Category: Marketing Automation

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Any time we look to change the status quo, there will be roadblocks, hurdles, and growing pains. But when it comes to aligning internal organizations in marketing and sales (and customer service), the struggle can pay off hugely. But no organization and no leadership should be looking to make these changes and shift internal processes without looking to how it can be done most effectively and efficiently – that’s a no-brainer. This is why digital transformation is not only critical for successful marketing and sales alignment, but it should in fact be a primary focus – then the alignment will come more easily.
Digital transformation means better customer insights
At last month’s Adobe Experience Maker’s Live virtual event, Chris Parkin, Senior Director at Adobe walked us through “Redefining the Future with Digital Transformation”. In his presentation, he showed us how Adobe is adapting through new digital technologies and approaches, and how other Adobe customers are as well.
In his first point, he showed how digital transformation allows for a “deeper understanding of the customer,” discussing that in doing so, we can identify “specific customers and audience segments, understand behavior, and anticipate actions.” This, in turn, allows us to “use data to generate actionable insights and improve customer outcomes.”
So what does this mean in terms of marketing and sales alignment? Well for starters, we can better track customer journeys from (MQLs) to SQLs to SALs. This allows us to see patterns, and then make predictions which can help us to do more aligned activities from how we build website/digital sales funnels and email marketing campaigns, to how we can more accurately identify the activities that lead to conversions through all stages of the journey. 
This makes the handoff of a prospect between marketing and sales seamless. When we have the tools to measure what our prospects and customers are doing, what they may need, and what their intentions are, we can more accurately service them and allocate resources and time from the appropriate department in ways that aren’t putting our teams into the competition. Instead, real-time digital touchpoints and customer insights can help us to foster a more solid partnership as we work together towards common goals in conversions. 
Digital transformation means accurate content delivery
Another theme throughout the Experience Maker’s Live event was content. Now, more than ever, content is at the center of how you service prospects and customers, showcase your company’s knowledge and insights, and motivate stronger customer relationships and trust.
But it’s not enough to just produce content. You may have a hypothesis about what your customers may want and need, but most importantly, digital transformation allows you to not only know for sure what your customers are looking for, but it helps you deliver that content exactly when they need it. 
In Chris’ second point, he discussed “Agile Communications” for modern businesses, which underscores the need to “increase proactive, personalized and timely communications aligned to customer and employee context” which is based on segment, need, and location, to name a few. The results? “Increase employee engagement and customer retention.” 
Especially in our current economy and with the limitations we are facing, digital delivery of highly relevant and personalized content can make or break your success with a prospect or customer, and this accounts for all stages of the customer journey. It’s not just marketing’s job to create digital assets for lead generation and nurturing for sales, when sales need to increasingly provide accurate content to help customers all the way through the decision making process. 
Digital tools like Marketo Engage help marketing and sales teams track the content that has been shared with prospects and customers. They also help establish clear next steps, answer questions in a timely way, and provide exceptional service even before the purchase has been made. This again allows for alignment internally in ways that see all employees in customer-centric roles supporting each other in enabling the customer through useful, relevant, and timely content. 
Digital transformation means creating new ways of working
You’ve likely heard the term “unprecedented times” so much recently that you’re sick of it. But it is one of the best ways to describe what we’re collectively going through: A widespread fundamental shift in not only how we do business, but how we work. Most of us are learning as we go, adapting on the fly, and finding out through rapid trial and error what works and what doesn’t. And while we’re busy finding the new norm in our own work lives, our customers are experiencing the same. The companies that embrace digital transformation, are the ones who are continuing to succeed.
In another of Chris’ points, he described the “new ways of working” in which we must “leverage remote collaboration, workflows, and meeting platforms.” He also said we need to “use common tools to democratize data, content publishing and leverage AI for scale.”
When it comes to marketing and sales alignment, this becomes blatantly apparent. Collaboration is imperative for success, and gatekeeping, while it may have happened before, cannot stand. Organizations who are able to efficiently move all operations online can see an increase in communication channels when the usual in-person, informal channels are unavailable. But perhaps this is a good thing. We can see how digital transformation of marketing and sales alignment allows for a more tightly run ship: less information slips through the cracks, accountability is more difficult to run from, and unified systems and tools ensures everyone is on the same page. 
While digital transformation is nothing new, our current time has forced many of us to speed up adoption in ways we could have never anticipated. But rather than fear the change, or struggle to adapt, we should look to how it actually enables us to achieve important internal milestones, especially when it comes to marketing and sales alignment. 
