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Adam Blitzer is executive vice president and general manager of Digital at Salesforce.
Think back to the start of this year (I know it feels like eons ago). Businesses were optimizing their brick-and-mortar operations while building toward an increasingly digital shopping experience. Of course we all know online buying has been turbo-charged over the past six months, as personal safety has become the priority and everything from groceries to entertainment products can be purchased and delivered with a simple click.
Shoppers now embrace digital experiences at such a rate that every day feels like Cyber Monday. Our Q2 shopping research showed:
Global digital revenue grew by an unprecedented 71% year over year
Sites that advertised buy online or curbside pickup options saw digital revenues grow by 127% year over year
Purchases from a social channel referral grew 104% across the entire industry
In this new age of the all-digital customer, savvy digital-first businesses own the customer experience. But it’s a tall order for companies that were already struggling to bring their technology and processes up to speed. After all, building customer loyalty requires a lot more than simply launching a digital storefront. You need a strategy that revolves around your customers’ needs and expectations, enables your brand to connect with them on their favorite channels, uses data to personalize every customer journey touch point, and delivers personalized marketing and commerce experiences that keep them coming back for more.
Simply put, you need to market, sell, and engage audiences from anywhere. And you need to do so in ways that are data-driven, customer-obsessed, and future-proof.
Salesforce launched the new Digital 360 — tailoring the power of the Customer 360 for the digital leader — to help you do exactly that. It combines our industry-leading Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Experience Cloud, world-class partner ecosystem, and free on-demand learning through Trailhead so you can get more from digital.
Digital 360 is a natural result of the work we do every day with some of the biggest brands in the world. Here’s a look at how you can get more from digital, with success stories from Salesforce customers to inspire you.
“... it was surprising to see our customers shift quite quickly and comfortably to buying our products online.”
We define data-driven as mastering a single view of the customer and using it to inform every part of your business. It’s integrating your commerce systems, marketing technology, service portals, and everything involved in the customer journey so your full relationship is reflected in every touch point. This single view empowers you to innovate with insight.
Sonos, one of the world’s leading sound-experience brands, was dedicated to growing their direct-to-consumer (D2C) business even before the pandemic. Over the past two years, the company invested in Salesforce Customer 360 and other products to activate data and provide personalized, high-touch digital experiences for their customers.
With the world’s number one CRM platform as its single source of truth, Sonos used Commerce Cloud to quickly launch an online storefront when their physical locations closed due to COVID-19. They adapted to changes in their supply chain and provided instant fulfillment and delivery updates to their customers. And they used behavioral data to power personalized marketing campaigns across owned and paid channels in Marketing Cloud.
This data-driven approach to digital marketing and commerce helped Sonos achieve unprecedented growth. In fact, Sonos’s continued investments in Commerce Cloud and their D2C business helped them to achieve an incredible 299% year-over-year increase in D2C revenue in their most recent quarter.
“Traditionally the retail piece has been really important in the consideration cycle for customers. We're a sound product. Many of our customers want to see it, hear it, listen to it,” Lindsay Whitworth, senior director of global DTC at Sonos, told me. “And so it was surprising to see our customers shift quite quickly and comfortably to buying our products online. It demonstrated a real opportunity to sustain some of the new retail behaviors that we're seeing.”
Sonos also uses its complete customer view to inform new opportunities for engagement. It launched a content service six months ago and is optimizing how to deliver personalized content using available data about customers' listening preferences. "How do we make it so the content that comes from the speakers is designed to be exactly right for the speaker itself?" said Zack Kramer, Sonos's vice president and general manager of consumer. "You'll see us do more things in this area as we think about a deeper relationship that's beyond just the hardware in your home."
“We use data and insights … to stay in tune with the communities we serve. This allows us to be agile and adapt to new things.”
If data-driven is about using customer information to drive business strategy, customer-obsessed is using that knowledge to create personalized experiences anywhere and anytime they engage — from social to storefront, curbside to self-service.
In 2019, e.l.f. Cosmetics, one of the fast-growing beauty companies in the U.S., took this to heart when they closed their physical storefronts and focused all their efforts on innovating the digital customer experience.
The company uses Marketing Cloud to deliver dynamic customer journeys across email, mobile, social, and the web. Commerce Cloud powers e.l.f.’s digital storefront and integrates with their application of Service Cloud, which allows customer service agents to access the shopper’s full history when resolving issues. According to Ekta Chopra, e.l.f.’s vice president of digital, this integration pays off. “We use data and insights to inform our messaging and product strategies to stay in tune with the communities we serve. This allows us to be agile and adapt to new things.”
And e.l.f. taps into artificial intelligence capabilities across all three platforms to build accurate customer segments, optimize marketing messages and send times, customize product results, and personalize offers. It’s a big reason why e.l.f.'s ecommerce site is number one in the beauty sector.
Digitize every part of your business. The concept is easy to grasp but daunting to execute. It demands a constant willingness to look ahead and rethink any strategy, process, or technology that isn’t supporting your customer’s needs.
When the pandemic caused a massive pause in pro and recreational sports leagues, Spalding brought the arena to the driveway. The sporting goods brand shifted its focus to at-home sports play for customers who were sheltering-in-place. It created dynamic family-focused campaigns in Marketing Cloud and relaunched its digital shopping experience on Commerce Cloud to accommodate the new demand. It incorporated Service Cloud Live Agent to help complete online orders. And it enhanced the Spalding MVP program, which was built on Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud functionality, so members could enjoy exclusive discounts online.
As a result of Spalding’s digital transformation:
Transactions are up 421%
MVP membership has grown 50%
Average order value is up 52%
The pandemic has pushed many of us into all-digital work spaces, classrooms, and storefronts. Some organizations were better prepared than others to stabilize and grow. But there is still time to get it right.
Digital 360 is here to help. We’ve got what you need to hone your digital strategy and build the foundation for a brighter future over the long term.
Learn how the new Salesforce Digital 360 helps digital leaders take their customer relationships to the next level.
Check out the new Digital 360 collection page on Salesforce AppExchange, the world’s leading enterprise cloud marketplace, to see which expert consulting services and custom ISV partner apps, such as one-click shipping and returns and pickup functionality directly within Salesforce, can help your company.
Skill up on all things digital with on-demand learning content on Digital 360 Trailhead, including how to optimize digital advertising, online storefronts, and more.
