5 Reporting Accuracy Strategies to Get Your Data the Trust it Deserves

So you’ve spent hours gathering requirements, picking datasets and creating the most beautiful report the world has ever seen.  And then, while presenting your amazing work to leadership you hear the dreaded “That number looks off”….  And you can’t quite pinpoint why the reporting accuracy is in question. 

No one wants to be in that situation. But the good news is there are ways to think ahead and get your report the “cred” it deserves!

Here are five strategies you can use to ensure Salesforce marketing reporting accuracy and trustworthiness every time.

1. Create a ‘count and amount’ report

A very simple way to get trust in your marketing reporting data is to create a ‘count and amount’ report in each system.  

As an example, if I am creating a report in CRM Analytics where I have enriched the Opportunities object, I can create a compare table that has total Opportunity Dollar amount and Total count of opportunity. Then I can create a report in Salesforce reporting with the same criteria. 

Why? This allows you to confidently point to “evidence” that the base data is accurate.  One bad join can have a huge impact.  Better for you to catch it before the consumers of your report do!

2. Understand “known” data differences between systems

Salesforce has some datasets that don’t match perfectly. There are numerous reasons this can occur.  Familiarize yourself with these differences! While these differences will differ depending on the source of your data, you want to make sure you understand the why.  

Some reasons include:

  • Date differences between systems
  • Schedules (vs. real time)
  • Fiscal Dates vs. Dates
  • Permissions associated with the Integration User
  • Use of “archived” prospects for reporting purposes in one system but not the other

Some Salesforce Help articles that can help:

3. Find the Source of Truth

Organizations should generally decide what the source of truth is for data when a discrepancy exists.  And that source should be defensible in the “data” court of law. 

Ok, that’s an exaggeration. But a smart report writer would make sure they know what is considered the “truth” (or develop it) before even starting. If the CEO thinks a manually manipulated Excel spreadsheet has the “real” numbers on it (and refers to them), that could be hard to match. Ultimately, it could undermine your efforts to present new reports. 

Getting a clear, accurate and agreed up source of truth is critical. Otherwise, you will spend all your time defending your data.  Try to create that source of truth if it doesn’t exist and avoid sources where data is manipulated manually. 

4. Check for frivolous connections

How can your data connections be frivolous? You can connect (Join) opportunities to Leads using the date field, but that doesn’t really make any sense.  

Make sure your connections are logical and have the same data type (text, numeric, etc). Look for common IDs as this will be the most accurate. Sometimes names can be used, but since most often unique names are NOT enforced, use with caution.  

Bad connections can also make you lose data. Refer back to the “count and amount” section to review how to watch for that.  Finally, remember that sometimes you need more than one field connection.  For example, in CRM Analytics if you would like to join prospects to campaign members, you need both Lead/ContactID and campaign ID or you will get inaccurate results.

In this Salesforce reporting example, we’ve created a joined report and linked the blocks based on the common field “Owner”. As you can see, the owners can’t really connect the data since one refers to Opportunity owner, and the other to campaign owner.

In the CRM Analytics example, you will get data that matches, but it will have no meaning in the report.

5. Identify processes that fill in key data

Wondering why there are no influence opportunities? You can’t create a report on data that doesn’t exist. As you consider what questions the report will answer for you, consider the process. What changes are needed to make it accurate? Who are the “actors” in the processes that drive the data? 

 If you are dependent on Salespeople to fill in contact roles to get campaign influence, make sure you have included a task to verify that is being done consistently in your report creation plan.  Or consider tools that can automate the processes that will make your reporting accurate and consistent (like Sercante Automated Opportunity Contact Roles).  

Often, creating a report is a catalyst to process change as gaps and errors are unearthed.

Reporting accuracy is important, but not easy

You’ve done the work — developed the questions, worked through the KPI’s and now you are ready to create your report. Make sure your reports get the respect they deserve and add the value they should with these five considerations. 

Unearthing those process gaps as you work through the steps to ensure accuracy in your Salesforce marketing reporting? Reach out to team Sercante so we can help you build a strong foundation and winning marketing reporting strategy.

Original article: 5 Reporting Accuracy Strategies to Get Your Data the Trust it Deserves

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post 5 Reporting Accuracy Strategies to Get Your Data the Trust it Deserves appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-04-14T19:29:16+00:00April 14th, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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How Digital Marketers Track Offline Events and In-Person Interactions

In our wonderful digital world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to track offline events and interactions with marketing and sales efforts. People still love sending gifts in the mail to foster relationships and interacting face to face at networking events to generate sales. But how do we prove it to our marketing and sales bosses? 

Luckily, an easy-to-create visual barcode had a huge comeback over the last couple years, and we can use that to our advantage to help track events and offline campaigns. 

Enter — The humble QR code.

Let’s Check Out Some QR Code Use Cases for Tracking Offline Events!

Here are use case examples for times when you’ll want traditional marketing tactics to lead your prospects to your digital marketing assets:

  • Tabletop cards at your event that lead to a landing page with an interest form
  • Postcards included with mailed swag gifts customers get when they set up their next quarterly planning call
    • Plus, we can track the mailed package without worrying about implementing a third-party tool by reviewing the custom redirect access. 
  • Flyers distributed to prospective clients with product specific landing pages
    • Plus, we can measure that the effectiveness of the flyer copy through the custom redirect accesses and page views.
  • Company business cards or badges with your email address or LinkedIn URL
    • Trust us, this works! We create custom badges for our teams at events like Connections and Dreamforce so they don’t have to carry around a bunch of business cards. Instead, they have the printed badge with the QR code and a digital image of the badge in their phone photos for quick scanning.
tracking offline events with QR codes

Let’s Get Building!

But first, here is some background on how the process works and the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) tool we are going to use.

Custom Redirects

This is how we connect the QR code scan to our Salesforce campaigns. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) custom redirects are a base functionality to help track link clicks.

  • They allow you to track any link on your website or a third-party site
  • Clicks show up as an Activity on the Prospect record
  • Google Analytics can be integrated easily
  • Completion Actions can be added to link clicks
    • Note: Completion Actions will only fire for known prospects

Additional Resources on Custom Redirects

Choosing the Right Automation Tool in Pardot

And of Course, QR Generators

The main consideration for your QR code generator is if you want built-in historical tracking of which codes were created, for what, and when or if you want to stay organized on your own. In most cases, the free generators will meet your needs —  just make sure you write down what you’ve activated for your campaigns or save the QR code image to your campaign asset folder.

