I think we need to do more to celebrate the work that Pardot and Marketing Operations pros do. I’ll explain why.
But first, a random story.
A mysterious package
One day a large brown box from Crystal Cave showed up at my door. It was addressed to me.
“I didn’t order this,”
I grumbled to myself, kicking it to the corner of my foyer. I assumed it was my hubby’s or something. Maybe a gift? I didn’t think too hard about it.
After a week of tripping over this thing, I finally opened the box. It was lined with dark blue satin and held a large crystal prism with the words “B2B Marketing Partner of the Year” etched into it.
I had so many questions.
What is a B2B Marketing Partner of the year?
How did we get nominated?
Who were the judges?
Who did we compete with?
Whatever the source of this mysterious sparkly object, I was excited, so I posted it in Slack to show the Sercante team:
I patiently waited to hear the backstory from the anonymous awarder.
But no one said anything.
Someone suggested saying the engraved part in Latin in hopes the incantation would reveal its purpose and unleash its power.
That did not prove effective.
So I reached out to our Partner Account Manager. No clue, had never heard of it.
I reached out to Pardot. Also had never heard of it.
In the absence of an actual documented reason for the trophy, I turned to introspection.
“Maybe the best trophy is the one we give ourselves.”
“Maybe the real trophy is the friends we made along the way.”
I briefly considered mailing people I respect in the ecosystem unsolicited trophies for “best hair” or “most likely to sleep through a Dreamforce keynote” and other such superlatives.
Anyway, it’s been 10 months now. I still have no idea who sent me this thing, but sometimes I do curls with it on calls because it weighs at least 10 pounds.
The recognition gap in marketing operations
The strangeness of this aside, one of the things this random trophy got me thinking about is that this is a hard field to find recognition in.
The role of Pardot Admin is weird in that if you’re doing everything right, a lot of times no one will notice anything. If your automations are firing behind the scenes, data is getting cleaned, leads are getting routed, opportunities are getting nurtured… it’s kind of just business as usual. When someone notices it’s often because something bad happened.
It’s also tough to be a solo admin and not have someone to share successes with. There aren’t many places to say “I built this!” and celebrate what worked.
That’s one of the reasons the ParDreamin’ team has decided to include an award show in this year’s ParDreamin’ conference. We’re calling it the ParDreamies. And yes, there will be crystal trophies.
About the ParDreamies, the first-ever Pardot awards
People do really cool stuff in Pardot, and we want to recognize them for it.
The ParDreamies Awards will honor Pardot community members for finding creative and thoughtful methods to reach business goals using the power of the Pardot platform.
Please consider submitting your work or nominating someone that you know that’s crushing it on the platform. Here are the most important things to know:
Deadline to enter
You have to submit your entry before the deadline for a chance to win. The deadline for entering is October 15, 2021.
Eligibility
The competition is open to all individuals, companies, and organizations involved in producing any marketing and communication materials utilizing the Pardot platform for external or internal audiences.
To be eligible, an entry must have been produced after January 1, 2020.
Entry Fee
The ParDreamies inaugural event is launching with FREE submissions.
Award categories
1: Personalization Perfection: Right-time, right-message marketing
2: Social Impact: Creating positive change through Pardot
3: Grassroots Innovation: Scaling small business with Pardot
4: Extending Pardot: API-driven solutions
All entries will also be submitted into the Best In Show category. See who will be crowned the overall winner of 2021.
When you’ll see the winners
We’ll announce the winners of the ParDreamies Awards during the VIP After Party taking place October 28, 2021 @ 4 p.m. ET – 6:30 p.m. ET.
Be sure to sign up for a VIP pass to ParDreamin’ so you can cheer for the winners during the live event!
Submit your entries for the Pardot Awards!
What better way to recognize a client or someone you know from the community who is crushing it? Or to celebrate your own hard-earned wins on the platform?
The entry form is quick and easy… so get yours in!
