The most vital part of your digital marketing strategy is carried out on your marketing automation platform. So, it’s imperative to choose the right one. One that fits your business type, size, growth targets and marketing budget.
We typically recommend Pardot, particularly for mid-sized to larger B2B companies. As well as many B2C companies.
Our 7 Reasons Why Pardot are: easy email marketing, in-depth prospect tracking, powerful lead nurturing, prospect grading and scoring; sales and marketing collaboration; ROI and pipeline reporting; and superior Salesforce integration. Read the article to learn the details of these really good reasons why Pardot is an excellent solution for business.
Now that we have covered ‘Why’, in this article here today, we set out ‘How’ we go about setting you up with Pardot to reach your sales, service and marketing goals.
How to implement Pardot Marketing Automation Software: with a Quick Start or as a Comprehensive Solution?
If the IT department is bringing you, the marketeer, the ‘answer to what you need’, they might suggest they work with an Salesforce implementation partner to get a cheap Quick Start so that is it ready for you. But is that enough?
As Pardot and Salesforce Certified , we can set up your marketing automation software using a Pardot quick start package, but also like to offer you a more comprehensive solution.
Our Pardot Quick Start package will get you started in no time. Then, progressively, you can build your own automations, integrations with Salesforce, and optimise your sales and marketing process, continuously increasing sales results and efficiency.
We focus on getting you up fast, sticking to basics but still cover all aspects of Pardot implementation: planning, installing, designing, building, testing, and handover – training. Ideally, we’re done within 2 (to 4) weeks lead-time, and you’re ready to get started using Pardot.
But, we won’t install and run, though! After delivering Pardot, we provide your team a set of ongoing email (and phone) support hours in the following 3 months to ensure you are getting the most out of Pardot.
It’s a good deal that suits companies with smaller budgets and keen teams. And if you want ‘just a bit more than the basics’, we can add-on modules to create a more bespoke solution. Just what you need.
On the other hand, our Pardot Marketing Automation ‘Comprehensive’ Solution is anchored into your actual business.
It’s a client-centric approach, one that drives a shift towards digital marketing excellence in your organisation.
A shift that will help you leap over competition, build effective digital sales and marketing campaigns, engagements and prospecting solutions. A shift that will encourage you to continuously pursue marketing optimisation and efficiency throughout the sales process, and so boost sales, time and time again.
We add rigour into the process where needed, with additional steps and modules. We configure Pardot, tailoring it to your business, sales and marketing needs. It’s a bespoke solution, that suits you.
Our Pardot Consulting Process
While like agile project management for our Salesforce work, it may or may not be best for Pardot. We’ll apply a project management method that befit your business needs. Agile means quick daily planning meetings, a constant focus on creating value, and bi-weekly delivery of work and payment.
We use these high-level steps:
1. Plan & Design
In the planning stage, we’ll chart your business strategy, sales and marketing requirements, and design a befitting solution. We include a marketing improvement & opportunity assessment. Our philosophy is to set you up for fast results as well as long-term success.
2. Build
In this stage we configure Pardot for you, set connectors, create users, build email, form and landing page templates. If Salesforce Sales Cloud is available, we’ll guide you on combining marketing automation and your CRM into a dynamic duo.
3. Test
First, we test to ensure everything is setup as planned. Our testing is followed by your testing, the ‘User Acceptance Testing’. This ensures that your team understands the setup we’ve created, and that it works for them. Users should have received training of what Pardot is and how to use it, before UAT.
4. Support
After successfully delivering your Pardot instance, our consultants remain available for some time for ongoing support. We factor some time into the budget even in our QuickStart package.
We’ll also familiarise your team with resources for self-serve training, so your team can progress towards more sophistication, at their own pace. For bespoke solutions, we encourage clients to include training workshops, coaching and/or real-work feedback* sessions to stimulate Pardot usage and adoption of best practices. (* If desired, we’ll review your first campaign as a health check of your setup, and offer tips on best practices in marketing automation.)
