Dynamics Introspective: Can MarketingPilot Help Microsoft Carve Out an Entirely New Opportunity Area for Dynamics CRM?

If Microsoft's recent MarketingPilot acquisition left you scratching your head, chances are you weren't alone.  Few people in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM space seem to have known about the small software company before October, with several marketing automation vendors telling us they had never seen the company competing on a Dynamics CRM deal.

So while MarketingPilot's mix of marketing management capabilities around planning, resource management, brand management, and more may not be a typical focus area for many in the Dynamics CRM community, Microsoft's investment reflects a belief that there is an opportunity to win more--and presumably bigger--CRM-related deals in  organizations where traditional CRM marketing features don't go far enough.

While MarketingPilot's capabilities can in part be referred to as Marketing Resource Management (MRM), it is a term that can cover a range of capabilities that sometimes includes marketing automation and integrated marketing management (IMM).  Microsoft has highlighted several key capability areas that it values:

• Marketing Resource Management: plan, budget, and forecast utilization of marketing resources and expenses.
• Brand Management: execute and measure initiatives, tactics and spend across various product lines.
• Multichannel Campaign Management: execute demand generation across traditional & digital channels, including lead management and lead scoring.
• Digital Asset Management: produce, secure and measure utilization of digital assets within marketing initiatives.
• Digital Behavior Analysis: capture digital clickstreams, behaviors and activities across campaign initiatives.
• Media Planning: plan, schedule and book media plans across broadcast and interactive marketing channels.
• Social Marketing: orchestrate and execute social media campaigns with native hooks into Facebook and Twitter.

It's also in the terminology where things start to get a ...