The process of setting up a marketing cloud can be split into a couple of steps. These steps can be usually made with the support from a B2B marketing agency. These steps require both strategic thinking and a tool-specific know-how.
On the strategic level marketers will need to decide on:
- The goal and audience personas they will interact with.
- The resources available for the execution of the project (human resources and the budget).
- Content production and a publishing plan (this step should include the review of the existing content that could be recycled or re-purposed from the previous communication cycles).
- Success metrics.
- A media strategy.
Once the project is planned, the marketers will need to oversee:
- The production of content (eg. content platforms or landing pages, articles or reports, video formats, etc.).
- The deployment of the marketing cloud (introduction of tracking codes in the website(s) source code).
- The uploading of leads to the marketing cloud.
- The programming of automation rules.
- The definition of reporting views.
- The preparation of the media plan.
Once the content is ready and the cloud environment is set up, the marketers will supervise the agency in the process of:
- The distribution of content (through mailing as well as paid media activities).
- The tracking of engagement with the content based on the defined metrics.
- The optimisation of a media plan and content according to the collected insights.
- The collection of leads and adjustment of nurturing tactics.
- The review of the leads collected and lead hand-over to the sales team.