Explore Real-Time Marketing Channels

The Channels area in Dynamics 365 Real-time Marketing provides several ways to communicate with customers. Along with email, you can create forms, send push notifications and text messages, and configure custom channels for other communication platforms. These channels can also be incorporated into real-time customer journeys, giving you more ways to engage customers based on their actions, preferences, and needs.

Create Real-Time Marketing Emails

The real-time marketing email builder is similar to the Outbound Marketing email builder. You can use the familiar drag-and-drop experience to add and arrange elements within the email. One important addition is personalization. The Personalize area lets you create conditions that tailor email content based on information such as customer attributes or segment membership. For example, you could create a condition for contacts who belong to a particular geographic segment and customize the content they receive.

Understand Email Compliance

Real-time marketing emails include important compliance requirements. Your emails need your company address and a preference center. The company address and unsubscribe link are automatically included in the email footer. Administrators can also configure sending settings such as:

• Default reply-to email address
• Company address

You'll also need to specify whether an email is commercial or transactional. Commercial emails are standard marketing communications and are sent only to recipients who have opted in to receive marketing emails. Transactional emails relate directly to a transaction or essential customer activity, such as:

• Purchase confirmations
• Monthly bills

These messages can be sent regardless of whether the recipient has opted in to marketing communications.

Create Real-Time Marketing Forms

Real-time marketing forms can collect information from existing contacts or capture new leads. When creating a form, select the appropriate target audience:

• Contact forms can update records when existing contacts submit the form.
• Lead forms can create new lead records when they're submitted.

The form designer uses a drag-and-drop experience similar to the email builder. You can add fields such as:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Marketing permissions
• Consent
• Submit button

Fields can be marked as required, and the design can be adjusted to create a clear, easy-to-use experience.

Use Placeholder Text Instead of Default Values

When configuring form fields, consider the difference between placeholder text and default values. Placeholder text provides an example or prompt without entering actual data into the field. For example, the email field might display an example email address to demonstrate the expected format. A default value, however, represents actual field content and may be submitted to the system if the person doesn't replace it. For fields that require user-specific information, placeholder text can help guide users without accidentally submitting example information as real data.

Collect Marketing Permission and Consent

Forms can also collect permission to send marketing communications. You can customize the wording of marketing permission fields to make the choice clearer for your audience. Instead of using technical terminology, for example, you could ask: Do you want to receive emails from us? You can then provide clear Yes and No options. Real-time forms also include a consent element. When someone provides consent, the information appears in the Consent Center on a per-email or per-phone-number basis. Make the wording around consent clear so people understand exactly what they're agreeing to receive. For example: I want to receive updates, newsletters, and other notifications from Syvantis. You could also collect a phone number and request consent for text messaging when appropriate.

Design and Preview Your Form

The form designer gives you additional elements for improving the layout and user experience. Depending on your form, you can add:

• Text headers and titles
• Images
• CAPTCHA to help prevent bots and spam submissions
• Dividers
• Multi-column layouts

Before publishing, preview the form and check its alignment, spacing, typography, colors, and overall appearance.

Configure What Happens After Submission

Form settings control what happens after someone submits the form. You can configure the form to update an existing record based on the submitted email address or always create a new record. You can also customize the post-submission experience with:

• A thank-you message
• An error message
• A redirect to another webpage

Redirects can be particularly useful for moving the person to relevant content. For example, someone requesting pricing information about a particular product could be redirected to that product's webpage immediately after submitting the form.

Embed Forms and Use Them as Journey Triggers

Real-time marketing forms don't need to be hosted on standalone pages. Once you publish a form, you can generate an embeddable code snippet and use it on another webpage. Form submissions can also serve as triggers within real-time customer journeys. A submission could start a new journey or move a customer forward through an existing journey.

