Using Microsoft Forms & Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Two Microsoft 365 applications are especially useful for Marketers: Forms and Dynamics 365. This article will take a deeper look into both of these apps, as well as how they can be used in the field of marketing.

What is Real-Time Marketing? 

To better understand why Microsoft Forms and Microsoft Dynamic 365 are valuable tools for those who work in marketing, it’s helpful to start with a brief overview of what exactly real-time marketing is. Real-time marketing is a form of marketing where the needs and/or preferences of customers are responded to in real-time, or as close to this speed as possible. It often entails sending relevant messages to customers via social media channels. This form of marketing is based on customer feedback, current trends, and other events that affect shopping patterns. This reactionary kind of marketing seeks to provide a quick turnaround in which those selling products or services can connect more effectively with audience members.

What is Microsoft Forms?

Part of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, Microsoft Forms is a service with which users can create surveys, quizzes, polls, and automatic marketing initiatives. These can be shared with employees, as well as third-party members such as customers, to better understand their interests, preferences, and behaviors.

When working with Forms, users typically make one of the following three form types: surveys, quizzes, or polls:

• Surveys help Forms users collect valuable information about both existing and new customers. Surveys are also a helpful tool for gathering insights about market research, which is essential for aiding an organization in developing new strategies. 
• Quizzes have many uses in Forms. They have applications for creating case studies, as well as identifying new customers. They can also be included in thank-you emails to ensure they reach the desired audience.
• Polls are a helpful way of collecting free feedback on services and products. They can also be used to increase traffic on a website. In addition, polls are especially helpful in that they offer Forms users a more robust understanding of customers.

Several components can be included in a given form in order to gather the most helpful information:

• Ranking or rating evaluations
• Multiple-choice questions
• Text-based questions
• Net Promoter Scores
• Likert scales

BecauseForms is part of the Microsoft suite, it can easily integrate with various other Microsoft 365 applications:

• Stream: It’s possible to use Forms directly from Stream, a video-sharing application. In addition, users can instead integrate Forms content into Stream. 

• Excel: Documents created in Forms can link directly to Microsoft Excel. By doing so, any survey or poll in Forms will transform into a spreadsheet in Excel. Integrating these apps also enables survey responses being collected in Forms to be automatically entered into Excel, where changes are reflected in real-time.

• SharePoint: After documents are created in Forms, they can be integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, a system designed for storing and managing documents. Those who wish to integrate Forms documents with SharePoint simply choose to store a form in SharePoint, where it can then be integrated into a specified site.

• Teams: Forms also integrates smoothly with Teams, where it is directly incorporated into the Teams space the user interacts with on a daily basis. This provides Forms users with a way to create a survey or poll, then share it over a Team channel using the chat feature rather than external links.

• Dynamics 365: Because Forms can integrate directly with Dynamics 365, using these two apps together provides Marketers with a powerful tool for better connecting with a customer base.

Using Microsoft Forms for Marketing

Microsoft Forms has many tools and functions that have direct applications for those working in the field of marketing:

• Marketers who use Forms often choose to create a small library containing forms that can be reused as needed and inserted on different marketing pages. Marketing forms consist of various elements, such as configuration settings, graphical components, fields, and buttons. 
• Polls provide insights from internal or external stakeholders, indicating their preferences or prior work/purchasing habits.
• Forms can be accessed on all web browsers, which makes them accessible from users’ homes, offices, or while out and about via their mobile phones.
• Forms users can select the “Responses” feature of Forms to see the responses to a poll or survey before the submission deadline. This provides a helpful way for Marketers to begin to collect insights about customers in real-time rather than having to wait on results.
• Forms uses artificial intelligence capabilities so that it can better adapt to users’ habits and offer recommendations based on them. Usage patterns also dictate the templates and themes Forms suggests to users.
• In order to more effectively connect with customers, Forms allows Marketers to customize polls, surveys, or quizzes. This can lead to more users completing them, and ultimately more reliable results. Color and image customization options are available to Forms users, which helps to create a coherent brand identity.
• It’s easy to share content created in Forms through email, a link, or a QR code.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a product line that includes business intelligence applications for resource allocations and marketing initiatives, as well as several third-party SaaS services that can be used to create and manage ongoing relationships with customers. Large organizations with distributed workforces rely on Dynamics 365 to remain connected about important policies and procedures in order to better assist their organization with challenges or changes that arise. 

Dynamics 365 is a powerful time-saving tool in that it streamlines the search process for the information contained in files, applications, or emails. Users have all the necessary content in one open platform. Data stored here can also be directly connected to those who will be using it. 

Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing

In the time since it was released in 2016, Dynamics 365 has become a core tool for Marketers who work to better understand their customers, as well as to create a better customer experience. This application has several helpful real-time marketing features designed to more effectively connect with and engage audience members:

• Event-based customer journeys: Journeys take several forms when using Dynamics 365. They can be real-world exchanges, such as when a customer enters a store and uses their Wi-Fi. Triggering events can also be virtual, such as when a customer signs onto Amazon to shop. Since each journey takes place in real-time, Marketers want to react quickly in order to propel that interest into a sale.

• Custom triggers: Triggers are essentially user-defined signals that offer important information about a specific customer’s journey. Triggers can record important moments and interactions in order to facilitate future customer interactions. 
• Text messages: Marketers often wish to connect directly to their customers. Dynamics 365 allows them to do so by using customers’ mobile devices. Real-time text messages containing marketing information can be sent to users. In order to do so, the Marketer must create a phone number to use in this application. Text message content can then be customized to better connect with target audiences.
• Push notifications: These notifications can be sent to any customer who has your business’s mobile app installed on their device. Push notifications typically include relevant offers or messages, and can be delivered as a part of a real-time journey.

• Integration: Dynamics 365 integrates seamlessly with a variety of Microsoft 365 apps, like Yammer, Power BI, SharePoint, Outlook, and OneNote, in addition to third-party apps. 

• Automation: AI-powered workflow automation allows Dynamics 365 users to complete tasks faster and more efficiently. 

Both Microsoft Forms and Microsoft Dynamics 365 provide Marketers with an effective way to build a brand and better connect with customers.

Get Started Learning Microsoft Office with Hands-On Classes

Proficiency in Microsoft Office can open professional doors across industries, as well as lead to upward career mobility. A great way to begin learning about Microsoft Office is to sign up for one of Noble Desktop’s Microsoft Office courses. These small group classes are offered in-person in Manhattan, as well as in the live online format. For students and professionals on the go, there are also in-person and live online Microsoft Office courses available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, which span three hours to three days and cost between $219 and $1,785. You can also browse in-person Microsoft Office classes in a city near you.

In addition, for those looking to take a deeper dive into social media marketing, Noble Desktop also has a Social Media Marketing certificate, a 30-hour program in which participants learn how to develop a personalized marketing strategy through which they can grow an online following.