Steps to Track QR Codes in Account Engagement (Pardot)

  1. Create a Salesforce campaign for each tactic/event you want to track.
    • Keep a parent/child hierarchy for reporting.
  1. Set up applicable member statuses.
    • Examples – clicked, attended, scanned, form fill, booth visit, ad view, etc.
    • Try to stay in the same tense and across your campaigns for reporting.
  1. Create a Pardot/Account Engagement custom redirect for each of the pages.
    • Lightning: Content > Custom Redirects
    • Classic: Marketing > Content > Custom Redirects
  1. Add the UTM values to the Google Analytics Parameters at the bottom of the custom redirects page.
    • Be consistent with this setup for reporting. 
    • See more about UTM parameters and how you can use them in your marketing efforts in the section below.
  1. Add completion actions at the bottom of the custom redirects page.

OR

Create an automation rule to run based on custom redirect and/or campaign/form fill criteria.

  • Keep in mind – if the device scanning the QR code isn’t cookied as a known Pardot/Account Engagement prospect, your custom redirect completion actions will not fire. Using an automation rule will solve this problem, as it will run once the criteria is met as soon as the cookied device becomes a ‘known’ prospect.
  1. Add to list
  2. Add to campaign with member status
  3. Increase score/grade
  4. Notify marketing/sales
  5. Send autoresponder email

  1. Create a vanity URL for your custom redirect to use near the QR code in print/digital.
    • Keep it short or memorable so people can type it easily.
  2. Use the new custom redirect URL in the QR code generator
    • Depending on the generator you use, you can pre-fill form information/variables from the scan
  3. Add the QR code image the print/digital flyer
  4. Test, test, and more testing before you go live
  • Note: You can make adjustments to the custom redirect destination URL post creation without impacting the live custom redirect vanity, long URL, or QR code.

Let’s Take Offline Event Tracking To The Next Level!

Salesforce Flows & Pardot

With Flow Actions for Pardot! A free app on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Instead of creating your custom redirects one at a time for each channel and event, you can speed up that process considerably by using this tool plus the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) API. Flow Actions for Pardot brings the power of Pardot custom redirects into a screenflow on the campaign object in Salesforce. This enables you to create them all at once per campaign, making for a more streamlined and efficient process that follows the same structure across the marketing and sales teams.

Watch this video to learn more about how Flow Actions for Pardot works:

Consider UTM Parameters

If you already have a UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameter strategy in place, custom redirects can be a great complement to your campaign tracking abilities. 

The Google Analytics Parameter section of the custom redirect acts as an built-in UTM builder. Instead of supplementing the end of your URL with the UTM parameters manually, the custom redirect tracked URL will have it already built in if filled out. 

We recommend using Pardot custom redirects and UTM parameters together if you are trying to track engagement, while automating the triggered responses and flows.

Using traditional UTMs on their own will capture useful data in Google Analytics, but it can be difficult to sync that valuable data back to Salesforce and Pardot. For those who are more advanced when it comes to Salesforce flows, you can automate the capture of UTM data to custom fields or an object and the completion action sections of the process. Otherwise, it is probably easiest to automate within Pardot using customer redirects and automation rules.

Additional Resources on UTMs

Ready to Start QR Code-ing to Track Offline Events?

QR codes have been around for quite some time and we’re seeing a big resurgence of them recently. That’s because it’s a great way for anyone with a mobile device to interact with your company’s digital marketing. And you can take it a step further by tracking all of your efforts through custom redirects in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) and campaigns in Salesforce. 

How do you use custom redirects or QR codes in your business? And what other methods are you using to track offline events? Let us know in the comments or reach out to team Sercante for help with your marketing attribution strategy.

Original article: How Digital Marketers Track Offline Events and In-Person Interactions

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How Digital Marketers Track Offline Events and In-Person Interactions appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-04-14T15:27:54+00:00April 14th, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Pardot, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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5 Lead Prioritization Strategies For Lean Sales Teams

Imagine this — your marketing team is generating more leads than ever before. And at the same time, you’re facing a reduction in sales team staff. 

Sounds impossible to overcome, right? 

With the best tools, like Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), and a winning lead prioritization strategy, you can tackle these obstacles head-on and turn them into opportunities for success. 

As a marketing consultant who has worked with numerous sales teams, I understand the challenges that can arise with lead prioritization and management. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more exhilarating than overcoming those challenges! 

Here are five lead prioritization strategies lean sales teams can follow to maximize their impact.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #1. Rank Your Leads with Scoring and Grading

One of the most effective ways to prioritize your leads is through scoring and grading criteria. By setting up a system that assigns points based on the level of engagement demonstrated by each lead, you can quickly identify those with the highest potential for conversion. 

For example, a lead who has visited your website multiple times, downloaded whitepapers, and attended webinars may be given a higher score than one who has only filled out a form. In addition to assigning scores, you can also use grading criteria to evaluate the overall quality of a lead based on factors such as company size, industry, and location.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #2. Fast-Track Urgent Leads with Qualifying Questions

Another strategy to prioritize your leads is by adding a qualifying question to your lead capture forms. This can help fast track leads that are urgent or ready to close, while the remaining leads can be put into a lead nurture campaign that includes emails from your sales staff to keep them engaged and interested. 

For example, a qualifying question could ask whether the lead is actively seeking a solution for their problem or if they are just researching their options. By segmenting your leads based on their level of intent, you can ensure that your sales team is focusing their efforts on those with the greatest potential for conversion.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #3. Automate Lead Follow-Up with Autoresponders

Setting up autoresponders is another strategy to keep your leads engaged and ensure that they don’t fall through the cracks. Autoresponders are automated emails that are triggered by specific actions, such as filling out a form or downloading a whitepaper. 

Layer in a custom redirect behind a CTA button to track which converts the most.  These emails can acknowledge and thank leads for their interest, and provide them with additional information and resources to keep them engaged. 

Lead Prioritization Strategy #4. Qualify and Prioritize Leads with Chatbot Technology

Another tool to consider when managing the influx of leads is through chatbot technology. Chatbots are automated messaging platforms that can be integrated into your website or messaging apps to provide immediate responses to leads and qualify them before transferring them to your sales team.

 By using chatbots, you can provide a personalized experience for your leads, answering their questions and guiding them through the sales process, all while gathering important information about their needs and preferences. 

