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Prodware Blog: Microsoft Dynamics Marketing – The power of lead automation and scoring software

10 April 2015

Why relevant and targeted content is crucial to successful marketing campaigns

The last time you bought something new – whether as an individual or as part of a business – what did you do before buying?

Anonymous online research? If so, you’re not alone.

A 2014 study found that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying, research corroborated the year before by Cisco. As an individual shopper, you probably don’t find these results surprising. But don’t forget that they also apply to B2B purchases – another 2014 study found that a massive 94% of B2B buying decisions involve some form of online research.

The implications for your website, whoever you’re targeting, are huge.

The modern website must be presented not only in terms of relevant content but also relevant timing. Who is visiting your website and when? What is their need, their buying position – at that moment?

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (MDM) is one way of helping with these challenges.

At its most simple level, a marketing automation software package like MDM enables seamless planning, execution and analysis of marketing campaigns – including the design and sending of email marketing – in one place. It’s far easier for the marketing team to coordinate relevant and targeted digital content with communications intended to drive specific types of website traffic.

Likewise, tools like MDM link up events planning and management, and social listening, with other ongoing marketing channels. Once again, centralised, streamlined management means the website can be updated in conjunction with other marketing activity, not in isolation of it.

More specifically, processes like creating and customising landing pages can be managed centrally. These enable the corporate website to respond in a highly bespoke way to potential customers who have received very specific pieces of prior communication.

It certainly makes managing a complex and sometimes disparate marketing function easier, bringing divisions and departments under one roof and ensuring that every stage in the campaign journey, from planning through to reporting and analytics, is managed from the same place. But where MDM really comes into its own is with its ability to sync with your existing CRM (notably, whether you’re using Microsoft Dynamics CRM or another platform), sharing contact information and activity history for each individual customer or business.

How to automate and score your leads with Microsoft Dynamics Marketing

 

But marketing automation software such as Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is not simply a glorified campaign execution engine, though perhaps that is often the comfort zone that users start from. In a 2014 Marketing Automation Adoption Trends report, Gleanster, makes the point that “It’s hard for marketers to break legacy marketing practices. Also, it takes time before lead scoring and business rules start to generate measurable results that can champion continued support for the platform.” 

How does lead scoring work? So when a form on a landing page is completed, a case study downloaded or a webinar is registered for, a social media post liked or shared; you can see the previous contact you’ve had with that individual and a picture starts to build. More powerful than this, the prospect’s engagement with you sets triggers within your automation platform and delivers to them a more personalised experience with content appropriate to their needs.  When there is such an amount of noise and content out there, effective content marketing has to be targeted.  

Furthermore, because the marketing team has attributed differing values (lead scores) to these various touch points or behaviours it can determine when a prospect is more likely to be sales ready and therefore set to be engaged with in a different way, i.e. within telemarketing and sales functions. This level of longer term nurturing must be carried out in conjunction with your non-digital sales and marketing process, so an integrated platform such as Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, which connects with CRM, offers a seamless approach, automating lead management and driving better results.

For more information on how marketing automation could help your organisation, contact Prodware today.