The ARD Style Guide
Another volunteer created a cool flyer to promote your upcoming club event and has been sharing copies at different places around town. They then send you a digital copy of the flyer and ask you to include it in the next events newsletter. Should you include the flyer in the email?
No. While flyers are great for print marketing, they are inaccessible for email marketing. You should opt for an image without text instead.
True or False: In 2025, most people read emails from their desktops.
False
If you have multiple events coming up, it is best to advertise them using this email format.
A newsletter
What is the character limit for a subject line?
100 characters
Review the following copy. True or false: would this message would be marked as spam?
"Dear Wildcats,
Join us for a FREE tailgate at the Lakefront Stadium this Saturday!!!!! We will have food, drinks, and lots of PURPLE PRIDE!!"
True.
The all caps and exclamation points would likely trigger spam filters.
This punctuation mark is placed after the second-to-last term in a list when writing out three or more terms.
Serial Comma
This is added to images and enables screen readers (or other assistive tech) to provide information about the image to the reader.
Alt text
What is the standard width of lead images?
600px
True or False: People are more likely to interact with your club if you email them multiple times a week.
False. A key risk in sending too many emails is that you may get less engagement from recipients.
When used excessively in emails, this punctuation mark will trigger spam filters.
Exclamation point
This punctuation mark is used to connect continuing or inclusive numbers, replacing the word “to” in dates, times, or reference numbers.
Hint: It's something we often correct in the "time" section of invites!
En-dash (–)
What's the ideal image-to-text ratio?
60:40
What three elements/details are called out in their own section?
Date, time, and location.
The higher this number is, the more likely your email will be delivered.
Sender Reputation Score
Review the following copy. True or false: would this message would be marked as spam?
"Join the NU Club of Emerald City (www.maps.google.com) for an afternoon high tea with Elphaba Thropp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elphaba) of Wicked fame! Be sure to register, you won't want to miss this event!"
True. There are links throughout the paragraph, but no call to action that encourages readers to click.
Which is the correct degree designation? Choose one.
A). Willie Wildcat (COMM '13)
B). Wilhelmina Wildcat, Weinberg ’88
C). Winnie Wildcat ’20
C
What percentage of email campaigns are opened on mobile devices?
~61%
In order to boost ticket sales, which content block should you utilize to ensure people know where to register?
A button
How many emails should a club typically send per week?
1–3
Your club sends a weekly newsletter to your audience but makes sure the content is varied up in each edition. Do you think your emails are at risk for being marked as spam?
Typically, we avoid doing this in running text, but titles of works are always stylized this way.
Italicized
Which direction are people naturally inclined to scroll when reading emails?
Vertically
True or False: You can customize the content blocks within the templates.
False. Changing the templates from their intended state is known as "template creep."
The brief text that appears after the subject line in an email inbox, offering a glimpse of the email's content before it's opened.
Preheader
This is a piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to perform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive (e.g. register now or click here).
Call-to-action (CTA)