Using Marketing Lists in Dynamics 365 Sales or Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement for a B2B Christmas campaign is possible, but there are limitations if you want to add specific attributions (like marking contacts for a card vs. gift) to each contact within the list. Marketing Lists in Dynamics 365 are mainly designed for grouping contacts or accounts for bulk communication and segmentation purposes but lack more granular customization for individual attributes within the list itself.
Option 1: Use Custom Fields and Advanced Find
You could add custom fields to the Contact entity to track whether a contact should receive a card, a gift, or both. Here’s how:
- Add a custom "Holiday Campaign" field to the Contact entity to mark the gift type. For example, create two custom Boolean fields:
- "Christmas Card" (Yes/No)
- "Gift" (Yes/No)
- Update each contact’s record to reflect their preferences.
- Use Advanced Find to filter contacts based on these fields and create views for each group (e.g., "Contacts Receiving Christmas Cards Only" and "Contacts Receiving Both Cards and Gifts").
- Create separate Marketing Lists for each group based on these views if needed for easier segmentation.
With this approach, you don’t need to export to Excel, and you can track gift and card preferences within Dynamics.
Option 2: Leverage Dynamics 365 Marketing (if licensed)
If you have access to Dynamics 365 Marketing, you can use Customer Journeys and Segments to organize contacts based on attributes and send personalized communications. However, Dynamics 365 Marketing does not inherently solve the problem of tagging contacts with specific gift/card preferences unless you add custom fields as described above.
Additionally, Dynamics 365 Marketing has more advanced segmentation capabilities, allowing you to create custom segments based on the contact fields without manually assigning them to Marketing Lists.
Option 3: Use a Custom Entity for Campaign Management
For more complex campaign tracking, you could create a custom Campaign Contacts entity to associate additional attributes with each contact in a campaign:
- Create a custom "Campaign Contact" entity with fields for "Contact," "Campaign," "Card," and "Gift."
- Set up a many-to-one relationship between the custom entity and the Contact entity.
- For each campaign (e.g., "Christmas 2024 Campaign"), create records in the Campaign Contacts entity specifying if a contact should receive a card, gift, or both.
- Use views and reports to filter and track contacts based on these attributes.
This option is more complex but offers maximum flexibility if your campaign management needs grow in the future. It also keeps all data in Dynamics 365 and avoids Excel exports.
Option 4: Export to Excel (Quick and Simple)
If you’re looking for a straightforward approach, you could export your Marketing List members to Excel, where you can easily mark preferences for "Card," "Gift," or both. This might look like:
- Export the Marketing List to Excel.
- Add columns for "Card" and "Gift" preferences and fill them out as needed.
- Use this Excel sheet to track preferences and handle mailing/gift distribution manually.
The downside is that this method does not keep the data within Dynamics 365, so you lose CRM tracking and reporting capabilities for this attribute.
Recommendation
For a quick setup, I recommend Option 1 (Custom Fields on Contact) since it allows you to manage the campaign directly within Dynamics 365 without extensive customization or needing to rely on external tools. However, if you anticipate needing to run more segmented campaigns in the future or if you need additional tracking and reporting features, Option 3 (Custom Campaign Contacts Entity) would be the most scalable solution.
