A. Norman, author of the influential book Design of Everyday Things, points out, “Designing for people with disabilities almost always leads to products that work better for everyone.” Using large, legible fonts and high contrast in our emails not only helps those with visual disabilities, but consider how much the elderly with failing eyesight would also appreciate these design choices. Or how about the fact that we’re all having to turn on the subtitles to watch TV shows and films these days.

Even in this, class is inextricably entwined with accessibility, furthering the Digital Divide. Assistive technologies such as screen readers are a helpful device for the visually impaired to navigate the digital world, but their high price point can pose a significant barrier for lower income households. And even if one were able to secure a lower cost device, as Weese explained, newer, more expensive screen readers are often more capable of parsing web pages and emails than cheaper ones, even when the content doesn’t entirely meet web accessibility requirements.

Conclusion

I’m not anti-AI.

I’m already eager to see how AI will get better at making inaccessible digital content accessible. I’ve already played around with gen AI for coding and generating seed data for Salesforce imports. I’m looking forward to trying out Jaye Cherenfant’s method of using gen AI to study for her Salesforce exam.

But what is more important to me than what I want AI to do is how I want it to be used — and how I don’t want it to be used. I’d love to see the rich experience of the marginalized to be welcomed and included in AI’s development to not only empower those communities but to improve the accuracy and power of AI itself. I want to see AI close the gap between the privileged and the underserved.

I don’t want to see the worst consequences of AI fall upon the most vulnerable among us: those with lower incomes, those who have been excluded from consideration, those who will suffer the most from climate change, and those who are primed to be heavily exploited by richer, and vastly more powerful entities.

The tide is rising, and the sea is rough. If we can’t stem or even slow it down, then at the very least, I hope we have the courage and strength to pull others out of the water and into the boat with us on our way up.

Original article: Navigating the Tumultuous Waters of AI, Ethics, and Accessibility

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Navigating the Tumultuous Waters of AI, Ethics, and Accessibility appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-09-13T17:31:02+00:00September 13th, 2023|Categories: Community, Events, Real Talk|
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Lessons Learned While Delivering Salesforce Training in Spanish

The majority of Salesforce training you’ll find in the world is conducted in English. But things are changing as the platform grows in other parts of the world. We’ve seen a few self-guided Salesforce courses and Trailhead content in other languages, including Spanish. But the options are limited when it comes to getting hands-on and instructor-led Salesforce training in Spanish or other languages.

In this post, we’ll cover the lessons learned while delivering a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) bootcamp in Spanish so more organizations can offer training in languages beyond English.

How did the Spanish Account Engagement bootcamp come to fruition?

My name is Marcos Duran and I am a Marketing Manager at Sercante. In my role, I support our team with the development and delivering of Salesforce training to our customers. I have been a Salesforce user for almost a decade and Salesforce consultant for the past 7 years. 

Part of being a #MomentMarketer is that you need to not only stay ahead of the latest trends and hot topics but also bring your tribe with you. My old Spanish professor used to use the term “Compartir la riqueza” or “share the wealth” in English.

This year I decided that I wanted to challenge myself with creating and delivering an Account Engagement (Pardot) bootcamp 100% in Spanish. My goal is to support Spanish speakers in earning their Pardot Specialist certification. 

For a little bit of background, this platform gave me my “real” start in the ecosystem years ago. Although I am a native Spanish speaker, this is still a challenging feat since all the content has to be dubbed into Spanish and has to be tweaked to make sense technically and also culturally.

Here’s a hot take: Google Translate can get you 70% there, but that last 30% is what differentiates a speaker versus just dropping it into a translator. Before you say anyone can do that, I’ll ask why do you think more people haven’t?

This course lasted five weeks for a total of 8 one-hour classes. During three of those five weeks, we met twice.

Six big takeaways from developing a Salesforce training course in Spanish

Here’s a few lessons I learned along the way of doing this bootcamp. I hope they will help you plan better if you are interested in offering virtual webinars/programs as a user group leader or in your own organization.

1. Lean heavily on pre-promotion

A rule of thumb for webinars is that at least 50% of your signups won’t show. 

In my case, this was close to my final numbers. I ended up with a 30% signup rate between announcing the bootcamp on LinkedIn and getting people to actually sign up. 

Lesson Learned: My mistake here was that I didn’t have the form ready when I was gauging interest. As a result, I lost on that initial wave of hype. If you do this internally, get people to register once you gauge interest.

LinkedIn post I shared to see if people in my network have interest in Salesforce training in Spanish

And the poll I posted…

Question Translation: Would you be interested in a bootcamp to prepare for the Pardot Specialist exam in Spanish?

2. Reach out to your community

From promotion to content creation, I reached out to people in my network who had been through this experience, looking for advice. 

I received a lot of positive advice — special shout out to Lara Black, Daniela Galmes, Victor Alberto Pantoja, and Ben LaMothe for all their support. 

Thanks to their encouragement, I was able to support 30 students from 13 countries around the world in their native language with Account Engagement content.

Marcos Duran with fellow marketing Trailblazers from the Salesforce community

Lesson Learned: Message the people you know who can offer advice, introduce you to people in their network, or help you to promote your efforts.

3. Optimize your course content

This particular bootcamp was focused on getting ready for the Pardot Specialist certification. 

We used the study guide material from Trailhead to guide the format of our bootcamp and essentially focus on the goal of passing the exam. In addition, I provided our students live demos of the essential parts of Account Engagement (for the visuals), presentation decks, and links to documentation from the Salesforce Help Center for additional guidance.

Lesson Learned: Build your training course using resources from Salesforce. That’s who designed the exam you’re attempting to pass and the tools you’re using. So, that’s definitely the best place to start.

4. Encourage student engagement

This was my favorite part. To get our course going, I engaged our students with questions about their own experiences. For many, this meant comparing features with Marketing Cloud Engagement to help create the bridge between their experience with that platform and this new platform material. 

We had several long conversations throughout the course that really showed the real-life business challenges they were facing. Thank you to everyone who shared with us!

Lesson Learned: Have a sense of humor when things go wrong. Having to say automations in Spanish 30 times in one hour is not fun — it is definitely a tongue twister. Thanks to everyone for putting up with me as I searched for the correct words to illustrate my point. 

5. Send plenty of reminders

This is a tip from Google Calendars: send reminders close to the webinar start time. I would send out a message a few hours before class to remind students, “Hey – class is today, make sure you show up.” 

This was the hardest for me because through this course I would see our attendance numbers fluctuate. At the end of the day, I understand we all have lives outside of work. So it’s best to be patient and as helpful as we can with others. 

Lesson Learned: Keep on sending those course reminders. Your students appreciate them!

6. On-Demand

Finally, at the end of each week, I would send everyone the slides and recordings. I would suggest you do this once at the end of the course.

Lesson Learned: Offering the course recordings on demand is essential. Life happens, students may miss a session or two. This content is also a lot to take in, so giving the option to revisit is going to help your students to be more successful.

Changes I would make to future Salesforce training in Spanish

Now that you read a little about how this course went for me, you may be wondering what’s next?

Well, here’s a few things I would do differently:

  1. I would love to be able to do this in person to really give the students the most support I can.
  2. I would continue to team up with other Account Engagement rock stars and divide the work to ensure we bring in different experiences to the classroom.
  3. I would probably promote this a little longer than I did (initially we had just north of 100 people interested in Spanish Pardot training).

Other than that, I feel it always pays to help others power up. I look forward to continuing to support Spanish and English speakers on the Salesforce platform and continue to make the most out of their investment. 

If you are interested in watching the Spanish Bootcamp series please click here.

Sign up for marketing-focused Salesforce training courses

If you’re ready to take your strategy, technical, and creative skills to the next level, we have the marketing-focused Salesforce training courses you need.

You can join our regularly scheduled courses or ask us about private training options — like this one that was offered to Spanish speakers in the Salesforce community.
Check out our training options here.

Original article: Lessons Learned While Delivering Salesforce Training in Spanish

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Lessons Learned While Delivering Salesforce Training in Spanish appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-07-03T20:57:30+00:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: Career Development, Community, Real Talk, revive|
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Getting Real About Marketing Automation Platform Migration Projects

Migrating from one marketing automation platform (MAP) to another can be nerve wracking. You are bound to be overwhelmed and not know where to start. But I once had a high school coach say “nervousness equals readiness.” And while that didn’t always ease the nerves before a big race, it has stuck with me all these years. So embrace the change as you prepare for your marketing automation platform migration!

I have been on both sides of a marketing automation platform migration project — both as a person who owns the platform and as a consultant. I want to share some of the learnings from those experiences to make the process a little less painful for anyone who’s just getting started. 

Remember the reasons you are changing MAPs

Since we work through so many marketing automation migration projects where we help our clients switch to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), we’ll use those migrations as an example for the purposes of this blog post. 

