Business CRM major Salesforce today announced Marketing Cloud Lightning, a new user experience, platform and ecosystem for marketers.
The US-based technology company also announced Marketing Cloud for Google Customer Match, enabling marketers to deploy CRM-powered advertising across Google Search, YouTube and Gmail.
According to Salesforce’s 2016 State of Marketing report, 58 percent of high-performing marketing teams are driving customer experience initiatives across the business, compared to 8 percent of underperformers.
Earlier this year, Salesforce introduced Sales Cloud Lightning and Service Cloud Lightning, the next-generation of its sales and service solutions built on the Lightning Platform.
Marketing Cloud Lightning brings the power of Lightning to digital marketers so they can create more intelligent and personalized customer experiences.
The new Marketing Cloud Lightning will offer a modern and intelligent user experience across any device, enabling marketers to work faster and smarter, and deliver better results.
Marketing Cloud Lightning includes new Lightning Components—the reusable building blocks for assembling apps with drag-and-drop ease—enabling companies to develop and customize new business apps that meet their unique needs, leveraging the combined capabilities of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, custom apps and now Marketing Cloud.
Salesforce will deliver Lightning Components ranging from core email functionality, like previewing emails and tracking email open rates, to journey capabilities, like automatically adding a lead or contact to a journey and reviewing the journey history of a specific lead or contact.
Scott McCorkle, CEO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce, said: “With Marketing Cloud Lightning, marketers will now have the tools they need to create smarter, faster 1-to-1 customer journeys that span sales, service, marketing and more—enabling them to deliver seamless, highly personalized experiences.”
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection relies on Salesforce and Marketing Cloud to ensure the flexibility and personalization to communicate with travelers across any channel.
Brad Rutta, vice president of marketing and communications, Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, said: “As our customer journeys continue to evolve, our products and services require a platform that can scale to meet customers’ needs.”
Nestle, which sells more than 1 billion products per day, utilizes Salesforce solutions to improve customer engagement.
Antonio Sciuto, chief marketing officer, Nestle Waters North America, said: “Salesforce has enabled us to scale our understanding of how all consumer touch points fit together to help us fuel smarter, 1-to-1 journeys across channels to delight consumers and lead to more satisfied customers.”
Nucleus Research has seen significant ROI for Marketing Cloud customers, and by extending the power of Lightning to Marketing Cloud, it will see new ways to engage customers 1-to-1 while driving even greater productivity and broader benefits.
The Marketing Cloud Lightning Experience and the first set of Marketing Cloud Lightning Components are expected to be in preview the latter half of 2016. The new experience will be included at no additional cost in every Marketing Cloud edition, which starts at $400 per month.
Predictive Journeys, including Predictive Scoring and Audiences, is currently in beta and will be included for accounts with the Salesforce Marketing Enterprise edition and available to Pro and Corporate editions with the Advanced Data & Analytics package at a $0.10 per contact rate.
Advertising Studio is sold as an add-on to Marketing Cloud editions.
Meanwhile, Salesforce announced that Fanatics — a leader for officially licensed sports merchandise that works with all major sports leagues and more than 300 teams and colleges — is leveraging Salesforce Marketing Cloud to create personalized, 1-to-1 journeys for its customers in real-time and at scale.
Matt Smith, VP of CRM at Fanatics, said: “Whether we’re in the office or in the field, Salesforce Marketing Cloud enables our team to quickly personalize and customize communications to millions of sports fans every week. It also gives us the ability to integrate real-time and post-game stats for a truly cross-channel customer experience.”
Fanatics is using Marketing Cloud predictive intelligence capabilities to provide its customers with more personalized product recommendations.
The recommendations section of Fanatics’ emails has become the second-largest contributor of engagement from customers, generating between 15 to 20 percent of overall clickthroughs.