The post Why Digital Transformation Is Crucial for Marketing and Sales Alignment appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Adobe’s recent Experience Maker’s Live two-day online event was insightful, thoughtful, and informative, just as I predicted. While I knew what kind of high-quality content I could expect from one of their events, I headed into the virtual conference with one pressing question: what exactly is an experience maker?
It didn’t take long before the question was answered. 
The short answer is that an experience maker is a new breed of leader – one who is flexible, puts customers at the center, and is helpful in the most creative ways possible. It’s a crucial outlook on leadership in modern business, especially for those who are looking to improve customer experiences, digitize business processes, and create better internal alignment. 
Let’s look closer at what are Adobe’s big three components of what defines an Experience Maker, as told by Marissa Dacay, Sr. Director, Global Enterprise Marketing at Adobe, and why these qualities are crucial for modern business.
An Experience Maker Is Empathetic
One of the major themes throughout the two-day event was that times have changed drastically, and things will never be the same again. While the message appears foreboding, the truth is, it’s an opportunity – if we can navigate it correctly. In Marissa’s opening statement she explained that these elements are used in ways that are “setting resilient businesses from the rest of the pack.”
One of the biggest, and most important, aspects of an Experience Maker is empathy. Empathy for customers, empathy for colleagues and employees, and empathy for yourself. Knowing that each of these stakeholders is navigating uncertainty and could be struggling with entirely new problems means that you need to care about, and respond to these problems. 
This means rethinking the customer journey, rethinking customer experiences, rethinking content and how you can be helpful and supportive of prospects and customers, and to your own teams. Empathy means “understanding that feelings influence decisions and trust,” and using that in your business decision making.
While initially, some panic meant that companies cut B2B solutions contracts in anticipation of dwindling revenue, many businesses who have leadership and customer-facing employees who are empathetic, are seeing their customer base double down and remain loyal as they’re being helped to weather the storm. As Marissa described it, as modern leaders, “we are not here to merely sell, we’re here to help.”
An Experience Maker Is Adaptable
Another important theme from the EML virtual conference is that if businesses haven’t already begun their digital transformation, it may not be too late, but they will certainly face a bigger uphill battle. The reason primarily being the ability to be adaptable to anything that may come your way. 
Companies and their leaders who focus on digital-first experiences, customer support, and internal collaboration and communication are the ones who have most easily been able to pivot in terms of their position and offerings or adapt internal processes to remote work and new customer journeys. Marissa explained that in these times, there is “power in the pivot. Scenario planning is shifting, and b2b especially needs more late-stage content” for the customer. Experience makers now need to be asking themselves questions like, “how do you get a product demo into virtual content?”
With manual processes, and slow-moving internal organizations, you may have greater difficulty in making this pivot – but all is not lost. Now we’ve seen that our global economy can shift in an instant, and the Experience Makers will help their businesses to be prepared for anything in the future. 
This mentality of “come what may” and ability to be flexible and adapt very quickly, ensures that businesses have the grit to make it out the other side of this trying time, and any others that will inevitably occur in the future.
An Experience Maker Is Inclusive
While audience segmentation and targeting is an important part of marketing and sales, when it comes to modern business, leaders must strive for inclusion. 
This means a few different things: inclusiveness in the broader sense means making sure employees, customers, and other stakeholders alike feel listened to, and that there is content, solutions, and experiences that speak to their needs. As Marissa put it, “your customers are living in a different world and their needs have changed. You must understand your customer in real-time.”
It also means that leaders and businesses must strive to reach higher levels of self-awareness when it comes to their greater role in society, as difficult topics in diversity and equality must be faced head-on. As consumers and employees alike seek to align themselves with companies and individuals who embody important values, experience makers need to be diligent in their self-education, growth, and inclusion in all aspects of the business. 
When drilled down further, we can see that modern businesses need to be continually inclusive in the customer journey. Experience makers then must both proactively anticipate needs in a fully holistic manner and also be able to quickly adapt when a gap in inclusivity is discovered. This means ensuring that customers are able to find and access useful, helpful, and robust information at all stages of their buying journey, before and after purchase. Here is where inclusiveness is also pertinent to internal alignment and establishing flexible, customer-centric processes. 
When it comes to leadership in modern businesses, we are being tested in ways we have never encountered before. But true experience makers can take the hand we’ve been dealt and leverage it for new opportunities that put customers at the center, encouraging relationships, better business models and internal processes, and more satisfaction inside and outside organizations. Leaders now, more than ever, need to be empathetic, adaptable, and inclusive, and then an uncertain future becomes much easier to take on. 
The post 3 Components of an Experience Maker | Why It Matters for Modern Businesses appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

In just three simple steps, you can boost a post on Facebook and Instagram.

