Journey Builder in Salesforce Marketing Cloud is extremely user-friendly. The visual nature of Journey Builder combined with drag-and-drop functionality makes this powerful tool fun to master for marketers.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Journey Builder and Marketing Cloud as a whole, and it has led me to pursue the path to learn as much as I can about Marketing Cloud. With my past experiences as a guide, here’s my take on Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder and how it can add oomph to your marketing efforts.
Reasons to Use Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder
We live in the age of the customer. Your customers use all kinds of technology and platforms to interact with the brands and businesses they love. Journey Builder allows you to build and automate personalized customer journeys that guide your customers through a series of interactions with your company.
Difference between Marketing Cloud Journey Builder and Automation Studio
Marketing Cloud provides multiple tools for creating automations. However, it’s essential to choose the correct tool for each situation. In my work with clients, I’ve been asked many times what the key differences are between Journey Builder and Automation Studio.
Marketing Cloud Automation Studio does provide functionality for building automations, but it is best for automating simpler tasks or events that occur in a linear fashion. For example, you can build automations for groups of individuals who will all receive the same one-off email, such as a monthly newsletter, or for file imports and SQL Queries Use.
Journey Builder is specifically designed to create personalized multi-channel journeys for customers and prospective customers. Use it to create automations based on customer interactions that can happen on an individual basis and at any time. Interactions can include clicking an ad, downloading a whitepaper, making a purchase, and more.
Customer Marketing Automation with Journey Builder
Here are some Journey Builder use cases to increase marketing ROI:
Re-Engage Customers and Prospects
Everyone gets busy — including the people who interact with your brand. Sometimes they need a reminder to come back and explore what you have to offer them.
Use Journey Builder to send multi-channel messaging to people who have interacted with your company in the past so they remember to come back and interact with you again.
Gather and Respond to Customer Feedback
Customers want to feel heard. Marketing Cloud users who are also using Service Cloud can leverage Service Cloud to solicit customer feedback, for example with a survey. When a customer offers feedback, Journey Builder can automatically send a response or a thank-you note.