The Salesforce Marketing Cloud has launched some very cool new features in its January 2015 release. With the ever-evolving ESP technologies, here are our favorites from the release.
Build Great Email Content
Content blocks are the building blocks of any email, and with Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can now add more of them, lock them within templates, and take advantage of new ways to build and manage content that are extremely flexible and user friendly.
No HTML Knowledge? No Problem.
Content Builder is a brand-new, cross-channel editor that enables you to create professional-looking email without knowing HTML. With Content Builder, you can also:
- Use always-present preview to see email content changes in real time
- Use smarter HTML paste tools, including color coding and line numbers
- Use snippets of code for inserting common links, such as Forward to a Friend, Open Tracking, and more
- Create a text only email from one of the three template types in the Email application
Content Builder’s drag-and-drop interface offers more efficiency than the previous release, without eliminating the classic creating and editing tools you may already be used to.
Of course, you now have to manage the content that you build — and Salesforce’s new cross- content management tool Content Canvas doesn’t disappoint. This easy-to-use tool enables you to bring all of your images, documents, and other content together in one place to use in Content Builder.
The promise of more email content tools and functionality in the coming months has me even more excited.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Algorithms Rule!
Email is getting smarter by the minute thanks to Predictive Intelligence (PI), which uses sophisticated algorithms to automatically deliver the best offer, product, or content to customers across multiple channels.
I particularly like the new Contacts Profile Refresh feature. It makes contact validation simpler, and thus more useful for clients, by hiding unused variables and containers.
Another exciting feature that Salesforce’s Predictive Intelligence brings to the table is real-time website data capture through a Collect Web Beacon that easily compiles a catalog of assets for clients who don’t maintain one.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Addressing a Growing Mobile Workforce
Clients using MobileConnect to securely access digital services and data from their mobile device will enjoy new and enhanced segmentation tools and capabilities. MobileConnect also allows users to have access to Contact Builder, which we covered earlier in the post. Within Contact Builder, users can now segment lists by relative date, which is great for birthday and anniversary campaigns!
Saving the Best for Last: Enhancing the Buyer Journey
Delivering premium online experiences is what we’re all about and Journey Builder takes it to the next level by guiding customers on 1:1 journeys across channels and devices through every phase of the marketing lifecycle. It’s the gold standard for “right message, right time, right channel.”
The newest features are Date-Base Triggers, which are reduced to a one-step process (again, GREAT for birthdays and anniversaries!), and Trigger Testing through which you can test the trigger without worrying about contact interaction.
The bar has definitely been raised and the sky’s the limit on what’s to come. I’ve shared just a few of what I find remarkable and exhilarating — but there’s so much more! Do you have a different feature that has stood out to you? Let us know what has made a difference for you.
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