10 Email Marketing Best Practices for Education Companies

Email marketing is one of the fastest and most effective ways to reach your target audience in the education space, and this marketing strategy is only projected to grow. As a great line of communication with your existing customers and a lead generation tool for prospective customers, it is important that you stay up to date on the latest email marketing trends and best practices to ensure your campaigns are getting seen and converting. The following ten tips will help you level up your email marketing program.

1) Make it personal.

Personal connection with your audience is key. A personalized subject line or greeting, rather than the generic “Dear Reader,” is always recommended. According to Constant Contact, 52% of consumers are likely to switch brands if the brand doesn’t take the time to personalize greetings. Educators want to feel they can trust you, and something as simple as adding their first name can build that trust. Using a marketing automation tool such as Hubspot, Mailchimp, or Constant Contact makes it easy to add personalizations to any campaign.

2) Strengthen subject lines and preview text.

The subject line plays a critical role in email campaign performance. Studies show that 33% of email recipients will decide whether or not to open an email solely based on the subject line. Keep subject lines short, but ensure that you add something to pique readers’ interest. And don’t forget to include preview or preheader text, which is shown in the inbox of most major email clients, next to the subject line. Preview text is a great opportunity to hook readers and increase your open rate. Try including something eye-catching, punchy, and relevant to your email content.

3) Give your email signature a makeover.

Your email signature might be simple, but it holds a lot of value. Adding an email signature makes it easier for your audience to get direct access to you for questions, concerns, and new business. Must-haves include your name, job title, and a direct line of contact, such as your business phone number. Treat your email signature as a digital business card.

4) Clean up your mailing list.

To get the most out of an email marketing tool, you need the most up-to-date contact information for your customers and prospects. This means removing or archiving those who are continually not engaging with your campaigns, or those with email addresses that bounce and are no longer valid. It’s not only a waste of time and resources to continually reach out to these recipients, it can actually do damage to your reputation as an email sender. Use your email marketing tool’s performance tracking capabilities to monitor engagement and overall database health, then periodically purge contacts who have not opened your emails after a handful of sends or whose emails have bounced.

5) Have a strong call to action.

The content of your email should drive a recipient to take action. Your email may have more than one call to action (CTA), but it’s important to feature your primary CTA close to the top of your email or “above the fold.” You want your CTA to invite readers to click on it, so using simple action words like “try” or “find” are great choices to get recipients interested.

6) Send test emails.

Nothing feels worse than sending out an email only to catch a glaring error after it’s been deployed. To ensure your emails render properly on all devices (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.) and are free of error, send test emails to yourself and your team before you deploy campaigns to your contacts. This allows time to troubleshoot any problems prior to hitting “send.” Email rendering can vary from provider to provider, so running tests using multiple email clients, devices, and operating systems will help you ensure that every recipient views your email just as you intend.

7) Keep branding consistent.

While the content is a cornerstone of your email campaigns, the look and feel is just as important. Using colors that are consistent with your brand and templates that provide a consistent format will make your campaigns look more professional. You can utilize pre-set templates offered through your email marketing tool, or design your own with a tool like Bee Pro. You should always use your logo, and you can consult your brand’s style guide for color palettes and typefaces. With that said, not all brand typefaces are “web friendly”—if that is the case, you should use a web-safe font that has a similar style typeface.

8) Monitor performance metrics.

If you’re trying a new format with your campaigns, doing A/B testing, or not seeing the results you’re looking for, make sure to keep an eye on the performance metrics. Most email and marketing automation tools have built-in analytics that can help you determine whether your campaigns are effective. Standard metrics like open rates and click rates will give you a general sense of performance and can be an indicator of whether your subject lines and calls to action are hitting the mark. Also keep in mind your send time, knowing that educators may not open your campaigns right away during the school day. Monitor campaign performance over a few days and not just immediately after the initial send.

9) Utilize website landing pages.

Effective email campaigns typically drive recipients to a corresponding website landing page. Landing pages allow you to dive into the content further and get your contacts to convert, such as by filling out a form to download a whitepaper, registering for a webinar, or filling out a demo form. Landing pages allow you to further track and gather information about your prospects, and should be consistent with your branding and email messaging.

10) Make it easy for readers to subscribe (or unsubscribe).

It is not uncommon for email campaigns to get forwarded from the intended recipient to another reader who may not be in your database (this is a good thing!). You want to make it easy for these new readers to subscribe to your content when they click through to your website. If the subscribe button is buried, they likely won’t spend too much time looking for a way to opt-in. On the flip side, it’s important to allow readers to unsubscribe if they so desire. Ideally, you should direct them to an email preference center that allows them to update their email preferences (frequency, format, topic, etc.) or unsubscribe completely.

Need Help Getting Started?

With the right tools and strategies in place, your email campaigns will help generate new business while keeping existing customers happy and in the know. If you’re looking for email marketing guidance and support in the education space, Ed2Market is your go-to partner. Get in touch with us today.