This is a time where the internet has made the world a global village, where all are connected within the net and the net is connecting all of us to a giant marketplace. The businesses are venturing out to capture as much customer’s attention towards what they are offering in terms of product or service. The marketing does not only collect customers to the base but also meant to maintain the customer affiliation with the company. The comprehensive approach for business towards ever-evolving marketing techniques is making a splash in the IT sector for a better product to cater to the need of every shape and size.

Salesforce has already established itself as a reliable name as PAAS (platform as a service) where it has captured a 19.8% share in the CRM market (IDC 2020H1). The next step taken by Salesforce is to introduce a product in its line of clouds which captures another core process for a business, Marketing. Marketing Cloud was initially founded as Exact Target in 2000 and was acquired by Salesforce in 2014 as a blueprint for marketing automation and analytics tool for email, social and online marketing.

Marketing Cloud has come a long way with integrated tools required for maintaining the core process of the company through Sales Cloud and expanding the reach of business through Marketing Cloud. We are in mid of the technology and business amalgamation stage where the two are not only co-dependent but are the provider for each other. The Marketing Cloud is prospering in the market with the simplest of approaches and the latest of tools in its arsenal. The integrated tools cover all the aspects of a marketing approach and are easy to use in terms of UI and logic creation. Marketing Cloud acts as one-stop for Email marketing, creating, and maintaining the life cycle of marketing campaigns, automation, and analytics of marketing effort, social media marketing, mobile-based marketing, create and modify marketing messages for various platforms, and also integration with other salesforce studios to maintain data flow in a structured manner.

We will be covering the components of Marketing Cloud and its business use cases in this part, what are the features of every app, and how they are being used in practical scenarios

Features-

Email Studio is an integral part of email marketing as through this app businesses can create, modify, personalize, and automate the emails/campaigns. The email studio enables the user to create their templates, specific to their visualized concepts, and personalize them according to the customer base they are focusing on. The option of creating customizable templates and delivering dynamic emails on any device is the forte of this App in the Marketing Cloud.

The Email Studio also helps businesses to identify the targeted customer base through Audience Builder, which filters out the audience according to the business criteria. Businesses can identify the customer base to which they need to send the messages, can exclude the specific audience group, and updates the internal systems like Advertising Studio about the data pattern for better targeting profiles.

The Email Studio enables the business to reach out to the customer through driven campaigns with the help of Artificial Intelligence which not only enhances the subscriber experience but also identifies the behavior pattern of the audience and helps in the personalization of the email templates. You can run an iteration of your emails and can test them while in mid of the campaign, the concept is useful when you have the data-driven campaigns for the concerned audiences.

Use Case –

The most practical business use case exists when the business wants to utilize email marketing to its full extent. The basic functionality of Email Studio is email template creation and segmenting audience data through a data-driven approach. The analytics provided by Email Studio helps the business to test their current email models and update the content based on click rates, open rates, unsubscribe rates, and the devices-based data of the audience. The business focused on email marketing tends to rely on technical teams for the outcomes, but Email Studio’s easy approach UI is an advantage for stakeholders where they can view the outcome of campaigns on pure data-driven outcomes.

Features –

Journey Builder as the name suggests, is a package for creating simple/complex marketing journeys which include all the components like email, SMS, What’s App, push messages required from a marketing perspective. It creates a platform for the business to create the streamed aspect of a marketing journey, starting from putting all the audience data to creating a customized roadmap according to audience needs.

The journey builder collects all the customer data available to the business and lets the business create a dedicated path of how and what to connect with the customers. The functionality of different level of triggers based on behavior and data-based patterns which are customer-specific. The Journey builder also provides adaptability by preparing the path on real-time events. Journey Builder provides the flexibility of laying out the journey plan before putting it on the front. The connect Journey Builder provides is unparallel as it can retrieve the audience data from various Salesforce clouds into one place hence giving the freedom of usage of data as per business needs. Journey Builder has given new dimensions to distributed marketing by setting up brand-wise journeys across all the platforms. This app uses deep analytics to engage the customer with tailor-made journeys and optimizing the experience. The sharing ability of Journey Builder lets the content be accessible across the globe thus making it one solution for different departments and brands under one organization.

Use Case –

Business models based on preemptive marketing are the idol users of Journey Builder, where they can indulge and inform the customer as soon as the customer meets business through any medium possible. The large businesses which are trying to integrate their multiple brands marketing strategies under one roof are the intended users of Journey Builder cause of the functionality where various brands can be handled under a single business unit.

