The Salesforce Winter ’24 Release Notes for Analytics brings exciting new features to improve data-driven decision-making. From the seamless integration of Tableau views in CRM Analytics dashboards with custom filters, to the improved navigation experience, these features empower your team to navigate complex data sets easily. Learn more as we explore the release of Salesforce Analytics, and Reports & Dashboards.
You can now add custom filters to explore Tableau views within dashboard components and unlock additional insights. Instead of generating multiple component views to support different data scenarios, add a filter parameter to interact with static values or a filter in a CRM Analytics dashboard. Maintain a single Tableau view without creating and switching between different views.
Use Asset Details to view metadata for your reports and dashboards, such as create date and owner. Asset Details also include data sources to help you differentiate between reports created with Salesforce and Data Cloud.
Find what you need faster by sorting the column headers in your search results. You no longer have to scroll through pages of reports, dashboards, and CRM Analytics assets to find what you want. We delivered this feature thanks to your ideas on IdeaExchange.
Get reduced clutter and boosted Home tab performance with the new way to access subscriptions and notifications in Slack. In the reorganized Home tab, your lists of subscriptions and notifications are now available in separate windows. Previously, these lists filled the app’s Home tab.
Your dashboard tables are now more responsive and load faster. Pagination of table results limits the amount of data loaded up front. As users page through the table results, more data loads as needed.
Let dashboard users quickly return to the start of a curated journey with a single click. When you build a navigation flow, you can now add the Clear Selections action. After drilling deep into a navigation flow, users can easily return to the initial state. Clear Selections is only available for text widgets.
Get a comprehensive view of your quote process and analyze each step to identify missing data and streamline task completion. The process visualization dashboard is seamlessly integrated into the Quote to Order guided setup and helps you identify areas that need attention.
If you would like to learn more about the Salesforce Winter ’24 Release Notes for Analytics, please contact us.
About Corrao Group
For two decades, Corrao Group has stood as a pillar of expertise, assisting B2B organizations across various industries and sizes in implementing and optimizing their business processes through Salesforce and integrated third-party applications. With an unwavering dedication spanning 21 years, we have cultivated a deep knowledge and understanding of Salesforce as power users ourselves. This recognition of Salesforce’s flexibility empowers us to cater to various departments’ needs, ensuring seamless alignment. Our mission is to seamlessly translate your business processes into Salesforce, promoting not only successful integration but also widespread user adoption.
When it comes to working, there’s nothing more relaxing than responding to emails, making phone calls, and reviewing reports all from the comfort of your home. Being a stay-at-home employee has its benefits, such as having more control over your schedule, fewer distractions and more productivity, and everyone’s favorite reason, no time spent in traffic! Working on the Salesforce platform since 2008 ourselves, we know how relaxing it is to work from home. There’s almost nothing you can’t do from home while working on Salesforce. You’re still working, but it’s tasks from the comfort of your own home without any office distractions. Here are a few benefits from working from home across Management, Marketing, Development, and Sales.
Management
Our Managing Partner, Jack Corrao, started by saying, “People working in the office is nice, but it’s not necessary in a lot of businesses. Many of my employees could work from home because Salesforce is a cloud-based system. No servers required, which means if something happens in the office, like the internet goes down, you can just head home and work. We think soon all businesses will have to evolve with the coming times, that means moving away from their multiple systems for each department and onto a software like Salesforce, which supports: Human Resources, Marketing, Sales, Support, Operational Linguistics with each having a customizable cloud.“ He finished off by saying this, “You shouldn’t be handcuffed to your building, having freedom will make you a better and harder worker.“
Salesforce allows managers to track and display all their KPIs within Dashboards. With the company updating Salesforce in real-time, reports aren’t only ready at the end of the day, or week – they’re available 24/7 with live stats. All the information and conversations regarding projects are tracked and recorded within Salesforce.
