Tag Archives: salesforce

04.27.18
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Assembling the elephant … thinking about the Ultimate CMO Dashboard

The whole is more than the sum of its parts (Aristotle). As a marketing leader, you don’t want to just make an impression, you want to show your impact.

images (1)

 

Let’s cut to the chase: as Chief Marketing Officer you need metrics and results. Otherwise, there is no glory – and no budget or resources for you to help your company succeed. Setting KPIs is today’s mantra for everything you do. But agreeing on which KPIs are relevant is not that straightforward.

Despite our focus on being data driven and building our marketing plan on data rather than assumptions, aligning with sales objectives and corporate strategy – what we perceive as a successful result may not resonate among our peers. Our KPIs must be based on a joint perception of what constitutes success. Believe me, in large organizations, CMO-life isn’t straightforward:

Success

It’s analogous to the story of the three blind men and the elephant in which each blind man touched a different part of the elephant (trunk, leg and tail) and thus had a different perception of it. (Debbie Quagish, The Pedowitz Group)

 

TheHikingArtistFritsAhlefeldt

Illustration by Frits Ahlefeldt “The Hiking Artist Project”

So, how can you fulfill all these expectations while controlling your urge to count leads, conversion rates, clicks, opens, and number of attendees at your events?

I am guessing, that this is how you judge your success as a marketing leader today. But other stake holders expect different measures, and nothing is more frustrating for a marketing leader than happily reporting marketing results and then being ignored/unappreciated by the organization.

The dilemma is well known – there are countless “How To Measure Marketing Success” do-it-yourself books, articles, videos and blogs out there for you to sample. But from checking 10 different sources, none of these provided an answer to all of the above. Most – and that makes sense – are focused on the expectations of Sales in order to support creating revenue. But remember, Sales is measured on short term goals, and your CFO wanted your plan in place 12-18 months before it is supposed to be executed.

The ultimate CMO Dashboard

When convincing CFOs, CEOs and board rooms, the trick used to be to show complex pivot tables with an abundance of data that hopefully illustrated achieving your KPIs. But times have changed, and speed is the new currency of business.

You only have seven seconds to make an impression.

But knowing that your counterpart only has a slightly higher attention span than a goldfish, you have about eight seconds  to make an impact.

So, skip the pivots and show The Ultimate CMO Dashboard:

CMO Dashboard 2

You know you want it. (Source: Musqot Marketing Technology)

It has all the components you need in order to assemble the various parts of the elephant. The dashboard reports on budget, progress according to plan, activities planned and status, and much more. You can slice it the way you want. The application is called Marketing Performance Management (MPM) and is developed by one of Sweden’s exciting startups, Musqot Marketing Technology.

The benefit of an overview like this is that it takes only 8 seconds to process during a meeting where the CMO holds the last spot and only has 12 minutes left from the 20 minutes she was allocated on the agenda.

Another clever aspect is the fact that it provides a holistic view of marketing execution, CMO Dashboard 1based on real time data. For example, the planning section is built upon the familiar concept of Gantt charts while in the same view you have the updated results from the various activities displayed at the bottom – taking Gantt to the next level so to speak.

Musqot’s current tagline is “Control Will Unleash Creativity” and speaks to exactly what marketing is all about in the enterprise: being able to creatively support the strategic objectives of a company while maintaining control over planning, budgeting and execution. So, basically you are combining the parts of the elephant into … a whole elephant … rather than a snake (the trunk), a spear (the tusks), a piece of rope (the tail) and a leathery sheet (the ears).

There is a catch

If you want to visualize data driven planning, progress and results, you need to have the data available in a consolidated environment where the various sources are seamlessly integrated. Despite being the ultimate tool for marketing finance and performance management for the enterprise, you will unfortunately need to reside and consolidate everything on the Salesforce platform. It’s not an easy nut to crack, but to work with data means that the data needs to be compatible regardless of its source. Especially if you – as in this case – have real time visualization and insights to gain.

