Your Ultimate Guide to Account Planning in Salesforce

Account planning in Salesforce is your strategic roadmap to identifying key accounts, understanding their unique needs, and crafting targeted plans to nurture and grow those relationships. It’s essential in the B2B sales world when you’re looking to build strong client connections, drive long-term customer retention, and boost revenue growth.

Thankfully, Salesforce makes it easy to do this effectively. You can gather the right data, get invaluable insights, and collaborate effectively with your team. In this post, let’s dive into how you can leverage Salesforce to optimize your account planning so you can focus on those best opportunities and maintain productive, lasting relationships with your clients.
 

What’s Account Planning in Salesforce?

As mentioned, Salesforce account planning is all about developing a deep understanding of your key accounts to target your sales approach. It involves getting a comprehensive view of your customers’ needs, challenges, and business situations to create personalized plans specific to them.

There are two core aspects of account planning in Salesforce:

• In-depth Customer Knowledge: Use Salesforce’s data analytics and CRM features to gather insights into customer behavior, preferences, and any recent changes within the company.
• Strategic Sales Focus: Shift from one-time sales to building long-term relationships by identifying opportunities for upselling and cross-selling that align with the customer’s future goals​.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. But when it’s done correctly, your organization benefits from:

• Stronger Customer Relationships: By truly knowing your customers’ needs and wants, you become a trusted partner who offers tailored solutions rather than just another salesperson​.
• Increased Revenue: Effective account planning in Salesforce helps you spot opportunities you might have missed, increasing the revenue you generate from existing accounts​ on the books.
• More Accurate and Timely Data: Salesforce ensures that your account data stays current and accurate – crucial for making informed decisions and maintaining customer engagement​.
• Alignment with Business Goals: Since you focus on high-value accounts and targeted strategies to their specific needs, you know that your sales efforts align with overall business goals​.

Setting Up Account Planning in Salesforce

Effective account planning in Salesforce requires a structured approach so you can leverage the platform’s full capabilities to manage and grow your key accounts. Here’s how to do it:
 

1. Clean and Enrich Your Data

The first step in setting up account planning in Salesforce: get accurate and comprehensive. This involves a thorough data cleanup to remove duplicates, correct errors, and update outdated information. Clean data helps with accurate insights and effective decision-making.

Next, enrich your data by filling in the missing details. Salesforce offers data enrichment tools to help you add valuable information about your accounts. This can include contact information, recent activities, and other relevant data points that provide a fuller picture of each account. Enriched data lets you make more informed decisions and create more effective account plans.
 

2. Define Account Plan Templates

Creating standardized templates for your account plans ensures consistency and completeness. These templates should include essential components, such as an account overview, key contacts, business objectives, challenges, opportunities, and action plans.

Custom fields are also important. Depending on your business needs, you might include fields for industry-specific metrics, customer segmentation criteria, or other relevant data points. Customizing your templates ensures that all relevant information gets captured systematically so your team can easily use and update the plans​.
 

3. Set Up Automation and Workflows

Automation in Salesforce can help streamline your account planning processes. Set up triggers and alerts to notify your team of important changes or activities. For example, you can configure alerts for significant account activities or when an account’s status changes, ensuring your team can respond promptly.

Automated updates are also crucial. They help keep your account plans current without requiring manual effort. This can include syncing data from other systems or regularly updating key metrics. Automation ensures that your account plans are always based on the latest information, making them more reliable and useful​.
 

4. Leverage Salesforce Features for Collaboration

Salesforce offers a range of features that can enhance collaboration among your team. Enabling Chatter on account records allows team members to share real-time updates, insights, and strategies. This facilitates better communication and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

Dashboards and reports are also valuable tools. They visually represent your account plan’s progress, helping you track key performance indicators and identify areas needing attention. Reviewing these dashboards and reports can help you stay on top of your account planning efforts and make necessary adjustments​.
 

5. Train Your Team

For account planning in Salesforce to be effective, your team needs to be well-trained in using the tools and processes. Organize training sessions to introduce your team to the account planning process and the specific features available in Salesforce. Hands-on training can significantly enhance their proficiency and confidence.

Providing complete documentation is also important. It should include step-by-step guides and best practices to help your team reference materials as needed and continuously improve their use of the tools. Ongoing support and training ensure your team can effectively implement and manage account plans.
 

Implementing Salesforce Account Plans

This part involves translating your strategy into actionable steps using Salesforce’s tools. Typically, an implementation plan follows this outline:

1. Assign Roles: Pick someone from your team who’s passionate about the account and make them the account plan owner. They’ll be the go-to person for driving the plan forward.
2. Set SMART Goals: Get specific with your goals. Make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This way, everyone knows what success looks like.
3. Break It Down: Break the plan into smaller, actionable tasks. Assign each task to the right team member and set deadlines to keep things moving.
4. Use Salesforce’s Toolbox: Salesforce has many tools, like tasks, events, and emails. Use these to track your progress and keep everyone on the same page.
5. Keep an Eye on the Prize: Regularly check your progress against your goals. Use Salesforce reports and dashboards to see how you’re doing and where you can improve.
6. Talk It Out: Use Salesforce Chatter to keep the communication flowing. Share updates, ideas, and wins with your team to keep the momentum going.
7. Watch Those Metrics: Monitor key metrics like revenue, customer satisfaction, and engagement. These numbers will tell you whether your plan is working or needs some work.
8. Tweak and Repeat: Based on your progress and metrics, tweak your plan to make it even better. Continuous improvement is key.
9. Give Recognition: Don’t recognize your team’s hard work and contributions. A little recognition goes a long way in keeping the team motivated.

Other Important Account Planning Features

Besides the core aspects of account planning, Salesforce offers several features that can further enhance your account planning efforts:

• Relationship Mapping: Salesforce allows you to map out relationships within an account, including key stakeholders and decision-makers. This helps you understand the account’s organizational structure and tailor your approach accordingly.
• Opportunity Management: Salesforce’s opportunity management feature allows you to track and manage sales opportunities within an account. This includes identifying potential deals, tracking their progress, and forecasting revenue.
• Task and Activity Management: Salesforce’s task and activity management tools help you keep track of important tasks and activities related to your account plans. This ensures that nothing falls through the cracks and you stay on top of your priorities.
• Competitor Tracking: Salesforce enables you to track competitors and their activities within an account. This helps you understand the competitive landscape and tailor your strategies to differentiate yourself effectively.
• Match My Email Integration: When it comes to email syncing in Salesforce, we’ve got you covered. Automatically collect all emails from all your inboxes to create a complete and accurate customer engagement timeline. That way, you have even more relevant data when developing account plans.
• Customizable Reporting: Salesforce’s reporting features allow you to create customized reports and dashboards to track key metrics and measure the effectiveness of your account plans. This helps you make data-driven decisions and adjust your strategies as needed.

Unlock Your Full Sales Potential with Account Planning in Salesforce

When it comes to B2B sales, effective account planning is like having a superpower. Salesforce’s powerful features and integrations, like Match My Email, can help you take your sales game to the next level.

Account planning gives you the tools and methods to truly understand your customers, tailor your approach to their needs, and build lasting relationships. Of course, this leads to stronger customer connections, increased revenue, and, ultimately, driving growth for your company.

If you want to supercharge your Salesforce account planning efforts, it’s vital to get all the data you have on customers. Match My Email can help by syncing all your interactions into Salesforce so you always have accurate and timely data.

Sign up for your 14-day free trial to get started now, or book a demo to see it in action!