Streamlining Email Campaigns with Template Management

What’s your top-performing email template? Which one is used most? Do you have email templates for your newsletter, webinar series, or product updates ready at your fingertips?

Efficiency is key in campaign operations. However, many organizations still rely on homegrown and manual processes to manage email campaigns. Put another way: if you were onboarding a new email marketer, would you show them templates in your marketing automation platform or email service provider?

Is your “template” process really just finding an existing email that is “good enough,” cloning it, and replacing key elements?

This is where email template management systems come in. They are a game-changer for campaign operations teams looking to optimize processes and maximize efficiency. Template systems serve as an organized repository of pre-approved, pre-built templates that can be imported into your email system of choice at a moment’s notice.

Need a newsletter? The template is already approved, meets all brand guidelines, and is ready for distribution. Need a webinar invite? The template is pre-built with call-to-action buttons optimized using real-world data.

This post is all about email template systems: what they are, how they work, and how you can integrate them into your process to streamline campaign operations.

What is an email template management system?

An email template management system is a single platform used for template creation, organization, and distribution. Template systems like Knak integrate no-code email-building tools, allowing marketers to create emails using drag-and-drop functionality. These systems generate the backend HTML and CSS needed to render emails across various devices and email clients.

Template management systems serve as a library for organizing templates used by marketing teams. Many platforms, like Knak, offer collaboration workflows for revisions, comments, and approvals as templates are created. Once developed and approved, templates can be synced with marketing automation platforms or email service providers via API integrations or by manually copying and pasting the generated code.

These systems not only store templates, but they also allow for the development of individual emails for campaigns like webinars, newsletters, or product updates. This is critical because platforms like Knak offer robust integrations to help users navigate platform-specific syntax (like Marketo Email Syntax) or to utilize advanced scripting to achieve personalization at scale.

Features of an Email Template Management System

How does an email template management system work? What key features should you consider when evaluating options? Since these tools are relatively new to the martech scene, let’s go over the features to look for in a template management system.

• No-Code, Drag-and-Drop Template Builder
• Centralized Template Library
• Collaboration and Approval Workflows
• Customizable Brand Guidelines
• Seamless Integration with Marketing Platforms
• Template Personalization and Dynamic Content
• Responsive Design Capabilities

No-Code, Drag-and-Drop Template Builder

At the heart of any template management system is a no-code email template builder. The promise of no-code tools is that they unlock creative freedom in email development without needing to write a line of CSS or HTML. This enables teams to rapidly build out an entire suite of templates for common marketing use cases.

Centralized Template Library

Template systems serve as an organized repository for all your email templates. They allow you to find relevant templates for any campaign and share them across your entire organization. This centralized library prevents your team from reinventing the wheel every time you need an email designed—more often than not, a suitable template or pre-built modules will be available to quickly assemble an on-brand email.

Collaboration and Approval Workflows

Every marketing organization is set up slightly differently—there are a number of unique and effective operating models to choose from. The one common element across all models is the need to collaborate with multiple departments to ensure high-quality emails. Template management systems feature collaboration and approval workflows that allow multiple stakeholders to contribute. This keeps quality high and gives everyone a chance to provide relevant feedback.

This is a key benefit for many organizations because it spares individuals from logging into marketing automation platforms or reviewing test emails in the inbox. Both processes have challenges. Adding users to marketing automation systems can be difficult since they require training to navigate effectively. Inbox email tests, while important, can create long email chains where multiple contributors offer conflicting or contradictory feedback. Having the collaboration workflow in one place keeps everyone in sync.

Customizable Brand Guidelines

Brand integrity is non-negotiable in modern marketing. Template systems provide a centralized platform for email development, ensuring even decentralized teams adhere to brand guidelines. Enterprise teams will often face the challenge of field marketing teams creating ad-hoc emails for a specific campaign. This freedom can result in “coloring outside the lines,” leading to issues with brand integrity.

A centralized template system establishes brand guardrails, ensuring emails developed in the field adhere to your guidelines.

Seamless Integration with Marketing Platforms

To be effective, your template system needs to integrate directly with your marketing platforms, whether it's an automation platform like Marketo or another ESP. This direct integration is critical for syncing ready-made emails and templates into that system, allowing your marketing team to execute campaigns. Tools like Knak support direct integrations to popular platforms like Adobe Marketo Engage, Pardot, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Template Personalization and Dynamic Content

Personalization and dynamic content are key capabilities of email template systems. This feature is beneficial for marketers looking to craft tailored messages to specific segments and audiences. This feature set is beneficial for marketers looking to craft tailored messaging to specific segments and audiences. By integrating with CRMs and marketing automation platforms, these systems can use accurate, reliable data to help you build personalized emails directly in your no-code editing tool. For an overview of how this works with a tool like Marketo, read our guide to using segmentation to create dynamic content.

Responsive Design Capabilities

With a large percentage of emails being opened on mobile devices, creating responsive emails is non-negotiable. Hand-coding responsive emails is a major challenge for developers, as they must account for dozens of email clients and screen sizes. No-code platforms like Knak generate the necessary code to ensure your emails look great across all clients and devices.

