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A prominent politician once said that all politics are local. In many ways, the same can be said for marketing and sales. As the channels of communication become more abundant and complex, companies are stepping over each other to get closer and more personal with individual prospects and customers and unify the customer experience. Companies need to address wider audiences, but they also must satisfy customers individually in the channel of their choice. With a marketing automation platform like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, marketers can listen to what customers and prospects are doing on a particular channel and, based on those activities and likely future behavior, create, tailor and deliver personalized messages. Utilizing email, social media capabilities, mobile messaging and advertisements, Marketing Cloud essentially provides a single environment to manage all communication channels, allowing companies to see the forest as well as the trees.

This handbook examines real-world applications of Salesforce Marketing Cloud along with its strengths and weaknesses. In the first feature, editor Lauren Horwitz presents two very different companies with very different sales models using the marketing automation platform to engage customers individually and locally. In the second feature, consultant Steve Robins touts the advantages of Marketing Cloud, while pointing out some of its shortcomings in account-based marketing and analytics. And in the third feature, consultant Jeff Kaplan looks at the implications of Salesforce's purchase of Demandware in the context of "omnichannel e-commerce" and "end-to-end customer engagement," where companies offer online, on-demand and physical purchasing methods, along with fulfillment capabilities, to ensure timely product delivery.