Litmus Live 2018: Reinvent Your Email Workflow

REINVENT YOUR
EMAIL WORKFLOW
#LitmusLive

GET THE RESOURCES
You can find the slides and more at:
pages.litmus.com/reinvent-your-emailworkflow
Wifi: LitmusLive Password: weloveemail
#LitmusLive

JAINA MISTRY
Email Marketing Specialist, Litmus
@jainamistry

YOUR EMAIL WORKFLOW EXPERTS
SHANNON
CRABILL
Senior Email
Developer
STEPHANIE
MCKAY
Email Marketing &
Personalization
Manager
JESSE
BLANNER
Sr. Design Manager
ERIC ROSS
Business
Process
Manager

AGENDA
• 1:15pm - What’s an email workﬂow?
• 1:40pm - Email conception and planning
• 2:05pm - Creating an email brief
• 2:40pm - Copywriting and content creation
• 2:55pm - BREAK
• 3:10pm - Design and development

AGENDA
• 3:45pm - Testing, QA, and approvals
• 4:05pm - Send & Post-send reporting
• 4:15pm - BREAK
• 4:25pm - Quick refresh
• 4:40pm - Q&A
• 5pm - And we’re done!

EXERCISE #1
Deﬁne YOUR email workﬂow

WHAT PART OF YOUR EMAIL
WORKFLOW ARE YOU
MOST PROUD OF?

“The email team's collaboration with
the design and content teams.

“A/B testing and optimization.

“The logic used to trigger workﬂows.

“We have sped up our build time by
using the MJML framework that
helps us build fully responsive
emails.

WHAT’S THE MOST PAINFUL
PART OF YOUR CURRENT
EMAIL WORKFLOW?

“Getting senior leadership to get
their content in on time without last
minute changes.

“The planning and approval portion
of the campaign, and the back and
forth with the creative team.

“Back-end technical challenges.

EMAIL CONCEPTION AND
PLANNING
Step 1:

ONLY 17% OF BRANDS PLAN
MORE THAN THREE MONTHS OUT
FOR PEAK SEASON CAMPAIGNS

WHY PLAN YOUR CAMPAIGNS
IN ADVANCE?

69% OF BRANDS USE SOFTWARE OTHER THAN OR
IN ADDITION TO SPREADSHEETS, CALENDARS
AND DOCS

Case Study:
How Automation
Impacted Our Workflow
at LuckyVitamin
Stephanie McKay | IG: @smckaydesign

Where to Start?
Get a Project
Management
Tool.
➔ Place of record
for your efforts
➔ Doubles as
creative brief

Workflow Example: Trello
IDEATION REVIEW SCHEDULE
CREATIVE HTML DEV

Why are we sending this
email?
Who is this going to?
What is the KPI for success?
Target Customer
Provide her value or  
solve a problem!
01
Goal or Purpose

02
Template Needs 
How many templates?
What are the details?
Is there a reminder email?
Target Customer
solve a problem!

03
Creative Direction  
& Messaging
What is the look and feel?
How will the messaging and
artwork support your goals?
Target Customer
solve a problem!

04
Execution: 
Who | What | When
WHO is doing WHAT and  
by WHEN?
Communication is key!
Target Customer
solve a problem!

Creative Brief Example
01 Goal

02 Template Needs

03 Creative

04 Execution

Process Example: Handoffs
01 
IDEATION
Establish your creative brief! Know your purpose, template needs,
creative and message direction, and assign the who what when.

02 
CREATIVE
01 
IDEATION
Designer and copywriter will work together to create the
first mockup for the team to review.

03 
REVIEW
02 
CREATIVE
01 
IDEATION
Team comes together to discuss… did you accomplish your goal? Is
anything confusing or missing? Refer back to that creative brief!

04 
HTML DEV
03 
REVIEW
02 
CREATIVE
01 
IDEATION
Coder develops HTML template, tests (in Litmus, of course),
sends out for proofing and feedback.

04 
HTML DEV
03 
REVIEW
02 
CREATIVE
05 
SCHEDULE
01 
IDEATION
Now finalized, time to set up the campaign and go live!

IDEATION REVIEW SCHEDULE
CREATIVE HTML DEV

SL: Doesn’t A Dozen Sound Delightful? 
Copy: Don’t whisk missing this deal!
For two days only, use code XXXX to
take 12% off your $55+ order. Eggs-
ercise your right to save & get this deal
before it’s over (easy)!
Finished Campaign

➔ Nothing can be “set it and forget it”
➔ Perform a post-mortem at least monthly
➔ No shame in finding out something isn’t
working as intended - it’s opportunity!
➔ Always provide value and solve problems for
your customers
Evaluation

DO YOU USE A DEPLOYMENT
CALENDAR?

CREATING AN EMAIL BRIEF
Step 2:

EVERY EMAIL GETS
AN EMAIL BRIEF

EMAIL PLAYBOOK &
WORKFLOW
Shannon Crabill
#LitmusLive | shannoncrabill.com/litmuslive

THE PROBLEM

“I need to send an invite/newsletter/
product/etc. type of email. What are 
my options?”

EMAIL PLAYBOOK

CASE STUDIES

“What other options are there?”

“I’d like to hear stats from outside of 
the company”

Gifs increase
click rates by
48% - Emma

"What does this look like on mobile?”

