Dynamics 365 Marketing from 1 of the 2 leading gurus with Megan Walker

in this episode of the power platform show we're going to talk about microsopdynamic three six five marketing and community engagement and the guest we have on the show is one of the gores in the dynamic three six five marketing space today's guest is from the united kingdom england she works as an independent power platform consultant at m v w consulting she loves learning and helping others she's written more blood coasts than i can count you can find her in the show

thank you very much mark it's been about three years since i was last on one of your podcast

yeah yeah crazy now i apologize for my voice i'm battling not covid but a cold of some sort so bear with me but you know we called up a couple of weeks ago and had a chat and said hey why don't we do a podcast together normally i would ask about food family and fun and all that kind of background stuff i dont know i've done that with you but tell me top of mind for you right now outside of work what what are the things that you're focus and i know you've

mark mark mark yes

oh

the closer it gets the more i'm regretting

oh

it not really but so last year actually last year this saturday gone i walked and did a walk with my dad my sister and one of my brothers and

oh

we walked for the outside of the society so certainly my dad was diagnosed in end of twenty nineteen with old simes and his father had it so it's

you know it's kind of been in our family for a while so we

walked twenty five olometers raised money for the society and hated it it was it was ruling it was ruling mainly because

yeah

my dad was a bit further progressed than maybe we appreciate it and it was it was challenging because of that it was emotional and we were like never ever again and then two weeks afterwards my brother who is just as stubborn as i am was like what do you think so we do a hundred colovises and i was like sure

nice

why not why not and we've gotten closer and closer and we've both just been like he'll pop

yeah

up on you know on what appwhanever say god i'm just wondering if i'm going to be able to do it

oh

i do you want to quit says no i'm not quitting i'm not quitting so we'll keep keep each

nice

other moving forward so yes so i'm training for that

i like it

so that's next well

yeah

whenever this goes out that's july the ninth hundred kilometers non

well

stop no sleep hopefully less than twenty four hours so

amazing

we shall

amazing

we shall

amazing

see

amazing

yes

so my my

yes

meg sent her regards to you

oh

and just as a bit

yeah

of inspiration for you she has twice done a hundred k in new zealand's under ox fam they were this hundred and twenty four hour walk the first

yeah

time she didn't complete she went back and did it again and completed i think in twenty three odd hours

nice

so pretty

okay

pretty amazing her and

as

her aunties did it together and then when i was living in sydney i was support crew for two teams across two different years doing the sydney ox fam which is a hundred and but yeah the sydney one was much more grueling it was intense landscapes that you

m

were going across but you know being supporter on that was heck of a lot of fun you know but you know

i

lining

bet

up each stop you know massaging the feet of the walkers making sure they are hydrated and you know correctly fueled up

yeah

and you know offering the encouragement et cetera to to that finish line but seeing people come over the finish line is a sight to be seen because

that's what

you

i'm

know

focusing

it's like bodies

on

are not functioning right yeah

i'm focusing

you

on the

can

end

nail

so

it you can do it

i think i can do it and i have a friend

oh

who she's also in the pile platform space and she ran

hm

never mind a hundred kilometers hundred it is for anyone

yeah

that can't convert is about sixty miles she ran a hundred

yeah

miles on saturday

well

took a twenty twenty three hours twenty four twenty now

wow

twenty six hours sorry yeah hundred mile imagine

amazing

running

amazing

a hundred miles no like i won't run

no

a mile

no thanks

never mind hundred

totally

not a runner

totally

yeah

the best the best i've done in one day the best walking distance i've done in one day was forty kilometers

m

and that that was in spain i was walking in spain and one day as part of the camino de santiago my wife and i we decided that we needed to really put in a big effort were about half way through the com no and we did forty kilometers in one day so it was dark when we left and dark when we got into our burg at the other end but what pissed me off is that you know not doing and so i found out if i've done two kilometers more

yeah

would have been a marathon oh

yeah yeah

you know

that

it

that

would

would

have been

have annoyed

entire

me

arathonin one

so

day

close so close

yeah man man and i'm in no hurry to do it again and tell you the truth

no after the

so let's

after

talk

this

about

never again

yeah the thing is it can get addictive though i notice a lot of people do it over year after year

