If your business is new to Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), you likely have a laundry list of to-do items. Whether you’ve chosen to implement your new marketing automation application in-house or with a Salesforce agency, its configuration and customization are obviously the first steps.
But what happens when the implementation stage has passed, and it’s time for your team to begin using Pardot to achieve its marketing goals? Unless your team is comprised of Pardot experts with plenty of experience under their belts, you will need proper training to learn Pardot.
A knowledgeable, empowered team will ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment and make sure you’re using all its features correctly and effectively.
In this post, we’ll define Pardot’s potential, the benefits that come from comprehensive training, and the many training options available to you.
The Potential of Pardot
Pardot is a Salesforce-native marketing automation tool intended primarily for B2B companies. The comprehensive all-in-one solution provides users with the tools to maximize their success in prospecting, segmentation, demand generation, and ROI measurement. Some of its most popular tools are the Lightning email builder, engagement programs, landing pages, page actions, and automation rules.
By streamlining processes such as customer acquisition and management, Pardot enables businesses to increase efficiency while realizing better results in their marketing efforts.
But to make all this possible, users must understand the tool and all its features and capabilities.
The Benefits of Pardot Training
A trained team is a powerful team, capable of utilizing Salesforce Pardot to its full potential.
With the right skills in place, you can expect your marketing team to create effective campaigns, nurture and qualify leads as they’re generated, track attribution and report on ROI, automate tasks, manage administrative requests, and troubleshoot technical issues.
If your team is unsure of where to start or which features best serve their long-term goals, training sessions can also provide a roadmap and best practices they can put to use immediately.
Customized Pardot Training Sessions
While there are many Pardot training options available to you (see below), the most impactful will be a customized training session with a Certified Pardot Consultant.
If your team chooses to partner with an expert, they will have the opportunity to present their unique goals and past challenges and to work together to come up with a customized approach to training.
Consultants will also customize content strategies and design training materials that are relevant and engaging for participants. Pardot, then, becomes more than just a tool; it is transformed into a powerful marketing asset that allows organizations to reach their unique goals with confidence.
Incorporating Training into a Pardot Implementation Plan
Ideally, Pardot training should be incorporated into your overall implementation plan. If you’re working with an implementation partner, be sure to ask them about their training capabilities. Training works best when your consultant is intimately familiar with its configuration, and any challenges or obstacles you faced along the way.
Implementations also typically start with discovery and/or a business process review, where your organization is able to provide important details about its mechanics and processes. These discovery sessions should include everything from how leads are assigned and followed up with to how you manage opportunities in your Salesforce org.
A Pardot Consultant—if involved—should take time to ask you about your marketing funnel, including how you classify Marketing Qualified Leads and the types of actions a lead might take that would indicate their sales-readiness.
Armed with this knowledge, a Consultant will know which features and tools within Pardot will benefit your organization most, and will tailor their training plan to focus on these features. If you have no interest in creating a landing page or engagement program, for example, this is vital information for your Consultant as they would typically include this in their agenda.
There are also many features that technically exist outside of Pardot that will benefit your ability to report on marketing successes (like Campaign Influence—or even a separate tool like Tableau—or leverage Salesforce dashboards to report on marketing KPIs). Your Consultant should check with you about your reporting and attribution goals and include this in your training agenda as well, if applicable.
If you have training planned during your implementation (or really, at any phase of your journey with Salesforce Pardot), ask your Pardot Consultant the following questions:
- Who should we involve in training, and should we have different sessions for different types of users? If desired, Pardot Consultants can provide separate training sessions for sales users, marketing users, and Administrators.
- What information do you need from us to outline a customized training plan?
- How will you document our training? At a minimum, your Pardot Consultant should provide recorded videos, but they should also be able to offer written documentation or SOPs if requested.
- What is the training timeline? Most Pardot Consultants are fairly flexible and can get your team fully trained in any timeframe you require, but you should still inquire as to their general expectations, current bandwidth, and details such as how many training sessions they suggest.
Taking these steps before you embark to learn Salesforce Pardot will set your company up for success.
Pardot Training Resources
Pardot is a powerful marketing automation platform, which means it can be quite complex. While some of its features are fairly intuitive, many are not (landing page layout templates, for instance, vex many Pardot users). While working with a Consultant will provide you with the best results, there are also many additional training resources available online.
Salesforce Trailhead
Salesforce Trailhead is an amazing, free training platform available to all and covers pretty much anything you’ll come across within the Salesforce ecosystem, including Pardot.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Automate Marketing to Businesses with Pardot Lightning App
- Increase Engagement and Nurture Leads with Pardot Lightning App
Pardot Bootcamps
You can access a collection of videos on YouTube that cover a variety of topics, including basics like Admin Essentials, Lead Management, Email Marketing, and a whole lot more.
While watching the entire collection will take some time (the run time for each video is typically around an hour, some as long as an hour and a half), your team is bound to benefit from the in-depth nature of this content.
Reporting and analytics is often a stumbling block for marketers, which is covered in this session here.
Salesforce Agencies and Pardot Consultants
As we mentioned above in our section on incorporating training into your implementation plan, the premier solution for training is a customized plan that only a certified professional can provide. Pardot Consultants provide training to all types of Pardot users, from those that are just getting started to those that are deeply familiar with Pardot but need additional help on a specific issue.
Whether you’ve tried alternative solutions without success or simply want to prepare your team from the very beginning for the best possible experience, finding a certified Pardot Consultant will be a true game changer.
Summary
Salesforce Pardot is a powerful marketing automation tool that can help your organization generate leads and nurture them through the sales funnel. While its usage may be daunting at first, proper training will make all the difference.
If your team would like to discuss Pardot training options, send us a message to get in touch with a Pardot Consultant.