Marketing teams are usually migrating to Account Engagement for one of a few reasons:

  • It works better with Salesforce 
  • Their current MAP is not easy to understand
  • They are looking for better support
  • Budget

Migrating to Account Engagement means you get one unified platform for sales and marketing, which for marketers means one less system to have to log into! 

With Engagement History on leads, contacts, and accounts, your sales team has insight into engagement with marketing activities right on their record. And a lot of marketing technology (martech) integrates with Salesforce. 

That means you can, more often than not, pull that information into Account Engagement to use in your audience segmentation.

Account Engagement is not ‘Insert Marketing Automation Platform Name Here’

Regardless of the reason you are migrating to Account Engagement, you need to remember that Account Engagement might not be able to do everything the same way as your existing MAP — but that isn’t a bad thing! There is most likely a solution for it using native functionality or customizing code. 

I have seen clients say they want everything in Account Engagement to be how it is in their current MAP. This approach will most likely cause some headaches down the road. Take a step back and get an understanding of what the end goal of your process is today so it can be translated into Account Engagement, and then look at how it can be done within Account Engagement. 

Make sure you spend time on Trailhead to get an understanding of the basics of how Account Engagement works before you dive into migrating systems. 

Documentation will be critical for success — marketing ops rejoice!

The first step before starting to move over assets is to make sure that you have your processes documented. Not only will this help during migration but it will allow you to take a good look at how things are done today and try to improve where possible. 

Here are a few to make sure you document:

  • User management – Who needs access? What type of access do they need? 
  • Lead routing – When does a lead go to sales? What information is required before it goes to sales? Who is it assigned to? What happens if the lead is not ready? 
  • Reporting – What are your KPIs? What system does reporting need to happen in? How do you need reporting – by campaign, by channel, by quarter, by month? 
  • Lead and customer journeys – How and when do you engage with a lead? What about a customer? 
  • Legal requirements – Is there specific language on forms, emails, and landing pages that we need to have?
  • Overall martech stack – What tools are in your tech stack? How do they all work together? Do you have any new tech you are adding soon? 

Channel your inner Marie Kondo throughout your MAP migration

Regardless of how clean you think your current MAP is there will always be old assets and outdated processes. Channel your inner Marie Kondo and make sure you only migrate over what brings you joy — well, migrate what is still necessary for the future. Don’t worry you can always export reporting on old assets so you are losing that data.

This is not only about cleaning up your assets, now is the time to take a good look at what isn’t working well today and make improvements. This applies not only to processes but nurture programs and email and landing page experiences. 

Bonus: Account Engagement Cleanliness Resources

Marketing automation migrations take time

While yes, technically, you can do a migration in 30 days, I suggest taking as much time as you can. This is  especially true if you have lots of nurture programs, email templates, and complex processes to migrate to the new system. 

This is not always possible. There are so many factors that go into this — especially budget and resources. 

So, have an honest conversation with your team about the timeline. Don’t forget to factor in overlap with your current MAP (at least a month), and try to give yourself a little padding for the unexpected and time off. 

Something will not go as planned

No matter how much you plan and prepare for a migration, something will not go as expected. AND THAT IS OKAY!!! 

You might find some custom code on a form you weren’t aware of. Or you could experience sync errors with Salesforce due to a validation rule you didn’t know existed. 

Just take a deep breath and know that it can be fixed. 

You don’t have to go through a MAP migration alone

Again, migration projects are scary. But you can work with consulting companies that go through these MAP migrations every day. Not only do they know all the processes and logistics for migrating to the new platform, but they’ve worked with companies that weren’t fully utilizing their MAP investment and found ways to improve user experience and adoption.

Working with a partner, like Sercante, can help make it less scary and make sure you get the maximum value out of your tools. 

Reach out to the team at Sercante as you get ready for your marketing automation platform migration. We’ve seen it all, so bring us your juiciest challenges!

Original article: Getting Real About Marketing Automation Platform Migration Projects

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Getting Real About Marketing Automation Platform Migration Projects appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-06-27T17:41:21+00:00June 27th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, Real Talk, revive, Setup & Admin|
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Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam Tips & Tricks

So, you’ve decided to take the next steps in your career and earn your Salesforce Administrator Certification. Yay!

This might be your first journey into the Salesforce platform or maybe you’ve been an Accidental Admin for years and are finally going to make it official. Either way, we hope this guide provides the extra boost you need to get started and pass! We asked our fellow #AwesomeAdmins and Sercante Dragons for their feedback on the exam, what they wish they had done differently, and what study strategies worked best for them.

Here are our favorite tips and tricks to passing the Salesforce Administrator Certification exam. Grab your go-to brain boosting beverage and let’s get started!

Step 1. Review the Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam Guide

You probably have already looked at the exam guide a couple times, but do it just once more. Salesforce occasionally updates the exam guide and the test itself so it is always a good idea to review the most recent version (the last test update was June 2021).

Plus, Salesforce recently released a new certification for those looking to break into the Salesforce ecosystem and aren’t quite experienced enough for the Administrator exam. The Salesforce Associate certification is a great place to begin and you can get started here with our blog ‘A Pocket Guide to Earning the Salesforce Associate Certification’.

salesforce administrator certification exam

Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam Outline

  • Configuration and Setup: 20%
  • Object Manager and Lightning App Builder: 20%
  • Sales and Marketing Applications: 12%
  • Service and Support Applications: 11%
  • Productivity and Collaboration: 7%
  • Data and Analytics Management: 14%
  • Workflow/Process Automation: 16%

Here is a quick link to bookmark the Salesforce Certified Administrator Exam Guide, which includes the exam overview, resources they recommend (free and paid), and a detailed breakdown of the topics you will see.

Bookmark these too! Both of these resources are the best  go-to study guides as they are Salesforce created and kept up to date. If you are overwhelmed by the amount of resources out there, just focus on studying and working through these. 

Step 2. Schedule Your Salesforce Admin Cert Exam

Nothing makes studying more productive (aka panic-studying-becasue-it-is-actually-happening-and-you-can’t-ignore-it) when you have a real date to prepare for. Yes, it will be scary to hit that schedule button. But it would be even worse to do all this work and never actually take the test. 

I promise that you are smart and capable, even if you are super worried! Once you get this out of the way, you can truly focus on the content without that hanging out in the back of your mind.

Choose your testing location 

One thing to consider is what type of test taker you are. Salesforce gives us the option of taking a test in person at a local testing center or remotely from the comfort of your or someone else’s home. 

Think about what makes you your best test-taking you. I prefer taking the certifications remotely online because I like being at my desk with my favorite chair in my comfy clothes and I don’t have to worry about traffic or a strange new place. Other team members prefer the testing center because it gets them out of their loud house of children and pets and helps their brain activate test mode.

Ready to schedule your Salesforce Admin certification date? Good! Do that here. Step two = complete!

Step 3. Organize Your Resources

The Sercante team are certification masters, and we all agreed that organizing your resources, study guides, prep decks, practice tests, etc., beforehand saves a lot of time later down your study road. Plus, they can act as a sort of to-do checklist of study tasks.

Here are some of our favorite resources that we’ve relied on.

Free Study Day

This is my favorite resource for all Salesforce certifications. You can sign up multiple times as well so I would recommend once at the beginning of your study schedule and then again close to your exam date. 

  • Salesforce Certification Days
    • Free, half-day webinars to help you prepare for your certification
    • About 1x every two months
    • Not recorded, no taking screenshots
    • Get a $40 test voucher code, can be used for retakes

Videos

Blogs

Trailheads & Trailmixes

Superbadges

Topic Problem Area Resources

Step 4. Take a Practice Test & Understand Where You’re At

You are smart! You know things! How else would you convince yourself to take the Salesforce Administrator Certification? 

So, this also means you probably know a good portion of the topics the exam will cover. Instead of deep diving into EVERYTHING, let’s focus on the medium confidence and low to no confidence topic areas. Remember to refer to the exam outline above to understand what will be on the test.

You can use this simple Google Sheet calculator for a quick confidence check: 

When you are ready, just jump in and take a practice test. Try to remember which one so this can be your truth beacon as your work through your study materials. By having this baseline score, you will be able to identify confident and if-y topic areas, plus get into the test-taking, Salesforce-speak brain space. 

Practice Tests

Be careful with relying too heavily on the questions and answers from these paid and free practice test resources outside of Salesforce. As the test and Salesforce ecosystem continue to evolve, some of these tests don’t update with it. Trust your gut and Google if you think something isn’t quite right. You can always ask the Salesforce Trailhead community to double-check, as well. 

Step 5. The Actual Study Step

Ok! Time to study!

Pace yourself and try to avoid last-minute week of the test full studying sessions. Yes, reviewing some key topics right before your certification might be helpful, but working through the Trailheads the month or two leading up to the test is probably easier on your brain and work/life schedule. 

I like to study one or two hours a day before and after my work day so it tends to take me more time to prep compared to teammates who schedule a couple of full study days the month of their exam. Try out different study schedules and find what works best for you! 

