It's Just Email, How Complicated Can It Be?

Today, delivering a dynamic and relevant experience to your subscribers isn’t a complimentary service – it is an expectation of your customer and your organization.

But delivering that relevant experience can incrementally increase the complexity of your program. Before you know it, you have 3,000 lines of code that no one ever wants to update, improve upon, or (dramatic pause) migrate.

But the powerful authorities that govern your organization likely don’t understand just how involved these communications can be.

And – let’s be honest – they don’t really care, until fundamental decisions about the program need to be made.

For anyone using heavily dynamic messages, it may be time to take stock, uncover, and clearly depict the complexity of your program.

This will help to assess if all that dynamic content is really in the best interest of your subscriber. I suggest starting with your transactional messages.

Step 1: Start with Your Wireframe

Take the time to really understand the wireframe of your template.

You will probably have sections like: pre-header, header, navigation, purchase details, cross-sell offer one, cross-sell offer two, loyalty information, and so on.

Study and number each of them.

Step 2: Map the Content

This step will likely take the longest. Audit each section of your template to understand the dynamic logic.

Then, calculate the number of permutations possible for each section. For example, you may have multiple lines of business that share a transactional message, multiple languages, or both.

All of these elements need to be taken in to consideration to truly visualize the complexity.

Step 3: Assess the Complexity

There are some elements of complexity that are critical to the message you are assessing.

For example, if a message isn’t sent in the correct language, it could be damaging to the customer experience. But maybe you don’t need 300 possible versions your navigation.

Once you have all this information, it is easy to lay it out in a one-page document featuring the numbered wireframe, along with the corresponding definitions and content possibilities.

Many times, you will find that the complexity didn’t come all at once; rather, it was added over time. When that happens, it is much easier to over-complicate your program with little or no added value to the customer.

With this snapshot, you can really start making some decisions about the necessity of the content.