This document discusses evaluating an email marketing program by going through a "checkdown" process. It recommends evaluating key areas like vendors, marketing teams, technology, and operations when certain events occur or issues arise. The document provides a real-world example where gaps were found in vendor relationships, campaign planning, and marketing operations. Recommendations included establishing workflows, planning campaigns in advance, and monitoring spending. The key takeaway is to document evaluation findings, develop solutions, and socialize/get buy-in to create an actionable roadmap for improving the program.
1. Evaluating Where Your Email
Program Is – Stepping Through
the Checkdown
MARK TALLEY, SR. MARKETING MANAGER
2. Checkdown?
Referencing a term in Football where the QB will go through a checkdown of
receivers and may end up throwing a short pass to the RB or TE for a short
gain or possibly a …
TOUCHDOWN!
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3. When should you evaluate your
program?
The short answer… really depends on what you’re seeing day to
day.
For me – it’s whenever I join a new company.
It’s a time commitment and sometimes difficult to fit in with the daily
onslaught.
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Bottom line – if it’s important to you - you’ve got to make the time.
4. When should you evaluate?
There are some events / actions that are natural opportunities for
an evaluation of your current program:
Has your team changed org structures?
Has there been a change in client teams, approaches or feedback?
Are there issues with your current provider (ESP)?
Are you starting an RFP process for a new ESP?
Has there been a change in backend systems?
Are there channel engagement issues across your email program?
Is every team meeting a gripe session?
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5. What should you evaluate? 5
Before you ask that… you need a scooch of program introspection.
Are there any issues, gaps, inefficiencies – anything limiting you
from getting the most out of your program?
If you answered yes – what are they?
6. What should you evaluate?
At the risk of over-simplification – your opportunities for
improvement will probably fall into these buckets.
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Vendors Your team Marketing Tech Marketing Ops
Evaluating everything is going to take time. If you don’t have a
couple of years to spend on it – start with the obvious gaps in your
program and go from there.
7. A real world example
I was given a mandate for a complete evaluation of the program.
Here are the issues that needed to be reviewed:
YoY spending increases with two primary vendors.
Over reliance on our agency to execute daily.
Obvious gaps and limitations of the current ESP.
Better team management, look for training opportunities.
Improving program execution.
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8. What did I do?
After digging in on my evaluation, I uncovered a few more gaps…
No marketing operations setup whatsoever with our clients.
A lack of campaign planning.
A lack of partnership with I.T.
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9. What did I do?
So considering the last two slides, I evaluated:
For the sake of time – I’m focusing on only two of the four buckets.
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Vendors The team Marketing Tech Marketing Ops
10. My approach…
As you all know, we don’t have the luxury of focusing on one thing
at a time. A lot of what I’m going to lay out here was done
concurrently.
I started my evaluation with the Vendors.
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11. My approach… Vendors
Walked into a new company, a new team and an immediate
renewal on the SOWs for two out of three vendors. I started with…
Reviewed the SOWs and current contracts.
Reviewed the ROI case for at least one vendor to justify the renewal.
Looked at vendor spend for the last two years and current burn rate.
Started a log for the first three months for any and all gaps – including
performance issues.
Had frequent weekly communications with all vendors.
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12. What I found… Vendors
In my evaluation, I found
There was almost a passive aggressive approach to the vendor relationships.
No pro-active planning between the parties, no SLAs.
Contract terms were too friendly to vendors.
Weekly meetings were one-way communications – not collaborative.
Not actively tracking spend against budget.
Service and capability gaps with the ESP.
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13. My recommendations…
We’re going to need to RFP for a new ESP.
More transparency and open communications with all vendors.
Share more insights on what we’re trying to achieve instead of flinging work
over the wall.
Set SLAs where we can.
Flag issues early, don’t blame – investigate and remediate.
With T&M SOWs – insist on weekly burn reports to monitor spend.
Let’s move on to the second category I evaluated – Marketing
Operations.
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14. My approach… Marketing Ops
In my opinion, a review of marketing operations is one of the easier
categories to evaluate – but way harder to fix.
Over the span of three months…
Involved myself in campaign conversations (planning and execution) for each
member of my team.
Reviewed work/ campaign requests
Monitored how the work got done – at every stage.
Discussed pain points with my team during their one on ones.
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15. What I found… Marketing Ops
In my evaluation, I found…
There was no set intake form for marketers to use.
No defined workflows for the types of campaigns coming in.
A lack of long-term campaign planning.
Marketers were adding campaigns to the calendar without notice.
Work flew over the wall without regard to capacity.
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16. My recommendations…
Develop workflows for all campaign types.
Being way more proactive engaging our marketers.
Restrict access to the campaign calendar - hold weekly meetings with
Marketers to review and update.
Push for the hire of additional marketing resources.
Utilize those new marketing resources to influence and spearhead changes to
planning for capacity and calendar, as well as start up an intake process.
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17. Ok … so now what?
Once you figure out what the gaps/issues you have – you’ll have a
better picture of what needs to be evaluated.
After the evaluation, review those findings – identifying potential
solutions – that’s when the real work begins.
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18. Next steps
Document everything.
Work on solutions.
Socialize with your team and management – other stakeholders
if need be. Get their buy-in.
Start a roadmap – develop a project plan.
Get it done!
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19. Tips and tricks
When you’re embarking on a checkdown / review of your program,
there are a few things that can help.
Be open and transparent
Skip the office politics – don’t be a partisan
Don’t take anything off the table
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