Author: Jack Corrao iii

6 Reasons to Use Video in Account-Based Marketing

Videos work because it helps companies stand out from their competitors; they grab the viewer’s attention in a way that a simple email cannot.

Estimated 3 min. read

B2B companies are seeing higher ROI with Account-Based Marketing tactics (ABM) than they are with other marketing initiatives. Incorporating video technology into one’s ABM program can only boost its success. While those extremely nice and ground-breaking videos we see from Nike, Apple and others are amazing, even simple videos of a rep at their desk can boost ABM efforts. These videos work because it helps companies stand out from their competitors; they grab the viewer’s attention in a way that a simple email cannot. In addition to standing out from your competition, here are six reasons to use video in your ABM efforts:

1. Videos Boost Conversions and Sales

Having a video on your landing page can boost conversions by 80%. With vision being the most dominant sense, it’s not surprising. For sales, 74% of users who watched a product video ended up buying something. In today’s digital world, videos are outperforming white papers and enhancing landing pages to give the customer an easier experience.

2. The ROI is There

83% of businesses report that video provides great ROI. Whether the video’s quality is at the scale of Nike, or a simple product demo, it pays off. As technology advances, editing tools are getting easier to use and more affordable. Companies that don’t have experience in video marketing can easily get involved and start today.

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3. Video Marketing Saves Time

Consumers are smart, and they know downloading a white paper means going through a sales demo at some point. They also know that it takes time to read and digest the content as the content tends to be more sophisticated than that of video. Showing a video helps viewers learn all they want about a company/solution if the video does the job right.

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4. Provides Confidence and Validation

If the cost is large enough, the buyer will have to put their reputation on the line to justify it. Having a case study video testimonial will help the buyer, and their company feel more confident in your solution. Videos are also easier to share and don’t require additional information as white papers tend too.

5. Videos are Easier to Digest

In your busy workday, can you afford to spend 15 minutes reading a white paper, or would you rather watch a 3-minute video to obtain the same info? The average viewer retains 95% of info they watch versus the 10% when they read. Multiply this a few times because your colleagues will be reading/watching this content and it all adds up.

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6. Communicates Emotion

A personalized video goes a lot further than a white paper, especially when it comes to first impressions. Emotions play a part in making decisions, and personalized videos can build a relationship. When the buyer narrows their choice down to two solutions and can’t decide on which one to choose, having that relationship is going to be the difference-maker.

Anyone can start using video marketing in their ABM strategy as soon as today! Recording a video containing content that would typically be copied and pasted into an email can be your simple start. Don’t have an ABM strategy in place yet? Don’t worry, it’s not required to use video in your outreach. If you’d like to start Account-Based Marketing, take a look at our 5 tips to get started blog post. Visit our website and contact us today if you’d like us to help run, or assist your marketing efforts through our digital marketing agency. We provide marketing services of all kinds, including content creation, paid advertising, filling funnels, and much more.

ABM for Beginners – 5 Tips to Get Started

Estimated 4 min. read

It’s well known that 87% of B2B marketers agree that ABM delivers a higher ROI than any other method (ITSMA). The next question everyone asks is, “where should I start?” ABM for beginners is a complex strategy, and newcomers can quickly become intimidated by the time and effort it takes to run. The truth is, even a company with 10 employees can successfully execute an ABM strategy. All it takes is knowing how to start correctly with a solid foundation. Businesses just don’t start ABM with 200 accounts on day one; they start out with a few accounts, show ROI and success, correct themselves, and continue to scale. ABM for beginners starts with building the right team.

1. Form the Team

An ABM strategy is only as great as the team that develops it. It’s pivotal that ABM teams are built correctly with the right people. They will be responsible for defining the goals and KPIs, developing the strategy, and executing to produce results. There is no magic number for the right team as it varies based on the company’s size. Recommended team members include the heads of Sales and Marketing, including those involved with content strategy, technology management, and media managers. Once the team is assembled, it’s time to decide on who your customers will be with your ABM strategy.

