How to add a qualified prospect list to Dynamics 365

To import a prospect list into Dynamics 365 Sales yourself, save it as an Excel workbook or a CSV file and import it into the Leads table. You can start the import from the Leads view with the Import from Excel or Import from CSV option, or from the data import wizard in the advanced settings. Dynamics reads the file, suggests which column matches which field, and lets you fix the mapping for fields such as Topic, First Name, Last Name, Company Name, Job Title, Email, and Website. You also choose who owns the imported records and whether duplicates are allowed. When you don't allow them, Dynamics applies your duplicate detection rules, such as the standard rule that flags leads with the same email address.

The first decision is which table the list belongs in, because Dynamics 365 separates prospects from the customers you already work with. A lead holds one person and the name of their company as plain text. When a rep qualifies the lead, Dynamics creates a contact for the person, an account for the company, and usually an opportunity for the deal. Most teams import prospect lists as leads for that reason.

Teams that skip Leads and import straight into Contacts and Accounts run into a well-known error: "The lookup reference could not be resolved." A contact's company is a link to an account row, so Dynamics can only fill it in when that account already exists with exactly the same name. The fix is to import the accounts first and the contacts second, or to import both files together in one zipped package.

The import moves whatever the file holds. A list built last quarter can include someone who has since changed jobs, a company that became a customer in the meantime, and a person who's already a contact while you're importing into Leads. A duplicate rule for leads won't catch that last person, so they end up in Dynamics twice. Nothing on the imported row tells a rep why the person was chosen or what to say to them.

A good result, then, is a set of Dynamics 365 records your reps would actually work. Each prospect still fits your ideal customer profile and still holds the role. Each one appears once across Leads and Contacts, with a Lead Source that says where they came from and the reason they were added.

Kite does that work for you. It rechecks the list before anything reaches Dynamics 365, compares it with the records you already have, and writes the leads with the research attached.

Start by telling Kite which prospects you want in Dynamics 365:

"Add this list of 60 prospects to Dynamics 365 as leads. Keep only the ones who still fit, and set the Lead Source to the October event."

Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Because it has already researched your company, it knows your ideal customer profile, your current customers, and your competitors, so it can judge fit without a long brief. You can work with Kite in the Kite web app or in Slack.

Kite can start from a list in several places. You can upload an Excel or CSV file to your conversation with Kite in Slack, paste the names in, or point Kite at a Google Sheet you've connected. If you don't have a list yet, ask Kite to build one, and it finds prospects through its own built-in sources, such as Apollo, without you needing an account there.

You'll need to connect your Dynamics 365 account through OAuth, signing in with your Microsoft work account, so Kite can read and write your records. Kite offers two Dynamics connections. The Dynamics 365 connection creates leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities, and updates leads and opportunities. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales connection lets Kite search your contacts and accounts, so connect both when you want Kite to check those tables for duplicates too.

Adding records to your CRM is routine work, so Kite writes them and then tells you what it did. If you'd like to see the list before anything reaches Dynamics 365, say so in your request.

Kite checks every prospect against your ideal customer profile before it writes anything, because a list starts going stale the day it's built. It confirms that each person still holds the role at that company, using their public professional profile or the company's own pages, and it drops anyone who has moved on. It also removes your existing customers, your competitors, and anyone who has asked not to hear from you.

Each prospect who passes gets a fit score from one to five with a one-line reason, such as "Director of operations at a 300-person logistics company that just opened a second warehouse." When the list runs long, Kite splits it into primary and secondary groups so reps know where to start. If fewer people qualify than you sent, Kite tells you how many passed and why the rest fell short.

Kite also fills the gaps a list usually has. Its built-in sources supply a work email, the person's LinkedIn profile, and the company's website, industry, employee count, and revenue. They also turn up recent events, such as a funding round, a new leadership hire, or open roles on the team your product serves, which give a rep a reason to get in touch now. Kite keeps each email's verification status as the provider reports it, and it marks a missing email as not found rather than guessing one.

Kite compares the list with what's already in Dynamics 365 before it creates anything, because the same person can sit in Leads or in Contacts. It reads your existing leads and matches them by email address and company. With the Dynamics 365 Sales connection, it also searches your contacts by name and email and your accounts by company name.

What it finds decides what happens next:

• When the person is already a lead, Kite updates that lead with what it found, such as a new job title, instead of creating a second one.
• When the person is already a contact, Kite leaves them in Contacts, where your team is already working with them, and lists them in the summary rather than adding a lead.
• When the company is already an account but the person isn't in Dynamics 365, Kite flags it in the summary. A new person at a company your team already works with is often better added as a contact on that account, and Kite adds them that way if you ask.
• When neither the person nor the company exists, Kite creates the new lead.

Reading your existing leads also shows Kite how your team fills them in. It uses the Lead Source values, industries, and topic wording your team already uses, so the new leads sort and report alongside the old ones.

Kite adds new prospects as leads by default, because Leads is where Dynamics 365 expects people your team hasn't worked yet, and it's where reps look for who to contact next. When a rep qualifies a lead, Dynamics creates the contact, the account, and the opportunity in one step, so nothing is lost by starting there.

If your team doesn't use Leads and works everything from Contacts and Accounts, tell Kite, and it follows your setup instead. It creates each company as an account first and then adds each person as a contact linked to that account. Working in that order avoids the lookup error that trips up so many spreadsheet imports.

Kite fills in each lead with the details a rep needs to make the first contact. A new lead gets the following:

• A topic, which Dynamics requires on every lead, such as "Operations lead from the October event list"
• First and last name
• Job title
• Work email
• Company name
• Website and industry
• Number of employees and annual revenue
• Lead Source

Kite writes the fit score, its reason, and the research behind it into the lead's description. That description says why the person fits, cites the source for each fact, and records any recent event worth mentioning, such as a funding round or an open role. A rep who opens the lead sees all of it on the record without redoing the research.

When Kite creates accounts and contacts instead, a new account gets its name, website, industry, employee count, and revenue. A new contact gets the same personal details as a lead, plus the link to its account.

When the work is done, Kite posts a summary in the conversation where you asked. It says how many leads, accounts, and contacts it created, how many existing leads it updated, and which prospects it found already in Contacts or under an existing account. It lists who it skipped and why, and it reports how many prospects have a verified work email. The full list comes with it as a table, so you can scan it without opening Dynamics 365.

From there, Kite can write a personalized first email for each primary prospect, based on the research it gathered, for the rep to send. If you want new prospects added regularly, ask Kite to run the same job every week, and it will post each batch's summary in the same place.

When Kite finishes, your Leads table holds a set of qualified prospects your reps can work right away, and your conversation with Kite holds the record of what changed.