Email Marketing Guidelines

Prospective students, current UWM students, faculty and staff are inundated with marketing emails. To cut through the clutter and grab their attention, focus on messages that are clear and distinctive. Take the time to consider your audience and ensure what you’re sharing is meaningful.

Audience

Prospective Students

All communication with prospective (not yet enrolled) students is managed through Slate, the campus customer relationship management tool. Slate is used for outreach to prospective students through emails, texts and phone calls. It also facilitates the application process, visit events, recruitment events and orientation registration experience. The system is co-managed by the Office of Student Enrollment Communications, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, UWM’s Graduate School and the Center for International Education. Staff outside of those departments also may want to use Slate to reach prospective students. UWM staff and student staff can request access to Slate here:

• UWM staff using Slate for prospective undergraduate students
• UWM staff using Slate for prospective graduate students

Enrolled Students

UWM uses an email marketing platform called Emma to send emails to currently enrolled students, whether it’s an email newsletter within a specific school or college or a campuswide message to all students.

Divisional and departmental units can request an Emma email marketing subaccount through the Division of Marketing & Communications. MarComm is our institution’s primary Emma account-holder and bills each subaccount monthly based on the number of emails they send.

• Access your Emma subaccount at uwm.edu/emma. You’ll use your UWM credentials to sign in.
• Find out more and request an Emma subaccount.

Criteria for Emailing Students

We want to be respectful of students’ time. Many have expressed concern about the volume of email they receive. With that in mind, MarComm’s internal communications manager will review all messages to be sent to all students or all employees to ensure they meet the following criteria:

• The topic should be of interest to all students or all employees.
• The topic should be something that impacts their success as students or their ability to do their jobs.
• Marketing emails that promote a specific program or event are not appropriate.

In addition, the provost has determined that departments, programs and colleges may communicate only with students enrolled in the program with which the sender is affiliated. For example, a department may email its majors, and a college can email its own students.

Departments, programs and colleges may communicate with unaffiliated students only with the written permission of the dean of the college with which those students are affiliated. The dean should consider the purpose of the email and balance whether anticipated student interest in its content outweighs concerns about overall student email volume. Communications directed to students enrolled in multiple schools and colleges must be approved by the provost in consultation with the deans.

Best Practices

UWM Header & Templates

MarComm automatically shares base templates with all Emma subaccounts at UWM. Find them in the Shared Templates section when creating a new campaign. Subaccount users can then add their department or unit names to the template and save it as a template. UWM’s logo remains in the same spot in each template header.

Sender Line

The sender line is critical because it is the first thing a person looks at when deciding whether to read an email. In Emma, you can modify the sender name to reflect the department or unit that will connect with your audience.

Subject Line

The subject line is as important as the content of the email. The subject line draws the reader in and makes them want to dive deeper. Keep the subject line short, lively and relevant. In addition, most students will be scrolling through email on their phones, so limit your words in the subject line.

Physical Mailing Address

A physical mailing address is required on all marketing emails. It appears in the footer at the bottom of the email.

Content

Email content should be significant and relevant to the recipients. Keep the text brief but enticing, with information that is simple and straight to the point. Before you send the email, read it to yourself in its entirety, catching those spots where your attention drifts. Edit to keep it engaging.

Spam Triggers

When creating content, avoid:

• using words like “Click Here” and “Free.”
• using multiple exclamation marks in one sentence.
• writing in all caps.
• using a font in bright red, blue or green.
• sending one large image with little or no text.

Links

Experiment with link placement in newsletters. A link’s location can affect clicks and the overall success of the email campaign. Monitor the click-through rate to determine which position works best.

Use buttons when possible. They look nicer, are easier to see on mobile and wording is short. Use title case for the words in a button.

When linking words in text, try condensing statements such as “To read more about the article, click here,” to “Read more about the article.”

Accessibility

Digital accessibility ensures your marketing emails and assets can be read and understood by everyone, including people with disabilities.