Pro Tips Archives - Page 17 of 48

Analytics & Reporting, Data Management, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips
October 4, 2023

How to Update Marketing Personas Using Salesforce Flow

Mike Morris

It’s very common for sales and marketing teams to leverage title-based “personas” to influence their activities. Knowing who you are speaking to can radically alter the message content, type, and frequency needed to progress the buying process. In this post, we’ll address why and how to update marketing persona fields in Salesforce using Flow to assist sales and marketing.

Why Use Flow to Update Marketing Personas?

Let’s start with a very simple question. Why flow? The answer is really based on where your data lives and who needs access to it. I’ve used Engagement Studio in Account Engagement to update persona values in the past, but what happens if the prospect is not in Account Engagement? That’s right — no persona will be updated.

This solution accounts for the fact that all Salesforce data might not be syncing to Account Engagement (or Marketing Cloud Engagement) and that sales still needs persona values.

Step 1 – Understand Your Buyers and Influencers

Before we can classify records, we first need to understand who is buying from us, who is influential in the purchase decision, and who is not (this is just as important). This is best achieved by analyzing data and speaking to your sales team.

Analyze the data

Create reports based on closed won opportunities and look at the contact roles for job titles that stand out. Odds are there will be clear winners – titles that appear with greater frequency. It’s also likely that you’ll see a mix of the people who actually use your product and a level above them (based on the purchasing authority needed to complete the transaction).

Talk to sales

Chat with some of the top sales representatives to find out where they are having success. Are there certain leads that they cherry-pick based on job titles? Are there certain leads that they deprioritize based on the same criteria?

Step 2 – Group your data

Now that we know what titles we should be going after (and those that we should avoid), we need to group them into “Personas” (think of these as containers that hold records with similar/related titles). These are the values that we will be populating from our flow and will be used in future segmentation.

It’s important to create values for those that you want to target and those that you do not. An exclusion persona can be just as valuable as a target persona.

Target Personas

Records that are buying from you or are key influencers in the purchase process.

Exclusion Personas

Records that are in your system that do not buy from you and should not be included in campaigns.

Examples could include: Marketing, Sales, Students, and Human Resources to name a few.

Once you have your target and exclusion persona values defined, create custom “Persona” fields (picklist) on the lead and contact objects. I like using global picklists when creating picklists with the same values between objects. Global picklists speed the setup, are great for ensuring consistency, and make maintenance a breeze (should more values need to be added in the future).

Don’t forget to:

Use the same API name on both objects when creating custom fields (this is critical if you want to map the fields back to Account Engagement).
Map the lead field to the contact field on conversion.

Example: Global Picklist Value Set

Step 3 – Determine Keywords

Now that we know what titles we should be going after (and those that we should avoid), and we’ve defined the groups that we would like to use for categorization, we need to identify keywords that can be used to query the records (actually – we’ll be using them in formulas). It would be great if titles were standardized, but they are not. Based on this, we are going to look for common factors.

Example: Marketing

Here are some common marketing titles. It would be great if “marketing” was included in all of them, but it’s not. Therefore, we’re going to use keywords like: marketing, brand manager, campaign, content, media relations, product research, SEM, and SEO in our formula to make sure that we properly tag our records.

Brand manager
Campaign manager
Channel marketing director
Chief marketing officer
Content marketing manager
Content specialist
Digital marketing manager
Director of email marketing
Internet marketing specialist
Media relations coordinator
Product research analyst
SEM manager
SEO specialist
Web marketing manager

Step 4 – Create the Flow (In Sandbox)

We’re going to use a record-triggered flow to update our persona values. The flow will automatically update the persona value when the title field is updated. Since contacts and leads are distinct objects, a flow will need to be created for each object.

Here’s an example of what a very basic flow would look like. This flow is just updating the value to be Marketing, Human Resources, or Other. A full version of this flow would contain many more paths.