m

after year get their team

no

together and

if i say i'm doing another

are you

one

doing

then

it as part

yeah

as a whole you need to be stopped

yeah i need to be stopped so we'll see we'll see how it goes so yeah july ninth

yeah

hundred kilometers less than twenty four hours

i love

we

it

help

and is there a heap of other people doing it with you

oh yeah it's an organized event

yes

that pobably be like a few

oh

thousand and they're all doing it for different charities as

yeah

well so

amazing amazing or some love it okay let's talk about you know one of things we chatted a couple of weeks ago and i wonder said he why don't we record this is about

ah

community and we're talking about the microsop business application community whether that be in focused areas like power platform power apse power automate any of the piece you

yeah

know as and then in the dynamic space which of course has been around a long time we've got formal community programs like the v p program we have in formal programs that people have set up and run and you know it might be involved in forms that might be writing blogs that might be creating you tube content might be podcasting um and we talk we discussed you know i really want to get your thoughts on what's your journey being um from the peaks and the troughs

yeah i think i don't

yah

think this is definitely this is not unique to me i think so many of us that have created content and some

oh

kind of on some kind of platform and some kind of

yeah

you you can go hard for

m

a long time but ultimately you will

hm

come and you will hit that that brick wall at some point and i think for me do that over and over again i keep hitting hitting a wall where

yeah

i'm like i just

yeah

i can't be bothered just have no desire all the rest of it i think for so many people covid cool it stopped us obviously literally stopped us from doing things but also i think it it put people into a place where you had to spend more time with family you kind of had to go out inside and stop doing exercise you had to do these things because ere's only so much sitting inside house you can do and as soon as sort of the pandemic and the sort of lock downs lifted in different countries

yeah

of that whole emerge an aria with the option sets and where

yeah

the

yeah

mergimegs came from which i still hate but people still throw out every

yeah

once in a while but that's when it kind of like started to pick up and i was with anyone isn't it where it's like you're starting to get a bit of

yeah

notoriety is not the right word

yeah

but you're starting to get recognized and people are starting to actually read content which that's you know let's face it you're creating it may be for yourself to start with but the hope is always at least for me the hope is always that

oh

at least somebody would

yeah

be reading it and it would would help somebody else um so i think that started on was working on projects for partners so i was doing things and having to figure things out and i was still relatively new to dynamics and to the par at form so i would figure something out my god this is awesome let me put it the but then

yeah

i don't i don't know the past sort of i say six months i've just not really found any interest in it or any excitement in it and you know we talk about podcast and

oh

i had a very successful podcast with lisa crosby was over in australia

exactly

and we started

oh

it during the art of lock down of like

ay

march twenty

oh

twenty i guess it was and we started this podcast and a lot of it was like she was a bit bored i was a bit bored we couldn't do anything so don't take this the wrong way but we saw that saw a lot of guys doing stuff we saw a lot of

oh

know you and steve more do were doing things

no

you know you've done a podcast for a long time the people are doing it and it was never about like saying we need a female podcast out there that was never it because neither neither of us have that sort of mind that it's not like we need women to be represented

oh

it was just like while these guys are doing we

i

can do it i'm sure so we figured it out and on it was really successful and we loved it and it was you know was great fun for so long and then he just started at least from my respect i'm

yeah

not going to speak to lisa because we kind of came to the end for different reasons for me it was just i just wasn't excited i wasn't excited to talk about events i really didn't care new features

yeah

were coming out and i was just a bit disheartened with some of them i was like that's not all that exciting it missed the mark of what i

oh

hoped it would be so i always

ah

started to feel like i'm faith like i'm faithing the excitement about talking about these things

m yeah yeah

so yeah i just got disheartened with it all and i just thought why am i bothering if i don't if i'm not genuinely excited about what i'm talking about it's not

yeah

right it's not genuine and authentic

oh

is at so

that's interesting now

yeah

now just to give some perspective when you were at your peak of creating content now correct me if i'm wrong at some points you were creating over thirty blog posts a month um you know on a specific topic you took out themes you were really committed to creating content and and um and you became an n v p and you continue to create this great content the podcast et cetera and you've closed the pods s and i find it interesting that there are a range of m v ps now talking about their

a

that you know you do or like okay talk let's talk

oh

about jollinstrum for a moment jolinstrum has resigned as an n b p this he's written a great blog post on it and for his thinking et cetera behind it and what he's talking about really resonated with me and that

mac

um you know he lost the decade he didn't lose a decade he said for a decade he lost a lot of sleep because he was working as day drop and then in the evening's creating content whether it be tip of the day whether it be huge video whether be podcasting with blog posts and speaking at events and of course everything that he said resonated strongly with me i've i've tried everything right i've for a period i was writing two blog posts a week while i was in the u i was doing you

