Salesforce and Sitecore: A match made in CX heaven

As the world's savviest digital marketers descend on downtown Chicago for the annual Salesforce "Connections" conference this week, Salesforce will roll out more details about a budding partnership that could turbocharge how enterprise marketers deliver digital customer experiences: the connection between the Sitecore Customer Experience Management platform and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.The Salesforce product team will let marketers peek under the hood of the integration, which takes advantage of the strikingly complementary features of the two platforms.The Yin and Yang of digital marketingIn many ways, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sitecore are positioned to be the "Yin and Yang" of digital marketing platforms.* On the Salesforce side, marketers are moving their users to action using Salesforce email, mobile and digital advertising studios and then tying those experiences together on the high-minded and intuitive Journey Builder canvas. They will eventually enter the world of predictive marketing with Salesforce's "Einstein" capabilities.* On the Sitecore side, marketers are enhancing their users' experiences with site-focused features such as Goals, Engagement Plans, Path Analyzer and the Analytics Dashboard to generate optimal site experiences.This marriage empowers ambitious marketers to create incredible experiences at every single step of a user’s digital journey, whether on the web, via email, on a mobile device or through digital advertising on platforms such as Google and Facebook.At this point, it appears that the connector will enable bi-directional data movement between the powerhouse platforms and enable Marketing Cloud users to pull Sitecore-created content through to its messaging tools.Don’t start your Salesforce/Sitecore journey without a mapEven though the "plumbing" will be in place, this doesn't mean eager enterprise marketers should start turning screws on the connected platforms immediately.

"There is so much data and opportunity here, you could go off in almost any direction," says Sheetal Jain, Sitecore Practice Lead at Horizontal Integration. "If you don't do strategy first, this is all futile, you're dead."

Jain recommends focusing first on designing resplendent customer experiences for your users, and only then strategizing around which features from either the Salesforce or Sitecore side are ideal for creating that experience.Despite the potential of this partnership, you'll want to assess your organization's "digital maturity" before hooking Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sitecore together. Moving too soon to a conjoined marketing platform could result in duplicate data, technical debt, and confusion for your marketers, all of which lead to missed opportunities. There are likely several steps to be made organizationally before dipping your toe into Salesforce – and Sitecore – infused waters.Want to learn more?Horizontal Integration's (HI) Digital agency has unmatched experience in digital marketing strategy, UX design and technical development, specializing in both Sitecore’s Experience Management Platform and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We’re recognized as one of Sitecore’s largest and most experienced implementation partners worldwide. So if this sounds exciting to you, get in touch with us!