There is a lot of hype today around SaaS, CRM’s, MAP’s, ERP’s and also CPQ’s.
The reality is – technology solutions that help organisations to automate and organise daily tasks are continuously popping up from every corner. Today you can find software to automate almost anything, and it’s getting harder not to lose your sanity in the sea of letters and words that evidently mean something important.
I believe that the majority of people who are new to Salesforce have one question in mind – could you please explain it simply?
So, for those who are beginning their Salesforce journey or simply want to know more – here is what you need to know about CRM and MAP’s!
Salesforce is SaaS, CRM and MAP
Salesforce’s company umbrella offers software solutions that help entire organisations streamline their activities across multiple departments. This kind of software solution is often called SaaS, which stands for “Software as a Service”.
Under the SaaS offering that Salesforce provides, you can discover different software solutions that serve different departments. For instance, the sales department will use Sales Cloud CRM while the service department will use Service Cloud CRM. On the other hand, the marketing department will need a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP).
Sometimes there will be opportunities where different departments merge into the activities of one of the same solution. However, for the sake of putting it simply, let’s look at them separately.
What is CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.
This software solution helps organisations manage existing customer relationships or build relationships with those who are on their way to becoming a customer.
So, for example, if your company is selling real estate, subsequently it has to manage a lot of different tasks involved in the process of selling. There is an appointment setting for showing houses, calling prospects who may be interested in a new house and the administration of forms and contracts.
All of these processes have something in common – they are repetitive. What CRM does is helps you organise your processes and automate them, so that you can focus on the more important tasks – like selling. Salesforce offers CRM solutions such as Sales Cloud (used in sales), Service Cloud (used in service) and Commerce Cloud (used in commerce).
What is MAP?
MAP stands for Marketing Automation Platform. It’s a platform that helps automate marketing activities such as running campaigns, advertising, nurturing customers through their journeys with your company and everything in between.
We talked more about marketing automation in our blog here including the jargon that comes along with it. In this instance, from the moment someone hears about your company (from a friend or sees an advertisement), until the moment they buy your product or service – marketing takes place. Therefore any activities that your marketing does can be streamlined through MAP.
It includes automating the communication whether it’s happening through social media or email campaigns. Additionally, collecting the data to improve a customer’s experience, delivering the relevant information through the content and sending out offers for discounts is all part of the process as well.
Everything that your marketing activities aim for – marketing automation is here to support. Salesforce offers solutions such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), which is built for organisations that have a broader target audience and sell to consumers directly. The other MAP solution provided by Salesforce is Pardot, which is designed for longer sales cycles often used when selling to other businesses.