exactly that's

which i don't know if you heard

exactly

of mary

it

condo you know mary

yeah

condo i think her name is is

yeah

around

if it does

clothes

not spark

you know

joy

if

if it doesn't spark joy

yeah

in you then

get rid of

let

it right

let it go and and present

yeah

i mean that was lisa and i tried to bless her i i

oh

think that i had reached the point of really not being into it quite a bit sooner than he and we we taken a bit of a break we re grouped and then we did it

yeah

success again for probably another six months but it was one of those things

yeah

i just knew i kept

yeah

coming back to it exactly like you said

yeah

it wasn't bringing me joy and honestly

yeah

market if i was doing if i had been doing it on my own i would have ended it a lot sooner but there was that

yeah

commitment that you've made to somebody you're

yes

doing doing stuff as partnership and i tried for probably quite a bit longer than i would have done if

yeah

it had been on my own because it was

oh

ultimately that was it

oh

i i

oh

have for a long time always been somebody that does value my

m

time and even working for myself i think

m

a lot of people think you work for yourself you work all hours god sends you're always working nights a working week ends

yeah

i work eight o'clock

oh

in the morning to o clock in the afternoon monday through friday and that is it

yeah

other than a deployment that's planned in i'm not doing it as i'm not doing

yeah

weekends and that whole thing with the doing

oh

the community stuff it's got to fit in somewhere and for me the past of six months or so i've started blocking again relatively recently but i've

oh

been on two when i say horrendous project i mean horendus just in terms of

yeah

like the mental drain because

yep

they were a lot bigger than i thought they were going to be it's just a lot going on and i'm

oh

at the point now or i'm like you know what i'm not prepared to sacrifice my time with my husband or seeing my

yeah

dad who i need to see

yeah

as much as i can it's that shift and priority of

m oh

work eight to five i'm not going to crown it all in i'm not going

to just extend my day and make it

oh

twelve fourteen

yeah

our day because i'm writing a blog post that does

oh

anyone really care if i do it or not do you know what i

yeah

mean it's that kind of

yeah

does it bring me joy

yeah

really but then but

yeah

then what happens is now we talk about the thirty days and you know doing blog posts for a thirty day challenge or you know you talk about all of the different

oh

things that you do i think we probably sim or in the sense that if i get excited about something i'm like oh my god i could do this awesome series

yeah

and i feel like it could really help people

yeah

and it would help me learn something new

oh

and i would be able to help other people i get excited about it and my own worst energy where i'm like oh my god i've got this great idea for a series and then i'll spend so much time

yeah

on it and then i'll be like burnt out i'm done so so i

yeah

do it to myself

yeah

but i'm also during that period of time excited and you know it's driving my creativity and i love that creativity aspect of it like i just

yeah

i'm doing my first outube live

uh

event in a couple of weeks i've not done one before

oh

i'm gonna hopefully we'll see how it goes as

yeah

we're going a start doing a monthly

oh

hu live stream that's all about what's the latest stuff in dynamics marketing like what's in the latest up date

yeah

and at the minute i'm excited because

oh

it's creative creativity is something new for me to learn

yeah

how to use you tube live so i

oh

always look at it as podcast was an amazing learning experience i know how to create and deliver a successful podcast so it's that aspect that i'm excited about more than potentially the content itself if that makes sense the process of learning

yeah

how to do something new like

totally

from a creative

yah

aspect so

yeah

i think as long as i still

so so that

sorry

nacre

i was going to say as long as i still find things that i will be passionate about excited to write about or do a video one then i will still keep creating content i think what's interesting fourteen years that joe's been an m p that that's impressive five years is impressive ten

totally

years in present fourteen years is amazing but i think i always put content out because want to and

yeah

not to

yeah

i don't want to say anything

yes

negative about the nvpesbut twill come

yeah

to renewal time

yeah

and invariably you'll see people panic and doing like little things

yeah

for a quote and quote contribution never

yeah

feel that way i'm always

yeah

like if i haven't done enough legitimate blocks legitimate video where

yep

i have provided some value

oh

i'm fine with not getting it whenever the time comes and i don't get it i will know i'm

yeah

not going to get it because i wouldn't have done enough real

yeah

content you know

a hundred percent

ye

a hundred percent very similar position that i've distilled down to doing one thing and one thing i hopefully do well as podcasting and that's my thing

