New Marketing Automation in Microsoft Dynamics CRM  3.0 enables you to extend the effectiveness of a key group of employees—your  marketing department. Marketing staff members now have tools to help them  identify, execute, and replicate effective marketing initiatives across sales  channels. Staff can assign, schedule, and track marketing campaign activities  and measure campaign performance. With Marketing Automation in place, you can  integrate your sales, marketing, and service processes more effectively and  present one professional company image to your customers.
Works the way your marketing staff works
Marketing Automation in Microsoft CRM addresses five common marketing  scenarios:        

• Target the best  customers Your sales representatives need a way to easily target their best customers with promotions, call downs, and e-mail communications.         
     
• Run quick sales campaigns Sales representatives can use this tool to help them quickly and  easily connect with business prospects and customers—perhaps to improve business quickly to make quarter-close numbers. Your representative wants  to quickly create a list, send a mailing, and track responses to keep connections up to date.         
     
• Launch a corporate marketing campaign With responsibility for several well organized  marketing campaigns each year in support of new product launches, your marketing staff might want to automate task planning, list creation, task assignment, cost tracking, and the many other tasks involved in complex campaigns. Now they can.         
     
• Enable cross-department handoffs for sales-driven campaigns Sometimes your marketing staff plans a       campaign that your branch office or sales team executes. These efforts require cross-department collaboration, execution, and tracking.         
     
• Send bulk e-mail messages Every company wants an easy way to gather a list of leads or customers, send a mass e-mailing, and track responses. 

Create lists, plan campaigns, track results, and  more
    Microsoft CRM provides the following capabilities to meet marketing  business needs:   

     
• List creation Microsoft CRM enables you to create and manage lists of accounts, contacts, and leads. You can create lists using the Advanced Find feature, a built-in search capability, or import lists from other sources.         
     
• Quick Campaign Once a sales representatives creates a list, he or she can create a Quick Campaign. This feature creates phone call, e-mail, and appointment activities for later execution, sends bulk mail-merged e-mailings, and creates mail-merged letters and faxes. Microsoft CRM automatically tracks responses and makes it easy for representatives to see what actions are finished versus outstanding.         
     
• Campaign management Microsoft CRM makes it easy to run sophisticated marketing campaigns involving many people, deliverables, and deadlines. The Help & Assistance Pane walks your marketing manager through the steps of planning and executing a campaign, including planning tasks, marketing lists, focus products, follow-up activities, supporting literature, and cost and revenue goals. The marketing manager can assign tasks to different staff  members, import leads, convert leads to opportunities, view costs and  results, and more.         
     
• Campaign response Track  campaign results with built-in reporting and analysis tools based on Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. Link responses to campaigns (ad  versus seminar), automatically assign appropriate follow-up (salesperson calls), analyze costs versus payoff, and create customized campaign tracking reports. 

Microsoft CRM makes it easy for your marketing  staff to take advantage of the customer data you already have. It's easier to  join efforts with sales and easier to judge the success of marketing efforts. Overall,  Microsoft CRM works well for marketing because it works the way you already  work.