Item: Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Rating: 8
Author: Jack Nick

Overall Satisfaction with Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub (IMH), or Marketing Cloud, is a robust tool that is widely used by Marketing and eCommerce to manage everything from audience segmentation to executing individual and campaign sends. It's user friendly enough to empower a non-technical user yet sophisticated enough to stimulate the tech-savvy user to accomplish great things.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Point and click audience segmentation. Navigating your subscribers and building the right audience is so simple. Your list attributes are completely available and easily dissected into actionable contacts.
Playbooks. ExactTarget puts their catalog of best practices, case studies, and client success stories at your fingertips in the IMH. Need an idea or way forward? It's all right there.
The calendar. A slick calendar view of all your campaigns, emails, and other interactions is available in the IMH. The calendar puts you in control of your communications strategy.

Cons

The transition from "old school" ExactTarget to the IMH can be a little overwhelming . . . some users get into a very defined routine for building lists, querying, sending, etc. The IMH, as user-friendly as it is, does require an adjustment in routine.

Return on Investment

More efficient communications. Not only do we save money using email and SMS communications, we are able to communicate with our clients in real time. A true differentiator.
Absolutely measurable. From open rates to click rates, we can see exactly how effective our communications are (or are not). We have a new level of accountability that drives us to succeed.
Total integration. The robust interface allows us to do everything we need to do in one place, creating significant employee efficiency.

Alternatives Considered

No one else offers such a robust, easy to use interface. Period. We selected ExactTarget not only for what they offered at the time (2009), we selected them because of their compelling vision for the future. Their roadmap illustrated a constant state of evolution and desire to continue creating tools for their clients that would empower them to get better, faster, stronger.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExactTarget not only provides incredible cloud-based solutions, they provide incredible resources via their people. Real people who invest themselves in your business and your goals and apply their knowledge to your challenges. ExactTarget makes you feel like you have an equal partner striving for the same success. From email to SMS and the integration of both, I have felt supported every step of the way.

Using Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Likelihood to Renew

ExactTarget continues to add value to the IHM with new and improved solutions like Journey Builder. Journey Builder is, perhaps, the most significant development we have seen. What took weeks for us to develop will now take days, maybe even hours. Journey Builder is a game changer, and its incorporation into the IMH all but guarantees our commitment to it.

Comments

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ExactTarget is right on target.

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