How to Import Contacts from Salesforce into WordPress

Salesforce is powerful, but it’s built for enterprise. If you’re a small business or agency paying for a Salesforce license you’re not fully using, moving to a WordPress CRM can cut your costs significantly while keeping your contacts, deals, and pipeline intact. The tricky part is that Salesforce structures data differently from most other CRMs, so the export and import process requires a bit more preparation.

Understanding How Salesforce Structures Data

Before you export anything, it helps to understand the key data objects in Salesforce and how they map to a simpler CRM structure:

• Leads: Unqualified prospects, not yet attached to an Account
• Contacts: Qualified individuals, attached to an Account
• Accounts: Companies or organizations
• Opportunities: Deals in progress, attached to an Account
• Activities: Emails, calls, tasks, and events

In most WordPress CRMs, all of these collapse into a simpler structure: Contacts (with company info attached), Deals, and Notes. So part of your migration is deciding how to flatten Salesforce’s object model into your new system.

Step 1: Export Leads and Contacts from Salesforce

Salesforce stores Leads and Contacts separately. You’ll likely want to merge these into a single contacts list for your new CRM.

Exporting via Reports

1. Go to Reports in Salesforce
2. Create a new report on the Contacts object
3. Add all the fields you need: Name, Email, Phone, Account Name, Title, Address fields, and any custom fields
4. Run the report and click Export
5. Choose CSV format and download
6. Repeat this process for Leads

Exporting via Data Export

For a full backup of all Salesforce data:

1. Go to Setup > Data > Data Export
2. Click “Export Now” or schedule a weekly export
3. Select the objects to include (Contacts, Leads, Accounts, Opportunities)
4. Download the zip file when it’s ready (Salesforce emails you a link)

The Data Export method gives you more complete data but produces multiple files you’ll need to work through.

Step 2: Merge Leads and Contacts

Once you have both CSV files, you’ll need to merge them into a single contacts list. Open both in a spreadsheet tool and check that the column headers align. Common differences:

• Leads have a “Company” field. Contacts have an “Account Name” field. Rename the column to match before merging.
• Leads have a “Lead Status” field. Contacts have no equivalent. You can map this to a custom status field in your new CRM.
• Some fields may exist in one object but not the other.

Once column headers match, paste the Lead rows below the Contact rows in a single sheet. Then remove duplicates: sort by email address and delete rows where the same email appears more than once, keeping the more complete record.

Step 3: Export Opportunities (Optional)

If you’re tracking active deals in Salesforce, export those too:

1. Create a report on the Opportunities object in Salesforce
2. Include fields: Opportunity Name, Account Name, Contact Email, Stage, Amount, Close Date
3. Export as CSV

You’ll import these after contacts are in place, using the contact’s email address to link deals to the right records.

Step 4: Clean Your Data

Salesforce data quality varies widely depending on how disciplined your team was about data entry. Common issues to fix before importing:

• Phone numbers in inconsistent formats (some with country code, some without, some with dashes, some without)
• Address fields partially filled in or inconsistently formatted
• Duplicate records that slipped through Salesforce’s deduplication rules
• Contacts attached to accounts that are no longer active
• Custom fields with inconsistent values or stale data

Invest time here. The cleaner your data going in, the less cleanup you’ll do later.

The full guide on CRM data cleaning before migration covers the most common issues and how to fix them systematically.

Step 5: Map Salesforce Fields to Your WordPress CRM

Create a field mapping before you import. A typical mapping from Salesforce to a WordPress CRM like SkunkCRM looks like this:

• Email -> Email
• First Name -> First Name
• Last Name -> Last Name
• Phone / Mobile -> Phone
• Account Name / Company -> Company
• Title -> Job Title
• Lead Status / Contact Status -> Custom field: Status
• Mailing Street, City, State, Postal Code, Country -> Address fields
• Owner (user name or email) -> Custom field: Assigned To

Create any custom fields in your WordPress CRM before running the import. Fields that don’t have a destination will either be dropped or cause import errors.

Step 6: Import Your Contacts into WordPress

With a clean, mapped CSV ready, the import process is straightforward in most WordPress CRMs.

In SkunkCRM:

1. Go to SkunkCRM > Contacts > Import
2. Upload your merged contacts CSV
3. Map each column to the correct contact field
4. Preview a sample of rows before running the full import
5. Run the import and review the results

For details on preparing a clean CSV for import, see the WordPress CRM CSV import guide.

Step 7: Import Opportunities as Deals

After contacts are in, import your opportunities file. Map the fields to your deal pipeline in the new CRM:

• Opportunity Name -> Deal Name
• Stage -> Pipeline Stage
• Amount -> Deal Value
• Close Date -> Expected Close Date
• Contact Email -> Used to link the deal to the right contact

What You’ll Lose in the Migration

Some things don’t transfer from Salesforce:

Detailed activity history. Salesforce logs every interaction: emails, calls, meetings, tasks. This data is technically exportable but doesn’t import cleanly into a simpler CRM. Export key activity logs as notes and attach them to your most important contacts manually.

Salesforce-specific automations. Process Builder flows, Apex triggers, and workflow rules don’t migrate. You’ll rebuild automation in your new system.

Reports and dashboards. Salesforce’s reporting is extensive. Your new CRM will have different reporting tools. Plan to rebuild the reports you rely on.

Completing the Migration

Once your data is in and verified, update any connected tools to point at your new CRM: contact forms, email marketing integrations, and any other systems that were pushing data into Salesforce.

Keep Salesforce active for at least 30 days after the migration, until you’re confident everything transferred correctly and your team is operating in the new system.

The complete migration framework is covered in the pillar guide on migrating to a WordPress CRM without losing data. If you’re evaluating WordPress CRM options, SkunkCRM is designed specifically for this use case: visit skunkcrm.com to learn more.