You asked for it, and we made it happen. You can now configure drip campaigns to send emails only during regular business hours!  There is now a brand new “Weekday Only” option for drip campaigns that allows you to set blackout times for email correspondence. When you choose this option in Step 1 of the Drip Program Wizard, Pardot will configure your drip campaign to send email only between the hours of 10AM and 4PM, Monday through Friday. Pardot uses the time zone associated with your account by default, but you can change the time zone if desired. This option will be automatically checked for all new drip programs, and you can retroactively enable it for existing drips.

Why would you want to do this? Well, there are a couple of good reasons:

1. Timing is everything. Prospects are far more likely to read emails that are sent during standard working hours. Mid-morning and early afternoon are best. First thing in the morning seems like it would be the best time to send an email, but when you think about all of that early-morning competition in the inbox, it’s clear that first-thing timing is less than ideal. A mid-morning email comes after the prospect has waded through the morning deluge of email, and it most likely will get read immediately. Sending an email in the early afternoon is also a good strategy, as plenty of folks go straight to checking their inbox when they get back from lunch. Probably the worst time to send an email is at the end of the working day (~5PM) or over a weekend, as your message will almost certainly be left to stagnate overnight and then get buried in the morning rush on the next workday. Restricting your drip emails to standard business hours on weekdays is a great way to improve open and read rates.
2. Your communications should seem personal and realistic. How would you feel if you noticed that the email you were reading was sent at 3AM? Either someone has serious insomnia, or the sender is a robot. You don’t want your prospects to get either of these impressions, so restricting your send times to normal working hours is a good way to make email blasts seem more personal and realistic.

With more than 100 votes in our idea exchange, this has been the most asked for functionality among our clients. We’re thrilled to be able to make it possible with this new feature. Enjoy!

Pardot has just rolled out its brand new social media integration package, Social Insight. Social Insight utilizes social data analytics collected with the help of our partner Rapleaf, a marketing services provider that helps companies use social media to better understand their customers. Pardot’s Social Insight platform uses Rapleaf to pull public data about prospects from across a wide variety of social media sites. The compiled information is then displayed in the Social Data tab within each lead record. You can also easily access prospect profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter via one-click links.

Social Insight pulls and displays the following information about a given prospect:

• Full name
• Gender
• Location
• Company
• Job Title
• Photo

Social Insight also displays one-click links to that prospect’s public profiles on various social media sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), bringing together a wealth of data and putting it at your fingertips.

While Social Insight can’t be used for brand monitoring — there are already other specialized tools that do a better job with that — it is a valuable social profiling tool that uses social media data to round out your prospects’ profiles, giving you insight into what customers want.

Social Insight is available to Pardot users with a Professional Package or higher. The Rapleaf connector has been automatically enabled for eligible accounts. This feature is optional. If you no longer wish to see social data displayed, simply delete the Rapleaf connector under the Pardot Administration module.

One of the hottest topics for marketing automation users, whether you’re just starting out or you’re a seasoned professional, is perfecting a lead nurturing strategy. Using lead nurturing stops leaks in the sales funnel and gives your marketing ROI a major boost.

Join Pardot COO Adam Blitzer along with Pardot partners Arketi Group, A.D.A.M. , and DataSync for a complimentary webinar as they examine how to build the business case for automating lead nurturing. In addition, the panelists will discuss how sales and marketing teams can effectively collaborate to identify and implement strategic lead nurturing programs that generate real results.

The webinar will take place next Wednesday, June 30, at 2 p.m. Eastern.

Register Now!

We’re pleased to hear that another client, DataSync, is getting significant value from Pardot. Thanks to Ted McDermott, VP of Business Development, and Marketing Coordinator Kristen Pittenger for taking part in our latest client testimonial video. DataSync specializes in integrating customer information and automating data entry processes. Pardot’s robust but streamlined solution impressed Pittenger, and as McDermott explains, Pardot stood out from other marketing automation solutions because it was the most cost-effective option and provided even more functionality than needed. Pardot’s outstanding services team has been a standout benefit. “Incredible support,” McDermott says. “Highly recommended.”

Watch the video.

The Pardot team had a great time at SugarCon and SuiteCloud last week in California, but we’re not done yet! We’ll be setting up camp in our hometown of Atlanta this weekend at Microsoft Convergence, launching the new Pardot integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We’ll be at the Georgia World Congress Center from Saturday until Tuesday, so stop by booth 1120 and say hello!

If you can’t come by and see us for yourself, check out what you’re missing! Here’s a quick shot of the Pardot team at SugarCon:

April is upon us and that means the Pardot team is gearing up for another trip to California. We’ll be in San Francisco from April 12 – 16, 2010.

We will attend SugarCon, the SugarCRM user’s conference, from April 12 – 14. Stop by and say hello at Booth 104 or drop in for Derek Grant’s session on Lead Qualification and Nurturing.

Next we’ll head over to the NetSuite conference, SuiteCloud, where we’ll be through Friday.

Please be sure to let us know if you’re going to be attending either event or if you’d like to get together while we’re in town. We love to meet our west coast friends and clients as well as catch up with those we know and love!

The Pardot team is excited to announce the First Annual Pardot User’s Conference will take place Tuesday, September 28 – Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at the brand new Buckhead Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta, GA.

The two-day event will feature Pardot training, best practices from industry experts, an opportunity to meet other Pardot users and, of course, fun, social events too!

Stay tuned for information on conference registration. The Pardot team looks forward to the opportunity to get to know all of our clients during this exciting event.

Pardot Users Conference 2010
September 28 & 29, 2010
Atlanta Buckhead Marriott Hotel and Conference Center

You’ve probably noticed that one of the elements of the Pardot blog redesign is the addition of the AddThis, the button at the bottom which makes it easy to share a post through popular social networking sites.

Did you know you can also use AddThis on your Pardot landing pages? This way if someone finds your white paper or other collateral item valuable, they can easily pass it along to their friends and colleagues. The implementation solution actually came from a Pardot friend and client, who was kind enough to share the social media integration instructions with all of us.

A big thanks to John Follett and the team at Demand Metric for participating in our latest client testimonial video.  Demand Metric, a management advisory firm, has had amazing success with Pardot. One tidbit they shared with us? Before marketing automation, 1 in 12 product demos would result in a sale. With Pardot, that number is now 1 in 3.

Our Segmentation Wizard is a great new tool that simplifies dynamic list building. It allows you to quickly and easily create predefined lists of prospects for targeted campaigns. The Segmentation Wizard runs much faster than automation rules and should become your go-to method for most list-building actions.

Unlike automation rules, which run continuously, segmentation rules allow you to generate a one-time list of prospects that is tailored to your exact specifications. Setting up segmentation rules is simple: Use data fields and list membership to create rules that define the new list’s membership and the desired actions, and then run the wizard to set it all in motion. Say you want to target only marketing executives located in New York City–the Segmentation Wizard does it in a flash. But what if you’re dealing with an even more complicated set of criteria? Rule groups allow you to base a rule on different combinations of multiple criteria, so creating complex rules with multiple parts is a snap. Read more about how to create segmentation rules here.

You can also add and remove prospects from these lists.  The wizard shows you a preview of affected prospects before you finalize and save the list. It’s as easy as that!

We’ve already gotten rave reviews from customers who have tried out the Segmentation Wizard and are impressed with the speed and ease of use of this tool, as well as the added value it provides. Future releases will enable segmentation based on more dynamic categories such prospect activities, so that you can make lists based on who has viewed a landing page or filled out a form, for example.

We invite you to give it a try and see for yourself what kind of magic you can make with the Segmentation Wizard.