In the previous chapters, we discussed the basic concepts of objects and fields. We also talked about the different types of relationships in Salesforce. We have gone through the process for setting up Lightning apps, Lightning record pages, validation rules, and duplicate management in Salesforce. In this chapter, we will describe Sales Cloud features in detail, such as account management, opportunity management, quote management, and so on. In addition to this, we will also look at the way of setting up forecasting in your Salesforce org. The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

Sales Cloud is a product designed to automate business sales processes. By implementing Sales Cloud, you can boost your sales reps' productivity by allowing them to manage customers in a faster and simpler way. It includes all Sales Cloud features, for example, campaign, lead, account, contact, opportunity, quote, report, and dashboard. Sales Cloud can help an organization to close a deal faster using an inbuilt functionality called Einstein.

Sales Cloud helps you to maintain a robust sales pipeline, from quotation to contract management, on the cloud. The productivity accomplished by implementing Sales Cloud in your organization will allow your sales reps to focus on managing good relationships with the existing customers and will help them bring new business as well. Your sales team will work more competently while your marketing executives are provided with the actual information for making more informed and quicker business decisions.

Sales Cloud also helps align the marketing team, inside sales team, and sales team, so they can work together in an organized manner to win more deals, bring new customers, and retain existing customers. There are some advantages of implementing Sales Cloud. They are as follows:

Customer life cycle starts from campaign (company branding or product awareness) and completes with closing a deal successfully to win customer loyalty, as shown in the following diagram:

In Salesforce words, it starts from creating a campaign. Through the campaign, an organization may get leads, and once those leads are ready to buy some products from you, then convert those leads into accounts, contacts, or, optionally, opportunities. Once you win those opportunities, the next step is to deliver the orders.

Campaign management

A campaign is an awareness or branding program that a company runs to promote its products or business. An organization can run campaigns through various channels, for example, seminar, trade show, advertisement, banner, billboards, and e-mail blast. Through a campaign, an organization can generate prospects (a person or another organization who is interested in your product or business).

Salesforce allows the marketing team to capture their campaign plan, manage, track, and execute it within Salesforce. It is very easy to capture new prospects directly from your corporate website's Contact Us form into Salesforce or capture prospects from GoToWebinar register attendees for an event to Salesforce. Then, you can associate those prospects to campaign to track in the future to see how successful the marketing effort was. The marketing team can also send a mass e-mail to prospects, that too within Salesforce.

Steps to executing an outstanding marketing campaign

The success of a campaign does not depend on the size of your business or the marketing trends in your industry. The success of a campaign is measured through various parameters, such as demand generation, high-quality sales-ready leads, and profit in the end. To make a campaign successful, you have to focus on a few areas. The following diagram shows a consistent and proactive lead generation approach through a successful campaign.

The following are some tips on running successful marketing campaigns:

1. Start with the planning of your campaign, for example, the modes of campaign, budget, campaign owner, expectations, and so on. You can't just pull off a marketing campaign overnight. Create your detailed campaign strategy by including the following questions as you start to create your campaign strategy:
   • Who is your target audience?
   • What is your campaign end goal?
   • Which social media, print media, webinar, or advertisement are the best fit for your campaign?
   • What's your team member's role in running this campaign?
   • How do you measure success?

2. The next step is to enhance and add some value to your campaign. As you are aware that several campaigns are running these days on social media or print media, people need a reason to listen and participate in your campaign. For example, for a better outcome, you can add some perks of winning the prize and so on.
3. Then run your campaign through the various channels. Make sure you use SEO to target key audiences.
4. Once you start getting the prospects, before passing it to the sales team, ensure that these prospects are qualified prospects. To do so, you can implement scoring and grading to a lead object. As soon as prospects cross the MQL score, assign it to the sales team for further nurturing.
5. At last, run the report and check the business profits and new active customer summary.

Creating a new campaign

Before creating a new campaign, make sure that the user has Marketing User checkbox selected on their user record. Perform the following steps to create a new campaign:

1. Make sure that you have selected the Sales app.
2. Click on the Campaign Tab and then click on the New button. Now, create a new campaign, as shown in the following screenshot:
   

3. Once you are done, click on the Save button.