Keep in mind that you could prefer video courses to the text-based Trailheads or maybe you like creating your own flash cards with a study friend. The knowledge is out there, you just need to figure out the best way for you to unlock it.

Step 6. Rinse & Repeat

Once you feel like you have absorbed some more information or completed a couple of topic-specific Trailheads, give the practice test a shot again. This will confirm if you are focusing on the right or not quite right topic areas.

Remember, Salesforce certifications are difficult and are worded in Salesforce ways. Taking these practice tests and working through the Trailhead courses will help you understand how they phase scenarios, what they consider best practices for a standard organization, how they refer to their ecosystem, and hopefully, see which answers you can eliminate to reduce your answer options. 

Some Study & Test Taking Tips

  • Find keywords in questions that indicate the answer or what you can eliminate as an answer.
  • Keep in mind the names of Salesforce products, features, and functionality as they will try to trick you with similar-sounding answers.
  • Answers can put the Salesforce platform in a good light meaning the answer wouldn’t be something they don’t support or is outside of the standard packages (in most cases).
    • Example: How many records are saved in the recycle bin? The highest option was the answer.
  • Always refer back to the full question when you are starting to second guess yourself, there might be something key you missed when you first read it. 

Step 7. Go Eat A Snack & Take A Nap

There is only so much studying and memorization a human brain can handle. Especially with these Salesforce-style wordy technical questions and answers. We fully recommend taking breaks throughout your study journey and at least a couple of days leading up to your Salesforce Admin exam date. 

Remember to relax and breathe! You being overly stressed out is not going to help you pass the test.

Step 8. Pass The Salesforce Administration Certification Exam!

Trust us, you’ve got this!

The Day of Your Exam Tips

  • Make sure you read the requirements for your in-person exam or the online proctored exam.
    • For in-person tests, remember to arrive 15 minutes early with your ID, another form of identification, and your authorization code.
    • For online tests, double-check that your camera and microphone are working, that you have downloaded the correct software, and that your desk area and background are clean and without distractions.
  • Consider the amount of time you have as you go through the test.
    • Answering every question is more important than not finishing.
  • Mark questions you are hesitant about for review.
    • Salesforce has a built-in checkbox for this within the test – take advantage of it.
    • As you have time at the end, go through your marked questions.
    • If you start noticing that you are changing more than a handful of answers, you are probably in your head too much and overthinking things. It is best to go with your gut and your first answer unless you know for sure that it is incorrect.
  • Don’t be afraid to fail! You can always retake the Salesforce admin certification exam – trust me, I did. We recommend scheduling your retake within two months of your previous exam date so the information is fresh and you are still in testing mode.

Good luck taking your Salesforce admin certification exam!

Don’t forget to come back here and brag about your accomplishment and share any other Salesforce Administrator Certification exam tips and tricks for the next round of admins!

Original article: Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam Tips & Tricks

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Salesforce Administrator Certification Exam Tips & Tricks appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-05-10T17:45:38+00:00May 10th, 2023|Categories: Career Development, Community, Real Talk, revive|
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Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool

I saw an email pop in my inbox last week from our pals at Stensul. The subject line read “Simple and quick subject lines? The Stensul way it is.” Inside the email was a link to try out an AI-powered email subject line generator.

I had to check it out.

I spend lots of time in my role at Sercante writing and editing copy for marketing assets like emails, blog posts, landing pages, and social media posts. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten in an editing hole testing different variations of words for email subject lines until I find the perfect one.

That’s what got me so excited about the tool.

Email Subject Lines that Inspire Action and Curiosity

Each email you send through your marketing automation tool has such a small chance to get people to do the things you’re asking them to do. So, it’s especially important to write an impactful email subject line to get people curious about what your email has to offer. You also have to provide value by offering your reader clear expectations about what’s inside the email. 

I’m thinking the Stensul email subject line generator will be helpful for achieving those goals. I’m also thinking we can use it to create subject line variations for A/B testing.

Trying the Stensul Subject Line Generator on Sercante Emails

I guess the best way to see how this thing works is to dive in. First, I went to the subject line generator landing page and traded my info for access to the tool. A few seconds later, I got an email with my magic link to use it.

Here’s what it looks like:

You’re prompted to enter the text of your email along with details like your company type, industry, and tone of voice along with word limit for the subject line. 

The tone of voice options range from average to entertaining. Here are the options:

Tone of voice options
  • Enthusiastic
  • Funny
  • Informational
  • Casual
  • Professional
  • Pirate-Like
  • Yoda
  • Shakespearean

I tested it out using a few older Sercante emails to see what subject lines it produces.

Here are examples from my exploration:

Sercante 2022 Year in Review Email Example

Here’s what I got when copy-pasted the content from our 2022 year in review email and asked for 10-word subject lines.

Original subject line: ➡ Join Us In Celebrating Our Milestones ❇

The email:

Results with Enthusiastic Tone:

  1. 🎉 Celebrating a Year of Growth & Opportunity with Sercante! 🚀
  2. 2022 Highlights: Sercante’s Unforgettable Journey 🔥
  3. 🌟 Sercante’s 2022 Milestones: Thanks for the Support!
  4. ✨ Sercante’s Incredible Growth: Join our 2023 Adventure!
  5. 🚀 Cheers to Sercante’s Success: Let’s Make 2023 Even Better!

Results with Funny Tone:

  1. Hold Our 🍾: Sercante’s Wild & Wonderful 2022 Recap!🎉
  2. 🚀Blast Off! Sercante’s Stellar 2022 Highlights Inside😄
  3. Unleashing the Fury: Sercante’s 🐉-Filled 2022 Adventures
  4. 🎂Sercante Turns 5: Our Side-Splitting, Record-Breaking Year!😂
  5. Brace Yourself: Sercante’s 2022 Rollercoaster Ride Awaits!🎢

Note: I love that it’s intuitive enough to throw a dragon emoji in there.

Results with Yoda Tone:

  1. Growth & Opportunity, 2022 We Celebrate, Yoda Says
  2. Memorable Year, Sercante’s Journey, Learn You Will
  3. Gratitude and Success, 2022 Recap, Stronger Together
  4. Salesforce Support, Sercante Achievements, Future Yoda Sees
  5. Embark 2023, Marketers’ Galactic Adventures Await Us

The Spot & Jenna Molby Partnership Email Example

Here’s more email subject line generator exploration using an email we sent to announce Jenna Molby’s partnership with The Spot.

Original subject line: A shining Salesforce star is joining The Spot 🤩

The email: 

Results with Informational Tone:

  1. Discover Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Insights on The Spot
  2. Elevate Your Marketing with Jenna Molby & The Spot
  3. Master Pardot: Jenna Molby’s Tools & Tips Now Live
  4. Unleash Your Salesforce Potential: Jenna Molby & The Spot
  5. Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Expertise Joins The Spot Library

Results with Informational Tone:

  1. Jenna Molby Joins The Spot: Upgrade Your Salesforce Game
  2. The Spot + Jenna Molby: A Match Made in Salesforce Heaven
  3. Jenna Molby’s Salesforce Secrets Now on The Spot!
  4. Boost Your Salesforce Skills with Jenna Molby & The Spot
  5. Unleash Your Marketing Superpowers with Jenna Molby & The Spot

Results with Pirate-Like Tone:

  1. Ahoy Mateys! The Spot & Jenna Molby’s Treasure Trove Unveiled
  2. Sail into Salesforce Success with Jenna Molby’s Insights
  3. Chart Yer Course with Jenna Molby’s Ultimate Salesforce Guides
  4. Discover the Hidden Gems of Salesforce with Jenna Molby
  5. Jenna Molby’s Swashbuckling Salesforce Secrets Unleashed

Results with Shakespearean Tone:

  1. Behold! Thee Spot & Jenna Molby: A Veritable Pairing
  2. Pray, Joineth The Spot for Molby’s Salesforce Wisdom
  3. Salesforce Mastery: Jenna & The Spot Unite in Harmony
  4. Rejoice! Jenna Molby’s Tools Now Grace The Spot
  5. Hark! Jenna Molby’s Top Guides, Now on The Spot

My thoughts overall on the email subject line generator

This tool is super handy for coming up with subject line variations for emails. I especially see it being helpful when my brain is done and I simply can’t write another word — let alone something that grabs people’s attention.

And that’s the thing about email subject lines. Writing them is often the last thing we do in the email copywriting process. But we should be paying closer attention so we have greater chances of getting clicks from our email recipients.

The more copy the better

I did learn one caveat while using the subject line generator tool. It works better on emails that have a higher volume of copy. My first example was a true newsletter with 667 words of copy, while the second example had about 415 words of copy. 

The generator results were spot on in my opinion for the first email while I was underwhelmed by the results for the second email. That may be because the second example had significantly less copy and sections. It makes sense because the tool needs enough information to pull from so it can summarize into a short subject line. I’m also loving the emoji suggestions, but I didn’t get those with all of my results.

