In this first installment of our two-part segment on Campaigns, Shell provides examples of marketing initiatives that could be represented as Campaign records in Salesforce. He explains how Campaigns are like any other tab or standard object (in that you can have custom fields, multiple page layouts, record types, validation rules, and workflow), but they also have unique summary fields to know things like response rates, conversion rates and ROI (Return on Investment). From there Shell walks through the native fields used when creating a new Campaign record. Used correctly, Campaigns can tell you which marketing initiatives are performing well – in either creating new Leads, generating response rates and Opportunity revenue!
View this video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/qnBNKeZICls
To learn more and see screen shots on this topic, see our presentation on SlideShare: Introduction to Campaigns in Salesforce
Transcript of video below:
Welcome everyone to another edition of ShellBlack Whiteboard, where we talk about an aspect of the Salesforce.com and provide some tips and tricks along the way, to get the most out of the platform. I am Shell Black, President and founder of ShellBlack.com and Salesforce MVP, So we are going to have a two part series on this one, it is going to be on Campaigns, So, we are going to split this one up. We are going to talk about what is a Campaign, creating a Campaign record, and the second part we are going get into this thing called Campaign Members, which is a way that you can relate a Campaign to people in the database or your Leads and Contacts.
So with that, let’s get into what is a Campaign. So Campaign is a tab, it is an object in Salesforce, it is a standard object, it has got some unique features, but essentially it is where you go to track your marketing initiatives in Salesforce. And more importantly where you go to track your marketing spend. So with a Campaign you market to existing Leads and Contacts, you can generate new Leads, you can track conversion of those Leads to Contacts and Opportunities, you can look at your response rates of your Campaigns, and you can also attribute Opportunities or sales to a Campaign, and you do that for an important reason. And that is for you are out to calculate ROI or the return on investment of your marketing spend. And with a Campaign module you can look at all the Campaigns that you are doing, and through some ROI reporting that comes with the module, you can see which Campaigns are more effective or provide you the best bang for your buck.
So, let’s talk about what can be a Campaign. It can be a variety of things. So, it could be a trade show, it could be a promotion, it could be an email blast, a webinar, direct mail piece, it could be print advertising, outdoor advertising, it could be pay-per-click, whatever you want to track, but any kind of initiative that you are spending dollars on, to generate demand, or Leads, or business can be a Campaign. So one of the things that I want you to think about, about the Campaign object is, it is essentially a standard object. It can have custom fields, you have page layouts, you can have record types, you can do things like validation rules, and workflow. So, just like another object, you can customize it to your heart’s content and depending on what edition, you can have hundreds of custom fields.
Campaigns are a little bit unique though… so there are some things that are available with Campaigns that you won’t find anywhere else. So, for example, there is a section on the page called “Campaign statistics”, and that is going to roll up and summarize information such as number of Leads associated with that Campaign, number of Contacts, how many Leads were converted, how many Opportunities were associated with that Campaign, the dollar amount on that Campaign, so this kind of roll up information is very unique to Campaigns.
So, with that let’s talk about how you set up a Campaign. So I am going to move over here and go through some of the “out-of-the-box” fields that come with the Campaign module. So, let me walk through this with you. So, you have a lookup field called a “Parent Campaign” and where that becomes important is when you have a product launch, 2013 or 2014 product launch, and you could have multiple marketing initiatives, direct mail piece, an email blast, a webinar, multiple child Campaigns that roll up to a parent Campaign, and then you can see what effect, which one of those Campaigns are having the best effect on this bigger initiative. There is a Type pick list, it is a pick list field, and really most people use this to segment and categorize what type of Campaign this is. So, is this a direct mail, is this an event, is it an email blast? Another pick list is the field called Status. It is a lifecycle field, so if you think of other lifecycle fields in Salesforce.com, Opportunity Stage, or Lead Status… Campaign Status has a lifecycle, it is a pick list, you can define those as needed, they can be budgeted planned, launched, approved, aborted, cancelled, whatever makes sense for how you kickoff and bring a Campaign to market.
Start Date and End Date, are really just some fields for you, not necessarily that it is live for you users to see, but it might the Q3 promotion that runs from this date to this date. The Active Check box… this is a real critical field on the Campaign module. It is just a check box, but if your Campaign is “Active,” it makes it viewable or visible to other users in the system. So, if I am working on a Lead or a Contact, and I want to associate a Lead or a Contact to a Campaign, or if I am on an Opportunity and I want to give credit to that Opportunity to Campaign, if this box is checked, this Campaign becomes viewable my Users. If it unchecked, they won’t be able to search and find it. This is what publishes it to the rest of your Salesforce Users.
Some other “out of the box” fields, Expected Revenue, what do you think you are going to make off this initiative, in terms of won Opportunities… Budgeted Costs, just a dollar field, Actual Costs, it is another dollar field, but I put an asterisk next to this one because if you are trying to do you ROI calculations, it does leverage this Actual Cost field. So if you want your ROI report to calculate, make sure you put a value into this Actual Cost field.
Number Sent, it is a number field not surprising, but if you are trying to find or measure your response rate, this is… let’s say you are doing a direct mail piece, or maybe you are inviting people to a company event, or something like that, this is how many people you invited, and you can track your responses with some native reporting. So that it is a pretty important field that that comes “out of the box” with Campaigns. And the Expected Response, so maybe you are doing a direct mail piece, Expected Response is expressed in a percentage, so it could be 2.5%, 3.5 %, 5% or whatever it is, but that is a percent. It is kind of your best guess.
These are just a sampling of some of the native out of the box fields, again, it is an object, a standard object you can have in Salesforce, that can have as many custom fields as you want.
So let’s stop there. We are going to have another segment where we talk about this thing called Campaign Members. Which is how we are going to tie into the database the Campaign and to associate Campaigns to Leads and Contacts. So that is the next segment. Stay tuned for that. If you have any feedback on how we are doing and want to contact us, let me give you a couple of ways to do that… You can email me at Whiteboard@ShellBlack.com or contact me on Twitter, I am out there all the time at @Shell_Black Thanks for tuning in and we will talk to you soon.