Configure Start

This flow is based on the lead object and is triggered when a record is created or updated. Since we don’t want to trigger the flow whenever a lead is updated, we’re using a formula to set the entry conditions. We want the flow to run only when new leads are created (and the title is not blank) or the title field of existing leads is updated to a non-blank value.

Finally, the flow will be optimized for Fast Field Updates, since we are updating fields on the same object.

Create Persona Formulas

This is probably the hardest part of this process. We are going to need to create formulas for each of our persona groups using the keywords that we’ve already defined. It’s important to note that formulas are case-sensitive by default. This is good in some cases but could cause records to be missed in other situations. Fortunately, we can address this as well.

Sample Formula 1

This formula selects the marketing keywords that we identified, but it’s case-sensitive. It would evaluate “True” for a lead with the title “digital marketing manager”, but would not for the title “Digital Marketing Manager”.

OR(

/* Title contains any of these title strings */

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “marketing”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “brand manager”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “campaign”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “content”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “Content marketing manager”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “media relations”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “product research”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “SEM”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “SEO”)

)

Sample Formula 2

This updated formula evaluates the same keywords that were identified but addresses the case sensitivity issue. Here, we’ve used a function to convert the titles to lowercase and then compared them to a lowercase value. This formula would evaluate “True” for the titles “digital marketing manager”, “Digital Marketing Manager”, or “DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER”.

OR(

/* Title contains any of these title strings */

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “marketing”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “brand manager”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “campaign”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “content”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “content marketing manager”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “media relations”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “product research”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “sem”),

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “seo”)

)

Sample Formula 3

Sometimes, you are going to need a mix of case sensitivity and case insensitivity. As an example, we would not want to update any job title that contains “hr” to Human Resources. This could lead to a lot of false matches. In this case, only titles that contain “HR” in all capitals will evaluate “True”.

OR(

/* Title contains any of these title strings */

CONTAINS(LOWER({!$Record.Title}), “human resources”),

CONTAINS({!$Record.Title}, “HR”)

)

Sample Formula 4

There are also going to be times when you need to look for a specific value, like CEO, and also look for title strings. We can do that too!

OR(

/* Title is any of these values */

{!$Record.Title} = “CEO”,

/* Title contains any of these title strings */

CONTAINS(LOWER($Record.Title), “chief executive”),

CONTAINS(LOWER($Record.Title), “president”)

)

As you can see, there’s a fair bit of work involved in creating and testing the formulas. That’s why working in a sandbox is critical. If you can get all the formulas to update all the values exactly as you would like on the first try, I encourage you to check out our careers page!

Configure Flow Elements

Each path includes a Decision and an Update Records element (learn more about Flow Elements). We’ll walk through the marketing paths and the same logic can be applied to additional paths. The only difference is that the “No” outcome for the final decision should update the persona value to “Other”. We want to add a value to leads that don’t match any of our formulas for two reasons.

We want to verify that they were processed by the flow.
We want to be able to identify the leads that were not matched by our formulas so we can evaluate and improve. This is VERY important.

Decision Element

The element is pretty straightforward. The “True” outcome looks for leads where the marketing formula evaluates to “True”. Leads that do not evaluate true progress down the “False” outcome and move to the next decision element.

Update Records

Leads that match the “True” outcome conditions then proceed to the Update Records element. This is where the magic happens and the record is updated in Salesforce.

Debug

The final step before activating your flow is to do some debugging. Test by updating the titles of a few leads to make sure that they progress down the correct path, Be sure to vary the case of the titles to make sure that upper, lower, and mixed cases work as expected.

Step 5 – Rinse and Repeat

Once deployed into production, your flow is not going to be perfect. There are going to be some records that are classified as “Other” that should fall into other categories. That’s OK!

The final step is to do regular reviews and updates of the records that have the “Other” persona. It’s possible that we missed a keyword on our first pass or that a new hot title has emerged. I compare this a lot to scores in Account Engagement. You don’t quit once you define your scoring model, you evaluate and refine it. The same process applies here.

Give it a Shot!

