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The Fabulous Five: Our Favourite Sessions from London’s Calling

Home » BrightGen Blog » The Fabulous Five: Our Favourite Sessions from London’s Calling

London’s Calling, one of the biggest Salesforce-related events of the year, never disappoints! This year, the BrightGen team once again came away with valuable insights that we’d like to share with you.

Each member of our team selected the session that resonated with them the most. This blog covers topics such as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (previously Pardot), Diagramming Salesforce solutions, harnessing CRM Analytics for better decision-making, and the transformative potential of Salesforce Industries.

Please refer to the table of contents below and navigate directly to the topic that interests you the most.

Table of Contents

  1. What Salesforce and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) Admins need to know about each others’ systems 
  2. Diagramming Salesforce solutions: Bringing the story to life
  3. Leading with data: How CRM analytics can help you make better decisions 
  4. Demystifying Salesforce Industries: There are new industry clouds in town 
  5. Avoiding Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) SOS scenarios

What Salesforce and Pardot Admins Need to Know about Each Others’ Systems

By Julia Valentine

Nathaniel Sombu didn’t let us down with a bold start to the day – a singalong first thing in the morning! The audience particularly enjoyed the song about Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s (MCAE) new name…

In terms of content, Nathaniel’s session was equally as good as the song (if not better). As a marketing practitioner, I worried the detail might go over my head. However, it was actually very helpful to see Salesforce and MCAE from an Admin’s perspective in a marketing context.

One key takeaway was the importance of pulling conversion data from Salesforce after information has been passed from MCAE to Sales Cloud. This allows marketers to track the success rate of leads. If they’re not converting, could it be that they’re not warm enough before being passed on to Sales? It’s a good way to see what content is working best in terms of return on investment too.

We all know about the age-old debate: what constitutes an MQL? This can – and should – only be determined in partnership with your sales leaders!

Nathaniel Sombu

Nathaniel emphasised the need for different nurture journeys based on the prospect’s status: whether they are new prospects, existing leads, or contacts. It’s essential to have a clear indication on the MCAE record to determine the type of contact, such as a customer.

Drawing a parallel, Nathaniel highlighted the importance of collaboration between admin teams, just like between marketing and sales teams. We all know about the age-old debate: what constitutes an MQL? This can – and should – only be determined in partnership with your sales leaders!

Nathaniel recommended a brilliant article on Salesforce Ben’s site about customisable MQL reporting beyond the MCAE lifecycle report. Once a lead becomes an MQL, it should be assigned to sales, preferably automatically. Sales teams should track the reasons behind lost or won opportunities, enabling marketers to fine-tune their MQL filters and definitions accordingly.

A top start for the day, it was great to take away insights that marketers can use right away, as well as Salesforce Admins.

Diagramming Salesforce Solutions: Bringing The Story to Life

By Connor Ellis

Matthew Morris‘ session on the art of diagramming Salesforce solutions helped the audience understand how to establish trust with stakeholders. By visually representing your organisation’s structure, you can effectively communicate your understanding of their needs and goals.

Matthew gave examples of several stakeholder groups you need to engage and how to engage them.

Stakeholder groups

Legal and Finance 

  • What this team needs to be aware of: risks involved in implementation, reasons for approaching a solution in a particular way, compliance, data categorisation, data retention, and data residency 
  • How to demonstrate to this team: use a data model, system landscape, Plan on a Page (POAP), or data dictionary 

Technical

  • What this team needs to be aware of: protect the platform, avoid technical debt, follow guardrail choices and trade-offs, what the standard fields are in the org, whether you have an AppExchange solution 
  • How to demonstrate to this team: data models of the org, system landscapes, sequence diagrams and reference architecture

Business

  • What this team needs to be aware of: upcoming changes and/or problems 
  • How to demonstrate to this team: data model, system landscape, POAP, capabilities, journeys, processes, product roadmap 

Executives

  • What this team needs to be aware of: strategic views on innovation, insights into what’s working or needs improvement 
  • How to demonstrate to this team: system landscape, POAP, journeys, product roadmap, horizon view and the operating model, how the operating model fits in with the business overall 

How you should prepare for your meetings

  1. Prepare Appropriate Diagrams: Create diagrams that effectively convey your message and call to action. Ensure their relevance to the specific stakeholder group. 
  2. Support Your Team: Equip your team with the necessary knowledge to contribute valuable insights to stakeholders. Collaborate with peers to optimise your solutions. 
  3. Presenting Tips: Consider different priorities and perspectives, establish ground rules, and be prepared for challenging questions. Practice is key, especially when presenting to leadership. 

To streamline your diagramming process, Salesforce provides pre-built templates that can support your architecture diagrams.

By tailoring your communication to different groups and using visual aids, you can build trust, drive alignment, and deliver more successful implementations.

