5 Reasons Marketers Struggle With Salesforce Marketing Cloud And Account Engagement (Pardot) And How To Solve Them

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including the well-known ‘Account Engagement’ feature (previously known as ‘Pardot’), is a platform with a huge range of capabilities across the marketing mix. With tools for customer account based marketing (ABM), journey management, email, mobile, social, web personalization, advertising, content creation and management, and data analysis, this platform is pretty much a one-ring-to-rule-them-all* for marketers.

* excuse our Lord of The Rings reference – we’re not just salesforce nerds, we’re also movie nerds…

The problem is, as amazing as they are, many marketers struggle to make the platform work for them, so they end up in one of three groups:

Group 1 – Marketers that are using Marketing Cloud but not making the most of it

Group 2 – Marketers that end up dropping their Salesforce subscription because they don’t see any benefit to using it

Group 3 – Marketers that never use the platform in the first place because they don’t see how it will benefit them

There are many reasons that this happens, but it all boils down to 5 key issues. In this blog, we’re exploring each of these 5 issues and proposing a solution to each one. So, once you’re done reading, you can remove yourself from group 1/2/3 and pop yourself in group 4 – the marketers that use Marketing Cloud effectively, saving themselves time and effort and vastly improving their ROI.

1. LACK OF QUALITY, INTEGRATED DATA

The Problem:
Many businesses struggle to implement Salesforce solutions due to issues with their data. It may be that there is not enough quality data, that they don’t have access to the right data, or that their data is siloed and difficult to interpret. This can lead to difficulties integrating your data and can render key marketing decisions almost impossible to make.

The Solution:
By integrating and aligning all data sources, you can view all the information you need in one place, enabling marketers to make informed decisions about their activity based on customer data.

2. LACK OF PERSONALISED COMMUNICATIONS

The Problem:
For most customers, there is nothing less interesting than receiving a bulk marketing email or other communication. It can feel impersonal, out-of-touch, and the majority of the time your customer simply won’t open or read it, let alone engage with it. But, despite the proven success of targeted marketing, many marketers still struggle to send out personalised communications.

The Solution:
By analysing your customer data and segmenting your audience, you can create customised user journeys that meet the needs of each unique segment. These user journeys will consist of several touchpoints, tailored to the preferences of the customer, each designed to prevent drop-off and increase conversions. Better targeting = better ROI.

3. LACK OF AUTOMATION

The Problem:
Without automation, sending out communications to a large audience can be both expensive and laborious, particularly when your organisation exists in many markets and/or manages multiple brands.

The Solution:
With the right audience segmentation, the right integration and the right automation, multi-market and multi-brand communications can be relatively simple and, surprisingly, pretty cheap.

4. LACK OF ANALYTICS DATA

The Problem:
You do not have access to analytics for all of your marketing channels, making it difficult to understand what is going right and what might be going wrong (and why).

The Solution:
When set up correctly, omnichannel marketing (and we mean genuine omnichannel, not multi-channel in disguise) can provide 360° actionable insights so you can find the source of a success or a failure instantly and adjust your strategy accordingly.

5. LACK OF SKILLS

The Problem:
You do not have the right resources to execute complex marketing strategies internally. Your marketing team is full of talent but is not equipped to carry out the solutions we have highlighted in the previous 4 sections of this blog.

The Solution:
Digital empowerment. By upskilling your team or looping in the right external resources, you can create a team that is capable of carrying out the marketing strategy of your dreams right now. And, by providing the right training and development opportunities, you can build an internal team that is capable of doing it all without external support in the near future.

So, you’ve identified the problem that is stopping you from excelling in your marketing strategy. You know why you’re part of marketer group 1/2/3 and you’re ready to join group 4. But how do you do it?

At Trigg Digital, helping Salesforce users (and future Salesforce users) to solve their problems and get the most out of their chosen products is what we do. For support finding, implementing, analysing and adjusting your ideal solution – or for help upskilling your team to be able to leverage the best that Marketing Cloud has to offer – get in touch today. Alternatively, visit our website to book a free Salesforce Health Check.