New Email Guidelines Aim to Improve Campus Communication
As part of the College of Charleston's Student Communications Improvement Project, the College is introducing new criteria and coordination practices for campuswide and mass emails.
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As part of the College of Charleston’s Student Communications Improvement Project (SCIP), the College is introducing new criteria and coordination practices for campuswide and mass emails. The initiative is designed to reduce email fatigue, improve coordination across campus and help ensure that important messages receive the attention they need.
The new guidelines establish when a mass email is appropriate, encourage communicators to target the smallest appropriate audience and provide best practices for creating clear, accessible and effective messages. The College will also maintain a shared Mass Email Calendar through Microsoft Outlook to help departments and units coordinate the timing of planned mass communications and avoid unnecessary overlap.
The criteria and best practices are outlined below.
Mass Email Criteria
What is a mass email?
A mass email is a message sent to a large group of College email addresses, such as all students, faculty, staff, or a significant subset of these audiences. Communication sent to established groups with a shared affiliation or purpose (such as departments, committees, classes or organizations) are not considered mass emails.
Why do we need mass email criteria?
The campuswide email guidelines aim to improve communication coordination, reduce email fatigue and ensure important messages receive appropriate attention.
Mass Email Criteria
A campuswide or mass email must meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Impacts campus safety, health or security
- Provides essential information required for college operations
- Communicates official collegewide initiatives, decisions or announcements from institutional leadership
- Provides information of broad campus importance, including major campuswide events that cannot be effectively communicated through other channels
Examples of appropriate mass email subjects:
- Cougar Alerts, Campus Advisories, Timely Warnings and other emergency notifications or urgent operational updates
- Major changes to College policies, procedures, systems or services
- Required actions or deadlines affecting a large portion of the campus community
- Messages from College leadership or updates on major institutional initiatives
- Large, campuswide events, such as New Student Convocation
Messages should be targeted to the smallest appropriate audience whenever possible.
Campuswide distribution is not intended for announcements primarily relevant to a single department, organization, event or interest group.
Routine announcements (such as events, promotions, dining updates, club activities and recurring programs) should be shared through more appropriate channels, including:
- E-newsletters
- Campus Calendar
- CougarConnect
- Social media
- Other targeted communication platforms
Coordinating Mass Emails
To reduce email overload and improve coordination across campus, the College will maintain a shared Mass Email Calendar available through Outlook.
To add the Mass Email Calendar to your Outlook calendar:
- Open Outlook.
- Select Add Calendar from Directory.
- Enter [email protected] to add the calendar.
All departments and units planning to send a campuswide or mass email must use this calendar to:
- Schedule planned mass email distributions in advance, including the intended audience, send date and time
- Review upcoming scheduled emails to avoid sending multiple mass emails at the same time or creating unnecessary overlap for recipients
When possible, units should coordinate timing with other communicators to prevent competing messages, improve engagement and ensure important communications receive appropriate attention.
Email Best Practices
Effective emails are clear, concise, accessible and designed with the recipient’s needs in mind.
Before sending a department-wide or mass email, senders should consider the following best practices:
- Use your unit or department sender address. Send mass emails from an official College unit or department email account (e.g., [email protected], [email protected]) and include a monitored reply-to address for questions.
- Use a clear, action-oriented subject line. Use a specific, descriptive subject line that tells recipients what the email is about and why it matters. Avoid vague language such as “Important Update” or “Reminder.”
- Lead with what matters most. Put key information, deadlines and required actions at the beginning of the email. Use headings, short paragraphs and bullets to improve readability.
- Keep emails concise. Include only the most important information in the email and link to The Hub or another College webpage for additional details instead of including lengthy explanations.
- Design for accessibility. Use accessible formatting, descriptive links, headings and alt text for images. Do not place essential information only within images.
- Make the action clear. If recipients need to do something, clearly explain what they need to do, when it is due and where they can find more information.
- Coordinate timing. Before scheduling a mass email, check the shared Mass Email Calendar to avoid competing with other campus communications and diluting the effectiveness of your email.
For the full Mass Email Criteria and Guidelines, visit the University Communications page on the College’s website or the Campus Communications page on The Hub. These pages will serve as the ongoing reference for mass email criteria, coordination and email best practices.
Questions? Contact the Office of University Communications at [email protected] with questions about campuswide emails, the Mass Email Calendar or email best practices.
