Posted by Mohamed Elaissati on 06/12/2011.

The new feature of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 I wanted to call your attention to today is Dynamic Marketing Lists. For those of you who have been using Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing functionality, you are aware that a marketing list can consist of one of the following kinds of records Leads, Accounts, or Contacts. Additionally, you are aware that to get records on a list, it is a manual process. Sure we can use Advanced Find to help us but at the end of the day, we still need to manually re-evaluate or manually remove records from their respective lists. While it is true that some scenarios call for a static sort of list (for example last year’s list of holiday gifts, the naughty list or the nice list) there are even more scenarios where the audience you want to engage with is fluid in nature and is constantly growing and shrinking.

So, is this new feature of Dynamic Marketing Lists complex? Certainly not! Let’s take a quick look.

To create a new marketing list, I would navigate to Marketing->Marketing Lists->New

From there, you’ll notice a radio button group in the middle of the window where the user has the option to select either static or dynamic. Once we provide a Name and Member Type, we will select Dynamic and save the record. (I’ll name my marketing list Launching A New Product)

Once saved, you’ll notice that you’ll have the option to manage members or copy the list to a static list if you choose.

The next step involves creating the query which will populate our dynamic list. To do that, we will click on the Manage Member button highlighted in the image above. This will open an Advanced Find window where I can enter my query. In this example, I am going to find those contacts from Antwerp

Next, I’ll click Use Query¦..this results in our marketing list being automatically updated!

So, what happens when our contact Ann Lemmens moves to Brussels? We excommunicate her of course! And, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will even help me maintain my list.

Once we update Ann’s address and save his record; you’ll notice that our list has shrunk by one and Ann Lemmens has been removed from our list.

This new feature is a great addition to this latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and certainly creates a more flexible and easily managed environment for marketing managers and users alike.