Dynamics 365 & Act-On Marketing Automation For Tracking the Customer Journey

There is only one way to add value to your business consistently. That is to keep ahead of rapidly changing customer demands in the marketplace. You can do that by strategically aligning your sales and marketing operations. No doubt you’ve already figured that out. According to studies,  87% percent of sales and marketing leaders believe that sales and marketing alignment is critical to business growth. Successful alignment can lead to an additional 200% in revenue from marketing tactics.

Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM is the first tool in the sales/marketing alignment strategy. But CRM (Customer Resource Management) alone is not enough to achieve the kind of success that those statistics refer to. You need a marketing-focused tool like Act-On to complete the picture.

Your CRM solution has many strengths, but it may not provide the detailed marketing data that leads to success. When you align your CRM solution with integrated marketing automation, you’ll be able to create more personalized and meaningful experiences at every stage of the customer journey.

New marketing approach for today’s buyers

B2B buyers have changed the way they shop for products and services. It’s more important than ever for sales and marketing to work together for a successful outcome. Sales reps no longer go door to door, hoping to find a market for their goods. Now marketing teams are responsible for locating prospective customers and feeding the best leads to the sales team.

Buyers now shop with technology. Their research and interaction with your company may begin with a social post, a digital ad, or an email generated by your marketing team. How do you capitalize on that interest and keep your buyer moving along your sales channel to conversion? CRM integrated with marketing automation will enable your teams to accomplish this journey and realize increased sales.

Why Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM and Act-On are better together:

• You can build, automate, measure, and optimize lead generation, lead nurturing, customer retention, and customer upselling campaigns that lead to positive outcomes.
• Track and score leads based on behavior, and then share that data seamlessly with sales.
• Implement account-based marketing tactics to coordinate more personalized lead nurturing.
• Automatically send leads to sales once they meet or exceed your lead score threshold.
• Manage, align, and recategorize leads based on specific behaviors.
• Focus on the most likely prospects at any given time. Understand why a lead was qualified and correctly assigned in the CRM.

Quality data is essential for identifying promising leads

Integrating your Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Act-On marketing automation lets you leverage accurate data. This makes it easier to define and identify sales-ready leads. When the two systems work together, your teams can make better-informed decisions at each stage of the customer journey.

Act-On analyzes the activity history for each lead. It delivers the most promising prospects into your CRM based on your customized lead scoring configuration. For each prospect, your sales team will be apprised of:

• The eBooks, infographics, podcasts, videos, and other content your prospect interacted with
• Any emails your prospect opened
• The webinars they attended and how long they stayed
• Which products interest them, and how much time they spend on specific web pages.

With this engagement data, your sales team can determine your prospect’s interest level. They can then tailor their conversations with the prospect to move the sale toward completion.

Choosing the best marketing automation solution  

Your business has unique processes, resources, goals, and budgets that will influence your choice of marketing automation tools. The tool must integrate seamlessly with your Microsoft Dynamics solution to get the best out of both. It must also align with your business processes. Here are some questions to ask:

• Will the marketing solution integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM?
• How quickly will you realize a return on your investment (ROI)?
• Is the platform intuitive and easy for your teams to learn?
• Will data sync automatically between the two systems?
• Does the vendor’s onboarding program appear sufficient?
• Does the platform include account profiles that roll up all contact-level engagement data?

The best marketing automation solution will bring marketing and sales into closer alignment. That will allow you to support clients with greater understanding and personalized relevant communications and offerings.

Connecting marketing automation with Microsoft Dynamics CRM creates a command center that allows you to create, manage and track campaigns across multiple channels throughout the customer journey. With Act-On’s marketing automation tools, you can implement customer journey mapping to deliver at every stage. Use Act-On to build accurate customer personas, elevate customers into brand champions, and move your customer journeys to success.

Contact our experts at Act-On and let us show you how Dynamics 365 and Act-On are better together.

By Act-On, act-on.com

The post Dynamics 365 & Act-On Marketing Automation For Tracking the Customer Journey appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.