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Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

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Posted on by mc625569

Hi All, 

 

We have a medium sized exchange install, and are looking for some type of centralized contact management solution.  

Our ceo wants a simple "outlook based" way to quickly search for a list of contacts (say by zipcode) and then on the spot send this group an email .

the content of this email would change every time, so it can't be a template. The number of recipients would be a static group (about 10-15 board members). 

Is there a way to do this without creating a marketing list, and then a quick campaign? This is far more involved than composing an email in outlook and manually adding people from his contact list? 

It seems there is no manual way in dynamics to send an email to a specific group of people without a quick campaign - which compared to a simple email is really cumbersome. 

Am I missing something?  

 

Thanks

MC. 

 

*This post is locked for comments

  • dkrasner Profile Picture
    dkrasner 10 on at
    RE: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Hi - we looked at Brite Global for a very similar reason. Our concern was that the lists only would do a complete sync between Dynamics and Outlook and not just look for changes.  As a result, a sync could take a very long time and practically only happen one time a day (overnight).  Our users need more 'real time' access to lists - so this wasn't quite right.  We are now looking a product called 'Riva' that can sync a lot of data between the 2 systems (Dynamics and Exchange) however it cannot sync lists..   Any observations ?  Thanks -

  • mc625569 Profile Picture
    mc625569 on at
    RE: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    6 years after my original post I can say we did find a plug-in that copies selected marketing lists to the exchange GAL. It’s made by a small consultancy called Brite Global. It took some tinkering to get working but we are now able to have marketing lists show up as distributor lists in echange.  All things considered the cost was very reasonable, I’m surprised more people don’t use it.  

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Our client takes it a step further and wants to be able to send emails to CRM marketing lists from Outlook.

    Can someone guide us in the right direction. or if there is a third party software that does that.

  • Suggested answer
    Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Hi MC.

    We wanted to do this today. Searched online and found other frustrated users.

    The way we eventually did it was

    Create Marketing List of people we want to send to.

    Created Email Template (with attachment)

    Used Advanced Find to

    select from Contacts

      Select from Marketing Lists

          where Marketing List = "Sports Scholarship"

    This listed all the people in our contacts who were in this specific Marketing List.

    Selected (ticked) all the people and sent direct email from Advanced Find.

    Hope this helps you for next time and anyone else.

    Peter

  • Chris Paoli Profile Picture
    Chris Paoli 440 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Did you ever get an answer to your question?  i agree with your question/frustration.  The simple things are difficult to do with dynamics.

    Thanks,

  • Melissa Boyd Profile Picture
    Melissa Boyd 5 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Hi, I'm just a CRM user but I use the direct mail option 99% of the time.  Just go to contacts, use CTRL and click each contact you want to send to and then follow the next step to create the email and send. It's really as easy as that.

  • mc625569 Profile Picture
    mc625569 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Mike W.

    The only way I've figured out - is to open your marketing list, go to the "add tab" and then click "mail merge members on list" and then choose "blank document" which then opens word, you type in your message then choose "finish and merge".

    I have no idea what other 3 steps people were talking about - but this is the only way I've been able to figure out - its is absolutely horrible for sending an email to a list. I couldn't think of a better way to waste the awesome dynamic list feature for xRM customers than remove easy access to what I'd think would be a really important feature /purpose of having a list in the first place...

    Again, if someone made a plugin to do the obvious . I think dynamics could be a fantastic product, far better than salesforce, but this omission will prevent us from using it.

  • Mike W. Profile Picture
    Mike W. 60 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    I agree 100% with mc625569.  

    Worse still, these mysterious and magic '3 steps' are completely opaque (and well nigh impossible to find).  Basically MS CRM has a lot of videos telling you all the great things you can do with their tool but when it comes time to actually do stuff there is crap for direction on the linear iterative steps you take to actually do these great things.   What does exist is about five versions old (no ribbon and the file pathways have all changed so much that you are left guessing at the redesign and poking around).

    Can someone just please post these simple 1,2,3 steps here on how to send an email to a marketing list?   I can't believe I'm having to ask for that on a support forum.

    Why not this - let sales people choose the marketing lists they build in the drop down accessed via the "to" field of Outlook.  I can now see Accounts, Leads etc.. accessible there... but wouldn't it make sense to have ye ol marketing lists there too?  

    After investing months of time and plenty of money migrating over to MS CRM - it blows the mind that something we didn't even think of asking about - emailing one of these marketing lists - isn't idiot proof obvious.    

    Please - can someone just put those three steps here?   An hour into searching and poking around it blows the mind that I haven't seen how to do this.  What am I missing?

  • mc625569 Profile Picture
    mc625569 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    Yes 3 steps is 3 steps more than what he's used to.  Basically he is looking for a way that our organization can have exchange distribution lists that show up in all employees outlooks. These lists would change frequently enough, and the contact base is large enough that exchange contacts are not

    If he wants to send a list to group a he can build grop a in crm (or have his assistant do it) and then click group a and hit an email, button.

    It seems like a no brainier feature to me. A tracking free option to email, quickly without the extra steps.  

  • Mike W. Profile Picture
    Mike W. 60 on at
    Re: Send email to list of crm contacts without campaign?

    We are completely baffled by this.  Why isn't there a big clear button to 'email' a marketing list?  We don't see it.  

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