Team work makes the dream work: introducing Collaboration

One of the “jobs” that our customers hire MailUp to do could be summed up like this: “tell me if the campaign is ready to go”. Splitting it into “sub-jobs” that they need to get done in this area, you would find things like…

• Are there links that are broken or pointing to blacklisted Web sites?
• Any red flags in the content that could trigger spam filters?
• Any rendering issues in email clients that are important to me?
• Are my colleagues / boss / clients OK with the message?

Over the last year we worked on a “Message checkup” feature that helps with some of these tasks. One big job that we did not help with, however, was the last one in the list: does everybody agree that the message content is OK?

Especially when multiple people are involved (e.g. a multi-person marketing team, or an agency with its clients), getting all stakeholders to provide feedback and eventually give the “OK” on the message can take a long time and be very inefficient (emails, calls, messy notes, misunderstandings, etc.).

So we designed a completely new tool to get the job done – Collaboration.

When working on a message, MailUp users can now click on “Collaborate” from a number of locations.

The Collaboration system will start in a new window and create a new project for that message. Users will be able to immediately share it and ask others to comment on it, or add their own comments first.

When users share the project, they can add colleagues and/or clients to share it with, enter a personal note, and send the invitation to collaborate.

Those invited to collaborate on the project will receive a simple email that invites them to get involved.

When they click on the link in the email, they are taken to a page where they can view the message and comment on it. They can add their thoughts on an existing comment thread, or drop a pin on a specific area of the message (e.g. the logo at the top) to start a new thread (e.g. “The logo is not the right now. We should use…”).

No authentication is needed to access the system (i.e. anyone with a link can access it), to keep things simple and fast. Password protection will be an optional setting available later this year.

Once collaboration has started on a certain message, the project status is shown on many pages within the MailUp platform. For example, an icon is shown on the page that lists email messages.

• A blue icon indicates that people are collaborating on the project. A number shows how many comment threads have been created.
• A green icon indicates that the message has been approved.
• A gray icon indicates that the collaboration project has been archived.

Collaboration status is shown:

• On the page that lists messages
• On the message “Overview” page
• On the message “Checkup” page

A few more notes:

• Individual comment threads can be “Resolved” when the issue being discussed has been addressed.
• When a message is edited based on the feedback received, the latest version of the message is passed back to the collaboration system when the user clicks again on “Collaborate”, so stakeholders always see the latest version.
• Projects can be approved even if not all comment threads have been resolved.
• Stakeholders invited to the project can choose whom to notify when they add a new comment.

Thanks to Collaboration, MailUp users now have an efficient and friendly way to ask for feedback on an email campaign, collaborate with all the stakeholders that need to be involved, and send a message with much greater peace of mind.

Teamwork for the email marketing team become easier and more fun. Communication for agencies and their clients becomes faster and more organized.

We’ve put a great deal of effort into developing a solution that aims to be smart, flexible, simple and efficient at the same time. We hope you find it as useful as we do! Try it first hand and let us know what you think of it.