Digital Marketing Insights From the Salesforce Ecosystem

Today, we still say “digital marketing,” but what we really mean is “all marketing.” That’s because digital channels are part of our everyday lives. And engaging customers means meeting them on the platforms they use most.

But much has changed since the early days of digital marketing. Is email still relevant? Is paid social a viable strategy for small businesses? We tackled these questions and more in our latest LinkedIn Live coffee chats as part of Digital Marketing Month in July. Hosted by Guilda Hilaire, Salesforce Director of Product Marketing, we gleaned insights from partners throughout the ecosystem. In this blog post, we’ll highlight those insights.

You can watch the events here:

Email Marketing Essentials — Watch the recap here.

• Andrea Tarrell, CEO of Sercante
• Parry Malm, CEO of Phrasee

Using Paid Social to Boost Your Marketing — Watch the recap here.

• Jiordan Castle, Director of Marketing, Atrium

Email Marketing Essentials

Is email dead? Over the past 20 years, people have predicted the end of email with every new platform that’s emerged — but email is still going strong. In fact, email marketing remains one of the most effective sources of sales and marketing leads.

“It was going to be RSS back in the day, then blogs, then Facebook, then Slack, and lately iOS, but guess what? Email is still standing and still fighting,” said Parry.

“I think people like to rag on it sometimes because it’s not the new, sexy, shiny object of the digital marketing world, but it’s effective,” said Andrea. “It’s the cornerstone of almost every B2B marketing strategy our customers execute, and one of the best ways of reliably getting customers at a low cost.”

But not all email is created equal. Parry and Andrea went on to share the importance of great content and sending the right message to the right person at the right time. Too often, practitioners focus on the scientific side of the marketing spectrum and forget about the necessity of art and creativity.

“Ultimately, email is advertising,” said Parry. “The thing most people don’t focus on, which they should, is the right message.”

More than obsessively tracking email metrics, deliverability tactics, or which channel is leading the pack, our interviewees stressed the importance of creating content audiences want to read. Everything else stems from there.

“Look for anything you can do to share content and give people a good reason to join your list in the first place,” said Andrea.

And when you do track metrics, don’t judge the success of a campaign or program on a single number. That’s because things like open rates and click-through rates are becoming less reliable with the prevalence of bots clicking links and even Apple giving users the ability to opt out of open rate tracking. Instead, look at your metrics holistically.

“Never focus on just one metric in isolation,” said Parry. “Consider them an ensemble, and try to drive all of them up in a reasonable fashion without having any one unnaturally spike.”

Using Paid Social to Boost Your Marketing

Our Digital Marketing Month viewers also took away helpful insights on how to get the most out of paid social. Both Guilda and Jiordan agreed on LinkedIn’s popularity and importance (especially in B2B marketing), especially in the wake of COVID-19 and the increased digital usership it has created.

“LinkedIn [Live] doesn’t replace engagement, but it augments it in a really interesting way,” said Jiordan.

To manage that engagement and curate the best paid social strategy possible, she looks to programmatic advertising. It essentially means “automatic,” but with the ability to still personalize and iterate in a self-serve way.

“If I’m on LinkedIn setting up ad parameters, I’m thinking about people engaging with the ad, not just about sending an image out to the void and hoping people respond to it,” said Jiordan. “With programmatic, you’re seeing live that you can change your cycles halfway through.”

This strategy also provides a way to save time and money by seeing what works and making adjustments that will benefit the campaign in the long-run — which goes a long way, particularly for small businesses. Jordan suggests remaining nimble.

“You may have to change your approach to marketing, perhaps on a quarterly basis,” said Jiordan. “How many people planned for a 2020 that just didn’t happened? Ads are the same way. Play on a small scale, and see what works.”

It’s also important for small businesses and those who are new at paid social to exercise brand safety. This means ensuring you’re:

• Not advertising to robots
• Not serving up ads people can’t see
• Not having ads appear on dark corners of the internet or places that don’t align with your business/customer values

“This is another way of wasting money and time,” said Jiordan. “Set up guidelines to say what matters most to me, what I’m not willing to serve up, and where I wouldn’t want to appear.”

Digital Marketing in the Salesforce Partner Ecosystem

How is your company taking advantage of all that digital marketing has to offer? If your program hasn’t accelerated at the same speed of customers, it may be time to rethink your strategy to better connect with them. Our new Digital Marketing Program helps Salesforce partners accelerate in digital through a curriculum that’s designed to get you up to speed on the latest digital marketing topics, including email marketing essentials, account-based marketing, search engine visibility, and more. Take the leap to finally reach customers and drive demand in this all-digital world.

Visit our Digital Marketing Program Partner Community page to get started!