A cosmetic giant like Loreal is using Marketing Cloud for better reach to its ever-growing and ever-changing customer base. The company can strategize the marketing efforts as per the behavior patterns data and can update the splits in Journey Builder to maximize the reach/impact of a marketing journey. Loreal is managing 28 brands under its umbrella and the promotions of all the brands are done on a single platform which in turn churns out all the communication issues hence providing seamless marketing efforts.

Mattel is using customized journeys for kids of all ages to create a customer experience that will engage the customer base long after they have purchased the products. The concept of integrating the customer with business even once they are past the buying stage is an essential part of the journeys created.

Features –

Mobile Studio is a platform that is intended to capture the most used piece of technology in today’s world, handheld devices. The Mobile Studio provides the business a dedicated app for marketing strategies focused on mobile marketing with SMS messages, push notifications, chat messaging and What’s App messaging. The focus of Mobile Studio is to create mobile messages and personalize the experience by delivering content-rich messages.

The mobile studio can also help businesses opening two-way communication with a client which in turn will increase the support and information providing capabilities. The analytics part of Mobile Studio helps monitor the performance of the mobile campaigns and deliver the right content at the right time. Mobile Studio also provides a different kind of drag and drop tools to segment the mobile subscribers and creation of personalized messages based on location, demography, and related preferences. Mobile marketing is based on providing transactional and no transactional messages to the customer, Mobile Studio lets businesses trigger sensitive transactional messages to the customer through API platforms.

Use Case –

The most practical approach to use Mobile Studio is when a business wants to expand its footprint in mobile marketing through messages and push messages. The business which relies on providing information to its customer based on triggers and wants to engage the customer through handheld devices is certainly going to use the Mobile Studio. Educational Institutes, Life Insurance business, and Health Care centers are kind of business which are required to have two-way communication with the client on a timely basis, Mobile Studio provides this functionality by integrating data and triggers from service cloud. Service provided by Mobile Studio can help a business to reach the customer in a timely and provide information to details.

Features –

Social Studio in marketing cloud is a social networking based marketing tool which allows business to adapt, engage and create personalized content for social media marketing. Social Studio also analyzes the social data through various platforms and converts them to sales and service-related campaigns. The social platform covered not only converts the leads for business but also establishes a business with related customers by providing personalized content for various platforms.

Social Studio adaptability comes from machine learning-based analytics which converts the social media feedbacks into campaign-driven data. Businesses can drill down the social media data to post level and catch up with the latest trends based on the information provided by Social Studio. Business gets the freedom to create campaign-based dashboards and can react to customer concerns raised on social media platform without switching to multiple platforms. Social Studio acts as a single platform for social media interactions and can incorporate CRM data so that all social media posts can be routed across social and email channels.

The machine learning aspect of Social Studio streamlines the process of social media campaigns across the department by providing the single platform and the data based on activities/trends in social media. Business can create and prioritize their campaigns based on data provided through Social Studio which in turns enhances audience reach. Social Studio provides content-related activities like save, create, share, schedule, and approving across the departments hence removing communication gaps in the process. The dashboard insights in Social Studio provide in-depth information related to the social media campaigns as well as the audience response on the same.

Use Case –

Adidas has used the marketing cloud to enhance the customer experience by engaging them in various product-related activities and providing personalized content for social media marketing. They have created social media campaigns based on the trends based on the products introduced to the audience. This helped the business in creating more focused campaigns and maintain the engagement level to the maximum.

The approach towards better social media presence can be achieved through Social Studio as machine learning provides accurate data to work upon. Social Studio also helps businesses in streamlining all the content/campaigns for various social media platforms under one roof hence saving time of planning and updating without switching platforms. Social Studio also integrates CRM data and converts them for better social media interaction with an existing audience.

Features –

Advertising Studio is an app that engages CRM data and converts them to personalized digital advertising. It is focused on creating one on one customer experience by utilizing the CRM data and providing business an opportunity to convert/engage a customer with the products offered. It mobilizes the data across the salesforce clouds like sales, service, and marketing cloud and creates effective data to guide the advertising. The audiences are always available in the trusted salesforce environment and can be accessed anywhere in the globe with utmost security provided by salesforce. Advertising Studio synchronizes data from all digital channels and the updates are done on a real-time basis which lets a business use up-to-date data for advertising. The social media platforms like Facebook, Google, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitter can be targeted for creating an advertising ecosystem without any integration from external sources.

