Salesforce marketing cloud: how to get started
When companies have a fresh installation of Marketing Automation platforms, such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they often fall over some commonly made mistakes. We’ve listed 7 of the most frequent mistakes, so you’ll avoid making them in the future.
1. HOW LONG SHOULD A WEBFORM BE?
As a company, you want to know as much as possible about your lead to be able to approach them with a correct message. And, if possible, convert them into a sale. Sadly, for many companies, the first point of contact is usually perceived as a ticket to ask as much as possible, to shorten the time gap between getting to know the lead and the actual sale.
Only problem: There’s nobody who’ll want to fill out a 20-something form to completion. Go for minimal information (for example, just a First & Last Name, a Company Name and an email address) so your account managers can approach them and work on builda relationship.
2. DATA NORMALIZATION
When you’re going to use personalization in emails, content, … where you use user’s data, make sure you always use the same “code” to automatically fill this in. First Name, FName, … can easily lure in mistakes. Nobody likes to see “Dear First Name” as actual text on their emails 😉 Luckely, tools like Salesforce Marketing Cloud have these features built in their platform, so you’ll never make this mistake.
3. MAKING SURE EVERYTHING IS TRACKED
Mails usually have a tracking tool associated with the platform. What not all tools have, is decent tracking of your webpages. Make sure you have at least an extra free analytics account, such as Google Analytics or Webanalytics, as they’ll give you a lot of information that other tools can not always provide.
4. CAREFUL ON HOW BIG YOUR IMAGES ARE...
On digital media, such as email, websites, … a mistake companies often make is to get some amazing images, but don’t think about how big the picture file is. Result? A slow loading mail or website. Convert PNGs to JPEGs and pay attention to not go over 200 kilobyte per image, max, with a limit of 1 megabyte of images per page.
5. “OOPS, WE MADE A MISTAKE. WE SHOULD HAVE TESTED FIRST”
Most companies do test before they send out to their database. What they do forget, is to test every possible flow, all form fields, all links, …
Make sure you have a checklist on all elements that you’re going to send to your database and what you want them to do. Another tip is to have more than 1 person test everything. 4 or 6 eyes see more than 2.
6. REPONSIVE EMAIL, REGULAR WEBSITE
Image receiving an amazingly designed email, one that you opened on your phone. Then image your shock when you notice, once you’ve tapped on a call-to-action, the website is not responsive for mobile. You can’t scroll down, not even navigate through it. And just like that, you’ve lost interest of your user.
Always think of (also) optimizing the experience for the mobile user, which is dominantly active today in almost every sector.
7. BROKEN EMAILS
What is your favourite emailbrowser to use? Gmail? Outlook? Perhaps Yahoo Mail? Chances are, your customers do not share the same preference. When creating an email in Salesforce Marketing Cloud or any other marketing program, make sure that your email works on all browsers. Luckely, there are specialized tools just for that that our email designers use. Contact us to let us help you creating the perfect emails.
There are many more common mistakes than the 7 named here. Want to be sure to avoid all these and other common mistakes? Contact us for basic or advanced training, or let us help you with CRM, eg. installing Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Selligent, Hubspot or any other Marketing Automation Tool.
