‍Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is a popular marketing automation software enabling marketers to target and track interactions using the powerful data capabilities of Salesforce.com (SFDC) CRM, right out of the box. Combining SFMC and SFDC ensures all leads receive the attention they need through targeted, automated marketing and your sales team leading to a more efficient, effective, and aligned sales process.

Any tool that helps get sales and marketing alignment is a win in our book! In fact, Salesforce found that "62% of marketing leaders say individuals and teams in their departments are more aligned with each other than ever, and the more aligned they become, the better they perform."

Today, we're covering a few tips to help Salesforce Marketing Cloud users maximize tools within the platform to better support their sales team and marketing efforts, while growing ROI.

SMFC Email Studio, Content Builder, and Journey Builder

All data points that are available in the CRM can be put to work within SFMC to create personalized customer messaging. SFMC offers multiple apps and solutions within the platform to take your marketing and sales to the next level. Working with Email Studio, Content Builder, and Journey Builder helps you create unified messaging and achieve your goals across teams.

The SFMC email app, Email Studio, allows users to easily create, send, and track targeted marketing emails by pulling in data and content from across the platform. Email Studio is designed with ease of use in mind. Users with varying levels of coding experience from novice to expert can create modern and effective emails with efficiency.

Content Builder changes the way marketers generate and manage their content. It is a cross-channel content management tool, enabling users to consolidate images, blocks, templates, and emails in a single location for use across SFMC, including use within Email Studio. This helps marketers spend less time looking for the right content, and more time putting that content to good use.

Journey Builder allows you to personalize each customer's journey to be more relevant to their interests, behavior, and needs. This customer-centric approach increases their engagement with your brand, motivates repeat interactions, and increases sales. Likewise, Journey Builder helps to automate activities for marketing, sales, and support teams, leading to a seamless customer journey.

Use Email Studio, Content Builder, and Journey Builder together to streamline your email creation and content management process, boost key performance metrics, and optimize your customers journey.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Quick Tips

Though Email Studio, Content Builder, and Journey Builder are popular for their ease-of-use, we're sharing a few workarounds and best practices to improve your success with the tools.

Tip #1 - Tabs Are Your Friends

When you're creating a campaign and validating copy or data for personalization, you'll likely look to both Email Studio and Content Builder. Do not try to open the Content Builder located inside of Email Studio, you cannot have two areas open from the same builder. Instead, from the homepage, open the main Content Builder in one tab and Email Studio in another.

Tip #2 - Don't Get Save Happy

If creating a Salesforce Send Campaign, hit the "save" button once. It may take second to exit the page or to recognize that you clicked it. If you hit "save" more than once, it will create a second campaign with the same name, but with nothing attached. This can cause issues upon scheduling.

Tip #3 - Remember, Placement Matters

SFMC has a tracking pixel which allows you to collect and view critical data points, such as email opens, clicks, and undeliverable messages. The pixel must be placed after your preheader in the HTML code. Placing it before will cause the preheader to not populate in the preview pane of an email client, like Outlook.

Bonus Tip: If you're tracking Conversion in a tool like Adobe Analytics, be sure to include in the body of your mailing.

Tip #4 -ABC: Always Be (double, or triple!) Checking

You can now update body copy of an email that is connected to a Journey and it will update automatically throughout the Journey. I recommend double checking, just to be sure.

Please Note: This does not affect the subject line and you will need to reselect each email within your Journey and individually save again to update the subject line.

Get Smart with Salesforce Marketing Cloud

As with any platform, practice makes perfect when using Salesforce Marketing Cloud. I assure you, the effort you put in to mastering the tool will be more than worthwhile.

Thanks to the seamless integration with Salesforce.com, get started with these handy-dandy SMFC tools and tips to increase your marketing capabilities, as well as improve harmony with your sales team.