This can help reduce the workload on your sales team by providing a pre-qualified lead before they even reach out. Furthermore, chatbots can operate 24/7, allowing you to capture leads even when your sales team is not available. With the help of chatbot technology, you can improve your lead generation efforts and ensure that your sales team is focusing on the most promising opportunities.

Lead Prioritization Strategy #5. Maximize Lead Contact with a BDR Agency

If your sales team is still struggling to keep up with the volume of leads, you may want to consider using a Business Development Representative (BDR) agency to handle initial contact with leads and prioritize the most promising ones to send to your sales team. A BDR agency can help ensure that each lead is contacted promptly and that priority ones are directed to your sales team for follow-up.

Use Strategies That Focus on the Hottest Leads

We all know managing the influx of leads can be a challenge, but with the right strategies and tools, you can streamline your team’s efforts and focus on the most promising leads. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) offers several features that can help you score and grade leads, add qualifying questions to form and set up autoresponders. You might even consider outsourcing a BDR agency if necessary. 

By prioritizing and automating effectively, you can maximize your sales team’s productivity, convert more leads, and save money by cutting out ineffective practices. 
Need help building your lead prioritization strategy? Drop us a line to chat about it.

Original article: 5 Lead Prioritization Strategies For Lean Sales Teams

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post 5 Lead Prioritization Strategies For Lean Sales Teams appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-04-12T15:49:32+00:00April 12th, 2023|Categories: Pardot, Pro Tips, revive, Scoring & Grading, Strategy|
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Email Metrics to Track Beyond Simple Opens and Unsubscribes

Email marketers swim in constant data. While analytics often inform decision making, the flip side of that coin means your competitors also use data to do the same. To truly ensure campaigns remain fully optimized for engagement, conversions, and ROI, you need to look beyond the simple email metrics everyone tracks.

Simple statistics such as open and unsubscribe rates definitely have their place, but a deeper dive into what’s impactful and what needs improvement gives you and your teams the understanding necessary to drive effective marketing campaigns.

In this post, we look at two other advanced analytics you can use to further refine content. Then, we’ll dive into two ultra-advanced analytics that may be harder to source but offer practical, personalized insights on an individual subscriber level.

Email Metric 1: Complaint Rate

Unsubscribes tend to indicate when recipients find messages irrelevant, but when contacts mark content as spam it indicates major antagonism against your content. Measuring the complaint rate, or the percentage of times recipients mark your outbound emails as spam, ensures your team has a grasp on when content has become dangerously misaligned from consumer expectations.

Nearly half of all emails sent get classified as spam, so to hit the inbox marketers need to know how to differentiate between content subscribers will find valuable or irrelevant.

What Makes Spam Indications Unique?

Spam designations happen for many reasons, but some of the most common stem from a disconnect between the marketer and contact.

  • The recipient cannot easily find a way to unsubscribe (e.g., the link is in small font or a similar color to the background)
  • There is no option to unsubscribe (e.g., emails from sales reps marked as spam will affect the entire company domain)
  • Marketers do not respect unsubscribe requests and continue to send unwanted communications
  • Oversaturated contacts opt to skip an unsubscribe attempt and directly mark a message as spam

While some of these may not necessarily result from marketing decisions, the unique danger of spam designations rather than regular unsubscribes affect every team’s future campaigns. High spam rates discredit a brand and more importantly cause future emails to go straight to spam folders.

Overcoming Poor Email Deliverability

Marketers must keep the complaint rate low to maintain a good sender reputation and to avoid email providers marking content as spam. Email marketers generally accept a complaint rate of less than 0.1 percent, while a rate above 0.5 percent often indicates issues with email content or list quality.

To avoid this, marketers can take several steps to reduce complaint rates and boost deliverability. Here are some best practices to consider.

  • Permission-based email lists: Only source subscribers who have given explicit permission to receive emails through a confirmed opt-in process. Avoid buying email lists, as these often contain contacts who haven’t opted in to receive emails from your organization.
  • Segmented email lists: Personalizing email lists based on subscriber behavior, demographics, or interests provides recipients with relevant content they are more likely to engage with, reducing the likelihood of spam designations while boosting conversion rates.
  • Engaging subject lines and content: A/B test and experiment with email subject lines that accurately describe the content of the email while ensuring the content doesn’t mislead or come off as overly promotional. Engaging content typically includes useful tips, exclusive discounts/promotions, or relevant industry insights.
  • Professional designs and mobile-optimized emails: Seeing as how the majority of emails are now opened on mobile devices and younger consumers prefer mobile shopping and user experiences, brands need to give the right first impression with clean-looking emails optimized for mobile as well as desktop engagements.
  • Include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link: Sometimes it’s better to cut your losses rather than risk long-term damage. Make it easy for contacts to opt out with a noticeable unsubscribe link in the footer of emails, otherwise you incentivize spam designations. The good news – if you follow the above steps, the risk of unsubscribes is low.

Be sure to consistently monitor campaigns after the fact for further insights. When you do encounter feedback such as spam complaints, unsubscribes, and email replies, respond in a timely and professional manner to not only build trust with subscribers but also spot any developing issues.

Email Metric 2: Event Lag

In a utopia, subscribers receive communications and immediately convert. Unfortunately, that rarely does happen, so marketers need to investigate whenever a delay between send time, open, and click happens. Event lag, which measures the time between these milestones, provides marketers with insights into content effectiveness.

You can easily measure event lag: just subtract the time at which a contact took the desired action (e.g., link click, website purchase) from when the email was sent. For campaigns across time zones, adjust expectations to account for the difference. You can also swap conversion time for open time(s). With this data, you can understand whether content prompts immediate action or leaves an email wasting away in subscriber inboxes.

According to a Campaign Monitor study, the median click-to-open rate, which tracks how many subscribers who opened an email went on to click a link, across all industries clocks in at around 10.5 percent. Campaigns that perform below this benchmark should make good candidates for further speculation into event lag and supplemental analysis.

Creating More Actionable Emails

Improving subscriber response times is crucial to optimal engagement, conversions, and customer satisfaction. Here are some tips to improve response times in your marketing emails.

