Three ways organizations can utilize real-time customer journeys in Dynamics 365 Marketing

Moment-based marketing is the future of customer engagement and retention strategies. Dynamics 365 Marketing offers end-to-end customer journey orchestration that allows users to interact with customers at multiple touchpoints across several different channels, and real-time capabilities are now generally available for users to utilize in their marketing efforts. Fresh new features have expanded customer journey functionalities to incorporate more AI-based automation, suggestions, and assistance to ensure each customer has the most personalized experience possible—from the time they’re a prospect, to a closed sale, to following up for support.  

Real-time marketing in Dynamics 365 Marketing provides tools to engage customers in the moments that matter using a variety of customizable dimensions like branching paths and triggers. Insights can be harnessed by AI capabilities to automatically generate recommendations for actions when it comes to content, channels, and analytics. Segments (marketing lists) and integrations also allow organizations to seamlessly leverage customer profile information in the Customer Insights app to ensure each customer engagement utilizes the full range of tools available for an overall personalized experience.  

Here are three scenarios in which organizations can facilitate real-time marketing efforts to catch customers at the right time, every time: 

Creating event-based customer journeys

Event-based customer journeys are customizable paths that offer curated responses to customers based on their actions and reactions to previous marketing materials. First, marketing materials must be created within Dynamics 365 Marketing—these could include email campaigns, SMS messages, or push notifications to send to app users (if applicable). Email campaigns are a critical tool to incorporate into a digital marketing strategy—check out our blog for some tips on making sure that marketing emails pack a punch. Once marketing materials are lined up, setting up the customer journey is easy.  

An example of a situation where an event-based customer journey could be used is sending out an “abandoned cart” reminder to encourage prospective customers to complete their purchase in an online web store. In this instance, the journey type would be set to “event-based” and the event trigger set to- customers adding items to their cart but not completing the purchase before leaving the website. The goal of the journey would be a complete purchase, and the journey exit configuration would remove customers once the goal is completed. There are plenty of opportunities to engage even the most on-the-fence customers, using anything from eye-catching graphics to offering a discount code to reel them back in and encourage them to follow through with purchasing the items left in their cart.  

Event-based customer journeys utilize event-based triggers, which now have the capability to account for real-time customer actions as well. Event triggers control the pace and order of events in a journey and can be based off different types of occurrences- custom events, interaction events, and business events. Custom events are fully defined by Dynamics 365 Marketing users (more on these types of events later), interaction events are based on customer interactions like opening an email or interacting with a push notification, and business events are based on action items occurring in Dynamics 365 apps- like the creation of a contact or a lead, as well as things like shipping purchases or processing refunds.  

Creating custom event triggers

Another way to add depth to the customer journey experience is by creating custom event triggers to facilitate unique and authentic customer interaction scenarios. Custom events can be user-defined in every aspect to set the conditions in which the next step of a customer journey is triggered—triggers can be based on attributes like age, location, or other forms of data stored in customer profiles.  

One scenario in which a custom event trigger could be used is based on how or where an interaction occurred. A hotel may have one unsecured WIFI network available in their lobby that is accessible by anyone that signs up with their email address to use it, and another secured network that is only accessible by guests when they input specific information, like a room number or generated username and password unique to their stay with the email address used in their booking confirmation. The hotel could tailor one follow up email to users who connected to the unsecured lobby network and another, more customized email to paying guests at the end of their stay. Hotels are more likely to focus efforts on paying guests and send out a campaign, potentially paired with a discount code or special offer, to encourage repeat stays or to book with them in the future, whereas any passersby could have used the lobby network and may not be worth the same marketing efforts.  

Note that once a custom event trigger is created, they are integrated into the journey using a code snippet, so users should ensure that they have the capability and security access to do so.  

Creating segment-based customer journeys

Journeys can also be created to engage specific segments for carefully curated messaging to just the right audiences for engagement rates that reflect the contacts who are most likely to follow through with the goals of the content sent out. Segment-based journeys can be used in real-time marketing by utilizing audience data from selected segments to send out the most tailored campaigns possible. One way a segment-based journey could be utilized is in a journey to specifically engage the highest spending customers in the last year. If a company is announcing the upcoming release of a high-cost item, it’s unlikely that every single one of their past customers will be interested if the ticket amount is too high, so marketing efforts most likely will not want to worry about these customers too much. Instead, a journey can be created down to the smallest detail for a segment of customers who have spent over a certain dollar amount YTD, or those whose purchases have totaled over a certain dollar amount each time. This way, the journey targets contacts who are most likely to complete an expensive purchase over one-time purchasers or those who have only been interested in small-ticket items.

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Real-time marketing is an exciting new capability for users of Dynamics 365 Marketing. Click the button below to get in touch with a consultant to see how you can take your digital marketing efforts to the next level with real-time customer journeys and Dynamics 365.