Marketing
Our Marketing Specialist and Social Media Manager John Carroll said, “If everyone had to work from home tomorrow, we would still be a functional and successful company. We all have access to the same data in real-time, so we don’t have to wait for reports, documents, or files from co-workers.” He also brought up this tweet from Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff, who said, “While we are all working from home during this time, we are using quip to help other remote teams across the globe collaborate.” He is talking about the documentation software, Quip, where documents, spreadsheets, slides, and chat are all combined and connected to Salesforce records. At Corrao Group, we use Quip to communicate with each other, even if it’s a few desks away or from one of our remote offices such as Seattle or Canada.
We can create a campaign asset inventory for emails, landing pages, and more within Quip, where our entire team can collaborate in real-time, anytime. Quip should be in the everyday marketer’s toolbox, especially those already on the Salesforce platform. Fields in Salesforce can map to information in Quip, so when users update one piece of info, the other connected piece is automatically updated so there’s no discrepancy. It’s perfect for working from home because all the content is live, and team members can get notified when updates or tasks are assigned.
Sales
“With Salesforce, working from home is as easy as it gets”, Ellis Davis, Sales Operations at Corrao Group. All the information and tasks are inside Salesforce so forgetting any notes at the office are a thing of the past. It’s all inside of Salesforce and easy for the whole company to access in real-time. With Chatter being the main communication on projects, she and everyone else can jump into the conversation and catch up or give updates with everything being in one place. “We’ve always known how to work from home because we’ve always had Salesforce, so it’s easy to hop on during a weekend and home and work like you were in the office”, she ended with. Tyler Keil, Sales Operations, has always lived by the phrase, “If it’s not in Salesforce, it doesn’t exist.” All notes are put into Salesforce and associated with the appropriate location, whether that’s a Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity record, or something else. Having instant alerts when someone updates one of your records or tasks that you’re working on helps speed up everyday processes while working from home. “Salesforce is much more than a virtual Rolodex, it tracks conversations, the entire pipeline, historic deals and much, much more.”
When working from home, sales reps can’t quickly ask if a co-worker spoke with, or emailed a new lead. With Salesforce, all calls and emails are logged right on the contact record as they happen, so there’s no confusion. This way, reps can catch up if they need to without having to wait for someone to explain the updates themselves. Salesforce eliminates the need for unnecessary meetings and allows users to continue being productive at home.
Salesforce: The Ultimate Work From Home Platform
We’ve had the ability to offer the option for our employees to work from home since we started using cloud-based solutions in 2002. Since then, we’ve adjusted and created an infrastructure within Salesforce so our team can work from home and not skip a beat. While Salesforce isn’t required in order to run a business from home, it can incredibly boost the progress and success of each department, all while making your employees’ jobs easier. We understand how flexible the Salesforce platform is and how it supports every department in your business. If you’re struggling to run your company from home, please email us at wfh@corraogroup.com. We can jump on a call to discuss your current and projected business situations and suggest assistance.
Salesforce’s announcement of Manufacturing Cloud has given manufacturers the tools needed to take control of their business. Before the release, it was difficult for manufacturers to have full visibility into sales agreements. Negotiating blind occurs for companies when their sales team doesn’t have what it needs to plan, sell, or close the right deal. As a result, negotiating blind was the first significant pain point that Salesforce solved for the manufacturing industry.
Outdated ERPs and Forecasts
Ongoing changes to sales orders that are not communicated back to the original sales agreement are a major challenge for manufacturers today. The changes to sales orders are not fully visible to manufacturers because the sales agreements are managed outside of the ERP, or the deals are across multiple ERPs. In addition, inaccurate forecasting becomes an issue when updated sales orders are not synced directly to the sales agreement. Without accurate data in real-time, manufacturers tend to create forecasts based on their own best interests rather than relying on accurate data from past or present performances.
Salesforce’s Solution: Manufacturing Cloud
Manufacturing Cloud provides a central location to surface orders from multiple systems. All your employees and partners have real-time visibility into planned orders that can be compared to actual orders. All of your important data housed under one single source of truth will help Manufacturers improve their forecasting as employees cans see changes made to sale orders in real-time. With the help of Salesforce Einstein, forecasted data on the agreement can outline the internal assumptions that went into the contract so that you never forget crucial insights from your previous deals. In addition, Einstein can generate insights automatically to help you plan, sell, or close a deal when you store all your customer data into Salesforce. Manufacturers should no longer have to negotiate blind with the ability to have one single source of truth.