We’ve done a lot in a short post. I encourage you to give this a shot in your sandbox. You’ll be surprised by the number of records that you’ll be able to update and the value that it will bring to your sales and marketing teams. If you get stuck, let us know. That’s why we are here!

Shout out to Heather Rinke and Jason Ventura for their collaboration in building this process!

Data Management, Marketing Automations, Pro Tips, Strategy
October 3, 2023

Creating Custom Object Records with Account Engagement and Flow

Erin Duncan

One of the great things about Account Engagement is that the same fields can be used over and over again for different interactions while keeping the full history of the field recorded in the Prospect’s Audit Table. This ensures you don’t need an endless amount of fields and you don’t have to create repeat fields such as “contact reason 1”, “contact reason 2”, etc.

However, sometimes you need a specific interaction frozen in time. For example, say every time someone fills out your “request a quote” form you want the details the Prospect inputs collected into one record that you can reference later, regardless of whether they fill out the form again.

This is a problem I recently solved for our marketing team and I am finding that the solution can be used for many different scenarios. In fact, at the Dreamforce Genius Bar, I recommended this solution for many of the questions that were brought to me by attendees.

So, let’s dive in!

Why don’t we just use Tasks?

You may be asking, if you want an interaction frozen in time, why not just create a Salesforce task as a completion action? This would create a record at the time of the interaction that could later be referenced and followed up on.

While this is true, Salesforce tasks are limited in the information you can provide (example below). You also cannot use Account Engagement Merge tags within the tasks to stamp field values, and you can’t easily create custom task fields to store additional needed information.

Original Scenario

I’ll use the original scenario I solved for as my example for this blog post. Our marketing team is serious about event marketing strategies and wanted to record what they refer to as “Event Interactions.”

These interactions would be created via form fills or via imports and needed to include:

The name of the event
Details about the event
Which team member led the event
What topics were covered
What type of opportunity this is
Lead/Contact the Event Interaction is associated with

What we built

To store these Event Interactions, we created a Custom Object and fields for each data point the team wanted to record. We also created two lookup fields, one for Leads and one for Contacts, so we could associate the Event Interactions with the Lead/Contact records.

Next, we created fields 1-5 on the Lead and Contact Object and in Account Engagement so the data can move between the two systems. Finally, we created a Flow that will fire and create the Event Interaction record when these fields have data.

To recap:

Create a new Custom Object
Create the custom object fields
Create the fields on Leads and Contacts
Create and sync the fields in Account Engagement
Create the flow

Creating the Flow

First, we want to create a flow for Leads. This flow will fire whenever a record is created or updated. The Entry Criteria are that the Event Name is not blank and is not “N/A”.

Next, use a Create Records element to create the new Custom Object record and copy the data from the Lead fields. Don’t forget to copy the Lead ID into the Lead Lookup field!

Finally, use an Update Records element to change the Lead’s Event Interaction fields to “N/A” or “Other” so that they are ready to be used for the next Event Interaction. We’re using “N/A” and “Other” rather than clearing out the fields completely to avoid Account Engagement syncing the previous data back into the fields.

Now you just need to test and activate the flow, and Voila! Well, that and also create the same flow for Contacts.

That’s It?

Yep, that’s it! This isn’t a groundbreaking process, it’s simply taking this process and using it in a new and inventive way. Since creating this process, we’ve found many uses for it in our org and client orgs, such as

Automatically creating an opportunity when specific forms are completed.
Creating custom objects that Account Engagement doesn’t typically interface with, such as Service Tickets or Cases.
Capturing form fills and their current field values at a moment in time for future reference/action.
Creating “Sales Inquiry” records rather than Leads and assigning these records to Sales.
Creating custom UTM Touchpoint records.

What other uses can you imagine for this process? Let us know in the comments!

Analytics & Reporting, Data Management, Industry News, Pro Tips, Strategy
September 28, 2023

Dreamforce 2023 Recap: Salesforce Leans in to AI + Data Cloud as the Future of Nonprofit Success

Abbey Freund

At 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday 9/13, the second full day of Dreamforce, I was sitting in front of my computer curious and a little anxious. I was using my usual evening streaming service catch up hour to tune into the live Salesforce+ broadcast of Dreamforce session, Empowering Nonprofits in Times of Change with Data + AI + CRM + Trust.

