ATLANTA, GA — (Marketwire) — 08/31/11 — has significantly upgraded its cloud marketing automation software to help SMB marketers make better use of powerful social media tools. A bevy of new features include automated access to sales prospect social media profile data and posts from within the Pardot system, and the ability to schedule and send social media messages to prospects from Pardot-s platform. The result is an integrated solution for social as well as traditional marketing campaign management. From a single, easy to use interface, marketers can now plan and execute targeted and timely campaigns, across digital channels.
“Social media is no longer something new and fun you can do to attract attention, it-s an absolute requirement,” said Adam Kaiser, director of Marketing for IVCi. “Pardot makes it easy to leverage tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and consistently provide an ROI that justifies our investment in them. I can now track the life of a lead from a visit on our Facebook or LinkedIn page, to a closed opportunity in Salesforce. That-s about as practical as it gets!”
“There-s no denying that social media is a powerful force in today-s marketing world,” said Adam Blitzer, co-founder and COO for Pardot. “But until now, marketing automation platforms have lacked the tools that are necessary to truly engage sales prospects in a social media environment. Our new profiling and messaging features solve this problem, and we-re proud to be the first cloud marketing automation vendor to offer what we believe is critical functionality.”
Through an integration with Qwerly, Pardot automatically populates its system with prospects- public social profile data using his or her email address. The Pardot platform can pull info from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among other leading social networks. In many cases, a prospect-s photo, location information and a short description is also added to the prospect-s record. Quick links are provided to profiles across the various social systems, allowing Pardot users to view a prospect-s information in a single click.
Social data is also displayed in a prospect-s CRM record through to salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NetSuite. This makes it simple for sales reps to view social profile data before calling a lead. Social profiling can also make sales reps more effective by giving them additional insight into a prospect-s interests. For example, profile data includes job title info to help reps determine if a lead is a good fit for a given product.
Pardot has also added social posting features to help marketers quickly and easily manage their social media sharing. Users are able to schedule Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn posts in advance. And via Pardot-s existing bit.ly connector, all links in a post will be automatically shortened and tracked, with the option to use custom, branded bit.ly URLs. Users can also share web-based versions of their Pardot emails — for example, a monthly newsletter — through social channels, streamlining the process by which info is broadcast across digital channels. Posts can be scheduled to send from multiple accounts and across multiple social sites, too.
“Our social posting capabilities are more powerful for sales and marketing users than existing scheduling platforms because they allow you to tie data directly to an individual in your database,” said Blitzer. “You aren-t just seeing that 15 people clicked on your link via Twitter, you-re getting insight into exactly who those people are. For sales reps calling on leads, it provides another reason to reach out and engage a prospect.”
Social posting data will also be available in Pardot-s module, allowing users to pull reports on individual messages and across all campaigns. Marketers can use this information to determine which areas of social media are most effective. For example, they may learn that their Twitter posts consistently result in more prospect engagement than Facebook messaging.
These enhanced social sharing and profiling features are in addition to Pardot-s existing social media capabilities, which includes a bit.ly connector, AddThis integration and custom URLs that enable users to track links across any online medium.
Pardot is a provider that increases revenue and maximizes efficiency for companies with multi-touch sales cycles. Pardot-s platform features CRM integration, email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring and ROI reporting to help marketing and sales teams work together to generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles, and demonstrate marketing accountability. Pardot offers affordable pricing for the SMB market, and plans do not require contracts.
Kevin Wolf
TGPR
(650) 327-1641
Polly Traylor
TGPR
(650) 678-1947
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