How Forecasts Help You
Let’s say you’re the Managing Partner of a manufacturing company that makes reading glasses. In order to make the glasses, you need to engage with a metal company for the frames and a plastic company for the lens.
After reviewing your forecasts without using the insights from Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, you estimate you will require 10,000 eyeglass units. With the ability to forecast accurately in real-time with Manufacturing Cloud, you’re alerted you have the potential to make more than 12,000 and save in costs. Manufacturing Cloud gives manufacturers better confidence in their actual production units because of the ability to have accurate forecasting that can be broken down per month.
Now, you’re able to circle back to your vendors and negotiate a better price for your company based on the volume of material that’s coming in. Manufacturing Cloud takes the guesswork out of forecasting.
Corrao Group Can Help You
Solving the first pain point of the current Manufacturing industry is a significant accomplishment for Salesforce. With the recent release of Customer 360 Truth, Salesforce is giving its customers a single source of truth that houses all your customer’s data. Much like Customer 360 Truth, Manufacturing Cloud gives Manufacturers a more precise picture of their entire business with additional features that will help improve their company. If you would like to learn more about Manufacturing Cloud’s capabilities or features, please reach out to the Corrao Group team. The Corrao Group team is here to help you integrate and advise you on the best practices involving Manufacturing Cloud.
Dreamforce, the world’s largest software conference, had another fantastic event filled with incredible speakers, new features, and lots of customer success stories. The four-day event held the attention of the business world as Salesforce hosted more than 170,000 attendees and over 13 million online viewers. Dreamforce 2019 brought together thought leaders, industry pioneers, and Trailblazers from all over the world. With over 2,700 sessions, the Corrao Group team was active to ensure we captured the important announcements and partnerships. Here are our top 5 takeaways from Dreamforce 2019.
1. Apple Partnership
Continuing their ongoing partnership with Apple has given Salesforce an all-new mobile app that is both conversational and smart. In addition, Apple has helped Salesforce with the ability to build mobile apps tailored to address unique user needs, and the ability to learn on the go with the new app Trailhead GO. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, joined Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, for a fireside chat where they both expressed the future of productivity is mobile. Benioff told Cook during the conversation that he runs his $143 billion company from an iPhone, “I don’t even own a computer anymore. The phone has become an extension of my office. Where ever I am, if I have a phone, I can work.”
The fireside chat involved some exciting dialogue between the two business leaders as they discussed the future of productivity on a mobile device, artificial intelligence, Steve Jobs, values, and more. Benioff asked Cook the most important value in his life, in which Cook answered, “In my upper thirties, it became clear to me that we’re almost searching your whole lifetime for your purpose. I’m sure some people in the audience have done this too… and, you are almost convinced early in life about your purpose in life is this and that… but it keeps changing as you move ahead in life. Soon you realize that the purpose of life is to help somebody else. That is the sole reason that we’re here. Life gets so much simpler once you get that in your head…That’s my North Star.”
We are excited to see the partnership that will unfold over the next couple of years between Apple and Salesforce. Cook believes there is a tremendous growth trajectory for enterprise apps specifically built for the Apple and Salesforce partnership to help users improve productivity. We will have to wait and see what Salesforce and Apple do next; for now, we have a new Salesforce Mobile App that can host your entire business on a mobile device that is conversational, and smart.
Tim Cook with Marc Benioff at Dreamforce 2019
2. AWS Partnership
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced an expansion of their global strategic partnership with Salesforce, the global leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Salesforce introduced their new Einstein Voice, which seamlessly integrates with Amazon Connect to provide service agents with a complete set of tools to deliver the best quality service to their customers. Salesforce is offering AWS content available on Trailhead to train anyone who wants to become proficient in the cloud.
