Is an MS in Dynamics at CRM Good for Marketing Management?

Database marketing provides your business with a competitive edge, and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) dashboard like Microsoft Dynamics can be used to leverage marketing techniques that drive sales. Often, there’s a division between operations, marketing, and sales teams, making it challenging to achieve a cohesive strategy. However, a good CRM can help unify these teams with a singular focus—to target new clients, bring them on board, and retain them. Here’s how this can work.

Why Use a CRM in Marketing

If your business is still using an Excel spreadsheet to track leads or Outlook email to contact them, you are missing out on the efficiencies that come with modern CRM software. While Excel and Outlook are powerful tools, today's CRM software offers significant improvements that can enhance your marketing processes.

One benefit is that you can schedule automated drip campaigns to educate potential clients by sending them helpful content periodically. The goal in these instances is to stay in front of prospects so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you first. Eliminating manual processes is a huge time saver that allows the sales team to focus on selling and the marketing team to focus on messaging. This is just one example of how a CRM can increase your closed deals over time.

You can also use a CRM as a customer service tool to help your operations team stay on top of client retention efforts. Segmentation of a large database into regions can be incredibly helpful, especially if your sales teams are responsible for geographic territories. A simple report on how many businesses are in a region, how many of those companies have been contacted in the last six months, and whether those contacts resulted in sales can motivate a sales team to improve their efforts.

How to Use a CRM in Marketing

Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers functional reporting mechanisms that are efficient and easy-to-use. These tools can drive sales activities and create a sense of transparency around client interactions, which can improve overall company performance. For example, if you are running an email campaign, Microsoft Dynamics can show you how many prospects opened your email and the click-through rate for any calls-to-action. Marketing teams can then track this data and refine their marketing messages based on what resonates best in a particular market. Subsequently, if the marketing team has a message that works and the sales team follows up with that messaging, you can expect to see an increase in closed deals.

The typical workflow for an automated campaign might look like this:

Select a targeted prospecting list Develop the content to send Design a pleasing template for the email blast Schedule the campaign Analyze the click-through rate Leverage the sales team to call leads Measure the effectiveness of the campaign Clean out any unsubscribed or bounced emails Schedule the next campaign Repeat as needed

From this perspective, it’s clear that a CRM in marketing can be the great integrator in your business. Understanding that a CRM is a great investment with a clear ROI is essential. These platforms pay for themselves in closed revenue.

Are Your Data Management Practices Up to Par?

While the benefits of a CRM are significant, the value of these efforts is only as good as the data you are utilizing. Therefore, when integrating a CRM in marketing, it is important to perform a list cleanup before migrating Excel sheets into the platform. This foundational step ensures that future marketing and sales campaigns are based on reliable and consistent data. Designate a team member to manage database administrative tasks such as list uploads or report generation. This person will help maintain the flow of information between marketing, sales, and operations, ensuring data consistency. Consider the CRM as a link to a goldmine of potential business, and having someone available to set standards around data capture is wise. Even though sales teams can update individual records in the CRM, consistency in the data they collect is crucial.

Customer service is also a critical aspect of CRM. You can use the CRM to manage existing clients as well as prospects. Every interaction with a client should be carefully tracked in the database. Ticklers can be set up to remind you to reach out to individual clients, and you can segment lists so that existing clients receive marketing emails suggesting a particular product upsell, while potential clients receive different messaging.

CRMs are also excellent project management tools. You can upload all related documents into one project room while tracking the activities by project team member. Invite team members to meetings and encourage them to review specific items prior to the event from the project room. By implementing these practices, you can leverage the full potential of your CRM for both marketing and customer service.