Approved Emma Users

Emma distribution lists at Radford University are owned and managed by specific offices. To protect audience relationships and prevent over-communication, users may only send to the audiences assigned to their account. Sending to another unit's audience requires approval from the distribution list owner. 

Central operational offices (ITS, HR, Parking, etc.) have been granted permission by Marcom to send emails to all-employee, all-student or relevant audience segments for messages within their operational scope. College-specific communications should be directed to college-level audiences, not broader university-wide segments. 

Who Owns What 

The following offices are the designated owners of university-wide audience segments in Emma. If you have questions about other broad audiences, please contact Marcom to discuss at marcom@radford.edu. 

• All students
  Owner: Student Affairs
  Contact for permission: studentaffairs@radford.edu 
• All undergraduate students
  Owner: Student Affairs
  Contact for permission: studentaffairs@radford.edu
• All employees (faculty and staff)
  Owner: Marketing and Communication, HR
  Contact for permission: marcom@radford.edu 
• All faculty
  Owner: Academic Affairs, Office of the Provost
  Contact for permission: provost@radford.edu 
• Alumni and donors
  Owner: Advancement, Alumni Relations
  Contact for permission: advancement@radford.edu 
• Main campus segments
  Owner: Marketing and Communication
  Contact for permission: marcom@radford.edu 
• Roanoke campus segments
  Owner: Marketing and Communication, RUC, RHEC
  Contact for permission: marcom@radford.edu 

Marcom will maintain an up-to-date list of audience owners and will make updates on this page when ownership changes occur. 

Requesting Permission to Use Another Unit's List 

If your unit needs to send a message to an audience you do not own: 

• Contact the audience owner listed in the table above and copy marcom@radford.edu.
• Describe the specific message and the reason it warrants reaching that audience.
• If approved, you will receive one-time permission for that specific, approved use case only.
• Ongoing access to another unit's list requires a recurring agreement facilitated by Marcom. 

Repeated requests to bypass the governance structure, or sending to audiences without permission, may result in loss of Emma access. 

Effective email communication starts before you open Emma. This guide covers what to think about before you send your email, how to write for your audience, and how to stay compliant with university and federal guidelines. 

Before You Send 

• Ask: does this need to be a standalone email, or would it fit better in a newsletter or another channel?
• Make sure your message is relevant to all or most of its recipients. When recipients perceive that emails from certain senders are irrelevant, it can erode their trust and increase unsubscribes/quick deletes.
• Send a test email to yourself and at least one colleague before distributing. Check all links, preview on mobile and review for accuracy. 

Be consistent. Regular emails such as newsletters should go out on a predictable day and time so your audience knows when to expect them. 

Subject Lines & Preheaders 

• Keep subject lines to 30–50 characters. Use sentence or title case, not ALL CAPS.
• Lead with the most important information or call to action.
• Avoid vague phrases like "An important message from…"
• The preheader (preview text) should complement, not repeat, the subject line. Aim for 60 characters or fewer.
• Consider personalization (e.g., including the recipient’s first name) where the platform supports it and where it is appropriate for your audience.
• Limit excessive punctuation (!!!) and emojis in subject lines, as these may trigger spam filters. 

Writing Your Email

• Use plain language. Short sentences, active voice and clear calls to action.
• Include a “View this email in a web browser” link at the top of the email in case it does not render properly. Emma can generate this link automatically.
• Keep the body to 250–350 words for non-newsletter messages.
• Put the most important information at the top.
• Use descriptive link text (e.g., Visit the Highlander Center website) rather than "Click here."
• Limit the number of links. Two per email — one at the top, one near the bottom — is the optimal range for non-newsletter messages.
• If you’re listing more than 3-4 elements in a sentence, consider using bullets.
• If your message includes multiple key points or topics, consider using subheaders to highlight each of those and improve overall scannability. 

Accessibility 

All university communications must meet Radford's digital accessibility standards. Key requirements for email: 

• Use heading styles in order (H1, H2, H3) — never skip levels. 
• Add descriptive alt-text to all images, including charts and graphics.
• Ensure a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and background.
• Left-align body text.
• Use the platform's list function for bullets and numbered lists, don't manually insert symbols.
• Never use images of text in place of actual text.
• Underline text links so they are visually distinguishable. Do not use color alone to identify a link. Readers with color blindness may not be able to tell it apart from regular text.
• If you link to the same destination more than once in a single email, use identical link text each time. Links to different destinations should use unique, descriptive text. 

Design & Branding 

• Use a Radford-branded Emma template created by Marcom. Custom templates are requested through Lytho after you have requested an Emma account through ITOneStop.
• Keep your text-to-image ratio at approximately 70:30 or 80:20. Some email clients block images.
• Do not embed video. Link to it with a thumbnail image instead.
• Use a minimum body text size of 14 points to ensure readability and to make text links large enough to tap on mobile devices.
• Use a button (e.g., “Register for the Workshop”) when asking the reader to take an action, and a text link when directing them to a page or resource. Keep it visually clear which is which. 

If you plan to use Emma to create an e-newsletter for your college, division or administrative office, Marketing and Communication (Marcom) will assist you with planning, audience strategy, and development of your newsletter template after your Emma account has been secured. 

Before creating a new newsletter, departments should consult with marcom@radford.edu to determine audience need, communication goals, and whether an existing university communication channel may already serve that purpose.

All university e-newsletters distributed through Emma should follow university branding, accessibility, and editorial standards. Marcom may review newsletter templates and provide guidance related to layout, content strategy, image usage, frequency, and email best practices to help improve consistency and engagement across university communications. 

Generally, colleges and units are responsible for drafting and proofreading content, and ensuring communications comply with university policies and applicable email communication requirements. 