The biggest headline from all of Dreamforce 2019 was Salesforce releasing its new Einstein Voice. Delivering excellent customer service over the phone is still a challenge for many companies, and that is where the new Service Cloud Voice can help out. Einstein Voice offers AI-driven insights on a call with a customer, integrates calls easily, and can boost productivity by closing cases faster with insights from Einstein. If your company is off business hours, let Einstein answer the phone for you to help quickly solve customer issues. Service Cloud Voice-enabled State Farm to provide a faster resolution for customers – 31% times faster.
The release of Einstein Voice will help service workers improve customer relationships. Having the ability to see real-time insights into what could potentially help solve customer issues faster is effective and exciting. Corrao Group is interested in how Einstein Voice will affect the field service workers. Could Einstein Voice help service technicians who are not hands-free report issues faster with the ability to speak directly to Einstein? We will have to wait and see for that answer. For now, the ability to have Einstein Voice will be beneficial to all service teams.
A Preview Shown of Einstein Voice at Dreamforce
3. Einstein Call Coaching
Einstein’s Call Coaching uses AI technology to analyze audio clips and present insights for your sales reps. It can help your sales manager understand what’s going on in the customer calls. Einstein Call Coaching empowers insides sales teams with management-level visibility into critical moments during a call, conversation trends, and a conversation library, which highlights the team’s best examples of successful calls. Einstein uses this information and gives insights to help your sales rep performance.
Sales Managers can utilize Einstein Call Coaching to give sales reps the information they need to become top performers, or informed decision-makers at the company. Sales managers have analysis and visibility into every single call with insights from Einstein. Insights for sales managers and reps can range from trends such as which competitors are being mentioned in conversation, how are we positioning different products, and how are we handling objections. We are interested to learn more information about Einstein Call Coaching as it is only still being piloted with a rollout plan to be made available to users in June 2020.
Einstein Call Coaching Dashboard
4. Salesforce 360 Truth
Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced Customer 360 Truth, “a new set of data and identity services that enable companies to build a single source of truth across all of their customer relationships” (Salesforce). “Now, this is a computer science holy grail that we’ve been trying to put together for a long time,” added Benioff, the founder of Salesforce. Salesforce 360 Truth aims to let Salesforce users and clients achieve a clear understanding of their customers by managing data and prior interactions all in one single source of truth. In addition, Einstein can be paired with 360 truth, and can help “guide you and help you run your business and connect with your customers in a whole new way,” Benioff said.
We’ve always believed that having a single source of truth is crucial to have an optimized Salesforce instance. Corrao Group lives by the motto, “If it’s not in Salesforce, it doesn’t exist.” Housing all your data in one system will improve your ability to have a clearer picture of customer data, reports, and more. Salesforce 360 Truth will help businesses provide better customer service, predict sales opportunities, and create a personalized marketing journey, all with the help of Einstein insights and recommendations.
5. Salesforce Mobile and Trailhead GO
A fully redesigned CRM app, Salesforce will add Einstein AI, analytics, and integration with iOS features such as Siri and Face ID to their new mobile app. In the mobile app, Siri and Einstein’s voice assistant can add tasks, update CRM records, and take notes. The new designed CRM app is all apart of Salesforce’s plan of moving the Customer 360 Platform onto the mobile device. In addition to the new CRM app, Salesforce is also launching a learning app called Trailhead GO with exclusive features and more than 700 training models available to Apple’s iOS and iPadOS. The release of the new mobile app and Trailhead GO signals a new era for productivity as Benioff believes the future of productivity involves a mobile device rather than a desktop or laptop.
Salesforce creating the new Salesforce app to boost productivity will undoubtedly help your mobile workforce. Your marketing, sales, and service teams can work on the go and use the CRM app as if they are on a desktop or laptop device. Einstein being integrated with the Salesforce app will have a profound impact. Bret Taylor, Chief Product Officer of Salesforce, explained, “With Salesforce Mobile, Salesforce and Apple are empowering sales, service and marketing professionals on the go to deliver game-changing customer experiences, powered by AI.” Salesforce creating Trailhead GO is also a significant accomplishment as users will be able to learn on the go anytime and anywhere. Marc Benioff and Tim Cook both believe that the future of productivity is using mobile devices, and Salesforce has created two powerful apps for trailblazers to work and learn wherever they are.
