Salesforce AppExchange And The Power Of Platforms

November 2, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Salesforce announced over a million installs of Apps from the AppExchange recently.  This is a powerful milestone reinforcing the platform which Salesforce.com has become.  To get to the goal of automating business processes, third-party applications can be tried and integrated for a more complete solution.  Business users get the same benefits of a complete ecosystem like Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market.  Different apps can help solve specific problems or introduce functionality beyond the core Salesforce.com standard offering.

In our Salesforce consulting work, the AppExchange is a vital place to help meet our client requirements.  Here is how we tend to use the AppExchange to solve problems:

  1. Requirements.  We have regular meetings or receive requests from our clients.  Listening carefully and providing constructive feedback is vital.  We transform requests into specific deliverables for our team.
  2. Research.  Our Salesforce consultants have many tried and true approaches to Salesforce.com customization.  If we can create triggers, workflows or customizations to the system, these are approached first.  However, we also create tasks for ourselves to research what is available in the AppExchange.
  3. Testing.  There are systemic issues to always manage in our client environments.  We test integrations of any third-party products in our sandbox developer environment to ensure there are not any unforeseen impacts to the system.
  4. Implementation.  When we feel comfortable with the solution, we integrate this into the live system.  There is a process with the integration based on the third-party software vendor package.  Typically additional data objects will be introduced.  We have to be mindful of limitations with Professional edition that may not be there with Enterprise Edition as well.
  5. Review And Usage.  We set up process steps, training and documentation for our clients to use with the new AppExchange product.  They take care of their billing with the vendor after they use it during a trial period.  We help them adopt new steps in their business process to use with their team live, via video and written documentation.

Over the course of time, it is not uncommon for our clients to continually build upon their Salesforce.com platform.  Multiple applications working together to drive a process or set of processes on top of Salesforce.com can automate a business and a beautiful and cohesive way.

What are some of the apps you are running on Salesforce.com?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce · Tagged: , , , , ,

Teaching Articles To Help Prospects Overcome Obstacles

October 31, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Content marketing has a main goal of helping your prospects.  Thus, teaching articles which help your buyers to frame their problems and figure out how to overcome their issues need to be part of your engagement and approach..

When a person lands on an article or is following you via social media or RSS, they gravitate to what will improve their life and circumstance.  They have problems and they are searching and tuning in for answers.  Your content can create the value and guidance they are seeking.  Here are ways to make teaching articles effective and move your buyer to higher levels of trust:

  • Think deeply about the obstacles.  Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and empathize with their pain and obstacles.  Articulate this and help them to understand the context of their problem.  Providing context and what the obstacles are will make a connection and make your content relevant to their world.
  • Provide strategy and steps.  Walk your prospect through the steps.  Tell them how to overcome the obstacles.  Listing them out in sequence with descriptive steps helps them to take action.  A checklist also works.  If they do the steps a positive outcome of change should happen.
  • Focus on the change.  You have success stories.  Share what the picture looks like and how people who have used your process, service, product or advice benefitted.  Paint a picture so they can see themselves inside the story.  Connect the dots through teaching that each step leads to the outcome you articulate.
  • Share how you help.  There may not be a complete solution without your leadership and service.  Speak concretely about how you work and what part you play in the successful story.  Teach how your process and approach works and how you do things differently and specially.

Assume that buyers are not as educated as you are.  They are learning to ask the right questions and think about how to solve a problem that is commonplace and frequent for you.  Teaching them how to approach and contextualize their problem provides immense value to orient them to how to solve the problem.

How can you use teaching articles to help your buyers?  Feel free to comment below.

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , ,

Salesforce Customer Portals

October 27, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

With Salesforce.com, your team is managing information about your customers securely.  You collaborate on the information internally to facilitate sales, marketing and service to your customer base.  The information has great value, yet it relies heavily on you and your team to capture and input details about customer interactions.

Salesforce.com can be extended to be interactive with your customers via a secure customer portal.  This allows for your customers to manage information about themselves via a login and view of shared Salesforce.com information.

Managing Cases

The standard customer portal allows for Case record management via a self-service portal.  When this is set up within your Professional or Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition, users can login to a portal site hosted on your site.  They can create new Case records or manage existing records to see progress and resolution on their issues.  This is valuable for keeping a place that your customer can see historical and current issues with your company.  It provides great value to the business relationship.

Custom Portals

If you want to create more self-service for your customers, then a custom built portal would be required.  Other data objects and fields, either standard or custom, can be shared out.