Our Pardot Implementation Consulting Assignments
We pack a lot into our consulting packages. What’s typical:
| Project Management & Planning | |
| a | We assign a Dedicated Implementation Specialist |
| b | We deploy a Project Management Tool for your project |
| c | We organise the Project Kickoff and Planning Workshop |
| d | You will receive a Customised Implementation Plan |
| CRM Integration1 | |
| a | Install the Pardot AppExchange package |
| b | Set up the Salesforce – Pardot Connector |
| c | Update Lead and Contact Page Layouts 3 |
| d | Mapping Lead Fields to Contact Fields 3 |
| e | Mapping CRM Fields to Pardot Fields 3 |
| f | Mapping Users and Single Sign-On 3 |
| Technical Setup1 | |
| a | Implement Website Tracking Code to Log Visitor Activity |
| b | Create Vanity Tracker Domain (CNAME) for Branded Pardot Hosted Links |
| c | Implement Email Authentication for Email Deliverability Optimisation |
| Set up other Connectors3 | |
| e | Whitelist Pardot IPs |
| Marketing Assets Client is responsible for providing HTML/CSS, and creative designs such as graphics, icons and other design elements; page layout mocks; plus initial content — unless chosen as Add-ons to the Quick Start package. |
|
| a | 1 Email Template Setup |
| b | 1 Form or Form Handler Setup // (max new fields setup 10) |
| c | 2 Lists setup, including 1 dynamic list3 |
| d | 1 Landing Page Template Setup // (w form) |
| e | 1-4 Automation Rules Setup |
| f | 1 Basic Engagement Program Setup (Lead nurturing) 3 |
| g | Default Grading and Scoring 3 |
| h | Database Import Support1 |
| Learning Resources | |
| a | Explanation of In-App Resources |
| b | Guide to the Online Documentation |
1 Data must be cleansed by client 2 Data must be cleansed by client
3 If applicable, and already available by the client.
Possible Extensions to Pardot Quick Start to create a Bespoke Solution
| Training & Coaching – | |
| a | Progressive, customised individual/group training – covering topics such as lead generation, lead nurturing, lead qualification, lead assignment, email creation and sending, database segmentation, and reporting. |
| Salesforce Engage – add on | |
| a | Salesforce Engage setup |
| b | Train-the-trainer sessions for Sales end-users on how to use Salesforce Engage |
| Wave for B2B Marketing – add on | |
| a | Set up B2B Marketing Analytics / Artificial Intelligence |
| b | Training session : best practices on using B2B Marketing Analytics |
| Technical Add-ons | |
| a | Set up of lead functionality in Salesforce |
| b | Integration with custom objects in Salesforce |
| c | Set up of custom roles |
| d | Set up of Salesforce Campaign |
| e | Data cleansing support |
| Creative Add-ons | |
| a | Collaborate with (y)our creative agency to produce your marketing assets, e.g. you standard layout templates for emails, newsletters, forms and other landing pages. |
| b | Development of mobile-responsive email template – developing adaptive HTML/CSS design; importing designs into Pardot; and creating Pardot template regions. |
| c | Development of mobile-responsive landing page with single-column form. |
| Digital marketing add-ons | |
| a | Development of Marketing Folder Hierarchy – setup. Your Sales and Marketing can organised either by geographic region (NA, EMEA, ASIA PAC …), product group, target company-size (SMB, middle market, and large accounts) or target industry (retail, professional services, finance & banking, manufacturing. etc.) or time period (marketing initiatives are either ongoing; frequent; or one-off.)
We help you in developing the most correct folder hierarchy that helps for smooth usage of the ever increasing number of marketing assets you’ll be developing in the years to come. This is more important than you(r IT department) may think. Ensure you add this one. |
| b | Development of Pardot File Naming Convention. We embed this into the initial Pardot setup and provide an easy reference document for Marketing and Sales staff.3 aspects we will work on when interviewing Sales & Marketing to determine what’s the right Name Convention for your Pardot setup: A) Names currently used in the Sales and Marketing department. Your Naming Convention should be easily understood by your Pardot users. B) It typically including abbreviations of the type of marketing program/initiative (event marketing), the date (year/quarter/month), the marketing purpose (lead gen, conversion, branding, loyalty, up-sell) that the marketing files relate to, as well as the Marketing Initiative Name. This helps you locate last year’s campaigns quickly and allows you to copy/paste files for a quicker Pardot setup of the next campaign that’s just like the first one. C) We set you up so that the file naming is consistent throughout your Pardot setup. This allows you to be able to find files fast. Which is important. |
| c | Actual Digital Marketing (support): Campaign development, social media, blog and marketing asset content ideation along the customer journey based on buyer maps, customer personas, and the TOFU-to-BOFU sales funnel.
An add-on that adds high value. Learn more how we can help you develop your Digital Marketing and leverage the Pardot Platform. |
| d | Set up of Connected Campaigns, and optionally
Design and Description of Campaign Process in Pardot, including automation rules, drip campaigns for retention and acquisition, increased scoring / score decay, and related. Pardot training workshops, e.g. to develop a bespoke Lead Scoring and Grading setup, with individual type of activity scores, as well as score categories. |
Discuss your needs with our consultants, so we can create a bespoke solution to suit your business case.