Where AI Tools Fit in Content Marketing

You’ve probably heard lots of talk lately about OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool and other AI-powered chatbots that we’re seeing in the content marketing world. The Stensul Email Subject Line generator belongs to the wave of tools that are powered by GPT4, which is the latest iteration of OpenAI’s chatbot. 

I’ve seen blog and social posts from people who aren’t seeing the potential in these tools. But I think these tools are giving more power to individual content creators.

I was recently discussing how AI tools affect content marketers with my fellow dragon, Marcos Duran. He brought up a great point that he heard in conversations with people at a martech networking event.

Someone said something to the effect of “ChatGPT turns a content creator into an editor.” And I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather fix a mediocre sentence than start from scratch. And that’s what these AI tools are all about. They create a starting point, and you still need highly skilled individuals to add the human touch. 

What are your thoughts on the impact of AI chatbot tools on content marketing? Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the AI debate in the comments section. Or reach out to team Sercante if you’re looking to add a human touch to your marketing campaigns.

Original article: Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Playing with the AI-Powered Stensul Email Subject Line Tool appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-03-24T15:47:49+00:00March 24th, 2023|Categories: Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Real Talk, revive|
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The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content

You are 72% more likely to keep reading a blog post when the author uses a data point in the first sentence. That’s because sharing numbers makes it sound like you looked at studies related to your topic. And using those statistics in marketing content makes the information you share seem reliable so people find value in it.

But more often than not, marketing writers do a quick web search to find a statistic. Their quick web search takes them to a blog post where the author uses a statistic but doesn’t say where the stat came from. It seems legit enough, so they grab the stat to use in their blog post.

Our dear marketers have the best of intentions. But these wearers of many hats are usually short on time.

Who knows, they may just pull a number out of thin air and hope nobody looks into it. 

(seriously, don’t cite the 72% stat I just gave you)

Always Check the Numbers

As someone who’s been proofreading and editing marketing things other people write for almost 15 years, I can tell you that I always double check the statistics authors use. 

That’s because the statistics aren’t adding any real value to the piece unless the numbers are reliable and include context around them. Don’t get me started on ChatGPT content pieces.

How to Use Statistics in Marketing Content

I’m not knocking using statistics in marketing content at all. I think it’s super important to research what you’re writing about so you can focus on collective knowledge rather than just your own thoughts. And using numbers does catch the attention of your audience and give you an authoritative voice.

But, there’s a right way to do it. And the wrong way.

Statistics in marketing

The Right Way to Use Statistics in Marketing Content

Let’s get you on the right track so you can use statistics in your marketing content and sound like a boss. 

The best way to use statistics is to provide context around the numbers. Then, the reader can understand what the numbers mean to them and truly find value in your content.

Here’s an example of a GOOD use of a stat

“According to a 2022 survey conducted by Content Marketing Institute, 47% of content marketers said they will hire or contract with content producers (writers, designers, photographers, videographers) in 2023.”

Original source that tells you how they came up with the stat

The source we cited here is linked to the original. And the original source includes all the information we need to know to accurately interpret the statistics within the full study. We know it was a 2022 survey from CMI, and the author even provided the survey’s definition of content producers.

After clicking on the link, we find out that On24 sponsored the survey as part of the B2B Content Marketing Report. And the source includes demographic and methodological information on the last slide of the PDF.

Add Context for your Statistics

There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for providing context about stats to your readers unless your company or organization has defined those rules. 

Your company may have well-defined writing style guidelines you can refer to, and I encourage you to follow them. But if your company doesn’t have that worked out already, then you can follow these simple guidelines and share with your teammates. (consistency is awesome!)

Elements that add context to statistics

  • A link to the original source, and check that the link is working
    • Tip: Use a website plugin to check for broken links if you have a lot of content with linked statistics and resources.
  • A date to indicate the age of the statistic
  • The name of the source

Who is Your Audience?

You know your audience better than we do. That should guide what information to include with your statistics. Give your audience the information they need to understand why that statistic is important to them. 

Things to consider when determining if a source is reliable

On the surface, a statistic may seem reliable when it actually isn’t. The main questions to ask yourself about the statistic are:

  • What organization collected the information? Look for studies that were conducted by impartial organizations like universities, industry associations like the CMO Council, and research consulting companies like McKinsey and Forrester. 
  • When did they collect it? The study may be old. This is an especially important factor to consider when using statistics related to technology and economics.
  • How did they collect it? Look for what methodology was used to collect the data. If it was a survey, look for the sample size or geographic area from which the data was collected. These factors can have a big impact on the reliability of the data points and how the data relates to your message.
  • And why did they collect it? The source may be a study funded by a special interest group that structured the study or presented the results in a misleading way.
Tip for our Salesforce ecosystem readers

There’s a searchable Salesforce Stat Library to make it easier to find statistics from Salesforce annual reports. It includes specific stats about industry trends for people working in sales, marketing, service, IT, manufacturing, human resources, financial services, and public and nonprofit sectors.

The Wrong Way to Use Stats in Marketing

For illustrative purposes, we’ll review the WRONG way to use data points in marketing content. 

Here’s a bad example:

“You are 35% more likely to close a deal if you follow up on a lead within 48 hours.”

So what’s wrong with that statement? 

The author did not cite their source for the 35% statistic. And because of that, the reader has no idea what that statistic is based on. The study may have been completed in an industry that isn’t relevant to the reader. Or maybe the study is 15 years old, and we all know that sales processes have changed in that time.

Here’s another example:

“When text in a call to action button is changed from second-person viewpoint to first-person viewpoint, clicks improve by 90%. (Campaign Monitor)”

The example includes a link to the source, but it’s not the original source. The linked source tells you the name of the original source without a link to it.

A Google search of the stat and the original source, Unbounce, takes us to a 2013 blog post. The blog post author wrote the post in reference to an A/B testing case study from a consulting client, but it doesn’t provide demographic info or sample details. 

The statistic becomes less powerful and when you add context to it:

“According to a 2013 Unbounce client case study, changing text in a call to action button from second-person viewpoint to first-person viewpoint improves clicks by 90%.”

The original example sounds like a generalizable statement. But in reality, the number came from a single test that happened a decade ago. That’s why using the statistic in this case isn’t adding value for the reader.

(Hi Unbounce and Campaign Monitor – we mean no disrespect and hope our links boost your SEO😊)

What Do You Do When You Can’t Find Reliable or Original Sources

Nobody is forcing you to use that stat. And if they are, then send them a link to this blog post so you can educate them.

The best way to approach the use of stats in your marketing is to lean into information you CAN rely on. And if you don’t have that information, figure out what processes you can put in place to gather reliable information you can use down the road. 

You could build a process to survey your clients before and after engaging with your company, and optimize your reporting dashboards to track the results of your efforts over time. Or, maybe your company could benefit from using a subscription service like Statista to get access to original sources.

Do you have cool stats about your audience that you can share? 

Maybe it’s time to start collecting data about your audience and community. Lucky for you, there’s lots of tools you can use for collecting data about your audience. 

Here’s are blog posts about a few of our favorites:

Stats Are Better When You Add Context

Hopefully this post shines a light on using statistics in marketing content. Despite the best efforts of  marketers everywhere, it’s one of those things that I see people get wrong more often than not. 

But, you can get it right every time when you provide context to your statistics. Give the reader details like where the information is coming from, how and why it was collected, and what the date was when it was originally gathered or published. 

What are your thoughts on using statistics in marketing content? Any fun horror stories to share? Tell us about it in the comments section.

Original article: The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-02-24T20:36:43+00:00February 24th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, Real Talk, revive, Strategy|
Read More

The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content

You are 72% more likely to keep reading a blog post when the author uses a data point in the first sentence. That’s because sharing numbers makes it sound like you looked at studies related to your topic. And using those statistics in marketing content makes the information you share seem reliable so people find value in it.

But more often than not, marketing writers do a quick web search to find a statistic. Their quick web search takes them to a blog post where the author uses a statistic but doesn’t say where the stat came from. It seems legit enough, so they grab the stat to use in their blog post.

Our dear marketers have the best of intentions. But these wearers of many hats are usually short on time.

Who knows, they may just pull a number out of thin air and hope nobody looks into it. 

(seriously, don’t cite the 72% stat I just gave you)

Always Check the Numbers

As someone who’s been proofreading and editing marketing things other people write for almost 15 years, I can tell you that I always double check the statistics authors use. 

That’s because the statistics aren’t adding any real value to the piece unless the numbers are reliable and include context around them. Don’t get me started on ChatGPT content pieces.

How to Use Statistics in Marketing Content

I’m not knocking using statistics in marketing content at all. I think it’s super important to research what you’re writing about so you can focus on collective knowledge rather than just your own thoughts. And using numbers does catch the attention of your audience and give you an authoritative voice.

But, there’s a right way to do it. And the wrong way.

Statistics in marketing

The Right Way to Use Statistics in Marketing Content

Let’s get you on the right track so you can use statistics in your marketing content and sound like a boss. 