yeah

and why because it still brings me joy i love me people even with you know although the listeners can't hear us i can see you you can see me and it's creating a much better experience in podcasting which i thoroughly enjoy but you mentioned there about dynamic the six five marketing and i consider you one of the two gores in the world both females the other one is as well we won't mention her name

oh well

on

come

dynamics

on she's not been

the three

she's

six it

not been mentioned for a while

who

and then is

what's

that

her name

miss alden amy with an oh

i didn't know there

yeah

you know i didn't even know that was her last name now i kind of did but like

yeah

a never resinated with me but yes

right

amy

yes

let's talk about dynamic the six vive marketing right when you know i've been on the journey of dynamic the six five marketing from when a company software acquire marketing pilot and microsoftr released do do with

ah

what they re branded in that and then

my

they built from the ground up but i've seen in the last couple of years a massive kind of they've got some smart people in marketing i feel now and aren't working on product and it's doing some amazing amazing things right this this real time marketing is its time is now right in organizations need this type of tooling people and second news letter based marketing you know the minute i get an email it has a banner image across the top on't i don't even read the subject

yeah

faking awesome

i think i think before i kind of say what do i think is awesome about it i think it honestly i agree with your statement in terms of like the marketing app has been crap for a long time and i

we

still now

oh

if i talk to

oh

somebody that's not quite made the decision yet they are like okay so is marketing really ready is it really like any good and for a long time i would always say no it's not ready yet click dimensions if you're starting at this point and you need something to use i would always say click dimensions

yeah

and then i would say probably within the last year and a half that there was then a shift to where it was then kind of they almost became

yeah

parallel to where i'm like well all your decision making

yeah

is then more based on okay we're either going with a licence and you're paying for that and you're paying for the contact or you're paying for the number of emails that you send it was more than what the

yeah

price pricing or licensing

right

or structure in terms of click dimensions of isis marketing

yeah

and then really microsopiright they just started to get some amazing people and their team from the marketing product team and they've just started

oh

bringing up more and more stuff now i will say

oh

that the real time marketing i ignored for a long time because i feel that and i don't think i'm saying anything that the product team aren't aware of but they

yeah

brought out what they called outbound marketing

yeah

which was the original sort of marketing stuff

yep

the sending of emails the event management the marketing forms all of

yep

that sort of stuff and then they said oh look here's this real to marketing put it obviously in the same product they function

yep

very very different ly you have a journey that someone goes

yeah

on that's either an outbound journey

oh

a real time journey you have mail temples that are either

yeah

in out bounder in real time

yeah

so for a long time i kind of ignored

yeah

it because i'm like just doesn't fit together i can't see how i would implement this from perspective don't know

yeah

about but you because maybe it's been a long time since you been sort of in the trenches but if i can't see how i will implement this

yeah

i can't buy into it i need to be able to like literally look at it and be like this is how i will train this is how i will implement this is how i will sell to

yeah

somebody this product so i would say probably within the last six months is where i've really started

oh

to take it on and actually embrace it and get excited about it so the biggest piece

yeah

of it for me is i mean i love marketing i've talked about marketing i've done stuff on branding or all of that sort of stuff but the biggest thing

yeah

is i would say from the real time perspective is the triggers as being able to have something

yeah

happen in the day to base and then go off run

yep

a flow and power to make do

yeah

concastinations do us tiens find all the information that you need

yeah

from all over the data base not just from the contact record

yeah

but now finding doing

oh

like a list o step and getting all of the related stuff based on certain criteria in blahblahblah and then passing it all back through so that then when i'm building my email temple i'm not just saying

yeah

ive me the values of fields on the contact record or the related account

oh

but i'm saying give me the values of information that's been passed through this trigger and here's the data just created for me

yeah

i mean it's not it's been built

yeah

by somebody behind the scenes

oh

but that that piece right there where we're talking about true personalization not just directly from the contact record but from all of the other pieces

yeah

from within data verse so i think that for me is then where

oh

you're getting into okay i get an email we're all save now we shouldn't necessarily

yeah

be like oh my god look how nice

oh

this is this personalized email it's still obviously a marketing email of some kind but it have to look as spammy or blocked

oh

and a specific marketing email

ah

it's then more about hey this is

yeah

a man we think about marketing but i'm working on project at the minute where what will probably end up doing