So, to reap the benefits of the ultimate CMO dashboard, you would need your data to be sourced from and consolidated on the Salesforce platform. Which is why Musqot is a featured application available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

But if you measure – and show – marketing success in a format that ties it all together like this, where activities are directly associated with sales success, the sales manager may just stop asking you to organize huge events and request more long time planning and engaging campaigns that are timely based upon the actual needs of the future customer. So now both Sales and Finance recognize your marketing success.

By consolidating your data, your activities and your results on one platform that is integrated well into the company’s IT backend, the CIO will recognize the success of your marketing activities.

And if everyone else is pleased, so is your CEO. Especially since you did not bore her to death, and succeeded in presenting your update within the eight seconds you had to make an impact.

04.05.18
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Signed, sealed and delivered

moderndatasolusi

Document workflow is about converting data into valued transactions

Documents are at the core of successful businesses. We all get carried away by technology, so we tend to forget that the deal itself between a vendor and his customer is signed, sealed and delivered on a document. Okay, we can keep it digital. But a digital document is a document, nonetheless.

Digital is much more complex to handle than paper – you have data, you have tasks, you have interactions, you have compatibility issues. And no time to consolidate it all.

FlowOneFlow

Oneflow Collaboration Chart (Fluido Salesforce Innovation Hour)

Just think about the documents required to manage all of these! Each of these functions on this collaboration chart created by Oneflow also require legal compliance. Things that keep you awake at night such as revision tracking, signatures, data privacy, product liability, auditing and archiving. OneFlow’s way is to offer a document independent workflow of actions and interactions that only combines into a document as we know it when it is consolidated and sealed.

During each of the steps in the Oneflow application, the data is enriched, the cycle progresses but nothing is locked down until it is required – i.e. when a legal contract is signed by two parties.

StartFinishOneFlow

Oneflow Workflow for Contract Handling

 

When I got my first typewriter with correction tape in 1984, the technical documentation I was creating became both more accurate and looked nicer. And the interface was easy – you just had to avoid making changes after you had pulled your A4 out of the machine.

From a user perspective, the correction tape in a typewriter has been replaced by data points enriching the content that becomes the document. datafields

It’s no use if you don’t use it

Today, you interface with your operating system, your application and your selected platform – hoping that it will support the previous two.

In a very recent survey conducted by Documill among document automation experts and system integrators, the message was quite clear: It’s all about ease of use, content and branding/template support. (I bet they asked the actual users, not the managers.)

EaseOfUseDocumill

Speaking about users – and platforms – the marketing mantra for document workflow solution vendors has always been seamless integration. But it is never seamless, and the platform is where it all comes together. So, even if you have a document workflow solution that liberates you from the paper in the typewriter, you still have to fit the details together and keep them up to date.

Documill Dynamo simple Salesforce data mapping numbered

Using a document workflow solution like Documill Dynamo especially created to seamlessly integrate with the Salesforce platform is one way of ensuring trackability, brand and collaboration within the Salesforce universe. It’s datadriven, collects the components of a document directly from real time data sources, and allows for all the benefits of collaboration that is the DNA of Salesforce. The outcome is a nice PDF – which is just an even better version of my A4 in the typewriter.

Although I am certain that this will change when our tablet kids are conquering the business world:

My grandson (aged 4) walked up to a huge e-display at the airport and tried to swipe. Then he told me, it was broken.

Ease of use is key even when it comes to selling tools. A tool is useless if it is not used. You need to interface with your data the way you interface with your phone or tablet. Let’s swipe, dictate, command and scan to enter and work with the data in your sales tool. That way you will actually get it done.

Some of us may probably end up having withdrawal symptoms and look for ways to scan our documents and to integrate our tools into our comfort zone such as Outlook. But you are just adding another layer of complexity and more applications to time manage.

“Too many sales tools are still desktop-oriented. As consumers, we enjoy doing stuff on mobile. When we go to work, why would we want to specifically boot up a computer? In five years time there won’t be one single end-all tool, but several tools that work seamlessly together during different sales pipeline phases. Data, digitalization and automation will take over.”

