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Customers encounter overwhelming data bombardment, which poses an undeniable problem for CMOs who aim to establish long-lasting customer relationships. This problem is compounded by customers often interacting with businesses through multiple touchpoints. These interactions leave behind a trail of valuable data that often goes untapped.
So, the critical question arises: How can businesses effectively tap into this wealth of customer data to foster enduring relationships? The answer lies in strategically leveraging data to empower CMOs with the unique customer insights they need.
As a Summit Salesforce Partner based in the heart of London, our journey since 2010 has been a testament to this very principle. We’ve helped hundreds of customers to personalise their interactions using data-first marketing, and we’re here to tell you the secret to unlocking unrivalled customer engagement.
Salesforce is the world’s #1 CRM tool and helps CMOs deliver data-first marketing using its innovative solutions, such as Salesforce Data Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. With these two platforms, we can create a synergy that equips CMOs with the tools they need to transform data into actionable insights and customer engagement strategies.
In this article, we will explore:
Data is the key to unlocking the door to customer engagement in the ever-evolving marketing landscape. However, for many CMOs, this treasure trove of data is often scattered, fragmented, and trapped in silos, posing a formidable challenge.
Modern consumers engage with businesses through social media, websites, emails, mobile apps, and more. Each interaction leaves a digital footprint, a valuable piece of the puzzle. However, when this data is scattered across different systems and databases, it becomes an obstacle rather than an asset.
Silos between different departments and software platforms only worsen the problem. Often, critical data remains isolated within sales, marketing, or customer service departments, preventing a 360-degree understanding of the customer journey.
For example, the sales team might have data on customer transactions, while the marketing team might have data on email campaign interactions. Connecting the dots and gaining insights into the complete customer experience is challenging without a unified view.
CMOs need a unified, single source of truth to engage customers effectively—a centralised repository that harmonises all customer data. Enter Salesforce Data Cloud.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, the constant influx of new data, devices, and experiences can pose a significant challenge for businesses to stay ahead and connect with customers. On average, companies now manage a staggering 1,061 applications. This multitude of applications often translates into creating numerous customer profiles, leaving individuals feeling like just another statistic rather than the cherished, unique customers they truly are. Data Cloud provides powerful tools and capabilities to create comprehensive individual customer profiles.
Salesforce Data Cloud is a game-changer for CMOs. It acts as the ultimate custodian of customer data, harmonising and storing it at an unparalleled scale. The result? A real-time customer profile that offers a holistic view of your customer. Let’s talk about a few of its features.
Data is just the beginning, but understanding and leveraging it effectively can be a game-changer. At the heart of the Data Cloud is the “customer graph.” This isn’t just a static database; it’s a dynamic, ever-evolving representation of your customers. Data Cloud’s Customer Graph feature helps define how incoming data streams relate. It resolves differences between data types, ensuring that data from different sources can be harmoniously integrated. It captures not just who your customers are but how they are changing, their preferences, behaviours, and interactions with your brand, all in real-time.
Think of it as the glue that binds your scattered data into a cohesive, understandable whole. It ensures that whether a customer interacts with your website, makes a purchase, or engages with your marketing campaigns, all of this data is connected to create a complete customer profile.
Data doesn’t reside in a single location. It’s scattered across different platforms, from your CRM to your marketing automation tools, e-commerce platforms, and more. Native Data Connectors within Data Cloud allow you to connect first-party customer data from any source effortlessly.
Imagine seamlessly pulling in data from your CRM, e-commerce website, email marketing platform, and social media channels. These connectors are prebuilt, reducing the complexity and time required for integration.
One of the significant hurdles in dealing with data is the duplication of information. Duplicate data increases storage costs and can lead to inaccuracies and confusion. Data Cloud’s Zero-Copy Data Sharing is a game-changer. It allows you to seamlessly access real-time data from external platforms within Data Cloud and vice versa, without the hassle of duplicating data. This ensures that your customer data remains consistent and up-to-date across all touchpoints.
