Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 4 For Dummies®

Chapter 20. Managing Campaigns

As a Customer Relationship Management tool, Microsoft CRM 4 has an entire module related to marketing. A key component of the marketing module is campaigns. Campaigns in Microsoft CRM deals with planning and executing a database marketing campaign. Campaigns are related to database marketing because the campaigns you create deal with data stored in your Microsoft CRM system, and the campaign results will also be stored in your Microsoft CRM system. You need not be a marketing professional to use campaigns. This chapter will introduce you to campaigns, how to execute them and how to record responses.

This chapter logically follows Chapter 19, in which we cull our database to produce lists of customers, prospects, and so on. Now we want to put those lists to good use.

Marketing campaigns can be simple. A campaign can be comprised of a single activity, such as sending a letter, or a campaign can be very sophisticated and comprised of multiple steps. A complex campaign can consist of several phone calls, letters, and trade show attendance involving many people. Whichever campaign is decided upon, marketing managers would like to track campaign response rates. They can then correlate the number of impressions to responses to opportunities and hopefully to new business. This analysis is vital in determining a campaign's effectiveness.

CRM campaigns allow for tracking responses and linking them to sales opportunities. In addition to response rates, campaign ...