Email Marketing Strategies in Education

Email marketing is affordable and one of the most efficient ways schools can communicate. Today they use emails for many different purposes. Email campaigns help them to recruit and onboard students. They help them to handle administrative tasks and advise staff members. Parents are kept in the loop and become more involved. Alumni can be persuaded to help with promotion and mentoring. Educational institutions need to be aware of the latest strategies to make this form of communication most effective.

Education email marketing

Education email marketing involves using strategies to effectively target many different groups. There are staff members who need to stay informed. They need to get parents involved and address alumni. With the challenge of trying to stand out from the crowd, it becomes vital to use the right higher education email marketing strategies. Schools can also keep parents on board with constant email communication. With the use of the right email marketing software, they can:

• Segment  
• Personalize  
• Automate  
• Analyze
• Scale campaigns

Segment email lists  

Segmenting an email list is essential for any educational institution. They may segment a list according to various factors, including the location of a student or the course they are taking. They can then create emails to satisfy the needs of various groups For example, they can inform staff about an upcoming event or send a reminder to students to hand in assignments. Students at college often have many assignments. They may worry that they won’t finish them on time. They can find help online from a reliable online paper writing service with professional writers. This helps them to avoid getting behind with their academic obligations. 

The students can learn from a quality example of a research paper or essay and improve their writing skills. All they need to do is choose a writer and provide instructions. Prices are affordable and unlimited revisions are usually included in the price. The professional writers who are well-trained in their respective fields can hand in a quality, uniquely written paper before the due date.     

Personalize emails

Personalizing emails results in more engagement. A marketing strategy education on how to personalize emails could lead to better results. 

The first step to personalization is to understand target audiences and what motivates them. Website analytics, surveys, and interviews can help with creating detailed student personas. Knowing their academic interests and career aspirations can help with personalization. Other factors that could help with personalization include using names, locations, behavior, or even images that reflect the reader’s demographic.

Charles Sturt University personalizes welcome emails by using a name in the salutation and subject line. It uses images of students on campus and mentions resources that relate specifically to a student’s need. This helps in creating a direct contact with the recipient.

Automate repetitive tasks

Universities often need to communicate with a large number of students, staff, and parents. For more effective interaction, email automation is essential. Automating repetitive tasks can make a university marketing strategy easier to implement. It can trigger messages targeted to specific groups at certain times based on behavior. For example, new students could receive a welcome email when they enroll. When students download a brochure it could trigger sending them extra information. 

Track email performance

By using insights from data, it is possible to improve decision-making. Even small changes to emails can result in better performance. A/B testing of different elements in emails shows which ones work best. This may be a subject line, a video, or a call to action. Email campaigns have different goals. The goal may be to create awareness. The only way to establish if the goal is being met is through email metrics such as click-through rates. If a goal isn’t being met, revising email content and structure may help. 

Scale campaigns

Before scaling an email marketing campaign, it is important to optimize it by taking a data-driven approach. Email marketing for educational institutions may need to be at scale. Fortunately, it is easy to scale them. One campaign has the potential to engage thousands of prospective and current students.

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Benefits of education email marketing

Email marketing gives schools an efficient and affordable way to communicate. It helps them to attract and nurture students. 

Recruit and retain students  

There is increasing competition among educational institutions. Emails can help them to recruit new students. Students want to know what benefits a particular school has, what courses it offers, etc. Email marketing can help educational institutions to promote their programs and showcase the benefit of their schools to students. Online educational institutions can boost business performance by informing potential students about the courses they offer. 

Keep all stakeholders informed

Keeping everyone informed about university activities is important. For example, universities can send announcement emails to students to tell them about updates or events. They can keep them informed about extra-curricular activities and encourage them to participate. Alumni involvement can also be encouraged with consistent email contact. 

Promote campus culture

Email campaigns can help to promote campus culture and make students feel proud to belong to a university. To engage students, educational institutions need to go for modern, professional branding and strong visual elements in their emails. Crafting an effective email signature for marketing can also enhance the impact, ensuring that each communication leaves a lasting impression.

The chances are good that students receive emails from many schools and their emails need to stand out. Educational institutions can inspire students by giving them success stories of former students. They can show how participating on campus helped them to grow and develop.   

Trends in email marketing for educational institutions

Educational institutions will segment, automate, and personalize emails even more in the future. Here are some other trends in email marketing.  

1. Prioritize videos for more engagement

Videos are making their mark in educational email campaigns as they have the ability to evoke an emotional connection. Educational institutions can use videos in emails for many different purposes. Berkeley University uses video storytelling to illustrate its values by showing students in action. Videos can include campus tours, samples of course content, and alumni or student testimonials. 

2. Use more than one touchpoint to achieve success

Educational institutions are integrating their email marketing with their social media marketing. Most students use social media and combining email and social media marketing can be very effective. 

Syracuse University sent emails to their contacts asking for donations to students in need. Using a hashtag in their emails allowed for sharing about this cause on social media. 

3. Make emails interactive 

Emails need to be more interactive today to encourage engagement. Reading them should stimulate action. Including a poll or survey could encourage students to give their feedback on a specific issue. Embedding a personalized video could evoke emotion and provoke action. A carousel of images could appeal, especially when students can see students who seem to be just like them. A button in an email may not seem to be such an important element but thinking this is a mistake. A creative CTA button just begs to be clicked.  

Conclusion

Education is going through a great transition. Online education is becoming more popular and it is critical to find ways to engage and nurture students. Using the right email marketing strategies can help to create unique experiences for students. Automating campaigns can save plenty of time and effort. This can allow educators more time for actually educating students.