Analysis
Taking the time to look at how your emails performed is a key part of any successful email workflow. It’s not just about tracking open rates or clicks—it’s about learning from each campaign and using those lessons to make your next one even better.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- How did this email stack up against your usual results?
- What did your A/B test reveal?
- What can you take away from this campaign to improve the next one?
Reviewing your performance helps refine your strategy and paves the way for future success—something your future self will thank you for. 💪
Why is it important for marketing teams to effectively manage email workflows?
A well-managed workflow operates like a fine-tuned machine: when running smoothly, it keeps the engine of your marketing efforts moving without a hitch.
Most importantly, it makes your day-to-day processes easier by adding clarity and keeping things organized. No more guessing who’s doing what or stressing over last-minute scrambling (like last-minute email requests).
A well-managed email workflow runs so smoothly that when the inevitable “can we send another email?” request comes in, you can handle it without a hitch.
What does an effective email marketing workflow look like?
- Boosts efficiency and productivity. Automates repetitive tasks and eliminates redundancies, giving you back time in your day to focus on planning, strategy, analysis, A/B testing—you name it.
- Ensures consistency and branding. Uses repeatable processes (like email modules), snippets and partials, an email design system, and email templates to maintain brand standards—regardless of who creates the email.
- Improves accuracy. Integrates tools to seamlessly transfer data and minimize email mistakes (after all, we’re all human!).
- Enhances visibility and collaboration. Centralizes workflows to create a single source of truth—keeping every stakeholder aligned and informed.
- Drives scalability and growth. Streamlines email creation to free up time for experimenting and expanding your program.
- Maintains compliance. Automatically includes legally required elements to ensure compliance.
- Delivers actionable insights. Manages consistent efforts more effectively, and provides valuable opportunities to iterate and improve.
What are common challenges in email workflow management?
Everyone wants work to be as easy and effective as possible—so why do so many teams struggle with their processes?
According to our research, the biggest blockers marketers face during email production are building, designing, and testing their emails. Other major hurdles include collecting feedback, creating content, and getting buy in.
It’s clear: it’s tough out there for busy email marketers. Let’s break down the common workflow management roadblocks that slow teams down.
Lack of centralized processes and tools for collaboration
Taking different routes and modes of transportation works for meeting up with your friends, but the same isn’t true for email workflows.
If team members and stakeholders all use slightly different processes and tools, there’s a greater chance you’ll lose vital information along the way. At the very least, a lack of centralized methods and tools slows down your email workflow.
Inefficient approval processes leading to delays
When we surveyed email teams about their workflows, two of the most common bottlenecks were collecting feedback and getting buy-in from all stakeholders. Too many approvers and a fragmented review process cause email workflow delays.
“It’s hard to get people to read emails! Even harder to get them to leave feedback that’s actionable for you and your team. This is a pain point for leaders, too—since 17% of email marketing leaders cite collecting feedback and approvals as one of their biggest frustrations.”
🔥 LiTip: Use a tool like Litmus Proof to streamline your process by centralizing feedback in one place—just like the 700,000+ users who already rely on it for clear and efficient collaboration.
Difficulty in maintaining version control and tracking changes
Your inbox and messaging apps fill up too quickly to rely on them to track feedback and changes for each email campaign. While informal version control and changes may work for a while on a team of one or two, as your team and output grow, this can lead to problems.
Inability to integrate with other marketing tools and systems
If you feel like you work on an email island, you aren’t alone. Only 24% of email marketing programs are highly integrated into other marketing channels!
Manually moving info between tools takes time and could lead to errors. Or, you may leave valuable insights undiscovered with marketing tools and systems that don’t integrate.
Time-consuming manual tasks and repetitive processes
A single grain of sand is insignificant, but put enough of them together, and you have a beach.
Small, manual tasks and repetitive processes don’t seem problematic, but small inefficiencies add up. Considering 62% of email marketing teams take two weeks or more on an email, even tiny time-savings on each message add up over the year.
