Salesforce Marketing Cloud comes with ten products than can help businesses reach customers in new and exciting ways. By understanding different audience segments and carefully targeting specific communication packages for precise steps in a customer’s journey, businesses can maximize customer engagement and increase sales. But all of this is easier said than done. Without the proper training and best practices knowledge, the customer journey can become segmented. In order to create seamless journeys, we have compiled a list of tips and tricks to help our customers get the most out of Marketing Cloud.

Using A Predefined Journey Skeleton

Journey Builder is an important component of Marketing Cloud, and it allows companies to define different journeys for specific customer segments. And while different segments may experience unique journeys, it can be useful for them to follow a loose structure. Regardless of the segment details, a journey should always contain phases for awareness, acquisition, onboarding, engagement, and retention. It is possible to vary the different kinds of communications sent during these stages, but all five should exist in one form or another.

• Awareness – this stage is all about making potential customers aware of a business or product’s existence. Typically, companies cast a wide net during this stage, but they can also carefully target communications to pre-established leads. The goal of the awareness stage is to inform the target audience about possible purchases.
• Acquisition – during this stage, customers should be reeled in with targeted messages about their interested topics. Using CRM data, communications personalized with customer preferences can convert interested parties into ones ready to commit to a sale. Abandoned shopping cart communications are popular during this phase.
• Onboarding – after customers have been acquired, welcome messages are common to send during the onboarding stage. This stage introduces customers to a business and its additional benefits so they can explore different possibilities for the future.
• Engagement – it is important to engage onboarded members frequently to maximize sales opportunities. During this stage, newsletters and messages containing cross selling opportunities can entice customers to make additional purchases.
• Retention – Once a customer reaches the retention stage, they are already an interested and established buyer. It is now a company’s job to keep them engaged, using tactics like loyalty programs and promotions.

Choosing The Most Effective Channels

Not all communication channels are created equal, and each stage of a journey can benefit from different forms of communication. Different channels can be combined in single stages or a single channel can be used through multiple stages to create the most cohesive customer experience possible. The end goal is always to ensure that the customer gets the right information at the right time through the correct means. By understanding the pros and cons of each communication channel, you can decide how to use each tool to its fullest.

• Email – emails can contain a large amount of information with detailed graphics. They can be personalized and are useful tools for many different stages of the customer journey. They can be used to distribute links, videos, images, and even forms for information submission.
• Mobile – mobile communications are ideal for when you want to solicit real-time responses and engagement. Messages with a high level of importance or ones that need to be seen right away are ideal for this type of communication. It offers simple yet instant information transfer to your leads or customers through SMS or app notifications.
• Ads – ads are great for increasing awareness, capturing leads, or even converting. They offer single push-based information and can be targeted to specific audience segments.
• Social Media – similar to ads, social media posts can reach large audiences to inform. With commenting features turned on, they can also turn into a way to solicit feedback and increase engagement with promotions or contests.

Personalize As Much As Possible

Basic human psychology dictates that people like to feel unique. With Marketing Cloud, you can use this simple information to personalize as many communications as possible. This means using CRM data to provide personalized product recommendations, customer updates, promotions, and even greetings. The simplest touches can make the biggest differences. By making each customer feel like you are taking the time out to reach out to them individually, they are more likely to read your messages and engage with your business. Some contact points where personalization can make a difference are:

• Message greetings
• Abandoned cart reminders
• Product recommendations
• Blog post publications
• Promotional material
• Loyalty program communications
• Anniversary discounts

Using Data To Improve The Experience

Early on, it’s important to define key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to evaluate journey effectiveness. Understanding the data points that indicate campaign effectiveness can help you design and tweak your strategy as it unfolds. Every journey has a purpose, and it is important to determine what makes your customers’ journeys successes or failures. From there, you can use tools like Datorama or Google Analytics 360 to measure the impact that your marketing campaigns have on customer engagement and satisfaction. In the spirit of continuous improvement, you can then use this data to refine your future campaign strategy.

Get An Expert’s Help

Tips and tricks guides can only help so much. Every business is different and every communication strategy should take these differences into account. While the information above is a great place to get started, consulting an expert to help you with your Marketing Cloud strategy can make an even bigger difference. Speak to a team member at Ntegro about how to optimize your business with Marketing Cloud by reaching out online for a free consultation.