Overview

Creation of NordicTrack’s email & SMS marketing ads was traditionally being done by the CRM team. This led to an inconsistent brand experience for shoppers who accessed the eCommerce site through these channels. As such, it was decided to move design to myself on the NordicTrack team.

Problems to Solve

In summary, here are the changes we worked to fix:

1. Make email & SMS designs consistent with the brand

2. Begin incorporating motion graphics
   Not only did we want design to feel on-brand, we also wanted to elevate the user experience by adding animated elements to emails.

3. Streamline our task management procedures
   While we had been managing projects through Asana, we were not using it to it’s full potential.

4. Integrate our designs and processes with the iFIT CRM team

The Process

Build a Component Library

To streamline the design process going forward, I began creating a component library that would also house design guides and best practices. This is an organic guide that continued to expand and evolve as I collaborated with our CRM designers. All previous designs were built in Photoshop, so I had to rebuild certain elements in Figma. Other new components were created, such as buy-boxes featuring a variety of nested format options for prices.

Align Designs With the NordicTrack Brand

This was an iterative process that involved learning something new with each round of email designs. Due to time constraints and a still-developing component library, we focused first on desktop designs. I began linking colors, logos, photography, and type styles to our published design libraries in Figma, allowing for seamless alignment with current NT brand guidelines.

Once we caught our stride, I suggested we begin adding mobile designs with mobile-specific exports and type styles, rather than relying on desktop content to somewhat carry over into smaller breakpoints. We then took a mobile-first approach as we normally do for site projects. This presented some new additional challenges with fonts and creating content optimized for both dark and light screen modes.

Iteration & Evolution

With complete control and involvement in the creation and deployment of our email & SMS content, our team went to work by leveraging these channels to support our holiday season sales. These sales were the most crucial time of year for the business, and these communications played a strong part in contributing to our overall ad-driven traffic. Seeing the immediate results of this traffic helped guide our decisions for each design iteration. Sometimes that meant staying the course, sometimes it meant trying something new.

One new feature was the inclusion of motion graphic content. I generated these through a combination of deconstructing layers in Photoshop, then reassembling them in After Effects, thus allowing me freedom to move certain parts of the exercise machines. This helped to reinforce the highlighted features and catch the viewers attention when they open the emails.

After several rounds of emails, we also began designing SMS images to deploy with the corresponding email content. These would be sent at the same time to targeted consumers. This meant that my eventual workflow involved designing two screens (mobile and desktop), and an accompanying SMS image.

Integration with iFIT CRM team

To maximize our reach, the NT brand began integrating with our sister brand, iFIT. This allowed us to reach more consumers available through iFIT’s distribution lists. They also brought a number of time-tested design resources and best practices to our team. I worked directly with iFIT’s CRM team and project manager to implement better task tracking and communication with stakeholders. Another hurdle we had to clear was design discrepancies between our NT file builds, and iFIT’s. In order for them to send our emails, our files had to more closely match their templates. I collaborated with their designers to develop templates that aligned with their needs, but maintained the NT brand look.

Design Deliverables

Results

Our ads have performed well, and have met or surpassed expected performance metrics. Here are specifics I was able to gather from our CRM team:

Retrospective

What Went Well

• Designs became fully aligned with the NordicTrack brand, halting any prior inconsistencies.

• I was able to build an email-specific design system comprised of best-practices, nested components, and frame guidelines. This is intended to make email design easy for any future designers who will be tasked with shouldering this responsibility.

• Emails were effective at hitting revenue goals.

What Didn’t Go Well

• New Asana processes and workflows being implemented without proper training or instruction beforehand.

• When “final” details were finally given, it was frequently the day design is due, leading to a crunched sprint to get it done. This leads to numerous mistakes along the way, only further stretching out coding time as went go back and forth with CRM to fix them.

• Due to no official project kickoffs, projects have just grown and unravelled into much larger projects than was ever communicated to me. This is especially true of the numerous AND1 sale emails. What started as 1, quickly grew into 5 emails. So not only have we been cramming in more emails, but I am also expected to add on additional work to duplicate, alter, and export Figma files to be compliant with iFIT’s coding requirements. This alone takes at least an additional 30+ minutes for each email.

Collaborators

Jon Ward, NordicTrack eCommerce Manager // Brianna Bybee, Creative Director // Cade Watterson, CRM // Kelsey Siddoway, Project Manager // iFIT CRM Team

Like what you see?

Please reach out to me! You can find my information on my contact page.