It’s Year End – Do You Know Where Your Marketing Dollars Are? You Do with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

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Quick, when your boss asks you how much revenue marketing has generated for your company this year, will you be able to easily answer the question?  Or how many new leads?  New opportunities?  How about customer satisfaction?  Can you prove it?  You can with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

As the Marketing Manager for The TM Group, a Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner in Michigan, I participated in two marketing events recently, and on separate occasions the expert speakers shared identical advice about making sure that your marketing efforts pay off:

#1  Always establish concrete revenue and specific customer goals with your marketing plan.

#2  The most successful marketing campaigns include rigorous data management and testing.

#3  If you don’t measure your results, you’ll never know what worked.  Or how you wasted resources, including time and money.

In the past, small and midmarket companies often thought these basic rules of marketing didn’t apply to them – only to bigger organizations with a large marketing staff and budget.   Marketing is often treated like a necessary evil, a cost center, for creating nice-looking brochures and websites.    But in today’s lean environment, every dollar has to count twice, and savvy companies--small, medium and large--know that the right marketing mix can have a big impact on growth, profitability, and competitive advantage.

The versatile, easily customized marketing modules and free accelerators in Microsoft Dynamics CRM have helped many of our clients, especially those with a limited budget and staff.  Marketers have long relied on their indispensable Microsoft Office tools -- Outlook, Word, and Excel – and they quickly learn how to leverage Dynamics CRM, with its intimate integration to Office, powerful Microsoft SQL Server database, and flexible workflow wizards.  The learning curve is fast for marketing pros to start using the solution and to tap into CRM’s rich potential.

Here’s an overview of how the Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing suite provides the essential elements for managing a lucrative marketing plan:

Strategy & Budget: Campaign project planning and timelines; ROI goal setting; expected milestones and metrics; estimated expenses and cost calculations

Tactics & Deployment: Activity management for scheduling and executing integrated, multi-touch campaigns, including: email marketing, telemarketing, events, tradeshows, direct mail, advertising, affiliated programs, surveys, and social media integration

Measurement & Results:  Campaign responses; closed-loop analysis reports for leads, opportunities, and revenue; sponsor and vendor results; customizable SRS reports and dashboards; integration to sales, custom service and accounting reports

We’re always interested in how other marketing teams are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and welcome any ideas or innovative suggestions you might have to share.  Post a comment to this blog, or feel free to reach me at [email protected] .

The TM Group, Microsoft Dynamics XRM Provider and the most accomplished Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partner in Michigan.