We have been taking advantage of the Marketo editing interface to generate some HTML emails that aren't ultimately sent via Marketo:
- for internal (e.g. staff) listserves: internal user creates/edits email asset in Marketo, sends test message to self, and then forwards it to the listserve
- for a different ESP used by another department within our organization: internal user creates/edits email asset in Marketo, developer exports HTML and replaces tokens if needed, places in other system
- for external (third-party) media partners: internal user creates/edits email asset in Marketo, developer exports HTML and replaces web tracking if needed, HTML delivered to media partner
Prior to Marketo, we used page templates within our CMS to enable non-developers to create and edit HTML emails within a rich text editor for use in any ESP. It's not what either the CMS or Marketo was made for, but we couldn't think of another means of giving these users HTML-based email layouts that didn't require a lot of developer resources. And when email content is being used across multiple ESPs including Marketo it seemed to be the most efficient method rather than recreating the asset from scratch in the other ESP.
Is anyone else doing something like this where Marketo email assets are ultimately used in a different system? What are the negative implications? For us it's been extra clutter in Marketo (e.g. unsent email send programs), the need for alternate footer snippets (can't use a Marketo unsubscribe link on emails sent from another system), and general confusion about what assets are being used for.
Or are there alternate solutions for these scenarios?
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