As a former boots-on-the-ground nonprofit employee and current consultant primarily working with nonprofit clients, I am acutely aware of the ever-increasing demands on nonprofits. I understand and empathize with the daunting task nonprofits face to tell their story and convey their impact in novel ways and through a multichannel approach.

I also am acutely aware that nonprofits are frequently hindered by low ROI on donor dollars due to the immense staff effort needed to cultivate donations. I was especially eager to hear what Salesforce has to say about the future of nonprofits on their platform and how they might help solve some of these big issues for the sector.

graphic from empowering nonprofits in times of change dreamforce session

A Year of Change for Nonprofits on Salesforce

This has been a year of big changes for nonprofits and Salesforce. A few headlines were the sunset of Elevate and the rollout of the new Nonprofit Cloud platform.

This session added a few more items to the list of highlights, namely the announcement of Einstein, Salesforce’s proprietary AI, for Nonprofit Cloud*. This promises to allow nonprofits to tap into predictive and generative AI to go further and dive deeper with their donor data, with their programmatic metrics and outcomes, and with their tenacious and often time-strapped staff.

Having the ability to leverage data more robustly than ever before is further extended by the offerings of Data Cloud — Salesforce’s data management and harmonization tool. At the core of Salesforce’s Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud message, they vow to help you do more with less.

* Currently, the Einstein AI features advertised in the session Empowering Nonprofits in Times of Change with Data + AI + CRM + Trust are only available as a part of the Nonprofit Cloud curated solution package.

Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud Promise to Make Annual Reports Easier and Better than Ever

I am going to use the example of building an annual report (a thought that may give former or current nonprofit employees shudders of anxiety) to illustrate the key promises of Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud.

First let’s start with a short overview of what an annual report is from a nonprofit standpoint. An annual report usually serves as a physically manifested summation of the prior year for a nonprofit. They typically contain programmatic impact data (frequently with fancy charts), thank yous and recognitions of various groups from the highest dollar donors to volunteers, financial data for the year, and a call to action. They are intended to be compelling, illustrate transparency, and highlight mission, vision and outcomes. They are also an absolute BEAST to create.

Here are some of the ways Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud can help nonprofits complete the daunting task of creating an annual report:

Compiling Programmatic Data and Communicating Meaning

Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud offers the ability to summarize programmatic data over a specific amount of time with consideration to the intended audience. In the case of an annual report this would look like a summary of your programmatic data for the prior year, intended for an external audience.

Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud also allows you to choose if this summary should be long form (more detailed) or short form (less detailed) increasing flexibility to help you meet the needs of your specific annual report requirements with less manual work.

Segmenting and Standardizing People Data for Acknowledgement Lists

Data Cloud shines in its potential ability to solve the problem of disjointed data for Nonprofits. We all know the pain of manually sleuthing through and deduplicating your database and external systems of that one historical volunteer record for one of your major donors who is also an event attendee and auction lot buyer. This hypothetical generous philanthropist could have upwards of 4 records in your Salesforce CRM and connected systems! Data Cloud to the rescue!

Through the power of the unified profile you can see all of that disorganized and disconnected data in one place. This is especially helpful in the annual report example as it allows you to be absolutely sure you are thanking and acknowledging your kind supporters for ALL the ways they support, financial contributions, event support, volunteerism through a single 360 view.

Crafting a Compelling Donation Appeal

Admit it or not, a key function of an annual report is to compel folks to donate. Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud have your back in your daunting donor segmentation and compelling storytelling efforts.

Through use of the 360 Constituent view made possible by Data Cloud, you can use Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud to segment your donors and its predictive AI capabilities to draw conclusions based on historical data.

You could put together a segment of those donors identified as having high propensity to give, high affinity for your organization and high capacity and really hit them in the feels with your call to action. Generative AI can then help you craft an irresistible donation appeal and from there the dollars are sure to roll in to support your important work.

Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud: Getting Nonprofits Closer to their Core Missions

Overall, I am cautiously optimistic that, together, Einstein for Nonprofit Cloud + Data Cloud have the potential to improve the way nonprofits communicate with their donors and the public. By automating time-consuming tasks and providing insights that were previously unavailable, or extremely time or resource-intensive to procure, these tools can help nonprofits focus on their core mission of making a difference in the world.

I encourage nonprofit leadership to explore and invest in these powerful tools. I think they can help support and extend the capabilities and impact of a nonprofit’s greatest strength, its team.

Need help navigating these new announcements and ever growing suite of Salesforce products? Sercante is here to guide you through and help you achieve your nonprofit’s mission by leveraging the power of the Salesforce platform. Reach out!

Community, Events, Industry News, Strategy
September 26, 2023

Top Takeaways from the Panel: Modern-Day Trends in Higher Education

Christina Anderson

Today’s trailblazers in the higher education industry are facing trends and challenges that they have not had to before. Navigating a recent global pandemic, the rise of artificial intelligence, marketing to Gen Z, and shifting enrollment levels.

Dreamforce 2023 – Out of the Home for Marketers Vault

To help trailblazers gain insights into how to deal with these modern-day higher education trends and challenges in the digital age, we held an event at the Home for Marketers during Dreamforce with industry thought leaders. The top takeaways from their panel discussion are below.

Panel: Modern Day Trends in Higher Education

education panel at Dreamforce Home for Marketers

Moderator: Adam Berry, Senior Account Director, Sercante

Panelists (from left to right in photo):

Clark Burk, Chief Client Officer, Red Van Workshop
Jordyn Jaffer, Senior Salesforce Solution Engineer, Serante
Michelle Bates, Assistant Vice President for IT, CRM and Data Analytics, Purdue for Life Foundation
Brent Wege, VP Sales, Engagement Solutions, Salesforce

Data Silos Are Still a Major Challenge for Higher Education Institutions

Across universities there are different owners of separate subsets of data making it difficult for teams to collaborate, share insights about their constituents, and have an overall view of the organization’s performance.

Each panelist emphasized that if universities are going to provide that personalized 1:1 experience that so many of their diversified audience, in particular Gen Z, is desiring then they are going to have to make breaking down their data siloes a priority.

Centers of Excellence Are Being Leveraged to Increase Adoption

As more higher education teams are acquiring systems to their tech stack for a digital transformation many roles and responsibilities are changing. Team members are having to learn new platforms and think through their data in a different manner and getting them to adjust to the change can be difficult.

The panel shared how they have seen teams use Centers of Excellence where education and training on the technology systems are provided to empower users to be more efficient on the platforms.

Assigning champions such as administrators or power users in each department can be helpful as they support and help team members in their day-to-day to navigate and leverage the technology to achieve their goals.

It was noted that some teams may not be able to form an organized Center of Excellence in their institution, but making sure training is provided and identifying the champions in each department can be a huge first step towards increasing adoption.

Personalization is a Must in Higher Education

As people are experiencing personalized engagements across their retail, entertainment and content consumption journeys, they expect the same out of their alma mater or the university they are attending or applying for.

Now more than ever it is critical for higher education teams to have access to all the data touchpoints that happen throughout the prospect, student, and alumni journey. Without accurate data, personalizations will not seem as relevant or authentic.

As digital natives, Gen Z can easily spot inauthentic marketing, and, according to 2021 Forrester Technographics data, “nearly a third of Gen Z say that they unfollow, hide, or block brands on social media — at least weekly.” This means that universities need to make sure the customized communication and engagements they are crafting accurately align to each stage of the individual’s journey to provide an authentic experience.

For example, if you are starting a fundraising campaign and want to target alumni, using the clubs and organizations they were a part of during their time as a student to share where they are now and where they hope to be is a great way to make your communication to that individual relevant. Having access to this data and managing it in a way that makes it easy to execute personalizations like this is key.