Blogpost by Finnish innovator Zero Keyboard quoting Nikolai Pietiläinen of Varpaus Bikes (Cycling-as-a-Service)

Do it when it’s top of mind

This is where a clever solution called Zero Keyboard comes in. Zero Keyboard let’s you enter data on mobile, manage your sales activities and update business systems without typing. It is currently marketed on the Appexchange and runs on the Salesforce CRM platform, but the concept is a winner: you manage your data and your tasks by swiping, voice command and scanning. Take a look at what I am talking about on this video.

Even my grandson could do it. And he probably will, once he’s grown up.

 

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The Fluido  Innovation Hour on April 23 (online event) brings together some of these offerings needed to create a meaningful end-to-end document driven business, using Salesforce as it’s platform. From marketing, sales and support to collaborative contract handling and closing the deal.

Credits

Featured Image by RICOH distributor Modern Datasolusi

Selected images and research by Documill, OneFlow, Zero Keyboard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05.02.15
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Successful disruption in a digital age

While you are still struggling to wrap your head around the buzz of Big Data and trying to develop a digital strategy for your business, here’s news for you: It’s not the hype of Big Data, or digitalization, or social media that characterizes those who are on today’s winning team. It’s not about digital strategies – it’s strategy in a digital age:

Slide1

This was the most retweeted phrase of the entire session, delivered by McKinsey speakers at the Salesforce Speed of Change city tours across the Nordic capitals.

When you evaluate the steps needed to win in today’s fast changing markets and business environments, it becomes clear that your company must focus on what you are really providing. Not what you think you are selling, but what your customers need to fulfill a basic need. Regardless of whether you are in B2B, in B2C or a government or non profit organization, take it one step further and you can learn from the winners of the past.

Remember the Maslow pyramid of basic human needs? Try to match them against the game changing technologies we see today, and you will see that the main driver behind change is not technology itself but what it can do for you.

Slide1

The privileged among us are catered for at the bottom of the pyramid. That’s when  “social” takes over.

The success formula behind all social networks is not that they deliver an app to your mobile device. As Martha Bennett from Forrester suggested during the Speed of Change Nordic City Tour: “You sell the outcome not the device or the service”.  Social networks have changed the way we do business, the way we connect in our professional and private lives, and the way machines and devices are connecting simply because they use data to fulfill the needs at the top of the pyramid. Through the mining of this data technology – by making your data speak –  vendors and disrupters in the digital world  provide a sense of belonging, help us to gain respect for our achievements and put ourselves at the centre. Which – by the way – is why we manage to survive from the moment we are born and make the first fierce cryout for food and comfort.

There are many examples of industry or market disrupters but despite being disruptive in their day, they do not necessarily survive and thrive, as competitors catch up and technology evolves to create new patterns of behaviour in business processes. If you look at the companies that have changed an industry, such as how media is consumed or how basic grocery goods and services are delivered, they successfully disrupted because they catered to a basic human need.

So what is your strategy in a digital age? Disrupt, reinvent, adapt – or be disrupted.** It’s as simple, or complicated, as that.

Slide1

04.19.15
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The “ambassadorization” of business

Human civilization emerged from tribes – as individuals the early humans would not have survived. The same applies today . No one can survive in a silo, be it a company, an industry, an organization or a department.

Once you realize that, you understand the power of relationships as the foundation of successfully connecting your needs to those of others upon who you are depending. That is why the current mantra in modern marketing is engagement. Every process, every action, every transaction is connected. If you push, someone or something has to move backwards. If you pull, someone or something is moving towards you. Pushing and pulling at the same time creates engagement. When you engage your audience, your partners or your employees, you create a tribe.

ArntEriksen (2) Speed

At the Speed of Change event in Oslo on April 16, 2015 (organized by Salesforce), trendspotter Arnt Eriksen focused on the power of tribes that develop into movements which ultimately could change the world. You could claim that the Arab Spring – using Facebook as it’s vehicle – started as a tribe and ended as a movement. Similary, Apple started building a tribe, a community of followers who wanted to think differently about computing. And ended up changing the world by engaging with them, changing them into devoted followers (tribes) and making them it’s strongest, devoted and forgiving ambassadors.