  • Scrutinize your offers: Event lag times vary depending on the type of desired action. For example, consumers often take longer purchasing high-ticket products compared to low-cost items or requests. Therefore, if lengthy event lag times hold back your campaigns, switch up your calls-to-action to encourage easier conversions. For example, a B2B SaaS company can lower the stakes of their email CTA by switching from a demo request to a product page that lets recipients make decisions at their own pace.
  • Adjust timing: Sometimes event lag stems from an easily determined source — timing. If you find most emails to certain geographies have extended lag times, then since the content clearly gets clicks, adjusting to more palatable local send times could be the necessary fix.
  • Automated emails: Implementing automated follow-up email campaigns to welcome new subscribers, encourage action on abandoned carts, or send personalized behavior-based recommendations take advantage of recent positive engagements to foster immediate action.
  • Segmented email lists and content: Again, sending personalized emails based on subscriber behavior (for example, see above) or preferences creates more relevant experiences, improving response time.

Ultimately, the most important factor is to track and analyze your event lag data regularly, using that information to optimize your email campaigns over time to improve engagement and conversions.

Now that we’ve established advanced metrics to determine who is most/least engaged, let’s take a look at how to apply insights to your most radical subscribers.

Email Metric 3: Most-Engaged Subscribers

Every brand loves their MVPs, but are you doing enough to truly maximize the value they bring to your organization?

The Pareto Principle notes roughly 80 percent of sales come from just 20 percent of customers. Knowing this, maximizing loyalty and upsell opportunities among your most-engaged subscribers becomes crucial for marketers.

How to Recognize

To determine which subscribers have the highest brand loyalty, aggregate the following metrics.

  • Open Rates: The subscribers who consistently open your emails clearly find value in the content you send. Look at how often contacts open emails (and when they don’t) at an individual level to gain future segmentation insights.
  • Click-Through Rates: Use a similar approach for click-through statistics. Subscribers who consistently follow calls-to-action trust your brand.
  • Conversion Rates: Identify the subscribers who consistently take the desired actions of your emails. You can further segment contacts based on what actions they take post-click (e.g., those who purchase a certain product).

Create a scoring system out of these metrics that ranks subscribers based on their level of engagement. To do so, assign a score to each metric, add up the scores for each subscriber, then rank subscribers based on their total score. Going forward, target the most-engaged subscribers with personalized content or special offers to encourage continued engagement.

Priming for Further Action

Once you’ve determined your most-engaged subscribers, foster further conversions and long-term brand loyalty with the following strategies.

  • Personalized content: Segment your most engaged subscribers and personalize your content to cater to their specific desires. Effective segmentations pull data from past purchase history, browsing behavior, and engagement to create more relevant content that drives repeat conversions.
  • Exclusive offers and promotions: Reward your most-engaged subscribers with exclusive offers and promotions, including early access to sales, discounts, or freebies. These can even become personalized, such as promos for birthdays or anniversaries.
  • Ask for feedback: Use your most-engaged subscribers as a focus group to gather feedback on new products or services, website updates, or other business initiatives. This feedback from your best revenue stream identifies pain points and areas to improve, and fixing these shortcomings minimize the risk of churning your other subscribers.
  • Encourage social sharing: Take advantage of strong brand loyalty to encourage word-of-mouth sharing through social media or conversations with friends and family. These campaigns expand your reach and help attract new subscribers who are likely to engage in a similar manner.

Engagement is a two-way street, so ensure you continue to engage your brand’s most loyal followers with creative and personalized communications. In the long run, these customers become your organization’s foundation.

Email Metric 4: Least-Engaged Subscribers

Finding ways to elicit just an open from your least-engaged subscribers, on the other hand, fills marketers with migraines. These contacts have high event lag (or no engagement at all) and are at high risk to increase your complaint rate.

Knowing this, marketers must discern when to retarget low-engaged subscribers and when to remove them from lists altogether. With email deliverability and brand reputation at stake, list quality trumps quantity.

Improving relationships with your least engaged subscribers is a tall task, but several strategies can reset the relationship.

  • Segmented email lists: Notice a theme? Build audience segmentations based on engagement levels, and use this info to create campaigns that target your least-engaged subscribers. Use data such as their past purchase history or browsing behavior to create personalized messages tailored to these groups’ interests that resonate and drive conversions.
  • Re-opt-in campaigns: A re-opt-in campaign involves sending an email asking if identified subscribers still want to receive your emails and allowing them to confirm their subscription. This measure helps clean up email database and ensures you only target subscribers interested in hearing from you.
  • Evaluate email frequency: If you’re sending too many emails to your least engaged subscribers, they may tune out or unsubscribe. If you see high unsubscribe or complaint rates, evaluate how to reduce email frequency, reprioritize campaigns, or change the timing of email sends to see if engagement levels improve.
  • Prioritize: Multiple teams sending multiple email campaigns to the same contacts in theory increase the likelihood of conversion, but in practice it leads to marketing fatigue and high unsubscribe rates. Develop a system for campaign prioritization to ensure subscribers do not disengage due to an overwhelming amount of messages.
  • Incentives and promos: For true holdouts, consider offering incentives such as personalized discounts or freebies to rekindle interest in your brand and increase the chances of future engagement.
  • Different types of content: Try experimenting with different types of content, such as videos, interactive quizzes, or infographics, to see what resonates with your least-engaged subscribers. This keeps your content fresh and encourages continual engagement.

Overall, re-engaging with your least engaged subscribers in email marketing can take time and effort, but by focusing on personalized content, segmentation, and incentives, you can increase the chances of them engaging more with your brand over time.

Final Thoughts

As with all things email marketing, knowing how each subscriber interacts with your messages informs how to best continue each relationship. To really understand who is at risk for dis-engagement, monitor in-depth trends like complaint rate and event lag, so you have an accurate and fresh view of which campaigns resonate and which ones alienate.

It all starts with audience segmentation. If you feel your emails lack the personalization that drives action and conversions, learn how DESelect Segment empowers marketers of all technical abilities to create complex, personalized audiences in half the time.

Original article: Email Metrics to Track Beyond Simple Opens and Unsubscribes

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Email Metrics to Track Beyond Simple Opens and Unsubscribes appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-03-30T18:49:02+00:00March 30th, 2023|Categories: Analytics & Reporting, Emails & Forms, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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Using Account Engagement (Pardot) in a Global Market

In today’s international and digital business landscape, modern marketers often coordinate messaging and strategy across multiple countries or regions. Luckily, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) is an ideal tool to support those types of global marketing strategies. That’s because it enables marketers to find a balance between global coordination and initiatives that reflect the challenges and regulations of local markets. 

Here are functions and customizations in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement that support an international marketing strategy.

Crossing Language Barriers

One of the most important considerations for an international marketing strategy is delivering high-quality, localized content that doesn’t provide any barriers to engagement through the local language.