University Teams Are Navigating Their Journey With Artificial Intelligence

Some higher education organizations are already using AI in their day-to-day with chatbots and smart searching in their IT knowledgebase. The biggest concern here is trust and security. Like many, trailblazers in higher education want to ensure that constituent data is secure when leveraging AI-powered tools to ensure a high level of trust.

There are so many exciting new developments happening such as conversations around how AI could track student performance and predict when they are trending towards an at-risk status to alert advisors, so they can better guide students and be more proactive to battle against dropout rates.

However, these developments will only truly be able to be taken advantage of if all departments are accurately capturing data and have it architected in a way to be centralized and easily accessible across the organization.

A Word of Advice for Your Digital Strategy

A lasting piece of advice from our panelists was don’t just throw technology at your challenges. Consider how you are going to use it to truly deepen relationships with your audience, how it will better help you to manage your data, and who will be the champion for that system.

There may already be solutions that you have access to that can provide a solution, so have a strategy in place for how it will be used and managed before purchasing new technology.

Reach out to the team at Sercante for help making the right decisions when you’re ready to shake things up with your digital marketing strategy.

Emails & Templates, Getting Started, Strategy
September 22, 2023

5 Design Musts for Account Engagement Users

Daniela Donato

In the world of digital marketing, a seamless and visually captivating user experience is crucial to capturing your audience’s attention and driving conversions. For Marketing Cloud Account Engagement users, optimizing both email and landing page designs is an art that requires a balance of creativity and strategy.

Crafting Impactful Email and Landing Page Experiences

In this post, we’ll delve into five design musts that can elevate your Account Engagement-powered campaigns and help you create impactful email and landing page experiences.

Design Must #1: Use Responsive Design to Engage Across Devices

In today’s mobile-centric landscape, responsive design is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. Whether you’re crafting an email or designing a landing page, ensure that your layout adapts flawlessly to various screen sizes, from desktops to smartphones.

Account Engagement offers responsive email templates that automatically adjust content to fit different devices, allowing you to reach your audience wherever they are. Similarly, when creating landing pages, use responsive design principles to guarantee a seamless experience and better engagement.

Design Must #2: Establish Visual Cohesion through Consistent Branding

Consistency is key in branding, and it extends to your email and landing page designs. Maintain a consistent color palette, typography, and imagery that align with your brand identity. You can leverage Account Engagement’s customizable templates to infuse your emails and landing pages with your brand’s visual elements, reinforcing familiarity and trust among your audience.

A unified brand presence boosts recognition and enhances the overall user experience.

Design Must #3: Capture Attention Instantly through Compelling Imagery

Visuals are powerful tools for storytelling and grabbing attention.

Incorporate high-quality, relevant images that resonate with your audience’s interests and needs. In emails, use eye-catching visuals that complement your message and entice recipients to read further.

On landing pages, leverage impactful imagery to convey the value proposition of your offer instantly. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, so choose visuals that amplify your message effectively.

Example: Sercante Landing Page Created in Account Engagement

Design Must #4: Guide User Actions with Clear Call to Actions (CTAs)

The purpose of your email and landing page is to drive specific actions. Whether it’s encouraging recipients to click through to your website or enticing them to fill out a form, your CTAs must be prominent and action-oriented. Use contrasting colors, persuasive language, and compelling design elements to draw attention to your CTAs.

The Account Engagement drag-and-drop email and landing page editors enable you to create visually appealing buttons that stand out, leading users to take the desired actions effortlessly.

Design Must #5: Streamline Layouts to Enhance Readability and Navigation

Cluttered and confusing designs can deter users from engaging with your content. Keep your layouts clean, organized, and easy to navigate.

In emails, use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up text and improve readability. On landing pages, employ a clear hierarchy to guide users’ attention toward key information.

Account Engagement design tools empower you to structure your content in a user-friendly manner, ensuring that recipients and visitors can quickly grasp your message and offerings.