oh

is also branching out with journeys and using it for things like okay your

yeah

your accounts in areas um there's

yep

an update that needs to happen

oh

or you need to pay attention to this it's not just

yeah

for marketing it's for me is what an automated process where i need to

ye

communicate with the customer so i view it more like that

nice

than just marketing its communications i would say more than anything

like it what are your thoughts then are you know on a couple of big things that have happened in the last twenty four months and i'm gonna i'm goin to reel them off as they come to mind one um microsoph is massively invested in dynamic three six five commerce now any commerce place platform so front end shop et cetera is going to have a marketing component so there's going to need a plug in back into damictrsix five marketing then you have customer data platform or dynamic try six five

oh

sit and they are different between an bound an outbound different libraries

yeah

and you mentioned before and then commerce potentially another library set um how i use are you seeing from microsoph to pull together of all these systems to make it one symbiotic type being

yeah i'm saying i'm seeing things on on the horizon so one of the

oh

if we talk about someone like joe lin saying i'm stepping out of the nvpprogram i would imagine probably one of the things that he might miss will be the ability to give feed

yeah

back to the product teams actually i microsoft one of the things that is probably the number one thing that i value the most

oh

i would say it used to be like the community stuff but i feel like there are some new people

yeah

coming out that maybe have like louder voices more knowledgeable whatever so for me i find even if i'm not doing a blog post i'm having at least one one maybe two calls each month with somebody on the product team from marketing

yeah

so there's stuff obviously that you know we're privy to a nbpsit's

no

under nd so it's not necessarily anything that

oh

can be shared but i'm seeing where

oh

i find that they take on board the feedback

yeah

like

yeah

they're absorbing it and

yeah

they've got a team and they're doing amazing things but they're getting that real world like hey our customers are asking for this you know we're not able to progress

oh

on something because of this piece that's missing so i would say you're the thing about libraries and the asset absolutely the

yeah

organization that are using asset management software they're already using some of their using syce

uh

or they're using whatever it might be so to be able to come along

yeah

and say well okay there's

oh

dynamic two six five you're using that already for sales customer service or whatever

oh

you're using it for and you've also got this asset management well grate the marketing up has that and we can plug it in it doesn't but ideally that's kind of like where they end up going

yeah

one of the things that i would like to see is we talk

oh

about events and event management and webinars

yeah

we've got things with a team's integration fantastic but so many people use literally the name of it is just got out of my head what's it called event right so people use event right people

right yeah

you know all of these other

oh

tools and systems that you don't want to have to say marketing

yeah

is perfect for your organization oh but then you're going to need to change every other piece

oh

of your sort of marketing tool you know

yeah

sort of suite of tools that you're already using as a team you ave to change everything

yeah

rather than just saying well here the marketing up but maybe we can stop plugging into

yeah

other things that people are already using

oh

so yeah i hope

yeah

that we see that more i think at the minute they're still working to it's saying this was outbound this was marketing

oh

which is outbound this is now real time which you should be using but there's still of bridging that gap between the two they're getting a lot closer and they're doing it very quickly but i think once they need to do all of that first i

oh

would actually probably be a bit annoyed if they started doing integrations with things and left those gaps those

yeah

need to be filled then

yeah

i think it's like they've set them it's to be like right now we can

oh

go off and do these other plugs into the other

oh

tools that's what that's my hope at least is they plug all the gaps in and then they can go off and do other things yeah whether they do

i like

or not

it

i don't know that would be good

me it's been a pleasure having you on the show final words

final words

what's your final words

yeah

yeah

i i don't know i think i think i'm still um m i don't want to say jaded but i feel love being an m v p but i do feel like it does not mean community doesn't mean the same

oh

to me as it once did and i think it's okay for people to step back from the community and like i see

yah

post and and i know because i was i

yah

was part of this as well for so many years where it was like oh my god events events events events and you know sharing stuff on social media i think it's okay to not be at every event

yeah

it's okay to not

oh

share and re tweet everything that you see

yeah

i see so many people talking about pomo of not being an event honestly i couldn't care like scottish summit i just was not interested on i also knew that even though i'm very chatty and outgoing when i'm on one on one or in groups of people i don't like big events one of the most special moments for me it's

oh

got summat the very first one was sitting with you

uh

and lucy born at a bar in glasgie

yeah

chatting about real stuff stuff that was important in life and i think that for me is community i view

oh

it is that i view it as making the relationships that mean stuff i don't view it as big events like that to me isn't real

yeah

and that's not everybody feels

yeah

the same because people have different personalities but what i think now a few years on i can recognize that and be like i don't want to go to sketch

yeah

summit because i don't feel i'm going to get meaningful conversations that i need as

oh

a person if that is fair to say so yeah those are my final lot