The best way to use statistics is to provide context around the numbers. Then, the reader can understand what the numbers mean to them and truly find value in your content.

Here’s an example of a GOOD use of a stat

“According to a 2022 survey conducted by Content Marketing Institute, 47% of content marketers said they will hire or contract with content producers (writers, designers, photographers, videographers) in 2023.”

Original source that tells you how they came up with the stat

The source we cited here is linked to the original. And the original source includes all the information we need to know to accurately interpret the statistics within the full study. We know it was a 2022 survey from CMI, and the author even provided the survey’s definition of content producers.

After clicking on the link, we find out that On24 sponsored the survey as part of the B2B Content Marketing Report. And the source includes demographic and methodological information on the last slide of the PDF.

Add Context for your Statistics

There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for providing context about stats to your readers unless your company or organization has defined those rules. 

Your company may have well-defined writing style guidelines you can refer to, and I encourage you to follow them. But if your company doesn’t have that worked out already, then you can follow these simple guidelines and share with your teammates. (consistency is awesome!)

Elements that add context to statistics

  • A link to the original source, and check that the link is working
    • Tip: Use a website plugin to check for broken links if you have a lot of content with linked statistics and resources.
  • A date to indicate the age of the statistic
  • The name of the source

Who is Your Audience?

You know your audience better than we do. That should guide what information to include with your statistics. Give your audience the information they need to understand why that statistic is important to them. 

Things to consider when determining if a source is reliable

On the surface, a statistic may seem reliable when it actually isn’t. The main questions to ask yourself about the statistic are:

  • What organization collected the information? Look for studies that were conducted by impartial organizations like universities, industry associations like the CMO Council, and research consulting companies like McKinsey and Forrester. 
  • When did they collect it? The study may be old. This is an especially important factor to consider when using statistics related to technology and economics.
  • How did they collect it? Look for what methodology was used to collect the data. If it was a survey, look for the sample size or geographic area from which the data was collected. These factors can have a big impact on the reliability of the data points and how the data relates to your message.
  • And why did they collect it? The source may be a study funded by a special interest group that structured the study or presented the results in a misleading way.
Tip for our Salesforce ecosystem readers

There’s a searchable Salesforce Stat Library to make it easier to find statistics from Salesforce annual reports. It includes specific stats about industry trends for people working in sales, marketing, service, IT, manufacturing, human resources, financial services, and public and nonprofit sectors.

The Wrong Way to Use Stats in Marketing

For illustrative purposes, we’ll review the WRONG way to use data points in marketing content. 

Here’s a bad example:

“You are 35% more likely to close a deal if you follow up on a lead within 48 hours.”

So what’s wrong with that statement? 

The author did not cite their source for the 35% statistic. And because of that, the reader has no idea what that statistic is based on. The study may have been completed in an industry that isn’t relevant to the reader. Or maybe the study is 15 years old, and we all know that sales processes have changed in that time.

Here’s another example:

“When text in a call to action button is changed from second-person viewpoint to first-person viewpoint, clicks improve by 90%. (Campaign Monitor)”

The example includes a link to the source, but it’s not the original source. The linked source tells you the name of the original source without a link to it.

A Google search of the stat and the original source, Unbounce, takes us to a 2013 blog post. The blog post author wrote the post in reference to an A/B testing case study from a consulting client, but it doesn’t provide demographic info or sample details. 

The statistic becomes less powerful and when you add context to it:

“According to a 2013 Unbounce client case study, changing text in a call to action button from second-person viewpoint to first-person viewpoint improves clicks by 90%.”

The original example sounds like a generalizable statement. But in reality, the number came from a single test that happened a decade ago. That’s why using the statistic in this case isn’t adding value for the reader.

(Hi Unbounce and Campaign Monitor – we mean no disrespect and hope our links boost your SEO😊)

What Do You Do When You Can’t Find Reliable or Original Sources

Nobody is forcing you to use that stat. And if they are, then send them a link to this blog post so you can educate them.

The best way to approach the use of stats in your marketing is to lean into information you CAN rely on. And if you don’t have that information, figure out what processes you can put in place to gather reliable information you can use down the road. 

You could build a process to survey your clients before and after engaging with your company, and optimize your reporting dashboards to track the results of your efforts over time. Or, maybe your company could benefit from using a subscription service like Statista to get access to original sources.

Do you have cool stats about your audience that you can share? 

Maybe it’s time to start collecting data about your audience and community. Lucky for you, there’s lots of tools you can use for collecting data about your audience. 

Here’s are blog posts about a few of our favorites:

Stats Are Better When You Add Context

Hopefully this post shines a light on using statistics in marketing content. Despite the best efforts of  marketers everywhere, it’s one of those things that I see people get wrong more often than not. 

But, you can get it right every time when you provide context to your statistics. Give the reader details like where the information is coming from, how and why it was collected, and what the date was when it was originally gathered or published. 

What are your thoughts on using statistics in marketing content? Any fun horror stories to share? Tell us about it in the comments section.

Original article: The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post The Right Way to Use Statistics in Your Marketing Content appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-02-24T20:36:43+00:00February 24th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, Real Talk, revive, Strategy|
Read More

Why You Should Delete Marketing Contacts Regularly

Like the title says — if you’re a Salesforce user, then you should be deleting your marketing contacts on a regular basis.

Okay, hear me out.

Of course I don’t mean all your contacts. And I don’t even necessarily mean delete delete (in some cases). Let me explain.

As marketers, we hoard and protect our contacts like dragons guarding our treasure. Our instinct is to grow — and keep — our contacts database as large as possible. After all, more contacts mean more people for the ever-demanding funnel.

But I’m here to tell you: stop it.

Why? Because as with many things in life, quality over quantity is what should matter here, even within the gaping maw that is the top of the funnel. 

And for more reasons than you think. Here are the three main ones.

Reason #1: Salesforce Puts a Cap on Contacts

Let’s start with the purely technical and perhaps thoroughly obvious: Salesforce gives you a finite number of contacts to keep. The number you can have varies depending on the plan you’re on and the optional number contact block add-ons you purchase.

No matter how adequate that number may seem at the time, it will start being not enough very shortly if you don’t have any safeguards in place.

Furthermore, the criteria for what counts towards this limit differs between Marketing Cloud Engagement (or MCE, formerly Marketing Cloud) and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE, formerly Pardot… I know one day we’ll get used to the rebrand).

In Marketing Cloud Engagement:

MCE Edition Pro Corporate Enterprise
Base Contact Count 15k 45k 500k

Any Contact record (aka, any record on a sendable data extension with a unique ContactKey) on the All Contacts list counts towards MCE’s Contact Count limit. This includes:

  • Mobile contacts
  • Email subscribers
  • Any contacts from synchronized data sources (e.g., Salesforce objects). 

This is also why it is best practice to use a single ContactKey across Mobile, Email, and Synced Data Sources to prevent duplicates from unnecessarily eating up your Contact Count. 

You can monitor your Contact Count using the All Contacts list in Contact Builder.

Fun gotcha moment: If you’re syncing Salesforce Leads and Contacts and a Lead converts into a Contact, MCE will still count that synced Lead record and the new synced Contact record as two Contacts because they will still have two separate ContactKeys.
Fun gotcha moment #2: Even if you reduce the number of records on your synced sendable data extension, your All Contacts list count may not change. 

You will need to do some additional manual work here to enable contacts deletion from MCE if you haven’t done so already. Go to Contact Builder > Contacts Configuration and then choose the contacts you want to delete. 

If you want to mass delete a large number of contacts, you will either need to:
a) import a list of contacts back into MCE (counter-intuitive, I know) and then configure MCE to delete your contacts based off of that list 
– or –
b) create a REST API call to mass delete your contacts.

In Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot):

MCAE Edition Growth Plus Advanced Premium
Contact Blocks 10k (additional 10k blocks are $100/month 10k (additional 10k blocks are $150/month) 10k (additional 10k blocks are $300/month) 75k (additional 10k blocks are $400/month)

Fortunately, this is more straightforward. Any prospect record with a mailable status counts towards your mailable database limit. 

That’s it. You can keep an eye on your mailable database limit from the Pardot Settings tab.

Reason #2: Privacy Features Aren’t Going Away

In September 2021 as part of the iOS 15 updates, Apple rolled out Mail Privacy functionality that allowed its users to easily create throwaway email addresses for form fills (a common practice that many were already doing, Apple just automated it). 

Eight years prior to that, Google had broken up its Gmail inbox into tabbed categories in a better effort to keep “less important” emails — like marketing emails — from clogging up your immediate inbox. This year, Google will officially sunset its use of third-party cookies for tracking.

Suffice to say: more privacy features are coming into play and more consumers are concerned with how their data is being collected, stored, and used.

This is all great for consumer privacy, but less so for our marketing efforts.

