Cajsa Vestergårdh is a Dynamics 365 application consultant, and in her role she works with many organizations that use Dynamics as their business system but handle mailings using a completely different tool. It works—but it also creates challenges that come up time and time again. Read her reflections on these challenges below.
When mailings end up outside of Dynamics
I often come across companies that manage their customers, members, business, and activities in Dynamics 365. But when it comes to newsletters, campaigns, and invitations, those are handled outside of Dynamics.
A common approach I hear is:
“We export an Excel list from Dynamics, import it into our marketing system, create the mailing, and send it to the target audience.”
This works. The information reaches the target audience, which is the main purpose of the mailing. However, this approach creates several recurring problems.
Challenge 1: Two Systems – Two Truths
The data ends up in two places: in Dynamics and in the marketing system.
Lists are exported, imported, and updated in various places.
As a result:
- Customer information may differ between the two systems
- A person may be relevant when the list is generated but not at the time the mailing is sent, since the data is not updated in real time and may have changed (e.g., a purchase was made or a membership was canceled).
We’re losing sight of the big picture when it comes to the customer. The marketing department has statistics from mailings, while sales reps and account managers have customer and activity information in the CRM. Each sees their own part—but no one sees the whole picture.
Challenge 2: It’s hard to be truly personal
Companies have valuable customer data stored in Dynamics. But it’s complicated (or impossible) to use that data in mailings when they’re sent through a separate system.
The result is often generic mailings. If you want to be more precise, you’ll need more lists, more segments, and more manual work (and time), rather than being able to build more cohesive customer journeys.
Challenge 3: Consent and Compliance
Consents must be up to date and accurate. When we have two different systems, there is a risk that consents will be “shuffled around,” making it unclear which consent actually applies to a specific recipient at any given time.
Very ad hoc, little automation
Taken together, these challenges often lead to:
- ad hoc work
- manual processes that are repeated daily, weekly, or monthly
- difficult to automate, because the systems aren’t integrated well enough
It ends up being more reactive than proactive, and rarely very effective.
If we look at everything above, there is a clear common thread: the challenges arise when customer data and mailing data are stored in two different systems.
Customer Insights – Everyday Journeys
Of course, I’m biased toward Customer Insights – Journeys, since that’s the product I work with every day. But it’s precisely in these situations that I see what a big difference it makes when marketing campaigns and CRM are more closely integrated. This is where we can truly gain a 360-degree view of our customers, become data-driven, minimize risks, and act in real time.
In my next post, I plan to discuss what a journey like this typically looks like in practice—from “ready to take the next step” to having the first customer journeys in place.
