Email

Do not send emails to outdated email addresses or email lists that have not been vetted. Doing so runs the risk of the emails being flagged as spam and creating issues for the UMN email system as a whole. For alumni Donor Management System (DMS) emails, you must remove/archive the list after each send; you should use a new DMS request for every email to ensure it reflects any updates to each recipient’s record.

In alignment with the University of Minnesota's mass email guidelines, "Unacceptable use of mass email includes: Messages sent to any large internal list for the purpose of marketing or advertising of programs, majors, classes, awards, research opportunities, job postings, calls for proposals, products, or events offered or sponsored by individual units." This means that individual departments cannot send mass emails to all-student lists. Emails should be carefully targeted only to those students to whom they are relevant. If you would like to send a message to all students, contact Savina Proykova ([email protected]).

Confirm that emails do not have typos, broken links, outdated information, etc. Do not send any inappropriate or unprofessional information, private/sensitive data, profane/disrespectful language or images, etc.

We have branded image templates in the pro version of Canva that you can add to your emails. To purchase a subscription to Canva Pro, contact Nick Khow ([email protected]).

Our version of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SMC) has custom templates that match Carlson branding and are designed for mobile phones and dark mode. You must use those templates when sending emails from SMC.

Digital accessibility is important for people with disabilities to be able to fully access our content. You are responsible for ensuring the emails you send meet digital accessibility requirements and laws. It is incumbent upon you to ensure that the content and information being presented via email can work with the end user’s accessibility tools. For example, ensure that images have proper alternative (alt) text, ensure that text is contained within the email itself (i.e., it can be copied and pasted) vs. being put into an image/JPEG file that a screen reader cannot read, etc. Learn more about email accessibility.

Carlson email templates in SMC have been designed for accessibility. Even though the templates are formatted for accessibility, you still need to use the SMC templates appropriately to ensure compliance.

A large percentage of users who receive emails from the University and Carlson read the emails on mobile devices; thus, it is important to create emails that work and look good across different device types. One way to do that is to check using test emails. 

Most email platforms such as SMC allow you to send yourself a test email. Check what it looks like on a desktop computer as well as on a mobile device. All images, text and content blocks should scale and adapt for mobile screens. It’s best practice, when feasible, to test emails on multiple browsers/devices.