A case examine by Optimum Enterprise Consulting — Stripo.e mail

One of many duties of promoting automation and CRM consultants, whose objective is to make shoppers’ work processes extra environment friendly, is to pick out handy work programs. Jeff Kemp, licensed advertising and marketing automation and CRM advisor and proprietor of Optimal Business Consulting, shares how they selected an e mail builder for a nonprofit group and why they selected Stripo.

Interview Skilled

Licensed advisor, Optimum Enterprise Consulting proprietor, advertising and marketing automation and CRM advisor

Concerning the firm

Optimum Enterprise Consulting is a crew of professional consultants specializing in optimizing advertising and marketing automation, CRM, and CMS platforms. They’ve been licensed consultants for over 10 years and have 30 years of promoting, gross sales, and enterprise area expertise.

They collaborate carefully with consumer groups, serving as subject-matter professional (SME) consultants and a fractional extension of their workforce. Their strategy combines strategic perception with done-for-you (DFY) and done-with-you (DWY) companies, permitting them to handle challenges and implement confirmed options.

Optimum Enterprise Consulting gives a complete suite of e mail advertising and marketing companies. Additionally they concentrate on creating and managing advertising and marketing automation workflows in platforms like Pardot and HubSpot and optimizing e mail deliverability to make sure messages attain their meant audiences.

Their numerous consumer base spans numerous industries, together with enterprise course of administration, SaaS/software program, expertise/IT/safety, skilled companies, consulting/enterprise administration, nonprofits, and fintech.

Problem: To discover a user-friendly e mail builder and velocity up e mail manufacturing 

One consumer of Optimum Enterprise Consulting is a big nonprofit group. They struggled with creating e mail templates inside their present advertising and marketing automation platform, Pardot. They relied on Pardot’s native “traditional” e mail builder, which was not very handy for the required duties. The group struggled to create structural layouts and even make primary content material adjustments inside their e mail templates.

Their crew created three to 6 e mail template variations day by day for various segments. Every template contained a number of hyperlinks with distinctive UTMs, including complexity to their work.

The principle points they confronted included:

• issue making adjustments to content material, even when the e-mail merely wanted to be edited or a picture wanted to get replaced;
• challenges in creating new template layouts; 
• a gradual, laborious e mail template creation course of, even when cloning present templates. 

All of those struggles decreased their effectivity and productiveness. They wanted to discover a resolution to simplify and velocity up e mail manufacturing.

The method of choosing the platform for e mail constructing

When it got here to deciding on an e mail builder for his or her nonprofit consumer, Optimum Enterprise Consulting relied on their experience to establish the very best resolution. 

Key standards for the e-mail builder included: 

• a straightforward drag-n-drop interface; 
• numerous content material parts; 
• reusable content material modules; 
• Outlook help; 
• simple changes for fonts, colours, and sizes;
• mobile-specific settings;
• a user-friendly preview function. 

Moreover that, the builder wanted to help full HTML export for integration with different programs, be collaborative, and be cost-effective.

In essence, the selection was between the next choices: Proceed utilizing the built-in however clunky Pardot Traditional e mail builder, attempt the newer Salesforce Lightning E mail Builder for Pardot, or attempt an exterior e mail builder, such because the Knak e mail builder or the Stripo e mail manufacturing platform.

1. The choice course of shortly dominated out the brand new Lightning E mail Builder for Pardot. The first causes have been that the Lightning E mail Builder was subpar and really limiting in comparison with exterior builders, and the consumer’s IT division was reluctant to implement it because of setup complexities.
2. Initially, the crew thought-about a builder that built-in immediately with Pardot. Nonetheless, they discovered Stripo’s HTML export performance so efficient that they determined towards forcing direct integration, figuring out IT approval can be difficult.
3. Optimum Enterprise Consulting performed a demo of Knak. Though Knak shared many capabilities with Stripo, Stripo was extra inexpensive and appropriate for organizations of all sizes. 
4. After consultants evaluated a number of choices, Stripo emerged because the clear alternative because of its options and cost-effectiveness. Optimum Enterprise Consulting shortly discovered that Stripo works very nicely with the Pardot Traditional e mail builder when Stripo conveniently handles the front-end design elements and the Pardot Traditional e mail builder is used to use viewers lists and ship emails.

This affordability and performance made Stripo the popular alternative. The professionals and cons of every e mail builder they thought-about may be seen in a preferred article on their web site in regards to the best email template builders for email production.

To introduce their nonprofit consumer to Stripo, Optimum Enterprise Consulting initially used their Company account for the primary few e mail builds. The consumer was impressed with the outcomes. Regardless of preliminary hesitations from the IT division, the consumer ultimately secured approval for a Stripo subscription and has been utilizing it efficiently for about two years.

Workflow and manufacturing: Steps and crew collaboration

Utilizing Stripo, Optimum Enterprise Consulting developed an optimized course of for its nonprofit consumer to have a streamlined e mail manufacturing workflow. This course of ensures effectivity and accuracy in producing high-quality e mail campaigns.

