Different tools

Customer Journey is composed of different tools that you can put together crosswise.

• Content
• Actions
• Targets
• Flow Control

Typically you will have a Journey for a specific segment. (Tool: Targets) When people become part of that segment, you want to send them something (Tool: Content) and then you control which way forward in the flow (Tool: Flow Control) the person should be sent to eventually perform the right action and create new activities for him/her. (Tool: Actions)

Everything is built with Drag and Drop functions and it can be put together crosswise.

Segments

Segments are target groups you want to include in your marketing activities.

In Dynamics 365 Marketing we work with segments. You can easily compare segments with marketing lists as segments also work with dynamic or static segments. But segments are much more than marketing lists you traditionally know from Dynamics 365 *. (Note small note on this)

Note: There are both segments and marketing lists in Dynamics 365 Marketing. 

Segment = A group you have put together so you can do targeted marketing activities for them. 

Marketing lists = If you have a marketing form and I fill it out, then I can be added to a marketing list that collects everyone who fills out the form. (You can then build a segment based on that marketing list)
Marketing lists are also used for your subscription lists – for example those who have signed up for your newsletter. 

You need to consider which segments to use? Start simple and expand them as you gain more experience and need further division.

Data for segments

You can build segments based on data from many different places.

Once you have selected the source (here in our example it is Contact) you can then choose exactly which data fields to use from that source and if needed set specific requirements (live in a certain region, gender division or have carried out certain activities such as participation in certain events, etc.).

Contacts where gender = Femal AND they live in (City) Copenhagen AND they have registered for a specific event = For A Fact – Dynamics 365 Marketing DEMO

It is relatively simple to build new segments. We recommend starting with a few simple ones and then expanding from there as needed.

If you are in doubt about which relationships you can access to retrieve data for your segment, then Dynamics 365 Marketing has a built-in visualization of an entity’s relationships.

Combine segments in Customer Journey

Several segments can be combined when you insert them in Customer Journey and you can decide how different segments should either be added, removed or continue together in the same track. Here are just a few of the possibilities. See how the segment changes along the way by either merging, excluding or continuing together as a group or letting two segments run in parallel.

Marketing forms

You use marketing forms to collect data from your contacts and visitors to the website. They are also used for registrations for various activities such as event registrations or downloading whitepaper etc.

Marketing forms are also used in Customer Journey (anchor link) where they can help send people in different directions.

You can create 3 (4) different types of Marketing forms:

1. Landing Page
2. Subscription center
3. Forward to a friend
4. The 4th option for Form Capture. That is, if you have existing forms on your website, then you can get data from these to land in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Landing page

This type of marketing form is what you would normally know as a regular web form.

If you need a web form where you want people to fill in and submit certain information to sign up – then it will be a web form of the type landing page, you need to use.

Update Contacts or both Contacts and Leads or Leads only?

You have to decide how Dynamics 365 Marketing should act if it is existing people in your system who fill out the form? It is part of your”Matching Strategy” which is one of the setups you need to consider before you start using Dynamics 365 marketing.  If it is a known person, should the web form then update the existing Contact or only the associated Lead or maybe both? If you think this sounds confusing then jump up to the section: Contact as well as several different leads at the same time – What? before you read on.

Form Fields

You can insert several different fields on your web form. These fields are called Form Fields and must be created independently before you can insert them on the web form.

Design web form

Once your form fields have been created, you can create a new web form and use Drag and Drop to insert the various elements.

There are various layout options and other elements you can make use of on your web form.

Go Live

Once you have set up your web form, it must be done live before you can use it.

Before you go live, you have the opportunity to check if the web form contains errors?

Here we have inserted an image of a web form that contains 2 errors. The first error is that the E-mail field is not set to be filled in before the form can be submitted. It is part of our ”Matching Strategy” that emailaddress1 is required and therefore the field must also be so on the form.

The second error is that the form is set to create a new Contact (If the person does not already exist in Dynamics 365 Marketing in advance).

When creating a new Contact, the field “Last Name” is required and this is what Dynamics 365 Marketing makes us aware of.

We can go Live without correcting this error – but Dynamics 365 Marketing makes us aware that this error should be corrected and when we have inserted the necessary fields and made it required, our web form is without error and we are ready to go live.

Prefilled Fields

If you send a marketing email via Dynamics 365 marketing to existing Contacts and the email contains a link to a web form, then you can ensure that the web form is prefilled with data registered on this person from Dynamics 365 Marketing.

