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Did Salesforce really need another content project?
The company's highly successful Trailblazer program, launched back in 2007 under the name IdeaExchange, has grown into a global community (primarily Salesforce administrators and developers) that helps members learn and advance in their careers and your company to be successful. In 2014, the free online learning platform Trailhead was introduced as an additional step in this experience.
But sales professionals — the primary users of Salesforce’s OG Sales Cloud product — weren’t interested in the journey.
As competition grew to capture market share and website traffic declined, Salesforce's visionary CEO Marc Benioff planted the seeds. “He saw these headwinds coming and wanted our company to get ahead of them,” says Melissa Leu, senior director of content strategy at Salesforce.
The Salesforce team asked, “How do we restore market leadership?” How do we show that we are innovating? How do we show we care about sellers? How do we show that we are here to meet their needs?”
The answer manifested itself in a new trail for sales professionals – Salesblazer, which launched in spring 2023.
The adventure pays off. Audience achievements include 5 million unique page views in the first year and 15,000 people joining the Slack community in the first six months.
Salesblazer was named Project of the Year among the 2024 Content Marketing Awards competition entries after winning Best Content Marketing Startup and Best Content Marketing Program. It also earned Melissa a spot on the list of finalists for B2B Content Marketer of the Year 2024.
Take a different path
Salesblazer, like most content marketing projects, started by identifying the problems the audience faces.
Melissa Leu
Senior Director of Content Strategy, Salesforce
Finalist for B2B Content Marketer of the Year 2024
“Sales can be a pretty lonely career in some places. In other places it is a team sport. It's very similar to a numbers game. “You just have to hit your quota, figure out how to do it, and get started,” says Melissa.
However, research from Salesforce found that only 28% of sales professionals expected their team to hit their quotas. Conversations with customers showed that many wanted more than just Salesforce software. They wanted help to succeed and grow in their sales careers.
After identifying the primary challenges for the target audience, the Salesforce team looked at the company's strengths – its expertise and a network built over 20 years as a sales leader.
Salesforce had built the Trailblazer program around the same strengths, but this community was aimed at a more tech-savvy group. Sales professionals didn't see it as a program for them.
Melissa says the Salesforce team thought, “We can be the curator of all this knowledge from the community and experts in the field.” How do we share that with everyone out there?”
The Sales Cloud content team has taken a new approach. “It was fail fast, learn fast,” says Melissa.
There was never any failure. However, the project evolved after the team learned some lessons.
Building the Salesblazer Trail
The Salesblazer construction team had to work hard. Although Salesforce employs over 72,000 people, Salesblazer's core team consists of fewer than 15 people. In just a few months, they created the website, designed the content, launched the community, hosted events, and received professional certification accreditation for their online courses.
“It was a lot all at once,” says Melissa.
Luckily, they were able to draw on their own expertise and the content marketing expertise of others, as well as subject matter specialists elsewhere in Salesforce. “There were dozens and dozens of people we were able to reach out to to share their expertise on how to do things,” says Melissa.
Salesblazer's high visibility within the company, a sign of leadership commitment, resulted in the team's calls, emails and messages being answered quickly. Still, not everything went smoothly, says Melissa. “With anything new, you have to teach people what it is. You have to convince them why it's important. This happens both externally and internally.”
The Salesblazer Content Hub is a testament to this deep expertise and collaboration. It serves as a central sales career hub with free resources, including a mix of Salesblazer-specific content and other relevant Salesforce articles.
Visitors can follow a path based on their role – sales representative, operations or leadership. You can download Salesforce's State of Sales Report or dive into Salesblazer's Ask Me Anything feature, powered by an industry expert. You can watch demos and webinars. You can download free templates, worksheets, reports and guides. You are also invited to sign up for a twice-monthly newsletter and join the Salesblazer Slack community.
Regardless of the tactic, all content is filtered based on whether it will help a sales professional advance their career. “It’s really our North Star,” says Melissa.
But Salesblazer's first tactic wasn't the content hub. It was an educational event in New York in April 2023. “We wanted to start with our core group of customers, prospects and people who are and see Salesforce fans.” [their] React, get feedback and then evolve,” says Melissa.
The event was attended by Salesblazer partners, including well-known names like Dale Carnegie and industry organizations like Women in Sales.
“The team turned to Dale Carnegie because they aligned with Salesforce’s goal of helping salespeople advance their careers,” says Melissa. “There were natural overlaps and complementary skills that we could bring to each other.”
The partnership with Women in Sales came about through someone in Sales Cloud's existing influencer program. “The entire influencer group was crucial in providing feedback on our program, helping us create content, and generating word of mouth through the community,” says Melissa. “They’re real salespeople, so they were our focus group.”
Deliver results and evolve to achieve greater impact
In its first year, Salesblazer reached over 5 million unique page views, driven by ranking for thousands of keywords in search. Promoting Salesforce product offerings within content resulted in a 250% increase in product page referrals.
Salesblazer generated over 3.2 million social impressions and 102,000 social engagements. Over 45,000 people subscribe to the newsletter and over 230,000 are involved on community platforms. The Salesblazer community earned 320,000 badges through the Trailhead learning platform and thousands of people expanded their network at 46 events.
However, success was not possible without further development.
“We learned that we had disconnected the content from our business. It was entirely community-based and community-focused,” says Melissa.
The team realized that they had ignored some of the best practices in content marketing – linking and SEO. As a result, the content did not reach the organic heights expected. “Once that post-release push was over, we thought, ‘Okay, well, we want to build an audience; We want the audience to return. How do we do this?'” Melissa explains.
They pivoted, implemented these best practices, linked to related content, and doubled their search engine optimization efforts.
They also told a better story internally, so people understood that Salesblazer wasn't just a fun side project, but something that drove views on product pages and long-term engagement. And that’s when Salesblazer’s content page took off and delivered impressive results.
Another lesson: What works for one audience doesn't necessarily work for others. “This program is all about seeing what works, investing in what works and moving away from what doesn’t. It’s about listening to our community’s reactions and finding out what they’re looking for,” explains Melissa.
The biggest change since launch is the meeting place of the Salesblazer community. Initially it used the same forum infrastructure as the Trailblazer group.
“We found that sales reps don't necessarily gravitate toward a forum experience. They want that real connection. “You want to be able to reach someone in real time,” explains Melissa.
So Salesforce moved the Salesblazer community to a Slack channel, where it grew twice as fast as the forum iteration (and attracted 15,000 members in six months).
“If the audience isn’t ready to buy them,” Melissa explains [Salesblazer] Engagements play a critical role in keeping Salesforce top of mind and positioning us as a leader in empowering sales professionals.”
But for the Content Marketer of the Year finalist, a personal moment helped appreciate Salesblazer's impact.
“I only noticed it when we were at one of our events. Someone came up to me and said, “I’m so grateful for this program.” It changed my career. It brought back inspiration, and I'm so grateful to have that as a resource. “They got jobs because of the connections they made in the community and the knowledge they gained,” Melissa says.
“It's such a moment where you feel like, 'Oh my God, we did it.'”
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
