Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Brittany Watson. I am a business strategist here at Stitch. And today we're going to be talking about process optimizations, specifically surrounding the feedback and revision cycle. So what we're going to talk about. First, we're going to do a little bit of level setting when it comes to what the feedback and revision cycle is. And then we're going to talk about three key areas when it comes to improving your overall process and optimizing in order to get campaigns reviewed, tested, approved, and live as fast as possible. So you're getting the most out of Braze. To do that, we're going to talk about your stakeholders, we're going to talk about how to consolidate your feedback in the best way, and then how to streamline the actual approval process for launch. So to kick us off, I want to level set of just what the campaign process is and what it is we're talking about today. This is an incredibly high level and simplified version of a campaign process, but it probably looks relatively familiar to you. Starting on the left side is kind of the overall intake when it comes to a new campaign or canvas that you plan to build out and launch. So that could be your actual creative briefs, any version of like an intake document is sometimes called a campaign request form that all falls in that first step. Then you have your conversations, your actual meetings around what this work's going to entail. And you can begin to then delegate that work out to the respective teams that are going to own those different work streams. Those actual assets are created. Sometimes there's some data work that is done here as well. Then you move into the actual like CRM team who is building that campaign or canvas. So this could be an email, a push message, an in-app message actually being developed. Then you have some deployment configurations, and this is where you get into a lot of testing and proofing and feedbacks and revisions, and hopefully approvals that can be kind of a vicious cycle. That's what we're going to focus today. And then once you get through that, hopefully you are launching quickly and moving into more of the analytics side of monitoring, reporting, and making strategic optimizations and decisions based on those results. So again, where we're going to focus today is more so on this kind of build feedback revision cycle that a lot of my clients can get stuck in and can lose a lot of momentum. We're going to talk about how to hopefully avoid that today. So findings and efficiencies, again, these are the three main areas that I have seen a lot of clients have success with. So the first one is defining your key stakeholders. It's important to really define who these people are going to be and to what degree they're going to need to be involved throughout the entire process. And the earlier we define who these folks are going to be and give them a heads up, the smoother down the road things are going to work out. Second is consolidating that feedback. So many campaigns and canvases require lots of different team members or maybe completely different teams across your organization to work on their respective pieces that then all get put together at time of build. So how do we get all of those different people with all of those different priorities? How do we get them to put all of their feedback in one place in the same way and in a timely manner? And then number three, hopefully the easiest part is getting that final approval. But the thing to keep in mind here is oftentimes the final sign off is coming from someone who may not have been involved in the day to day every step. And so it's important to get it on their radar, but also make sure that they understand your goals of the campaign. So when it comes time for them to approve, they can do that quickly. We're going to dive into each of these a little bit further. So the first one, step one here of those defining key stakeholders, I just have some considerations or recommendations for you to think through. So first, who should be involved in every step, right? Some people are going to be involved in every step of the way, every different piece, whether that's designers, copywriters, any of your like data architecture team to make sure that we have the data that's needed to power these campaigns, who's going to be involved in all of those conversations. And then the other side of that is who needs to only see the final product. So they know that this is happening from start to finish, but they don't necessarily care to be a part of every conversation. They more so want to see everything once it's been compiled, put together before we move into the final approval and launch. The biggest thing to keep in mind too, when thinking through these people are any of these people, executives with limited availability, we want to make sure that we're keeping that in mind when it comes to our overall timeline and giving them a heads up when things are going to head their way, hit their desk and need their attention. The more we can plan for that at time of kickoff, the better. The other thing to keep in mind is any legal review or approval. Oftentimes legal teams are in high demand and there are not a ton of individuals working through the queue of work. So this is another aspect of just keeping that timeline in mind is really going to do you a lot of favors down the road. And then are we also working around any PTO, office closures, holidays, maternity leaves, right? Sometimes things pop up unexpectedly and we take that in stride, but if there are any people that we are going to need their attention and we know they're going to be out of office, how do we flag this to them? So we know that it's either going to hit their plate right before they're out, or it's going to be waiting for them upon their return. So they are ready to review. And then the last thing to keep in mind when it comes to defining your key stakeholders are how are all of these people actually going to view the tests of your campaign of your canvas? So are they being provided mock-ups and like a PDF, or are they being provided like a word doc when it comes to copy, or are they getting a true test send of the campaign, whether that is an email or a push message? Are they going to be sent that on their actual device in their actual inbox? Are they going to view these by logging into a proofing tool? So Litmus is commonly used where you can then view and give feedback right there live in the tool. And last, probably not least, inside Braze. So are these individuals actually going to be logging within Braze itself to then view the build from there to then give their notes? So keeping that in mind also allows you to make the best decisions of who should be those stakeholders and are they accurately prepared with the correct access to then give their approval or their feedback. On the right-hand side here, it's just a general log that I have seen clients have a lot of success with when it comes to defining their key stakeholders. So you can see this is very simple, just the individual's name, their email address, and then whether they are going to be a tester or just an approver. So sometimes we're checking things like personalization, we're sending out a ton of different proofs, tons of different tests. Is this person going to be involved in all of that or do they want to see what we're considering the final version for final approval? You might want to include other things on a document like this, like the team that they might be involved in, right? Are they design? Are they copy? Are you wanting to keep a log of any of those like out of offices that we mentioned? It depends on