Depending on your business processes, you may want to share out invoice and accounting information with a customer.  Or you may have project information that is being managed in Salesforce.com that you want to status a customer on and allow for self-service.  They can view current status or input comments to the current project information.

There are many possibilities.  The value-add depends on what is important in your business relationship with your customers and how it might also help increase productivity for your team.

There are likely opportunities which make sense for creating a portal for your customer with the rich information resident in your Salesforce.com system.  Look for the return-on-productivity or return-on-investment to design a customer portal.  Feel free to connect with us if you would like help.

How would a customer portal be valuable for your business?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Productivity, Salesforce · Tagged: , , , , ,

Running An Inbound Marketing System

October 24, 2011 by · 5 Comments

A recent article from Marketing Automation Software Guide hit on the main reason why many of our clients hire us for marketing:  running a complete system is difficult and requires perseverance.  Pieces have to be put together, tested, changed, refined and created again.  Getting into the mind of a specific buyer with their preferences and peculiarities needs to translate into a well-laid strategy.

Inbound marketing typically involves getting a visitor to find you and then helping that visitor convert into a lead by providing value.  Once they opt-in, then you can nurture them and ready them for the sales proces via marketing automation.

Here are the activities typically involved with running an inbound marketing system:

  • Strategy.  There has to be a vision for how the logic will work for visitor behaviors on the site.  This results in a decision tree that needs to be architected with the right content at the right time.
  • Scoring.  This is part of the strategy.  How leads are scored will arise from a definition of what a ready lead is to a sales person.  Their readiness should be quantified and the lead scoring should follow suit for the desirable behaviors to warrant sales interaction or more targeted marketing engagement.
  • SEO.  Tuning your content to get found online via search or social media is a relentless activity.  Your systems should have feedback to help refine your content so that it all matters and counts for driving traffic.  Both authority and relevance from a search engine standpoint are key metrics to monitor.
  • Analysis.  Watching visitor and lead behaviors needs to be continually monitored for trends.  As the data comes in such as what content is valuable and where people are clicking to on your landing sites, your analysis should provide action on refining the links, logic and layout of your inbound marketing system.
  • Segmentation.  New offers, richer content and specific events need to be developed based on timing, seasonality and the critical mass of your inbound leads.  Develop specific segmentations with personalized offers and lead processes.
  • Sales engagement.  Working with your sales team to understand if the lead scoring and nurturing is calibrated needs to be a continuous process.  Furthermore, gathering information from your CRM system to drive content and lead flow logic back into your marketing system needs to be part of the ongoing strategy.

Traditional marketing where there is an event and a response is a different mindset altogether.  Today’s marketing game for inbound leads and marketing automation is ongoing and changing.  Attention to the details and how the system supports the buyer experience rewards organizations with easier customer acquisitions and lower internal costs.

How are you doing marketing today to continually make it better?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Miscellany · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Salesforce Mass Email Leads Strategy

October 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Salesforce Mass EmailMass email of Salesforce.com Leads can be effective for a salesperson or marketing team to connect with Leads in your pipeline.  Depending on how your marketing funnel works and lead generation, there are strategic opportunities to take advantage of the Salesforce.com mass email leads function.

More details of how to use the mass email leads function can be found here.  Assuming you know the mechanics, here is how to drive productivity in your sales process:

  • Create a value content offering.  Your email template should be personalized with the proper merge fields.  Segment your leads based on their Lead Status and for those that are not converted and are seeking more information, send a special pdf document attached to your email template.  This will stir the pot in your lead funnel.
  • Monitor a report of mass email opens.  From your segmented mass email effort, look for those leads that are opening the email multiple times.  Prioritize the list.  These are people telling you they are interested and are engaging the content.
  • Mass email a higher value offering.  Within a day or two, identify the list of interested leads and follow up with another segmented mass email.  Invite them to something that is a natural next step such as a special webinar, download or consultation.  Ensure the value is high and worthwhile for them to raise their hand.  Ensure the email feels personal, not mass.
  • Use digital body language as call lists.  With your mass email lists, you can extend on your process.  Those leads that are interacting with your value may warrant a phone call.  Use your list as a call list for an added touchpoint in the sales cycle.

The key is to personalize your message just as you would send a personal email to someone and ensure that the value you are offering is helping, not selling.  Helping means that you are in tune with where the lead is at in the sales process and engaging accordingly.