Choose a post
Select an audience
Set your budget

That’s how easy it is.
As organic reach on social media continues to fall, businesses have started to invest more in social media advertising. For some businesses, that’s creating ads. For smaller businesses, the easier approach is often to boost Facebook posts or promote Instagram posts. Here’s why this works so well:
By putting some money behind our organic posts, we can get more results from the same amount of work.
(And if you aren’t advertising yet, boosting your Facebook and Instagram posts is a quick way to get started with advertising on those platforms—before you move into more sophisticated advertising.)
But simply throwing $5 here and $10 there isn’t enough. You need to have a strategy behind your boosted posts, and you also need a way to measure your results to ensure you get the most return on your investment.
That’s why today we’re introducing boosted post insights to Buffer.
(If you are paying for the analytics solution in Buffer, you should have this in your account already!)
How to get the best results from boosting posts
Before we get to analyzing your results, here’s a tip for choosing the best posts to boost:
Choose the posts with the highest engagement rate.
Boosting your posts is essentially paying Facebook and Instagram to show your posts to more people, according to what you have specified as the audience.
So you would want to pick the posts that will most likely generate the most engagement (or clicks depending on your goals). Posts with the highest engagement rate are proven posts. They have generated the most engagement, given the number of times people have seen it.
By boosting a post with a high engagement rate, here’s a higher chance that people who see it off the back of your ad spend will also engage with it.
Here’s a quick way to find your most engaging posts in Buffer to boost:
1. Head over to your analytics by clicking on “Analyze” at the top navigation in your Buffer account
2. Navigate to the “Posts” tab of your desired Facebook Page or Instagram account
3. Sort your posts in the “Post insights” table by “Eng. Rate”
The top few posts on the list will be great candidates for boosting. You should, however, bear in mind what you want to achieve with the boosted post and consider whether the organic post suits that purpose. For example, it will be timelier to boost a post that is meant for a marketing campaign during the campaign than after the campaign.
How to optimize your ad spend
You don’t want to just dump your money on boosted posts and forget about it. You should pay attention to the results of your boosted posts and compare the organic and paid results of your boosted posts to see how your investment has fared.
Why? By understanding the difference in your organic and paid results, you can adjust your ad spend according to the results you want to achieve. For instance, as your organic reach grows, you might want to cut back on boosting posts to a baseline so that most of your reach is from organic posts rather than boosted posts. That’s because building a brand solely through paid advertising isn’t sustainable.
With boosted post insights, there are now a few new ways to monitor your results in Buffer. Let’s run through them!
1. Overview performance
The simplest way is to see how boosting your posts has impacted your overall results. When you visit the Overview tab of a Facebook Page or Instagram account with boosted posts, you can immediately see a breakdown of organic vs paid for key metrics such as impressions and reach.
You can hover over the bar to see the exact breakdown between organic and paid.
2. Metrics growth
The next way is to track how your key metrics, such as impressions, have grown over time, especially with your boosted posts.
Are your impressions growing because of more organic impressions or paid impressions? Does that align with your strategy?
3. Post insights
The final way, and the most actionable approach, is to compare the organic and paid results of each boosted post in the “Post insights” table.
You can also click on the image to see more details of the post.
Here are a few questions you can think about while you look at these data:

How are the paid results relative to the amount spent boosting the posts?
Are there any boosted posts with exceptional paid results? Was it the media or the copy that might have caused more people to engage with the post? Or was it the audience setting for the boost? (You might also want to consider boosting such posts again if they are still relevant.)
Am I getting the results I want? Should I spend more money boosting posts next month?

If you create monthly or weekly reports, you might also want to include these data. You can simply add them to a new or existing report by clicking on the “plus” button in the upper-right corner of the table or chart.
Make better decisions
There are so many different things to do as a small business. You should be able to have your data at your fingertips so that you can make swift, high-quality decisions. By comparing your organic and paid results in Buffer, you can make better decisions on investing your advertising budget and get more results.
If you value the money you spend boosting your Facebook and Instagram posts, you might enjoy our latest improvement. Try Buffer for free for 14 days and let us know what you think.
To learn more, feel free to check out our help article or join us for our upcoming webinar.