your organization, but again, simple version that I've seen a lot of success with. This just helps identify everybody, but then also serve as kind of letting them know, Hey, this is going to come down the pike here in coming days, weeks. So be ready for it. So once we have everything built out and we start to send those tests to our key stakeholders that we've identified, there's the concept of how do we actually consolidate all of that feedback? So as I mentioned, oftentimes it's a plethora of team members potentially working on very different teams within the organization. How do they expect those tests to get to them? How are they notified that it is time to go in and review and provide their feedback? Do they have access to a log or a document in which they were expected to put their actual feedback? And we're going to talk about the example on the right here in just a second. The other thing to keep in mind is after somebody gives their feedback, their job isn't necessarily done. Those revisions are going to be made and those new tasks are going to be sent out and it's fair to expect those individuals to then go and review the new test to make sure that the update was made in the way they expected it to. And then last but certainly not least, when proofs are hitting people's inboxes, it's really important to give them a deadline of when you need that feedback by. Things like this, if it's not somebody's number one priority, it's not the top campaign that they're living and breathing every day. It's really easy for things like this to get pushed off. And knowing that we're working on a timeline and have a launch date in mind, narrowing that window in which they are expected to give their feedback is extremely helpful. So then this right side, again, this is simplified. Definitely work to flesh this out in what way fits your organization the best. But here you can see just general, the actual feedback. Every line is a different feedback. It's not all going in one line that allows us to easily see what has been updated, what still needs to be updated, including who the person is that is putting that feedback there. Again, this just enables that once that revision is made and the new test is being sent out, that person then is held accountable to the revision that they requested and making sure that it has been made in an accurate way. Feedback addressed. I think this column is the most helpful, especially if there's a lot of feedback that could potentially be coming to your team. So default is no, you put in a new request that has not yet been addressed. Obviously the next step is hopefully that it turns green to yes, that piece of feedback has been addressed. Sometimes it turns yellow. Sometimes there's additional followup, a question, a clarification. This enables you to just see those different pieces, the person that made that request of who to reach out to, and you can handle that conversation pretty seamlessly in that way. And then I always include an additional notes column. This is mostly helpful when it comes to those yellow statuses in the sense of there's additional feedback questions before the change is actually made. So if you were to get a request, you have a conversation offline about what that request really means. You can then have a place to just put in your notes that you connected with that individual. Here's some clarification, et cetera. And then I include a little pro tip here. So having a revision log that is the exact same for every single campaign is going to do wonders when it comes to building your team's habits of logging any changes they need made in one spot. So if it is always set up the exact same way, your team will very quickly grow to learn that they should be looking for the revision log that goes with the campaign that they're currently reviewing, and it helps build that habit. Another kind of pro tip is that maybe at the top of the revision log, you put yellow highlight or red highlight of the due date for all revisions, like that round of revisions to be in by. So that way there's kind of no excuse, the reminders right there in the log as well for everybody to get that feedback in for you. And then step three, our final approvals. So the hope is definitely that this is your easiest step, but there are a lot of gotchas that pop up here. So first being, is the person or the team truly knowledgeable of the campaign from the beginning? So as you remember, I pointed out that identifying those key stakeholders at kickoff is really beneficial and this is why. If it is an executive on your team, or it is being sent to a queue of legal requests, having those people already familiar of what this campaign is, what the goals are, what it is they are actually reviewing is only going to make this go smoother versus a request hits their desk, they're completely unfamiliar with it. You are then having to bring them up to speed, hopefully answering all of their questions in a timely manner, and then expecting them to sign off on something. The earlier that we can fill that knowledge gap, the better. I mentioned what area are they actually approving? So by the time you're getting to final approvals, I do not expect this email or this campaign to land on someone's desk and them to be combing copy to find a missing comma, right? At this point, they are truly saying like, yes, this fits the overall goal or the idea of the campaign. It serves it well, it looks great, it meets the legal criteria, we're not promising something that we shouldn't be. And at that point, they can give it a thumbs up for launch. The one other thing to keep in mind here, again, timelines, legal teams sometimes take forever to review, executives are really busy, oftentimes traveling, so just making sure that again, it's on their radar, but then also giving them a deadline. As long as that works within your organization, giving them a deadline for that final approval is key and making sure that we are getting it in a timely manner. My pro tip here is give those people a deadline that is before your go live date. So if it is an individual, give them a day or two at a minimum. If you know that this has to get sent through legal and your legal team typically takes a week or two, get it to them early and let them know a date that is prior to your go live date, just in case there's delays, in case they do come back with something that needs fixed. There's nothing like saying, hey, we need your approval on a Thursday, so this can launch on Friday, and then they get you a revision on Thursday and you're kind of reentering this revision feedback cycle. So in summary, five tips in order to enhance, optimize your revision and feedback cycle. So number one, remember that the efficient revision process truly starts at the time of kickoff. Number two, give everyone who's going to need to review a heads up so they can plan accordingly. Number three, consolidate all of your feedback into a single document and limit the amount of time people have in order to actually review, so we can keep things moving forward quickly. Number four, once revisions are made, expect those who requested the changes to then go in and confirm that it now looks good and is up to par. And then number five, making sure that any and all final approvers, especially executives or legal teams, are on deck, they understand the desired outcome of the campaign, and are ready for a timely turnaround prior to launch. Hopefully, these are three simple ways to optimize your overall campaign process to streamline, get things documented in one source of truth, make sure everybody is on the same page, so the process is as smooth as possible, and you can push your campaigns live. Thanks.