Wonder what is integrated marketing? Think about the iconic “Share a Coke With” campaign that increased CocaCola’s sales in the US by striking 11%. Remember the CTA to share a drink with a friend on billboards, social media, the landing page, and finally, each bottle of Coke? – That’s how integrated marketing looks like.

Such campaigns are based not only on several channels melded together but also heavily rely on automated marketing tools. Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation platform is one of them.

Being the world’s number one CRM with 150,000 users, Salesforce is widely used for integrated cross-channel and omni-channel campaigns. Salesforce Marketing Cloud covers a broad range of features, from email marketing to data analytics. What it doesn’t cover can be connected through additional integrations, such as Inkit’s mail automation for integrated direct mail campaigns.

Keep reading to find out more about Inkit and Salesforce direct mail in today’s article on:

• What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation?
• Ideas of integrated direct mail campaigns with Inkit + Salesforce direct mail

What Is Salesforce Marketing Cloud Automation?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a CRM platform designed for marketing and sales teams that want to manage and personalize their communications with existing customers and potential leads. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a combination of several tools that meet the main needs of digital marketers, including:

• Journey Builder. It’s a classic drag-and-drop feature that enables marketers to visualize customer journeys for powering 1-to-1 customer relationships. You can build a custom set of interactions based on triggers and unique behaviors, like purchases, mobile app downloads, comments, etc.

TIP. If you need to handle a large volume of customer data from multiple sources, complement Journey Builder’s functionality with Automation Studio. Use it to segment target audiences based on multiple factors and supply Journey Builder with better-filtered customer data. Automation Studio can also extract, transform, and load data and automate recurring processes (file transfers, data import, or an SQL query). In other words, Automation Studio and Journey Builder are a great combination to power the user-friendly workflow builder with advanced customer data. For detailed instructions on how to use Salesforce Marketing Cloud Automation Studio, click here.

• Email Studio. Using this Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation feature, marketers can create emails with tailored content and optimize them for any device. Best-in-class templates allow you to quickly populate emails and automate their delivery for drip campaigns and other marketing efforts.

• Audience Studio. Unify customer data to gain deep insight into the tastes and needs of your leads and treat them right. Advanced analytics is essential to understand whether integrated direct mail campaigns and other strategies work.
• Mobile Studio. Send custom push notifications, SMS, and chat messages to stay in touch with customers whatever device they use.
• Social Studio. Enjoy an all-in-one social media suite to manage the content published on social media and track how users respond to it. Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation is also a great way to find trending topics to make your posts more relevant and up-up-date.

Apart from the listed features, Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation also supports Advertising, Interactions, and Data Studios, connects with Google Marketing Platform and other tools. Inkit is one of such integrations used for Salesforce direct mail campaigns. It allows marketers to leverage the benefits of integrated direct mail campaigns by connecting Inkit with Salesforce marketing cloud automation. Read on to learn some ideas of running integrated direct mail campaigns with Inkit + Salesforce direct mail.

Get Inspired: Integrated Direct Mail Campaigns with Inkit + Salesforce Direct Mail

Since Inkit supports Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation as one of its core integrations, the setup process is smooth and simple. You just need to have two accounts, integrate Inkit’s webhook with Salesforce, and include Inkit + Salesforce direct mail into the marketing workflow. After integrating direct mail into your marketing strategy, you will get access to a tried-and-tested marketing channel with high response rates and personalization opportunities. Here’re some Salesforce direct mail ideas to get you inspired:

Salesforce Direct Mail Idea #1. Mail Retargeting Based on Social Media Interactions

Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation records all interactions that happen across your social media. This should help you understand the behavior of leads that are about to bounce. For example, if someone has been your loyal customer for years but has stopped to purchase and read your posts, this can mean that the dormant lead is likely to go to competitors. To keep and reactivate such customers, you will need to do several things.

1. Collect data on customer behavior and segment it using Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation to understand where you stand. Social media analysis is an effective approach to determine the current state of your customer relationships. It’s a popular place to leave feedback about products and you can easily track likes, shares, page visits, traffic sources, and other metrics.
2. Once you single out the category of customers that are about to bounce, think about an incentive for your integrated direct mail campaign. Don’t start off with huge discounts. Maybe a small bonus will be enough to remarket lapsed customers. Note that Salesforce enables marketers to create tailored customer journeys, so you can pick different CTAs for different types of leads.
3. Create a mail design for the integrated direct mail campaign following your brand guidelines. The integrated direct mail campaign should be a part of your overall marketing strategy and convey the same message as other communications.
4. When the mail campaign is ready to be launched, include Inkit into the marketing workflow created in Journey Builder to automatically trigger mailing. For example, Salesforce Marketing Cloud automation can instruct Inkit to initiate automated mail printing and delivery when a dormant customer who has remained inactive for 2 months likes your social media post. This may mean that the person remembers your brand but hesitates about continuing to use your services. Thus, it’s worth targeting them with the convincing Inkit + Salesforce direct mail to clear up any doubts.

For additional tips on mail remarketing, visit our article about win-back mail campaigns.

Salesforce Direct Mail Idea #2. Send a Mail Offer to New Customers

The next two ideas of integrated direct mail campaigns basically include the same preparatory steps as the first one. You need to conduct research of the target audience, choose the right people to send direct mail, create a custom email design, and include the integrated direct mail campaign in the necessary place of the customer journey with Salesforce’s Journey Builder. In the case of sending mail to new customers, their registration in the system can be the trigger event. Once it’s recorded, Inkit will send tailored welcome postcards to greet the customers and guide them through your services.

Salesforce Direct Mail Idea #3. Mail a QR Code to Promote Your Digital Content

If you have launched a blog or started a podcast, an integrated direct mail campaign is an effective way to engage more people. Include a QR code on the mail piece to forward people to the necessary resource. Thanks to advanced automation introduced with Inkit and Salesforce, you can synchronize the day of mail delivery with the date of publishing the content. This will generate additional traffic to your digital publications.

Want to launch an integrated direct mail campaign? Subscribe to Salesforce and Inkit to start building it now!