This story comes to you from the deepest, darkest depths of a Marketing Operations professional’s soul. It’s a tale that one wishes to forget. The most horrifying surprise of all surprises.

As a Marketing Operations professional, you work tirelessly all year to ensure every email that goes out on your company’s behalf is perfect. On brand, technically formatted correctly for delivery, developed for optimal conversions and metrics, following a standard naming convention, structured for ease of reporting, the list goes on – and that list is also opted in, valid and compliant.

Processes are in place and most people, even the werewolves of the group, tend to follow the established processes.

Then, one dark and spooky Halloween morning, you receive an email to your inbox. Huh, it looks like one of the branded templates you usually send out of your marketing automation platform, but why is the header reduced to 100px wide? Where is the formatted company footer? This isn’t the approved font color and weight for our headers. Wait a second, this isn’t addressed to me, it’s to Chad. [GASP!] CHAD!

As you recall, you replied to Chad’s request that we can’t email a significant portion of his German contact list because they have not confirmed their opt in to receive Marketing communication. Sending to them would be a GDPR violation. He also did not like that he couldn’t change the headers to a different color because it wasn’t approved according to your company’s brand standards. But he replied with a cheeky “You’re awesome. Thanks so much for your help!” and moved on.

Freaking Chad. Don’t be Chad.

It is never ok to paste a branded, formatted template into Outlook, tweak it and BCC your entire audience. Marketing Operations is here to help you be a Marketing superhero! They have worked with creative to perfect the template – EVEN FOR OUTLOOK RECIPIENTS. They have read the ever so exciting GDPR documentation to ensure your company’s Marketing efforts are in compliance. They have worked hard to ensure your sender reputation is maintained and held to the highest standard.

Don’t be the ghoul that ruins your team’s Halloween this year. Don’t be Chad.