Be an Awesome Account Engagement Asset Designer

Mastering the art of designing impactful emails and landing pages within the Pardot platform requires a blend of design aesthetics and marketing strategy.

By adhering to these five design musts — responsive design, consistent branding, compelling imagery, clear CTAs, and streamlined layouts — you’ll create experiences that captivate your audience, encourage interaction, and ultimately drive conversions.

Embrace these principles to unleash the full potential of Account Engagement and leave a lasting impression on your target audience. And reach out to the team at Sercante when you’re ready to take your Account Engagement Assets to the next level.

Events, Pro Tips, Strategy
September 20, 2023

5 Event Marketing Best Practices To Implement For Your Next Campaign

Christina Anderson

Event marketers face unique challenges. They need to create memorable, unique, and meaningful experiences that align with their brand and connect with their audience all the while staying within budget, building relationships, and generating leads. It is not an easy task. At Dreamforce 2023, The Home for Marketers hosted a panel of marketing leaders to share their recommended event marketing best practices to ensure success!

Dreamforce 2023 Event Marketers Panel – Out of The Home for Marketers Vault

On this panel was Belinda Joseph, Head of Events & Community at Goldcast, Porter Sproul, Campaign Strategist at PFL, and Sarah Kloth, VP of Marketing at Sercante.

Here are the event marketing best practices they shared.

Best Practice #1 – Align Your Event to The Appropriate Stages of the Funnel

When you create an event, Belinda Joseph advised to think about where your event best aligns with the funnel. If you are creating an event that reaches prospects and customers at different stages of their journey, then think through what you will do at your event to meet them where they’re at and make the experience relevant to them.

For example, an executive dinner could be considered to align with a late stage in the funnel after prospects already know who you are and the solutions you provide. They may have already spoken to someone from sales and the event could be a way to engage prospects at accounts that are in early opportunity stages.

Best Practice #2 – Define What Success Looks Like Across Departments

As you create your next event campaign don’t just think of the goals that the marketing team is working to accomplish, shared Porter Sproul, but consider how you can align with sales, service, and leadership. How can your event serve their business goals? What does each department need for your event campaign to be considered as a win for the business as a whole?

Best Practice #3 – Think About How Your Brand Will Be Represented At Your Event

Sarah Kloth emphasized that your brand is one of the most important focuses of event marketing. “Know who are you, what you do, and the environment that you create.” People will attend your event and will walk away with a certain feeling. That feeling will either bring them closer to your brand or repulse them. How do you want your brand to be remembered?

“Reputation is everything.” added Porter Sproul. You need to have your event and the environment you create align with your brand, but you also need to be different. The panel shared that nowadays people are more selective with how they are spending their time and they will most likely always engage in what’s most convenient. How will you create an experience that will want to make your audience go out of their way to attend?

Creating an Executive Experience

Porter shared how he once experienced that creating an event that was very exclusive gained great traction. His team was planning an executive dinner adjacent to a conference that was going on, but they wanted to be different. Several other companies attending the conference were also hosting executive dinners. How could they create an experience that would make their audience want to choose theirs over the others?

They elected to do an evening dinner cruise on a boat that would only fit a small number of people. His team targeted their top prospects and soon after promotion started, all the spots for the dinner were filled. After the event, they received feedback from other prospects that missed it saying how the event sounded amazing and how they would love to be a part of it next year. Many times people want what they can’t have. The more you make an experience feel special, one-of-kind, and exclusive, the more people will be curious about it and want to seek it out.

Remembering your Personas

When planning your event and how it aligns to your brand, remember to take into account your personas. Belinda Joseph describes that for every event that Goldcast puts on, she and her team map out, “what do we want each persona to think, feel, and do from this event?” How can your event evoke action and progress your audience further down the funnel?

Best Practice #4 – Tap Into The Network Around You For Promotion

It takes a village to promote an event. Your company and your marketing team will be doing their own promotional plan, but when you have the speaker of the event, your customers, or your followers also promoting the event then you will expand your reach and the invitation will hold more weight.

