Salesforce’s acquisition of Demandware brings the promise of a new “commerce cloud” to the platform, which will remove the disconnect between marketing and the point of purchase. This integration means creation of an even more seamless customer experience is possible. It also means access to more data and insight into the ROI of marketing campaigns and how customers are interacting with products. 

I sat down with our marketing services practice leader, Liz Lewis, to find out what made the promise of a “Commerce Cloud” exciting in the field of marketing, and how marketers should be planning to best leverage this new technology on the Salesforce platform. Lewis brings over 14 years of B2C and B2B sales and marketing experience to our team, as well as her focus on consumer services. 

K: My first question, of course, is how can marketers improve the customer experience with Demandware?  

L: From a marketing perspective, Demandware can provide a consistent experience of personalization through data usage, across multiple platforms. In addition to bringing eCommerce into the Salesforce family, Demandware offers  additional personalization capabilities upon integration into the Salesforce platform. The software will further enhance a marketer's predictive capabilities based on customer behavior and transaction history. Additionally, at brick and mortar locations, Demandware can provide the same personalized recommendations made via online marketing to a customer on a tablet, digital display, kiosk, etc., empowering customers to pick up where they left off online when they're in the store and ready to make their purchase.

K: How does Demandware affect mobile marketing?

L: Mobile marketing is crucial. In 2018 mobile sales are projected to make up 39% of all retail eCommerce sales. What is particularly important on mobile is product recommendations, as a mobile device is where someone is most likely to look for product information when they are going to a brick and mortar location. If your customers use your site for research when they are in your store, ready to buy, not only will they have a great, personalized experience, the chances of them making a purchase are much higher. The mobile retail experience is merging with the traditional buying experience.

K: How does a marketer benefit by sending customers from a piece of marketing content to a purchase point in one platform? 

L: There are three big benefits. 

1. Consistency of experience— branding, messaging— for the customer is important, as is the ability to maintain customer data across all of the steps of the customer journey, from the first marketing touchpoint to purchase. No one likes entering their information three times just to make a purchase.
2. The ability for marketers to manage the path customers take across their entire buying journey is critical. This includes facilitating access to other parts of the business when a customer will be better served by contact with Sales or Customer Service instead of a marketing message.
3. Having reporting and analytics data every step of the way, lets you see what's successful— and what isn't— and make adjustments. With eCommerce tied in, you can directly track your marketing efforts to ROI or conversion data.

K: What are the major problems you expect a commerce cloud to solve? 

L: Sales through eCommerce is big business for many companies, so being able to integrate eCommerce data and programs into CRM, Service, and Marketing efforts provides more visibility into the behavior of the customer within the Salesforce platform. While efforts like conversion tracking, abandoned cart programs, and generating sales or service follow-up tasks were possible prior to the acquisition, the integration between platforms will allow marketers to deepen the tie between eCommerce and Marketing Cloud and provide greater insight into the success of their created programs. 

K: What should companies be doing or thinking about in order to prepare for the integration of Demandware so they are ready to take full advantage of it? 

L: Cleaning up their data. That includes order data, product data, customer data, the works. That goes for any integration— the better shape your data is in, the smoother the initial integration process, the better all systems will perform, and the easier it will be for everyone to maintain and use a new technology to reach the exact audience they want. 

For more information on maximizing your use of Demandware’s capabilities in your marketing strategy, talk to our marketing experts.