Salesforce Marketing Cloud For Dummies

Chapter 5

Identifying and Preparing Your Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Planning the data to use in your campaigns

Finding data you already have and data you need

Importing data into your Marketing Cloud account

Reviewing the data in Marketing Cloud

Without question, the biggest hurdle we've encountered in our marketing careers is data. Early on, the challenge was getting access to meaningful information. Everything seemed to stand in our way — from systems that weren't designed for sharing to corporate fiefdoms that were threatened by the incorrect assumption that we were trying to compete with their sales team.

These days, however, the situation is reversed. Rather than struggling to find any useful data, we are now overwhelmed with data from all over the organization. It seems like everyone wants a finger in the pie because he thinks his own data is the most important to incorporate into the online marketing efforts. In this type of situation, it's easy to lose sight of what is essential.

Defining Your Data Set

Your data set is the list of the pieces of information you maintain about each ...