ABM for beginners forming a team at the office

2. Identify Target Accounts

With hundreds and even thousands of accounts on file, is there a trick to pinpointing the ones that would provide the highest chance of ROI? There is, creating your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). An ICP is a description of a company that is the perfect fit for your solution. Criteria can include industry, budget, employee headcount, the technology they use, etc. Based on how many criteria a company meets, they should be segmented or tiered. Those that meet more criteria of the ICP should produce the most ROI, so they should be tiered higher and given more attention and resources. For example, if your solution is perfect for a company in the manufacturing industry with a budget of $30k, has 400 employees whom all use Gmail, that would be a Tier 1 client. If an account comes in that meets only one out of eight potential criteria, they would be a tier 3 client. Once some tier 1 accounts are segmented, we can then target and message the decision-making contacts at the account.

3. Highlight Decision-Makers

Finding out those who will ultimately say yes or no to your solution at a company will help your team market to them, swaying them to say yes. These decision-makers usually are c-level, but it’s also important to find out those who may not be in the c-suite but still have a major influence on this decision. Finding out who these contacts are can be done through interactions with the company as well as conducting research. The value here is having the confidence that you know who you’re speaking to will ultimately be the ones making the decision on your solution. A buyer persona should be filled out for each decision-maker, and include info on their daily activities and pain points. Knowing about your buyers’ pain points will help marketing create their content, and help sales with their outreach since they’ll know what pains to address. Having these contacts highlighted will help you in the next step when you create custom content for each decision-maker.

ABM for beginners highlight the decision makers in the company

4. Design Outreach Plan

In traditional marketing, the same content is usually blasted out to everyone in all types of roles. ABM is about sending custom content about how your solution(s) will help the recipient in their specific role. This requires research to be done on what challenges they face daily, and how your offering will solve it. For example, a VP of Marketing at a tier 1 account will receive content from your company on how your solution will help produce more quality leads because it is a pain point for them. This can be time-consuming, but well worth the investment. Once the content is finalized, incorporating it into the larger outreach plan will help paint the larger picture for everyone. You’ll designate who will receive content and when, when a call from sales will go out, when they will see an ad about your solution, etc.

5. Expand Accounts, ROI Reporting

ABM requires an abundance of research, but the time and resources is well worth the investment. Due to all the research your company will do, they can find additional ways that your solution(s) can help a customer that would have never been found through traditional marketing. This stops the one-and-done projects and allows a longer engagement and more success for both your company and the customer. After ABM has been running for some time, it’s time to report on your success, did ABM work for your company? ABM reporting can be one of the more difficult efforts to track unless you have the right technology. It’s not recommended to track efforts manually as it would be too time-consuming, and not scalable. Our recommended tool is Salesforce’s Einstein B2B Marketing Analytics as it helps see top-level KPIs, identifies top-engaging accounts, see current stages, and much more.

ABM for beginners better quality reporting with statistics

ABM for Beginners: Final Thoughts

Account-Based Marketing will take time to show revenue due to the deals typically being larger in size. With ABM’s marketing efforts generating 200% more revenue than others, it’s well worth it (Flip My Funnel). In addition to having a great strategy, the technology used is also an important factor. Tried and true for both ourselves and our customers, the Salesforce platform has all the tools and connections to accomplish your ABM campaigns. Corrao Group offers services that both help set up your system for ABM training and campaigns, as well as execute and run it for your organization. If you’d like to download our full Account-Based Marketing Guide for B2B Marketers, please fill out the form below.

Salesforce Sales Cloud – Task Tracker or Business Streamliner?

Estimated 4 min. read

Salesforce sales cloud tasks

You’re not alone if your company is using Salesforce Sales Cloud primarily for tracking tasks. Tasks are one of the simplest features and are easy to learn. They help users stay on track of open opportunities, larger projects, increase transparency and much more. Reports and dashboards can be built to show a high-level overview of users’ tasks tied to a specific opportunity, useful to review during project meetings. Companies that use Sales Cloud mostly for tracking tasks could get much more out of their current investment. Salesforce started out as a task and opportunity management system but has grown tenfold since then.

  • 41% of Sales teams use Sales Cloud only for tracking tasks, where 35% say it streamlines their work. For other users, 27% use it for only tracking tasks, where 52% say it streamlines their work. (State of Salesforce). Other users are those in marketing, Service, IT, Finance and more.

