Harness the Power of Harmony
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement and Account Engagement for effective marketing strategies
The debate between Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE) and Salesforce Account Engagement (MCAE, formerly Pardot) has been a hot topic in marketing circles for years. Both platforms offer powerful marketing-automation capabilities yet cater to different needs.
So, which is right for you? The answer is: it depends. If you have a B2B model, MCAE might be a good fit. If B2C, MCE could be a better option. But what if you have both?
For companies operating both B2B and B2C models, a combination of MCE and MCAE can pack a punch. The foundation for success is to understand the unique strengths of each platform and to tailor your solution by combining them. Below, we delve into the core capabilities of MCE and MCAE, their strengths, and how they harmoniously drive successful marketing.
Understanding the core capabilities
Both MCE and MCAE offer similar functionalities and can accomplish most marketing-automation tasks. They provide segmentation and automation features for targeted marketing campaigns, Salesforce integration for seamless data synchronization, and analytics and reporting capabilities to measure campaign performance.
MCAE strengths
MCAE excels in lead generation, lead management, and lead nurturing. Users interact with MCAE via the Lightning Platform, where they can create dynamic landing pages and forms, eliminating the need for custom development or additional tools. The platform also provides progressive profiling to collect more data over time and ensures data cleanliness with built-in email validation. Lead management in MCAE involves scoring leads based on their behaviors, demographics, and interactions, enabling you to execute marketing tactics accordingly. Finally, lead nurturing capabilities empower you to create personalized segments, deliver targeted emails, and provide relevant information to keep leads engaged across the sales funnel.
MCE strengths
MCE stands out with its advanced, script-based personalization, omnichannel marketing, comprehensive API (REST and SOAP), and robust segmentation and data modeling capabilities. With it, you can create highly personalized content based on collected behavioral and demographic data beyond what MCAE offers. With Journey Builder, you can orchestrate customer journeys across multiple channels, including email, SMS, WhatsApp, mobile apps, ad exchanges, and custom channels. The extensible data model in Contact Builder enables businesses to collect and analyze vast amounts of behavioral data, facilitating audience segmentation and automation.
Working in harmony
To maximize the potential of a combined MCAE-MCE MarTech stack, you should align your capabilities with the customer lifecycle journey. MCAE excels in the initial stages of the customer lifecycle, focusing on lead generation and nurturing, while MCE’s strengths shine as the customer relationship progresses and richer data is collected. Both platforms play critical roles in almost every stage of the marketing lifecycle, making them ideal for working together in harmony.
Solution design
Both platforms offer out-of-the-box connectors to Salesforce CRM, enabling near real-time data synchronization.
The MCAE connector is primarily linked to CRM’s leads, contacts, accounts, and campaigns.
Similarly, MCE provides an out-of-the-box connector and can connect bi-directionally to CRM across all standard and custom objects.
Effectively leveraging both platforms requires a meticulous examination of the communications ecosystem. It’s crucial to ensure that each platform complements the other without unintended collisions or inundating recipients with overlapping or excessive messages.
One effective tactic is to initiate communication with leads through MCAE. After they convert into customers, switch communications to MCE, with MCAE messages disabled.
Use cases
To showcase the synergy between the platforms, let’s explore various scenarios:
Cross-selling and upselling
MCAE provides valuable insights into customer behavior and interests, enabling sales teams to identify cross-selling opportunities. MCE can then orchestrate personalized campaigns across various channels to maximize sales.
Use case: Wealth management for high-net-worth individuals
MCAE’s lead scoring and grading features can help identify the most qualified prospects based on their engagement level and demographic information. Through personalized email nurturing, proactive outreach by sales representatives, and exclusive event invitations, marketers can ensure they’re facilitating maximum conversion.
Post-conversion, transitioning all communications to MCE facilitates seamless omnichannel messaging for onboarding campaigns. This enables the strategic cross-selling of diverse banking products, tailored to each client’s financial goals and requirements, for a cohesive customer experience.
B2B2C customer lifecycle
Although MCAE may not be the first choice for B2C strategies, it can be valuable when the customer lifecycle has an extended duration in the early stages.
Use case: Patient management lifecycle
In the realm of health management, leveraging MCAE throughout corporate and private client sales cycles proves instrumental. Targeted marketing to qualified leads facilitates the acquisition of new customers.
Subsequently, transitioning to MCE streamlines patient communications. This includes essential functions such as appointment reminders, preparation guidelines, health-check notifications, and timely dissemination of lab results, ensuring optimal patient engagement and care coordination — all sent in the patient’s preferred channel.
Conclusion
Rather than choosing between MCE and MCAE, businesses can leverage the unique strengths of each platform by harmonizing their capabilities. MCAE excels in lead generation, management, and nurturing, while MCE offers advanced personalization, omnichannel marketing, and segmentation capabilities. By combining these strengths and clever dovetailing of the two, you can execute successful marketing that drives growth and revenue.
Slalom is a next-generation professional services company creating value at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. Learn more and reach out today.
