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Over the past decade, email marketing has created its niche within every brand and organization. Given the significant return on investment, email marketing has expanded the idea of a one-person team for continual growth. With the movement of global digitization, understanding the many facets of campaign management relating to email marketing can be the difference between meeting and exceeding objectives or dropping the ball. Not having the right people or processes in place can impede the development of the best efficiencies to make remote marketing operations beneficial for all key stakeholders.
Working behind the scene in planning, researching, pinpointing the objective, then preparing to execute each email campaign may take weeks or months to map out a strategy that gives attention to every detail. Then there’s the matter of learning from each previous campaign and making the necessary optimizations to improve upon the next one. The cost-savings associated with email marketing and the phenomenal Return on Investment (ROI) of $42 for every dollar spent is a 4200% ROI.1 It’s worth the investment.
Keep the Lines of Communication Open by Streamlining Efficiencies
Incorporating the right tools is crucial for maintaining open communication within the marketing operations team and with key stakeholders. Platforms like Jira, Basecamp, Zoom or Skype, and Slack are useful for managing workflow efficiencies remotely. Cross-channel efficiencies help ensure everyone is in the loop and up-to-date on expectations, next steps, and resolving pain points promptly.
Campaign Management is a process that leverages the initial concept of email marketing campaigns to its final analysis and optimization. Before the operations team implements a digital strategy, it’s essential to understand essential roles of an email marketing team. A typical team consists of a Campaign Manager, Email Developer, Technical Producer, and Quality Assurance Specialist. These stakeholders work collectively to meet deadlines while producing an error-free product that all external and internal key stakeholders can be proud of.
When done right, the team works to streamline efficiencies by keeping the lines of communication open. Daily scrums are held within and across groups to make sure all team members are on task and to find out and resolve any pain points that could get in the way of on-time delivery. There are times when the Program/Project Manager may need to get involved if there are situations in the organization or brand that impedes the progress.
The Role of a Campaign Management Team
Most large business enterprises focus on four primary areas when creating a remote campaign management team. Let’s take a brief look at each member’s role. We’ll start with the Campaign Manager, responsible for making sure the communication lines stay open across teams. The marketing operations, the strategy, and creative teams look to the campaign manager for direction and liaison between cross-channel teams.
By collaborating with the operations team, the Campaign Manager is responsible for gathering the assets and information needed to distribute to the rest of the team to perform their duties. This step includes organizing timelines to ensure timely delivery on deadlines and updating the Program/Project Manager each step of the way. Whenever there’s an approaching deadline, the Campaign Manager follows up to ensure the Email Developer completes the HTML and CSS according to specifications.
Suppose there’s complex dynamic content involved? In that case, the Campaign Manager relies on a Technical Producer to collect any necessary data from an organization’s Customer Data Platform and then import it into Salesforce Marketing Cloud. From there, they construct a sendable data extension. Ampscript is used to populate a variety of individualized data fields for each email recipient. This process allows for creating hyper-targeted, dynamic content to enhance each email recipient’s customer experience. Most large organizations and brands have complex, dynamic email campaigns.
The Importance of a Standard QA Process
After the HTML and AMPScript are applied, the final step is to have the campaign checked for errors. QA proofreads the email campaign and then checks for formatting, content, and personalization errors. Litmus or Email on Acid is the most popular self-serve platform used for testing how an email renders in the top email clients. They not only check for spelling errors but to make sure decimals line up correctly, legal disclaimers are in place, and the unsubscribe link properly works to stay in compliance with privacy laws.
The QA process also involves checking to make sure the company or brand guidelines are in place. Once this process is complete, any rendering or data issues that need addressing, the team is alerted, pushing the QA flags to be fixed. The QA’s main objective is to make sure each email campaign is flawless before being distributed to millions of email subscribers.
After QA gives the okay, a test email deploys to the desired organization or brand for approvals. If there are any issues discovered, the process starts all over again. The Email Developer or Technical Producer make the necessary edits, and the email campaign is QA’d again. Once the QA gives the A-okay, an updated test email is resent for approval. If there are no additional revisions, the email campaign is approved and scheduled to deploy. And then, report(s) are generated on each email campaign’s success and optimization.
Benefits of Working Remotely
Some of the benefits of finding efficiencies with remote marketing operations are in the numbers. For example, since 2010, the tech industry has seen a 400% growth in remote work. According to Business News Daily, one study shows that “remote employees work 1.4 more days per month than their office-based counterparts, resulting in more than three additional weeks of work per year.”2 When it comes to loosening the traditional reigns of working in the office or remotely, a shift in mindset needs to happen across industries.
Based on a survey done by Airtasker, “Researchers polled 1,004 full-time employees throughout the U.S. about their productivity, their commutes and other facets of their lives. Among that group were 505 people who worked remotely. The study found that working from home not only benefits employees by eliminating their daily commutes, it also increases productivity and leads to healthier lifestyles.”3
Increased productivity is beneficial for both employer and employee. Caution is critical for making sure professional and personal lines don’t collide. For remote work to have a continual benefit away from an office setting, firm boundaries are a must. For instance, like finding periods to get up to stretch, taking a coffee or tea break, lunching away from the desk, and having a hard start-stop time.
Martek Ventures Can Help
Creating the best processes for streamlining your efficiencies for remote campaign management doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’re a large organization that deploys multiple simple personalizations to complex, dynamic email campaigns weekly, then Martek Ventures is for you.
We remove the guesswork by implementing unique marketing operations efficiencies geared specifically for your brand or organization. And Martek Ventures have a team of experts that can successfully manage your remote email marketing campaigns.
Martek Ventures have the best people to get the job done or create processes that work for you. As Salesforce Consultants, Martek Ventures has a track record of organizing the best people to fulfill your remote marketing operations needs. Schedule an appointment today by filling out the contact form on MarketVentures.com.
Book your FREE consultation with Martek Ventures today!
References
- Helen Holovach. Last updated: 30 November, 2020. 106 Email Marketing Statistics You Should Know In 2020. Snov Labs. https://snov.io/blog/email-marketing-statistics/
- Sammi Caramela. Updated Mar 31, 2020. Working From Home Increases Productivity. Business News Daily Contributing Writer. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html
- Airtasker. Updated: March 31st, 2020. The Benefits of Working From Home. Airtasker Blog. https://www.airtasker.com/blog/the-benefits-of-working-from-home/
- Chad White. August 16, 2018. The ROI for Email Marketing: The Good News and the Bad News. Litmus. https://litmus.com/blog/the-roi-for-email-marketing-the-good-news-and-the-bad-news
- Timothy D. Golden & Ravi S. Gajendran. February 12, 2018. Unpacking the Role of a Telecommuter’s Job in Their Performance: Examining Job Complexity, Problem Solving, Interdependence, and Social Support. Journal of Business & Psychology. Springer Link. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10869-018-9530-4?utm_campaign=Marketing%20Blog%20Weekly%20Email%20Sends&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=84885514
- Pamela Bump. Updated March 12 2020. 40 Remote Work Stats to Know in 2020. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/remote-work-stats?utm_campaign=Marketing%20Blog%20Weekly%20Email%20Sends&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=84885514