So why are Sales teams not using Sales cloud past these initial features? Simply put, businesses aren’t keeping up with the new Salesforce features that are released. Sales cloud has released hundreds of updates that help deliver innovation to their customers. Users need to customize it to their unique selling experience in order to get more out of the platform than just tracking tasks and opportunities. Doing so will help pinpoint their customers’ individual needs, assist in their buying journey, and guide customers to contract signature. The best implementations extend the core functionality with solutions that assist sales users with everything from scoping and closing deals. We’re going to walk through the many ways us Salesforce users can streamline businesses beyond tracking the bare minimum.

Boost Sales Productivity

Each Salesforce cloud eliminates busywork so reps can focus time on what matters most. For Sales Cloud, it’s giving sales reps time back to focus on selling. Less time is spent updating multiple systems, tracking down information, and trying to find an old email – it’s all in one place in Sales Cloud. Sometimes, acquiring a new customer comes down to who contacted them first. A lead can visit 5 competitive companies and whichever one contacts them first gives them such a compelling pitch that they are favored. Chances are, the company that contacts them has a CRM, and it could be Salesforce Sales Cloud. Not only can it help companies engage leads quicker, but it also helps identify those potential leads, up-sell opportunities, and even sell to repeat customers. Some of these results aren’t from just one feature that can be turned on, it takes strategy combined with these features. With each strategy being different, knowing which system features to use is crucial.

Increase Efficiency

A profit increase isn’t the only ROI that should be tracked. Increasing your team’s efficiency is one way to help add to increased sales. Users can view important notes and documents that can help speed up the sale, helping the customer as soon as possible. For example, if a lead is looking for a few documents about a product, their sales rep can send the content to the lead, tracking, and logging when they open the content. They can accomplish this on their phone even as they’re heading out of an onsite meeting with a prospect. They can update fields and next steps so that those back in the office can move forward without having to wait. It doesn’t stop there with Sales; that’s right, Sales Cloud is for your entire company. A case can be automatically tied to a contact in Salesforce, recording the appropriate information and alerting the customer service rep. The rep can then record this and send a replacement if needed, which automatically alerts the Finance team. Your customers will appreciate the immediate responses and attention to detail that your company provides.

Implement Company Wide

From those measured in a Bluewolf survey, 45% say using one Salesforce cloud provides a cohesive experience. 55% said using three or more clouds provided the most cohesive experience. Implementing more clouds allows companies to onboard more departments onto Salesforce, helping the company stay on the same page. The clouds integrate seamlessly with each other, showing real-time information so there’s no more waiting around for someone to push an update. It also helps teams to be proactive, sending alerts when certain processes are triggered. For example, when a marketing lead reaches the criteria to become sales-qualified, the sales owner instantly receives a notification, prompting them to strike while the iron is hot. If engaged in a competitive sales environment, being first is key and sometimes even one day can cost companies a large deal.

Streamline The Entire Business

The moral of the story here is to think about processes that can be automated by Salesforce rather than become overwhelmed with what it has to offer. Find out from each department where the gaps are, and use the system to help better them. Salesforce Sales Cloud is a great way for a company to stay on top of its business and ahead of their competitors. With such a diverse system, it can be overwhelming to try and learn all of the features to know which ones are the most efficient to use. In no way is Salesforce a system that new users can set up themselves. There are too many features, and to properly learn the entire system in addition to one’s day job would take years. Expert help is always recommended, if not required to successfully implement Salesforce. Corrao Group’s Salesforce consulting business dates back to 2008 and has helped over 850 companies customize Salesforce to their business. Visit our Salesforce services pages to learn more about what we do, and how we can start the conversation of helping Salesforce streamline your business.

Our Favorite Salesforce ’19 Spring Release Updates

Estimated 3 min. read

We’ve attended the webinars, we’ve read through the release notes, and we’ve actually used the features. With our customers in mind, we trained our team on these new features to improve our Salesforce consulting services. In addition to the full release notes found at the bottom, here are some of our favorites.

Sales Cloud

Accelerate Sales with Cadences and Work Queues

  • Description: Cadences are custom sales processes that guide reps through handling prospects of all types. Create consistently scheduled cadences of outreach activities that alerts and helps reps nurture their prospects. Work queues prioritize the next steps reps should take with their prospects. The app provides them with approved email templates and call scripts to help close the deal.
  • Benefits: Shows which prospects are ready for each outreach in your sales cycle. Handle prospects in half the time than it took before. Ensure company-wide uniformity of sales best practices.

