Salesforce for Marketers: Benefits, Challenges, and Solutions
Don’t let the name Salesforce Sales Cloud fool you, marketers. This CRM platform isn’t just designed to support sales – it also supports marketing, customer success, and support. That’s probably why it’s typically referred to simply as Salesforce. So take a moment and let that sink in, because it’s time to consider Salesforce for marketers.
Over the years, Salesforce has become synonymous with CRM—and for good reason. Salesforce stores invaluable customer insight and automates many tedious tasks. In doing so, using Salesforce CRM can lead to a 25% increase in marketing ROI and improve customer retention by as much as 27%.
Salesforce is highly customizable, making it a great choice for companies that want to create a collaborative process that supports the customer experience. However, 49% of users who categorized themselves as having low to medium use of Salesforce in a survey taken earlier this year said it was due to a lack of understanding features.
Needless to say, because Salesforce is capable of so much, it’s complex. For many companies, getting the most out of Salesforce requires additional work. Yet the extra work can advance your business miles ahead of the competition.
Here are some of the benefits, challenges, and solutions for choosing Salesforce for marketers.
Why Choose Salesforce for Marketers
For starters, Salesforce enables marketing managers to organize campaigns and assets in one centralized location. This makes it simple to simultaneously run multiple campaigns and segment audiences to maximize relevance and effectiveness. Your marketing team will have visibility into the success of campaigns—and how each campaign is driving revenue for your organization.
In addition to enhanced communication and customer service efforts, if your company decides to use Salesforce for marketers, it provides increased operational efficiency for multiple teams. Salesforce automatically stores all communication so that teams can view emails, calendars, and phone-call details in one location. Salesforce allows marketing to integrate with sales and other departments, which is paramount for success.
In doing so, sales, marketing, and customer success teams can share valuable information about clients to encourage their journey throughout the sales pipeline, resulting in closed sales, increased knowledge of new products, and superior service. Salesforce enables every department to provide the right information to the right individual—which improves an organization’s bottom line.
Supplement Marketing Needs with AppExchange Apps
Despite the stand-alone power of Salesforce, over the years, third-party application and software builders have augmented the CRM with extensions designed to perform certain tasks. Self-described as “the world’s largest business app marketplace,” the Salesforce AppExchange offers more than 3,000 apps and components that extend the power of Salesforce. These extensions run the gamut from email marketing tools such as MailChimp and iContact to reporting technology such as Salesforce Adoption Dashboards, which provide teams with user adoption metrics.
When considering Salesforce for marketers, keep in mind the AppExchange can certainly save marketing teams money, time, and resources. It’s also important to understand that utilizing an app found on the AppExchange still requires integration into your organization’s system and processes, but native Salesforce apps only take minutes to install and begin using. Plus, with so many options, it can be tough to discern which technology will help your organization meet its goals.
The Challenges of Salesforce Adoption
As the AppExchange illustrates, getting the most from your CRM is more than a one-and-done process. Despite their inherent capabilities, CRM solutions still require upkeep and modification. While Salesforce eliminates many manual processes—such as spreadsheets and email—technology must be flexible, cloud-based, and mobile. What’s more, configuring or customizing Salesforce for marketers can be expensive and often not a core competency of most internal IT teams.
Instead, the best solutions strengthen your organization’s marketing and sales efforts by unlocking the value of companies’ Salesforce CRM. The tools enable teams to build key account sales plans by synchronizing data to ensure visibility. They coordinate data around standard account, contact, and opportunity objects and leverage reporting capabilities to monitor activity across all accounts.
If you’re already using Salesforce, here are some additional tips to help boost adoption.
Making the Most of Your CRM
When implemented properly, CRM encourages seamless customer engagement by integrating sales and marketing operations. However, it’s up to marketing managers to make the most of their Salesforce experience by integrating the right tools. Modern marketing teams need a software solution that fills in the gaps and unlocks the value behind Salesforce.
PROLIFIQ ACE, a native digital content management app, helps sales teams find and send the content they need and supports strategic account planning and management. PROLIFIQ enables teams to manage client relationships—which ultimately drives revenue and growth. The cloud-based platform makes the most of your CRM by enhancing accountability and visibility.
To make the most out of your CRM today, learn more about PROLIFIQ ACE.