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Salesforce has announced new applications designed to give companies a more comprehensive and integrated Account-based Marketing (ABM) system than traditional offerings. ABM systems are designed to better align marketing and sales efforts.
“Account-based marketing is not new, but we’ve seen a significant shift of B2B companies doing more broad-based marketing and shifting to ABM because of tight budgets and the need to focus on the most valuable accounts,” Michael Kostow, senior vice president and general manager of Salesforce Pardot, told eWEEK. “ABM is hard to scale, but if done well, companies can really see significant results.”
Kostow said there are many niche ABM applications that aren’t necessarily integrated well with the systems companies use. That in turn makes it difficult to get consistent and meaningful results.
Einstein Account-based Marketing aims to change that with an end-to-end solution designed to align sales and marketing efforts, giving customers, for example, more personalized content in a timely manner to help close deals more quickly.
ABM includes a suite of features including Einstein Lead Scoring which automatically identifies accounts mostly likely to convert based on the prospects history with the company, past purchases and other factors. For marketers, Advertising Studio identifies lookalike prospects or those with similar profiles to current customers based on online behavior and CRM data.
Engagement Studio can be used by marketers and sales reps to send personalized emails based on real-time buyer behavior or “qualifying values” such as when a lead engages with a specific piece of content or if they have significant influence on a buying decision. The Einstein Opportunity Insights application analyzes customer sentiment, competitor involvement and overall lead engagement to determine how deals are progressing.
Other features include Einstein Account Insights which gives sales reps the latest prospect news, such as M&A activity and financial results. Reps can then utilize Salesforce Engage to personalize marketing content and reach out to leads within accounts at the right moment. The system also offers interactive dashboards to track the effectiveness of the messages, including click-through rates of content and exactly when it is opened, according to Salesforce.
You can also measure the effectiveness of these campaigns in a single dashboard view with B2B Marketing and Sales Analytics. Later this year Salesforce plans to release Multi-Touch Campaign Insights designed to help marketers identify what parts of a marketing campaign worked and have the highest potential to drive sales for targeted accounts. It could, for example, be a combination of several things such as clicking on an ad, downloading an eBook and watching a webinar.
Keith Dawson, a principal analyst with 451 Research, said the Salesforce offering has the potential to improve on current ABM solutions.
“There are so many moving parts to a successful ABM program that it makes it difficult to find a single, off-the-shelf, end-to-end ABM solution. As a result, companies are forced to invest in vendors that solve for one-off needs, resulting in disparate data and disjointed communication with their most valued accounts,” Dawson said in prepared statement. “Salesforce’s Einstein ABM layers artificial intelligence into a solution, aligning sales and marketing teams, improving lead targeting and shortening sales cycles,” Dawson stated.
Pricing is dependent on what parts of the system customers choose to deploy. Einstein Account Insights and Einstein Opportunity Insights are all part of Sales Cloud Einstein, which costs $50 per user, per month with any Sales Cloud Enterprise Edition license and above.
B2B Marketing Analytics is $300 per month, for up to five users. Sales Analytics costs $75 per user, per month. No pricing was announced for Multi-Touch Campaign Insights, which is currently being piloted by several customers in pre-release.
Engagement Studio with Salesforce Pardot B2B Marketing editions starts at $1,000 per organization, per month. Salesforce Engage is an additional $50 per user, per month with any Salesforce Pardot edition. Advertising Studio costs $2,000 per organization, per month.