01 - The problem
Xometry is your source for on-demand manufacturing with guaranteed quality, consistently low prices, and fast lead times on custom parts. As innovative and transformative Xometry was in the manufacturing space, their email marketing has seen drops in engagement across all metrics. One of my first responsibilities after joining was to revamp the email design system.
Create a new look and feel for the templates to draw more engagement from our recipients.
Create a system that makes it easy for non-designers/developers to go into Hubspot and easily create these new emails.
02 - Setting up scope
Our marketing team had grand ambitions for the campaign and design but didn’t have the knowledge base to execute them. To kick things off, I set up a project plan with a 6-week scope to audit, ideate, design, and loop in agency support for the backend development.
03 - internal research
In order to better understand objectives and pain points, I have 1:1 interviews with everyone on the marketing operations team. Afterward, I compiled a list of the main pain points that need to be addressed:
Overall: The emails are outdated in terms of design. Need a fresh approach to bring these to life again.
Hubspot-specific: Main email creators have difficulty using the native modules to fit their needs. Can this be simplified?
Functionality: We need these to be extremely easy for people to create and update without the need for advanced HTML.
Scaling: One of the main issues was global modules. While the design updates were needed, they were hesitant because they’d have to manually update every single email.
04 - Visual update audit
I knew what kind of issues I had to address but I wanted to get a better glimpse of current email trends and experiment with how the pain points can be resolved through a better design. I took an audit of our current emails and found a few overarching design issues.
05 - Creating the design system
At this point, I had already met with the agency and got a SOW approved for work. Immediately started on the Figma mockups to get them ready for hand off. I wanted to address the main visual and functional issues so I started the design with different modules. Instead of one main email that people would need to edit via HTML, I proposed a drag-and-drop system that leveraged Hubspot’s existing functionality but have it customized to meet Xometry’s needs.
I designed each module to be independent of the others so that users can pick and choose which modules they’d need for each email. I made specific requests to the agency to ensure that global modules like the header and footer can be easily swapped once and updated across the board.
06 - Everyone needs a hero
Before I joined, there wasn’t a designer to help with creating these emails so a lot of the images they used were created in non-design software (like powerpoint, shutters*). I set up a new work flow so that hero images can be custom-tailored and custom-designed, by a designer, so the top of the fold gets the attraction and visibility it needs.
07 - Agency power
To offset the load from our internal dev team, we hired an outside agency that specialized in email development in Hubspot. I spent a few meetings with them going back and forth on design questions, functionality issues, goals and objectives, and kept the project moving along to meet deadlines. The final email designs were coded out by module and were ready to test live within our ESP.
The agency helped us create a seamless drag-and-drop system in our Hubspot. With each module coded out separately, users were now able to create any kind of email without any HTML knowledge and all styles stayed on brand.
08 - Soft Launch
The new system rolled out with a few emails to an internal list to work through a few revisions. Unfortunately, some ESPs (mainly Outlook) did not render some modules correctly so we had to abandon a few but we were still able to launch about 90% of the modules we designed with no issues.
09 - Live implementation and measurable Results
Users were able to create customized emails with ease and shaved a good amount of time off their workflows. Xometry marketing emails saw increases across the board in terms of engagement. Open and CTRs were up and un-subs and bounces dropped. One of the best-measured emails saw drastic improvements in metrics.
10 - Next steps
Phase 1 of the email relaunch was a major success. We will be continuing to improve our email strategy through better targeting, messaging, and design improvements.
