The marketing automation platform (MAP) served American Bankers Association (ABA) well for more than 11 years. But it was time. ABA, a banking trade association representing banks of all sizes and charter types and their over two million employees, needed a more robust MAP to help carry its messages to all its members and customers. The Stensul Governed Creation™ Platform was impacting marketing asset creation efficiency — and interestingly, ABA had not recognized Stensul’s role in simplifying, speeding, and managing the cost of the migration to a new MAP.
ABA sees big dividends from Stensul as it goes through a MAP migration
“Having Stensul in place proved to be an immeasurable benefit to keeping the migration moving without delay and avoiding several consequential expenses.”
Kim Borbely
Senior Director, Marketing, ABA
No redos
on email templates
7x
faster email creation
No new
end-user training
No redos
on email templates
7x
faster email creation
No new
end-user training
Contents
The challenge for ABA
Even before the existing MAP had reached its usefulness as a deployment platform, Borbely saw that its email builder presented limitations for marketers who were not familiar with HTML coding. The decision to migrate from one MAP to another takes work. It can be challenging to control the costs associated with this process. Many activities can be delayed, if not halted, for a potentially unknown amount of time.
The workarounds added friction of their own. The Member Communications team would create emails in Stensul. They’d copy the code because they didn’t trust the API between Stensul and the old MAP. A team member dropped copied HTML code into a template in the MAP email builder and then checked the settings.
“The existing MAP’s native email builder was not advancing ABA’s email capabilities. We had limited staff knowledge of HTML, which created a backlog and roadblocks to sending out brand- and accessibility-compliant emails to our members.”
Kim Borbely
Senior Director, Marketing, ABA
The shift
Borbely and her team handling the MAP migration did not realize the benefits Stensul would bring to this initiative. Since ABA went with Stensul, everyone at ABA builds emails in that platform — whether from Marketing, Member Communications, or their international subsidiary. A typical and time-intensive activity that’s a must-do during a MAP migration is to redo all the email templates built for the existing MAP. “Since we had Stensul, there was no need for that,” Borbely said. “If that weren’t the case, we would have had to revise and reconfigure hundreds of thousands of elements. Instead, we were able to save a significant amount of time.”
With Stensul in place, those creating emails could continue doing as they were. By removing email creation from the new MAP, ABA could focus on its core strengths, deployment and analytics capabilities. The emails created in Stensul sent out via the new MAP meant recipients would not see anything different — ABA subscribers, members, and customers would continue to consume its content via email as they had been.
“Since we went with Stensul, everyone at ABA builds emails in that platform. Whether from Marketing, Member Communications, or our international subsidiary, the emails are created in Stensul.”
Kim Borberly
Senior Director, Marketing, ABA
No redos
on email templates
7x
faster email creation
No new
end-user training
The results
The migration from start to go live took about six months. “I was amazed by how fast we could move and avoid many of the typical chokepoints in this process,” Borbely said. “Having Stensul in place proved to be an immeasurable benefit to keeping the migration moving without delay and avoiding several consequential expenses.”
The integration between Stensul and the new MAP also proved more reliable than what ABA had been working around before. The Member Communications team now trusts the integration and uploads directly to the MAP from Stensul, saving team members hours per week working on news and promotional communications. “By letting us create emails in far less time than it used to take us, we can be more strategic. We can conduct A/B testing, refine our messaging, and personalize emails to boost engagement and impact recipients more. In addition, its integration with other elements of our martech stack lets us get more out of each system or platform,” Borbely said.
“Having Stensul in place proved to be an immeasurable benefit to keeping the migration moving without delay and avoiding several consequential expenses.”
Kim Borberly
Senior Director, Marketing