Announcing a New Global Partnership
Dreamforce 2019 Conclusion
Mark it down as another successful Dreamforce event by Salesforce. We want to give a big shout and thank you to Salesforce as they put on an extraordinary event that featured some incredible guest speakers like Barack Obama, Emilia Clarke, Tim Cook, and Stephen Curry. The energy around the city of San Francisco was electric, as more than 170,000 attendees gathered to witness and learn what new features Salesforce will release next. We are already getting excited for Dreamforce 2020!
If you would like to learn more about any of the new features from Dreamforce 2019 and how it can relate to your business, please contact us.
The release of Manufacturing Cloud is a fantastic accomplishment for Salesforce. Manufacturing Cloud takes the current pain points of the industry and turns them into an experience that is flexible in reacting to the customer’s ever-changing demands. In this blog, we are going to share with you the importance of Salesforce’s latest release.
Forecasting
Salesforce knows that the manufacturing industry contains more than just customers. Suppliers, contractors, dealers, service technicians, distributors, and internal warehouse and factory all play a crucial role in the development of your product and the experiences of your customers. Manufacturing Cloud helps users collaborate in real-time across the ecosystem to ensure your forecasts are accurate and updates to your schedules are automatically communicated to warehouse and purchasing departments.
According to Salesforce, “Manufacturers need a clear understanding of all past shipments, current production plans, and future production forecasts.” Forecasting in Manufacturing Cloud is all about taking control and allowing flexible releases to your customers’ needs. Manufacturers often have very different sales and forecasting processes that your supply and chain teams must know when to deliver new items. Manufacturing Cloud gives users the upfront awareness of what you think you’re going to sell, and when you are going to sell it. Having critical insights into the timing of selling your product will make every part of your business sufficient.
Forecasting in Salesforce isn’t just about how you’re going to sell your product on your unique timeline. It’s about knowing how you need to staff your factory: Do I need a second shift, or can I get by with the first shift? Manufacturers always have absurd spikes where their employees are forced to work long hours to get their product out. Forecasting in Manufacturing Cloud gives manufacturers an overview of all their businesses, allowing them to take control and make smarter decisions.
Partner Collaboration
Manufacturing Cloud extends benefits to all your partners to collaborate across the same forecast order and demand data in one single source of truth. For example, the Partner Community allows your vendors and partners to see and engage in real-time updates to your sales forecasts. Additionally, analytics will be tied directly to order data with additional information into the territory, customer, agreement, product line, or product performance. Improving inventory management allows manufacturers the chance to analyze their customer data, and gain insights into every product and territory performance.
A New Era
Manufacturers for far too long have used old proprietary systems that have never been scaled. In addition, these systems are not cloud friendly. Salesforce being able to tie manufacturing into the leader of the cloud is a big deal. The era of using and exporting spreadsheets or pivot tables is over. A new era is emerging for manufacturing, and it allows manufacturers to have complete control over the ability to operate their business in a much more profitable point of view.
Our experience with manufacturing dates back to our Managing Partner, Jack Corrao. Jack has developed numerous operational infrastructures to support hardware and software companies to deliver the best in breed solutions. As our #1 vertical, we are here to help you integrate and train you on best practices involving Manufacturing Cloud.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be releasing a new blog related to Salesforce’s new Cloud. We’ll cover manufacturing pain points Salesforce solved, our favorite features, and how to integrate Manufacturing Cloud. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.
