The email creation process can feel like herding cats—so many moving parts, so many people, and it all needs to come together seamlessly. Whether your marketing team is a lean, mean machine or you're juggling a small crew, streamlining your process is key to keeping your email campaigns running smoothly.

Let's face it: email marketing could use a lot less chaos. That’s why I’ve pulled together six actionable strategies to help you tighten up your email development process and bring a little sanity back to your workflow.

Create a project brief

No matter the size of your team or email program, start with a project brief. Trust me, even if it’s just you on a one-person email team, you’ll want to keep a record of what you did, the assets, the goals, and the results. There are a few planning doc or project brief templates circulating the internet, or you can make your own. Start with:

• Dates

• Goals and how you’re going to measure success

• Audience

• Asset names

• Responsible parties

• Envelope fields

• Copy and call-to-action

• Design ideas/sketches

• Links 

• Cadence

Establish a formal intake process

Set up a formal intake process with your stakeholders, designer, developer, freelancers, your boss, and anyone else that’s involved. You’ll want to define roles and responsibilities, deliverables, timelines, and goals. Set expectations and get consensus—this is an opportunity to get everyone on the same page:

• Mention that you’ll be creating a project brief to keep things organized. Get feedback on your brief. 

• Talk to your designers and developers and make sure you understand their needs. For example, designers may want to see a project brief to start designing. Your developer may want to see a PSD file before she starts to code. All this can be hashed out when you establish and document your email creation process.

• Make sure your designer and developer have access to your brand guidelines so everyone’s on the same page. 

• Discuss how work will get done. Do you want to work in sprints? What are the agreed-upon SLAs? 

• If your team is large enough, consider creating an intake form. 

• Consider how you or your team will prioritize work if you’re at full capacity.

• Determine who’s in charge of testing your emails to make sure they render properly across your major email clients.

• Once agreed upon, make sure you document the process in detail and share it out to the rest of the company or team. 

Set up project management software

I recommend using a project management software to keep things organized. Trust me, a spreadsheet might be okay to begin with, but as you get more projects, send out more emails, and add more team members, spreadsheets don’t scale. 

Find a tool that can help keep track of timelines, dependencies, deliverables, etc. There are numerous options out there including Asana, Wrike, Workfront, Basecamp, and many more. Ensure that each team member understands what their responsibilities are within the projects—if they’re required to close tasks, update due dates, etc. 

Schedule periodic check-ins

One of the easiest ways to keep your email development process running smoothly is to schedule regular check-ins. Whether it’s weekly or biweekly, gather your team to assess how things are going. Are there bottlenecks? Is anyone stuck? Use this time to troubleshoot issues as a group and brainstorm solutions. It’s also the perfect opportunity to give and get feedback, making sure everyone feels heard and the process stays efficient.

Benchmark and measure 

To track the success of your process improvements, start by benchmarking where things stand now. Then, after making changes, compare the results. Here are some key metrics to track before and after:

• How many people are involved in the process?

• How long does it take to build and deploy each email (or set of emails)?

• How many emails are built and deployed per month or quarter?

If you see an increase in the number of emails you’re cranking out and a reduction in the time it takes to create them, don’t be shy—celebrate those wins and share them with the team! 

Plan ahead!

I know, I know—cue the eye-roll. But your parents were right: planning ahead really does matter (even in email marketing). Give yourself and your team the breathing room to think, plan, and collaborate. Trust me, the process will be a whole lot smoother than scrambling to roll out changes after a last-minute Friday decision to "fix everything" by Monday. Nobody wants that kind of chaos, and your emails will thank you for it. 

Embrace the evolution

These are just a few of my recommendations to kickstart smoother email development. But remember—great processes evolve. Stay open to change, because the most efficient workflows often get better with time.

I’d love to hear about your own experiences—drop a comment on our LinkedIn page and let me know if you’ve implemented any process improvements and how they’ve impacted your email program. 

A version of this post was originally published on the Email on Acid blog.