What's New in Dynamics 365 for Marketing - October 2018 Update
In recent posts we've looked at the new capabilities arriving in the next Dynamics 365 major update for Sales, Customer Service and Field Service apps. We'll now switch to the newest Customer Engagement app, Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
Account Based Marketing
The initial Marketing release was best suited for campaigns with audiences consisting of individual contacts.
Microsoft say that the October 2018 update, will better enable B2B marketing teams to target and track engagements with organisation accounts.
At the outset, this will enable specific contacts at each company to be identified to ensure messages are sent to the right people. Personalised emails and other content can then be created that reflect account properties so that leads can be generated on an account-level basis which are nurtured or routed to sales.
With account level reporting, marketing and sales teams will be able to gain insights by reviewing marketing interactions across accounts to understand the most engaged accounts and drill down to see interactions on a per account basis.
Reusable Content Blocks
New capabilities will be added for design elements on emails and landing pages to be saved as reusable content blocks. These could include an email header, or a footer that includes links to terms and conditions and privacy policy.
By saving these as reusable blocks they are easily distributed and accessible for new campaigns, emails and pages.
With rules to protect this content, individual blocks can be distributed on a read-only basis preventing other users from editing these elements to ensure they comply with brand and organisation standards.
Once created, these blocks can be applied by dropping them into new content.
More complex rules will allow reusable content blocks to reflect dynamic values from Dynamics 365.
Embed Video Content
New content options will enable videos blocks to be embedded within marketing pages and emails.
Using Microsoft Stream, video blocks can be dragged from the toolbox designer and dropped into place on the design.
LinkedIn Integration
Dynamics 365 already integrates with LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and the October 2018 update will extend this:
- Integrate Marketing segments with LinkedIn audiences
- Apply journey triggers that reflect Lead Gen Form submissions
- Generate leads in Dynamics 365 for accounts from these form posts
- Use Lead Gen Form post interactions within a lead scoring model
- Measure success of LinkedIn targeting using engagement stats in Dynamics 365 for Marketing
Marketing Planning Calendar
Time specific marketing activities can be visualized through a new calendar control that will show start and end dates.
Across events and other campaigns it will provide an at-a-glance overview across the various elements of these initiatives.
Within this control new items can be created without leaving the page.
Improved Segmentation Experience
Changes to the Marketing segment design are planned to help marketing teams create new segments more easily. In addition to an improved user interface this will enable support for more operators to create more complex, business-centric marketing segments.
Custom Analytics
Dynamics 365 for Marketing collects wide-ranging and detailed information about how contacts interact with marketing communications.
Through custom analytics this data can be organized and presented within the Marketing app.
In addition to default analytics, design charts, graphs, and KPI's that are embedded with the Marketing app to gain greater insights across the metrics that matter most to you.
Longer term, Microsoft has signaled that it will also deliver Marketing insights based on machine learning.
Social Listening Insights
Embedded social listening reporting will add a new dashboard for social insights in addition to a dedicated social tab for every customer journey and event.
The social tab will track keywords and phrases relevant to a specific customer journey or event, and then monitors social media posts for mentions. Through a series of widgets on the social tab this provides analytics including sentiment analysis and potential influencers.
Licensing
We also understand that Microsoft is adjusting its licensing model for the Marketing app whereby this is based on contacts that are touched by a marketing campaign. This contrasts with the initial product release that counted all active and inactive contacts even if these weren't associated with a campaign which made the app a non-starter in many instances.
What Next?
We'll share more information about this upcoming release so why not join our mailing list to receive updates?