Without intervention, we could face the possibility of having a database where a sizable portion of our contacts are, at best, completely unengaged, or, at worst, aren’t actually legitimate contacts in the first place.

Reason #3: You’re Skewing Your Metrics

Now take the nightmare scenario in Reason #2 and think about what this does to our precious email metrics. If we consistently send to a database of unengaged or non-legitimate contacts, leading to artificially low open rates and potentially high bounce rates, we’re skewing our own engagement rates from the start.

And if we’re relying on our engagement rates to determine campaign KPIs and attribution, we’ll have already introduced flawed data into our analysis.

How to Keep Your Marketing Contact Database as Clean as Possible

Okay, you’ve made some good points, I hopefully assume you’re thinking. So what can I do?

Well I’m glad you asked, because I have some tips for both Marketing Cloud Engagement and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement users.

Implement a Cold Leads Strategy

This is where I’m asking you to look deep inside yourself and fight against the marketer’s urge to hold onto all your contacts (or leads or prospects or whatever terminology you want to use here) for as long as possible under the hope that they’ll re-engage if you happen to send the right message at the right time.

Sure, you can always purchase additional space for more contacts, but why keep throwing more money after bad? Showing a little less mercy now will improve your marketing efforts later. As an additional consideration for MCE users, you also have to contend with a cap on how many communications you can send per subscription term. So why waste them?

Use Automations to Keep Your Database Clean

To start with, you can automate this process through features like: Automation Rules and Engagement Studio Programs (for MCAE) or Automation Studio and Journey Builder journeys (for MCE). 

But the rough idea is to do the following:

Step 1: Put a quantifiable limit on how long you’ll consider someone who hasn’t engaged with any of your communications as “active.” This can be an actual time limit or after a certain number of consecutively unopened emails.

Step 2: Move these cold contacts somewhere else. Take them out of your regular communications, whether it’s through tags, a separate list segment, or a separate data extension. It’s time to put these contacts on a separate slower, low-frequency campaign.

Step 3: Send them an email again in a few weeks, maybe even months. Maybe send them another one later if you’re still full of hope. Give them a few more last chances to show engagement. The goal here is to check for a pulse, not necessarily to market anything at this point. This may also be the place where you can A/B test a few subject lines with pretty low stakes.

Step 4: If they re-engage: great! You can return them to the fold (or better still, use this opportunity to find out what their content preferences are by pointing them to an email preference center and letting them self-select their interests). If they don’t engage, get rid of them. 

  • Put them in the recycle bin if you’re a Marketing Cloud Account Engagement user (bonus: if you keep these prospects in the recycle bin, MCAE will automatically restore the prospect if they show signs of activity later on). 
  • Or, delete their record and unsync them in Marketing Cloud Engagement (we’ll talk about how to do this in a moment). 
  • You may even want to consider deleting the corresponding Salesforce record, because Salesforce has a data storage limit too.

If the idea of permanent deletion is too daunting, you can always export them to a spreadsheet and archive them elsewhere. You’ll still have the contact information, but it won’t be taking up space within your database.

Clean Out Your Hard Bounces

Make it routine to regularly clean out (or update) your contacts who have a hard bounce status. 

  • In addition to viewing your engagement metrics for each email send, MCAE also offers a helpful overall Email Bounce report on your prospects (you can find this under Pardot Reports > Marketing Assets > Emails > Email Bounces). 
  • With MCE, you can automate a query of the Bounce Data view and Subscriber statuses in Automation Studio.

Yes, both MCE and MCAE will (eventually) stop emailing any address with a hard bounce status. Yes, MCAE will automatically render a prospect with a hard bounce status as unmailable, meaning that the prospect won’t count towards your contact limit.

But in MCE, even if you can’t send emails to a Contact with a Bounced status, the contact will still count towards your Contact Count. And whether you’re using MCE or MCAE, if the contact has a corresponding Salesforce record, that record will also contribute to Salesforce’s overall data storage limit.

Furthermore, discrepancies between your segmentation lists or data extension numbers and what your email deliverability numbers actually are could cause some initial confusion among any users who aren’t aware of the automated mechanisms MCAE and MCE use to keep you from sending to unmailable addresses.

Be Selective about Salesforce Syncing

Being selective about who in your Salesforce database gets synced to MCE or MCAE will not only ensure that you aren’t sending marketing emails to contacts who shouldn’t be getting them (e.g. contacts who have not explicitly opted in, partners, vendors, and other operational contacts), but will also help you manage your contacts cap. 

In both cases, you will need to have automations in place that will determine the criteria for your sync trigger.

Now with MCE, let’s talk about the vexing problem of Leads and Contacts and the potential for duplicates. As mentioned earlier, even if your synced Salesforce Lead converts into a now synced Contact, your now defunct Lead record will still count towards your Contact Count. 

How to manage this? Build criteria into the automation that updates your MCE boolean syncing field to unsync the Lead when it converts. 

The Leads object has a number of different Lead Conversion-related fields you can use for your criteria — I like using the IsConverted boolean field, for example.

Use a Double Opt-in Signup Process

Using a double opt-in signup process for when a new contact is created is good practice to comply with various global data privacy laws and confirm a contact’s genuine interest in receiving your marketing emails. It also has the helpful benefit of verifying whether or not the email address on record is real. 

While this isn’t a 100% foolproof guarantee that a contact still isn’t using a throwaway email address, it will cut down on the number of outright junk emails entering your database.

Pay Attention to Auto-Replies

The deluge of autoresponders and out-of-office replies that result when you send an email to a large list can be a painful constant in a marketer’s life depending on a) whether you’re using MCE or MCAE (MCE has pretty robust Reply Mail Management functionality) and b) what processes you or your organization have set up to manage auto-replies. 

But there’s a silver lining to all this: what is being said in these auto-replies can be telling, especially in cases where the auto-reply lets you know that the contact is no longer going to be using the email address you have on record for them (usually in cases where the contact used an educational or organizational email address).

Creating a filter for key phrases often found in auto-replies where a contact is moving on from their organization (“moving on,” “leaving,” “no longer affiliated,” etc.) can give you a heads-up on removing that contact from your own database instead of waiting for the pending hard bounce when that email account is deactivated (which can range from very soon to months to never, depending on the organization’s offboarding process, or lack thereof). 

Save yourself from another auto-reply in your inbox, the contact taking up space in your database, and sending who-knows-how-many emails to an abandoned address.

Keeping Your Database Clean is an Ongoing Thing

Contact caps in your marketing database can feel like imaginary numbers to contacts-hungry marketers until their Salesforce Account Executive sends that dreaded over-limits notification. While it’s tempting to simply pay more to keep expanding your database cap, the cost does add up and it doesn’t address the root issues that could be impacting your database.

Without a little routine maintenance and ruthlessness to weed out your unengaged contacts and outright bad email addresses, your database can very easily become a hot mess, and any cleanup efforts thereafter will only become more challenging the longer it is allowed to go on. 

But a smart strategy (with help from a little automation) to filter and clean up your marketing database will not only be more cost-effective, but will maintain the integrity of your data.

Have any hot tips to share for keeping your contact list clean? Tell us in the comments.

Original article: Why You Should Delete Marketing Contacts Regularly

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Why You Should Delete Marketing Contacts Regularly appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-02-08T15:54:25+00:00February 8th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, Real Talk, revive, Setup & Admin, Strategy|
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Explore the Journey to Salesforce Certified

It’s been a few weeks since Andrea Tarrell and I spoke at Salesforce World Tour NYC about the journey to getting Salesforce certified. As someone with five years of experience in the ecosystem, I have been able to earn many Salesforce certifications along the way and have always wanted to help others achieve their certification goals as they have helped me. 

That’s why I am still so happy I was able to join Andrea as a co-presenter. Our team was excited to share our certification journeys and knowledge with the community, and we hope this post that recaps our World Tour presentation is helpful as you work toward earning Salesforce certified designations.

Jordyn Jaffer and Andrea Tarrell presenting at Salesforce World Tour New York in December 2022.

Salesforce Certified 101

If you’ve been in the ecosystem for a little bit, then you’re probably familiar with the process of becoming Salesforce certified and what certifications are available. But, you should still pay attention. 

The Salesforce certification program is constantly evolving. What used to be a collection of a handful of certifications has expanded to over 40 certifications across Salesforce roles over the years. The certifications are typically connected to a specific role customer and partner role persona that Salesforce has defined.

Salesforce Certified Persona Roles

 Salesforce certified personas are spread across six roles:

  • Admin
  • Developer
  • Marketer
  • Designer
  • Consultant
  • Architect

These certifications are globally recognized achievements that Trailblazers can earn to highlight their expertise and skills in a specific topic or product. Varying in skill level from the initial Salesforce Administrator exam up to the Technical Architect board review, there are plenty of certifications for you to consider in your journey. 

Check out the amazing visual on this page, which our friends at SalesforceBen put together to highlight the different certification pathways available to you.

