Salesforce.com Innovation in the Spotlight – E

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) has been front and center the past couple of weeks, revving up for its
Dreamforce ’11 cloud computing industry event, running Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Dreamforce is expected to draw more than 40,000 registered attendees and showcase 1,000 solutions from 300 Salesforce.com cloud computing partners.

“This is going to be the largest Dreamforce ever,” Fergus Griffin, vice president of product marketing for Salesforce.com, told CRM Buyer. “This year it’s all about the social enterprise and using Salesforce.com’s social, mobile and open cloud technologies.”

All About Social Networking

Social networking is at the heart of much of the innovation that attendees will see.

“The social revolution taking place today has made customer relationships more important — and more public — than ever as the number of social networking users has surpassed email users,” noted Griffin. “Nearly a quarter of all time spent online is spent on social networks like Facebook. Mobile apps are used more than Web browsers. Dreamforce will demonstrate how companies can transform into social enterprises to bridge the current divide between them and their customers.”

To date, social media monitoring has primarily been tied to support, Adam Blitzer, COO and cofounder of
Pardot, a B2B cloud marketing automation software provider, told CRM Buyer. Pardot will be making an announcement about new social media tools for B2B marketers at this year’s event.

“What we are seeing now is an increased willingness of sales and marketing teams to take social data and integrate it into their lead qualification processes,” Blitzer said. “Imagine not only knowing a prospect’s demographics (company size, title, etc.) and activity history (pages viewed, links clicked), but also their interests (via Twitter and Facebook) and connections to you (via LinkedIn). That paints a really complete picture of the prospect before you ever pick up the phone.”

On-Demand Marketing

TreeHouse Interactive is using Dreamforce to unveil the latest functionality for its Marketing View on-demand marketing automation solution. The new functionality is designed for companies who sell business-to-business, and rely on databases where tracking by individual behavior is limited to revealing only a partial profile of interest. Now marketers can gather behavioral information at a company level where there may be multiple contributors to a buying decision, rather than focusing on individual behavior for target marketing.

“What we have been seeing is automation without a lot of information,” Director of Marketing Chris Frank told CRM Buyer. “However, most interested companies are not on your database and a vast majority of online interest simply isn’t captured. So how do you identify them and market to them?

“What we’ve done is added way to nurture and engage visitors that have not ‘raised their hands’ so to speak,” Frank added. “For example, you might have had a number of people from a company visiting your site but have not made an active inquiry. Now you can score and target them based on activities such as landing page visits, content downloads, etc.”

Marketing View now includes the following behavioral tracking, scoring, targeting and nurturing features:

• Email Opens
• Email Link Clicks
• Form Submissions (website forms, campaign landing pages, etc.)
• Content Downloads
• Purchase Events (e-commerce related)
• Purchase Dollars (e-commerce related)
• Website Page Visits

Cloud-Based File Management

Not on show at Dreamforce, but ready for Salesforce.com users is the latest integration functionality from
Syncplicity, a cloud-based file management solution provider. Called “Syncplicity for Salesforce,” this enhancement to its Business Edition suite comes hot on the heels of its recent Syncplicity for iPhone announcement.

What this means is that Salesforce.com users can get universal access to files; synchronize, backup and share them; and collaborate with others — all from within Salesforce.com or anywhere else they choose to work inside or outside the corporate firewall, said Leonard Chung, chief product strategist and profiler.

Instant synchronization in the cloud allows sales teams to access or share files stored on laptops, file servers, and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Docs across their PCs, Macs, Google, SharePoint and mobile devices without having to check out or download files.

“They don’t’ need to move, upload, attach or email files while working in Salesforce.com,” Chung told CRM Buyer. “There’s no box to upload into, no moving things to new folders. We take care of the synchronization and backup across all platforms. And they don’t have to incur additional storage fees.”

Files and transfers are fully encrypted during transmission and storage, and users can also apply business rules to limit sharing where applicable. Syncplicity Business Edition starts at US$14 per user per month with a minimum of three users. Syncplicity for Salesforce is included at no additional charge.

---

Share and Enjoy

StreamSend to Small Business: Make the Email-Social Connection/Ten Steps to …

StreamSend has named the 10 key steps small businesses should take to power their email campaigns with social applications like Facebook.

Sacramento, CA (PRWEB) August 29, 2011

StreamSend, a leading email marketing service provider and creator of the social marketing tool suite StreamSend Share, has named the 10 key steps small businesses should take to power their email campaigns with social applications like Facebook, reaching whole new audiences and attracting more prospects with increasingly targeted messages.

“Actually, it is very simple – social marketing is a powerful way to build your prospect list, effectively sharing your message with offers that attract,” reports Dan Forootan, president of StreamSend Email Marketing. “And email marketing is unsurpassed for invaluable measurement on what content is working, and how well. Combine the power of these two media and you get unprecedented reach, targeting and audience-building capabilities. Here are ten steps we help businesses take to maximize their email-social connection with new business prospects.”

1.    Engage! – Social Marketing is a fabulous prospecting and customer engagement tool; build your audience with it by providing authentic content that adds value to their lives and businesses.

2.    Get on the Right Track – Get enough of this valued information in front of the user so that you are “Liked” – then you know you’re on the right track and you’re halfway there. Conversely, don’t ignore lack of acceptance – re-tune your message and content until you’re back on track.

3.    Spread the Wealth — Use email marketing newsletters to announce new Linked-In, Facebook or Twitter feeds, directing readers to your social networking site for sign-up.

4.    Build a Free Facebook Fan Page – This public profile enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users. And don’t be shy: share that link with your all your audiences or other pages you might have.

5.    Keep it Fresh — Use email plus social to add new items to your Fan page. When you can put your email marketing piece right on a Facebook tab you are giving a prospect a chance right there to tell you what they are looking for. Give them what they want and you are giving them a reason to come back.

6.    Make the Affinity Connection – Search and “Like” all the related business fan pages you think might have common customers or who might become a customer.

7.    Zero in on List Candidates — Post more custom Fan pages that have “opt-ins” to your list opportunities; contests or newsletters can accomplish this well.

8.    Read your Stats – See who’s reading what in your communications and send auto-emails to your prospects based on what interests them the most.

9.    Build your List – By getting your customers to both “like you” and get on your list, you are building a strong foundation for them to opt-in. Remember, social “likes” only go so far; over time your message will fall down your visitors’ newsfeeds so that you may not be seen.

10.    Take the Next Step – Continually ask your social visitor to opt-in to your list, get a coupon, etc., so you can “take a next step” together – into a mutually profitable relationship.

About StreamSend

StreamSend offers an easy-to-use, affordable and reliable email marketing service designed to help businesses maximize the reach of their marketing budget when sending an email newsletter or using Social Media. StreamSend offers a number of industry-leading standard pricing plans, private-label and affiliate programs and hands-on personal client service. Started in 1998, StreamSend is a leader in Email Marketing.

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011/8/prweb8749065.htm

Share and Enjoy