Enable international users in a single Marketing Cloud Account Engagement instance

Administrators and individual users within Account Engagement can control the time zone, language and data formats in which the user interface (UI) is displayed. 

Languages and locales currently support:

  • English
  • Japanese
  • German
  • Spanish
  • French

This can be configured by an Account Engagement admin upon creating a user record. Go to Account Engagement Setting > User Management Users. 

Individual users can control their language and locale settings under Account Engagement Settings > Account Engagement > My Profile.

Marketing Asset Creation

While the user interface is limited to languages supported by Salesforce, all marketing assets in Account Engagement can be developed and customized in any language. For the most part, this just involves typing/inserting content in the language desired, but the following points detail areas where advanced customization is necessary to change the display language.

Form error message

The native form error message for lacking required fields in Account Engagement displays in English by default “Please correct the errors below.” This cannot be customized within the form creation wizard, but instead must be customized within the layout template. 

To update, navigate to the layout template used by the form (Content > Layout Templates). Navigate to the form tab and replace the message after %%form-if-error%% with the desired text. 

The structure may not exactly match the included screenshot if you are using a layout template that significantly differs from the default. Use this reference for Layout Template Form Code to determine what components may need to be updated.

Encoding special characters

You may encounter situations in which characters display incorrectly when importing data to Account Engagement. To ensure all characters display correctly, you have to use UTF-8 encoding. 

Always confirm any exported data is edited and saved using UTF-8 encoding to ensure data is not improperly overwritten. To edit data with UTF-8 encoding in Excel, for example:

  1. Export CSV data from Account Engagement
  2. Navigate to Data > From Text (Get External Data) in Excel
  3. Select the CSV export, and chose “Delimited” and File Origin > “Unicode (UTF-8),” then “Comma” to open the data with correct forming in Excel

Any custom layout templates developed for Account Engagement landing pages should also be sure to use UTF-8 encoding. Set the below meta tag in the <head> section of the layout template so any special characters render correctly.

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8”>

Unsubscribe and Email Preference Center Pages

Account Engagement only allows for one global unsubscribe page, which can limit the feasibility of supporting multiple languages or unique messaging on the page. However, the suggested way to allow recipients to manage communication preferences is the email preference center (EPC) feature, which enables recipients to choose specific segments they would like to be included or excluded from, in addition to universally unsubscribing. 

Multiple EPCs can be set up under Account Engagement Email > Preferences Page, so customization to language and included distribution lists can be made per language. 

To  ensure the correct email preference center is included in different language emails, insert a link, choose “Email Preference Page,” and choose from the list of available pages. 

Learn about other customizations that can be made to Pardot unsubscribe and email preference pages.

“Not you?”/Form Reset Link

In the form creation wizard, under 3. Look and Feel > Advanced, is a handy setting to enable a link that allows viewers to reset Account Engagement pre-population and dynamic form functions, in case it is pre-populated with the wrong information (which may be the case due to shared devices, etc.) However, similar to the form required field error message discussed above, this only renders in English by default, in the format “Not Name? Click here.”

To resolve, creating another form layout template update is required. Insert the following script between the opening and closing <head> tag in the “layout” tab of the desired layout template.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery/jquery.min. js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

//Replace the Not... string

$(document).ready(function(){ var span = $('span.description');

span.html(span.html().replace("Not","Desired Replacement for Not")); span.html(span.html().replace("Click Here","Desired Replacement for Click Here"));

});

</script>

International Privacy and Data Management

With growing international business, also comes managing compliance with the various data protection and privacy laws in place across your target markets. It’s important to consult with your company’s legal counsel to ensure understanding of the regulations across various jurisdictions. Fortunately, Account Engagement includes a variety of features to enable and enforce compliant data collection and protection. 

Tracking Cookies

Account Engagement uses a combination of third and first party cookies to track visitor web behavior and build a profile of data on prospects in your database. To customize how cookies behave and allow visitors to opt-out of tracking, you can:

  • Enable first-party cookies and disable third-party cookies under Account Engagement Settings > Account Settings
  • Honor “Do Not Track (DNT)”  headers under by enabling under Account Engagement Settings > Account Settings
  • Customize Account Engagement cookie duration via Account Engagement Settings > Account Settings
  • Display a banner requesting tracking opt-in in some or all countries via Account Engagement Settings > Domain Management > Edit Tracking Opt-in Preferences
  • Utilize the Tracking and Consent API to integrate with other systems and create custom solutions

Communication Preferences

Many regulations require that explicit and informed consent be collected before a recipient can be emailed marketing materials, as well allow recipients to revoke that consent at any time. Some industries also require detailed records of communications sent. Account Engagement enables this via:

Additional permission-based marketing resources: 

Data Security

Data stored in Account Engagement is kept securely to meet international data processing regulations, along with strict user login requirements. 

Here is documentation from Salesforce on these practices:

Other Resources from The Spot on Managing Global Compliance

What’s Next 

Need help finding the right mix of Account Engagement solutions to meet your localization and compliance requirements? Reach out to the team at Sercante to get help customizing features and content in your org and enable your global team. And leave us a comment below to let us know any tips or tricks you’ve picked up for managing international teams with Account Engagement!

Original article: Using Account Engagement (Pardot) in a Global Market

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Using Account Engagement (Pardot) in a Global Market appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-03-22T17:02:18+00:00March 22nd, 2023|Categories: Emails & Forms, Privacy & Compliance, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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Create a Lead Nurturing Strategy To Boost Sales Revenue

Lead nurturing is a crucial aspect of the marketing and sales process. That’s because not all leads are ready to convert into paying customers immediately. By building relationships with potential customers and guiding them through the buyer journey, organizations can significantly improve their conversion rates, shorten their sales cycle, and ultimately drive more revenue to the business. 

Converting Qualified Leads

You’ve probably seen it before. You’ve created a great marketing campaign with lots of potential leads. But for some reason, the leads aren’t converting.  

We know that not all leads who enter the sales funnel are ready to convert into paying customers. Even though they’re qualified leads, they may not be ready to buy immediately. 

These people have shown interest in your product or service by filling out a form, but they may still be in the early stages of the buyer’s journey — exploring the market or learning more about your company. Or maybe their department doesn’t have the budget right now.

Enter — Lead Nurturing

That’s why it’s crucial to establish and maintain relationships with these prospective buyers and gradually guide them toward making a purchase.

This can be achieved with lead nurturing. 

