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.
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.
Sales and Marketing Cloud helps businesses track leads and convert them into customers. These clouds have different methods, but at the core, both fundamentally work on advancing the customer acquisition process.
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 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.
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.
This edition of Sales Cloud adds rules-based lead scoring and advanced automation tools, enhancing efficiency.
Designed for businesses with advanced needs, it offers unlimited user roles, extensive automation, offline data access, and more configuration options.
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.
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.
Just like other CRM suite components, Marketing Cloud is fully customizable. Your team can tailor the software to align perfectly with your unique marketing strategies.
It includes marketing messaging, automation, social media marketing, data and advertising management, analytics, and real-time interaction management.
Pro adds advanced features like enhanced automation capabilities, predictive analytics, and expanded customer data management.
Tailored for businesses with more intricate requirements, Corporate offers even more customization options, increased scalability, and support for high-volume sends.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
Now that you're clear on the concepts of these cloud solutions, it is much easier to pick a solution and boost your business with Salesforce.