Setting up this process using Salesforce.com Mass Email Leads function can act as a repeatable process that can be fine tuned as your salespeople gather more information from the front lines.  Save time and engage the highest priority leads.

How can this help your sales process?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce · Tagged: , , , , ,

Marketing Automation: The Awareness Stage

October 18, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

When you are just beginning your search for a car, software or consultant, you start with research.  Getting online is the most convenient way to research today.  You may look for what is a trend, what others think and how the industry works overall.  It is the awareness stage and it is largely self-service.  You are looking for education to do the following:

  • Get oriented.  You want to understand what is available and how to ask good questions and make intelligent decisions.  You have to understand the context of what you are seeking first.  As buyers, we are engaged with multiple markets.  In the awareness stage, we are seeking information to help us in our understanding.
  • Understand fit.  You have a problem to solve.  You want to know if what is available can be used off the shelf or molded to provide a specific resolution to your problem.  It has to fit into your world.
  • Find the leaders.  If you are looking at headphones, insurance or fitness memberships, you are assessing who the leader is in the market.  The leader promotes confidence and emulates what the market opts for.  Leadership defines the category you are investigating.

As a seller, it is premature to engage with heavy-handed selling in the awareness stage.  Your buyer is not ready.  A well-developed marketing automation strategy and system helps your buyer to get comfortable with your brand and receive the information to help them prepare for their next mindset jump in the buying process.

Your buyer thinks like you do. They start with disorientation and seek to get oriented.  The awareness stage is a ripe opportunity to create and build trust that can grow.  Serve the people who are in the initial awareness stage with the right information at the right time and it will allow for a movement through the marketing automation funnel.

How are you serving your prospects that are in the awareness stage?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , , ,

Salesforce Data Relationships

October 12, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Salesforce.com data records are a view of the world.  If you are looking at an Opportunity record, you want to focus on deal information.  An Account record reveals the details of how a company or organization is structured based on the people and deals involved.

If you are looking at a Contact record, you are seeing the details around a person.  Depending on what you are looking at, you will see the related information relevant to your chosen view.

Salesforce.com is a relational database and allows for relationships between these various data objects (Contacts, Accounts and Opportunities) or custom objects created to support your sales, marketing or service delivery processes.

The relationship between one record type and another needs to be carefully considered in the design of your system.  Here are some considerations we offer from our Salesforce consulting work:

  • Establish the master-detail relationship.  Consider the many-to-one nature of a relationship.  There may be many contacts to one account, but not the opposite.  This condition would have to be met in the design and customization of the specific data object which is the master and the other record types which are subservient in the relationship.
  • Use Lookup Fields for organization.  One massive record does not make sense.  Different record types contain different information.  Separate fields into the respective data objects and create relationships using Lookup fields.  This allows a click to move you over to another record with further stored information.
  • Account for roll-ups and calculations.  There may be data in various records which need to roll up to the master relationship record.  Use equation fields and custom programming to capture metrics in a master record field.  For example if a project custom object has been created, you may have detail records called “Project Time” which contain time tracking information.  If five of these records are associated with their respective master project record, then an equation field showing the total current project billable time would capture such details.

As records are related to one another, how your team is able to see the information and take action is the primary goal to keep in mind.  Make it easy for them to see the details for taking action.  The layouts of fields and sections will help greatly in this regard.

What data relationships do you have to consider?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce ·

Marketing Automation Is Not For The Faint Of Heart

October 11, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Marketing has many new rules, and marketing automation is one of several major movements which has gained fanfare mixed with frustration.  The popularity has come from the possibilities of capitalizing on leads generated from inbound marketing efforts.  The frustration is from a lack of implementation and execution.

At the end of the day, marketing automation is a system.  The system is, in turn, a project with specific requirements for a specific buyer.  Thus, there is a lot of work, thinking and strategy behind a marketing automation initiative.  A badly managed process can result in the frustration side of the equation.  A sound strategy and execution can provide systematic management of inbound leads.

Everyone Has A Lead Generation Problem

Businesses want more leads.  These come from how compelling your interaction and substance of your offering is.  A lead is someone that raises their hand.  We all want more.  It’s difficult to get attention when everyone is clicking around on Google and thumbing through their mobile devices.

