The Real Cost of Inefficient Email Proofing and Approvals

Did you know more than half of companies (52%) often miss deadlines because of approval delays, communication bottlenecks, and fragmented technologies in content production processes? Considering how much a business typically invests in marketing, this statistic should be highly alarming to senior executives.

The above data comes from Kapost and Gleanster’s 2020 report, The $958M Marketing Problem, which quantifies the cost of inefficiency in content production processes. According to the research, the top reasons deadlines are missed are:

Approval delays: 92%
Communication issues between stakeholders: 82%
Inconsistent tasks for each type of content: 40%
General chaos: 40%
Lack of a centralized calendar: 36%
Fragmented technologies: 36%

Based on the research, marketing cycle times are 240% slower on average, and $0.25 of every dollar spent is wasted on inefficiencies – adding up to an estimated $958M each year in excessive spend for mid-to-large B2B US companies alone.

But that’s not all. Research from the McKinsey Global Institute found that employees waste 19% of the average workweek tracking down and gathering necessary information and 14% on internal communication and collaboration. Add another 28% spent reading and responding to email messages, and the average worker has just 39% (about one-third) of their workweek available to do everything else.

Based on those statistics, McKinsey says businesses could recoup this lost time and the revenue that goes with it by improving collaboration, communication, and productivity. Considering market research firm IDC found that companies lose 20-30% of potential revenue every year due to inefficiencies, it seems McKinsey’s recommendations are correct.

Bottom-line, inefficiencies cost your business money. You need to take the time to identify what’s causing those inefficiencies, and find solutions to improve productivity and ultimately, revenue.

Fortunately, improving an inefficient email proofing and approval process is something you can fix quickly and affordably. Following are five ways to do it:

1. Use the Best System for the Job

How are you proofing and approving email marketing campaigns today? Is the process as automated and consistent as possible? Are communications centralized? Do all stakeholders know what to do and when? Are deadlines met?

If you answered no to any of the questions above, then you need a better system for email proofing and approvals.

A “make do” solution costs you time and money. Spreadsheets and email weren’t built for proofing and approval processes. Instead, you need to invest in an email proofing and approval solution that was built for that specific purpose, like ProofJump.

Rather than waste money on every employee’s time who is involved in the proofing and approval process, you can invest a small amount in the right tool and save money in the long-run. In fact, you’ll come out on top because your employees will have more time to work on other revenue-generating opportunities.

2. Improve Communication

Communications need to be centralized or the email proofing and approval process will be delayed. Messages could go out with errors, and you could end up not only losing money but also creating a negative perception of your brand among consumers who receive the wrong messages and offers.

When reviewers work in silos, things will be missed. Mistakes will be made, and delays will be commonplace. Use an email proofing and approval tool to bring all communications together in one place where everyone sees what’s happening in real-time.

3. Reduce Bottlenecks

Can you quantify the bottlenecks in your email proofing and approval process? Have each employee involved in the review process track the amount of time they spend on email reviews and approvals for your next campaign. How much time do they spend tracking down messages and feedback, synthesizing comments, following up on missing feedback, and so on?

Once you have the information gathered, multiply each employee’s hourly salary by the number of hours spent on the review and approval process. Add up all of the numbers for each of your employees, and you’ll see how much your business spent on what should actually be a very simple and streamlined process.

The reality is if your employees aren’t using the right tool, there will be bottlenecks. Time is money, so if you want to save all of that lost time and money, invest in the right email proofing and approval tool.

4. Eliminate Rework

When feedback isn’t centralized and collaboration and communications are fragmented and happen in silos, mistakes will be made and there will be gaps that lead to rework. The best way to improve your processes is to ensure employees don’t have to shift between different modes of communication or sources of information.

Reviewers should have the latest information available to them at their fingertips whenever they need it. If they don’t have this access, then their productivity tanks and the likelihood for rework increases. Again, a single email proofing and approval tool solves this problem.

5. Improve Accountability

Not only do reviewers need to know what tasks each stakeholder is responsible for so they’re held accountable to meet deadlines, but so do executives. Without access to data, executives won’t have accurate data to analyze ROI. The true cost of email marketing can’t be calculated if all costs aren’t included.

When the technology you use for email proofing and approvals provides you with adequate data, you can quickly identify tasks that caused delays and how the overall ROI of each campaign was affected by those delays. Without that knowledge, there is no way to work to improve any inefficiencies and boost ROI in the future.

Key Takeaways about the Costs of Inefficient Email Proofing and Approvals

Productivity skyrockets when people have access to the right tools to get their jobs done. An email proofing and approval tool, like ProofJump, will improve your employees’ productivity significantly, so you can get more messages to market faster than ever.

Schedule a demo to see how ProofJump can help your business improve email proofing and approval efficiency, save money, and get better results.

Image by Dirk Wouters from Pixabay