End of an Era: What the Phase-Out of Outbound Marketing in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys Means for You
With the Outbound Marketing module in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys reaching its end of life (removal by June 2025), customers using Customer Insights – Journeys will need to transition to real-time journeys by this date. Industry expert and Proximo 3 associate, Malin Martnes, stated “The end of Outbound will force a lot of customers who have been working in Outbound for years, to finally make the jump over to Real-time. Real-time marketing provides a more flexible and better way of working with marketing in Customer Insights – Journeys. We know EOL is June 30, but other parts such as the LinkedIn integration will stop working in December, so there’s no reason to wait until June 2025 to make the jump! Real-time works faster and gives companies new and smarter ways of working with marketing.”
Real-time journeys combine some Outbound Marketing capabilities of old with the newer, more advanced engagement focused capabilities which support the optimisation of customer touchpoints, seamless lead management between marketing and sales, and the incorporation of AI for compelling content creation and speed to market.
But what does this mean for you as a customer? Moving platforms can be a daunting task, so at Proximo 3, we aim to make transitions such as this as smooth and easy as possible.
Changes To Expect:
1. With Customer Insights – Journeys taking a more ‘real-time’ approach, organisations can create more personalised journeys for their customers with the aim of guiding them to a more personalised outcome.
2. A more in-depth focus on the segmentation of customers.
3. Factory set triggers and the ability to create custom triggers for all journeys and segments.
4. The removal of social media scheduling and LinkedIn Lead Generation, though, Microsoft have indicated the possible reintroduction of LinkedIn lead generation in future updates.
5. Use of AI recommendations for all analytics.
6. Built in sales system with scoring models and qualifications.
How Proximo 3 can support you:
1. Planning: With a wealth of experience in platform migration, our experts can strategically assess and plan the transition project for your business, minimising potential risk to business-as-usual activities.
2. Data Migration: Data is key for marketing and sales campaigns, as well as providing insights about your customers and historic ROI. Our team will collaboratively understand your data requirements, assess the critical path for migration and deliver this according to industry best practice.
3. Licensing: Depending on the licenses you currently have in place, you may require new or additional licensing to leverage your chosen capabilities of Customer Insights – Journeys which Proximo 3 can support you with.
4. Customisation: Should you have existing customisations for your Outbound Marketing platform, Proximo 3 can re-develop these in your new solution, or if desired, will support in a modernisation effort to make improvements and optimisations as part of your implementation.
5. Change Management: The key to true success, change management is critical to any project. Our experts will plan for user uptake of the new platform, addressing any challenges and providing additional resources if and when required. However, rest assured, the user interface is similar in look and feel giving your team a ‘home-from-home’ experience.
6. Training: Should training be required, Proximo 3 can provide train-the-trainer or end user training of the system, depending on your needs.
7. Continued Support: Our business leaders are Microsoft MVPs ahead of the curve in terms of future updates and product changes. Therefore, choose Proximo 3 as your partner for continued support for extra reassurance.
For more information on what to expect from the transition, visit Microsoft Learn, and speak to our team to begin your project planning journey with Proximo 3.
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