Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, often misinterpreted as twins, are two distinct pillars of the Salesforce CRM (customer relationship management) suite. To a non-Salesforce eye, they may seem like two sides of the same coin.
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Article highlights
Salesforce Sales Cloud is tailored for direct sales management, focusing on optimizing the sales process from lead capture to revenue, whereas Salesforce Marketing Cloud concentrates on customer engagement across various marketing channels.
While both platforms utilize advanced data analytics for enhancing customer interactions, their core functionalities diverge with Sales Cloud focusing on direct sales activities and Marketing Cloud on broad-based marketing strategies.
Integration capabilities within Salesforce allow both Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud to seamlessly share data and insights, ensuring a unified approach to customer relationship management.
However, both represent different paths of your customer-acquisition cycle.
In short, the Sales Cloud is designed to streamline your sales processes and bring revenue. The Marketing Cloud is designed to nurture leads, convert them into prospects, and guide them about your product or service. In this article, you will understand their fundamental differences and identify which one is better for your business.
But before discussing their differences, we must understand the similarities between Sales and Marketing Cloud. Let's get started.
Similarities between Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud
Sales and Marketing Clouds help businesses track leads and convert them into customers. Although these clouds use different methods, both fundamentally work on advancing the customer acquisition process.
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Moreover, both use data analytics for customer engagement, decision-making, and further business growth. Although the focus of Sales Cloud is to close deals and the focus of Marketing Cloud is to identify leads, both aim to elevate customer experience.
Sales and Marketing Clouds exist within a shared ecosystem, allowing for seamless integration with each other and other Salesforce solutions. This interconnectedness facilitates the efficient exchange of information and insights between sales and marketing teams.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a one-of-a-kind tool within the CRM system. It is specifically built for the sales team of a business, irrespective of the nature (B2B or B2C). Sales teams use this software to manage the end-to-end processes of the sales department.
From capturing leads to converting them into loyal customers, Sales Cloud helps you with everything. You can also use it to create campaigns, manage leads' contacts and accounts, automate messaging and reports, etc.
Additionally, like other software of the CRM suite, Sales Cloud is entirely customizable. Your team can reiterate the whole software and conduct their sales operations in whichever way they see fit.
Salesforce offers four distinct editions of Sales Cloud
Essential
It is ideal for CRM newbies. It includes lead, account, and contact management, opportunity tracking, case management for upselling, cross-selling, workflow automation, and basic integration with Gmail.
Professional
This edition of Sales Cloud adds rules-based lead scoring and advanced automation tools, enhancing efficiency.
Enterprise
Designed for businesses with advanced needs, it offers unlimited user roles, extensive automation, offline data access, and more configuration options.
Unlimited
The top-tier edition includes 24/7 support, a resource portal, and unlimited online training.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is like a centralized hub for all your customer information. It covers some aspects of marketing, lead generation, sales, customer service, and analytics. You can access all of these through web browsers and mobile apps.
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It's also an excellent platform for real-time collaboration and offers access to many valuable applications through the AppExchange.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
As the name suggests, the Marketing Cloud is an extension of your marketing team. Marketing teams use this software to identify leads, manage marketing relationships, and run customer campaigns.
With this SaaS, you get many features like messaging automation, social media marketing, data analytics, real-time interaction management, and much more.
Data management is one of the most critical aspects of using Marketing Cloud. It helps you store various customer data and also allows you to create your own data model. Marketing Cloud can integrate with various third-party apps.
Additionally, Salesforce also comes with an in-house competition of Marketing Cloud – Pardot. It is a specialized marketing and email automation solution. While both share common features, Pardot excels in B2B marketing, making it the ideal choice for organizations looking to enhance their B2B marketing strategies.
Like other CRM suite components, Marketing Cloud is fully customizable. Your team can tailor the software to perfectly align with your unique marketing strategies.
Salesforce offers an array of editions for Marketing Cloud
Essential
It includes marketing messaging, automation, social media marketing, data and advertising management, analytics, and real-time interaction management.
Professional
Pro adds advanced features like enhanced automation capabilities, predictive analytics, and expanded customer data management.
Corporate
Tailored for businesses with more intricate requirements, Corporate offers even more customization options, increased scalability, and support for high-volume sends.
Enterprise
The top-tier Enterprise edition provides advanced features, such as advanced segmentation, multi-dimensional reporting, and custom branding.
In short, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a one-stop destination for all your marketing needs, including personalized content management, lead generation, customer engagement, and in-depth analytics.
It is also accessible via web browsers and mobile applications and provides access to various AppExchange apps.
Differences between Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud
You learnt about Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and their similarities. But, understanding their differentiating factors aids you in deciding which one is best for your needs.
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In this section, you will examine the distinctions and differences between Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
Point of differentiation
Sales Cloud
Marketing Cloud
Primary focus
Complete sales management. From leads to revenue, it handles all
Focuses on marketing, customer engagement, and campaigns
Functional scope
Manages leads, accounts, and contacts, and it allows for opportunity management
Manages social media and email marketing, advertising, and automation
User demographics
Sales representatives and managers
Marketing professionals and campaign managers
Data utilization
Uses customer data for sales interactions
Uses customer data for targeted marketing and segmentation
Automation
Sales process automation (such as lead assignment, opportunity tracking, and sales forecasting)
Advanced marketing automation (such as email campaigns and journey mapping)
Analytics and reporting
Sales metrics like pipeline tracking, conversion rates, sales forecasts, etc.
Marketing reports like email open rates, CTRs, ROI on ads, etc.
Customer engagement
1-on-1 sales interactions
Mass marketing communication through multiple channels
ROI assessment
Sales revenue and conversion rates
Campaign effectiveness and customer lifetime value
Which one is right for your business?
Now you know about Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, their similarities, and their differences. But which one should you invest in? This depends on your business requirements and needs. Here's a small guide to help you:
#1. You should pick Salesforce Sales Cloud:
If you want to improve your sales funnel (in terms of quality and speed), get more closed deals, and generate more revenue.
If you look forward to improving your lead management, opportunity tracking, and sales analytics to expedite the process.
If your business requires 1-on-1 sales interactions and personalized strategies to book customers.
#2. You should pick Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
If you are focused on getting better reach, boosting leads, and expanding your customer base through targeted channels.
If you wish to enhance your business's digital footprint and engage with prospects via personalized marketing campaigns.
If you want to automate marketing tasks, deliver content, and track campaign effectiveness.
Can you use both together?
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Absolutely! We all know that Salesforce is the leading and most preferred CRM solution globally. There are many reasons for that – one of them is integration. Salesforce allows its every solution to integrate with other Salesforce solutions easily.
Both Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud can be seamlessly integrated with each other. However, in most cases, businesses only require one of the solutions. Although both clouds have separate use cases, Sales Cloud is more popular for businesses than Marketing Cloud.
According to Backlinko, Salesforce Sales Cloud brings $5.19 billion in revenue for Salesforce, while Marketing and Commerce Cloud brings a total of $3.13 billion combined.
The sky's the limit when you're in Salesforce's cloud
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Businesses use both clouds together because of their interconnectedness, especially in enterprise-level Salesforce implementations.
But, in the end, the choice to pick one or both depends solely on your business objectives. Carefully assess your requirements, the team that will work on it, and then make your decision.
Remember that you have the flexibility of integration and various tiers that both have to offer. If you wish to know more about these Salesforce solutions, explore the following overview pages by Salesforce:
Sushrut is a skilled Salesforce Developer, Technical Writer, and Entrepreneur. His expertise includes front-end dev, Web3, and DevRel. He leverages technology to craft exceptional digital experiences.
