ExactTarget for Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 Email Automation with Workflow

Audience

This document is intended for use by marketers who want to automate email campaigns. Some of the procedures are intended for system administrators, VARs, or Dynamics CRM 4.0 power users for incorporating the email automation into the Dynamics CRM workflow.

Definitions

The following terms are used throughout this document:

What Is Workflow

Workflow is a tool in Dynamics CRM that automates common business tasks and processes. For example, you might use Workflow for:

• Sales: opportunity and pipeline management
• Support: case management and escalation
• Marketing: email marketing automation

The ExactTarget with Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration provides tools for use with email marketing automation.

What Is Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is using the email automation program feature in ExactTarget for Dynamics CRM to send marketing emails automatically. These emails may be automatically sent:

• In response to an event, for example, a confirmation message sent to a lead who signs up to attend a web seminar.
• At a time relative to a static event, for example, a reminder message sent three days before a tradeshow to remind a lead to visit your booth
• At a time relative to a lead-specific event, for example, a reminder message sent one week before a lead's free trial program expires.

Using email automation programs, you can create an email action for each email you want to send as part of an automated campaign. You can then incorporate the program into a parent workflow.

Even if you do not have access to use the Workflow features in your Dynamics CRM account, you can create an email automation program. You can then collaborate with your system administrator, VAR, or local super user to incorporate the program into the workflow.

This feature also allows you to stop the email actions without stopping the whole workflow. For example, if you notice that the content of an email is out-of-date, you can stop the email action to prevent the message from being sent, make the corrections to the content, and restart the email action. Requests for the email content that have been queued while you had the action stopped will be sent the corrected content.

Why Use Email Automation with Workflow

You might use email automation in use cases such as the following:

• To respond automatically customer feedback. For example, you might automatically send a message to thank the customer and let them know that someone from your customer service organization will contact them soon.
• To send an automatic confirmation message after someone downloads a white paper.
• To send an automatic transaction summary message after someone completes a purchase.
• To create an automated program for lead nurturing.
• To alert customers who are interested in an out-of-stock product when the product is back in stock.
• To follow up with a lead who abandons a form or shopping cart before completion.
• To send an automatic welcome message when someone completes a subscription or membership.
• To automatically alert customers to activity on their account.

Scenarios

Northern Trail Outfitters wants to send confirmation, reminder, and follow-up email messages to leads who register for their web seminar according to the following process:

1. The lead signs up for web seminar through a form on the company's website. The form uses the Web-to-Lead add-in functionality to capture the information in Dynamics CRM.
2. The system immediately sends the lead an automated confirmation email.
3. Three days prior to the web seminar, the system sends the lead a reminder message.
4. Three days after the web seminar, the system sends the lead a survey to follow-up on the relationship started at the web seminar.

Before creating the program that contains an email activity for each of these messages, Northern Trail Outfitters must create the email message and content of each email to send using the ExactTarget email creation tools.

After the content of the emails is created, Northern Trail Outfitters creates the email automation program and the email actions for each email to send. The system will use the information Northern Trail Outfitters enters to create a child workflow. Even though the Northern Trail Outfitters employee does not have access to the workflow tools, that person can create the email automation program that can be included in a parent workflow. 

First, the NTO marketer logs in to Dynamics CRM, clicks the ExactTarget tab, and clicks Email Marketing Automation to display the email programs in the account.

The NTO marketer clicks the New Email Program button in the toolbar to create a new program. The Create a New Email Marketing Automation window appears and the marketer enters the name and description of the program. When the NTO marketer clicks OK, the system confirms that the email marketing automation program named Web Seminar Automation was successfully created.

Next, the NTO marketer double-clicks the program to display the Email Actions screen. On this screen, the marketer adds an action for each of the emails to send over the course of the program.

The marketer clicks the New button on the toolbar, which displays the Create Email Action window. On this window, the NTO marketer enters:

• The name and description of the email action
• The CRM entity associated with this email action.
• Whether to create an email action campaign automatically or choose from a preexisting campaign. If the marketer wanted to choose a preexisting campaign, that would be done on this window as well.
• The ExactTarget email to send. This email content must already exist before this step. The marketer can override the subject line on this window too, if desired.
• The From address to use with this email action. The marketer chooses to have the from address be the record owner of the Contact to receive the email.
• Whether to return individual tracking results as campaign responses.

The NTO marketer clicks the Create Email Action button and repeats this step for each of the other two emails to send as part of this program.

From the Email Actions screen, the NTO marketer will have the option to later stop the execution of an email action by highlighting the email action and clicking the Stop button. The NTO marketer might want to stop an email action if there was an error in the email message. The NTO marketer could stop the sending long enough to correct the problem. After the email was updated, the marketer would highlight the email activity and click the Start button to resume sending the message.

After the program is complete, the NTO marketer enlists the help of the system administrator to include the program in the parent workflow. The system administrator logs into Dynamics CRM and clicks the Settings tab and then Workflows to display the Workflows workspace.

The system admin double-clicks the desired workflow to display the details of the workflow in the Workflow window. The system admin sets up the workflow to begin the Webinar Automation child workflow when a new lead comes into the system with a source of [Online Webinar].

The system administrator must publish the workflow AND the marketer must start the email automation program in order for the workflow to appropriately process the online web seminar leads.

The marketer can see the results of the email automation program, by running the ExactTarget Program Performance Report. The marketer logs in to Dynamics CRM and clicks the ExactTarget tab, then Reports.

The NTO marketer double-clicks ExactTarget Program Performance Report and completes the report parameters in the window.

Click the View Report button to display the report.

Procedures

This section contains procedural information you can use when implementing ExactTarget email automation programs.