How Google Apps Can Save Your Email Program
Thursday, November 8, 2012 
Does your business have an email marketing program?
If you do, chances are there are struggles.
There is often constant back and forth amongst marketers and designers concerning email marketing. The designers often want to have some lead time with their workload. Designers need time to use their creativity to design the most visually appealing and effective marketing emails they can.
Marketers, on the other hand, want lead time as well, but sometimes the market demands last minute changes. Things like product inventory, changes in promotion strategy, and other factors come into play and plans change.
If you’ve ever been involved in this process, you know that emotions can get high. Breakdowns in communication can happen. As a result, mistakes will happen. The good news is that some of these mistakes can be avoided with a simple communication tool.
Using Google Apps to Organize Email Marketing
Have you considered using Google Apps to manage your email marketing program?
Traditionally, companies have used spreadsheets to manage their email marketing programs. This is more common than you might think, but the spreadsheet concept is simple and it has worked to a point.
But in today’s world of fast paced changes and tight schedules it makes life easier to have a few more efficiency tools at your disposal.
With Google Apps, you are able to have a few more options with your email calendar and spreadsheet. One of the biggest advantages you’ll see with using Google Spreadsheet is the notifications. You can share a spreadsheet with each of the members of the email marketing team.
Each time a person views and makes changes to the spreadsheet, each member of the team will receive email notification. This is important for efficiency especially when you’re fighting a deadline for your next email that needs to be sent.
From the designer’s perspective, they need to know when there are changes to the promo codes or even to the entire theme of the email. Believe it or not, marketers can forget to pass this information along when they are working with the email plan. The marketer can make a change that’s a week in advance and think they are giving their designer enough leeway.
In reality, the designer may have already created the email that was originally in the plan. There is nothing more frustrating than this situation for a designer and for a marketer.
The notifications available in Google Apps can really work well to clear up the lines of communication. It’s easier for marketers to share their changes and plans and easier for the designer to schedule their time.
Google spreadsheet is simple, but it gets the job done. The important aspect of the program is the notifications and how they can really improve communication on a project.
Google Calendar
Google calendar is a great way to manage your marketing schedule. The calendar doesn’t have to be elaborate. You need to make sure you include every detail for each person to effectively create the email. There can often be five people working on any given email. You have the designer, the marketer, the person that is proofing and the person that is checking inventory on the products to be featured.
A lot of hands touch the project so it’s important to have detail, context and all the content necessary for the email to be effective.
Something else to consider as part of the email spreadsheet are results. Each person involved will want to know what is working and what needs work. There are often tests going on with different designs, headlines, and concepts. It’s important to have reporting in place to show the performance.
You can include this reporting right in the spreadsheet.
Next Steps
Start working with Google spreadsheet. You don’t have to jump full into the process with your email marketing program. You can use a spreadsheet combined with Google Calendar reminders to work on a few projects. If a few smaller projects work well then you can migrate over your entire email marketing program.
Today’s world of email marketing often has communication breakdowns. It’s really not the fault of any person involved in the process. It’s just that the process has room for improvement.
With Google Apps, you can really improve communication with notifications. Each person that works in the spreadsheet will have access to all the details of each email. When last minute changes are made people involved will instantly know.
Google Apps is a great way to improve your email marketing process. Most email marketing programs are important to the success of a business. By utilizing something like Google Apps you can make your program even more profitable and really improve the entire process making things more efficient and more flexible.
Have you used Google Apps for your email marketing program?
