The email quality checklist should be followed by the email author for every email before being submitted for release.

If you use the email name generator, it will be 100% correct.  More details about email naming is provided on that page.  If you did not use the email name generator to name your email, go back and use it now.

• SUBJECT LINE: Is the subject line effective? See:
  • Documentation for creating effective subject lines
  • How to write effective subject lines
  • Infographic: How to write the perfect subject line
  • Subject line examples
  • 50 characters or less recommended
  • If the email has a video, it his HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to have "[video]" in the subject line
  • If resending an email to the same group, did you change the subject line?
    
    
• PREHEADER: Is the preheader effective?
  • Can be fairly long... iPhone Mail shows two lines of preheader text

• Did the email start from an email in your _starter-templates folder?
• Does the email use only the official JMU colors?
• Do all the hyperlinks work?
• Images:
  • Do all images have descriptive alt text? Review alt-text and image description best practices.
  • Are all images saved at 72ppi and no bigger than 600px wide?
• Are all fonts Arial?
• Is anything underlined that isn't a link?
• Did you go to the "Preview and Test" window and look at it in mobile?
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• Does your email contain tokens? If so, are you 100% sure that every recipient has a valid value for that token? Really? Didn't think so. Don't use tokens then :) - If you MUST use tokens, then it will require a data audit for every record in the send.  This process would include Barry King, and the work would have to be scheduled and prioritized appropriately.
  • If tokens are being used, a real send must be sent to a few accounts to make sure the tokens resolve correctly.  It is not enough to send a "Preview."  After it has been validated that the tokens work, a new release with the actual list of recipients can be scheduled.
• Are there any hyperlinks that are non-jmu urls? If so, hide them behind hyperlinked text. It's ok to show jmu.edu urls though, as long as they're not really long and ugly.
• If there a link to a give form?  Is the domain of the url "give.jmu.edu"? (it should not be "givecampus.com")

Have appropriate audience managers been notified and/or looped in for approval? Use the tables below to determine if your email needs approval and who the audience managers are.

• Voice of the institution emails are directed by the President and/or Senior Leadership.
• Intra-audience emails are sent by the audience-manager to the audience they manage.
• Extro-audience emails are sent to an audience that the sender does not manage.

•  Preview:
  • Have you sent a preview of your email to your stakeholders for approval?
  • Did you check the preview on both desktop and mobile devices?
    
    
• Release request:
  
  • Have you submitted a release request?

If you have any questions about the checklist or process, please contact the Digital Marketing Team.