Converting Prospects to Salesforce Contacts

In consultation with the Executive Seminars team, Pardot prospects/leads should be converted into Salesforce contacts when:

  • They've been brought into Pardot through a targeted paid campaign (ex: Industry Dive)
  • They've registered for an offering (ex: flash seminar) and are clearly a high-quality lead from quick observation (ex: Fortune 100 company, senior executive at major organization, etc.)
  • They have downloaded a piece of collateral (ex: AES one-pager or case study) and meet the profile of someone who could attend
  • We've invited them to a special invite-only offering (ex: HR or tech specific flash seminar)
  • They have a B- or above grade in Pardot

To start converting a Pardot prospect/lead into a Salesforce contact, click on "Prospects" in the top navigation bar and then "Segmentation Lists" on the navigation bar to the left.

If you have a specific person in mind to convert, you can find them in the "Full List" segment and type their name in, or if you know a more specific segment they're in (ex: a flash seminar registrants segment), you can search for that segment and then find their name. 

For this example, let's go to the segment "Industry Dive December-2023 Leads" since this is a group where we will be converting everyone into Salesforce contacts.

Click on the Salesforce logo next to a prospect's name. We'll use Rahul Kadam for this example. 

Click on "Edit" to the right of "Convert" in the nav bar of options above the Open to Converted timeline. In the pop-up, scroll down to "Bio" to add a detail of where this person came into the list from that will be helpful for Business Development. In this case, I'll write "Industry Dive Trendline Lead". If this is a top target (A- grade and above), you can look up whether this person has a professional bio to pull from and add here, though this can also be added in their Salesforce contact itself once created. Click "Save".

To the left of where you clicked "Edit" earlier, select "Convert" and then click on "Convert" again to the right next to "Cancel". Wait a few seconds. When you return to the prior page, you'll now see that this prospect has been converted into a Salesforce contact.

In the search bar at the top, you can find Rahul's Salesforce contact and go to it.

Once there, you can select "Edit" towards the top right to make any additional changes to their contact, such as adding in their Primary Sector, bio information, gender, etc. and then click "Save". 

You've successfully converted a Pardot prospect to a Salesforce contact!

Salesforce Campaigns of Leads Converted to Salesforce Contacts

In order for Business Development to best find those who they should reach out to, it's important to know what campaign reports to look at. The main campaign consisting of Pardot leads that have been converted to Salesforce contacts is "Industry Dive Trendline". A few others are under "Industry Dive Flash Seminar". 

Retroactively Assigning a New Campaign to a Contact

For Pardot leads converted to Salesforce contacts who are NOT tied to Industry Dive, these people will be auto-assigned a campaign related to how they first came into the Pardot list. For example, if they came in through a flash seminar form, they'll have that flash seminar as their campaign. If they initially engaged through HIF's Adolescent Mental Health series and then later participated in a flash seminar, they will be tied to the Adolescent Mental Health campaign.

If you'd like to update their campaign for a better viewing experience in Salesforce, you'll want to make changes once in their Salesforce Contact record. I've created 3 new Pardot campaigns that these people can be attributed to:

  1.  High Quality Leads - Flash Seminars: these are top targets who registered for a flash seminar and are strong enough to convert into Salesforce contacts
  2.  High Quality Leads - Collateral Downloads: these are top targets who downloaded Exec Sem collateral such as a case study or AES one-pager and are strong enough to convert into Salesforce contacts
  3. High Quality Leads - Special Invites: these are people who have been invited to a special invite-only opportunity such as a flash seminar for people in the Tech industry

Let's use the example of someone who fits within the first category as she's a high-ranking Director at Cornell University - Barbara Hoerner. Her campaign is listed as April 27th Flash Seminar as that's when she came into our list. In her Salesforce contact, click on "Campaign History".

Once there, click "Add to Campaign" in the top right and add the relevant campaign. In this case, that is "High Quality Leads - Flash Seminars". Click "Next" and then "Save".

She will now appear in the "High Quality Leads - Flash Seminars" campaign. As more Pardot leads are converted to Salesforce contacts who are NOT tied to Industry Dive, they will likely need to retroactively be attributed to one of the three campaigns listed above.

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