Creating a flexible newsletter templating system for Navico

Email newsletters remain a powerful tool for businesses to communicate with their audience. However, the challenge lies in creating newsletters that are attractive and functional across a wide range of email clients and devices.

Navico Group, a global leader in marine electronics, sought a solution that would allow their in-house content team to quickly and easily craft and dispatch a wide range of email newsletters without having to compromise on the design or worry about whether the newsletters would display as intended.

Acknowledgement, with over two decades experience in email design, build and testing, were happy to take on the challenge to develop a flexible newsletter templating system.  The system seamlessly integrates with Navico's existing Adobe Marketo email sending platform.

Design process

1. Wireframes: The process began with the creation of initial wireframes, which provided a visual representation of the proposed content layouts. These wireframes underwent several refinements to ensure they met Navico's current and future content needs.

2. Visual concepts: Post wireframing, visual concepts were developed and refined to show how the various Navico brands could be surfaced and different types of content would appear.  It was very important during this stage to be aware of the constraints of email design and what elements can (and can't!) be used reliably across the fragmented email client landscape.

3. Master templates: Desktop and mobile (responsive) variants of master templates were crafted.

4. Imagery: Acknowledgement took the responsibility of sourcing and producing high-quality imagery. This image bank would serve as a resource for Navico's future email campaigns.

5. Guidelines: To maintain consistency in design and content, a comprehensive guideline document was created. This document detailed the rules for applying imagery, content, and the creation of new graphical assets.

Technical process

1. Responsive email templates: The master email templates were built and tested ensuring they were responsive and adaptable to various screen sizes.

2. Testing: Extensive testing was conducted across all major email clients to ensure the newsletters displayed correctly without any glitches.

3. Marketo setup: Acknowledgement then setup and configured Navico's Marketo account to add the various template elements into Marketo's email authoring system.  Lots more testing happened at this stage.

4. Staff training: To empower Navico's team, training sessions were organised. These sessions covered the creation, testing, and dispatching of newsletters using the new system.

Conclusion

Acknowledgement's holistic approach which combines both design and technical expertise resulted in a robust, flexible and great looking newsletter templating system for Navico.

This system not only simplified the newsletter creation process but also ensured that Navico's communications remained consistent, attractive, and functional across all platforms. The collaboration between Navico and Acknowledgement stands as a testament to the power of combining innovative design with technical precision.  The system we created empowered the in-house Navico team and removed a lot of uncertainty and frustration from their day to day workflow.

If you'd like to talk to the team at Acknowledgement about the wide range of email services we offer don't hesitate to get in touch!