Artistic         Collage

(Artist: Maja Eriksson)                                   (Artist: Maja Eriksson)

When you have a purpose that can unite your tribe – such as the Arab Spring – and you have the vehicle to engage with each other – such as Facebook or other social channels – you can become successful as a business in the digital age.

“Convert strangers into customers – and nurture them into ambassadors” (Arnt Eriksen)

03.21.15
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A new success criteria has emerged – Speed

 “The clock starts ticking as the customer starts clicking” (Jody Sarno, Forrester)

Companies that are able to anticipate their customers’ needs have a clear advantage in our world of rapidly changing customer demands. Speed is of the essence. Companies across the world are looking for ways to understand not just what has happened, but what would happen next so that they can meet the customer without having to cross a divide.

The challenge is how to adopt a framework that provides the platform for speed.  Everything is becoming more and more connected.  Many call this the internet of things, but we could also look at it as simply an opportunity to connect with our customers in a whole new way, an Internet of Customers. In fact, over 75 billion things will become connected by 2020, and this leads to trillions of customer interactions.

Making the data speak

Each interaction represents a data point, a piece of history that can be used to understand what will happen next.  Today, retail companies like Rossignol create a social profile of their customers to offer services like modifications to the equipment to help the skier’s performance, or a training regimen based on his actual use. Hospitals want to track patient behavior – from patient activity levels to blood pressure to help provide a better standard of service and care. And energy companies are collecting data from big machine performance, or seismic activity and weather data to try to get more effective at preventative maintenance of their oil rigs. It’s using the data to predict the future which should be the foundation of the Big Data hype.

Companies want to transform how they sell to a customer, deliver better service, create targeted campaigns, build better products, optimize operations. And business people need the right insights to take action, instantly.

Join Salesforce at our Nordic Speed of Change City Tour in April. We are coming to Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm. More information and registration for free at www.salesforce.com/eu/speed

03.05.14
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A diary of #anywhereization – working on the iPad with Salesforce1 and various office tools

It wasn’t planned, but necessity made it happen: stuck in extremely busy times working entirely off the iPad (and a mini at that). So what’s all this about mobility, on any device anytime, anywhere? Can we be productive?

Short answer: yes.

Slightly longer answer: read my notes below to understand what worked, how it worked, and what didn’t (at least for me).

By the way, I am sure if I had had the bandwidth to search for solutions/apps when I encountered challenges, it could have been solved. But I didn’t. Simply too busy. So I invented new ways of getting things done.

Day 1

My plan was to stop carrying my laptop when travelling on short business flights for meetings – the iPad mini fits into the handbag and does not even have to come out when passing through security, as it is seen by the scanner as a mobile telephone. So I downloaded Office-To-Go from Nexscience and created my first document during a flight which I could later email to myself, edit and forward/send to the people I wanted to email. Creating a straight forward text was easy and intuitive and it did not reformat when moved between applications.

Getting back to the office,  my laptop – died. No time wasted, turned to Chatter on the Salesforce1 platform on my iPad to update my co-workers on the project in the appropriate Chatter group. It saved me having to write meeting notes! In fact, I could share more information more directly – because you get lazy when you have to type it all on the small iPad mini keyboard. Within 20 minutes, all the details discussed in the meeting were shared with those co-workers working on the project who would then be alerted to them in their Chatter feed.

  • Less is more – direct messages in a collaboration tool gets the information directly to your co-worker who does not have to open yet another document and read through a lot of prose. And can respond right there in the same  feed for everyone else to see. No “reply-all” –  it’s a need-to-know only solution
  • Productivity indicator – saved 30 minutes – no need to organise your notes to  write a structured report. And immediate sharing, instead of another dreaded set of meeting notes lying around that need to be written “when you have a moment”.
Running your business from an iPad

Running your business from an iPad

And then I logged a ticket with our IT hotline – also in Chatter – to get help fixing the laptop. Obviously, as I could not log it from the laptop. Duh… Considering I work offsite (#anywhereization) and it being a hardware issue, I braced myself to be stuck with the iPad for at least another day.

Day 2

Opening emails as the first thing you do makes little sense if most of the interaction you have is in the Chatter feed – including just getting an overview of what happened overnight in a global company that never sleeps.

