how i learned to stop worrying and love email

How I learned to stop worrying and love email

Dave Dawson @dwsn Erin O’Neil @erinlauraoneil

McMaster Alumni Association #Sizzler16

McMaster University

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Founded 1887 by Senator William McMaster

Ranked among top 100 universities in the world

30,000 current students

185,000 active alumni in 140 countries

2014-15 fundraising fiscal year: $38 million

McMaster University Advancement

Advancement Services

Alumni & Annual Fund*

Communications & Public Affairs

Development

Major & Planned Giving

Stewardship

*Where Dave & Erin work

Why Are We Obsessed With Email?

• we have 14 alumni & annual fund email authors and several decentralized email authors

• we sent 931 emails in 2015 and 885 so far in 2016

• email is our best communication channel with alumni • customizable lists and tokens • measurable and trackable

• email can be so beautiful and compelling (flip side: email can be so boring and alienating)

Managing Workflow

Email Creation Workflows

ACentral control

BIndividual

CHybrid

Scheduling Email manager Individual staff Email manager

Content creation Individual staff Individual staff Individual staff

Design Email manager Individual staff Individual staff

Release Email manager Email manager Email manager

Email Creation Workflows

ACentral control

BIndividual

CHybrid

Scheduling Email manager Individual staff Email manager

Content creation Individual staff Individual staff Individual staff

Design Email manager Individual staff Individual staff

Release Email manager Email manager Email manager

Scheduling

• individuals enter upcoming emails in shared calendar

• information entered includes: staff person, office, date, purpose, content, audience description and list size

• email managers review calendar regularly

• individual staff members know not to schedule an email on a day when a similar list is receiving a message

• conflicts managed by email managers

Content Creation & Design

• majority of emails written by individual staff person (i.e. alumni officers write copy for event invitations, development officers write copy for solicitations) using templates created by email managers

• team members work together in collaborative approach to writing copy if individual wants help

• email managers provide resources and support for individual team members

• senior managers approve each email going out & email managers release

Tools for Managing Multiple Email Creators

Admin-Only Reference Page

iModules Professional Services

Meetings

Meetings

• bi-weekly “Digital Hour” with alumni & annual fund team • new releases, metrics, tutorials, discussions

• bi-annual iModules User meeting with centralized and decentralized teams for major updates and tutorials on new templates or tools

• ad hoc personal tutorials with staff who require it

iModules Professional Services

• quarterly (can be annual, bi-annual or monthly) data load of email metrics to customized dashboard

• allows us to see what constituents receive and if/how that affects email metrics

• gives us hard data to show category email authors

Designing Emails

Design Challenges

• visual consistency

• usability for all skill levels

• technically sound

• no external tools necessary

Don’t be afraid to use images. I used to be.Images are shown automatically in:

Apple Mail Thunderbird Gmail (Web)

Gmail (Android & iOS) iOS Mail

Yahoo! Mail

Images are NOT shown automatically in:Lotus Notes

Outlook AOL Mail (Web)

Yahoo! Mail Android’s native mail app AOL Mail (Android & iOS)

Outlook.com (Android & iOS) Windows Mobile & Phone

Yahoo! Mail (Android)

Source: Robert Berinti http://berinti.com/

Roughly 50% of our alumni are using clients that accept images automatically. (as of May 2016)

Alt text should be used as well.

Starting the Modular Template

• Where do we even start?!

• A collection of ready-made collection of content blocks

• Reliance on email frameworks.

Put the CSS in Build out Saved Content

Build it. Save it.

Drag it. Drop it.

Where we’re at with our new template

• Some folks use saved content, but many don’t. That’s OK!

• Stuff still breaks. That’s OK!

• Our template is always improving.

• It’s saving us time!

5 Key Takeaways

1

empower your people

2

maintain a structure

3

challenge the “email don’ts” list

4

test and tinker

5

don’t worry!

Thank you!Dave Dawson

dawsonod@mcmaster.ca

Erin O’Neil oneilel@mcmaster.ca