Salesforce.com offers sneak peek at Marketing Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO -- Salesforce.com execs revealed a sneak peek at the new Marketing Cloud during the cloud alliance keynote at Dreamforce '12 on Tuesday afternoon.

See also: Salesforce.com reveals brief roadmap for AppExchange through 2013

CEO Marc Benioff previously hinted about the debut of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud during a chat with Michael Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last week.

Susan St. Ledger, chief revenue officer for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, acknowledged that many companies struggle with social marketing because of common problems such as fragmented conversations, a lack of unified data, and simply too many systems with multiple point solutions. All of this would easily lead to ineffective marketing results.

So Salesforce is trying to position Marketing Cloud as a one-point solution that remedies all of this, touting it as the "world's only integrated social marketing platform." Essentially, it is described as a solution that promises to turn insights to actions and connections to customers for life because of the way that brands can engage them.

"Social media has changed the marketing world forever," said St. Ledger, describing that "gone are the days" when there was no way to track what people were reading, watching and thinking.

Therefore, St. Ledger said it is Salesforce's job "to convince people that it's time to shift those marketing dollars." For example, St. Ledger cited that $21 billion is spent each year on display advertising, but that "no one has measured a way" to deliver a return on investment from that.

St. Ledger described that the Marketing Cloud is about taking technology and turning that into a targeted social tied together with customer data and CRM systems.

"You're going to be able to create social profiles unlike anything any company has seen in the past," St. Ledger promised

Although St. Ledger said it is technically launching officially today, it's already been in the works for awhile as it is based off of Salesforce acquisitions Radian6 and Buddy Media, which brought along a notable customer list that includes Disney, HP and Proctor & Gamble, among many other top global businesses.