Working on the iPad mini means you can work everywhere, so why not right there with coffee and a toast without even getting up – and it is not nearly as uncomfortably hot as a laptop on your knees. Who hasn’t had a “laptop-burn” on their thigh at some point – or fried a battery charger under the covers.

  • You end up working in the most awkward positions.
  • Productivity indicator  – Down at least 60 minutes, as I should have been up and in the office instead.

In preparation of a new project briefing to be kicked off in a conference call later that day, I had planned to create a fabulous Powerpoint slide deck with nice images, amazing graphics and charts. But that was not an option with just your index finger and an iPad mini screen size. So I opened Keynote which I knew was a cool app. But since I am not a Mac-User (yes, my laptop is in fact a PC) I never checked it out. Now was the time. It took some trial and error, and I never figured out how to import the cool graphics and charts and nice images. But all the information needed for the briefing suddenly fit into 5 slides – just text and itemized lists and links to other sources of information. No fancy stuff that is nice to look at but not really carrying any information.

  • Keeping it simple also gets the information out.
  • Productivity Indicator – Saved 60 minutes of searching for the perfect graphic, the perfect photograph, creating the perfect pie chart and reformatting into the perfect colour scheme.

But what about the conference call? We mostly use GoToMeeting so that was a fast and free option to download to the iPad and then log into my existing userID. But I never figured out how to schedule a meeting for later, so had to open one in meet now and then let it beep in my ear until the meeting started 20 mins later. I experimented to be sure it all worked once the co-workers were joining to save everyone the frustration of a failed conference call, but it meant I had to live with the beep. Honestly, folks at GoToMeeting, could you not give us some music, instead? The beep eats my brain cells. I had sent everyone on the call my fantastic Keynote presentation with only 5 slides for them to read, which was greatly appreciated – so it all started off on a really nice note and we had the most agreeable session where everyone agreed, and we agreed on who should make it happen:  me – but that’s another blog, I fear.

  • Learn how to SCHEDULE a GoToMeeting on the iPad as soon as you can to avoid the beep.
  • Productivity Indicator – saved 30 minutes, as everyone had the clear, short itemized briefing and we did not share any slides on the call to go through in presentation mode where everyone wants to comment (at least in Sweden) and knocks you off track. No questions asked = agreement was quicker and based on the facts only.

Day 3

Laptop fixed, off into the office to plug it into the docking station…. and it died again. Motherboard fried. Back to the iPad. My eyes were swimming – also because the iPad mini screen is so small that it is really tiresome to work for 8 hours squinting like that.

By now, I found myself checking Salesforce1 notifications continuously rather than checking emails – it is just quicker to get the issue/request sorted within the app, so that any links to information that is already part of Salesforce is there without having to copy/paste it into an email. As a matter of fact, I find copy/paste very difficult to execute on the iPad – maybe my fingers are not the right size.

All is not well  when you really need to get your head down to business, though. When a process is not designed intuitively for the mobile interface, some things just cannot be done. Such as updating Google Docs. Painfully, I realised that I had to start writing apologetic Chatter posts to my co-workers that dealt with the more logistical aspects of our ongoing projects – you know, budgets and stuff. The beauty is, that the apology posted on one co-worker’s Chatter feed actually resulted in two others reading this post and offering to help with completing all the steps that I cannot currently take care of from the iPad. So – in fact – I did not ask for help, but help was offered. And saved me the humiliation of casting the towel and delaying the process impacting everyone in the chain of events. Running complicated projects on a tight timeline requires a well oiled machine where every link is the strongest link. And I am the weakest  link when unable to complete my own tasks.

  • Until all business processes are intuitive and integrated in  the mobile interface – not just VIEW but also CREATION, you need friends when stuck on the iPad.
  • ProductivityIndicator –  Lost at least one full day in the progress of the project. Not a good thing.

Day 4

Waiting for my replacement laptop got me another day on the experiment – and made me realise that a big screen is probably a better choice when I need to write more than just a few brief messages. So I ended up working in a hybrid – and perhaps a little less smart – but hey, it worked.