In its most fundamental structure, marketing automation software is intended to take time away from the most tedious workplace tasks, freeing up bandwidth for more strategic initiatives. With a powerful marketing automation software like Pardot, you can automate sales, marketing, project management, accounts receivable, and more. In this blog, we’ll take a look at some of the benefits of optimizing your marketing automation processes, between generating leads, personalizing their journey, aligning sales and marketing, and more.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is a crucial component in any marketing strategy. Artificial Intelligence is giving you the analytics in real-time to find what content leads are engaging with on your website. Being able to track clicks, downloads, and website activity gives you more insight to understand what the visitors are interested in. Tracking customer behavior helps your sales team identify the pain points and needs of your prospects. In a study done by Invesp, “80% of marketing automation users saw an increase in the number of leads, and 77% had an increase of conversion.” Having automated messaging, such as social media, emails, or lead magnets, will create more qualified leads for your company. Automating lead capture allows your marketing and sales team to further invest in strategy and business planning. Once the lead is engaging with your material, it’s time to start them on a customized journey.
Personalized Journey of the Customer
Let’s say you had an ad that someone clicked on and downloaded a lead magnet. The lead can now be put in a customized, automated drip campaign. Developing a library of diverse content to fit any and all of your prospects will serve as the foundation for your automation strategy. Your company saves time each time a prospect is automatically added to a drip campaign with content tailored to their area of interest. This personalized and relevant information to leads provides inherent value allowing you to stand out from the rest of the competitors. However, being able to track engagement with your content is a vital piece of the qualification process.
Accurate and Reliable Data – Reports and Dashboards
Choosing an appropriate marketing automation tool allows you to develop real-time reports in a matter of minutes. With big data you’ll be able to assess the effectiveness of past, present, or future campaigns. Your reports and dashboards, as with many tools at your disposal, will also come into play during the lead qualification process. Pardot’s automatic scoring system scores a prospect based on engagement with all of your marketing assets from email to landing pages to videos. Your sales and marketing teams will then have further insight on your prospect’s existing relationship with your organization paving way for better-informed decision-making in the nurturing process. However, your team may find that you have access to an overwhelming amount of data, and you’ll need a plan for identifying the most valuable among it all. At Corrao Group, we run reports every day to find the data we need to make improvements in our sales and marketing strategy.
Save Time and Resources
One of the most significant benefits of utilizing marketing automation is the increased bandwidth that comes with it. Imagine how much time you are spending on manually sending emails to leads or preparing posts on your social media accounts. Many different marketing automation tools allow you to have more time to spend on strategic planning to maximize return on investment. Free from the burden of many manual tasks, you’ll devote your resources to creating more engaging marketing content, working with your sales team, and building better relationships with customers. Improved relationships within your team and with your prospects is a win for all parties involved.
This explosion of AI technology over the past couple of years has allowed marketers to leave low-status, redundant tasks to AI while being able to focus on the more prominent creative marketing strategies with marketing automation. When leveraged for its full potential, automation software is not a tool just for sales and marketing. At Corrao Group, we created EZ-AR™, the first automated invoice generation and account receivable collection solution. What used to take hours upon hours of manual work, now gets done in minutes thanks to lessons learned in our experience with marketing automation.
Sales and Marketing Aligned
Disconnected sales and marketing teams plague organizations across industries, but marketing automation can bring the two teams together. Marketing automation provides help to the sales team by improving lead generation, lead scoring, and automated lead follow up for sales. The streamlined qualification and hand-off capabilities of a marketing automation tool connect the sales cycle from start to finish. Collaboration between both teams is vital to have, and the relationship of these teams should only grow closer as they work to maximize ROI at your company. Marketing automation delivers higher quality leads with more context based on the pain points and interests of each of these prospects, and all this before an initial phone call. It’s incredible what your company can do when you have both the marketing and sales team aligned, and working as one.
There are many more ways that marketing automation can efficiently and effectively improve your company’s time and revenue stream. Being able to have a powerful tool that can run different parts of your company with AI technology is becoming the norm. More and more companies are moving towards utilizing marketing automation; roughly 51% of companies are already marketing automation users with 58% of B2B companies planning on continuing to use the software or make the switch. Understandably, it can be a lot to handle, and if you would like to learn more, please feel free to contact us. Our marketing innovation combines technology and creativity in a unique experience that attracts, converts, closes, and delights.
