Marketing Cloud Next: The future of your B2B marketing

Why Marketing Cloud Next is relevant for you

Take your B2B marketing to the next level

Lead nurturing, sales handover, funnel reporting – the core processes of your B2B marketing stay the same. Marketing Cloud Next extends and improves what you already do with Account Engagement today, adding multichannel, a unified customer profile and greater data depth for scoring, among other things.

made with AI

• One customer profile instead of many data silos

  Data 360 brings together data from CRM, service, commerce, websites and other external systems into one unified customer profile – and, for the first time, makes segmentation, personalisation and reporting possible on the same basis across all channels.

• Multichannel campaigns

  Your email journeys stay as they are. SMS and WhatsApp are added in the same tool – for appointment reminders, event follow-ups or urgent escalations, without an additional system or manual handover.

• Account-based marketing

  Addressing several contacts in a buying centre in a coordinated way is cumbersome in the classic prospect model. Data 360 bundles contacts at account level and so makes account-based marketing genuinely practical.

• Improved lead scoring & nurturing

  Because data is available across sources, every customer touchpoint (e.g. SMS contacts, service tickets) feeds directly into scoring. Combined with scoring at account level, lead nurturing can be managed more precisely and with sharper targeting.

• Agentforce takes over the operational groundwork

  With Data 360 & Marketing Cloud Next you lay the foundation for agent-assisted marketing. Agents for campaign briefings, segment selections, content drafts and much more become possible.

Salesforce has created the Plus+ editions for this. Alongside your existing Account Engagement environment, you also gain access to Marketing Cloud Next – your Salesforce Account Executive has the details.

And the best part: no system switch, no data migration, no cut-over date. Both worlds run in parallel, and you decide which process moves to Marketing Cloud Next, and when.

1. 01Discovery & target visionWeeks 1–2

   • Review your current Account Engagement environment: current programmes, scoring models, sales handover, existing ABM or customer-marketing approaches
   • Derive the target architecture: what should the hybrid setup with Data 360 & MC Next look like?
   • Select the first use case by benefit and effort, together with your business team
   • Define the core team and roles, clarify licence and credit requirements

   Result: target vision, architecture decision and a binding plan for weeks 3 to 8

2. 02The foundationWeeks 3–4

   • Activate Data 360 and provide the Marketing Cloud Next basics
   • Connect Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and other sources and synchronise data
   • Set up identity resolution: distributed records become one customer profile
   • Build the data graph, connect selected objects/data sources
   • Set up users and permissions, control consumption via the Digital Wallet

   Result: a robust data foundation – directly usable as the basis for further expansion

3. 03First use caseWeeks 5–6

   • Build the target group or account segment based on your existing Account Engagement data
   • Model the journey in Flow, including handover to existing Account Engagement journeys and sales processes
   • Set up personalisation and content
   • Test with internal recipients, sign-off with the business team

   Result: a finished, approved use case based on existing templates

4. 04Live & expansionWeeks 7–8

   • Go-live of the first use case with a real target group
   • Analyse results with the new reports: channels, programmes and CRM data in one interface
   • Lessons learned with the team, enablement for marketing users
   • Roadmap for the next use cases – from consent synchronisation and new channels to scenarios with agents

   Result: a tangible result to show and a prioritised plan for the coming months