How to collaborate on emails

[Anthony_Pica]

How is everyone collaborating on emails? We're currently sending test/samples to individual people, but it's not efficient.

We would like a way to collaborate on email messages with multiple people from both marketing and sales.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Hey, Anthony:

You could create a custom email alias for the collaboration group, and set the reply-to as that custom email alias. Then send the email to that same email alias. That way everyone sees everyone else's feedback. 

Or you could set the reply-to as the collaboration group email alias then send the test email to one individual who can start the reply-all chain.

Just remember to change the alias back as the final step of approving the email!

 

Best,
Edward Unthank
Marketing Operations Specialist
Yesler

[Anonymous]

At my previous company we mapped out a process of approval. So ex: program manager creates copy -> copy writer edits -> programs VP approves -> I create email -> Send test to program manager before sending out.

I like Edward's idea better, but just throwing out other examples in case they fit your company better.

[Anonymous]

Our process is the same as Kim's except that after the email is created, the program manager and a proof-reader give it one final review before we hit send. We also use Asana for program management, which creates a nice thread of where all the projects stand.

[Anonymous]

I would recommend leveraging a 3d party solution to support such collaboration.
Depending on your CRM and other tools in house. You can use Salesforce.com, Jira, Jive, etc.
This would allow you to manage and track feedback and approval processes.

Dmitri

[Anthony_Pica]

Thanks everyone.

Edward, I'll give that a try.

Dmitri, how would you use Salesforce to collaborate on an email message/design?

[Anonymous]

Anthony:
It can go as robust as you would like.

1. Leverage chatter to post content/emails for collaboration
2. Can add on that by creating an email service that would log an email automatically from an email alias
3. Potentially can also attach copies and content to campaigns in SFDC and track their status/feedback and approval processes there.

Hope this helps,
Dmitri

[Anthony_Pica]

When you mentioned Salesforce, I had a feeling you were implying Chatter as well. I'm just not sure how to post an email to Chatter. Maybe take a screenshot of the email and then post the screenshot to Chatter?

I'm not sure how to attach an email to a campaign in Salesforce either. I'll ask one of our SF Admins.

Thanks for the insight!

[Anonymous]

Anthony:
You can also print an email to PDF.

As it relates to chatter ingration, there are some apps on AppExchange that do that, or you can have your admin team write a custom APEX email service.

Dmitri

[Anonymous]

We've used google docs in my previous company so that everyone was able to see the latest and greatest edits & we are able to see who made the edits. That way the campaign owner can just check the google doc as often as they need to rather than send hundreds of emails around  which people can't get enough of already =P