Empowering Email Marketing at IEEE: A Success Story with Knak

Everyone loves a good story, especially one we can relate to.

Today’s story is about an ordinary person facing a common enemy: workplace inefficiencies.

As marketers, we know email campaign creation can be a nightmare. Coding, testing, approving, editing, and curating dynamic content can drain the fun out of the process.

That's why we’re sharing insights from an interview with Justin Anderson from IEEE, showing how Knak has revolutionized his campaign creation process.

Day in the Life of a Marketing Automation Specialist

100+ brands.

At IEEE, Justin and his team act as an internal agency, overseeing the email marketing efforts of more than 100 brands.

Overseeing the email marketing efforts for ONE brand can be tough. How on Earth could anyone do so for so many brands, all with different needs, different schedules and different sub branding guidelines?

Well, here are some things that the IEEE marketing automation team doesn’t need to worry about anymore:

• Coding emails: Coding Emails is difficult and time consuming, with most users spending anywhere from several hours to even days to build a template
• Testing emails: Test emails in your ESP / MAP can often turn out to be much different than what your customers receive, resulting in harm to your brand
• Creating dynamic content: Dynamic content is necessary for brands with a wide audience. However, creating the same email slightly altered over and over again can be a long, inefficient process
• Finding inspiration: Sometimes, finding that first spark of inspiration is the toughest step in building a good email. Many brand struggle to avoid repeating the same boring email template over and over again
• Lengthy approval processes: The “Death Loop” is what many call it. Email approval processes are necessarily timely and inefficient. Even once an email is done, it often takes several days of approval and edits until it can be sent.

Justin’s daily routine typically consists of building and managing email campaigns. Although most of his time used to be spent building emails, Knak has changed things up.

Now, Justin spends most of his time supporting his vast list of customers and empowering them to build their own emails. With Knak’s 100% no-code email builder, Justin has no trouble convincing folks to try out the solution.

"Having the proficiency and support from the Knak side has really allowed me to empower my customers to get in there and build themselves."

Achieving the Goal of Decentralization

We’ve heard about decentralization in banking systems, but what does it mean in the workplace?

Decentralization in the workplace means the elimination of dependencies. The elimination of dependencies means you’re saving time. You’ve got less blockers, less people to rely upon, and more time to do what matters. Instead of centralizing all email creation which can create a bottleneck, IEEE gives power to the business users to create content with brand guardrails and quality controls.

"We have this amazing tool and we want to make sure that these people are actually using it and getting the full power of it", Justin says. "We have over 100 brands right now, and I would say 90% of them are active in Knak in some sort."

Decentralization Unlocks Efficiency

Marketers look for efficiency anywhere they can get it.

In Justin’s case, the amount of time to build on email went from 1.5 hours to just 15 minutes thanks to a decentralized approach combined with Knak.

That’s an 83% decrease in time spent building emails.

"We have a three to five day SLA for turnaround time, but with Knak, if a business owner comes to me and says, 'Hey, I need an email built, I need to get it out tomorrow,' can you do that? Absolutely, that's not a problem," he said. "Being able to really cut down the time and have good looking emails perform well has been a huge plus for us."

The Power of Knak and Marketo Integrations

Justin highlighted the powerful integration between Knak and Marketo, with Knak now handling all of their email building and Marketo simply being a means of launching and targeting.

We all know the struggle of building emails in Marketo. It’s difficult, frustrating, and unacceptably time consuming. Thankfully, there’s another way.

"All the building is done in Knak, and having that customization allows us to really just launch and target from Marketo," Justin said. "I would say 90% of our actual email process is Knak, whether it's the building, the reviews, the syncing, whatever it might be. And then we're just hitting that big red button, the launch button in Marketo, and that's basically it."

Dynamic Capabilities

We asked Justin what he felt about going from Marketo’s dynamic content to Knak’s dynamic content.

"It’s a world’s difference"

Justin emphasized its ease of use, noting the enhanced customization of different segments and the ability to create relevant content for each target audience.

Working with the Knak Team

Justin has been working with the Knak team for over three years now. As all good relationship partners should do, we asked him how we’ve been doing so far.

"It’s been nothing but great."

Considering his team has been with Knak for years, Justin has seen several different CSMs and support teams. Nonetheless, Justin says that "If we have any questions, problems, or concerns, they're always pointing us to the right people with the answers."

Closing Thoughts

What does everyone love even more than a good story?

A happy ending.

"I very rarely preach so hard for companies, but Knak is one of those companies where the people behind it are so genuine and seriously want to help you out to make your business the greatest it possibly can be"

To again quote some of Justin’s words, "Email marketing is hard, being a marketer is hard. Especially in a vastly changing landscape."

But it doesn’t have to be.

Learn more about how Knak can help you rediscover your love for email marketing.

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About IEEE

IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities. IEEE is the trusted “voice” for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe.

About Knak

Knak is a no-code platform designed to simplify the creation of beautiful, brand-compliant emails and landing pages, enabling marketing teams to work more efficiently and effectively.