A Pardot Consultants Guide to The Last 5 Steps in a Successful Pardot Implementation

This is the third in a four-part series about how to have a successful Pardot implementation. If you missed the first two posts you should read the 3 Things to do Before a Starting a Pardot Implementation and the First 4 Steps in a Successful Pardot Implementation.

By now you have, hopefully, finished all the recommend steps in the 24 page Pardot implementation guide.

If you tried to get thru the implementation guide but ended up skipping over a few, or a lot, of the steps, don’t worry, we can help: Learn about our marketing automation and Pardot consulting services. If it looks like we are a good fit for what you need, you can contact us.

If you were able to make it through the entire implementation guide, then congratulations! You are almost ready to start using Pardot to automate your marketing. The last few things that the Pardot Consultants at Invado Solutions recommend is a 5 step process to train your entire team on the benefits of marketing automation and how certain key stake holders in each department can learn the most important and valuable concept of Pardot: What’s in it for me?

The Final 5 Steps in Your Pardot Implementation

SPOILER ALERT: They all have to do with Pardot training and adoption 

1. Train marketing

Now it is time to set up your first Pardot email campaign. The first time you send out a real email to an actual list of subscribers is a great teaching moment. Gather your fellow marketing teammates and walk them through how to do all of this from beginning to end. Once you’re finished your team will have a basic understanding of how to create email templates, lists, campaigns, upload prospects, opt-out management, and send emails to a list of subscribers.

Is your new Pardot instance replacing another email marketing tool like MailChimp or Constant Contact? Do you already have a regular email newsletter with a list of subscribers? Great!

Start with something you already do:

  • Create a campaign, list and email template in Pardot
  • Go to your old email marketing tool and find the list of current newsletter subscribers
  • Download the list of current subscribers (make sure you remove people who have previously unsubscribed or opted out)
  • Save that list as a CSV, then import it and assign it to the campaign/list you already created in Pardot

Pardot Consultant Pro Tip: If this is your first list email and your Pardot account comes with a dedicated IP address don’t just send one email out to all your subscribers at the same time. You will need to warm up your IP address. Here’s a link to Pardot’s recommendation on warming up a new dedicated IP address. how to do that.

2. Train sales

Marketing automation isn’t just about empowering your team in the marketing department – Pardot can help improve your entire organization. Getting aligned with the sales team is vital to your credibility as the Pardot administrator, and to ensure the marketing automation success.

Get key stakeholders from the sales team involved to make sure you’re setting up campaigns that will help the sales team win deals. Get aligned as soon as you start using Pardot as your marketing automation platform. Come to an agreement with the sales team about lead qualification and scoring, decide which buyer activities should be alerted to sales, and consider leveraging a Sales Development Team as an additional step as prospects go from MQL to SQL.

3. Train the Exec Team

Encouraging the C-suite to believe in the benefits of marketing automation is a pivotal part of implementing Pardot.

Assemble key executives and address any concerns they might have regarding implementation of new tools and technologies. Assure them that all the decisions you have made in choosing Pardot as your new marketing automation system have to be well-vetted. Focus on the big picture rather than the small details.

Be sure to highlight how marketing automation helps measure effectiveness of your marketing programs, enabling you to increase revenue by reducing waste and optimizing expenses. Show the executive team Pardot reports focusing on campaign ROI and other key indicators that marketing automation can help attribute to the financial growth of the business.

4. Train the CRM Admin and the IT team

Schedule some one-on-one time with your Salesforce CRM Admin.

Make sure they understand what Salesforce data can/cannot be seen in Pardot (and what Pardot data is/is not available in Salesforce). Typically a Pardot Consultant will walk them through the permission sets for the Pardot Connector User configuration. Be sure to cover the topics listed out in this article from the help and training section in the Salesforce community: Understanding What Salesforce Data Can Be Seen in Pardot.

Walk them through a quick demo of the Pardot marketing automation system by using the email newsletter campaign you sent out when you were training the marketing team. Its a lot easier to show them via cloning/copying an existing campaign rather than doing it all from scratch like you did with the marketing team.

A good Pardot Consultant should be able to work with your IT team as well. Before you enable your sales team to have access to Pardot, warn the IT team about some of the FAQ’s that will soon be coming from the less technology savvy people that might be using Pardot/Salesforce on a regular basis. People will come to them with email issues (kickbacks, spam complaints, etc.) issues that are not IT they are actually related to Pardot/Salesforce. Make sure that the Pardot Admin on the marketing team the IT team that manages the Email/Web Domains are aligned with each-other and understand the technical considerations for the email deliverability configuration with Pardot and tracker domains implemented on your websites which sync to Pardot.

5. Train Yourself!!!

According to Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” are needed to become world-class in any field. Continuous learning is the key to a successful career as a marketing automation expert. There is a plethora of Pardot resources on the Salesforce Success Cloud.

Do not forget about the most powerful resource: The Salesforce Community

Whenever I google something related to “how do I do XXXXX in Pardot?” My search results often lead to a post in the community where a fellow Pardot user has asked a similar question, and more often than not, at least 2 or 3 people have offered answers to the question and other possible solutions or work-arounds. Here’s a link to the Pardot specific group in the trailblazer community: Pardot B2B Marketing Automation. Finally, if you are local to the Austin area, we would love to welcome you to the Austin Pardot User Group.

If you need help with your Pardot implementation reach out to our team of Salesforce and Pardot certified consultants at Invado Solutions.

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