Content which makes a true meaningful connection and is targeted for a person trying to solve a problem not only gets attention, but engages your buyer.  After this, it is about building trust and fanning the flame of their interest.  It is not for the faint of heart.  It is about commitment and continual refinement in the following ways:

  • Analysis of buyer behaviors.  You have a lot of data which tracks every movement of a website visitor.  The data needs to make sense and be analyzed for where the opportunities and drop-off points are.  It is an ongoing process.
  • Building content assets.  Your content lives.  It needs to continue to grow and build an online asset for getting found and nurturing the next wave of leads.  Past content needs to be integrated together to drive further exploration by leads.
  • Integrating Sales Feedback.  Lead scoring serves your sales process and sales people.  Their feedback on how the algorithms are working needs to drive further refinement of your scoring schema.

There is not a magic ball to peer into and figure out the perfect marketing automation mix.  You arrive at perfection by continually working hard at the system and processing  new lead experiences.  It is a game of improvement made possible by transparency into what buyers are doing.

Are there areas of lead generation and lead nurturing you find hard to upkeep?  What are they?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Salesforce Success Is Continuous

October 5, 2011 by · 9 Comments

Salesforce.com Success depends heavily on the approach, leadership and mindset of the team adopting the system.  Having helped organizations become successful with Salesforce.com over thousands of hours of up front and personal work, it is obvious that those who succeed have a different mindset from those who get stuck or never get started.  It starts with an understanding of the kinds of systems which exist today:

  1. Convenient Systems: These work as is out of the box.  The software vendor prescribes the workflow and features by assimilating the best practices and requirements of the masses.  The benefit is that this system is ready to go and can guide you to execute quickly.  The downside is that it is hard to change it for your specific workflow.
  2. Customized Systems: You can pay for custom development to execute your business processes specifically.  This was typical of older approaches to support businesses.  The benefit is that the system works exactly for your business.  The downside is that it is expensive and changes take longer from inherent development cycles applied.  It’s important that you can articulate your requirements precisely.
  3. Continuous Systems: This is what makes Salesforce.com the predominant choice of thousands of businesses.  The system can continually be modified and implemented.  It is inexpensive to drive change.  This is strategic in an economy where the only sure thing is change.  Your requirements can be less rigid and more iterative.

In a continuous system, it is important to implement, launch and drive feedback.  Success depends on use and iteration.  Focusing on system perfection is elusive and unrealistic.  Perfect execution, however, is achievable once a framework and rules for engagement are set up.

Your team’s success relies on a commitment to the journey of continual refinement.  Ensure there is a process for iterating and that change is not merely piecemeal.  It must be systemic in thought and design to avoid overengineering your Salesforce.com system or exasperating your team in their use of the system.  Adopt a continuous mindset and the long view.  As your business is never done being refined, your mission critical software enabling your business remains art in motion.

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce · Tagged: , , ,

How To Use Content In Your Sales Process

October 4, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Content MarketingThe sales process has changed from times past.  It’s not about selling.  It is about buying.  Salespeople today realize this as they can feel the empowerment and independence the buyer has in the sales conversation.

Instead of creating tension, you can be an ally in the awareness and education process of your buyers.  It is like being a concierge.  Slow down the pace of your natural tendency to close and instead, provide what your prospective customer is looking for.  Help them learn.  Here are some key content pieces which should be published, distributed and specifically provided during your sales process:

  1. How your market works.  Assume that the thing you think about for endless hours is a small part of your buyer’s thinking.  Help them understand how your market works and who the players are.
  2. Articulate the problem.  Many times it is difficult for your customers to understand their problem fully. Help them by telling stories and explain what the dilemma is specifically.  Scenarios of how others have had similar problems will provide context for how to think about your prospect’s own problems.
  3. Provide decision making considerations.  Framing how to think about how to pick a consultant, software or plumber can be extremely helpful to someone needing a way to make a decision.  Having content which helps your buyer think through options and how to regard them from a weighting standpoint can build confidence in your advice.
  4. Document case studies.  Your past customers and their success builds confidence for someone who has yet to buy.  Connect the two of them through business testimonials.  You can read more about how to create a powerful business testimonial process here.
  5. Personal stories of how you work.  Transparency to how your company gets things done helps buyers get to know you  in a personal way.  Your culture and the people behind your product or service offering creates relationship.  Tell this story and share this content regularly to make a human connection.

Delivering your content can be done in a number of ways.  Email at the right time, marketing automation systems and social media can all be set up to strategically engage prospects at the right time.  It has to be done in a natural and well-designed way.  It has to be convenient within your sales process.  Both precision and reach make content work effectively in your sales process.

If you could provide content in a timely manner with your prospects, what do you believe the impact would be?  Have you used content in this way?  How has it worked?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing, Miscellany, Sales Process ·