Case Study: Spectrum Reach Email Marketing Design System
While working at Spectrum Reach, the marketing and advertising arm of Charter Communications, I became the subject matter expert in email marketing. I provided strategic direction and educated my coworkers on best practices, teaching them how to maximise the potential of our ESP, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engage.​
The Challenges
Email design experience did not align with website experience, creating a visual disconnect for end users.
When users received an email, they would click through to a landing page that was beautifully designed. The email, on the other hand, was often a plain text message, frequently leading the user to think there had been a mistake.
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In the reverse, end users would sign up for an event or white paper from a landing page, only to receive an email that did not look like it had come from Spectrum Reach, leading to an increase in Spam complaints.
Many individuals creating emails were not strong developers and struggled to meet deadlines due to the learning curve.
Most of the individuals developing the emails had too little or no HTML experience. Because Spectrum Reach needed hand-coded emails to match the visual brand, utilising the drag-and-drop editor was not an option.
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The designers would spend hours struggling to code a short email, missing deadlines, and becoming increasingly frustrated.
The Approach
Create a design system that enables fast design while allowing for creativity and customisation, providing a seamless visual experience for end-users.
I began by coordinating with the web development team, learning about the design system they had created to ensure brand consistency across landing pages.
I then conducted an audit of all emails the team had been working on and identified the most common modules they had been building. From this audit, I was able to refine these modules into their most basic elements.
Lastly, I compared the current emails being created with industry best practices for email design to identify areas of potential optimisation.
Mirror the design system in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engage, utilising components and snippets.
My strategy focused on developing a component-based email design system within Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engage.
This approach empowered non-developer team members to quickly assemble on-brand emails using pre-built blocks. This ensured consistency and drastically reduced the amount of time spent manually coding emails.
I created a template design file with all elements. I then made all components and snippets in SFMC, ensuring the design files matched what the team was seeing in the ESP.
Work Samples
This email demonstrates one of the more straightforward applications of the email design system.
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The mobile-responsive header allows for two different email headers to be used.
These email campaigns showcase how creative designers were able to get while utilising the email design system.
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Although the design is wildly different, it still utilises the same modules.
This email design earned me two mentions in industry publications for the dark mode-friendly design.
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Email on Acid Blog
Darktober in Review: Recapping our Dark Mode Email Exploration
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Action Rocket Blog
Automotive dealerships are a special niche in the small business B2B space.
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The email design system was used to create the kind of "no fluff" message that resonates with this audience.
The Outcome
Designers reduced email design and development time by 75% (from up to 6 weeks to less than 2 weeks).
This dramatic reduction in development time freed up the design team to focus on higher-level creative tasks, allowing for faster campaign launches.
Fewer rendering errors in the email code.
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This significantly improved the recipient experience as broken or inconsistent emails were virtually eliminated, protecting brand reputation and maximizing campaign effectiveness.
End users received visually aligned email communications.
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The new designs created a seamless brand experience across the entire customer journey, reinforcing brand recognition and building trust, which ultimately led to improved conversion pathways.
The Big Picture
Once implemented and adopted, the design system empowered the team to launch new email campaigns quickly and consistently, resulting in more effective customer engagement and increased lead conversion.
​Little Nudge Marketing can apply these strategies and principles to any customer engagement platform. To learn how we can help create an email design system for your small business, give us a nudge and schedule your free 15-minute consultation.