NOTE: for this to work, the person must have given permission for web forms to be pre-filled!

On your web form you must insert the field “Remember Me”

If the person puts a tick in this field, a cookie is set on the person’s computer and at the same time the field ”Prefill marketing form” is set to ”Allow” on the person in Dynamics 365 Marketing. If you have not checked, the value is set to ”Disallow”.

Thereafter, the fields on the web form will be pre-filled when the person opens the form.

Subscription center

As previously described, Dynamics 365 Marketing comes with one marketing form that is both created and activated (It is Live) when you start up.

It is your standard Subscription form.

You must have a subscription form which is set to Default. It will then automatically be the one to insert a link to, when you send marketing related emails to your contacts.

You can create several different subscription forms, but only one can be the default.
There may be several strategies for why you will choose different Subscription forms depending on what you send out.

Subscription lists

Often you will have different groups of lists your contacts can sign up for. For example your newsletter but perhaps also whether they will receive specific and more targeted information? It could be if you run a webinar, invitations to events etc. If you give your contacts the opportunity to register and unsubscribe from the individual lists, these will be options on a subscription form. These will be your subscription lists and on the subscription form they are inserted as a field where you can tick a box to sign up.

A subscription list is linked to a static marketing list in Dynamics 365 Marketing. Anyone who signs up for a specific topic will then automatically be added to the associated marketing list.

Do Not Email is a required field on a subscription form. It will update the Do Not Allow Bulk Email field on a Contact and set the value to “Not Allow”.

This action “overwrites” the value of all the individual subscription lists to which they are subscribed. So if the value is Do Not Allow Bulk E-mail on a contact person, then Dynamcis 365 marketing does NOT send out e-mails to that person even though they may also be on a subscription list to receive invitations to events etc.

Forward to a friend

The last option is Forward to a friend webforms.

You will use these forms when you send out invitations to your existing contacts with a link to a web form. The email itself contains hidden data information which enables Dynamics 365 Marketing to track various actions and therefore you do not want anyone other than the person to fill out the form.

Instead, you insert the function “Forward to a friend” and then the person can instead send information about the invitation to colleagues, etc.
If one of these fills out the Forward to a friend form, they will be created as independent Contacts / Leads in your Dynamics 365 Marketing system.

Marketing form templates

You can create different templates that you can use every time you need a new web form. Here you can, for example, set up a layout that must always be used. If your templates contain all required fields and have the right layout design with logo and colors – then they can easily be adapted to the web form you need to have created and used in your new marketing campaign.

Dynamics 365 marketing comes with a number of existing marketing form templates you can use – but our assessment is that you will need to create your own.

Email and Email templates

You use E-mails in your marketing campaigns and communication with your contacts. These Emails are typically sent through your Customer Journeys.

We will not go through all the details or write a detailed guide on how to design and set up your E-mails. With the right training, you can easily set these up.

You can get a sense of what it is like to work with their E-mail editor here:

You must focus on this with E-mails

On the E-mail editor you are on the tab “Summary”

Legal designation – Here you choose whether E-mail should be used for Commercial or as Transactional. You must know the difference between these two options!

Content Type – Here you can select Default or Confirmation Request. Confirmation Request is used if you have set up Double opt-in. In short, when a person signs up for your newsletter, for example, you send them an email to get them to confirm that they own the registered email address. If you have it set up and activated, E-mail templates with the value Confirmation Request are the ones that can be triggered as Double opt-in mail. (These should always be set with Legal designation = Transactional).

Language – which language the e-mail should use by default is especially important if you use Dynamic Content rules in your E-mails. If you operate in several different countries and the individual countries have set up Dynamics 365 Marketing in different languages, then you may have set up different values and depending on how these values are displayed in the different languages, they can influence whether it is displayed correctly when you uses Dynamic Content in your Emails.

Plain Text – You can choose whether to automatically create a plain text version of the content of your E-mails. The email is by default always created as an html version. You should always review and adapt the plain text version before sending out your E-mails. The Plain Text version is more important than you might think in relation to your Spam Score etc.

From Name – Which sender name is with the recipient. There are several studies that have tested the importance of having the right one, send name – ask us for advice if you want to hear more about this?

From Address – Which E-mail address should the E-mail be sent to? Note: The email address itself must be from an Authenticated domain. In short, this means that you must have set up the domain in Dynamics 365 Marketing and proven that it belongs to your organization.

To Address – Which E-mail field do you want to send to? By default, Emailaddress1 is selected. The most important thing here is whether E-mail should be sent to a Contact or a Lead? However, most people will probably have the same E-mail address – but still something you have to be aware of.

