Laserfiche® Newsletter Email Templates

• Objectives
• Solution
• Summary

Objectives

The Laserfiche Email Redesign project aimed to resolve critical issues in the email marketing strategy, including design inconsistencies, ineffective layouts, image size problems, and inadequate testing. It involved creating a master template and providing cross-departmental training. Additionally, mastering Salesforce Pardot was necessary to update and migrate existing templates.

Solution

Project Management as Design Lead

My transition from a Senior UI/UX Designer to a Design Lead occurred when I undertook this multifaceted project. While I initially received guidance from my Art Director/Project Manager, I discovered that significant aspects of the project's scope were undefined. Embracing a more active role as the design lead, I directly engaged with the four project owners (Events, Customer Success, Social Media, and Lead Generation teams). Navigating the complexities of multiple stakeholders, each with distinct priorities, demanded adept facilitation and decision-making. Through collaborative sessions, I meticulously captured and navigated requirements from all parties, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives. Armed with this information, I formulated a comprehensive project scope and timeline, which received unanimous approval from the relevant teams. This streamlined approach empowered me to seamlessly progress into the design phase.

UI/UX Design and Testing

In spearheading Laserfiche's email redesign, I ensured a unified visual experience across all communications. While an agency revamped Laserfiche's branding, the absence of a design style guide posed an initial challenge. I meticulously analyzed the corporate website to establish design standards. Leveraging this groundwork, I developed a template reflecting brand consistency and laid the groundwork for subsequent style guide creation.

Collaborating with stakeholders, we categorized the 65 email templates into transactional and marketing types. Transactional emails smoothly transitioned, benefitting from my graphical communication expertise to refine sections for improved user flow. Marketing emails, split between text-based and graphical formats, catered to distinct team needs.

Close collaboration with project owners facilitated comprehensive UX/UI testing, including usability, visual design, and responsiveness. Feedback collected through surveys and usability sessions guided further refinement, ensuring resonant email communication and brand cohesion. While A/B testing for content optimization fell outside project scope, it remained integral to the broader marketing strategy.

HTML Email Coding

Recognizing the need for stronger development expertise, I stepped in to code the emails when the initially assigned individual lacked sufficient experience. After crafting the master template, I conducted extensive Litmus testing to ensure seamless display across diverse email clients, browsers, and devices. This encompassed rigorous checks for cross-platform compatibility, responsive design to accommodate varying screen sizes, and consistent adherence to brand guidelines. Through this process, I promptly addressed any formatting or rendering discrepancies encountered.

For instance, during Litmus testing, I identified an issue with the rendering of the H1 headline's bracket—a crucial component of the Laserfiche rebrand. To enhance accessibility, particularly for scenarios where images were disabled, I ingeniously transformed this graphical element into an HTML counterpart. Given our target audience's heavy reliance on Outlook for email, I adeptly navigated the platform's constraints, which permitted only fundamental CSS functionalities compared to other environments. Leveraging a combination of nested tables, inline CSS, and spacer GIFs, I devised and innovative solution to mitigate challenges such as headline wrapping, default graphic size in Outlook, and stacking order inconsistencies.

Salesforce Pardot Email Marketing Platform

Laserfiche opted to transition from HubSpot to Salesforce for managing all email and landing page operations. Upon finalizing the contract, Laserfiche enlisted the expertise of a Salesforce setup specialist contractor to facilitate the implementation process. Initially tasked with instructing me on Pardot usage, it became evident that the contractor lacked proficiency in the system. Determined to overcome this obstacle, I took proactive measures by independently completing a variety of Salesforce's Trailhead courses, ultimately achieving the Trailhead Ranger rank with over 100 badges. Equipped with this comprehensive knowledge, I successfully developed functional email templates within the Salesforce environment.

Coding for Non-Developers

Given the absence of front-end developers within the teams, I designed a modular HTML email template to facilitate individual team objectives without requiring specialized developer expertise. This entailed creating segmented modules with clear comments for copying and pasting. This fostered flexible customization for tailored email layouts that met the individual teams' requirements.

To expedite the email generation process, I created a collection of starter templates. These templates served as foundational frameworks, offering teams a starting point for customization while ensuring consistency and efficiency in design.

Team Training

Recognizing the importance of personalized guidance, a series of instructional meetings was set up to provide each team with 1:1 time to ensure understanding of how to use the templates effectively. These sessions allowed for hands-on assistance and troubleshooting, ensuring that each team member felt confident in their ability to utilize the templates to their fullest potential.

In addition to the modular template and instructional meetings, I created comprehensive training documentation: a 36-slide PowerPoint presentation. This document guided teams through the utilization of the template and provided insights into effective marketing practices. It covered various aspects, including detailed instructions on template usage, marketing principles for optimizing each section, and reference documentation. I also included a detailed character count guide to ensure optimal design, along with links to the image and iconography libraries I created. Furthermore, technical specifications regarding image weight, dimensions, and alt text usage were included to ensure adherence to industry best practices.

By implementing these solutions, the project aimed to empower teams with the necessary tools, knowledge, and personalized support to effectively utilize the email templates, streamline their workflow, and enhance their marketing efforts.

Summary

• Met project deadlines by delivering all 65 required email templates within the one-month timeframe.
• As the design lead, I achieved exceptional results while navigating the complexities of multiple stakeholders, each with distinct priorities.
• Took charge of code development, initially delegated to another team, which involved creating a low-code template and conducting thorough Litmus testing for quality assurance.
• Utilizing Trailhead resources, rapidly onboarding myself and achieved proficiency with the Salesforce email platform, showcasing agility in acquiring new technological skills for Laserfiche.
• Successfully completed departmental training within a one-month timeline, actively leading cross-functional collaboration to broaden organizational insight and expertise.