Monday, January 19, 2015

Pardot and Pardot Certification

For those of you that don't know, SalesForce has two awesome marketing tools available on top of the SalesForce system.  They are ExactTarget and Pardot.

However, before going further, we should explain who ExactTarget and Pardot target.  ExactTarget is designed to be an email and more (like SMS, etc.) marketing tool that allows businesses to focus on reaching the general public.  Whereas Pardot is designed to be an email and website tracking tool that allows businesses who sell to other businesses to have a tool to manage their prospects.  Both tools are great and help businesses effective manage large aspects of their marketing!

Recently I completed the Pardot Certified Consultant test by way of the SalesForce University.  It is one of the more challenging SalesForce certifications.  Part of this could be because most SalesForce certifications ask you questions about where you find "xyz" option.  So, since I have only been using Pardot for a year I still don't have that complete muscle/mouse memory of where the various options are.  That being said, a portion of the exam is still about bigger aspects of marketing such as who can you and can't you email if you buy lists (Hint: Never Buy Lists!) and more.

If you are thinking about improving your marketing efforts in 2015 either of these tools will be a great addition!