Prior to joining the team in 2023, Wintrust did not have nearly any email strategy or design. Alongside the Content team, my first tasks upon joining the team was to develop all-new email design and implement the usage of templates for ad-hoc email that would also be applicable to all of Wintrust's 170+ brands.
Challenges of this project included not only designing and developing new emails, but finding the correct ways to incorporate similar systems between brands, in order to establish efficiency of development and consistency of design within Wintrust's email output. It was also required of us to educate the Marketing department on email design and deployment, as there was a lack of knowledge on the subject.
Branding was separated into four generalized buckets, which relate to Wintrust's top 4 customer segments. Retail banks, Commercial niches, Junior Savers Club members and Platinum Adventures club members. It was important for leadership that these emails feel relatively distinct in aesthetic from each other, because it is possible that a single customer could receive one email from each group in any given week, depending on their status.
In developing these emails, it was also important to provide a modern code-base for Wintrust's email system to be utilized easily and expanded upon in the future. Email space was optimized for desktop and mobile.
