SALESFORCE MARKETING CLOUD SPECIALIST

Salesforce Marketing Cloud And Email Studio for Common Email Marketing Challenges

SFMC and Email studio help to manage most of the marketing challenges faced by businesses:

• Earning new subscribers
• Retaining current subscribers
• Increasing delivery, open and click-through rates
• Decreasing unsubscribe rates
• Improving post-click activity
• Achieving measurable ROI
• Creating relevant content that inspire action from your audience

You can build smarter email campaigns, engage with your audience, measure the results of your efforts and boost the returns on your marketing spends.

With Email studio, you can:

• Automate the customer’s email journey from start to finish
• Reach more customers with customizable templates and responsive designs
• Finely hone target audience segmentation with Einstein Artificial intelligence functionality
• Send personalized, 1-on-1 messages for more engaged subscribers
• Leverage customer profile data from multiple digital channels
• Analyze campaign performance and make changes as needed

With SFMC and Email Studio’s powerful Salesforce email marketing automation capabilities, you can build effective email marketing campaigns, serve your customers and gain the edge you need to zoom ahead of your competitors.

SALESFORCE MARKETING CLOUD ARCHITECT

With his unique mix of business and technical skills, the SFMC Architect plays an important role in scoping and driving the creation of digital solutions and email campaigns leveraging the capabilities of the SFMC platform. He acts as a liaison between the account management and operations teams to gather business, marketing and technical requirements, and then design and deliver high-quality, scalable technical solutions. He also provides overall technological direction, proactively identifies and resolves problems, and designs the overall support strategy to ensure that all SFMC solutions, systems and processes run safely and securely.

Because the Architect will be involved in full SFMC projects from start to finish, it is essential that he has hands-on experience with the platform as well as solid analytical, problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

• Craft a comprehensive and scalable SFMC solution based on specific organizational objectives
• Build customer journeys and cloud pages
• Provide overall architectural direction for Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Develop and manage data architecture and integration
• Architect data feeds, platform configuration and all required components to manage complex automated email campaigns
• Define and communicate project responsibilities and expectations
• Ensure alignment of business requirements with industry best practices

• Email Specialist
• Marketing Cloud Consultant
• Marketing Cloud Developer

Salesforce Marketing Cloud ADMINISTRATOR

The SFMC Administrator defines business units, configures their structure, sets up user permissions and accessibility, and troubleshoots accounts-related issues. As the SFMC expert user, he leads projects, campaigns and initiatives to maximize SFMC’s value. He also provides strategic direction and guidance in building sophisticated customer journeys, and in tracking performance as per defined KPIs. Furthermore, he monitors SFMC usage in the organization, and manages the distribution of the training library for employees/users.

To succeed as SFMC Admin, the person must have prior SFMC experience, knowledge of data management, cloud computing, cloud system administration, as well as familiarity with industry best practices

Responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Configure Marketing Cloud products like Email Studio based on industry best practices and client requirements
• Manage subscriber data
• Implement new modules and configure new business units
• Create target marketing lists using complex query building languages
• Create and manage email tracking initiatives, web analytics, and system usage performance indicators
• Create campaign and promotion KPIs to report performance
• Provide SFMC updates to users

• Marketing Cloud Administrator
• Email Specialist
• Marketing Cloud Consultant

Salesforce Marketing Cloud DEVELOPER/AUTOMATION SPECIALIST

The SFMC Developer/Automation Specialist brings a high level of expertise in the design and functionality of business requests, and in bringing these requirements to life in user-friendly ways. As the SFMC Subject Matter Expert, he is involved in the day-to-day management of SFMC, and the integration of SFMC with other Salesforce Clouds and relevant third-party platforms. He builds email templates and content using Content Builder, and also designs and maintains marketing campaigns using automations and journeys.

Ideally, he has prior administrative exposure to SFMC, has strong understanding of IP Warming best practices, is comfortable working in an Agile environment, has good knowledge of CRM and APIs, and has experience performing impact analysis of application changes across various components. He is also well-versed with email marketing best practices/CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, and can resolve scenarios using REST and SOAP API. Strong business acumen is a definite plus.

Although not required, a Marketing Cloud Developer certification is also a bonus to succeed as a SFMC Developer/Automation Specialist.

Responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Create personalized, dynamic messages, emails and landing pages
• Test campaigns prior to migration to Production environment
• Manage data configuration
• Execute advanced segmentation, reporting and analytics tasks
• Utilize Return Path to run robust reports and monitor IP health
• Interpret and translate metrics/analytics into insightful analyses, develop dashboards to communicate campaign performance
• Work with customers and platform data (SQL, views, Send Log)
• Manage integrations with other clouds and third-party platforms

• Marketing Cloud Developer

Salesforce Marketing Cloud EMAIL SPECIALIST

The SFMC Email Specialist works closely with an Email Marketing Manager to build complex customer journeys in SFMC. He is an expert in executing both tactical and strategic email campaigns using a wide range of SFMC tools such as Email Studio and Journey Builder.

The Salesforce email marketing specialist has a good understanding of audience segmentation, email marketing best practices, subscriber and data management, and campaign tracking and analytics. He understands the various policies and legal compliance requirements of SFMC pertaining to Email Studio. Additionally, the Salesforce email marketing specialist also troubleshoots and solves production-related issues with the SFMC platform.

To succeed as a SFMC Cloud Email Specialist, a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist Certification would be ideal, although it is not essential.

Responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Design personalized/dynamic email messages, landing pages and automated campaigns
• Set up A/B or multivariant testing to deliver user-centric, personalized campaigns
• Outline customer journeys for campaigns in Journey Builder
• Segment and pull dynamic subscribers/contacts for every campaign
• Evaluate opportunities for campaign optimization
• Manage external integrations with the Marketing Cloud Email application
• Query data with SQL, and set up content blocks and personalization within emails using AMPscript

• Marketing Cloud Email Specialist

In-House SFMC Team vs Hiring Dedicated
SFMC Experts : Pros and Cons

If your organization is looking to leverage Salesforce Marketing Cloud to meet certain business goals, you will likely consider two primary options:

• Recruit and hire an in-house team
• Outsource work to a development partner/dedicated expert

Here are the pros and cons of hiring an in-house team versus outsourcing to a dedicated agency:

How to decide:

In addition to the Q&A analysis mentioned earlier, here are some tips to help you make the right decision for your organization.

Go in-house if:

• You need quick bug fixes and feature requests over the long term
• You need to quickly adapt to changing marketplace requirements
• Your SFMC instance is already bringing in revenue and is ready to scale

Hire a dedicated agency if:

• You are a non-tech company looking for short-term technical expertise and consulting
• Your SFMC instance requires specialized skills and/or a wide range of specialties
• Your project likely requires a large upfront development effort (and can be maintained internally with less effort over time)
• You need an experienced development partner to help you build your MVP in the minimum time possible

And last but not least, what is your budget?

8 Tips To Hire The Best Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist For Your Organization

To get the maximum benefits out of your Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation, you need to find the right implementation partner. How can you find the right expert for your company? Here are some tips!

1. Start your search on Salesforce AppExchange

The AppExchange portal on salesforce.com is a good place to start your search. Search under Consultants to find firms based on expertise, popularity, rating, client reviews, number of certified experts, etc. If you need someone local, you can modify your search by location and state/province. Based on your budget and project requirements, you can choose consultants based on their ‘tier’: Global Strategic, Platinum, Gold, Silver and Registered.

AppExchange has a separate sub-portal for Developers that you can search by skills, rating, location and language.

You can also reach out on members of the Salesforce community

Another good place to search is within the Salesforce Trailblazer community. Here you can find reputed Salesforce leaders (aka ‘Trailblazers’), ask questions and even review answers to previously discussed issues. This portal also provides information about upcoming Salesforce events like Dreamforce – a massively popular annual event for Salesforce practitioners from all over the world. In fact, Dreamforce (and events/conferences like it) provide another avenue to find the best SFMC Email Marketing specialist for your organisation.

You can also search on LinkedIn, and on job posting sites like Stack Overflow, GitHub Jobs and We Work Remotely.

2. Talk to your Salesforce Account Executive

Your Salesforce Account Executive can not only assist you in obtaining pricing information for the purchase of Salesforce licenses or products, they are also a great source to find a good SFMC implementation partner. They can help you identify and shortlist external consultants who have relevant experience and expertise in your vertical or industry. You can start by asking them about consultants that have helped their other accounts.

3. Check your own network

If you know people who use Salesforce in their organization, ask them for recommendations. If their organization is similar to yours, they will understand your needs and provide useful suggestions. They can give you a list of good consultants (and a list of consultants to steer clear of)!

4. Narrow down your list with further research

Once you have compiled a list of probable partners, cull it based on specific considerations like experience, reputation, technical capabilities and reviews. Cost can be another consideration but it should not be the only consideration.

Questions to ask (and answer):

• Has X company implemented a similar solution to what is needed in my organization and industry?
• Do they understand how your industry works? Challenges, regulatory environment, compliance requirements, etc/
• Are they a large, established consulting firm or a smaller firm?
• Do they have the technical know-how to keep up with your company as it grows?
• Can your organization afford the company’s services?

5. Check if they can provide ongoing support

A Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation project rarely ends with the official ‘go live’ date. Therefore you need a partner who can provide support on an ongoing basis. Before selecting one, ask them how they will support you on an ongoing basis once the project is complete. Also ask about prices, SLAs and number of support hours.

6. Test their knowledge

Narrow down your list to 4-5 partners and schedule conversations with each of them to gauge their skills.

The essential skills and competencies required would depend on your project and type of consultant (SFMC Developer, SFMC Email Specialist, Automation Specialist, etc). For example, a Developer should be familiar with:

• Force.com
• Lighting App Builder
• Heroku
• Fuel
• Developer Console
• Data modeling, management, and security

However, a Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist must have expertise in (among others):

• A/B or multivariant testing
• SQL and data transformation
• AMPScript

Additionally, beyond technical skills, it is important to select a partner who also has soft skills such as:

• Business empathy: The ability to understand the client’s business needs and recommend solutions tailored to meet those needs.
• Requirements gathering: The ability to gather clear, concise and accurate requirements so the project can take off smoothly
• Communication skills: The ability to convey ideas, present facts, discuss business strategies, ensure proper information flow between stakeholders and to help clients with decision-making

Other Crucial Skills for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Specialist

• 
  Awareness of email Marketing best practices
• 
  Competence in content creation and delivery
• 
  Knowledge of email message design
• 
  Hands-on knowledge of marketing automation
• 
  Competence in subscriber and data management
• 
  Ability to track campaigns and create reports for business users

7. Check certifications

When you hire a certified professional or agency, you have greater assurance that you will receive quality Salesforce services from experts who will focus on your organization’s needs, provide post-project support as and when needed, and ensure quick issue resolution with minimal downtime.

8. Test for scalability match

Your organization will grow with time. But can the consultant scale with you? Check before hiring!