Email accessibility

Accessibility = all of us

UMAC’s email marketing team works continuously behind the scenes to ensure that the UW’s email marketing platform and templates are configured to facilitate messages that are accessible to all members of our UW communities and the general public, no matter how they access digital communications. UW accessibility standards must meet — and ideally should exceed — the Washington state Accessibility Policy.

‘Accessible’ definition

“Accessible” means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. The person with a disability must be able to obtain the information as fully, equally and independently as a person without a disability. [From the Washington state Accessibility Policy.]

What we do

UMAC’s email marketing team operationalizes this definition of “accessible” in our email marketing platform. Our primary areas of work in this area are:

• Designing and maintaining email templates to include modules/editable sections that are accessible to screen reader users and users with low vision. This includes:
  • Text modules that are coded with syntactical markup
  • Image modules that are responsive and include alt-text fields
  • Preset color contrasts in the templates that pass accessibility checks
  • Regular review of all elements for accessibility
• Supporting email marketers and communications staff across the UW. We do this by answering questions or providing individual coaching sessions to help colleagues understand and implement email accessibility.

What you do

If you are an email marketer or communications staff member at the UW with access to one of our email production tools, the most important step to ensuring that your communications are accessible is to use the email templates and launchers as designed.

Most commonly, this means you should:

• Always include alt text in image modules.
• Only insert images into image modules.
• Avoid using images with excessive text since that cannot be read by screen readers. Instead, use simple, relevant visuals and always include alt text.
• Use either the preset colors within modules, or run alternative combinations of UW brand colors through a contrast checker.
• Use header modules between content sections, rather than styling the text in a paragraph module.
• Link from text that accurately describes where the link will take them, even if the linked text were read out of context. Generic phrases such as “read more” or “click here” do not meet this standard.
• Do not link to different URLs from the same string of text in the email. For example, if you link from the word “RSVP,” every time you link from that word in the same email should direct users to the same URL.
• Don’t link to the same URL from very different strings of text. Varied linked text implies to the reader that they will be sent to different webpages; when different text leads to the same destination, that can cause confusion or waste a reader’s time.
• Only use underlining on text that is linked.
• If linking from an image, enter the URL destination as opposed to a description of the image in the alt text. Linked images are considered ‘functional images’ or buttons, so describing the picture is less important than spelling out the linked destination.
• Content should be left/right aligned except for minimal callouts, such as headlines, which may be center aligned.

Resources

If you have questions about the information on this page or email marketing and communications in general, contact our team at mktohelp@uw.edu.

• UW Brand Portal’s Colors page hosts a contrast checker.
• UMAC Solutions article on alt text
• UW Accessible Technology
• WaTech Accessibility Policy

Frequently asked questions

What is Marketo?

Marketo is a versatile marketing automation platform that enables you to develop and send personalized email campaigns to different audience segments within the UW and beyond — and to measure the performance of those campaigns.

Want to learn more? Send a message to the UW team that supports Marketo at mktohelp@uw.edu.

What is Jeto?

Jeto is a companion tool to Marketo. It allows infrequent email senders and non-technical users to create a Marketo email program simply by filling out a web form and then submitting it for approval and sending via Marketo by an Advanced Marketer.

Want to know more about Jeto? Check out these FAQs and other resources.

How do I start an email newsletter?

Before asking that question, it’s crucial to assess whether your unit truly needs one. Newsletters can be valuable communication tools, but they also require time, effort and resources to produce and maintain effectively. Here are some criteria to consider:

• Communication Goals: Clarify the specific objectives you aim to achieve through the newsletter. Ensure that this content is not already covered by an existing newsletter. Define what your measures of success will be.
• Audience Engagement: Do you have an existing list of people interested in receiving updates or insights from your unit? Or do you have a plan for how to attract subscribers?
• Editorial Planning: Determine if you can consistently produce concise content that is valuable to your audience and if you have a web presence you can link to so they can explore your content in greater depth.
• Resource Availability: Consider the available time and people power to create and maintain a newsletter. To remain effective, newsletters should be sent at least quarterly.

Once you have carefully evaluated these criteria and determined that a newsletter aligns with your unit’s goals and audience needs, you can proceed with planning and launching your newsletter campaign.

• Reach out to the UW’s email marketing and communications support team via mktohelp@uw.edu to learn about email distribution options.
• Determine what subscription preference your audience and/or newsletter content fall under.
• Ensure you have a monitored uw.edu inbox to use for sending and/or receiving replies to your messages.
• Establish a suitable timeline spanning from the initial brainstorming session to the eventual launch of the newsletter.

If you have access to an authorized Marketo user in your unit or are collaborating with a digital marketing automation specialist in UMAC, you can collaborate with them by providing the content and audience list they will use to construct your email, test it for formatting and accessibility, and schedule it for distribution.

How do I know if my email campaign is effective?