You just need a bigger screen, sometimes

You just need a bigger screen, sometimes

My private laptop is big – really big. I use it for playing computer games. You need a big screen to find all those monsters in the dark. Today, I created long documents (including this blog) on this fantastic device with a proper keyboard and ergonomic mouse – and emailed them to my company email to process on the iPad either as another email now going where it was supposed to go, or as a briefing/post in Chatter. It’s backwards, but at least my eyes are not swimming. And easier to make sure there are no typos – or unintentional bloopers – in the information that I share.

  • You are physically challenged if you work intensively and long hours on an iPad – need more meetings or other  non-computerrelated activities to break the spell
  • ProductivityIndicator  – Minus 50% productivity on the day, having to send documents back and forth between devices and formats requiring reformating/editing.

Looking forward to my laptop tomorrow, you are still my best friend. But iPad Mini – you saved me and will always remain close to my heart. Or in my handbag.

Please excuse any typos – as this was proof read on an iPad Mini.

09.12.13
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Affärshantering i molnet – så tänker vi (post in Swedish)

Hur öppen, flexibel och användbar är din plattform? Hur ofta behöver du uppgradera dina affärssystem, och när det väl händer: är det synkroniserat så att alla är uppe och på samma version på samma tid? Diskuterar ni Cloud teknologi vid fikabordet?

Utvecklas dina lösningar till mobila devices, eller måste du vrida på surfplattan för att få med hela interfacet, eftersom det var byggd för en datorskärm?

Kan du uppdatera dina kundmöten, godkänna fakturor, bygga workflows medan du springer över gatan mitt i Stockhkolms-trafiken? På din mobil?

Det är så man tänker på salesforce.com när man utvecklar lösningar för affärshantering i molnet. Det var Cloud Computing som gjorde det möjligt, men det är vi som får det att hända. Du och jag.

Om man verkligen vill förstå hur allt detta spelar ihop – hur teknologin används för marknad med smarta verktyg byggd i och för social, som säljverktyg och som connected kundservice – då kommer salesforce.com faktisk att bjuda på gratis inspiration. Den 15 oktober på Grand Hotel i Stockholm hålls Customer Company Tour Nordics – en gratisk heldagskonferens (på engelska) med runt 30 utställare och keynote och eftermiddagssessioner där kunder berättar om hur de använder teknologin, hur de skapar nya  verktyg eller bygger egna appar på force.com plattformen, och helt enkelt har mera kul.

Image

Huvudtalare är Erik Hallberg, VD för TeliaSonera International Carrier som bygger sin IT arkitektur på force.com plattformen och använder Salesforce både som internt collaborationsverktyg, i sälj, marknad och kundservice. Och Line Dahle från norska marinförsäkringsbolaget Gard AS – ett 120 år gammalt traditionellt företag som nu jobbar i molnet med kommunikation, intern kollaboration och hantering av ärenden och kundservice. För speciellt i den branschen måste man kunna respondera snabbt när det smäller till på ett skepp någonstans ute i världen.

Dessutom kommer det finnas demo stations, så att man kan testa själv eller få en av salesforce.com’s egna utvecklare visa. Och session som omhandlar allt från hur President Obama vann valet med hjälp av Salesforce och sociala medier till hur stora företag flytter hela sin verksamhet till en mobil, öppen, social plattform för att möta kunden där kunden är.

Du kan registrera dig här – det är gratis.

09.09.13
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The ROI of Social Media – or how to convince your boss

Social Media is engagement – if you don’t get it yet, I hope you will very soon. But engagement is very hard to measure, so even if you do get it, your boss might not appreciate the value of your efforts.

That is why you need to create a social media engagement strategy around metrics and value add = ROI. You need to have a conversation.

The traditional way of counting is through “fluffy” things like Facebook Fans/Likes or number of retweets – which I think is just a natural extension of marketing’s best friend: click-through rate on email blasts. It’s hard to leave your comfort zone, even if you are an innovative marketer who really wants to embrace social.

What does it cost you, if you do NOT have a social media engagement strategy?  Here is a link to a free eBook with some good statistics and methods.

