Salesforce marketing teams use automation to fuel productivity

Much like professional photographers, marketing teams are tasked with bringing high-impact work into focus. But everyday challenges like repetitive manual tasks, context switching between systems, and siloed teams can make work less than picture perfect. These obstacles delay marketers from launching campaigns and getting new leads into the sales pipeline. Having the right tools and systems, however, can make work go faster and be more productive.

Imagine campaign insights and approval requests that are automatically routed to the right people, enabling swift action on one platform. This is one way that Salesforce marketing teams use Slack as a productivity platform, helping facilitate faster turnarounds and stronger relationships.

Here’s a snapshot of how Salesforce marketers use Slack’s automation tools to turn data-driven decisions and agency collaboration into marketing masterpieces.

Drive team alignment and speed up approvals with workflows

In today’s fast-paced and hybrid work environment, maintaining alignment with teams is vital to getting campaigns to market without bottlenecks. That’s where Workflow Builder’s customizable,  no-code workflows come in.

“You can create workflows to help make your organization work faster and more effectively, and bring cohesion among your teams,” says Vikram Mediratta, Salesforce’s senior director of corporate marketing. “You can eliminate hunting through endless emails and platforms by consolidating all essential elements in one location. This is the priority for leaders. They aim for their teams to work effectively while maximizing productivity.”

Approval workflows, for instance, gather and automatically dispatch all necessary requested information so stakeholders can swiftly review summaries and sign off in minutes. Centralized files and documents in Slack workflows keep work moving forward. Because Slack’s platform is easily searchable, workflows also help inform teams how to replicate similar requests. The information in the workflows and their threads provide contextual information about the requests, including the people involved in the decision-making and the turnaround time.

“I no longer get lost when looking for information. Additionally, approvals are no longer delayed as they were before we adopted Slack,” Mediratta says. “It’s much easier to be in one system. Summaries are clear, clean, actionable—and workflows allow me to be super-efficient whether I’m  using Slack on my laptop or on my phone while on the road.”

Workflows are also transformative when it comes to connecting people. Customer support or engagement workflows can automatically route questions to targeted groups of experts who can provide information, resources and answers. Managers who monitor these workflows can track trends and opportunities for enablement or content.

Before workflows, teams wasted time searching for information in multiple locations. “You wouldn’t find something and eventually you’d have to ask somebody, and then send an email or get in a meeting to figure out what’s happening,” says Mediratta. “Or, you just give up and hope for the best.”

Now colleagues can use workflows in Slack dedicated to supporting sales-related matters to ask questions about deals directly to product marketers. This support helps resolve immediate concerns and provides a searchable archive of invaluable information for newcomers to learn.

Make data-driven decisions together

When people, apps and processes are connected, marketing teams have the context to make smarter decisions. Slack’s integration with marketers’ go-to apps such as Google Analytics, Asana, DocuSign, Quip and Concierge helps align internal sales, customer success and product management teams in dedicated Slack channels. According to Salesforce’s Customer and Market Success Metrics from August 2023, using Slack results in 36% faster responses to customers, prospects, colleagues and partners, and it leads to 37% faster decision-making across teams.

Integrating Salesforce Marketing Cloud products, such as Tableau and Account Engagement, into Slack lets businesses get instant in-channel notifications when customer issues or requests arise. This allows teams to better understand market needs and adjust campaign efforts accordingly. Tableau provides access to valuable data, insights and AI predictions to help teams make informed decisions; and Account Engagement uses AI to identify critical accounts with the highest likelihood of purchasing.

The Marketing Cloud for Slack integration empowers teams to plan and execute campaigns within Slack, automatically updating their Marketing Cloud data along the way. Alerts on lead engagement and campaign insights are piped into relevant campaign channels through workflows, allowing marketers to analyze and iterate on campaigns in real time—all in one place.

Deliver better results with closer agency collaboration

Without the right tools, it can be difficult for enterprise companies to get the most value from their marketing partnerships. Slow response time from partners and cluttered email inboxes often cause delays in production and launch. Additionally, context switching between multiple collaboration and document tools can result in essential details falling through the cracks.

Slack Connect speeds up communication with external partners and vendors by empowering companies to access the same workflows, app integrations and tools within Slack. As the single source of truth, Slack eliminates downtime between meeting updates and helps partners seamlessly become part of the team so all parties can quickly make strategic decisions.

Slack Connect helps Salesforce marketing teams scale collaboration effortlessly during Dreamforce, the company’s largest annual customer event. Erin Oles, Salesforce SVP of strategic events, oversees the multi-day conference and says her team relies on workflows to manage tech escalations.

“At Dreamforce, the registration team accesses real-time analytics from Salesforce’s clouds in Slack channels,” Oles says. “Vendors and non-vendors in the same channel use workflows to work through their issues, resolve problems and provide updates. Slack is a real-time execution tool for us to make data-informed decisions.”

Everything comes into focus when marketers work with Slack’s automation tools. Soon new automation features will empower marketers to create even more advanced workflows that will connect their go-to tools effortlessly. In just a few clicks, marketing teams can get a whole new depth of field. Learn more by contacting our sales team today.