4 ways to make your student email communications more effective
Heard a colleague complain that ‘students don’t read their emails?’ Email communications can easily be done badly, resulting in overwhelm and disengagement from students.
Yet research suggests that most students prefer to get information from their institution via email. Email is one of the most effective tools we have to communicate with students and drive action.
But to be effective, it has to be done strategically
Here are four common problems and my advice on how to make your student email campaigns more effective.
Focus on their needs, not your message
Problem: students don’t engage with emails because they don’t think it’s relevant
When you are creating an email campaign, what do you start with? You might want to make students aware of a new programme to support their future career. And this programme may have a fancy name like ‘Skills for success’ or ‘Excel’. But what does this name mean to students?
Solution: Rather than starting with the message we want to get across, start by considering the students’ needs. What information are they looking for? How do they feel? What language do they use?
Speaking to students, you might identify that new students are keen to find a part-time job so they have enough money to fund their studies. While students in their final year are worried about finding work after graduation and aren’t sure where to start. Pay attention to the language they use so you can reflect it in your copy and ensure that students’ needs are foregrounded. For example, switch ‘skills for success’ into ‘help finding a part-time job’.
Break it down
Problem: email overwhelm
How many emails do students receive from the university per day? Some institutions send a huge volume of emails to students so it’s unsurprising that people switch off. It’s easy to miss the important messages when it’s lost in a snow flurry of automated alerts, reminders, and irrelevant stuff.
Solutions: Clear the clutter so that your recipients recognise that emails from you are important and worth reading.
Pick your channel. Email is most effective as a channel for prompting people to take action. Nice to know information may sit better on your student intranet or social channels.
Segment your communications so you are only sending relevant information to people. Any time you find yourself writing ‘if you are a student on a [particular type of course]’ then pause. Filter your data so students on those courses are only getting the relevant information. That extra effort segmenting your data will save time for your students.
Only send reminders to those who need it. In one test I conducted, 13% more students completed online enrolment when they were sent a segmented reminder email which told them specifically what they needed to do (for example, you still need to upload your photo), compared to a generic reminder. Irrelevant or generic reminders and notifications are just clutter.
Write a clear subject heading
Problem: students don’t open their emails
69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject heading. Do your email headings clearly communicate their relevance to the reader?
Solution:
Be clear and specific in your subject heading. Assume that your students are only going to read the heading - is that enough? Show that your email is relevant to them and make the action clear. For example, rather than ‘we look forward to welcoming you to your accommodation’, be specific with your action ‘Book your parking for moving in’
Craft your first line. The first line of an email usually appears in the preview in people’s inboxes. Don’t waste your first line on pleasantries or ‘view in browser’. Instead craft a first line so it complements your subject heading and test send the email to yourself to see what it looks like.
Consider who the email is from. People are more likely to open emails when they recognise the sender. Who should the emails come from? To answer this, think about who your students have a relationship with - is it a specific named person, the department or service, or the institution?
Have a clear call to action.
Problem: the action gets lost in the information
Does your email make it clear what students need to do? Lots of information with multiple hyperlinks can cause confusion and mean that people don’t act.
Solution:
Separate the need to know from the nice to know. Is this information essential for a student to know now? Will they have to read this information again when they land on the website? First, break up complex information into steps and, second, skim down your copy so it focuses only on what students need to know to take the action.
Use buttons for key actions. Using a call to action button instead of a link increases clicks by 28%. Buttons help to focus the eye.
Never, ever use ‘click here’. ‘Click here’ makes your hyperlinks inaccessible and won’t help students using screen readers. Instead of ‘click here’, describe what users can expect from the link, for example ‘read full article’ or ‘book open day’.
Summary
Focus on their needs, not your message
Break it down
Write a clear subject heading
Have a clear call to action
Improve your email marketing campaigns.
We offer training workshops to help universities, schools and colleges to create smarter email communications and campaigns. Get in touch with us to discuss how we can help.