Certification Exam Details

Each exam typically consists of 60-65 multiple choice questions. You’ll notice that each exam provides a specific percentage of questions you need to answer correctly to successfully pass the exam. 

These passing percentages are important to pay attention to as you prepare for your exam date. For example, you may be able to pass the Data Architect exam with only 58% of the questions correct, but the newer Business Analyst certification needs 72% correct for you to pass. 

For those who have attempted exams but might not have passed, some exams are moving toward just 3 multiple choice answers for each question and could make the experience easier for those who have a hard time picking the best answer for each question.

Why Should You Get Salesforce Certified?

So now you have some knowledge of what Salesforce certifications are, but you might be wondering “why should I bother getting certified?” 

Boost Your Career

As mentioned earlier, Salesforce certifications are widely recognized and can even potentially help when transitioning into other careers. That’s because they showcase transferable industry skills. They are also considered a resume-worthy accomplishment that will definitely help you stand out in the job market. 

According to a survey from the 2022-23 Mason Frank Careers and Hiring Guide, 86% of respondents said Salesforce certifications help professionals stand out in a competitive job market, and 90% of Salesforce certified respondents said their certifications make them more marketable. 

Source: Mason Frank

Prove it to Yourself

For myself and many others, certifications have become a source of personal gratification. If you are doubting yourself when it comes to a specific topic, it’s amazing when you’re able to prove to yourself and to others that you have the knowledge of that Salesforce topic. 

It is worth noting that going after a Salesforce certification with minimal experience is not usually advised as a certification can never stand in the way of actual experience of a Salesforce product/feature. Finally, certifications showcase your commitment to your personal and professional development and can ultimately provide you an opportunity to boost your earning potential.

Story Time! How We Got Our Salesforce Certifications

Andrea and I have had very different experiences when it came to our Salesforce journeys, as with everyone else. But I love that our journeys have slightly connected as we both strive to provide the best experience to our clients at Sercante. 

I knew who Andrea was, especially since we were both based in Atlanta for two years. But I never imagined working for her company or speaking next to her at a Salesforce event. 

This is why I love when trailblazers share their journeys; people realize that they can have similar experiences as long as they show a willingness to learn and lean on the community. Who knows, maybe you’ll join us at Sercante in the future as well… (we’re hiring!)

Andrea’s Certification Journey

Andrea Tarrell, CEO and founder of Sercante and The Spot, began her Salesforce career as most of us have: as an accidental admin. 

Working as the one-woman marketing department for an insurance brokerage, Andrea was tasked with learning Salesforce at HNI Risk as the company didn’t have a Salesforce administrator at the time.

Andrea wasn’t interested in getting a certification during this time because she didn’t see the value in them. But, she started to appreciate the Salesforce ecosystem when she caught the Salesforce bug at Dreamforce in 2011. “Without exaggeration, attending Dreamforce was truly a pivotal moment in my career trajectory,” Andrea said. This was also her first introduction to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), and the experience led her to implementing Pardot at HNI shortly after.

Joining the Salesforce Partner Community

During the Summer of 2016, Andrea decided to leave the Wisconsin area to head down to Atlanta, Georgia without any jobs or friends in place. She later joined the Salesforce partner, Configuro, as the Pardot practice lead and director of marketing and suddenly had a reason to get certified. 

Salesforce consultancies usually request their employees get certain certifications to determine their tier ranking in the Salesforce AppExchange. So, Andrea knew she had to make up for lost time. 

Over the course of a year at Configuro, she achieved six Salesforce certifications, including the retired Marketing Cloud Social Specialist certification. During this time, she also leaned on the Trailblazer Community heavily to network as much as she could.

Founding a Salesforce Consulting Firm

After starting The Spot for Pardot (now officially The Spot) in September 2017, Andrea started to consider opening up her own consultancy as well. Sercante was born and has grown into a nearly 70-employee consultancy with expertise in Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), Marketing Cloud Engagement (OG Marketing Cloud/Exact Target), and various other services such as analytics and digital services. 

Andrea noticed a new fire to continue learning things relevant to her clients early on and achieved an additional six certifications over the course of a few months. She has also been named a Salesforce MVP as well as a Salesforce Marketing Champion and serves on a few Partner Advisory Boards as she continues to strive to make marketers successful on the Salesforce platform.

Still not sure about getting Salesforce certified? Read Andrea’s hot take on the value of certifications in this blog post.

My Certification Journey

Similar to Andrea, my Salesforce career began right out of college when I moved down to Atlanta, Georgia to join the Atlanta Braves as a CRM and Analytics Trainee. 

The Braves were using Microsoft Dynamics at the time, and they were beginning their migration to Salesforce. While completing data analysis tasks, I started to learn Salesforce on my own when I saw a need within the organization. 

Getting Promoted to an Accidental Admin Role

By the time we went live with the implementation in July 2018, I was promoted to CRM specialist and served as the Salesforce and Pardot admin while working closely with the newly hired Salesforce developer. I went for my first certification in December of that year. Then I tackled three more in an effort to prove to myself and my coworkers that I was worthy of the Salesforce and Pardot admin role. 

When I decided to move on from my role at the Atlanta Braves, I took three certifications in the same weekend (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Advanced Admin) to bolster my resume for future roles right before I left Atlanta.

Focusing on Community

In December 2019, I moved back up to Boston, Massachusetts with no job prospects in place. Thankfully, I was able to find a job with my alma mater, Northeastern University. 

During this time, I took a step back from my focus on learning to focusing on getting more involved in the Salesforce community. I was happy to serve as a co-leader of the Boston Women in Tech community group. 

The community group leadership role inspired me to apply for a spot in the inaugural Salesforce Marketing Champion class, to which I was accepted. It was definitely a shock to me at the time since I was no longer in a marketing-related role when I worked at Northeastern. That’s why I worked to earn my Pardot Consultant certification.  I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being a Marketing Champion. 

After achieving the Pardot Consultant certification, I earned one more certification during two years at Northeastern: Education Cloud Consultant. I ended my time with Northeastern just one certification shy of my ultimate 10 certification goal.

Becoming a Salesforce Consultant

Now onto my third and current Salesforce job. I started my consulting career with Sercante in September 2021. I came in with certification goals in mind, but working at Sercante has provided me with a new perspective on certifications. 

My focus should not only be on my personal growth, but also on the company’s growth as we look to take on new clients with different needs. I went for three certifications in the first few months to reach my goal of 10 and display some of the more recent experience I had, such as Experience Cloud from Northeastern, and Nonprofit Cloud from my first major Salesforce implementation at Sercante.

Now as I have moved into a more technical role at Sercante and have failed exams that I was nowhere ready to take (looking at you CPQ Specialist), my career and certification goals have become more defined. I am now looking to move toward the Application Architect and B2B Solution Architect certifications over the next year while continuing to learn new features and products to serve my clients’ needs. 

If you want to learn more about my overall Salesforce journey and my answer to the commonly asked question: “Can someone have too many certifications?” stay tuned for more articles from me. You can also get my take on how to keep imposter syndrome at bay in this blog post.

Tips for Success

Now that you’ve learned about Andrea’s and my certification journey, you may be wondering what certification you should work toward. While I believe everyone’s journey is different and do not need to follow the same path, we wanted to highlight which certifications are best to start with depending on which role path makes the most sense for you.

Which Salesforce Certification to Earn First

Here’s where you should start on your Salesforce certification path depending on the type of role you currently hold or are looking to fill.

Which Salesforce Certification to Earn First

Everyone —> Salesforce Associate
Awesome Admin —> Salesforce Administrator
Daring Developers —> Platform Developer 1
Dream Designer —> User Experience Designer
Moment Marketer —> Marketing Cloud Administrator / Pardot Specialist
Confident Consultant —> Business Analyst
All-Star Architect —> Platform App Builder

Regardless of which role path you take, we also recommend that you start with the new Salesforce Associate certification as a great introduction to the Salesforce platform as a whole. Read a guide to earning that certification in this blog post.

How to Study for Salesforce Certification Exams

When if comes to studying for your exams, there are multiple places you can go to get the expertise and knowledge you need to take the exam:

  • Trailhead: This should be your first stop on any certification journey as you’ll be able to find the following for nearly every certification. View all Salesforce credential guides here.
    • Certification Exam Guides
    • Certification Trailmixes
    • Superbadges
  • Community User Groups: There are user groups all over the world that are run by members of the community, similar to myself. The discussion topic of the meetings vary by time of year and by group, but some might be specific to certain certifications. I helped develop an annual (virtual) certification camp amongst the Boston groups that have met two years now and already have plans to come back in Fall 2023 to tackle another certification. Find all Trailblazer Community Group listings here.
  • Training Courses: You will find many training courses out there, but I highly recommend you look at reviews and make sure the content in the course is accurate. If you are in the marketing space, I highly recommend you check out one of Sercante’s training courses in the new year. I’m taking the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Bootcamp Course starting in January and would love to see some of you there as well!
  • Salesforce Certification Days: These are half day webinars that Salesforce periodically runs for multiple certifications such as Admin, Sales Cloud Consultant, Platform Developer 1, and more.
  • Amplify Study Groups: Amplify is a nonprofit organization that amplifies historically excluded voices in technology, and those who support them, to become fearless leaders. They offer study groups to their members, typically on a seasonal basis, for certain certifications. You can also sign up to be a facilitator for these study groups as well if you’re looking to share your knowledge. Become a member here.
  • Blog Posts: This one might seem obvious as you’re already on our blog site, but many Salesforce blogs share articles on specific certifications to help provide tips and tricks on how to pass them. Here’s the blogs that Sercante has produced so far:

Next Steps Toward Getting Salesforce Certified

We hope the resources and perspectives in this post are helpful to you as you work toward your own Salesforce certifications.