“97% of practice leaders, marketers, and executives said that ABM provided a higher ROI than other methods, with just under 40% saying it’s ‘much higher’” (Alterra Group). Account-based marketing is a strategy that can provide significant benefits to retain and expand existing client relationships. There are four main ABM tactics to utilize when implementing this process in your workplace: 1) Identify Target Accounts, 2) Target Decision Makers, 3) Engage with Personalized Content, and 4) Close Accounts, Report on Metrics and Expand Accounts.
1. Identify Target Accounts
Identifying target accounts is the first critical step in the ABM process as sales and marketing come together to highlight the accounts that are the best representations of their ideal client. There are four different ways to select your target accounts. This can either be done manually, through CRM reporting, Advanced Technology, or AI-Powered Insights. Recently, we talked about how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the ABM process, and with a product like Einstein Analytics, it becomes easier to collect and analyze current data while identifying additional, similar accounts. When determining the number of your accounts, there is no magic number as every company’s pipeline is different. However, we do suggest that you break them down into three different tiers:
Tier A: Highest value with the highest potential of closing; Hyper-personalized. Ex: 1-50 Accounts
Tier B: High value with great closing potential; very personalized. Ex: 51-200 Accounts
Tier C: Low value; not their ideal client profile, somewhat personalized. Ex: 201+ Accounts
In terms of the number of accounts you should have in your tiers, it depends on what your Average Sales Price (ASP) is. Therefore, if your ASP is low, you most likely will not have a good number of tier A accounts, and if it is high, you won’t have as many tier A accounts. Furthermore, the last step of this process involves defining what your Ideal Customer Profile is (ICP). ICP’s play an essential role in ABM because it is necessary to have an idea of what you want from a potential customer or sale.
2. Target Decision Makers
Once the list of your target accounts is made and separated by tiers, it is time to target who makes the decisions for the company. This becomes a powerful ABM tactic because by targeting the decision maker of the company, it helps speed up the sales cycle and help shape your content. Building out personas at this stage can be the difference that separates you from your competitors. While your competitors send out generic emails, you will be sending highly personalized content that will win over and resonate with your customers.
Some information you should look at to build personas are:
Role – What are their top priorities? Who do they interact with daily? Do they make the decisions?
Challenges – Find out their top problems so that you can offer the solution to those challenges.
Personal & Preferences – Find out top information about them such as their education, employment history, or what city they currently live in. It never hurts to help build report with whom you are doing business with.
It is essential to take the time in this step to build relationships with your clients. Not only will you have a higher chance of expanding their account, but you might have found a customer for life.
3. Engage with Personalized Content
To engage with contacts, you need to have relevant content using the information you gathered in the last step. Those tier A and B accounts will appreciate you taking the time to create a highly customized email just for their account and personas. It is essential to understand that not all content has to be personalized for each account as it would be too time-consuming for the company. However, for those tier A and B accounts, engaging with highly personalized content is a perfect ABM tactic that can show you did your research. Tier A accounts should receive content specifically made for them, while tier B accounts can receive content that is custom to their industry.
The next step is taking the inbound marketing roots and applying them to content you’ve created for the decision makers. Your timing of the content does not change; however, the delivery channel does. It’s important to understand that there are other ways of delivering highly personalized content than just emails. Some of these ways include executive events, direct mail, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings. Consequently, implementing these ABM tactics can help your company stand out from the rest of your competitors because these attention-grabbers and little details will not go unnoticed.
4. Close Accounts, Report on Metrics, Expand Accounts
Your team has identified your target accounts, built up personas and personalized content for each contact, and engaged them on respective channels. Now it’s time to close! The closing of the deal is only the start of your relationship. If you offer a service, your service team will now take over and keep the client happy. Once that is over, it is time to set them up on an automatic nurture email campaign that continuously checks in with the client. Having a nurturing campaign allows you to stay engaged with the client, and when they need more work done in the future, they will know who to trust with their work.
After a few months of utilizing ABM tactics, it is time to prove to your executives that ABM is here to stay. If they need more convincing about ABM, use statistics from target accounts to show engagement growth and confirm that your hyper-personalized content is resonating with the contact. If you would like to learn more about ABM tactics, please fill out the form below to grow your marketing or visit our website.