Understanding the effectiveness of your email campaigns is crucial for optimizing your marketing strategy and maximizing engagement with your audience. Performance metrics can provide you these insights. It’s best to gather them one week after you’ve sent your newsletter to subscribers.

Here are the most common e-newsletter metrics you can retrieve from your email distribution program and the corresponding industry standards (where available) for typical newsletter performance in each measurement area:

• Click-through rate (CTR): The number of individual headlines clicked, divided by total number of emails successfully sent. This gives you an indication of how effective your content was at compelling readers to want to learn more.
• Unsubscribes: The number of people who opted to remove themselves from your subscriber list. This metric provides valuable feedback for email marketers to refine their strategies and maintain trust with their audience.
• Bounce-backs: The number of message sends that were not successfully delivered to your audience. This provides insights into email list quality and potential deliverability issues.
• Open rate: This previously reliable metric indicating the percentage of recipients who opened the newsletter has now become less dependable due to Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which inflates the number of actual opens. Also, open rates are dependent on images being downloaded, so if a recipient has their images turned off, they won’t be registered as an open, even if they did open the message.
• Click-to-open rate (CTOR): The percentage of people who opened your message who also clicked a link. This is also somewhat impacted by Apple’s MPP but it can still generally indicate the relative level of interest by your audience in your content.

Analyzing CTRs and link engagement leads to more reliable insights for optimizing future messages than relying solely on open rates does.

What other tools can I use to send a mass email from the UW?

• UW Groups serve as collective identifiers for individuals, computers, and applications, promoting collaboration and communication across various tools and applications by facilitating group reuse. They find common applications like email lists, calendaring, resource sharing, surveys, and voting, offering flexibility in organization and usage across organizations, teams, and individuals, whether for identifying members, assigning roles, or granting resource access.
• UW Mailman is a web-based email distribution list manager that allows list owners to create and modify email lists for their classes or for discussion among subscribers.

How do I send an email to my whole campus?

Messages sent to all UW faculty and/or staff and/or students must be approved by the UMAC Assistant Vice President for Communications or their designee. This review ensures that mass emails are properly coordinated and provides an opportunity to discuss the goals for your message in case there are other ways of communicating that would be more effective.

To submit a request for an all-campus or mass email message, complete this form.

Sending Marketo emails

Getting started with Marketo emails for new or non-Marketo users

Collaboration with the UMAC Digital Engagement team is crucial for executing successful email campaigns for different units. This guide outlines key steps for effective collaboration and email campaign management with Marketo.

Request submission process

Email request ticket types

Submit your email request well before the desired send date to allow enough time for reviews and testing. A lead time of one to two weeks is recommended.

Before sending an email campaign, complete one of the forms listed below. This will generate a ticket that we will use to track the request through to completion.

• Go to Supportal to submit a new service request.
• On the left menu bar, scroll down until you find the Marketo category.
• Choose one of these forms:
  • The UMAC Email Build Request Form is used when you want the UMAC DMAS to create your email, set up the audience, and schedule the email for sending. You will have to provide the email content copy, images (if applicable) and other pertinent files and information.
  • The Email Program Approval Form is used if your unit has authorized Marketo users who are able to create messages by themselves but cannot schedule and send them on their own. The UMAC DMAS will test, approve and schedule your message for sending.
  • The All-Campus/Mass Email Request Form is used for messages that are sent to all UW faculty and/or staff and/or students. Since these messages go out to very large audiences, they must be approved by UMAC’s Assistant Vice President for Communications or their designee. This review ensures that mass emails are properly coordinated and provides an opportunity to discuss the goals for your message in case there are other ways of communicating that would be more effective.

Email build request form

This is the most used request form and asks for all pertinent information needed to build and send your email. Ensure that all required fields are filled out accurately, including the following:

• Requester contact details
• Reply To and From fields
• Subject line
• Unit details (includes Department Name for header and Unit Home Page Name text for footer)
• Intended send time and date
• Test email reviewers
  • Forwarded emails and email attachments are not the most optimal way to view emails. Sending test emails directly to reviewers’ inboxes ensures that they will receive an accurate representation of what the final email will look like once it is sent to your list.
• Attachments may include images and Word documents with email content.
• Other optional fields
  • Notes can include adding more context about tone, urgency, email context, etc.
  • Preview text (or preheader text) is the text you see in your inbox before opening an email. Think of it as a subheadline to the “headline” that is your subject line. Preheaders provide additional context and incentive for recipients to open your message. Recommended length for preheaders is 50–80 characters.

Pulling audience lists

Messages can be sent to different audience groups, segments and lists. Every email request must have an updated audience list to make sure the audience members are current.

• If your unit has members who have access to your constituents (via Tandem, for example), your team can pull those contacts and send them to us in an Excel spreadsheet with the required fields in separate columns: Email, First Name and Last Name.
• To request an audience from Tandem, users either need to use Michaelangelo or a custom report request.

