My Client Needs Our Team to Send an Email:
Start Here: Watch Video for Assigning a Task for Emails
Communications Plan
When your client needs an email sent, you will need to add the content they want to include in that email into the Comms Plan for that client. If they don’t have a communications plan already (most will, and it’s located in the Links tab in Teamwork in their project), complete these steps:
- Locate the Communication Plan Template here https://accordus.com/2023/05/18/client-document-templates/.
- Make a COPY of this template (File > Make a Copy) if the prompt does not pop up automatically to copy it, rename the document as “YOUR CLIENT-2024 Communications Plan,” copy the link to the document, and add it to the links section for the client.
- Within the communications plan, this is an overview and meant to be the big picture guide for how many emails the client sends in a month and when the email is to be scheduled.
- Underneath each month, there is a notes section to take notes on the emails, if needed. Add any details your client may send to include in the email such as:
- include a photo of our director
- thank donors for giving at year-end
- include a link to give
- feature a story about Jon and Brenda… etc.
Assigning an Email Task
- When assigning a task to the Comms. Coordinator to build a new email for a client, remember that we anticipate needing at least 2-3 weeks to build and schedule an email.
- Refer to the communications plan for notes on what the email should contain (copy/content/photos/call to action), and copy and paste that content into a new task for the Communications Coordinator with a due date of 2-3 days so that we have ample time to see the task and launch the full email communication task for the rest of the team.
- Remember: the more information you give us in the initial task, the less rounds of edits we will need. Please gather all input from each client’s team (I.e. a board of directors heavily involved in emails) before assigning out an email. Please be sure we have all the media assets like photos up front as well.
- Comms. coordinators handle the building of an email from start to finish. We will assign the copy and design elements to the creative team, allowing for our team to have *2-3 business days * to complete each task.
- After the tasks for design or copy are complete, it may take 1-2 days for the comms coordinator to build the email and have it QA’d by our team. This means we will do a quality assurance check on the email contents, it will be reviewed by Adrienne, and then we will create a task for you as the team lead to send to the client for approval. No emails should be sent to the client without explicit approval from the QA team that it’s ready for the client to review.
- After Comms Coordinators send the task to you for client approval, it’s in the client’s hands to review and approve. If you have not heard from the client for 2-3 days regarding the email approval, reach out to them to remind them to approve so that we can have 24 hours minimum to schedule the email for sending the next business day.
- By default – we cannot complete same-day edits/turnarounds. This is only done on a special case-by-case basis.
- If they have edits, you will assign the edits to the comms coordinator, not the writer or designer for the client. We will make the edits, and if it is a minor change – we will edit and schedule the email. If it is a major edit, we may need 1-2 days to have our team revise the email content and send for re-approval to the client.
- Ideally, we allocate 24 hours from the time the client approves the email and we schedule the email until the email sends.
- For example: Comms Coordinator schedules the email at 1:30pm Thursday to send on Friday at 1:30pm. We will then send you and the client an email confirmation of scheduling. This allows the client to see the final product and the audience so that if any errors are still present, we can catch them ASAP. We try to stay away from same-day or last-minute scheduling so that we can produce quality work.
Practice Assigning an Email Task
For new team members, please assign a “practice task” to the communications coordinator of your client (found in the client assignments sheet) with the title “TEST: Assigning a practice email task” and let them know you are learning Teamwork.
If you do not have a client yet, assign the task to the lead communications coordinator (Blaine Ledbetter) in Teamwork. Be sure to use the due date feature, and notify by email.
Here is the “practice task” from your client, Camp Wildflower:
“We need an email to send to our top donors to let them know we are hosting a donor dinner on March 18 at 2pm at Loveless Barn. Please let them know we will have formal invitations to follow. Please use our logo and here’s a link to the graphics your team can use: EXAMPLELINKXYZ”