The switch to realtime marketing part 1
Newcomers to the world of D365 won’t even know what Outbound Marketing is. Real-time Marketing is all you know! That’s great! You have a marketing application that has fantastic features! Enjoy your 2024 Campaign Planning… this blog probably won’t be relevant to you.
For those organisations who have lived in the world of D365 Marketing for a while, it is no secret that Outbound Marketing will be deprecated. Maybe not today or tomorrow… but it inevitably will happen. YOU NEED TO BE PREPARED and start the transition soon. It’s not as big or hard of a task as it sounds.
Consider it a 2024 Profession New Years Resolution!
Real-time Marketing should be welcomed with open arms
I’m going to let you into a little secret. Real-time marketing actually isn’t as scary as it first appears to be. As a marketing executive who has really been there, I understand the frustration… there is nothing worse than having a system that worked and then the organisation giving you a different system to use for your daily tasks;
I know the drill…
You think to yourself why on earth have the changed this?! Where has that button gone? The old system worked fine. Now I need to relearn and get my head around this. This is going to be too time consuming and I have all my campaigns to plan!
The introduction of Real-time Marketing could arguably receive a similar reception to a few of those I have listed above. Some organisations or some people just don’t particularly like change. (Why fix what isn’t broken ..right?; Wrong!)
The beauty of Real-time marketing is that it has built on the positive features that outbound marketing has to offer, and has further enhanced the functionality that it provides; making the email builder designer (and other features) a lot more intuitive.
My advice to any organisation that has experienced Outbound Marketing and hasn’t yet worked with Real-time Marketing…..
START USING REAL-TIME MARKETING FOR ALL OF YOUR NEW CAMPAIGNS COMING UP!
For those emails that you have not yet built, start using real time marketing to design and send. Not only is the email builder more intuitive, the customer journey designer is also. I personally find it less clunky and more time efficient. The segment builder is much more easier too. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s easier to locate tables for fields as part of your segment.
PLAY AROUND WITH THE SYSTEM! THE APP ISNT LIKE OTHER APPS. YOU WONT BREAK ANYTHING BY BUILDING
Like any marketing system, marketeers learn best by doing. Being hands on with the system and just messing round with it for a little bit.
(Disclaimer: Just don’t go live with a journey and send a Test email to all your contacts…. It has been known. You won’t be the first and I can guarantee you won’t be the last)
I have an Outbound Marketing email, do I need to rebuild it in Real-time Marketing?
The answer in short is no. You can import existing outbound marketing emails into real time marketing. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t rebuild it; you could benefit from a more intuitive email builder and features that are available. So before you do click that all important import button, ask yourself:
Could I improve this email?
Would I gain anything from using the content variation blocks instead of the embedded code within the email? 🤔
Is there a better way of sending the email?
E.g. outbound marketing is segment based, a collection of contacts that meet criteria for receiving communications. But with real-time marketing we can be more specific and email the contact when a contact record is created , use a real time trigger to send a “welcome” message for example.
I definitely want to re-use my email, how do I import an Outbound Marketing email into Real-time Marketing?
Go to real-time marketing email channel and select Import Emails in the top ribbon.
The Import Wizard will open and you can select up to 50 emails to import across, along with the content blocks that you have created.
Side note: if you choose to skip the import of the associated content blocks, the association with the imported email will be lost.‼️
Are there any limitations to the emails that are imported across?
Emails that include A/B tests will not be imported
Some emails will need to be reviewed if they contain the following elements as the import process removes them:
Surveys 📋
QR Code
Code elements
Personalisation that includes #if or # else conditions
further information can be found here :
Which brings me back to my previous statement… just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It may be more of a headache particularly where code is concerned)
NEXT WEEKS BLOG : WHAT TO DO IF OUTBOUND MARKETING SUDDENLY DISAPPEARS FROM THE APP AFTER AN UPDATE (Don’t worry it doesn’t happen often, but I just thought I’d write a blog as it is handy to know!)
Kelly