"Which is the better? A or B?"

ACTION ITEMS

Map current workﬂow to identify pain points

Source: goleansixsigma#LitmusLive | shannoncrabill.com/litmuslive

Empathy maps are a valuable tool

Source: UXPin#LitmusLive | shannoncrabill.com/litmuslive

FINALLY

This is a living document and that's ok :)

THANK YOU!

EXERCISE #2
Fill in the email brief

BREAK TIME
Grab a drink and have a stretch

COPYWRITING AND
CONTENT CREATION
Step 3:

ON AVERAGE
EMAIL
MARKETERS
SPEND 2,9 HOURS
WRITING COPY

WHAT DO YOU INCLUDE IN AN
EMAIL COPY DOCUMENT?

HEADLINES, BODY COPY, CTA COPY,
EVERYTHING

EXERCISE #3
What’s missing from this email copy document?

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Step 4:

DESIGN AND BUILD
OR
DESIGN THEN BUILD

DEFINE YOUR DESIGN REVIEW
PROCESS

JESSE BLANNER | SR. DESIGN MANAGER, MEREDITH CORP. @D_ZYNREMAIL
HOW MODULAR DESIGN
CAN IMPROVE YOUR
EMAIL WORKFLOW

HOW MODULAR DESIGN CAN IMPROVE YOUR EMAIL WORKFLOW
February 2018 - Meredith acquires Time, Inc. After a few months
of corporate restructuring, the Digital team launches an updated
email roadmap, which includes onboarding 12+ new brands and
making updates to 60+ email templates, all before the end of
the 2018 calendar year. Many of these updates involve rebuilding
existing layouts so there is a measure of unity within the under-
lying frameworks (for ease of use in cross-brand testing).
CASE STUDY

CHALLENGES WE FACED
Limited Resources
Aggressive Timeline
Disjointed Code Structure
Template Volume
Organizational Turnover
CASE STUDY

Modular email design
to the rescue!
Wait, what is that?!?
It’s a system of interchangeable components
(aka modules) and reusable patterns that can be
combined to create email layouts.
OVERVIEW

HOW MODULAR DESIGN CAN IMPROVE YOUR EMAIL WORKFLOW STEPS
STEPS TO CREATE A MODULAR EMAIL SYSTEM
Discovery Phase
Select a Grid Structure
Component/Pattern Library
Develop Framework + Module Code
Create Snippets + Partials

HOW MODULAR DESIGN CAN IMPROVE YOUR EMAIL WORKFLOW WORKFLOW EFFICIENCIES
Improves Collaboration
Modular design increases the ability for collaboration between
designers and email marketers. There’s often a disconnect
between these two worlds; the modular design system can
act as a common ground and help the two sides communicate
more directly and clearly with one another.

Provides Clarity
Standardizing the code framework and designing from a base
grid means having a ﬁnite set of circumstances to work within.
Designers and developers don’t need to spend time working out
the details of an underlying framework, they can move right to
creating a layout to suit the needs of the content.

Saves Time
A system guide can help bypass the need for wireframes during
the design process. System components (snippets and partials)
are pre-built, tested, and ready to use interchangeably. And since
everything is built on the same HTML framework, the potential for
error is minimized and conﬁned to a ﬁxed number of variables.

HOW MODULAR DESIGN CAN IMPROVE YOUR EMAIL WORKFLOW GET BUY-IN
KEY SELLING POINTS
Simplﬁes
Efficient
Cost Effective
Scalable

@D_ZYNREMAIL
Jesse Blanner | Sr. Design Manager, Meredith Corporation
jesse.blanner@meredith.com
THANK YOU!

DISCUSSION
How do you handle pushback from stakeholders in the
design/development process?

TESTING, QA, AND APPROVALS
Step 5:

ONLY 23% OF MARKETERS USE AN
EXTENSIVE PRE-SEND CHECKLIST

EXERCISE #4
Create a pre-send Checklist for your organization

TAKING A COOKIE CUTTER
APPROACH TO PROCESS

Agenda /
Key
Learnings
Don’t Assume
• Don’t make
assumptions in
your process
• Checks and
balances are
key
TakeTime
• Develop
process
iteratively
• Start simple
and evolve
over time
Manage Closely
• Prepare for
change and
manage it
accordingly
• Change is
often resisted
• Change will
fail if not
managed
properly

But what you didn’t know at the time was...

WHAT DO MILK AND COOKIES HAVE
TO DO WITH PROCESS?

Can I ‘milk’ this process even more?

Good Process Requires:
1. People willing to accept process changes and adapt
quickly when needed
2. A constant drive to want to get better
3. A management team willing to support and enforce
it

In 1967, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe
developed a social readjustment rating scale that was
designed to roughly approximate a person’s likelihood
of future illness based on his or her stress level. The
scale is a list of common stressful events, both
positive and negative, all of which are assigned a
numerical value of “life-changing units.”

DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS
FOR US?
Q&A Time

Litmus Live 2018: Reinvent Your Email Workflow

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Semelhante a Litmus Live 2018: Reinvent Your Email Workflow

Semelhante a Litmus Live 2018: Reinvent Your Email Workflow (20)

Mais de Litmus

Mais de Litmus (20)

Último

Último (20)

Litmus Live 2018: Reinvent Your Email Workflow