Requirements for content in E-mail

There are a few things that your E-mail must contain before you can Go Live and send your E-mail via Customer Journey.

Link to Subscription center – as previously written, Dynamics 365 Marketing is set up with a standard subscription form which is already set to Live when you start up. Your E-mail must contain a link to an activated Subscription center before you can use it. If you use the default form set up from Dynamics 365 Marketing this will be the link to insert: {{msdyncrm_contentsettings.msdyncrm_subscriptioncenter}}

The organization’s company address – also as previously described , you added your company address in the setup of Dynamics 365 Marketing. When you send E-mails, that address must be inserted in the content. (Typically it is inserted at the bottom of the footer).  If you use Default setup, this will be the link to insert: {{msdyncrm_contentsettings.msdyncrm_addressmain}}

Additional fields you can insert

• Contact First Name – {{contact.firstname}}
• Forward to a Friend (Default) – {{msdyncrm_contentsettings.msdyncrm_forwardtoafriend}}
• Open Mail In Browser – {{Message.ViewAsWebpageURL}}

There are many more options than these – so ask about the options if you would like to use some others?

Dynamic content in Email

This is a whole section in itself although it should be quite an important part of your marketing campaigns and communications.

The short version of dynamic content is that you can customize the content displayed by the individual recipient.

Either by inserting and using the data you have registered on the individual contact person. A typical example is data in the First Name field that you use to write Hi “First Name” which at the recipient changes to Hi “their name”.

Or you can insert different Conditional Statements that will determine what content is sent to the individual recipient. Here you use the data you have as a preference and then set up rules for which content is to be displayed.
Dynamics 365 Marketing has a built-in assistant that can help you insert the right code.

Ask For A Fact for advice if you want to use and work with Dynamic content in your E-mails.

The event module for Dynamics 365 Marketing is quite extensive and we do not have all the options described here. Contact us if you want further insight into the various options for managing both internal and external processes when holding events.

You can either use it for small and simple events or you can use it for huge conferences with hotel and accommodation management, local planning for how many people can register for the specific session in relation to the number of participants who can be in the room, create waiting lists , keep track of who is speaking at which session and who you have brought in as a sponsor etc. In addition, there are also several options for post-events, follow-up etc. after your event is over.

If your organization sends out invitations to various events you hold, then you know it can be a big job to plan and keep track of all activities to be included as well as resource management. In addition, to have your events executed in the correct order and time period with mailings of invitations, registration of registered, mailings of confirmation of registration, handling of cancellations and possibly waiting lists etc.
Has your company set goals for your events before you start them? – What is the goal of your events? How many new MQL or SQL should it result in and how do you follow up on these? (Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads)
All this gives you the opportunity to manage simply and easily with events in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

You should not be intimidated by the fact that the event module can handle such huge events if you never hold such large events yourself. Fortunately, it’s simple and straightforward to create small quick events and get these executed too.

Here in the picture you can see all the functional areas that are in connection with Event management. Many parts can be prepared before you start assembling it in a new event. It will, for example, be an advantage to have added the various places you most often hold events as well as information you must include in a new event registration as new fields must be created for these. In addition, you can start thinking in roles and teams at your events. Who is responsible for what and how is the approval procedure? Some of these things you can also control via events in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

We do not review all the functions but get into several of them along the way in connection with setting up an event.

Create new event

Process flow – Dynamics 365 Marketing has a standard set up process flow when a new event is created. This works as you know it from other options with Dynamics 365. The process flow can be adapted to your need to work with events in relation to specific approval elements etc.

Tabs

There are various tabs associated with an event. Each of these tabs contains different sections that can be filled in as needed and relevant to the event you are creating.

General tab

You have to decide if it is a physical event or an online event. (Typically a webinar)
However, it can also be a combination – it is called a hybrid event in Dynamics 365 Marketing. Here you will have a physical event but can give the opportunity for some sessions to have participants online.

You must set a start and end date for your event, mark if it is an event that is repeated regularly, add a location for the event and decide whether it should be possible to sign up for the waiting list?

Note at webinar.
If you are holding your event as a webinar, you must be aware that Dynamics 365 Marketing currently only has one standard connection to this. They have a connector for On24 and you must have a license for that system before you can hold webinars via Dynamics 365 Marketing.

You can connect to other Webinar systems than On24, but this must be configured first!
You do this under Settings> Event Management.

