Email Marketing | Johns Hopkins University Brand

Email marketing is a powerful tool that requires strategic planning, brand alignment, and consistency to ensure success.

The following best practices and resources have been established to guide the development of your email marketing and communications to internal and external audiences.

These guidelines do not apply to emails sent between colleagues, faculty and student correspondence, or individual daily messages—they are intended for official mass email communications sent on behalf of Johns Hopkins University and its divisions, departments, centers, institutes, etc.

Email Campaign Management Platforms

Johns Hopkins University does not currently offer a university-wide platform solution for email marketing. Instead, we recommend choosing an email campaign management platform, such as Emma, MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Brevo, or Constant Contact, to meet your specific goals and audience requirements. These systems allow you to design your emails following brand guidelines and digital accessibility requirements, and track analytics.

Review each platform’s plans and pricing with your audience size, monthly email sends, and number of users in mind. Please consult your division or department’s Brand Ambassador before deciding to see if there is a preferred platform or department-wide account you can join.

Best Practices

Accessibility

Email accessibility is not only a best practice, but also a requirement based on the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 standard at Level AA. Johns Hopkins’ Digital Accessibility website includes important tactics for making your emails accessible and points to additional resources from popular email campaign management platforms.

Here are a few accessibility tips, with the brand guidelines in mind:

Choose easily readable fonts (sans-serif is best) at least 12 points in size. Tahoma is the recommended brand system font.
Avoid using graphics in the main body of your email. Your headlines and body copy must be typed to ensure everyone will be able to read the message. Follow the design and template recommendations below.
If including, all decorative graphics and informational images must follow brand guidelines for color, typography, logos, etc. Alternative text descriptions are required for informational graphics. Decorative graphics can have blank ALT text.
Make sure your email signature is readable and avoid script fonts. Use the JHU email signature generator to create a branded and accessible sign-off.
Make links and button text descriptive, such as “Register for XYZ Event” instead of “Click Here.” Recommended link and button styles are defined below.

Design & Layout

Keep your email design and layout consistent so your audience knows what to expect and trusts the email as an official communication from a Johns Hopkins University entity.

Custom email designs are welcome, but should follow these general guidelines for brand alignment:

Include an official Johns Hopkins University logo or lock-up in the email header and/or footer. Identify your department clearly in text if a lock-up is not used. Remember to provide alt text for all logos.
Rely on colors from the brand palette, making sure to include Heritage Blue (#002D72)—it works best as a font color for headlines or email header background color. White (#FFFFFF) is recommended for the body content area background. Remember to refer to color contrast for accessibility.

Branded Templates

Ready-to-use branded email templates are available upon request for Mailchimp users. For access, email [email protected]. Use of an official JHU brand template is not required. Consult your Brand Ambassador regarding access to division or department-specific templates.

Basic Template

Event Invite Template

Newsletter Template

Build Your Own Template

If you’d like to build your own versions of the branded templates, follow the general specifications below.

Header

Clearly identify your email as an official communication from a JHU entity. Your email header may consist of a few parts:

Logo

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Heading 1

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Container background color: Harbor Blue (#4E97E0) or a secondary color of your choice, provided color contrast ratios are met
White text (#FFFFFF), Tahoma font, at least 21px—preferably 28px, bold optional
Use this space for department name, email topic, event title, date, etc.
Only one H1 per email for content hierarchy

Image

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Body

There are many components that can make up the body of your email, depending on your content needs. Follow these guidelines as needed:

Background

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Typography

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Headings and body copy should use our brand system font, Tahoma. Generally, all copy should be left aligned, rather than centered, so it is easier to read.

Heading 2: 25px, Heritage Blue (#002D72), Bold
Heading 3: 21px, Heritage Blue (#002D72), Bold
Heading 4: 18px, Heritage Blue (#002D72), Bold
Body text:16px, Black (#000000) or Sable (#31261D), Regular
- A minimum of 16px is recommended for all text. Anything smaller than that compromises readability and accessibility.

Hyperlinks

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Images

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You can include images (JPEGs preferred) in your emails, provided they are high-resolution and have limited/no text in them. Avoid adding images simply for decoration—they should add context to your emails. Always include alternative text with your images.

Full-width: Set to 600px wide, horizontal, select “Fill”
Inset: Set to 3:2 aspect ratio, horizontal, select “Scale”

Section Dividers

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Buttons

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To draw a user’s attention to your main call to action (CTA), use a button instead of a hyperlink. Keep button styles consistent throughout your email and limit their use to only the most important CTAs.

Button background: Heritage Blue (#002D72) or Homewood Green (#008767)
Button text: White (#FFFFFF), Tahoma Bold, 16px or larger
Align button left or center

Footer

Your email footer is a great opportunity to reinforce the Johns Hopkins brand and reminder readers how to get in touch.

Background

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Logo

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Be consistent by using the same logo and shield throughout your email. It is not necessary to use your unit lock-up in the footer, as your department name should be included with your contact information (see below).

White horizontal logo or shield
- File Type: PNG
- Alignment: Centered or left aligned
- Link to the website associated with your department
- Include alternative text, such as “Johns Hopkins University logo”

Contact Information

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Social Media

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You are welcome to include links to your social media accounts or the University’s flagship accounts. Most email platforms have built-in icons for you to choose from when linking to these accounts. Only include your social media accounts if you actively update them.

Background: Heritage Blue (#002D72) or Harbor Blue (#4E97E0)
Icons: White (#FFFFFF)
Centered

Unsubscribe

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If your emails are commercial in nature (advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service), you must provide an opt-out option to follow the CAN-SPAM Act. Even if your emails are not commercial, and instead fall under the transactional definition, it’s a courtesy to allow recipients to unsubscribe from optional messages.

Resource: Is It Illegal to Not Have an Unsubscribe Link? (Campaign Monitor)
Resource: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business (Federal Trade Commission)

Email Campaign Management Platforms

Best Practices

Accessibility

Design & Layout

Branded Templates

Basic Template

Event Invite Template

Newsletter Template

Build Your Own Template

Header

Logo

Heading 1

Image

Body

Background

Typography

Hyperlinks

Images

Section Dividers

Buttons

Footer

Background

Logo

Contact Information

Social Media

Unsubscribe

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