Email redesign

My role

User and program research, visual design, prototyping, usability testing.

Team

Solo project. I received feedback and had to seek approvals from the UX team, brand team and program owners to launch each template.

Problem

In 2021, the Canadian Cancer Society adopted Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The program transitioned from code-based email builds to using drag and drop editor.

So, the Nationwide Email Development team had to create and document a new design standard for building email communications in the organization. We needed templates that any staff member could use. Also, they had to be visually appealing. With Email Studio in Marketing Cloud and its use of component blocks, our team now had the ability — and the requirement — to build visually appealing emails.

Solution

I embarked on creating templates that were scalable and visually appealing. 

I spent time with the new platform, understanding what was possible and what wasn’t. I met with the different program leads to understand their needs, the requirements of their brands and what they wanted to see come to life for email communications. I wireframed and designed the emails in Figma. Throughout the design process, I used processes to ensure the emails were visually appealing and accessible: building a grid, designing in grayscale, sticking to multiples of 8 and prioritizing type hierarchy.

I presented the templates to the User Experience team. They were approved. And then, I presented them to the program leads.

Impact

With the new templates, any employee could pick one up and use it to build an email communication.

The email performance improved with higher clickthrough rates, and higher conversions, in donations and event registrations. Team members have reached out and noted how much easier it is to read them.

The result has been an email design system, email templates for the various programs, and new standard for email communications at CCS.