Each year, Microsoft rolls out two major updates to its Dynamics 365 platform to empower their users with the latest cutting-edge technology. This year, Microsoft has added some exciting features to Dynamics 365 Marketing, making it more intuitive, user friendly, and powerful. 

1. Microsoft Teams integration with Dynamics 365 Marketing:

At a time when more and more people are working from home, webinars are seeing a rise in popularity. The new integration with Teams enables you to manage registrations, reporting and communications for webinars from within Dynamics 365 Marketing itself. This really does give Microsoft Dynamics 365 a standout USP in marketing automation space.

What to expect? 

• Ability to use Microsoft Teams as the webinar provider 
• Enable event check-ins for webinar attendance 
• Integrate webinars into campaigns and customer journeys 
• Define webinar organisers and presenters 
• Track webinar attendee information back to D365 

2. Targeted segments with natural language: 

If you are running campaigns, you may need test segments. Soon, you will be able to use Dynamics 365 marketing to create segments using natural language sentences. For instance, you can create a segment of “leads who live in the U.K. but not in Leeds.” How cool is that? 

What to expect?

• Ability to create highly specific segment using natural language 
• Understand the logic of segments another person has created in natural language  

3. Social media listening in Dynamics 365 Marketing:

Social media is notoriously one of the hardest marketing channels to manage. With the upcoming changes in Dynamics 365 Marketing, you will have a better experience creating, managing and scheduling social media posts. What’s more? You can even track how your social media content is performing.

What to expect?  

• A richer experience creating social media posts 
• An insight into how your posts are performing 
• A redesigned interface for scheduling your posts  

4. Email & form content creation: 

There are changes coming to the way you can create form and email content. With these updates, you will soon be able to create rich and customised emails faster. Moreover, you can directly create and update forms and email content from within the customer journey page itself.

What to expect?  

• Ability to edit email content from within the customer journey 
• Create and edit forms from within events  
• Easy content creation, review and editing 

5. Customer Journey with canvas:  

This is one of the features that we are patiently waiting for. You will soon be able to create customer journeys directly from the canvas. 

What to expect?  

• No switching back and forth between the toolbox and the canvas while creating a journey 
• Visually appealing journey insights and availability of simple time-based journey actions 
• Alternative paths for negative journeys 
• Choice to customise the canvas with vertical and horizontal layout options 

6. Form Data Collection:

Until now, forms were tied either to lead or contact, but this is about to change. Soon you should be able to store forms under other entities as well.

What to expect? 

• Ability to connect forms to other entities in addition to leads and contacts 
• Better ability to receive data and design workflows 

All in all, we think that the changes coming to Dynamics 365’s Marketing module are evolutionary but not revolutionary. However, we are excited at the prospect of getting a new customer journey canvas and Teams Integration.

Stay tuned, as we cover other changes coming to Dynamics 365 in our continuing blog series.   

As ERP/CRM consultants, we are always reviewing the market-leading ERP/CRM products and their updates, so that we can provide the best advice to our customers.

If you need our help to take full advantage of the latest features, we are here to help. Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation. Phone: 01296 328 689. Email: info@dogmagroup.co.uk.

Author: Sudip Sharma, Content Writer at SeeLogic Ltd.