At Sweden Social Web Camp (SSWC)) on Tjärö island in August, we tried to look at ROI benefits versus costs. What it boils down to, is tangible, measurable and very convincing:

Source: Salesforce.com

Email marketing on its own is not engagement. And it’s getting harder and harder to use on a large scale.  Let’s talk instead.

Soft and Hard: Facts & Figures

Finally, here is a link to all the slides I presented at SSWC – there are some wonderful charts and hard numbers from salesforce.com’s extensive customer research. You can use them in your own context. Or  take them to your superiors to get at least as much – if not more – budget for your social media engagement as your colleagues in traditional email marketing.

08.03.13
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Being social – it’s B2B, it’s B2C, it’s everywhere

There’s really no excuse – go where your customers are and engage: become a customer company. If you do, the benefits will be extensive – increased customer satisfaction, keeping tabs on the competition, marketing your latest product that could go viral, a more productive and efficient mobile sales force. Below are some great examples of Do’s and Don’ts.

To get inspired, I attend the Sweden Social Web Camp on the provincial island of Tjärö every year, to understand what goes on in the creative minds of those dominating the social media scene. It’s worth visiting their website to understand what social means in terms of branding, collaboration, and innovation.

Before I’ll give you my tips on how to create a social media strategy, let’s take a look at your toolbox:

Facebook: On Facebook you can reach consumers of all demographics and it is a powerful and effective tool with all of its 500 million users globally. When your business profile is up and running and Facebook users become fans of your page, they get automatic newsfeeds or other updates from your company. Facebook is also a great multiplier because you will reach the network of your fans and their networks.  But be aware – things can go wrong: One horrific example of a company who messed up with their Facebook Page and didn’t quite understand how to have a functional dialog with their customers is Amy’s Baking Company. But that should not stop you – learn from the mistakes of others:  it’s still crucial to have a proper dialog with your Facebook fans. So take a look at Oreo’s or the Danish TV broadcaster YouSee. They have worked out a perfect strategy for their business and know how to keep their fans pleased. For YouSee, it’s all about trust and transparency – another important element of becoming a customer company.

Do

oreo

 Don’t 

amys

Facebook has ranked the 20 best brands on the social network for 2013. Have a look and be inspired!

Twitter: Twitter can be used in different ways. You can have a dialog with customers and prospect, tweet about product launches and campaign as well as using Twitter in customer service. But if you start to tweet once a day and have built up a follower base you can’t just stop without losing your followers’ interest. There are other traps you also have to stay away from. In 2012 McDonalds asked their followers to share their #MCDStories. For a company with a large amount of both pleased and unpleased customers, this was a fatal idea. To see how brands successfully have used Twitter, take a look at this infographic.

Twitter really is an incredible tool for making announcements or promotions and profiling your heroes. And with tools such as Salesforce for Twitter from the AppExchange, it’s also possible to capture leads directly from Twitter.

YouTube: One of the most effective ways for your message to be shared in social media is by using visual material. It’s one of the most engaging ways to make your content “viral”. YouTube, with nearly 80 percent of the online video market, is an effective tool for businesses who for example want to share product demos, Webinars and training materials. Take a look at Salesforce on YouTube to see how we are using the channel.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a professional networking tool to connect with prospects, clients and other professionals both within and outside of your industry. You can create groups which individuals can join to participate in discussions and to connect with other customers. It is a great place to post job listings and corporate news as well as promote events to your most interested users. Take a look at our group: Growth Through Innovation Nordics on LinkedIn.


