At the University of Antwerp University, we use Microsoft Dynamics 365 to send marketing e-mails (newsletters, invitations, reminders ...) to external parties. These e-mails always have “opt-out” functionalities.
All faculties, research groups, etc. can use this to increase their own network and external visibility.
A self-study package (in Dutch) is available to all staff members via the staff portal.
Internal mailings to staff and/or students
- Messages that are of interest to a large part of our staff and/or students are not sent separately, but are published via one of the existing internal communication channels.
- Sending invitations to all staff members or large groups of staff members is only possible in exceptional cases after approval from the Head of the Department of Marketing and Communications. Read the guidelines on the staff portal.
- Read the guidelines on Pintra.
Privacy matters!
- The e-mail templates in Dynamics 365 always provide an unsubscribe button. Recipients can request their data from our central marketing database via privacy.crm@uantwerpen.be.
- We strongly discourage the use of external mail platforms (e.g. MailChimp). If you use an external platform, you are responsible for ensuring that this is done in accordance with European privacy guidelines. You will need to sign a processing agreement with the company, inform your subscribers about this and ask their permission to pass on their data to the platform. The possibilities of the paid Dynamics 365 licence we have are much greater in terms of personalisation and automation. Using Dynamics 365 means your and your subscribers' data is better managed and does not come with any additional costs.
Tips and tricks
When drafting a newsletter or invitation, keep our 10 tips for web copy in mind. Refer to our Style Guide for more info and guidelines on writing in English at UAntwerp.
Additional tips and tricks:
- Only launch an e-mail newsletter if you can offer a sufficiently varied and useful selection of news items to your subscribers.
- Don’t overload your newsletter with information. Pique your readers’ interest and direct them to relevant pages on your website.
- The same applies to invitations. Only include information that will not be affected by changes. Include a link to your website, where you can publish practical info like times, rooms and detailed programmes. That way, you’ll make sure your subscribers don’t use out-of-date info and you’ll encourage them to use your website.
- Keep the number of separate invitations you send to a minimum. Less is more. Make maximum use of existing newsletters and avoid sending invitations if the recipients can’t yet register or find further info about the event.
- Don’t send large images or attachments with your email, as this clogs up the servers and recipients’ mailboxes.
- Avoid using ‘spam’ language. Don't put everything in capital letters, don’t use too many colours or exclamation marks in your text and avoid words like ‘free’, ‘credit’, ‘viagra’, ‘drugs’ and ‘porn’.