Creating an e-mail component library for General Motors

Gathering a sample set

With the number of e-mails generated for each brand, it wasn’t feasible to assess every e-mail topic for every brand. We started by carving out a selection of e-mails to serve as our sample set. The team collaborated to determine which brands and topics made the most sense to prioritize, informed by those that have the highest touch to customers, for the brands that would launch first on the component library.

Analysis and documentation

We analyzed the content structure of the e-mails in our sample set and began to outline shared content needs that could be created as components. I worked closely with the e-mail designers to better understand the features they would like to have moving forward, beyond what had been produced to date. From there I created a series of specifications and collaborated with the development team who began to prototype inline to ensure the feasibility of the components.

Reviewing with brands

We shared our proposed component set with the brand teams, making them aware of the transition from one-off e-mails to a component-driven system, capturing and accounting for their inputs.

Timing

We completed the analysis, design, and brand reviews within the course of about 4 months.

We created a set of 12 plug-and-play components, each with configurable layout variations, reducing the time and effort to create marketing e-mails for several different General Motors brands including Chevrolet, Chevrolet Performance, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, Vehicle Purchase Program, Certified Pre-Owned, GM Fleet, OnStar, GM Card, eRewards, ACDelco, GM Recalls, GM Family First, and more. Yay!