As the digital buying journey continues to evolve, Microsoft Partners are facing a new reality: clients expect more than technology implementation. They expect revenue growth, customer engagement, and business outcomes.
Yet when it comes to offering marketing solutions, most Partners stop short. Whether due to perceived complexity, cost concerns, or lack of internal expertise, marketing automation often remains the missing piece in the Microsoft Partner stack.
Today, that gap isn’t just noticeable—it’s a massive opportunity.
Marketing Automation: The Missing Piece in the Microsoft Partner Stack
In 2025, customers aren’t just buying CRM or ERP systems—they’re buying a future-proofed business engine. As more sales journeys start online, marketing automation has become a critical component of success. But many Microsoft Partners haven’t incorporated it into their offering.
For small and midsize businesses (SMBs) especially, there’s growing demand for tools that:
- Align with their Microsoft investment
- Fit their budget and team size
- Work out of the box, without steep learning curves
- Connect seamlessly with CRM systems
Without marketing automation, these businesses are left stitching together disconnected point solutions—or worse, missing critical demand generation activities altogether.
The Gap in the Dynamics 365 Ecosystem
While Dynamics 365 offers robust CRM capabilities, it doesn’t fully address marketing needs:
- Microsoft Customer Insights: Powerful but complex and expensive for SMBs
- ClickDimensions: Natively integrated but often clunky and outdated in user experience
- Mailchimp and similar tools: Simple but disconnected, requiring third-party integrations
This leaves SMB clients stuck between solutions that are either too complex or too basic—highlighting a clear market void Partners can step into.
Why Microsoft Partners Need a Marketing Play
Adding marketing automation is more than filling a functional gap—it’s about supporting clients across the full customer journey, from awareness to advocacy.
It’s about turning CRM into a real growth engine by helping clients generate leads, not just manage them, personalize outreach based on CRM data, and measure campaign performance and ROI. And for Partners, it’s a chance to grow revenue streams, deepen relationships, and differentiate in an increasingly crowded Microsoft channel.
Why Microsoft Partners Should Add Marketing Automation to Their Portfolio
Marketing automation is no longer optional for Microsoft Partners who want to drive growth and deepen client relationships. It creates recurring revenue opportunities beyond traditional project work, makes it easy for SMB clients to generate leads through a seamless Dynamics 365 integration, and helps Partners stand out by delivering real business outcomes—not just technology implementations. With the right solution, you can move from being a system provider to a true growth partner, building lasting value for your clients and your own business.
Why emfluence?
If you’re going to offer marketing automation, it needs to check three critical boxes:
- Easy to deploy
- Tightly integrated with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
- Built for marketers, not developers
The emfluence Marketing Platform was purpose-built to deliver all three. With seamless Dynamics 365 Integration, fast time to value and easy set up, an interface that marketers love, and benefits for partners, emfluence offers everything you need without hidden costs or sacrifices.
Marketing automation is no longer a “nice to have” in the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s a necessity—for your clients and for your own growth.
Want to learn more? Check out our most recent guide, “Why Microsoft Partners Should Add Marketing Automation to their Portfolio”.