Leading With Data: How CRM Analytics Can Help You Make Better Decisions

By Festus Obadina and Joshua Love

Chris Taylor‘s session was a helpful insight into the world of AI tools and their impact on CRM and analytics. While AI shines in generative tasks (for more details, check out Elena’s blog post), CRM Analytics offers a sequential analysis of data origins and patterns. This lets you streamline the process of identifying patterns and context.

One of the key benefits of CRM Analytics is that it can generate interactive charts. That lets you and your stakeholders dive deeper into your data and explore it from different angles. Additionally, CRM Analytics enables data integration from various sources, such as Google Analytics, consolidating information in one place.

To achieve this, first you need to understand what “good” looks like before diving into the analytics process. Do you have any pre-existing reports you need to recreate? Consider your audience as well. Who will be reviewing the reports you create, and how frequently will they need them? Assess whether the reviewer is a Salesforce user.

CRM Analytics empowers you to uncover meaningful insights from your data and drive better outcomes for your business.

Demystifying Salesforce Industries – There Are New Industry Clouds In Town!

By Elgan Ellis

Rohit Kataria shed light on the benefits of Salesforce Industry Clouds. He emphasised that it’s not a choice between “Salesforce or Salesforce Industries,” as the industry clouds are designed to complement Salesforce development, not replace it. Salesforce Industries encompass a range of industry-specific clouds, including Health, Manufacturing, Retail, Communication, Insurance, and more.

Rohit talked in detail about why we should consider leveraging Salesforce Industries (SFI), weighing the license cost against development savings. Here are the key benefits of using SFI: 

  • Faster deployment: Industry-specific clouds often provide comprehensive functionality out-of-the-box, minimising the need for extensive customisation. This not only speeds up deployment but also reduces associated risks 
  • Lower cost of ownership:
    • Reduced initial development time translates to lower deployment costs 
    • Lower maintenance costs over time 

A study conducted by the Salesforce Customer Success team revealed that adopting Salesforce Industries solutions can increase a partner’s revenue by 10-14%.

Rohit presented a compelling case by illustrating that after seven years of ownership, a custom solution costs 1.4 times more than one built on an Industry Cloud. This cost advantage holds true even when factoring in licensing costs.

Furthermore, Salesforce partners also reap the benefits of SFI. The reduced deployment time enables partners to undertake more projects efficiently. A study conducted by the Salesforce Customer Success team revealed that adopting SFI solutions can increase a partner’s revenue by 10-14%.

In conclusion, faster deployment, lower cost of ownership, and increased revenue potential for partners make Salesforce Industries a compelling choice for businesses across various sectors.

Avoiding Pardot Personalisation SOS Scenarios

By Elena Devnina

One of the more practical sessions on Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE) was presented by Richard Feist and Nathalie Coles from Sercante. In their session, they delved into the intricacies of personalisation in Pardot and shared valuable tips with the audience. 

The session kicked off by highlighting the three types of personalisation available in Pardot:

  1. Dynamic Content: This allows you to deliver a personalised experience to your prospects based on their attributes or list membership 
  2. Handlebars Merge Language (HML): HML lets you merge data from prospect fields directly into your content 
  3. Snippets: Snippets are reusable pieces of content that can be inserted into your emails, forms, or landing pages.

Richard and Nathalie emphasised the significance of personalisation in various marketing assets, such as emails, forms, and landing pages, and shared insights on how to avoid common pitfalls. Here are some key takeaways:

  • Emails: Customise the sender and subject lines using a combination of dynamic content, HML, and snippets. This can help capture your prospects’ attention and drive engagement
  • Forms: Use HML at the top of forms to address people you already know. If you lack specific data, a generic greeting like “hi there” can be used. Inside dynamic content blocks, leverage HML to change language preferences based on prospect data. Hidden fields can also be used in forms to capture UTM values, but they require use of JavaScript code  
  • Landing Pages: Employ HML inside dynamic content blocks to modify forms based on prospect preferences, such as changing the language to one preferred by the prospect

The session also shed light on the reasons why personalisation can fail. These can include insufficient data, incorrect data, and user error. To tackle these challenges, Richard and Nathalie recommended creating a well-thought-out plan that covers the following aspects:

  1. Define your objectives: Determine what you want to achieve through personalisation and set clear goals 
  2. Identify required assets: Identify the marketing assets that need personalisation, such as emails, forms, or landing pages 
  3. Ensure data availability: Verify that you have all the necessary data to implement personalisation effectively. Incomplete or inaccurate data can lead to subpar results 
  4. Test rigorously: Develop a robust testing strategy to ensure that personalisation works as intended. Some testing tips and tricks shared during the session include testing in incognito mode, setting up a list of “internal” prospects with different values, leveraging Gmail’s “+valuable” function, considering default values when using HML and dynamic content, using preview and testing tools within Pardot, and always testing with individuals who don’t meet your personalisation criteria. 

The session concluded with a valuable resource recommendation: “Duck, Duck, Goose: How to Play with Pardot Snippets” This blog post provides additional insights and strategies for effectively using snippets in Pardot personalisation.