Lead nurturing involves building meaningful relationships with potential customers by providing them with appropriate and relevant content and resources at every stage of their buyer journey. 

Despite its name, lead nurturing involves the entire customer journey, from awareness to consideration, decision, purchase, and post-purchase.

Why else should I invest in lead nurturing?

There are so many benefits to building out your lead nurturing programs. 

Effective lead nurturing can significantly impact the growth of any organization. By successfully nurturing your leads, you’ll generate more sales-ready leads at a lower cost and drive more revenue. 

Lead nurturing through content marketing

This is the basic idea behind lead nurturing through content marketing. Customers today have access to lots of resources, do extensive research, and are pretty knowledgeable about the purchases they make. If a prospect is constantly reminded of your company, gets their questions answered, and feels that your organization can meet their needs, then they are more likely to turn into a customer. 

Here are more valuable benefits your organization can tap into with through lead nurturing programs:

  • Shorten sales cycles by nurturing leads through the sales funnel
  • Gain trust with your audience and building stronger relationships
  • Increase your company’s average order value (AOV)
  • Stay top of mind in your industry
  • Enable upselling or cross-selling for your products/services

Key Components of a Lead Nurturing Strategy

To implement an effective lead nurturing strategy, consider incorporating the following components:

  1. Invest in a marketing automation tool: This will enable you to streamline and automate your marketing efforts, ensuring each prospect receives the most relevant messages, at the most opportune times. 
  1. Conduct surveys: Surveys are a great way to understand what your audience needs and build a connection with them. By gathering personal insights about their pain points, interests, and preferred channel of content digestion, you can make a plan for guiding them toward the end of the buyer’s journey.
  1. Develop a content plan: Content marketing is a valuable strategy that involves creating various types of content, such as blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, webinars, videos, and more. Through content, you can show that you understand your prospects’ needs and help overcome their pain points instead of focusing solely on your own products and services. As you develop your content plan, you’ll need to consider and create content across the buyer’s journey.
  1. Leverage email marketing: Email marketing is a highly effective strategy that can drive the highest return on investment of all digital marketing strategies. By leveraging segmentation and personalization through data and user behavior research, you can increase engagement and conversion rates.
  1. Apply a multi-channel approach: Email has always been the popular method of communication with lead nurturing. But with customers digesting content across various channels, it’s important to understand where your customers are, and communicate with them on those channels. Other channels can include social media, website/landing pages, SMS, etc. 
  1. Align sales, marketing, and customer support teams: Nurturing leads is a team effort. Each team has unique insights on the customer that can be uncovered through collaboration. And by aligning across teams, you’ll be able to learn more about the customer and understand what attributes, triggers, and actions identify that a prospect is a sales-ready lead. 
  1. Use lead scoring: Prospect scoring lets you assign a numerical value to important actions such as email clicks, file downloads, page views, and form submissions. As prospects engage with your content, their scores increase, which helps you to determine their engagement levels. When those scores reach a threshold and convert to sales-ready leads, they can be passed over to sales for follow-up.

Types of Lead Nurturing Programs

There’s so many types of lead nurturing programs you can run, whether it’s onboarding new employees, welcoming new customers, or a renewal campaign. 

Here are some of the ways you can nurture your audience based on where they are in the sales funnel:

  1. New subscriber campaign: Welcome new subscribers with a simple introductory campaign that introduces your brand and lets them know what they can expect from your organization.
  1. Customer onboarding campaign: Use nurture campaigns to manage your customer onboarding. Welcome new customers, provide them with a path to success, answer commonly asked questions, and offer support options. 
  1. Re-engagement campaign: Win back the interest of inactive or unengaged leads who haven’t opened your emails, visited your website, or clicked links for a period of time. 
  1. Lead recycling campaign: Nurture leads that have been returned to the marketing team by the sales team due to various reasons such as disqualification, losing to a competitor, or becoming unresponsive.

Nurturing Leads Builds Relationships

Lead nurturing is key to any organization’s marketing strategy. By building relationships with potential customers over time, organizations can improve their chances of converting those leads into actual customers. 

If you’ve built out your lead nurturing programs and are looking to take them to the next level, check out this blog: 5 Next-Level Tips for Your Lead Nurture Program. Or, reach out to the team at Sercante for help connecting all the dots with your lead nurture program.

Original article: Create a Lead Nurturing Strategy To Boost Sales Revenue

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Create a Lead Nurturing Strategy To Boost Sales Revenue appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-03-11T19:54:53+00:00March 11th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, 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

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

How to Create Custom Salesforce Round Robin Processes

One of the most common assignment needs for Salesforce leads and cases is to circulate these via a round robin assignment process. But assignment in the marketing, sales or any other team for that matter does not necessarily stop at these objects. 

A common way to round-robin assign items is by using an auto number field and formula to create a round robin ID, which can be used in case or lead assignment rules or with other automation tools. 

But, this can sometimes be difficult to maintain when users leave the organization or change roles and responsibilities. It may also fall short when you have other process complexities, like handling holidays and PTO.

What if there was another way to manage the assignment of standard and custom Salesforce objects like leads, tasks, or opportunities? 

This blog will walk you through a custom opportunity Salesforce round-robin process. And what’s even better is that this solution can be used for lots of objects in Salesforce, which do not typically have assignment rules (or do!) 

Create Two New Salesforce Custom Objects
A custom assignment process can be created using multiple components and is intended to be more accessible to manage than other solutions with the help of two new custom objects.

To make the assignment of an object more manageable; we first need to create two custom objects; Assignment Group and Assignment Group Members.

Assignment Group

First create a new custom object called “Assignment Group.”

A record of this custom object signifies a group or team that you would like to round robin through to assign specific records (i.e. North America Sales Team). 

Assignment Group Member

Create a second custom object called “Assignment Group Member” and create a Master-Detail Relationship on this custom object so that this is the detail record in the master detail relationship with Assignment Group. 

Next, add a lookup field to the Assignment Group Member to the User object and the following fields:

  • “Last Assignment Date” : Data Type: Date
  • “Out of Office Start” : Data Type: Date
  • “Out of Office End” : Data Type: Date
  • “Active” : Data Type: Formula
    • AND(
      Out_of_Office_End__c <=TODAY(),

TODAY()<= Out_of_Office_Start__c )

Create Your Assignment Groups & Members

Now that you have your custom objects built, you can create your Assignment Group Records. You may have one Assignment Group or Multiple; depending on the objects or groups that you like to assign. For example; you may have an Onboarding Assignment Group to Round Robin Onboarding Tasks within the Onboarding team and a Regional Sales Team to distribute opportunities to your Sales Reps in a particular region. 