Frequently asked questions
Are ads created through Facebook Ads Manager included?
Not at the moment. After you let Buffer access your ad data, you will only see data for your boosted Facebook and Instagram posts in Buffer. If you would like to see data for your ads created through Facebook Ads Manager in Buffer, let us know!
How often are the data in Buffer updated?
The data for your Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts are updated about every six hours. We are working to improve this so that you get the most updated data whenever you visit Buffer. Also, the data you see in Buffer excludes today’s data.
I’m paying for Buffer. Why do I not see this in my Buffer account?
There are two possible reasons. First, you might not be subscribed to our analytics solution. To get boosted post insights and other analytics and reporting features, you’ll need to add this to your Buffer subscription.
Second, if you are already paying for our analytics solution, you might need to grant Buffer permission to access your ad data. You can do so under settings.
For more specific questions about the feature, see our help article.
Got a question? Have some feedback? Feeling like you want to celebrate with us? Feel free to head to the comments in our Instagram post below to share all your thoughts, comments, questions, and celebrations! 💙

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Introducing Boosted Post Insights: the easiest way to compare organic and paid results of boosted posts, all right here in Buffer! 🎉👏⠀ ⠀ As organic reach on social media continues to fall, businesses have started to invest more in social media advertising. For some businesses, that’s creating ads. For smaller businesses, the easier approach is often to boost Facebook posts or promote Instagram posts. 🚀⠀ ⠀ But simply throwing $5 here and $10 there isn’t enough. 💰 You need to have a strategy behind your boosted posts, and you also need a way to measure how the paid results compare with organic results to ensure you get the most return on your investment. ♻️ ⠀ ⠀ That’s why today we’re introducing Boosted Post Insights to Buffer, under Analyze. Here’s why it is exciting:⠀ 1️⃣ You can see how your boosted Facebook and Instagram posts have performed in a single tool.⠀ 2️⃣ Comparing organic vs paid results of boosted posts is much easier, especially with the percentages and bar charts.⠀ 3️⃣ Your social media reports can now include boosted post data.⠀ ⠀ Got a question? Have some feedback? Feeling like you want to celebrate with us? Feel free to head to the comments to share all your thoughts, comments, questions, and celebrations! 💙⠀ ⠀ For the full blog post, head to the link in our profile. There you can find more details on how to get the best results from boosting posts and how to use this new Buffer feature. 👆 A post shared by Buffer (@buffer) on Sep 2, 2020 at 6:03am PDT

With each new release, Salesforce is adding tons of new functionalities to Lightning Experience. Which make you more productive and help you to provide better customer experience.  Currently, Winter’21 release is under the pre-release program. On the 11th & 12th of September, Sandboxes will be upgraded, as a result, your … Continue reading →

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The Experience Makers Live virtual conference held by Adobe this summer was packed with interesting and informative keynotes and breakout sessions on a variety of topics related to modern business and marketing and sales. But there was one major theme that seemed to be the red thread, and became the point that really stuck with me: in a Covid-19 world, content and customer journeys are more important than ever. 
While so many businesses are finding ways to pivot their offerings, services, and even business models to adapt to how consumers are currently limited, those who are becoming more innovative in their content and how they engage customers throughout the customer journey are the ones who are still surviving – and even thriving – during these turbulent times. 
We know that content is king, but why is it especially so important for a modern customer journey? Let’s take a look. 
In-person events and meetings are no longer happening
When we think about a basic sales and marketing process in high-touch businesses, many of the final consideration and decision stage activities are done person-to-person between sales and a prospect. This may mean presentations, product demos, and contract negotiations are in-person, on location. But with some markets completely eliminating the possibilities for in-person meetings, and others strongly advising against it, we need to find ways to quickly adapt to being 100% online and virtual, while still keeping the same high-quality level of service that makes prospects buy.
Even in consumer-facing industries, much of the awareness and consideration stages of the customer journey happen online, though the last leg of decision making may happen in-store or with the help of a salesperson or account manager. As Gary Specter, Vice-President of Global Commercial Business at Adobe mentioned in his opening keynote, “new customers came online and loyalty has increased – showing the importance of relationships over transactions.”
Businesses of all types have had to find new, creative ways to continue to engage customers as they get to the point where they are ready to make a decision, but sales aren’t physically there to convince and convert. This is where new forms of content are taking center stage.
Without the “high-touch” activities of high touch sales, we’ve had to get creative. Product demos are now being presented via video tutorials created by marketing and/or product teams, and sales presentations are done through webcasts and video conferencing. Landing pages and even micro-sites are being deployed for more self-service information discovery and education to happen so that prospects can make informed decisions without requiring the help of a salesperson. 
All of this comes down to building more robust content strategies that take into account that every part of the customer journey is now happening digitally. When we create digital assets that replace old sales methods, we create more scalable opportunities for engaging prospects and customers in new ways. 
Content is the best way to be helpful, relevant, informative, and timely
When it comes down to it, content is the best way to convey to your audiences just how great your business and products or services are. But the greatest advantage of content, and marketing tools like Marketo Engage, is that the right content can be delivered to the right audiences at the right time. Now, the tempo of content delivery is at an all-time high, and the subject of that content is shifting. As Gary Specter says, the businesses who are succeeding now have “erred on the side of over-communicating.”
In Adobe Senior Director Chris Parkin’s presentation, “Redefining the Future with Digital Transformation,” he made the point that agile communications are non-negotiable for businesses in the future. His advice: “Create proactive, personalized, and timely communications aligned to customer and employee content (segment, need, location),” giving the example of how Adobe has become more helpful in their engagement strategies, saying they “rapidly pivoted customer messaging from products to authentic ways Adobe could help accelerate digital transformation and help our customers be more resilient and prepared for emergencies.” 
Without altering content delivery, businesses who push products rather than solutions may falter in appearing sensitive, relevant or helpful enough to buyers. In times of crisis or uncertainty, the businesses who show how they can help and support their customers navigate and adapt together will be the ones to succeed. Content is the best way to show and tell audiences at every stage of the customer journey how you plan to do this. 
The importance of content isn’t new, but the types of content we deploy and how we are utilizing it throughout the customer journey is changing forever. If there’s one thing I learned from Experience Makers Live, it’s that adapting to how customers are now wanting and needing to be engaged comes down to creating new forms of content that speak to how we can help them succeed in the long term. 
The post Why Content Is at the Center of Modern Customer Journeys appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Note: This is the quarterly update sent to Buffer shareholders, with a bit of added information for context. We share these updates transparently as a part of our ‘default to transparency’ value. See all of our revenue on our public revenue dashboard and see all of our reports and updates here.

