Kahoot! is a game-based platform on a mission to make learning awesome in schools, corporate settings, sporting and cultural events, and other social contexts. The Lifecycle team at Kahoot! focuses on enhancing the product and onboarding experience, using "traditional" digital marketing to connect with different audiences. One of their most important channels for doing this is email.
We sat down with Arnbjrn Marklund, Lifecycle Marketing Director at Kahoot!, to discuss how Taxi for Email helped streamline their email creation process across departments and time zones.
Previously, the team working on email was small and often overworked. We have high standards for how our emails should look and render across different platforms, which meant we usually had to code every email from scratch. If not from scratch, then we would use custom code as a starting point. Advanced CSS and HTML knowledge needed for this meant a lot of people couldn't contribute to working with email. It also meant that teams couldn't see the "email in action" as it was built from a platform not everyone had access to.
As emails were built from scratch or with custom code as a starting point, it was a lengthy process across different teams working on emails. We had to go through multiple iterations on copy, review assets with designers and design multiple variations of the email before it was approved. The process took a lot of time and coordination effort, and it was unsustainable to rely on one person (or help from a front end developer) to send an email in a growing company where it is important to move fast.
On top of this, we had to work across multiple departments to plan most email campaigns and newsletters. We have offices in different time zones, which meant that planning and executing a campaign required some additional sync.
With Taxi, our email process has definitely improved, as the process is simpler and quicker than it used to be. Our email team is still small, but at the same time it has expanded from one person to also involve relevant people across the organization on a project basis.
We are now able to have a designer creating emails directly in Taxi based on the copy and design brief, then a CRM Coordinator to work on final tweaks and approval before uploading the template to the ESP for the launch.
Working with Taxi doesn't require any HTML coding from scratch which means more colleagues can contribute to the process. This is a huge win as it means our copywriters and designers are no longer blocked, streamlining the email production process. We have also structured Taxi so that everyone with different roles at Kahoot! can edit the actual email in progress, making the email approval process much easier as it doesn't involve emails and Google Docs iterations sent back and forth several times before the final signoff.
We have a template which has been coded and custom-branded, which means it's easier for anyone to create emails which fit our design standards. This puts the focus back on creating great content. This is especially important for the CRM and lifecycle team who are responsible for 1:1 user interactions driving engagement and conversions. A branded template, means there is less room for error and a shorter QA process.
Not only are we now saving time, but also optimizing our processes as pretty much anyone with access to Taxi can create as well as review emails. No matter department, previous experience with email design or coding, or time zone. This is important as we are scaling up to grow the team.
The fact that Taxi is vendor-agnostic has proven to be the biggest advantage in supporting us through our martech changes.
Arnbjrn Marklund Lifecycle Marketing Director
First of all, it is important for us to mention that the Taxi support team are super friendly and able to help the Kahoot! team with even minor requests lightning fast.
On a more technical side of things I want to highlight how we have gone through some major changes in our martech stack. The fact that Taxi is vendor-agnostic has proven to be the biggest advantage in supporting us through these stages. Over the past year, we have been searching for the perfect marketing automation system which has meant we have had to use several different ESPs as temporary solutions. During this process, we have been able to keep our email activity at an optimal level. This is all thanks to Taxi, as the marketing team could continue creating emails as they "always do", whilst the lifecycle team could facilitate the delivery of those emails on temporary ESP solutions.
Everyone directly involved in the email production process now has access to Taxi. This means they can see the email being built from creation to the point of send. What's great about this is that it minimizes the number of iterations and review rounds.
We can now easily send proofs or test emails for approval from different departments. Copywriters now go into Taxi and directly add the content when needed. When the email is ready to be approved, Taxi provides the option to export in different formats (HTML and screenshots) making the email process much more efficient at Kahoot! We've also integrated with a new ESP and are looking to explore integrating with our ESP to remove one more step from our "email creation value chain".
Our vision is to build the leading learning platform in the world. From a marketing as well as CRM / lifecycle perspective it is our job to boost the growth. 5 million teachers globally hosted a kahoot in the last 12 months, while 50% of US K-12 students play Kahoot! monthly.
In addition we offer several plans tailored to corporate usage (such as corporate training and events), while Kahoot! is also commonly used socially for birthdays, weddings, holidays, family dinners, game nights and more. If you haven't already you should play a game of Kahoot! It's fun and competitive. And you actually learn something while having fun!
Sign up for a free Kahoot! account at kahoot.com.
