CRM is a critical system for manufacturing organizations. It tracks accounts, manages relationships, and supports sales activity across long buying cycles. But on its own, CRM rarely tells the full story of buyer intent. That gap becomes more visible as marketing teams are asked to do more with fewer resources, tighter timelines, and higher expectations for revenue impact. The issue is not that CRM is ineffective. It is that CRM was never designed to handle modern marketing execution on its own. CRM Is Built for Records, Not Buyer Engagement Manufacturing […]
In manufacturing, sales cycles are rarely quick. Inquiries come in early, often before a buyer fully understands their requirements or has internal alignment. Weeks or months can pass between first interest and a real sales conversation. That timeline is not always a problem. The issue is what happens during the gap. When early inquiries are treated as sales-ready too soon or left unattended for too long, opportunities stall or fail completely. Marketing automation helps manufacturers manage that middle ground more effectively, moving prospects from inquiry to opportunity with fewer delays and fewer dropped handoffs. […]
Dynamics 365 is a powerful CRM. It stores customer data, tracks sales activity, and gives teams a clear view of pipeline health. But when marketing tries to run campaigns directly from CRM, limitations show up quickly. Building segments takes effort. Running nurture journeys requires workarounds. Reporting engagement often means exporting data into another tool. Dynamics organizes information well, but it isn’t built to activate it the way modern marketing teams need. That’s where marketing automation comes in. The right platform can turn CRM data into personalized journeys, behavior-based scoring, and campaign reporting you can act […]
For Microsoft partners, marketing automation decisions are rarely about features alone. They are about architectural intent, long-term account health, and avoiding cost or complexity surprises after go-live. Customer Insights and marketing execution platforms like emfluence solve overlapping problems, but they are designed for different architectural goals. Understanding that distinction is essential. Customer Insights as a CDP Microsoft Customer Insights is well suited for organizations intentionally building a centralized customer data platform. Its Dataverse-native architecture supports identity resolution, unified analytics, and cross-system intelligence. In this model, retaining large volumes of behavioral and interaction […]
Marketing automation platforms promise efficiency, personalization, and scale. For teams evaluating or using Microsoft Customer Insights, those promises are real. But there is a cost that often emerges only after implementation, once the platform is live and data begins to accumulate. It is not the license fee. It is the data. More specifically, it is how much data you store, where that data lives, and whether your organization has intentionally planned for the long-term implications of those decisions. The Promise vs. the Reality Marketing automation is sold on outcomes: smarter targeting, automated journeys, actionable […]