Once the groups have been created; you can add your Group Members. For a user to be part of the assignment queue, they must be part of the Assignment Group with their own Assignment Group Member record.  

Users must be related to the Assignment Group Member Record through the custom lookup field on the object. Additionally, the member will not be assigned records if the custom checkbox of “Active” is false. This checkbox is calculated based on the formula which assesses whether the current date/time is within the Out of Office Start and End dates.

The last assignment date can be manually edited but is filled in automatically within the Round Robin Assignment Flow.

Round Robin Assignment Flow

The final step to facilitate the assignment for a flow that is triggered when the record you are looking to assign is created (in most cases, although this could be triggered when a field is updated).

Create a record triggered flow

You can set this up by creating a record triggered flow, and selecting the object you would like this to be triggered on. Set your entry criteria for the flow, whether that is for a task with a certain subject or an opportunity at a certain stage.

The second element in the flow is a decision element, which you can select by clicking on the plus under the entry criteria. This decision element has been added to decide the team/group to round robin and branch into two paths based on the opportunity location. If you only have one Assignment Group for this object, you can move onto the next stage without adding the decision element.

Add a Get Records element

The next step in the flow is to add a Get Records element to find the relevant Opportunity group for the North America path. Add a filter to retrieve the Assignment Group record where the “Name” of the Assignment Group equals the relevant Group name which you would like to retrieve and store the first record only and store all fields.

Add second Get Records element

Next, add a second Get Records element after this to retrieve the Assignment Group Members in this assignment group. 

You can do this by selecting the object Assignment Group Member and entering the “Assignment Group” field, with the operator “equals” and the Assignment Group record Id from the previous Get records element. 

Add an additional filter to only return Assignment Group Members that are active (eliminating any Assignment Group Members on Annual Leave or Unavailable for Assignment).

This time, we will still retrieve the first record, but the sort order is key here to ensure that the round robin works as expected and the oldest recently assigned member is selected. You can do this by setting the sort order as “Ascending” and Sort by as “Last Assignment Date.”

Update the owner of the record

The final step in this path is to update the owner of the record to be the retrieved user from this Get element. 

Add an Update Records element to the flow, and select “Use the record that triggered the flow.” Select the relevant field to update — in this case Owner — and select the User from the Get Assignment Group Member User Id element.

See if your flow looks like this

Repeat the steps on the other decision paths as needed. The flow should look something like this, if you have multiple assignment groups to round robin in the flow. 

Additional Considerations

  • Consider creating a  custom Rollup Summary on the Assignment Group object to record the number of Assignment Group Members in the Assignment Group. You can also filter this to show only active Assignment Group Members.
  • If any changes are made to the name of the Assignment Group record or any additional Assignment Groups created; this must be updated in the Round Robin Assignment Flow.
  • Make sure to debug and test the flow before making this live to make sure that everything works as desired.
  • You can also add in a Send Email Action to the flow or a Custom Notification to notify the user of the assignment at the end of the flow.
  • Ensure that the necessary users have access to the tabs created of the custom object; you could delegate permissions to Team managers to manage the users available to round robin and annual leave.

Great Solution for Complex Salesforce Object Routing Needs

In summary, this solution can help all teams with complex object routing needs or for admins who would like a more manageable solution than other round robin configurations. 

The ability to assign records to users and consider availability in a front end facing way allows records to be actioned in an efficient manner; removing wasted time re-assigning records for users that are on holiday or have left the business. 
If you need further assistance with your business automation needs, feel free to reach out to the Sercante team where we can help you build scalable business solutions.

Original article: How to Create Custom Salesforce Round Robin Processes

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post How to Create Custom Salesforce Round Robin Processes appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-02-16T21:26:18+00:00February 16th, 2023|Categories: Marketing Automations, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
Read More

5 Next-Level Tips for Your Lead Nurture Program

Lead nurturing programs play a critical role in the sales process. That’s because nurtured leads have a shorter sales cycle and generate more sales-ready leads at a significantly lower cost. Luckily for you, the Marketing Cloud platform has extensive capabilities to create a sophisticated, multi-channel, automated lead nurturing program.

Here are five tips to take your lead nurture program to the next level utilizing the best of breed marketing automation capabilities in Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Tip 1: Put lead scoring and grading to work

With Marketing Cloud, you have lots of options for lead scoring. 

This is especially true with the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) platform. The lead scoring and grading that comes out of the box has endless capability and flexibility.

Check out this blog post for a deeper dive into lead scoring and grading in Pardot.

But we’re going to focus on lead scoring and grading in Marketing Cloud Engagement here.

Marketing Cloud Engagement (SFMC) Users

If your Marketing Cloud setup doesn’t use the Account Engagement platform, there are other third-party resources that can provide both lead and account ranking scoring.

Third-party lead scoring and grading tools

SalesWings provides an easy to install, cost effective solution to deliver real-time lead scoring based on web activity and other factors. Once installed you can visually see a predictive score of Hot, Warm or Cold based on a wide variety of criteria right in the platform.

SalesWings Sales Console

And don’t forget to consider account-based ranking as well. Utilizing platforms like Demandbase you can take the lead ranking to the next level by understanding how that account or company converts. For example, Demandbase can provide key stats like number of engaged people, sales touches all bubbling up to a tier ranking to help add additional color to your ranking system.

Demandbase dashboard

Tip 2: Use CASE function to simplify rankings

This one is for Marketing Cloud Engagement (SFMC) users. If you have multiple scoring variables like a lead and account ranking, utilize the CASE SQL function in your automation to consolidate rankings into one simple rank.

The multiple scoring variables could be generated from third-party platforms like Saleswings/Demandbase or internally through a custom lead/account scoring process.

Take this example below on how you could approach taking the two rankings and determining one combined ranking of Hot, Warm and Cold.

To execute this in Marketing Cloud Engagement Automation Studio, use the CASE function to do the IF/THEN (or in this case WHEN/THEN) to populate the “Lead_Ranking_Simple” field in the Journey data extension with the combined ranking.

If you are not comfortable with SQL check out the DESelect application where you can quickly and easily create this custom relationship without having any SQL knowledge.

 Source: DeSelect

Note: For more information on how to use the CASE statement in a variety of ways, check out Mateusz Dabrowski’s site, which goes into great detail on this function.