Audience Request Form Types:

• Build Email Audience — attach existing list(s) and/or subscribers to an email program that has already been built in Marketo
• Build Email Audience & Mg List — update an existing list(s) to then attach to a program that has already been built in Marketo
• Create List — create a static list from a spreadsheet you upload
• Modify List — update a static list from a spreadsheet you upload; update may apply to entire list or specific emails on the list

Together with user-adjusted subscription preference, audience lists ensure your emails are sent to the right people and adhere to all UW, state and federal communication laws

Example:

Message: Welcome to incoming class of undergraduate students
Audience: All, new, first year students registered for autumn 2024 quarter
Your Unit Email Marketer Tasks:

1. Build program and asset
2. Receive list of all first year students registered for autumn 2024 quarter
3. Submit “Build Email Audience & Manage List” ticket to clear and refresh existing list “First Year Students – Current” and attach to new program

If you do not request an updated audience list, your email might be sent to the wrong recipients. Please note that Tandem communication preferences do not map to email subscriptions so before every email, especially solicitations, a new list from Tandem needs to be provided so that both Tandem and email communication preferences are honored.

Email content

AP style formatting

To ensure that email best represents the UW brand, we follow AP Style rules as well as best practices for accessibility. The UW Brand portal provides additional guidelines. The following are the most relevant for sending UW emails:

• Descriptive link text. Links should never be spelled out; they should be hyperlinked instead. When adding hyperlinks, ensure that the link text is descriptive and provides context about where the link leads. Avoid generic phrases like “click here.” Verify that all links are functional and lead to the correct landing pages.
• Images. Please send these images as image files in a Drive folder and save these image sizes in pixels. You may also attach these images to the ticket when you submit this for email production. Images must be saved to the following pixel, at 72 dpi. Here is our Marketo Template Preview Gallery that shows the image sizes across different modules and templates. Pay close attention to the required size for whatever image module you use. These are the most common image sizes Marketo templates:
  • 600x200px for full-width image
  • 600x280px for 2-column image
  • 500x500px for square images
  • 130x150px for 4-column image
  • 300px or 200px wide for signatures
• Dates and Times. Use AP Style for formatting dates and times. For example, “Jan. 20” and “3:30 p.m.”
  • When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out when using alone, or with a year alone.
  • When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas. When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas.
  •  Examples:
    • January 2016 was a cold month.
    • Jan. 2 was the coldest day of the month.
    • His birthday is May 8.
    • Feb. 14, 2013, was the target date.
    • She testified that it was Friday, Dec. 3, when the crash occurred.
• Active Voice. Use active voice whenever possible. Identify the personality and tone to use. This will help make content easier for you to create and readers to digest if they know who is communicating with them.
  • Is this going to come from your unit head? Or from your unit? Are you sharing a student’s story? Are you a sponsor/committee head who is inviting folks to an event?
• Serial comma. Do not use a serial comma (or Oxford comma) in simple series of nouns or phrases, such as red, white and blue (no comma before “and”).
• Campus references. When abbreviated, always use “The UW” instead of just “UW.”
• Proofing. Review and proofread all email content for accuracy, grammar and spelling.

Customizing tokens

When sending a message to multiple recipients, some emails require customization in the email body. If you’d like to customize your email, the UMAC DMAS can create custom tokens for you which are placeholders within email templates that automatically pull corresponding data from a spreadsheet you provide — this file must always include the audience person’s email in a separate column. Here is a sample spreadsheet showing what that can look like for different messages.

This dynamic content allows for personalization at scale, ensuring each recipient receives content relevant to their interests. With custom tokens, Marketo users can create engaging, personalized email campaigns that resonate with their audience seamlessly.

Testing and quality assurance

Quality assurance is a critical aspect of our entire email campaign process. To ensure high-quality campaigns, UMAC provides thorough testing across various email clients, devices and visibility modes, including dark mode.

Once final draft approval is received from unit requester, the UMAC Digital Engagement team will preflight your email to make sure every detail is correct, the links work and it is aligned with brand standards.

This commitment to quality assurance helps us deliver effective email campaigns to our audience while also helping protect the reputation of the UW.

Scheduling

The scheduled send time of your email may change based on factors such as approval and preflighting of the final draft.

Additionally, we’ll ensure that the chosen time slot doesn’t coincide with other mass email campaigns before scheduling your email for deployment, as indicated in the Digital Engagement Team’s Internal Circulation Calendar.

Performance and improvement

Collaboration with the UMAC Digital Marketing Automation Specialist enables effective email campaigns from your unit. This approach ensures better performance and a seamless recipient experience.

A week post-sending, the UMAC DMAS will forward the performance reports for your message. Analyzing this data helps gauge message success. The email metrics we recommend focusing on are click-through rate (CTR), click-to-open rate (CTOR), link clicks, and overall campaign performance. Emphasizing these metrics offers valuable insights into recipient engagement and campaign effectiveness.