Salesforce.com at its basic level is a one-to-one customer focused system. You can manage individual relationships and have direct context, history and action steps for future steps.
The tactical and personal handling of Leads, Contacts and Opportunities allow for specific handling of your sales or service process.
On a mass scale, marketing may have other systems which vary such as marketing automation, email marketing, contest marketing or analytics systems. The vantage point in these systems are broader and focus on trends across the masses. We typically integrate these other marketing systems to create a 360 degree view of customers. Marketing wants to see the results of demand generation to sales. Sales wants to see relevant information related to specific deals and prospective customers they are working with to help them close deals.
While Salesforce.com does not position itself for email marketing and marketing automation, there are customizable email templates which can foster speed and productivity in the sales cycle. These email templates can be further leveraged to create smaller scale marketing, sales or support communications for your database using Mass Email Contacts or Mass Email Leads functions inside of the respective Contacts and Leads objects area.
Here are some ways to use this to drive demand, customer loyalty and revenue using this powerful Salesforce.com feature:
- Create a targeted sales event ongoing. If you have a filter on Leads and Contacts that have a criteria such as a white paper download or past webinar attendee, you can segment these people and regularly send a specific call-to-action email template that is personalized. Move people in and out of this list.
- Send a value message weekly. You are in the business of solving a problem. Get involved with your customers’ problems and share success stories or advice using your solution to solve the problem. Keep a short segmented list to send this mass email template to.
- Provide timely industry news. For selected contacts, keep the segmentation to use an ongoing email template which is updated to provide relevant news that helps your customers stay aware of what is happening. Make it concise and simple. Create links to read more so the email is not packed too densely.
- Provide relevant offers. Segment your Leads and Contacts and send specific mass emails by lists. Each email can have an updated sales offer that is relevant to their Salesforce.com record criteria based on their buyer profile or interest. Discounts or special offers can be used for limited time sales.
- Check in periodically. Construct your email template to have a personalized feeling with relevant Salesforce.com merge fields. Send a short message to check in monthly or quarterly with key customers and let them know you are thinking of them. Provide something of value. Make it feel personal, not mass.
My Salesforce consulting customers have many different ways they connect with the Leads and Contacts. Creating a process and system which can be executed regularly to produce results without the labor intensity of one-to-one touch approaches creates leverage for the salesperson’s productivity.
Your own strategies need to be thought through. The timing, segmentation and personalization of the mass email mechanism in Salesforce.com can become an integral part of your sales and marketing system in this way.
What are some ways you would like to touch your customers using mass email that is personalized?
