“Most companies are totally failing at tying data to what they’re trying to do,” said Shannon Duffy, VP of Marketing for Salesforce Pardot, the cloud giant’s B2B automation arm. Although data is everywhere, she told me, people often feel they just can’t get at it: “I need a data scientist!” It’s an experience which slows everything down.
That’s a situation Salesforce plans to address with today’s launch of a Wave App for B2B marketers, one of a series of new Wave Analytics Apps created by Salesforce or its independent software partners. The Wave Analytics Cloud has been around since 2014, providing a customizable set of cloud-based tools. The new products, including a financial services app as well as the B2B marketing offering, are out-of-the box solutions for users with specific needs. “They come up and running,” said Duffy.
Duffy’s sense is that the app will make it easier for B2B marketers connect a wide range of marketing activities, from content creation to campaigns and events, back to the business. Where the Analytics Cloud made data visible and created the possibility of taking data-driven actions, the B2B marketing app is aimed at shaping decisions “all the way through to closing,” she said. It reflects Pardot’s mission of aligning marketing with sales.
Demonstrating a use case, Duffy showed me how a problem with regional sales performance, readily identified from the app’s dashboard, could quickly be analyzed and understood by drilling down through performance data for regional campaigns. The problem could be corrected, also within the dashboard, by scheduling events for an under-served city in the region. When a prospect registers to attend the event, an alert is sent to sales team, along with detailed—and ongoing—insights into the prospect’s journey. As seen in the demonstration, sharing information between marketing, events and sales teams seemed intuitive and smooth.
“The data alone isn’t enough,” said Duffy. B2B marketers need insights which allow them to take immediate action. Wave for B2B Marketing is currently in beta and will be generally available October.
17. Pricing will be announced at the time of availability.