Tip 3: Focus on essential lead nurture journey functionality

There are three essential activities or areas of functionality in Journey Builder: 

  1. The entry event
  2. The decision split
  3. Object activity

Focusing on these areas will have the greatest impact on the overall performance and scalability of your automation solutions. 

Note: Read this blog post from Kirsten Schlau for more info about using Journey Builder.

The Entry Event

Here’s a typical lead nurture journey in Marketing Cloud Engagement where you can see these activities in action. Let’s take a closer look at the most important of these three activities, the Entry Event.

The Entry Event functionality determines the list of contacts  who will enter the Journey. It’s the start of any journey and determines the capability of all functions that follow. A poorly set up entry event will limit functionality and cause problems down the road so spend your time to ensure a proper set up.

Let’s take a look at the two most populated entry event types: 

  1. Data Extension
  2. Salesforce Data Entry Event

Data Extension Entry Event is the most commonly used version. In this variation typically a SQL query based automation is running behind the scenes pulling in leads from synchronized data extensions based on a variety of filter criteria across multiple objects.

Advantages

The advantage to using a Data Extension Entry Event is the flexibility and complete customization of the subscriber segments to be pulled into the journey.

Disadvantages

The disadvantage is you are limited by the minimum 15-minute sync timeframe of records from the Salesforce CRM environment. So the fastest you’ll be able to enter in a subscriber based on Salesforce data is once every 15 minutes. Another small disadvantage is this entry event requires your team to be comfortable with SQL and it creates a separate marketing automation asset to support.

Another popular option is the Salesforce Data Entry Event which pulls in any object that has a contact, lead or user to be used as a subscriber for sending.

Advantages

Advantages of this entry event is that it’s pretty close to real time (1-2 minutes). As soon as a lead is created or updated based on the criteria designated, the subscriber will enter the journey. This option is also easier to support as it eliminates the need for the automation solution working in the background.

Disadvantages to this event is that you are limited by the filter settings in this entry event setup. If your filtering criteria involves multiple fields across multiple objects a SQL based automation fed entry event might be the better path.

Tip 4: One-to-one content personalization

Here are three ways to deliver a 1-to-1 customization of your journey content utilizing Content Builder functionality and simple ampscript and HTML coding.

First method – Personalization of subscriber values

In each email send you can populate an unlimited number of data about your subscriber in data extensions. To leverage those data points in the content simply add %% before and after the data point. 

For example to render the first name in the subject line:

Enter in %%FirstName%% right in the subject line block:

Or if you’re not sure what the exact data point is called or the exact format you can use click on the Personalization Icon in your editor toolbar.

Second Method – Dynamic Content Blocks

Utilize out-of-the-box functionality in Content Builder to vary entire sections of content in an email using Dynamic Content Blocks.

In this example, the focus of the email content changes based on the product selected by each lead indicated on the lead record. 

The end user will see custom content in the email:

Dynamic Content Block Example

In Content Builder, first create separate content blocks for each product featuring a photo and copy points. Then drag over a dynamic content block onto your email canvas.

And follow the steps to (1) select a default content to appear and (2) content variations based on the data coming from the lead object. In this case, if the “Product__c” field contains “401K” or “Credit Card Processing,” then the content will change.

Third Method – Custom links

Utilize ampscript and HTML to create custom links that add value to the recipient.

In this example, we’re creating a hot lead notification that will be sent to the owner of the lead. We’re populating this email with all the relevant data points in the data extension using the %% functionality mentioned above. We also have custom links so that when the lead owner clicks on the link it will take them right into the Salesforce CRM environment.

To execute this type of functionality utilize ampscript inside of the email content in the following approach:

  1. Set your Lead ID variable based on the field value in the send data extension.
  2. Use the CONCAT function to pull in the remaining part of the standard Salesforce lead record url.
  3. The first part of the Lead url.
  4. The variable set above.
  5. The last part of the Lead url.

And then to make the link clickable utilize a standard A Tag in HTML combined with the RedirectTo ampscript function.

Tip 5: Notify sales of hot leads in multiple ways ways

Marketing Cloud Engagement has a variety of options to creatively notify sales right in the Salesforce CRM platform through tasks and or sending highly personalized “Hot Lead” emails as mentioned above. 

Let’s walk through utilizing the Object Activity in Journey Builder to either create or update records in the Salesforce CRM environment, in this example creating custom tasks.

Select the Object Activity and select the task

(1) Select “Task” in the search and (2) select Task. You’ll want to “Create New” task.

Then (1) Fill in all required fields and utilize the data binding functionality to personalized fields where necessary.

For a higher complexity of field personalization (2) utilize what is called “data binding” in the Journey Builder UI to personalize each task and pull in the lead rank score.

To grab these “data bindings” for any variable to personalize follow these steps:

Step 1. Create your subject line defining the variables that will be brought in to personalize: “Attention!, you have a HOT Rank lead for Company: XYZ”

Step 2. In a separate document like in Notepad, create a template for the subject line identifying each of the variables needed to populate in your variable code.

Step 3. Select the Subject field in the Task.

Step 4. To create the handle bar “data binding” code for the lead score variable (1) Select the Journey Data dropdown, (2) Select the variable and (3) the handle bar code will appear in the subject.

Step 5. Copy the code and paste it into your notepad. Repeat the process for the Company and any other variable to be personalized. 

The syntax in the Notepad should look like the following:

Step 6. Copy this line of code and paste it into the Subject Line space and Save.

When you generate a task it should look something like this:

Step 7. Paste this syntax into the Subject field to populate a custom 1-to-1 subject that will help the Sales team cut through the clutter in all their tasks. 

Here’s an example of documentation on “data bindings” in this blog article from Rafal Wolsztyniak titled SFMC Tips and Tricks Challenge. You’ll need to scroll through the article as it covers a variety of tips. 

Start Nurturing Leads Like a Salesforce Pro

Hopefully this article has given you a few tips on how to take your lead nurture programs to the next level in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement platform.

There are limitless possibilities in this platform, and we’re all eager to learn and improve our programs. Please share any discoveries you find as you explore ways to build successful automation solutions for nurturing sales leads.

Original article: 5 Next-Level Tips for Your Lead Nurture Program

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By |2023-02-10T21:01:10+00:00February 10th, 2023|Categories: Marketing Automations, Marketing Cloud, Pro Tips, revive, Scoring & Grading, Strategy|
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