Talk:Salesforce Marketing Cloud/Archives/2014

Article title

As mentioned by Forbes (mid-way in the second paragraph), after ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce it changed its name to "Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud". Often times these kinds of co-branded names after mergers are temporary, however currently this is the company's (division's now) formal name. Should the article be moved to that title? Pinging User:North8000 who reviewed the article initially and User:Crisco 1492, who has chimed in on article-title issues in the past and I believe is proficient in the relevant policies. CorporateM (Talk) 21:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• I believe, generally, companies' formal names are considered less relevant than their most common names. Even the logo here seems to emphasize ExactTarget. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:02, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Updates

I would like to request we update the page with ExactTarget's new CEO Scott McCorkle in the infobox and add a line to the end of the History section "In May 2014, Scott Dorsey stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Scott McCorkle."

References

CorporateM (Talk) 18:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:ExactTarget/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs) 05:17, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

@Crisco 1492 Back to you. CorporateM (Talk) 16:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• I'll take this review.

• Images: File:ExactTarget Logo.png is the only image, and it is correctly tagged as PD-simple. It is used in the infobox, and useful for the article. Pass
• Stability: No edits since July 2014 (wow!). Obviously stable.

• Prose:

• CoTweet, a tool for managing multiple Twitter accounts that was founded in 2008 - how does one found a tool?

 Done CorporateM (Talk) 15:51, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• and iGoDigital for $21 million. - what kind of company was it?

 Done CorporateM (Talk) 15:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• as CEO - of ExactTarget or...?

 Done CorporateM (Talk) 15:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• Had Dorsey been CEO since the company's establishment?

I believe so. CorporateM (Talk) 15:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• Has McCorkle changed the company's direction in any way, or had an impact? That paragraph looks rather rough. It's just a single sentence.

Not that I know of; it's only been a few months and most small company articles don't end up with an analysis of leadership; however there is probably more recent news we can add to it. I did a quick Google News search and see that new articles have come out since I wrote this. CorporateM (Talk) 15:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• As of December 2012, about 1,000 of ExactTarget's 1,500 employees were located in Indianapolis. - the remainder...?

The source just says "All but about 500 of its 1,500 worldwide employees are based in the Indianapolis area." I presume the rest are just sort of spread out. CorporateM (Talk) 15:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• The company hosts an annual user conference called the ExactTarget Connections Event. - which includes what, exactly?

How about something like this?

The first Connections event took place in 2007 and attracted 500 attendees. Since then, it has grown into one of the largest conferences on digital marketing. The event has been located in Indianapolis since it was started, but is planned for New York City in 2015.(source)

• based on what features are enabled, number of users and level of customer service. - the cost, I'd assume, right?

 Done Yes. CorporateM (Talk) 16:15, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• Any product names? Reviews? Something to build on? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:17, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

 Not done I have not seen any reliable reviews (checking again now and none come up in Google). It is a software as a service software, so it doesn't have individual software products per se. CorporateM (Talk) 16:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

A lot of new source material has been published since this article was first authored. Suggest the following additions to bring it up to date with all the available sources:

• "By 2011 ExactTarget had opened new offices in the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. Revenues were growing 50 percent annually."(source) as a replacement for "In 2012, its revenues grew 40 percent over the preceding year" CorporateM (Talk) 16:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
  • What makes forrester.com a reliable source? And a blog there. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Forrester Research is one of the top tech analyst firms, along with Gartner, etc. Much more reliable than the media. Although the discussion is not that robust, you can see a recent string on Forrester/Gartner as sources here (that discussion is regarding their pay-access reports, which are typically written by the same people, but are probably more closely vetted for accuracy than the blogs) CorporateM (Talk) 01:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Any chance of getting pay access reports? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Lets find out. I see there are quite a few recent analyst reports behind paywalls that would definitely be the strongest sources in the article if we can get access.[1][2] I've put in an email to the CMO asking if we can route the request to analyst relations. We'll have to still use them cautiously I think though, because often the article-subject only pays for/has access to the favorable ones. CorporateM (Talk) 02:21, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• In September 2014 the company introduced the Journey Builder for Apps, which is intended to create customer lifecycle maps of mobile app users.
  • Added. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
• The company was renamed again in October 2014 to “Salesforce Marketing Cloud,” removing “ExactTarget” from its name, as part of its integration with Salesforce.
  • Added. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
• The company announced numerous updates to the software at the September 2014 ExactTarget Connections conference. This included integration with software products owned by Salesforce.com, such as Buddy Media and Social Studio, as well as improvements to workflow and content management tools.
  • Added. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

• What is "Subscribers rule!" doing in the article? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, that's their slogan. Some of our infoboxes[3] have a "Motto" parameter, but for some odd reason company infoboxes do not have one, so sometimes I just put it in as a caption (I should probably put "Slogan: Subscribers rule!". I don't have a strong opinion if you think we should take it out. CorporateM (Talk) 01:33, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• It certainly shouldn't be there without an explanation. Having "Slogan" would work, I think

 Done 02:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Question: Since the company was rebranded, should we be moving this page? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• You read my mind. I was thinking that as well. CorporateM (Talk) 02:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hmm... if we're gonna do that, might as well do it before I close the GA review. Rather than force people to fix things. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done I've also updated the logo and made coyedits in various places to replace "ExactTarget" with "Salesforce Marketing Cloud". CorporateM (Talk) 16:05, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Excellent. Is the slogan still the same? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any slogans on their website. I would suggest we just take it out for now and once I hear back I'll ask if they still have the same slogan (blatant original research, but hey). CorporateM (Talk) 23:02, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Still verifiable. Alright, I'm passing this nom. Good work. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:04, 22 October 2014 (UTC)