Agenda tab

Once you have created your event, you can start adding the actual content of the event as well as planning further details. You do this under the Agenda tab.

Session og Tracks

If your event has several different sessions for participants to choose from, this can be set up here.
You can also add different tracks to each session.

Note: If you use Tracks, these can be created both on external or internal tracks.
Internal tracks are used in the preparation phase and will not be visible to people outside your organization while external tracks are options for those who sign up for your event.

On the website for your event, Sessions and Tracks will be divided.
If the participants want an overview of the different sessions, they can select these on the Sessions tab.

During Session Tracks, participants can see what options there are and see which session this track is a part of.

If your event does not contain different sessions and tracks but simply has an overall content, then these options are not visible on your event site. Then there is just a general information page and a link to the registration form.

Speakers

If there are different speakers during your event, these can also be created and possibly. displayed on the event page itself. You can fill in a profile on the presenter with pictures and text.

Participants who want to register for your event can under Speakers both read an in-depth profile description of the chosen speaker (if you have filled this in?) and see which sessions the person is giving a presentation on.

Internally in the system, you can add the cost price of your presenters and it is possible to see a history of different events your presenters have previously been used for.

Sponsors

If you are holding an event where you have invited various sponsors, these can also be promoted on your event website.
They will be visible at the bottom of the event website itself.

Internally in the system, it will be possible to note amounts that are sponsored with the type of sponsorship etc.
Unfortunately, it is not (yet) possible to add different sponsors to each session and only have them displayed there.

Event website and registration form tab

The next tab is where you add options for the event registration itself.

There are several critical things you need to keep track of in connection with your event going Live and thus visible and registration possible.
For example. Do you need to know where you want your events to be visible? Basically, it will be on Microsoft Portals they are located – here you must ensure that you have access to Portals in your organization and that it is configured for you to use and publish events.

It is possible to configure your own place to publish events if you do not want to use the default setup. We will not go into that part here, so speak up if it is something your company needs to use?

The Event website itself will show the various events you have put Live in your system. If you have several events that are Live at the same time, these will be visible on the front page and you can go down to the individual event from there.

Among other things, you must decide whether you want to allow anonymous people to register for your event? If you do not allow this, the participants must first have a profile (each participant must be created as a Contact in your system) and be logged in to this before they can register.

By default, Dynamics 365 Marketing has only 3 fields that must be filled in when registering for an event.

• First name
• Last name
• Email

If you want to use other fields, these must first be created before you can add them to the form.

Registration and attendance tab

Here will be gathered an overview of everyone who has signed up for the event itself. There will also be an opportunity to get an overview of those who, unfortunately, unsubscribe.

If needed, read more under the section “Event registration”

Additional information tab

Here you have the opportunity to write down your expectations for the results that will come out of your event. It’s related to what we initially wrote about Events; MQL and SQL.

The more you make out of this type of data the better insights you will begin to gain in the results of the events you are holding.

Post Event tab

If you have set up a survey to follow up on your events, you will find it here.

Note: Currently Dynamics 365 Marketing has a survey module that is being phased out. Instead, it is intended that Forms Pro will be integrated. We will follow up and edit this section at a later date – but the function of being able to send a survey and see answers etc. will remain the same.

Social Insights tab

Social Insights, like the Survey module, is not up to date at this time in Dynamics 365 Marketing.
Microsoft has stopped the development of this.  Instead it is Customer Insights that is the focus.

We mentioned it briefly in the section ”Data first”
Microsoft Customer Data Platform (CDP) – also called Customer Insights has already been launched and we will go in depth with this on this page soon.

Rooms Reservation tab

Tab with an overview of the different locations you have set up as an option for your event. If you have not selected any locations, it will be empty.

Related tab

Last tab is a shortcut to many different options associated with an event. If you select one from the list, it will be visible in a row with the other tabs. It will then disappear and a new one will appear if you choose another.

Event registration

Under “Event Registrations” you can see an overview of everyone who has registered for an event.

From the event itself, it is also possible to see those who have registered and here will only be access to see those who have registered for the specific event.

On the overview, it is possible to see which event the person is registered for, their unique registration ID, date of registration and a unique QR code.
You can use the QR code to insert in a confirmation email (which can be sent out automatically via Customer Journey).

If you have had different sessions and tracks at your events, you can also see which individuals have signed up.

Event templates

As with the Marketing functions, it is also possible to create event templates. If you have events that are similar to each other or events that are repeated several times, you can create different event templates.