The e-mail creation course of consists of the next steps:

1. Template creation: The method begins with the creation of an e mail template in Stripo. The template serves as the inspiration for the brand new message.
2. Content material and duplicate adjustments: All mandatory copy adjustments, together with preheader textual content, are made inside the Stripo template.
3. Hyperlink technology: Distinctive hyperlinks with UTMs are created utilizing an exterior instrument developed by Optimum Enterprise Consulting. This instrument makes use of structured knowledge for UTMs and consists of required fields and calculations to make sure consistency in naming e mail templates to match e mail campaigns.
4. Hyperlink integration: The created hyperlinks are added to the e-mail template in Stripo.
5. Preview and testing: The e-mail is previewed in Stripo, with particular consideration to hyperlinks and cell variations for brand new templates.
6. Pardot integration: An present related e mail is cloned in Pardot, the place the sender info, segments, suppressions, and topic line are up to date. The complete HTML is exported from Stripo and used to switch the prevailing HTML in Pardot.
7. Textual content model updates: The textual content model is up to date in Pardot with minor formatting adjustments. Subsequent, check emails are despatched.
8. Approval: The e-mail is shipped for stakeholder approval. If revisions are wanted, adjustments are made in Stripo, and the method is repeated till approval is granted.
9. As soon as the e-mail is authorized, it’s scheduled for sending.

I educated a few e mail marketing campaign managers on the consumer during the last two years. One individual now handles all the e-mail creation. They have been capable of be totally educated in about two weeks from begin to end. Now, I solely leap in often on uncommon events to assist if required primarily based on their workload.

Jeff Kemp,

Licensed advisor, Optimum Enterprise Consulting proprietor.

The crew that works on e mail manufacturing is conditionally divided into two teams:

1. The content material crew supplies all of the content material, together with the topic line, preheader textual content, and physique copy. This crew can also be chargeable for remaining approval.
2. The e-mail marketing campaign supervisor primarily clones present templates for e mail creation and goes from there. With Stripo, the E mail Marketing campaign Supervisor can create new e mail templates that require totally new layouts whereas remaining per company type guides. So, they solely want one individual to create e mail templates and e mail messages.

Right here’s one instance of an e mail template constructed into the Stripo editor:

(Supply: E mail by Optimum Enterprise Consulting)

Points and resolutions

Whereas utilizing Stripo, Optimum Enterprise Consulting encountered some particular points that impacted their workflow, which they labored to resolve with sensible options.

Font hyperlink monitoring situation: Pardot counts each “@import” font hyperlink as a click on, affecting e mail analytic integrity. To take care of correct knowledge, Optimum Enterprise Consulting must manually take away all font hyperlinks from the HTML for every message and revision.

Title tag situation: One other problem entails the Title tag within the HTML. If not eliminated, the Title tag will seem within the inbox preview as a substitute of the preheader textual content. Regardless of makes an attempt to go away the Title clean or insert an area, the difficulty persists, requiring guide removing of the Title tag from the HTML for each message and revision.

Total, whereas these points require further steps of their workflow, Optimum Enterprise Consulting continues to work carefully with Stripo and appears ahead to enhancements that would additional streamline their e mail manufacturing course of.

Outcomes and influence on e mail manufacturing: Constructing emails 60% quicker and with high quality

Since transitioning to Stripo, Optimum Enterprise Consulting and their nonprofit consumer have noticed important enhancements of their e mail manufacturing course of. 

Essentially the most notable change was a dramatic discount in e mail manufacturing time. Total, the method is roughly 60% quicker, factoring in using their customized UTM builder and course of optimization. With out the UTM builder, the time financial savings are nonetheless spectacular, round 40%. This effectivity has allowed the consumer to streamline their operations and scale back reliance on exterior consultants.

The consumer has additionally seen enhancements within the high quality of their e mail templates. They now seem clear, vibrant, and cell pleasant, changing the outdated and off designs of the previous. This enchancment in visible attraction has contributed to a extra partaking expertise for his or her viewers.

The principle Stripo options that assist to realize these outcomes are:

• user-friendly options and capabilities;
• an modifying HTML module alongside a real-time view;
• the flexibility to edit total HTML (together with tables, rows, divs, and customized code);
• reusable modules;
• full HTML export.

Highlights of working with Stripo embody the benefit of including and resizing columns to suit particular layouts and the flexibility to combine weblog posts by way of an information module. These options showcase the instrument’s flexibility and energy, making complicated duties less complicated and extra intuitive.

We use Stripo internally, syncing our e mail templates to ActiveCampaign and HubSpot, and we additionally suggest Stripo to our shoppers for Pardot, Hubspot, and the like, and so they have all adopted it and have been very pleased with it.

Jeff Kemp,

Licensed advisor, Optimum Enterprise Consulting proprietor.

Wrapping up

Stripo has confirmed to be a extremely efficient instrument for Optimum Enterprise Consulting and its shoppers. It has considerably enhanced manufacturing effectivity, improved template high quality, and offered invaluable options that streamline the e-mail creation course of. The constructive influence on workflow underscores Stripo’s position as an important element of their e mail advertising and marketing technique.