It’s been quite the year and it’s hard to believe that the first half of 2020 is already behind us.I’m happy to share that we’ve come out of our projected revenue downturn in Q2 with good MRR growth in July and renewed optimism.We’re feeling motivated about what we’ll accomplish these next few months as we continue to focus on product strategy and adding significant value for customers as top priorities. Read the latest from our CEO Joel to hear about the evolution of product over the past 10 years and where we’re going from here. This includes our active search for a VP of Product and our plan to launch Engage, a social engagement product for small businesses that evolved from our experiences growing and sunsetting Reply.Let’s take a look at the financial result highlights for Q2 and how we’ve been supporting our customers, communities and team.
Financial results from Q2, 2020 and July, 2020
Q2, 2020

Total net income: $832,000
EBITDA margin: 16.2%
MRR: $1,704,768 (down from $1,830,267 MRR at end of Q1)

July

MRR: $1,728,259
ARR: $20,739,108

Our bank balance at end of July was $7.2M, with a net cash balance (after paying off our line of credit) of $5.9M. We generally aim to keep three to six months of operating expenses on hand. This position has been instrumental in navigating the uncertainties of 2020 from a proactive position.We look at revenue per employee from the lens of growth by taking ARR divided by total number of employees and contractors. We generally aim for $200k (or higher) in ARR per teammate.

Supporting our customers, communities, and team
We expected this revenue downturn in Q2, a majority of which is a result of extending payment relief to customers whose businesses have been adversely impacted by the pandemic. We’ve helped over 1,200 customers and extended a total of $191,000 in payment relief. In May, we experimented with a 4-day work week in response to the added stress and pressures individuals have experienced due to the pandemic. After a successful first month, we decided to pilot this model through the rest of this year.In June, we committed to anti-racism work in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ve donated a total of $100,000 to organizations that our Black teammates selected: The Marsha P. Johnson Institute, The Marshall Project, and Brave Space Alliance, while also doubling the charitable contributions made by our teammates. To date, we’ve made $120,000 in donations to more than 40 different organizations working towards anti-racism.
Looking ahead
In June and July, we’ve seen an increase in new business, expansion revenue, and reactivation revenue along with lower levels of customer churn. We are happy to see that Q2 growth decline shift towards a positive level of MRR growth for July and we’re seeing the same trend for August. For the rest of Q3, we’re expecting the small growth rebound to continue while we also make an impact on customer retention and value by focusing on product strategy. Metrics and numbers are moving in a conservative, yet positive direction.

Last Updated on November 20, 2020 by Rakesh Gupta Let us first understand the Validation Rule and its characteristics. A Validation Rule allows a System Administrator to define custom logic and error messages to ensure data integrity. The Rule can contain a formula, … Continue reading →