Which is why our fourth event marketing best practice revolves around tapping into the network around you for promotion.

People are more likely to make a purchase when it was recommended to them by a friend. How much more likely do you think they’ll want to attend your event if your audience sees a peer of theirs sharing about it?

Getting Help from the Community

To help build awareness about The Home for Marketers, we put together a video series interviewing different Marketing Champions and asking them to share about their previous Dreamforce experiences, including how they would describe The Home for Marketers and advice for first-time Dreamforce attendees.

The Road to the Home for Marketers series not only highlighted different champions in the space that give so much to the community, but it also provided valuable and helpful content for marketers that would be going to the conference for the first-time. In turn, they also got to hear about the Home for Marketers and listen to a peer of theirs describe it to them and hear about their positive experience there.

If you are putting on an event that happens every year, consider how you can highlight people that attended in previous years and have them share their positive experience with your intended audience.

Ask Speakers to Promote

If your event includes a speaking session, collaborate with your speakers on promotion. Belinda Joseph shared how her team will provide a promotional kit to their speakers, making it easy to post about the event on social media and get the word out about the campaign to their networks. What can you do to help make it as seamless as possible for your speakers to promote the event?

Is it pre-written social posts that they can copy and paste?
Is there imagery that you can provide to enhance their posts?
Is it a video that you record with them?
Is it examples of previous promotions that other speakers have done in the past?

Remember, your speakers and even your sponsors for your event all want to drive registration and attendance, so for this campaign, you are all on the same team. How can you enable your team to promote this event successfully?

Best Practice #5 – Create an event that is special, creative, and gives!

This may seem challenging for brands that are in a more serious industry, but as Sarah Kloth reminded us on the panel, “We all want to be taken seriously in business, but at the end of the day we all go home and watch the same shows.” Meaning that your business executives are still people too just like you. How can you tap into the more personal side of your brand to build connections with your audience that are special?

Using Tangible Marketing

During Dreamforce Porter Sproul and the rest of the PFL team had a pink mailbox with a light-up sign that said “Send a Smile.” They had postcards and stamps that event attendees could use to send to their friends and family from the conference. Event attendees filled out the postcard and then placed them in the pink mailbox for the PFL team to send out.

One, when was the last time you sent a note with a pen and paper to someone and snail mailed it to them that was not a wedding invitation? Two, when was the last time you received a hand-written note in your mailbox that was sent “just because”?

Boom.

PFL created an experience that EVERYONE could relate to. They prompted attendees to think of their loved ones and connect with them in a less common form of communication that is tangible and memorable.

Building Meaningful Experiences

As another example, Belinda Joseph shared about an internal event that the Goldcast team put on. It was their Sales Kick-off and it was during the time when team members were still isolated because of COVID. Prior to the event, they reached out to employees and asked them to record a video of themselves answering a few questions about what challenges they had been dealing with this past year and what they are thinking about and looking forward to in the year to come.

Their team took these responses and produced it into a 10-minute video that the team all watched together during their sales kick-off. “It was emotional.” Belinda recalled.

“We realized we were not alone in the struggles we were facing because our team members were facing similar challenges.” It created empathy among the team as they all got to hear where each person was coming from, strengthening their culture and bringing them closer together as a team just as they were about to kick-off their new fiscal year. Talk about a memorable experience that evoked an action.

When creating an event, consider how you can build a meaningful experience that will connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Event Marketing Best Practices to Remember

Think about where your event aligns to your funnel, is it an early-, mid-, or late-stage engagement? If you will have multiple stages represented how will you interact with attendees meeting your brand for the first time versus people who have already engaged several times with you?

Align your event goals to what the other departments will consider a win. Sarah Kloth often challenges the Sercante marketing team to “define what success looks like first.”

Last, but certainly not least, remember that how your brand is represented and the feeling and environment you create for your attendees is everything. Brainstorm with your team about how you can create an experience that is special, giving, and unique.

For more event marketing best practices, connect with Belinda, Porter, and Sarah on LinkedIn!