How To Use Salesforce Marketing Cloud to Acquire New Accounts and Deposits

1. Identify Your Target Personas in Salesforce CRM  

First, leverage existing insights or external market research to build personas in Salesforce CRM. These personas should be based on demographic and behavioral traits that align with your ideal customers – might be Gen Z professionals, students, or “pretirees.” While you might not have first-party data at the outset, these personas will guide your outreach and you’ll be able to tweak them as you gain insights. 

2. Attract Visitors Using Advertising Studio  

Once you’ve identified your target personas, use Marketing Cloud’s Advertising Studio to reach these segments across platforms like Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. The goal is to attract prospective customers based on demographic and behavioral data available from these platforms. Focus your messaging on account opening promotions, such as cash incentives, no fees for the first year, or special interest rates. 

3. Retarget Website Visitors  

Use Advertising Studio’s retargeting feature to reach visitors who have interacted with your ads but haven’t yet converted. Once a user visits your landing page or specific product page, retarget them with relevant ads across social media and display networks, offering more or new incentives or reinforcing your key value propositions. 

4. Create a Lead Capture Mechanism  

To start building first-party data, set up lead capture forms on your landing pages. Offer something valuable in return, such as an e-book on financial planning, a savings calculator, or bonus offers for signing up. Use these lead capture forms to collect email addresses or phone numbers for SMS. This step is crucial to move visitors from anonymous interactions to identifiable contacts in your CRM. 

• Example: Add a form on your website or a landing page offering an exclusive rate or limited-time bonus for those who enter their email or phone number to learn more about new account offers. You can integrate the form directly with Salesforce CRM, ensuring that all new leads are captured for future marketing efforts. 

5. Use Journey Builder to Nurture Leads 

Once you’ve captured emails or phone numbers, use Journey Builder in Marketing Cloud to guide these prospects through an automated journey. This could include a series of personalized emails or SMS messages that explain the benefits of your accounts, provide special promotions, and include calls-to-action to open an account. 

• Personalized Journeys: Depending on how they entered their information (via a form about savings accounts vs. checking accounts, for example), customize their journey to focus on the most relevant products for them. 

6. Measure and Optimize Campaigns 

Use Salesforce CRM reporting and Einstein Analytics to monitor the effectiveness of your campaigns. Track key performance indicators like click-through rates, conversion rates, and how many new accounts were opened because of your advertising and retargeting efforts. Use these insights to continuously refine your personas, messaging, and retargeting efforts. 

Benefits of This Approach: 

• Persona-driven targeting - Instead of relying on first-party data upfront, you use external platform data to build awareness and attract leads based on defined personas. 

• Lead generation - Lead capture through forms ensures you start building your own first-party data, which can be nurtured through personalized journeys. 

• Data growth - Each new lead or conversion provides valuable first-party data that enriches your Salesforce CRM, allowing future campaigns to become even more targeted and effective.