Build your social media strategy in 8 steps

  1. Choose a community manager – He or she will serve as your point person for all social media and collaboration activities and be the company’s official voice on social media sites.
  2.  Create a steering committee – In addition to the community manager, define other stakeholders in your social media strategy to create a cross-functional steering committee that includes public relations, product management, customer support and marketing.
  3. Define objectives – What do you hope to achieve with your social media campaign? Each tool offers different benefits, so define very specific objectives and then choose the tools that can help you get there.
  4. Decide on success metrics – The true impact of social media can be hard to measure. However, many social media sites offer fairly robust analytics so as part of your plan, decide what metrics are important, set your goals, and determine how to track results.
  5. Set up social media guidelines – Encourage your employees to take part in your social media campaigns. But be sure to set up guidelines that specify the “do’s” and “don’ts” of participating in online communities.
  6. Create easy-to-remember URLs –With most social media tools, you can select a personalized URL which makes it easier for customers and prospects to access your links. So when setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, make sure the URLs are a natural extension of your business Web site. Great examples here from the Nordic countries includes Telia’s Danish Facebook Page or the Swedish startup Buildor.se or adding value like the road help and security company Falck in Denmark.
  7. Be active – Not responding to posted messages has the potential to not just damage your social media programs, but your company as well. So update your content and respond regularly to keep it fresh and to interact with your users.
  8. Be flexible – Review and revise your social media plan regularly to keep up with and make the most out of all the new tools and functionalities that are introduced all the time.

And if you’re still wondering if you even need to be in social media, take a look at this:

07.26.13
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Cut through the noise

There are simply far too many emails in the world – you do not want to add to the noise. And with Google’s new Gmail interface with a tab entirely devoted to sale updates and coupons, where all emails which includes an unsubscribe link get lumped together, it gets even tougher for email marketers to get through.  So here are 9 great tips on how to create a successful email campaign. First, 25 mind blowing stats about email marketing:

Email marketing is cost-effective and the results are easy to track. But it needs to be part of a holistic marketing strategy to generate great ROI. Shouting is not enough.

  1. Create target lists – Segment your audience into target groups by creating lists. Use such as location, company, industry or size, job titles, past purchases and demographic information.
  2. Personalize your content – Tailor your message and content to appeal to each audience by using short, personalized messages with industry-specific key words to speak to the audience in their own language. You can also include a call to action by providing a link to an article, whitepaper or something else valuable for the receiver. Try to experiment with both rich text HTML and plain text formats to see which gets the best response.
  3. Don’t forget the subject line – Because it is vital! A survey from Salesforce shows that the open rate increases with 58 % if the subject has fewer than 10 characters, so try to nail a perfect line and this will help out a lot.
  4. Alert sales – Be sure to alert sales when you execute a campaign so they’re ready to respond quickly to the resulting leads.
  5. Integrate with your web – By using Web-to-lead forms you can capture prospect information from visitors to your site. And check out the marketing automation apps on the AppExchange to find other ways to shorten the time between an inquiry and response.
  6. Develop a social media strategy – To increase your visibility and establish yourself as a trusted advisor and expert, develop a social media strategy on how to be present in different social media channels. In my next post I will give you some more detailed tips on how to use social media tools for business and how to build a successful strategy.
  7. Don’t spam – Respect you prospects and don’t spam them with emails, it’s important to give them the information and content they are interested in. Your goal is to have a conversation over time and to build a relationship between the prospect and your company and spamming includes neither one of them.
  8. Track results – Measure how users respond to keep refining your tactics. Think about what you want to measure and then identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to track.
  9. Nurture campaigns – Lead nurturing can have a dramatic effect on your sales pipeline so it’s important to alert your reps to follow up on leads being nurtured. You can for example use lead scoring as you can read more about here in my earlier post.

Get the right look

If you want to reinforce the look and feel of your emails and ensure your messaging always is consistent, try using an email template. At Salesforce.com you can find templates for text, HTML with letterhead, custom HTML and Force.com pages (Visualforce). This is not only great for the marketing department, it is also a great tool for your reps so that sales and marketing can speak with one voice. And it saves them time – time to spend on more selling. With Salesforce templates there’s also a built-in dynamic tracking feature so you can track which emails were opened, how many times and when each recipient last opened the email.

Remember to keep your templates up to date and easily accessible. For more detailed instructions on how to create your own email template, go to Help & Training. And if you need inspiration and want to see some great examples of email marketing, you should read this report from MarketingSherpa where they announced the winners of email marketing 2012.

 

Customer Company Tour Nordics 2013

Sign up for a day packed with exciting new sessions and breakthrough technologies during Customer Company Tour Nordics 2013. Come and meet us the 15th of October at Grand Hotel in Stockholm. Sign up here!