Microsoft Dynamics Marketing becomes Customer Insights - Journeys
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is an application that helps marketers plan, execute and analyze campaigns. It offers features such as email marketing, lead management, event management and marketing analytics. On September 1, 2023, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing will be replaced by a new application: Dynamics 365 Customer Insight.
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights is an application that aggregates, analyzes and visualizes customer information from multiple sources. It enables companies to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers and create personalized experiences across multiple channels. It offers features such as customer profiles, segments, journeys, AI-powered recommendations, and copilot.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing will no longer be sold as a standalone application as of September 1, 2023!
Instead, it will be sold together with Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights as a single product called Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights. The two applications will be called:
- Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Journeys
- Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Data
Why did Microsoft make this change? What are the advantages of Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights compared to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing? Also, how can customers who are already using Microsoft Dynamics Marketing migrate to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insight? In this blog post, we will answer all of these questions.
What's the importance of transforming marketing to customer insights?
Microsoft has made the change from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights to meet the demands of the modern marketing world. Customers expect personalized, relevant and timely experiences across multiple channels. To meet these expectations, companies must be able to understand and address their customers in real time.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing has focused primarily on outbound marketing: it allowed marketers to send messages to prospects and existing customers to encourage them to buy or interact. This approach was not always effective or efficient, as it was often based on incomplete or outdated data. As a result, it was not always possible to address customers' individual needs and preferences.
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights focuses on inbound marketing: it allows marketers to identify, segment, and target customers on an individualized basis using their activities and behaviors. This approach is much more effective and efficient because it is based on complete and up-to-date data and puts customers at the focus.
What are the benefits using Microsoft Customer Insights?
The top 5 benefits of Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights compared to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing
The integration of the two former applications into a single product SKU under the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights offers many advantages compared to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing.
1. Consistent Customer View
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights collects data from various sources such as CRM systems, websites, social media, e-commerce platforms and more. This data is then mined, enriched, and combined into consistent customer profiles. These profiles hold information such as demographic characteristics, interests, purchase history, feedback, and more. This allows organizations to know and understand their customers better.
2. Customer journey
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights enables companies to track the customer journeys across different channels. These customer journeys indicate how they interact with the company, which touchpoints they use, and which goals they achieve. This enables companies to measure and optimize the effectiveness of their marketing activities.
3. Segmentation and target group creation
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights enables companies to divide their customers into different segments. These segments can be defined according to various criteria such as geographical location, age, gender, income or behavioral patterns. This allows companies to send more targeted and relevant messages to their customers.
4. AI-assisted recommendations
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide companies with recommendations for content, channels, and analytics. These recommendations are based on customer data and feedback, as well as industry best practices. This allows companies to improve and personalize their marketing strategies.
5. Copilot
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights offers a feature called Copilot that allows companies to ask questions about their customers in native language and get instant answers. These answers can take shapes such as tables, graphs, or text. This allows companies to explore, analyze and understand their customers in a simple and fast way.
More than just a customer data platform
The Microsoft platform goes far beyond the functions of a customer data platform (CDP). Thanks to it, data silos can be efficiently eliminated. With over 400 connectors, both Microsoft and third-party data sources can be easily linked. By merging the two prior applications into Microsoft Customer Insights, data from multiple sources can now be integrated, analyzed, and leveraged to improve customer understanding and targeting. Customer Insights - Data allows the creation of dynamic segments that are constantly updated based on real-time data. Customer Insights - Journeys creates personalized experiences for customers that are seamlessly integrated with segments. In addition to a technological advantage, this also revolutionizes the way businesses design and understand their customer experience.
How do I upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights?
Existing Microsoft Dynamics Marketing customers can continue to use the outbound marketing features. They only need to take a few steps to access the new inbound marketing capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights:
Licensing Microsoft Customer Insights
Existing customers can renew their old single-user license for another contract cycle or upgrade to the new Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights licensing within the two-year renewal window (Sept. 1, 2023 to Sept. 1, 2025) and at the time of contract renewal. To switch, they must purchase a new Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights license to use the inbound marketing features.
Integration Microsoft Customer Insights
Existing Microsoft Dynamics Marketing customers need to synchronize their data from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights to get a unified customer view. This can be done through the Dataverse interface shared between the two applications. The data from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is displayed as sources in Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights, where it can be processed and analyzed.
Migration from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing
Current Microsoft Dynamics Marketing customers need to transfer their existing campaigns, segments, and content from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights for further use or optimization. This can be done with the export and import features provided by both applications. The exported files from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing can be imported as a template into Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights.
For whom is Microsoft Dynamics Insights particularly interesting?
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Journeys is a tool that makes the customer experience easy to understand and to optimize. It helps different organizational roles to achieve their goals.
CEO
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Data enables the collection, preparation and evaluation of data from various sources. A CEO can use it to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of his company, identify trends and patterns, evaluate opportunities and risks, and make informed decisions.
Marketing Manager
The use of Customer Insights - Journeys enables the marketing manager to create personalized campaigns based on customer behavior and preferences. This leads to higher customer retention and an increase in ROI for marketing activities.
Sales Manager
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Journeys enables sales managers to gain a deep understanding of the customer journey, leading to data-driven decisions, personalized marketing, improved customer experience and ultimately increased revenue.
Data Analyst
The data analyst can identify and interpret complex data patterns through the use of Customer Insights - Data. This enables better decision-making and can lead to the identification of new business opportunities.
Our conclusion
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing used to be a powerful outbound marketing application that helped marketers plan, execute and analyze campaigns. This will now be replaced by a new application as of September 1, 2023: Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Journey. Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights - Journey is an innovative inbound marketing application that helps companies understand and target their customers. It offers features such as customer profiles, segments, journeys, AI-powered recommendations, and copilot.
The change from Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights is an chance for companies to adapt their marketing strategies to the modern marketing world and create personalized experiences for their customers.
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