New Internal E-Blast and Mass Email Guidelines
- August 2023
Problem: We receive too many emails.
- In 2021, approximately 320 billion emails were sent and received every day (Forbes).
- Yes, 320 BILLION!
- With so many messages coming and going, many messages go completely unread and important information goes uncommunicated.
“Email Overload: What we send vs. What students see”
In 2020, a study of mass emails was conducted by New York University (NYU) and presented to the 2020 Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education that found:
- When student email inboxes are inundated with emails, they don’t read them.
- Students rarely read emails that don’t appear to be personalized and directed to them.
- Email communication needs to be strategic and targeted.
Solution: Appropriate Use of Mass Email
- Must be consistent with any applicable state and federal accessibility laws, such as the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).
- Mass email is appropriate for information that pertains to the majority of the recipients because it is essential to the operation of campus functions, compliance, and/or health and safety.
- More strategic/targeted email communications.
- Limit access to email distribution lists.
- Train mass email ‘super-users.’
- Increase usage of InsideGovState
Glossary of Terms
Mass email
- Messages sent to the entire campus or to any large subset (e.g., faculty, staff, and/or students) that includes more than one unit/department.
- For purposes of these Guidelines, mass emails are e-blasts.
Distribution List
- A predefined list of employees and/or students containing several members.
- These lists are typically automatically updated based on employee and student enrollment status.
Super-User
- Super-users are those persons within your organizational tree that will be trusted with access to campus-wide distribution lists and responsible for adhering to the rules and guidelines set forth here.
- It is likely an administrative staff member(s) that currently handles communication within your department.