On October 27, 2017, the latest release of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud went live. The new and improved October release comes with a host of striking features that will add more muscle to marketing efforts.
Here is a quick run through the latest feature additions that you ought to know about.
Einstein Engagement Scoring
Einstein Engagement Scoring (EES) enables marketers to understand their customers better through predictive customer engagement behavior modeling. Ultimately, it also helps craft the right marketing communication message that has a high chance of conversion.
The EES can be rightly compared to a virtual data scientist that brings all customer behavior information you need under a single visual interface.
The customer behaviors are charted out across four possibilities:
- Likelihood to click on an email
- Likelihood to open an email
- Likelihood to unsubscribe to future emails
- Likelihood to convert
The metrics are updated on a daily basis and predict the customer’s possible action for the next 14 days. Further insights about the customer behavior can also be obtained from the prediction detail page. The results are sorted based on the positive and negative engagement and their respective relative strength of influence.
These insights can be further used to create customized marketing messages that are attuned to the customer’s likelihood of clicking, opening, unsubscribing or converting.
Content Builder Image Carousel Block
Emails have long since remained single flyer or banner style content. The October release of Marketing Cloud brings a fresh change to that carousel based image blocks.
You can now add up to five blocks of images that can be set to auto-rotate every six seconds. Also, navigation arrows at either end also enable users to toggle through the images manually.
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/11/marketing-cloud-october-release-is-live.html
Image desc: A gif grab from the Salesforce Marketing Cloud October Release showing how Content Builder Image Carousel Block works.
This would allow businesses to engage in creative storytelling through a series of images that carry a message. Several brands have already put this to use on their Facebook and Instagram carousel ads.
MobilePush Rich Notifications
MobilePush Rich Notifications is another major draw of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud October Release.
Regular push notifications come in the form of a text notification that drops down from the app drawer. They are easily swept off and do not score high on engagement compared to Rich Notifications. Moreover, regular push notifications have a specific character limit, which restricts the ability to deliver a marketing message.
Rich Notifications, unlike their ordinary counterparts, have audio, video and other such graphic media embedded in them. They can show a message better with interactive elements. This helps them grab user attention better, thus making the notification more click-worthy. The October release makes it possible to send rich notifications on both Android and iOS devices.
Content Builder
The content sharing option was introduced for other editions of Salesforce in August 2017 release. The October 2017 release now allows all Enterprise 1.0 and Lock & Publish customers to share their assets as well as manage permissions across their business units.
The permissions are classified as under:
- View & Send – The recipient business unit can view the content and include it in a message to be sent to another business unit
- Edit Locally – The recipient can edit a copy of the content shared through email. The edits get stored in the local Content Builder folders
- Edit Globally – The recipient can edit or overwrite the content before it is shared with any other business unit
The new content builder tool allows users to create shared folders that can be shared with specific business units that they have login access to.
Email Studio
Several bugs and performance issues in the previous Email Studio versions are now fixed in the October release. Also, content sharing features that were provided for other account types since the August 2017 release is now available for Marketing Cloud.
The highlight performance improvements include:
- Improved campaign search in step 1 of email creation flow
- Enhanced experience for CC and BCC configuration
- Prebuild burst send now supported in new sending interface
- New version of double opt-in supports Subscriber Key
- A/B Test fixed for correct display of test failures
Journey Builder
The October release allows you to chart a YES or a NO path depending on the recipient’s engagement with the message. A YES path proceeds if the recipient engages with the message and a NO path if there is no engagement.
Additionally, the Marketing Cloud now sports a new user interface that also provides additional support to monitor ‘Opens’ and ‘Clicks’.
Some other streamlining made to configuring a Journey include:
- Properties step for configuration wizard in Journey Builder Canvas entries and activities is removed
- Entry source name and journey name will be automatically populated
- The default Wait step at the beginning of a blank journey is removed. The Wait step can be added as a necessary step if needed, however, it is no longer necessary.
A whole lot has changed and a whole new set of features have been added to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud October Release. Put together, they will simplify the efforts of a marketer helping them chart customized marketing messages to customers for maximum conversion.
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