Hot Tip: Check out this page to read more about the certification journeys of my colleagues. 

We would also love to hear from you on your certification journeys! Please leave a comment below or mention us online using the #certificationjourney hashtag.

Original article: The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post <strong>Explore the Journey to Salesforce Certified</strong> appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-01-03T17:15:13+00:00January 3rd, 2023|Categories: Career Development, Community, Real Talk, revive|
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Salesforce World Tour NYC Recap: December 2022

About a mile and a half west of their Midtown Manhattan office tower, Salesforce hosted their World Tour New York for Winter 2022 at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC.

The usual characters were walking around, like Einstein, the Genie rabbit (Marc Benioff’s admitted favorite) and the Trailblazing bear. But amongst the crowds and the usual pomp there was a clear theme that permeated through the entire event.

Salesforce World Tour NYC Theme: Are you a customer company?

From the keynote session, through to many of the product updates and case studies, Salesforce asked the question; are you a customer company? And to that rhetorical question, they had the answer. 

Using many of the tools you may already be familiar with, such as Slack or B2BMA, Salesforce Customer 360 helps you build an organization that is focused on the customer and their needs. But really what we’re talking about here is harnessing the incredible tools in the Salesforce ecosystem to create efficiencies and easier access to data.

The 7 Habits of a Customer Company (keynote address)

During the Salesforce World Tour keynote address, Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff highlighted what he calls the 7 Habits of a Customer Company. 

  1. Salesforce Customer 360: is not so much a single product offering, but the concept of utilizing Salesforce tools to create a complete view of your customer, shared by various departments like sales, marketing, service, etc. The Customer 360 puts your customer in the center.
  2. Create a single source of truth. Most organizations have data throughout different systems. There wasn’t an easy way for customers to connect all of their data and integrate it into one platform. Mulesoft helps companies connect data from different sources to create one single source of truth.
  3. See and understand your customer. Because of the many different data storage needs companies have, they have created their own data lakes to house information. This causes “data silos” and during his keynote address, Benioff admitted this was their [Salesforce’s] mistake. Introducing, Salesforce Genie Customer Data Cloud, which is a new data warehouse product, powered by Tableau, that is deeply integrated with Salesforce and offers real-time, automated access to your data. 
  4. Maximize time to value. Using Industry Clouds, organizations can save on customizations because these various industry clouds already contain the language and processes different organizations use, such as nonprofit, education and financial clouds. Think of it as a template for your Sales Cloud org that contains the industry-specific customizations you need.
  5. Do impossible things as a team. Slack is a terrific collaboration tool and since being acquired by Salesforce in July 2021, the integration has continued to improve. I watched a terrific demo in the Campground (exhibitor area) of Slack’s integration and it really was impressive. Teams can collaborate on Accounts and Opportunities, pull in various stakeholders and work together to close business. Doing “impossible things” may be a bit of hyperbole, but the value for teams (geographically separated more now than ever before) is obvious.
  6. Save time, save money and grow revenue. Salesforce president and CMO, Sarah Franklin gave  kudos to the “Success Ecosystem” that includes partners, app developers and support teams. Furthermore, the innovation from these players in the ecosystem results in more automated processes, faster service response times and lower support costs resulting in efficiencies and profits.  
  7. Finally, Trailblazers! The folks that make the magic happen for organizations every day. Growth in the Trailblazer community has created what Franklin called a “Trailblazer economy,” referring to millions of new jobs, business revenue and community members/groups. I love my black Trailblazer zip-up sweatshirt and wear it with pride.

Introducing Net Zero Cloud

Sustainability is a core value for Salesforce as an organization. Their goal is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Recognizing that this is important to many companies, Salesforce has introduced Net Zero Cloud. 

This new cloud product offers a management platform for a company’s carbon footprint. It helps you track and manage your environmental impact. You can run emissions forecasting and simulations, optimize different areas for efficiency and even work with your suppliers on their environmental goals. Additionally, the carbon accounting features let you convert your energy consumption into carbon emission data. 

The Net Zero Marketplace also provides a place for companies to purchase carbon credits to offset their environmental impact.

Wandering into the Salesforce World Tour Campground

The Campground, Salesforce-speak for exhibitor hall, was abuzz with tons of activity. There were several mini theaters with tree-stump seats providing short presentations on everything from Customer 360, Slack integrations, demos and case studies. 

Trailblazer Forest was always a busy spot for seasoned Trailblazers and admins just beginning their education journey to meet up and learn more about the latest offerings, pick up some cool swag (I left empty handed), and show off their skills. 

I grabbed a seat, err, tree stump at the Customer Success Theater to watch a presentation on the 6 Guiding Principles for CRM Adoption, but missed out when the required headsets were all taken. But don’t feel too bad for me, I spent that time catching up with a great client in the partner’s hangout nearby. 

Though it may seem trivial, I loved the way Salesforce designed the Campground. Those of us that have been to other industry trade shows know that you typically find yourself in large concrete rooms, walking between narrow pathways, desperately seeking coffee or a restroom. However, the Campground was nicely decorated with lots of signs, decorations and plenty of space between exhibits (except during peak hours), with multiple opportunities to grab a snack, coffee or a drink.

The Slack demo I watched was terrific. It was sort of a “day in the life” approach to a demo and you got to see how an organization was able to collaborate with an account and eventually an opportunity. No meetings, no endless email chains, just collaboration. It was impressive.

My Favorite Session: Delivering Success as a Salesforce Admin, the Skill Every Admin Needs…

I was expecting this session to be a general overview of tips for Salesforce admins, but the focus was on one single thing. Arguably, one of the most important skills every admin needs to master. Flows. For a brief introduction, check out this terrific overview of Flows.

What was once done using complex Apex code can often be done with Flows in a simple drag/drop interface, using the same “journey paths” look and feel of Pardot’s Engagement Studio. And what is probably being done right now in your org by Workflows Rules and Process Builder will eventually need to be a Flow. 

Note: Workflow Rules and Process Rules are being retired in Winter 2023.

Overall, the session inspired me to sharpen my own Flow skills so that I can take advantage of all of the new functionality that will (pardon the pun) flow through Salesforce Flows. It’s essential that every Salesforce admin is able to automate both simple and complex business processes and Flows is the future.

Salesforce World Tour is Worth the Effort to Attend

Salesforce hosts these events all over the world and if you’re fortunate enough to be a reasonable distance from one of the host cities, it’s worth it for anyone that interacts with Salesforce as part of their role. 

The learning opportunities are practically limitless, in fact, there is no way to take in all the sessions you want simply because many sessions are scheduled concurrently, which forces you to make some tough decisions. 

The event is sponsored by the few dozen or so exhibitors that are usually represented by some of the big players in the AppExchange. But the event is well organized and designed to get you excited about everything available in the massive Salesforce ecosystem. It’s certainly not simply a trade show where endless rows of booths vie for your attention. Not at all. It’s an education event. You’ll leave inspired to try something new, explore a new product, or seek to sharpen your skills in one area of your work. 

A few tips for your next World Tour:

  1. Arrive before the exhibit hall opens. I arrived about 30 minutes before the event opened and that gave me the opportunity to grab my credentials and get the lay of the land without rushing. It’s just too massive and the lines get too long to wait until you’re trying to get to your first session.
  2. Figure out specifically what vendors and sessions you want to visit. Make sure you know what you want to learn more about and plan around it. If you rely on wandering around looking for something interesting you’ll likely miss sessions that you would otherwise be interested in. There’s too much to see and do.
  3. Similar to the first tip, arrive as quickly as possible to each session. I missed several sessions simply because I was too late to get a seat or the privacy headphones. Thankfully, the venue had coffee and refreshments on every level so I didn’t need to go out of my way for a cup of coffee, which I am always willing to do.

And make sure you check out this blog post from Andrea Tarrell to make sure you get the most out of Salesforce community events in the future.

Original article: Salesforce World Tour NYC Recap: December 2022

©2022 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Salesforce World Tour NYC Recap: December 2022 appeared first on The Spot.

By |2022-12-20T21:28:04+00:00December 20th, 2022|Categories: Community, Events, Real Talk|
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