The Benefits of Using an Email Template Management System

Now that we've covered the key features of an email template management system, let's take a closer look at the real-world benefits. Here are the benefits of an email template system:

• Increased Efficiency and Speed to Market
• Consistency Across Campaigns
• Enhanced Collaboration and Streamlined Workflows
• Scalability for Growing Teams

Increased Efficiency and Speed to Market

The time savings offered by an email template management system are significant. Streamlining campaign operations and email development greatly improves speed to market. Rather than waiting for an agency or in-house developer to finagle an email design, the no-code tooling of an email template system gives you the ability to immediately create emails. At DISH, the usage of Knak is estimated to have cut down email development time by half and saved upwards of 10 hours each week. Read the DISH case study here.

Consistency Across Campaigns

Maintaining a consistent brand image can be challenging without a solid email management system. Email template systems help establish brand guardrails and controls. This not only helps to empower everyone on your team to create on-brand emails, it also speeds up the email development and approval process. At Guild, Knak was used to standardize email modules to ensure a consistent brand experience across a large, complex organization. Read the Guild case study here.

Enhanced Collaboration and Streamlined Workflows

Collaboration in email development can be complex and require multiple steps to keep all stakeholders in the loop. Email template management systems offer collaboration and approval workflows to keep stakeholders informed and involved in the process. This is key because it spares the need to add those users to marketing automation platforms (where they may struggle to navigate) or send long chains of test emails to inboxes. Citrix uses Knak with an 80+ person marketing team to streamline collaboration around email development. Read the Citrix case study here.

Scalability for Growing Teams

As your marketing team grows, the complexity of managing multiple campaigns across regions, departments, and customer segments also increases. The mounting challenges of a growing team require a template system to organize emails and provide a collaborative platform for email development. This is exactly why Meta turned to Knak to help scale up its email marketing process. Listen to the full interview with Don Le, Marketing Automation Lead at Meta.

How to Set Up Workflows in an Email Template Management System

Convinced that an email template management system is the right call for your marketing team? The next step is to set up internal workflows that are optimized for that system. This includes both manual processes and how your team will work with the template system. We've detailed best-in-class workflows for email and landing page creation before, but will use this methodology for guiding you on how to implement workflows for your team. Here are the steps:

• Request: The Planning Stage
• Create: Build On-Brand Templates
• Test: Ensure Quality and Compatibility
• Collaborate: Gather Feedback and Refine
• Execute: Launch the Campaign

Request: The Planning Stage

Behind every great email campaign is a rock-solid campaign brief. Developing one keeps everyone on the same page and enables a smooth handoff to the designers using your template system. Many organizations use intake forms or project management platforms to facilitate a smooth request process. You can set up tasks to require key details like the audience, email goals, design ideas, and estimated timeline.

Email template systems like Knak integrate smoothly with platforms such as Asana, Monday.com, Wrike, and Adobe Workfront. Once the request is approved, you can manage your email process in Knak and have updates synced back to your project management tool. This is critical further in the process particularly when seeking stakeholder feedback and final approvals.

Create: Build On-Brand Templates

Once the campaign request has been received, it's time for your team to start developing the emails. Template systems like Knak allow anyone to create and experiment with emails. You may choose to dedicate a specific individual to this task, especially if they have a ‘knack’ for email design (see what we did there?). It doesn't necessarily need to be a developer, although they often appreciate the ease with which they can combine their development and design knowledge with a no-code email builder.

You can use pre-built modules or refer to a library of pre-approved templates for rapid prototyping. Some customizations may be required to meet the requirements of the campaign brief.

Test: Ensure Quality and Compatibility

After the template is built, the next step is testing your email for compatibility with all devices and email clients. Ensuring emails render correctly across different clients and screen sizes is key to making your email accessible and effective. You’ll also want to test dynamic content or personalization elements to ensure they render correctly. Having a formal process here will help you to maintain high quality and brand consistency.

Collaborate: Gather Feedback and Refine

Template systems like Knak enable you to design pre-approved modules and templates that are on-brand. However, as a general rule, you will want to gather feedback from stakeholders and ensure the email complies with all your internal requirements (such as marketing, legal, or compliance teams). Getting formal sign-off on the email is critical for quality assurance and allows everyone on your team to provide valuable, timely feedback. Consider integrating this process with your project management tool so tasks are completed in a timely manner and you avoid bottlenecks.

Execute: Launch the Campaign

You've got your formal approvals, and now it's time to sync the email to your ESP like Marketo, Pardot, or Eloqua. Tools like Knak provide a direct integration which allows for syncing with a few clicks. The email is now in the hands of your marketing team and ready to be distributed. Once delivered, monitor email metrics and performance metrics to optimize and refine future emails.

Scaling Email Marketing with Template Management Systems

In marketing, the name of the game is doing more with less. Technology like email template management systems help teams to scale operations efficiently and effectively. By providing a central repository of email templates that are accessible to your entire team, you can speed up your campaigns, ensure brand consistency, and tap into the creative power of your marketing team.

No-code tools like Knak are helping marketers execute campaigns faster than ever before while improving the overall quality of emails. You can build emails that are responsive, work on all devices, and render perfectly in all email clients without needing to write a line of code. Email templates and modules are saved for future use, enabling reuse and rapid prototyping. By streamlining your workflows with a template system, you can scale your email marketing and integrate it into your existing processes.