Unifying data is not just about connecting the dots; it’s also about eliminating duplicates and inconsistencies. Advanced Identity Resolution within Data Cloud does precisely that. It unifies millions of customer records into a complete view, ensuring that John Doe from your CRM is the same John Doe who purchased on your website.
By resolving identity-related issues, you can confidently trust your data, knowing it accurately represents your customers. This unified view of customers is essential for personalisation and delivering seamless experiences.
While Data Cloud provides a range of powerful AI and machine learning capabilities, it also recognises that some businesses have unique needs. That’s where the “Bring Your Own Model” feature comes in.
You can build and train external AI models tailored to your requirements before bringing them into Data Cloud. This level of customisation allows for even more precise segmentation and automation. For example, if you have a proprietary algorithm for predicting customer preferences, you can integrate it seamlessly into your marketing campaigns with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
With Salesforce Data Cloud seamlessly consolidating and harmonising customer data, the stage is set for CMOs to engage customers more intelligently and effectively through Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the perfect companion to Data Cloud. It’s a robust platform designed to nurture customer engagement, ensuring every interaction is meaningful and targeted.
Imagine having a clear and unified view of your customers, knowing their preferences, purchase history, and engagement across all channels. With this knowledge, you can craft highly personalised marketing campaigns that resonate with each individual.
Building audience segments was time-consuming, often requiring data analysts and IT specialists. Not anymore. With Marketing Cloud’s Drag-and-Drop Segmentation, CMOs and their teams can create, analyse, and discover intelligent, high-value audience segments in one user-friendly interface.
This feature empowers marketers to respond quickly to changing customer behaviour. For example, you can create a segment of customers who recently abandoned their shopping carts and send them targeted email campaigns with enticing offers to complete their purchases.
Expanding your reach is a critical aspect of marketing. Lookalike Modeling, powered by Einstein, enables you to identify new segments similar to your best-performing audiences. In other words, it helps you find more customers likely to engage with your brand.
Let’s say you have a highly engaged segment of customers who regularly purchase premium products. With Lookalike Modeling, Marketing Cloud can identify other potential customers with similar characteristics, such as demographics, online behaviour, and interests. You can tailor your marketing efforts to appeal to these new, high-potential segments.
Personalisation doesn’t end with segmenting your audience; it extends to crafting personalised customer journeys. Marketing Cloud allows you to activate your data to personalise engagement across channels, trigger automated workflows, and enrich existing CRM data.
With Marketing Cloud, you can design a customised journey that welcomes them with a personalised email, guides them through their first purchase, and offers product recommendations based on their interests and behaviour.
Advertising is vital to any marketing strategy but is most effective when highly targeted. Marketing Cloud enables you to power personalised advertising at scale with unified data.
Let’s say you have a segment of customers who frequently visit your website but haven’t purchased in a while. Marketing Cloud can help you create targeted display ads or social media campaigns for this segment. Using unified data ensures that your advertising efforts reach the right people at the right time.
Furthermore, Marketing Cloud provides valuable audience and performance insights, allowing you to optimise your ad spend. You can track which campaigns drive the most engagement and adjust your budget accordingly, maximising your return on investment.
Data-driven marketing isn’t just about collecting data; it’s about deriving actionable insights. Calculated Insights within Marketing Cloud empower CMOs to do just that.
You can derive new metrics or statistical functions, such as propensity scores, to analyse and segment audiences effectively. For instance, you can create a propensity score that predicts the likelihood of a customer purchasing based on their past behaviour and engagement with your brand.
Data is a goldmine of information, but it’s only valuable when extracting meaningful insights. In partnership with Tableau and Marketing Cloud Intelligence, Marketing Cloud allows you to explore and discover new audience segments.
With advanced insights, you can drill down into specific segments to understand which groups of customers engaged the most. Did customers in a particular geographic location respond better to your campaign? Were certain products more appealing to a specific age group? These insights inform future marketing decisions, helping you tailor your strategies for maximum impact.
When Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud join forces, they bridge the data gap that has long hindered personalised marketing efforts. The result is a 360-degree customer view, enabling hyper-targeted campaigns.
Consider a scenario where a customer visits your e-commerce website and browses several products but doesn’t make a purchase. This behaviour triggers Marketing Cloud to send a personalised follow-up email featuring the products they viewed and offering an exclusive discount. Simultaneously, Data Cloud updates the customer’s profile with this interaction.
When the same customer engages with your brand on social media, Marketing Cloud recognises them and ensures that the content they see aligns with their previous interactions. Data Cloud enriches its profile with each interaction, creating a comprehensive customer journey map.
CMOs can now deliver personalisation at scale, ensuring every customer feels valued and understood. The data harmony achieved by Data Cloud enables Marketing Cloud to craft highly relevant and personalised marketing campaigns.
Imagine a loyal customer, Sarah, who frequently shops on your e-commerce platform. With Data Cloud, you have a complete view of her interactions, including past purchases, abandoned carts, and products she’s browsed. Marketing Cloud can use this data to send Sarah a personalised email featuring her favourite product categories, items related to her past purchases, and even a special birthday discount.
This level of personalisation extends to every customer, making them feel like they have a one-on-one relationship with your brand, regardless of the scale of your operations.
Data-driven insights empower CMOs to make customer-centric decisions, boosting satisfaction and loyalty. Marketing strategies can evolve in real time based on how customers engage with your brand.
Let’s consider this: Marketing Cloud’s calculated insights may reveal that a particular segment of your customer base has a high propensity to engage with video content. In response, you can pivot your content strategy to focus on video marketing, knowing it resonates with this specific audience.
Additionally, Marketing Cloud’s advanced customer and campaign insights help refine strategies over time. You can identify which marketing channels are most effective, which product categories are gaining popularity, and which segments require more attention. With these insights, you can continually adapt and optimise your marketing efforts to stay ahead of customer expectations.
In this article, we’ve delved into how Salesforce Data Cloud addresses the challenge of data fragmentation, presenting a comprehensive solution for CMOs to unlock the full potential of their customer data. We’ve also discussed the seamless integration of Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Data Cloud, equipping CMOs with the essential tools for more enhanced customer engagement.
For those CMOs seeking to pioneer these transformative solutions, a pivotal question arises: How can they confidently navigate this path with a deep well of expertise? This is precisely where Pracedo, a trusted Summit Salesforce Implementation Partner, assumes a guiding role. With our Certified Salesforce Consultants by your side, you gain access to a wealth of knowledge and experience. Our consultants possess an intricate understanding of these powerful platforms, enabling you to maximise our capabilities. From strategic planning to the flawless execution of your vision, we will ensure that you harness the full potential of Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud, developing strategies tailored to your distinct business requirements.
We acknowledge that technology implementation alone isn’t a solution or remedy for all customer engagement difficulties; it’s about leveraging it effectively to create more meaningful customer interactions. With our support, you can boldly navigate the intricate landscape of data-driven marketing, ensuring that every interaction resonates deepening your customer relationships.
Are you ready to take the next step in elevating your customer engagement strategy? Schedule a consultation with Pracedo’s expert Salesforce Data Cloud consultants today, and embark on your journey towards data-driven marketing excellence.
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Pracedo is an award-winning Summit (Platinum) Salesforce Consulting Partner that delivers innovative Salesforce implementations to forward-thinking customers.
With over a decade of experience focused on Salesforce, we work with our customers to unlock the platform’s power through tailored implementations that facilitate achieving business goals and ambitions. Our talented team of over 80 Salesforce professionals globally means that Pracedo offers a boutique consultancy experience, delivered locally to you, with the breadth and depth of knowledge earned from delivering over 1000 projects across our locations in London, Melbourne, Brisbane, Amsterdam, and Belgrade.
Implementations and customisations include: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Salesforce Experience Cloud and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
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