Upon reflection of my experience in Indianapolis at Connections 2014 last week, the most memorable statement I heard was from Beth Comstock during the CMO roundtable on Day One of the event.

“This is an exciting time to be a marketer.”

A simple, powerful, and accurate statement, given all the new features the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud announced in breakout sessions, training modules, and product keynotes last week. Here are some of the highlights and top takeaways from the event!

CloudPages

ExactTarget Marketing Cloud has successfully integrated Profile Buddy, Social Pages, and Smart Capture into one channel app. Some suggestions on how CloudPages can support your digital marketing strategy and tactics:

• Data captured from Smart Capture forms can be automatically saved to lists, data extensions, and contacts. Now that form conversions are fully integrated into the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, Smart Capture data can be used to create sophisticated customer lifecycle journeys in Journey Builder.
• The new drag and drop interface in CloudPages has been designed for the less technical digital marketer. Now you can arrange content without substantial knowledge of HTML, yet the HTML gear enables more advanced users to customize the designs they require.
• The latest features have been designed to personalize the digital experience by target persona. You can create content for unlimited Facebook tabs all at once, create responsive designs for desktop and mobile, and create customized content that can be used in mobile push notifications.

Social Studio

Salesforce has invested time and resources into improving the integration between Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud. Here are some noteworthy updates to the user interface that I am really excited about:

• Automatic leads and cases can now be created in Salesforce via the Social Studio through a new “send to salesforce” macro. 
• The Radian6 Analysis Dashboard has a new user interface, and all widgets and data visualizations now live inside the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.
• Brands now have the capability to listen, engage and publish content to their social networks and monitor the performance of their campaigns omni-channel under one digital marketing dashboard.

Journey Builder for Apps

At Bluewolf, we believe that brands cannot engage in a meaningful digital transformation without a laser focus on mobile strategy and tactics. Journey Builder for Apps is designed to help brands improve the consumer’s digital experience on mobile devices. Here are some features that will help brands engage with their customers on a deeper level:

• Deliver 1:1 personalized messages to your target audience in-app, via connected products, or on any other channel of choice.
• Build data driven journeys for native mobile applications through the customer lifecycle that increase conversion and improve in-app engagement.
• ​Engage with your target audience in real-time through geo-targeted digital engagement based on consumer behaviors and activities.

Interested in learning more about how your brand can improve digital marketing maturity and build a strategy for digital transformation? Bluewolf’s Marketing Services experts have worked with some of the world’s most celebrated brands to create and execute digital marketing strategies with clearly defined business outcomes and key performance metrics. Engage with our team at Dreamforce ‘14: attend our session, How the Best Marketers Use Salesforce, or book a meeting with a Bluewolf expert. Interested in getting top insider tips directly in your inbox? Sign up for our Dreamforce Daily Buzz.