Communicating Quickly and Efficiently–EMMA

Imagine having the wherewithal to send an email message to 15,000 people with one simple mouse click. Now imagine being able to track how many people received your message and how many opened it. And that’s just for starters.

EMMA, a state-of-the-art email communications/ marketing technology, saves time and can take the guesswork out of crafting and distributing an effective marketing message.

“EMMA provides a full suite of outputs and statistics,” said Linda Modiste, assistant vice chancellor for Application Services. “For example, if only 10 percent of recipients look at your message, something is amiss. Maybe you’re sending too much information. Maybe the title is wrong. With EMMA, you can track the effectiveness of your communication and adjust accordingly.”

Launched with the communications office, graduate research, and IT just prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, there were some initial challenges. “We had to roll out EMMA in a big hurry,” said Jim Wyse, director of Web Services. “This meant transferring users and getting everyone up to speed quickly. It was new to all of us. We had to train ourselves and then train the users.” Wyse is happy to report that EMMA has been 100 percent reliable during lockdown.

DeWayne Lehman, director of communications, is responsible for disseminating priority communications from the Chancellor’s Office as well as media and website messaging. He said one of the greatest benefits for him is EMMA’s speed.

“EMMA makes sending out an email blast to 15,000 people quick and easy,” he said. “With the old system, it could take several hours for an email to be delivered, and when we needed to send out more than one message with thousands of recipients, it was a problem. Now, messages are sent instantaneously and received in real time.”

As to his collaboration with IT, he said, “The Communications Office has had a long and healthy relationship with IT, so it’s very natural for us to work together.”