Your Veeva Approved Email consultant
The main thing to know about Veeva Approved Emails (aka VAEs, aka rep-triggered emails, aka RTEs) is: there's a lot to know about Veeva Approved Emails.
The most common mistake I've seen various teams making regarding VAEs is assuming they know enough, and assuming VAEs can do a lot of specific things that they just can't do, and overpromising when selling a VAE to the client. Then they hit some major roadblocks and ultimately have to backtrack. You can imagine how bad that looks: telling the client, sorry, we found out the tech-y thing we sold you can't do exactly what we said. We thought it could.
How do we avoid that situation? Either become VAE experts, or hire yourself a VAE expert, and involve them from the project kickoff.
Veeva Approved Email is a very tricky platform, and like I said above (I can't say it enough!) there's a lot to know. It's a very robust platform in some ways, and it's surprisingly limited in others. And the fact that email itself is a notoriously wonky and primitive technology adds a layer of complexity — and sometimes frustration — to VAEs.
When we really understand how VAEs work, they're totally not too bad. I promise. The danger is in proceeding to strategize/write/design a VAE without having real expertise on your side.
Writing a very in-depth article about VAEs is on my to-do list. It's going to take a lot of time to put it all together. In the meantime, you can hire me. :) I've got all eight Veeva CRM certifications.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.