It’s not unusual for larger organizations to be actively using
several different email platforms to manage their campaigns. In these
instances, transitioning to a completely centralized approach requires
almost Herculean effort.

However, in the absence of a completely centralized approach, there
are still things you can do to streamline email communications and
ensure a positive experience for your audience. Here are three specific
tips that are reasonably quick and easy to implement:

1. Develop and share an email marketing calendar.

Wherever there’s a risk of message crossover, establish a marketing
calendar to track these campaigns and assign a calendar owner. Although
the owner is ultimately responsible for keeping the calendar updated,
all groups should participate in the calendar development and notify
the owner if campaign dates shift.

My team uses a web-based calendar hosted on our intranet site;
however, tools such as Google Calendar or even an Excel spreadsheet are
simple, no/low-cost alternatives.

2. Ensure that all stakeholders are on all campaign seed lists.

Whether you’re sending a campaign to a house or rented list, be sure
and add the appropriate people to your seed lists. You may want to send
test seeds to a smaller group for review and feedback, and then to a
larger group for live campaign drops. This is additional insurance that
everyone is aware of what messages are leaving the building.

3. Share examples of campaigns and results at cross-functional monthly or quarterly reviews.

At least once a quarter, get together and share examples of campaign
creative and results. Even if you’re mailing to completely different
audiences, best practices are sure to emerge that you’ll want to apply
to your line of business.

If you work for a large organization, the idea of centralizing your
email marketing may seem difficult, if not impossible. But by doing a
little detective work and implementing some quick fixes that don’t
require a lot of administrative overhead, you can do a lot to improve
the quality of your email communications and set yourself up for more
formal centralization in the future.

Source: Email Experience Blog