Growing Newsletter Engagement for an Enterprise Software Company

Our project with Partner ONE tackled a newsletter product that they were using for their valued Channel Partners for Consolidated Communications, a very specific target audience. We had the task of creating a user-friendly, very appealing product that could keep reader engagement while offering a stimulating experience. Partner One has the mission to create long-lasting partnerships that create profitable and sustainable growth for their network’s businesses.

For this project, our creative team had to navigate a very worthwhile yet complex software called Pardot. This Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program automates Business-to-Business (B2B) lead generation for its users by funneling and tracking potential customers via automated marketing campaigns, then analyzes activity and engagement. Our team knows from experience that interacting technically with this software is just as intricate as it is with its CRM.

Our team used its expertise to create a standardized strategy for the newsletter, positively impacting reader engagement with content, integrating our product with Pardot, and testing all aspects of our product for current and future challenges the client, Consolidated Communications, could experience. What resulted was a very appealing and informative newsletter that maintained its integrity and engagement no matter how Partner ONE used it in Pardot.

One of our tasks involved creating a newsletter for Partner ONE, which may not seem challenging but needs the right combination of elements that stimulate and inform. It is common for a newsletter to be boring and simply packed to the brim with information. That may be all well in good, but we want people to read the essential information within the newsletter and not discard it from disinterest. These newsletters’ length could overwhelm and decrease the ability to convey important information to the Channel Partners for Consolidated Communications. Our team couldn’t let that happen for the client.

In addition to the newsletter, our team faced compatibility obstacles associated with our client’s chosen platform, Salesforce’s Pardot. We needed a responsive newsletter that audiences could engage with without Partner ONE experiencing the hiccups SalesForce’s Pardot resulting from our newsletter. Some of the most predominant challenges with Pardot are syncing and automation of information from any lead generation, and user activity tracking by completion actions.

Our creative team addressed the newsletter’s readability and engagement in a few ways. Our strategy started with a standardized way to format the newsletter. We wanted products our client could reuse for future editions and emails that were user-friendly to update and would maintain the engagement strategy we created. Next, we broke the newsletter into sections using visuals that enhanced the experience and dividers. Chunking information like this doesn’t overwhelm the reader while still drawing their attention to keep them reading. Finally, we streamlined the images/illustrations keeping and normalized the typography as well. These methods are tried and true ways to keep our readers hooked.

With Pardot, we had the luxury of previously making Partner One’s branding, so we were very familiar with structuring our products to maintain integrity and integration. We hard-coded our products and imported them onto Pardot. Once on Pardot, we tested links and proofed everything. Our team decided that a custom text-only version gave us a cleaner and neater product than using the auto feature through Pardot.

Everything we did so far we knew would ensure our success for the client. However, our team wanted to test different aspects to ensure the reliability of our work. The team used Rendering Tests by Litmus to test the various email clients and see the impacts, if any, on delivery and eye appeal on different types of devices. Since Pardot offers a vast amount of tracking features, we needed to know that our products can withstand whichever avenue the client wants to use them. Therefore, we sent out many types of individual test emails to stack holders for review before their scheduled blast, and the reward was many successful deliveries.

With everything locked in, our project was ready to move forward. However, similar to web design, email marketing design constantly needs improving, so our team reviewed our product adding slight upgrade to the newsletter appearance, simplifying it even further and tightening up the visuals. We are constantly offering solutions and consistent service to our clients, overcoming any current and future challenges.