How can you reach your customers and prospects? Depending on your target market, most people now prefer to receive e-mails. The only problem now is keeping track of who is opening those emails and clicking through to your website. There are many tools out there available, but not all of them will integrate with your CRM database. One tool that does integrate with many of the e-mail marketing automation software out there is Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This CRM software provides several different ways to send e-mails to your customers:
- Direct E-mail
- Mail Merge with Microsoft Office Word
- Quick Campaign
- Full Campaign
Each of these approaches gives you access to different features in Microsoft CRM, so the method you choose depends on which of these features you want to be able to take advantage of.
Templates, response tracking, automatic sending, and attachments are available for all four approaches. But unsubscribe request tracking and using marketing lists for recipient selection are only available for campaigns (quick or full). Return on investment tracking is only available for a full campaign.
If detailed response tracking and reporting are unnecessary, and you don’t need to use a marketing list to refine or filter the complete list of your customers, then direct e-mail is a quick and easy option. For example, a monthly newsletter to all existing customers might be sent via direct e-mail. Microsoft Office Word templates allow you to use more formatting and images, so if your newsletter requires such, you’ll want to use the Mail Merge feature.
Campaigns enable more detailed response tracking, so if tracking is important, then campaigns are your best bet. A Quick Campaign, as the name implies, is best used for a quick, one-time campaign. For example, this can be a good choice if you want to send a last-minute 30%-off sale notice to a group of leads.
If you want detailed reporting, or if you plan to save the group of leads as a marketing list for future reuse, then you’ll want to use a Full Campaign. This is a good choice for a long-range marketing campaign that includes many steps/activities, such as launching a new product six months from now.
MS Dynamics CRM isn’t just one tool, it’s a set of specific tools for specific tasks, maximizing what you can do and how quickly you can do it.
