Why my success in marketing depends on Dynamics 365 CRM

Throughout my 30-year career in marketing, a key part of my role has been generating leads for the sales team; right from the start as a Marketing Assistant to my current role as Head of Marketing.

Over the years the marketing teams I’ve worked in, and been responsible for, have run events, created tonnes of engaging content (both hard copy and digital and everything from blogs to eBooks & infographics), attended exhibitions, run email, social and PPC campaigns, produced a regular podcast, agonised over natural SEO, run telemarketing campaigns and used LinkedIn Sales Navigator to make targeted, personalised approaches to key target accounts.

And throughout it all, a fully functional CRM solution has been at the heart of it all – and for the last 15 or so years that CRM software has been Dynamics 365 CRM (aka Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Marketing).

So why do I say my success depends on Dynamics 365 CRM – the answer is simple… it provides proof of my success.

Dynamics 365 CRM gives me the information that shows where customer A, B or C came from – what marketing activity ignited their initial interest, what kept them interested when their project to purchase a new IT solution slowed or what brought them back to us after their project had previously stalled. It shows me which activities generate the best return on our marketing investments and which activities didn’t work so well. It allows me to track our lead performance month on month, year on year to ensure we are delivering the right number of leads to support the company growth targets.

Operationally it delivers a single, integrated approach to keeping in contact with prospects and customers alike - with its email capabilities, event management functionality, opportunity management and case management (strictly speaking that the last one is Dynamics 365 Customer Service but it’s all part of the same CRM solution). At its core is activity management which means we always know when we last spoke to, emailed or responded to a customer or potential customer. And in our industry when the initial buying cycle can be 9 months (on average) and we work with our customers for many years, then ongoing, informed communication is king!

But we don’t just use it in the sales and marketing team at Tecman, this software is utilised across the entire organisation, from the account managers and support team right through to our Dynamics trainers to ensure every member of the business is up-to-date and aware of any customer activity and conversations. And frankly, we would be lost without it!

Watch our "Behind the Scenes" at Tecman Sales & Marketing video series to learn more!