Best practices for managing additional lead owners and lead owner data

[Michelle_McDona]

We have several different types of Sales Owners (Lead Owners, Regional Managers, Inside Sales etc.) some of these are available in Salesforce and some are not. We also have a need to capture additional information like Headshot, social handles, etc. to be used in email signatures that are specific to Marketo and not in Salesforce. Our current process is to create custom fields for the information we need and then create a workflow for every "owner" to populate that data. This method works fine if it’s just a handful of owners, but its not very efficient if there are more than that. We have tried creating Marketo custom objects to hold the data we need, but that limits the way we can use it in tokens and on the email (without velocity script). Has anyone figured out a better way to manage this or is there a way to simply update the custom field on the lead record with data from the custom object?

[Josh_Hill13]

You would need a set of fields on both (ideally) systems to manage this. Most solutions for signatures involve snippets and/or tokens based on the fields attached to the Lead/Contact/Account. I haven't seen a Custom Object in Marketo to handle this, but you could do so.

I guess what I'm asking is Why do you say this is a problem and what do you mean by setting up a "workflow" for every owner? Can you describe more about what you are doing for each type of Owner?

[SanfordWhiteman]

...that limits the way we can use it in tokens and on the email (without velocity script)...

I don't know why "without Velocity script" would be a requirement since this is exactly what Velocity excels at, and you don't have to continuously rewrite your VTL tokens.

We've done what you describe by storing all owner metadata (picture, email, other contact info) in a global Velocity token that serves as a data library. Then another Velocity token displays the appropriate data for the current lead's owner field(s).

[Michelle_McDona]

Does your global token just live in a folder at the top level of Marketing Activities, or is there a way to keep that seperated in the design studio or somewhere else?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Has to be at the top of MA.

[Vera_Parassidis]

hi Sanford Whiteman! Do you have any posts on this? I looked through the content on your page here in the community and in your blog, but could not find it. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[SanfordWhiteman]

It hasn't explicitly appeared on the blog (tho' maybe I'll add a post now) but it's just another case for a Velocity data map.

Here's a simple example. Set up a Velocity token {{my.salesTeam}} that contains your data map:

#set( $salesTeam = {
  "jackie.petrossian@example.com" : {
    "displayName" : "Jackie Petrossian",
    "photo" : "https://www.example.com/images/hs/jackie1.jpg",
    "phone" : "555-222-4567"
  },
  "baxt.christie@example.com" : {
    "displayName" : "Baxter Christie, Jr.",
    "photo" : "https://www.example.com/images/hs/baxtchristie.jpg",
    "phone" : "555-324-1873"
  },
  "sother.marist@example.com" : {
    "displayName" : "Sother B. Marist",
    "photo" : "https://www.example.com/images/hs/marist_photoshoot_13.jpg",
    "phone" : "555-347-8549"
  }
} )  
## * = default owner
#set( $tmp = $salesTeam.put("*", $salesTeam["sother.marist@example.com"]) )

Note in the last line I'm setting one of the team members (Sother B. Marist) as the default for any owner type -- you can deepen the defaulting logic to your heart's content.

Then create another Velocity token {{my.leadOwnerInfo}} like so:

## set owners to default to have fallback
#set( $leadOwner = $salesTeam["*"] )
#set( $regionalOwner = $salesTeam["*"] )
## find real owner in data map
#set( $leadOwner = $salesTeam[$lead.Lead_Owner_Email_Address] )
#set( $regionalOwner = $salesTeam[$lead.Regional_Manager_Email_Address] )
Your Direct Contact is
<img src="$leadOwner.photo">$leadOwner.displayName
and your Regional Sales Rep is
<img src="$regionalOwner.photo">$regionalOwner.displayName

Then you'd add {{my.salesTeam}}{{my.leadOwnerInfo}} (in that order) in an email.