Send Push Notifications

Push notifications are useful for organizations that have their own customer-facing app connected to Dynamics 365. You can send targeted notifications directly to customers' devices. Because notification titles and messages have character limits, keep your message short, clear, and memorable. For example, a notification could promote a limited-time offer and encourage the recipient to immediately open your app. When someone interacts with the notification, you can have it:

• Open your application
• Open a browser to a specific URL

You can also preview how the notification will appear on iOS and Android devices.

Connect with Customers Through Text Messages

Text messaging provides another way to quickly reach customers on their mobile devices. If contacts have provided their phone numbers and opted in to text messaging, text messages can be useful for communications such as:

• Order tracking
• Discount codes
• Flash sales
• Parking restrictions
• Upcoming events
• Time-sensitive announcements

As with email, you'll need to designate whether a text message is commercial or transactional, and the appropriate consent settings apply. Push notifications and text messages can both be used as actions within real-time customer journeys.

Connect Additional Communication Channels

The More channels area allows organizations to extend Dynamics 365 using APIs and custom channels. Custom channels can support communication through systems such as:

• WhatsApp
• Local SMS providers
• Other email services
• Other push notification or messaging applications

A system administrator needs to add the custom channel. Once configured, custom channel messages can be created and used as actions within customer journeys similarly to other communication channels.

Organize Media with the Asset Library

The Asset Library provides a centralized place to manage the images, videos, and files used in Dynamics 365 Marketing. At the time of this class, Dynamics 365 Marketing was transitioning to a unified asset library shared by real-time and Outbound Marketing. Assets from the previous library experience were migrated while maintaining connections to items such as existing emails, templates, and content blocks. Use the Asset Library to keep your marketing media organized. Adding descriptive tags to uploaded files makes it easier to search and filter assets using keywords.

Create Reusable Email Templates

The Templates area lets you create reusable templates for real-time marketing emails. These are similar to Outbound Marketing email templates, but the company address and unsubscribe information are automatically included in the footer. Templates can save time for recurring communications such as:

• Abandoned cart messages
• Event invitations
• Sales and discount offers
• Shipping confirmations

Instead of rebuilding frequently used email structures, you can start with an established template and customize it for the current campaign.

Use Task Templates to Manage Marketing Activities

Task templates provide a way to quickly set up recurring tasks for yourself or your team. These tasks can help keep important marketing activities organized and can be accessed from the My Work section of Outbound Marketing. Tasks created from the real-time marketing area are not separated or labeled differently from tasks created in Outbound Marketing, allowing your internal marketing activities to remain together.

Build Reusable Content Blocks

Content blocks let you create sections of content once and reuse them across different real-time marketing emails. Using the content block designer, you can drag and drop elements, format them, and add the content you want to reuse. This can save time when your organization frequently uses the same information, layouts, or design elements.

Personalize Content Blocks

Real-time marketing content blocks provide additional personalization capabilities. You can create conditions based on customer attributes or segment membership and fine-tune content for specific audiences. Conditions might use information such as:

• When a lead was created
• Whether permission to send marketing emails has been provided
• Whether a record was modified
• The recipient's postal code
• Segment membership

These conditions give you another way to tailor reusable content to the people receiving it.

Understand How Content Block Updates Work

Keep in mind that content blocks are not dynamic after they've been added to an email. You can edit a content block while it's in draft status. Once you set the block to Live or Ready to send, changes made later won't automatically update copies that are already being used in emails. To apply an updated content block:

1. Edit the content block.
2. Make the updated version live again.
3. Open the emails using the previous version.
4. Remove the old content block.
5. Add the updated content block.

Keeping this behavior in mind can help you avoid accidentally using outdated information in future communications.

Bring Real-Time Marketing Together

Real-time marketing combines customer journeys, triggers, segments, communication channels, consent management, and reusable marketing assets to create more responsive customer experiences. With emails, forms, push notifications, text messages, custom channels, templates, and content blocks available in one system, you can build marketing experiences that communicate with customers through the right channels while maintaining personalization, compliance, and consistent content.