Advertising Studio analyses the data available on various channels and can identify them into various segments for specific advertising. The data analyses also help business to identify the customers and campaigns which are not active and can strategize advertising to revive non-performing assets. Advertising Studio also connects Pardot and the sales cloud to create a streamed effort for the acquisition and nurturing the data available for advertising.

Businesses can also use Advertising Studio for automating leads from Facebook and create ad campaigns without any help from external agencies. The UI lets the business create and modify the ad campaigns with ease and provides step-by-step information on how to utilize and convert the given data.

Use Case –

Business which are big on utilizing data from the various channel into a single platform and running ad campaigns based on the available data can utilize Advertising Studio to its core. The Advertising Studio let business streamline all the advertising related activities and provides the user-friendly overview of the performances. Businesses can work upon the data available on social media platforms and can segment the data according to the preferences and trend data provided by Advertising Studio. The integration of Pardot and the sales cloud also gives a business an additional advantage as the CRM data can be utilized by Advertising Studio in its optimum state.

Features –

The Customer 360 Audiences is termed as the single source of truth and is an integral part of data management in salesforce. The concept of customer data platform is implemented in the form of Customer 360 Audiences for best utilization of the data available in salesforce. Aim for customer 360 Audiences is based on capturing, compiling, and activating the audience data so that the business can create an effective strategy.

All the data-based services are available on a single platform in Customer 360 Audiences which lets businesses have a single source of truth. It connects the data from all the available sources and let business have touchpoints on marketing strategies, behaviors, trends, and data management within one common platform. Customer 360 Audiences lets businesses unify all the data from CRM and other data sources like marketing cloud, data warehouses, and this, in turn, lets business segment audiences on a data-driven approach. The Customer 360 Audiences functionality provides segmenting of audience data on contact and event-level where businesses can easily identify the audience when they enter through any channel. The UI of Customer 360 Audiences is easy to use and can be used for testing the segmented data on the fly while creating targeted audiences and segmentation of customers.

Customer 360 Audiences lets a business use segmented data across every advertising tool like marketing cloud or any other application as the data can be used as universal. Dashboard of Customer 360 Audiences is easy to overview and operate for all the related information of audience data. It also takes care of GDPR and CCPA regulation which let business operate in provisioned measure. With “Customer 360 Audience” businesses can deliver the right content to the right audience on the right channel as the predictability is strengthened with accurate data segmentation.

Use Case –

The practical approach for business which are more customers driven can use Customer 360 Audiences to their advantage. The life insurance sector where data is segmented based on demography, age, gender, and income capacity can utilize Customer 360 Audiences functionality to target the exact audience. A large organization like ABB is using Customer 360 Audiences to get an overall picture of data to understand the pipeline of opportunities. As this data is available under the roof that helps in eliminating the communication gap across the teams and standardized the process. Businesses can use marketing automation and identify a customer with Customer 360 Audiences and subsequently can structure personalized marketing journeys for the audience.

Mirketa and Marketing Cloud Implementation –

Mirketa has focused dedicated resources for Marketing Cloud development and implantation and is yielding results for clients in multiple fields. We have certified business analysts, developers, and designers to cater to various Marketing Cloud requirements irrespective of the field and customer base. We have completed many projects successfully for educational and healthcare clientele in Marketing Cloud helping them to understand the tools in Marketing Cloud and implementing for best results. We have provided consultations to the clients so that they can grasp the exact nature of Marketing Cloud tools and given training on Marketing Cloud tools. The method we use for the Marketing Cloud projects is understanding the business needs, the customer base the business wants to work with, and providing solutions accordingly. We handle not only the implementation but also the support part where we extend functionalities in ongoing projects, setting up different tools which are required for Marketing Cloud and providing updated information on the release done by Salesforce. The team is continuously engaged with the latest updates in Marketing Cloud, and we also train new resources on the platform to always provide backup for clients. We also organize timely training to all the resources as well as encourage the existing resource to broaden their knowledge by attending Marketing Cloud web seminars and certification conducted by Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Mirketa team is dedicated to the ever-evolving Marketing Cloud domain in Salesforce and to keep the client aware of the latest trends/tools available in Marketing Cloud.