SFMC – powerful yet complex

It’s not necessarily Salesforce’s fault. Far from it, in fact. No, the CRM landscape has become more complex (driven, in part, by a digital scape that is touching every aspect of customers’ lives), and with it so too has the complexity of SFMC.

Let’s cut to the chase. SFMC is a powerful cloud-based suite of tools that enables companies to create and manage customer journeys across multiple touchpoints and channels for optimum results. However, this means that SFMC incorporates every aspect of the customer journey, from multi-channel , audience profiling, personalisation, interaction management, to name a few. As you may be finding, it’s this complexity that can often hinder efforts in implementing and delivering such journeys.

SFMC has a single purpose – to deliver an optimal customer experience across a diverse range of media and channels. The platform comprises multiple components – Journey Builder, Audience Builder, Personalisation Builder, Content Builder, Analytics Builder, across Email Studio, Mobile Studio, Social Studio, Advertising Studio and Web Studio – all requiring precision set up, fine tuning, and integration to get customer experience moving.

What you need is a capable and knowledgeable team who possess interoperable mindsets, skills and visibility across technology, marketing and processes.

And this is where things get tricky

On the marketing side, skills and expertise are needed in CRM, Customer, CX, Data, KPIs, Control Groups, Comms, Journey Design, Measurement Frameworks and Test and Learn plans. And on technology: SQL, APIs, Data, Data Signals, Scheduled Automation, Data Layers, Attribute Groups and Data Extensions. Put these all together and we’re in a world of acronyms, cross-purposes and potential confusion.

Ergo, the challenge is two-fold. The first is human capital. A pressing demand to access the skills and knowledge of the right people – whether in-house or outsourced – who can optimize those tools. And the second is making these skills available at the right time during the process – which could involve pre-training or recruiting, with the extended lead times that necessitates.

Getting back on track with ekino

At ekino our Salesforce expertise spans bespoke integration to customer journey definition to data dissimilation and analysis, helping to unlock return on investment for our clients.

We combine data, technology, creativity and design to deliver meaningful experiences across all channels.

And we do all this with a holistic approach, inspired by insights and all beautifully crafted to really connect with your customers.

We’ll make sure that the quality of your data assets is sustained throughout their lifecycle. You don’t want garbage in, garbage out, right?

SFMC can handle the most contextual data you can throw at it. However, it’s only going to perform well if your data governance is up to scratch – quality, usability, availability, security and consistency. We’ll take a look at that as well.

Finally, we’ll help define your company’s ongoing customer experience strategy. CRM – by its very nature – has always been a long haul. But with an automation tools like SFMC taking care of all the grunt work, you can concentrate efforts on the long-term strategies you need to gain real and prolonged advantage over your competitors.