Pinning Feature

salesforce sales cloud

  • Description: With 5,000 votes on the Appexchange, this Salesforce update allows users to pin certain filters on modules. Have a custom filter on tasks for past due tasks only? When you navigate to the Tasks object, it may default to recently viewed tasks, but now you can pin custom filters to default to.
  • Benefits: Saves time navigating across multiple objects. Increases customization of the platform.

Custom Training Programs

  • Description: This Salesforce feature gives companies the power to set up custom programs with certain training links, per user. Links can include Salesforce articles as well as external links.
  • Benefits: Uniformity on training new and existing users with the ability for tracking. Maximizes the use of the Salesforce platform, users don’t need a separate system for training.

Visit our Sales Cloud services page to learn how we can optimize your sales processes.

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Where’s my Account-Based Marketing ROI?

Estimated 4 min. read

ABM ROI

87% of B2B marketers agree that Account-Based Marketing (ABM) delivers a higher ROI than other marketing activities (ITSMA). If you’ve never executed ABM, your patience is usually tested when starting out. We’re used to semi-quick, yet small results with traditional marketing methods. A generic email blast goes out to a purchased list, and form submissions flood in. Boom, leads. Your Sales teams then engage with these leads and become upset to learn they’re not qualified. You realize that while you have hundreds of new leads, they’re not the right leads for your business. ABM saves your company time and allows Sales to focus on extremely qualified leads. In fact, Sales will only focus on leads that are your ideal customer, based on research of your existing customers. The result? Higher ROI, customers for life, and established personal connections.

Account-Based Marketing Tactics: Identifying Target Accounts

The first step in ABM is for “Smarketing”, Sales and Marketing, to come together and choose the target accounts you will go after. If you’re just starting out, we recommend selecting a few accounts, show the ROI, and expand from there. A three-tiered approach is recommended so Smarketing knows how much time to devote to an account. Tier ones are your highest valued accounts that meet your Ideal Client Profile (ICP). An ICP is a representation of your best-fit clients based on data and research.  These should receive most of Smarketing’s attention, meeting face to face and establishing the greatest connection. Tier twos meeting most of your ICP, but aren’t as valuable as tier ones. Tier threes are your general leads that come in through lead magnets and your website. Adopting an ABM strategy doesn’t mean giving up on traditional marketing entirely, as that strategy will populate your tier threes. Tier threes can also move up the ranks too and become a tier one if they meet the ICP.

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Building your Salesforce Analytics Foundation

Estimated 2 min. read

New users can be so overwhelmed with Salesforce Einstein Analytic’s features that it could take up to one year to use the application. Unfortunately, a year is too long to see an ROI for on such a tool. The solutions to this are Templates, out of the box sets of dashboards and reports for new users. Templates provide an expedited start to users starting out with Einstein Analytics. Up and running within twenty minutes, they contain best practice KPI’s and are available to customize.

Templates give users the power to package and distribute their apps to others in your company, partners, and even customers. Apps give you ready-made dashboards automatically populated with Salesforce data to show KPIs. If you’d like to show Marketing’s influence on the Sales pipeline, “there’s an app for that.” Templates will allow you to package multiple apps and share them with the team and others to view real-time information from your system.

Salesforce Analytics

Key Elements of Templates:

– Quick Start: A configurable wizard helps you adjust analytical assets in your system.
– Intelligent KPIs: Templates will adjust and recommend best practice KPIs based on your company type.
– Advanced Data: Have data spread across the entire system? Templates automatically combine data from Opportunities, Accounts, Products and more in one view.

Salesforce Analytics Templates to Watch For in Spring ’19:

– Lead trending
– Financial service cloud products
– Trailhead and learning map

Take Salesforce Analytics Further:

Templates are a great way to start out simple and quick, but you’ll soon need more as your business grows. Professional help is always recommended. Experts who have completed hundreds of Salesforce analytics implementations can take your experience to the next level. Corrao Group has been implementing Salesforce since 2008, completing over 2,000 implementations. Check out our Salesforce implementation services here to see how we can help your company with Einstein Analytics.