This can be done by completely creating a new event template, but it can also be done in connection with an existing event you have already created. It can be easily saved and used as an event template.

Data insight into Dynamics 365 Marketing

The most overall data comes back to Dynamics 365 Marketing. In all sub-areas, such as e-mail, web forms, Customer Journeys etc. you will be able to gain insight into data directly on the record you open.

These entities are enriched with data for better insight.

• Contacts
• Leads
• Segments
• Customer journeys
• Email messages
• Lead scoring models
• Marketing pages
• Marketing forms
• Websites
• Redirect URLs

Insights tab

In the individual areas such as Marketing E-mails, Customer Journeys and Marketing forms, open the record you would like to see insight into data and then click on the tab “Insights”

Here we have, for example, opened a Marketing E-mail.

Depending on the type of record you have opened, there is access to different data information. For example E-mail record only has information about this specific E-mail while Contact records can show data from all the different options that a Contact can be using in connection with marketing activities.

Insights from a Contact record are displayed here.

Important – You only get data from “Web activities” if you have inserted ”Dynamics 365 Marketing Tracking Script” on your website. It must be on all the pages that you want to track and retrieve data from.

If you really want insights and achieve even better results with your data, you need to start comparing data from several areas. Here we recommend you start by using some of the standard solutions Dynamics 365 marketing brings to Power BI.

See data from Dynamics 365 Marketing in Power BI

Once you start having several different Customer Journeys that send out several E-mails during a flow, use different marketing forms in different campaigns etc. then it can become difficult to compare data and ensure the right insight and thus make the right decisions.

You have the opportunity for even better insight into your marketing data by using Microsoft Power BI. Dynamics 365 marketing has the option to set up access to Azure Blob storage and once this is set up, you can download various Power BI templates that you can start using.

However, they are relatively simple and generic and our assessment is that you will need some that are tailored to your specific needs.

At For A Fact, we have set up our own and we are happy to help you customize data views that suit your company.

Note – this solution is currently still in Preview from Microsoft.

Here is an example of a standard dashboard from Microsoft that you can download.

Customer Insights – CDP – Microsoft Customer Data platform

The headline above is three words for the same as Microsoft currently uses.

Maybe you have not heard much about some of these before? But we promise you that soon you will hardly hear anything else from both Microsoft, Microsoft partners and probably also us.

– And with good reason!

We will soon come up with an in-depth article focusing on this but until then, here is a short version of what it is and why we at For A Fact expect this to be something everyone should take a closer look at.

Our assessment is that you should look at Dynamics 365 Marketing and Microsoft’s Customer Data Platform together. The two set up together will give you a long push into being data driven.

What is the Customer Data Platform?

At first, if you start listing how many different places you have data about your customers, then you will probably find that there are really a lot. You probably have Dynamics 365 Sales (CRM) and ERP as the most obvious. Depending on what type of company you are, you may also have data that governs their annual card for membership or subscription? If you do Online marketing, there is data in Google Campaigns and maybe other SoMe channels – and we could probably find even more?

All the data about one and the same person or company is most often spread and lies in several different systems.
Microsoft’s Customer Data Platform tries to gather all that data in one place.

Once you have set up a connection from the various data sources you want, we can via CDP make a model for how it should collect data. In other words, you are allowed to decide which data to prioritize over other more secondary data and eventually you will have a unique profile card for the individual or company – no matter where their data is located.

What can it be used for?

There are several options depending on how far you want to go with this option?

Once you have gathered virtually all the data in Microsoft’s Customer Data Platform, you can start creating different segments across all that data. Segments you are not able to gather today or segments created several different places because there are currently no connection between all your data sources.

You will also be able to find segments that you have not thought about at all because you have not been able to see data collected in this way before. In the long run, we will make sure to come up with some concrete examples of this.

You can also use Microsoft’s AI power.
Microsoft has set up some models you can use.

By analyzing all your data flowing through the Customer Data Platform, the AI engine will begin to see patterns in certain behaviors that you for sure do not have the resources to sit and look for.

For example, compared to everyone else you have sold to in the past year, certain leads now show buying behavior that means that you should mark them as Ready for Battle and tell the sales team to get in touch.

Conversely, AI can also find patterns in relation to who could potentially be about to leave or terminate your collaboration. It gives you an opportunity to be proactive instead of reactive.

If you doubt if AI can do it better than yourself? -Wait until you see the cases that already exist around this and also take a test with yourself and compare the result.

If you would like to hear more about this or try out the possibilities – please contact For A Fact for further information.