CRM Marketing Automation - E-mail based options for marketing to customers
In Microsoft CRM, there are multiple ways to connect with the customers using E-mails.
- Direct Mail
- Quick Campaign
- Full Campaign
- Mail Merge
Now the questions are – what’s the difference and what are the scenarios where one might be better than the other…
The table below lists some of the differences for these approaches.
|
|
Direct Mail |
Mail Merge |
Quick Campaign |
Campaign activity |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Client |
Web |
Outlook |
- Web (Web E-mail form based)
- Outlook (Web or Mail merge)
|
- Web (Web E-mail form based)
- Outlook (Web or Mail merge)
|
|
Templates |
Uses templates from the CRM Settings area |
Uses templates stored in the Microsoft Word “Mail Merge” templates library |
No Templates for Web client, Mail merge templates for the E-mail via mail merge feature |
No Templates for Web client, Mail merge templates for the E-mail via mail merge feature |
|
Response tracking |
Tracked as an activity in the account/contact that the e-mail was sent to. Entire e-mail is stored. |
Tracked as an activity in the account/contact that the e-mail was sent to. The e-mail that was sent is NOT stored. |
Tracked as a campaign response. Can provide an ability for the recipients to unsubscribe. For Web E-mail the e-mail body is tracked. For Mail merge only the action of sending an e-mail is recorded |
Tracked as a campaign response. Can provide an ability for the recipients to unsubscribe. For Web E-mail the e-mail body is tracked. For Mail merge only the action of sending an e-mail is recorded |
|
ROI |
No out-of-box ROI tracking |
No out-of-box ROI tracking |
No out-of-box ROI tracking |
ROI could be tracked based on the cost of the campaign, cost of the campaign activities. Out-of-box report provided for campaign performance and campaign comparison |
|
Automatic sending of the e-mails |
Yes |
Yes |
For web e-mail, default is OFF. Use this hotfix to switch it ON.
For Mail Merge, by default, the e-mails are sent upon completion of the Mail Merge wizard in Microsoft Word |
For web e-mail, default is OFF. Use this hotfix to switch it ON.
For Mail Merge, by default, the e-mails are sent upon completion of the Mail Merge wizard in Microsoft Word |
|
Marketing Lists support for selecting the recipients |
No |
No |
No |
Yes – specific marketing lists can be associated with the campaign activities to target the campaign to a specific set of people. |
Based on the differences, some sample scenarios that may be useful for one option over the other are:
- For bulk E-mails that do not require any response tracking, for example sending a newsletter to the existing customers, either Direct Mail or Mail Merge could be used. The choice between the two is based on whether the e-mails are being sent from the Web Client or the Outlook Client. Another choice to make would be whether it is important to track the e-mail body.
- Quick campaign would make more sense for sales team initiated marketing. Whereas campaign activity based e-mails would make sense for a full-blown marketing team based campaign where there are multiple campaign activities, cost of lists is being tracked etc.
It would be great to understand how you use these options and what you’d like to see changed.
- Manisha Powar