Salesforce Optimization Checklist

Estimated 2 min. read

If your company has already set up Salesforce or plans to, we’ve put together a checklist to get the most out of your CRM. With Salesforce being the robust platform that it is, it’s crucial to have a strong foundation to help with the return on investment. We’ll take a look at a few of the requirements here, with the opportunity to view the rest by downloading our guide.

Executives showing salesforce implementation support

Executive Level Support

Employees follow the business processes taught to them by executives when first coming onboard with a new company. When companies adopt new technology, the executives are the ones leading the way in adoption and there’s a reason for this. Executives are leaders and anyone with hopes to become one must learn from them. So when these executives show interest in new technology, it proves to the company that this tech is here to stay. After all, they purchased it for a reason. It’s very important that your executives show the daily use of Salesforce to ensure their teams do so as well.

A Phased Implementation

A common mistake that companies make when implementing Salesforce is trying to do it all at once. Trying to onboard all business processes at once spreads your company’s resources thin, and we’ve seen this lead to the abandonment of implementation due to it taking a long time. Instead, start onboarding one department onto Salesforce, get them trained, and start with the next department. When the second department starts their onboarding, the first department should already show signs of ROI, making for a promising company-wide implementation.

Hire A Salesforce Partner

Not sure which department to start implementing first to show quick success? No one company is identical to another, so it takes years of implementation experience to speak with a company and find out the best implementation route. If your company wants the greatest ROI on their Salesforce investment, we recommend hiring an implementation expert. These experts become a part of your company by learning how it operates and then transfers these processes onto the Salesforce platform, helping each department along the way. Corrao Group not only offers these services, but we’ve been implementing Salesforce for over 10 years with over 850 customers currently. Visit our Salesforce offerings page to learn more.

Download The Full Checklist

Don’t miss out on the other steps in our Salesforce Optimization Checklist. Fill out our form below to ensure the best implementation for your company and to maximize your Salesforce investment. If you’d like to speak with Corrao Group to start your implementation process, fill out our contact us form.

Get the most out of Salesforce Workflows

Estimated 3 min. read

Salesforce workflows

Every company has those tedious tasks that slow down their employees’ day. These tasks include high-priority case notification, updating shipment statuses if they’re delayed, and notifying an account owner of updates made by others. These are just some of the thousands of tedious processes that can be streamlined through Salesforce Process Builder. Ultimately, Salesforce workflows automate your business processes continuously in the background so your employees can work on other projects. We’re going to highlight some of the most widely-used processes below.

Business Processes

1. High-Priority Case Notification – Let’s use the example of your urgency scale ranging from 1 -3 with 1 being extremely urgent. Currently, a level 1 case is submitted and it takes hours, maybe even a day, for your team to reach out because they were sifting through level 2 and 3 cases. Set up these workflows to improve your customer service and receive instant notifications when urgent cases are submitted.

2. Delayed Shipment Status Update – In today’s world, people are tracking their packages from when they order it to when it’s delivery. Stay a step ahead with excellent communication to let the recipient know of a delay. No one enjoys their package being delayed, especially if they don’t receive a notification about it. Help alleviate this delayed shipment by being as proactive as possible.

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Preparing for Salesforce Success in 2019

Estimated 2 min. read

At Corrao Group, we are part of the Salesforce ecosystem and work with our customers to tackle some of their most pressing needs to maximize their Salesforce investment. At Dreamforce, some of the hottest topics included analytics advances, data quality, Lightning migration, and 360 degree customer views. We hosted a webinar featuring our technology partners Skuid and RingLead to shed some light on these topics. Whether you are preparing for 2019 or later, the content on this webinar is applicable to you as long as you are trying to make the most out of your Salesforce investment. After viewing the webinar, you are eligible for a Salesforce Health Check offered by Corrao Group with support from our technology partners Skuid and RingLead.

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Field Service Lightning Explained

Estimated < 1 min. read

Part of Salesforce Service Cloud, Field Service Lightning (FSL) is designed to improve the first-visit resolution and onsite job management using a mobile solution with access to job schedules, van inventory, and more – with or without the internet. Additional features of FSL include the ability to quickly create work orders from any case, intelligently assign and manage jobs, increase first-time fix rate and stop problems before they happen.

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