Big news from Microsoft! Starting September 1, 2023, they're combining Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights into one awesome product. This means marketing, sales, and service teams can easily access the latest customer data and insights within their everyday Microsoft apps.
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, a customer data platform, is at the heart of this change. It helps deliver personalized customer experiences by quickly giving a complete view of customers. This integration marks a significant step in simplifying processes and boosting data-driven decision-making for businesses everywhere.
This article will walk you through what it means for your business and how to have it.
Embracing Real-Time Marketing Capabilities with Microsoft
Microsoft's strategy for D365 Marketing entails retiring the older "outbound" marketing module and embracing the newer "real-time" marketing capabilities. Exemplified by "Customer Insights - Journeys," this transition plan will steer existing D365 Marketing customers towards adopting real-time marketing as part of the product change. Starting in August 2023, new customers will exclusively access real-time marketing features, while existing customers can still use outbound marketing without any further enhancements from Microsoft.
In a statement, Nakashima highlights the superiority of real-time marketing over traditional outbound marketing, citing improved functionality, effectiveness, usability testing results, and higher satisfaction survey scores. Microsoft also invests in innovations and AI features, making them exclusive to the real-time marketing platform.
The Evolution of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing:
This is not the first time Microsoft has made significant changes to its Dynamics marketing products. In 2012, the company acquired MarketingPilot, based on Master Data Management (MDM), and rebranded it as "Microsoft Dynamics Marketing."
However, the product faced challenges and was delisted for new sales in 2016. It ultimately discontinued in 2018, failing to fulfill its research and development goals and struggling to gain market traction.
In 2018, Microsoft introduced the current iteration, D365 Marketing, as "Dynamics 365 for Marketing." This new version, built from scratch on the Power Platform data and application services, became an integral part of the Dynamics 365 Customer Experience suite.
Capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights stands as a testament to Microsoft's commitment to empowering businesses with cutting-edge solutions.
-
Unified customer data and 360-degree customer views:
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights revolutionizes customer data into actionable, real-time insights, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view of customers. Seamlessly combining customer data with operational and IoT data in real-time empowers businesses with a holistic understanding of their customers.
-
AI-powered customer segments:
Leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights efficiently analyzes vast customer data collected from various applications, including Dynamics 365 Sales, Service, and Marketing. The platform's standard features create visually compelling analytical displays for each contact, simplifying data interpretation and utilization.
-
Integration with Dynamics 365 Marketing:
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights seamlessly integrates with Dynamics 365 Marketing, enabling direct access to contacts and segments within the Marketing platform. Marketers can efficiently leverage Customer Insights' segments to target customer journeys in Dynamics 365 Marketing, streamlining their campaigns for better results.
How does it affect your business?
The incorporation of Dynamics 365 Marketing into Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can have several effects on businesses. Here are some potential impacts:
-
Unified customer data management:
Integrating Dynamics 365 Marketing and Customer Insights creates a streamlined platform for businesses to efficiently manage and analyze customer data. This unifying customer insights approach allows for seamless collection, organization, and utilization of valuable customer information.
-
Deeper customer insights:
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights employs AI to analyze customer data and generate actionable insights. By incorporating Dynamics 365 Marketing, businesses can gain an even more profound and comprehensive understanding of their customer's behaviors, preferences, and requirements. This empowers them to launch targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.
-
Enhanced marketing campaign effectiveness:
By leveraging the customer actions from Customer Insights, businesses can drive their marketing campaigns with greater precision. The rich customer profiles and AI-driven segments enable marketers to deliver more relevant and personalized messages, maximizing campaign impact.
-
Improved operational efficiency:
The consolidation of Dynamics 365 Marketing and Customer Insights into a single offering boosts operational efficiency. With a unified interface and streamlined workflows for marketing activities and customer data management tasks, businesses can save time and resources, dedicating efforts to delivering superior customer service.
-
Customer-centric strategies:
The combination of Dynamics 365 Marketing and Customer Insights fosters a customer-centric approach. Organizations can tailor their marketing, sales, and service strategies to align with their customers' specific needs and preferences, resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business growth.
Bottom Line: The Future of D365 Marketing and Customer Insights
In the upcoming months of 2023, D365 Marketing will undergo a transformative integration with Customer Insights, becoming a unified offering encompassing both elements. This move aims to streamline and enhance the overall customer experience, consolidating marketing insights and capabilities into one comprehensive platform.