Whether you're new to Emma or looking to sharpen your skills, Marcom offers training resources to help you communicate effectively and confidently. Contact us at marcom@radford.edu. 

Recorded Training 

An Emma training session is recorded and available on demand. The recording covers: 

• Getting started with your Emma subaccount 
• Using templates and the drag-and-drop editor
• Building and managing audience groups
• Scheduling and sending campaigns
• Reading your analytics and insights reports 

Watch the Emma training session on Vimeo

Download an Emma Tip Sheet [docx]

Who is eligible to use Emma? 

Emma is available to Radford University colleges, divisions and major administrative offices. Eligibility is based on the frequency of distribution, size of recipient lists and the proportion of external contacts. Contact Marcom to discuss whether Emma is the right fit for your communication needs. 

How do I request access? 

Submit a request through ITOneStop. New users will be set up with a subaccount and assigned a user role appropriate to their responsibilities. 

How do I log in? 

Approved Emma users log in using Radford University single sign-on (SSO). Visit the Emma login page and select 'Sign in with SSO.' 

What user roles are available in Emma?  

Emma supports several role levels within a subaccount: 

• Parent - highest level of access; manages all areas of the subaccount 
• Administrator - full access including adding or editing users
• Manager - access to audience, campaigns, analytics, and automation
• Full - access to audience, campaigns, analytics, and automation 

Can I send to all students or all employees? 

Colleges and divisions cannot send to all-university audiences directly. These lists are owned by central offices (Marcom/HR for employees, Student Affairs for students). You may request one-time permission from the list owner for an approved specific use. Marcom can also assist with routing your message through the appropriate channel, such as Radford University CONNECTED for employee-wide messages. 

What if I need to reach an audience outside my unit? 

Contact the owner of that audience and submit a request describing your message and purpose. If approved, you will receive one-time access for that specific campaign. Repeated cross-unit sends require a standing agreement facilitated by Marcom. 

How do recipients opt out of the emails we send them? 

For external audience segments (which could include faculty, staff and students), language is included within the email template from Emma that allows the recipient to opt out of receiving further emails. Internal email audience segments will not be able to opt-out of receiving emails as these are tied to an auto-populated list from Banner.  

At the bottom of the email, there will be a link for Managing preferences or opting out. 

What's the difference between Emma and Radford University CONNECTED? 

Emma is a direct email platform for sending branded campaigns to specific audiences. Radford University CONNECTED is the weekly all-employee newsletter, managed by Marcom, used to share campus news and updates with the entire employee community. Emma is better suited for targeted, frequent, or visually designed communications; Radford University CONNECTED is the right channel for broad, non-urgent employee updates. 

Why is the sender email address domain “.emma.ext.radford.edu” on some sub-accounts? 

If your sub-account has external email addresses as the audience, we assign this type of sub-domain, and it MUST remain the same – please do not change. It is an official Radford University email address, and this makes it so that we can separate out the external emails. 

Some of the internal sub-accounts that were created early on, also have this sub-domain but will be changed to radford.edu as time permits, but please do not change it yourself.  

If you change the sender address, the deliverability indicators will break, and your email will be flagged as not an official Radford University email, and the yellow warnings will show along with a very long and unrecognizable sender email address. 

What is the difference between an external and internal sub-account? 

You may only have one or the other, or you may have one of each.  

• Internal sub accounts only have audience segments that contain radford.edu email addresses in their audience. Emails sent to internal segments DO NOT have the option to Opt-out.  The laws regarding email spam allow universities and other entities to not require an Opt-out for their students and employees. 
• External sub-accounts contain audience segments with emails that may or may not be radford.edu email addresses. These may include alumni, student or staff university email addresses or personal email addresses in addition to friends, donors, community partners, commercial partners, etc. All of these audiences must be allowed to Opt-out of emails coming from Radford University. 

One other significant difference is that the internal audiences are updated every night with data from our Banner ERP database. So, when students or staff come to Radford or leave or change departments – the data is updated. External sub-accounts DO NOT have data updated from Banner. Groups including community or commercial partners must be updated by the sub-account owners/users. 

In the future, alumni and donors may be updated from the Raiser’s Edge/NXT database. This will be communicated when it is available. 

If you wish to send a college or department newsletter and you want to send to the college staff and students and to your college alumni and community partners – you will need to send it twice.   Once to your students and staff in your internal sub-account and once to your alumni and community partners in your external sub-account. 

Are there other platforms besides Emma for campus communications? 

• Microsoft Groups and Email Distribution Lists (Owner Managed)
• Course Alia Email Lists (loaded nightly from Banner)
• Departmental/Major Email Lists (loaded nightly from Banner) 

 For more information on these or to request access, enter a Get Help ticket on ITOneStop. 

Depending on your audience, these other channels in EMMA may be appropriate for your content: 

• Radford University CONNECTED — weekly newsletter, all employees (Marcom) 
• Student Affairs Newsletter / SGA Newsletter — all students (Student Affairs)
• The Wayfinder — alumni and donors (Advancement)
• Threads — faculty (Provost's Office) 

If you would like to discuss Emma and these other channels in light of your communication goals, contact the Office of Marketing and Communication at marcom@radford.edu.  

What happens if departments use outside platforms instead of Emma? 

Using external email tools (such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp) for university communications creates challenges: contact lists may not stay current, branding can become inconsistent, and the university loses visibility into communication activity. Marcom strongly encourages all university communicators to use Emma so that messages remain branded, audiences stay up to date, and communication is coordinated across campus. 

Who do I contact for help? 

Contact your Communications Partner or email Marcom at marcom@radford.edu. You can also submit a request through ITOneStop.