Introduction to Marketing Automation with Dynamics 365 CRM

Marketing automation with Dynamics CRM solutions can increase the efficiency and personalization of your marketing.

In this article, we will explain what marketing automation is, what are your main capabilities with Dynamics CRM solutions.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation software is designed to help your team personalize and analyze marketing efforts across the organization.

The software can automate and assist with tasks such as sending emails, qualifying leads, tracking website visits, and managing social media campaigns.

Your marketing automation solution should also share its data with the rest of your business software. This way, your sales, marketing, and service teams can share information about the customer journey from first website visit to repeat customer.

Two Best Marketing Automation Tools Dynamics 365

The two best marketing automation tools we recommend to Dynamics clients are Dynamics 365 Marketing and ClickDimensions. They both share data and even interface with other Dynamics 365 CRM solutions.

Dynamics 365 Marketing: a larger, more flexible solution. This is generally the right choice for large companies and large marketing departments. To tailor the system to your business needs, contact us at Fanetech.

ClickDimensions: A simpler and cheaper solution. As a rule, it is chosen by small companies and marketing departments.

For a detailed comparison of price, functionality and more, read on Dynamics 365 Marketing and ClickDimensions.

Important Marketing Automation Functionality

Depending on your business needs and strategy, the most important features of a marketing automation solution are generally considered to be:

Marketing Analytics: visibility of the results of marketing efforts. For example, you can see how many people clicked on each link in an email. Or you can see how many visitors made a purchase using search services compared to a social media campaign.

Workflows: CSP partner such as Fanetech will help you set up automatic emails, text messages or other actions based on user behavior or time. So, for example, if a user fills out a certain form on your website, they can immediately receive a confirmation email.

Audience segmentation and identification: Target each email or other marketing campaign to the right audience. Your team can create lists based on multiple criteria, such as “customers in city N who opened our email about a local event.” And the system automatically maintains these lists, so your team doesn't have to manually double-check every lead or contact to make sure they still meet the criteria.

Lead scoring: the system can assign points to each lead based on which pages of your website they visited, which forms they filled out, which emails they opened, and so on. And for leads that score high enough, your system can automatically route them to the sales team.

How to Plan Marketing Automation

Before implementing or customizing a marketing automation solution, take the time to plan the entire process. Work with your CSP partner to outline the desired outcome and the needs that the software will solve.

Define lead stages and lead scoring rules: What would a “hot” lead look like for your company in terms of form submissions, email openings, or other actions? When should a lead be transferred from marketing to sales? Address these issues in general terms before proceeding with implementation.

Prepare for a phased rollout: The IT partner should help you prioritize and implement the software in stages. The first phase should focus on the most important channels for generating new leads. These are usually events or emails.

In later stages, you can focus on the details of lead scoring, secondary channels, and real-time marketing.

Organize your content. If you have content that you plan to reuse in campaigns, such as emails, infographics, or recorded webinars, document them in advance. Make sure you have the correct version of each. This way, when it comes time to use these assets in automation, you can quickly find what you need.

Still have questions?

Just Contact us and we will be happy to advise you.