New technology and social media can make email marketing seem somewhat obsolete, but the reality is that email marketing is as strong as ever. It provides schools with direct access to prospective students interested in learning more about them, making it an invaluable platform for student recruitment. By applying the right tips for email marketing and creating compelling email campaigns, schools can successfully guide prospects through the enrollment funnel.
Succeeding with email requires knowing which types of emails to send and using industry best practices to stand out. Here’s an exploration of email subject ideas that can elevate your school’s automated email campaigns!
1. Highlight Relevant Career Information in Your School’s Automated Email Campaigns
In the early stages of the enrollment journey, prospects typically consider the career before they show interest in a specific program. In this case, they may have conducted a quick Google search about a relevant topic and discovered your website’s blog, which led them to your program page. These prospects may be interested enough to sign up for your school’s newsletter but aren’t necessarily familiar with the field or the career path.
Since these prospects are likely looking to learn more, you can provide them with value by creating emails around the exact information they’re looking to find. For instance, you can dive into the market growth of their specific field of interest, explore talent gaps and expected salaries, and even address potential careers that your program can open up. The key goal when applying this top email marketing tip is to write emails for prospects that make a difference, enticing them to read and engage further with your school.
Example: Cumberland College sends an email introducing new leads to the value of digital marketing skills in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, providing a link to relevant statistics that further solidify their point. The email goes on to talk about how the school prepares its students for the field, pushing them further along the enrollment journey:
Source: Cumberland College
Similarly, your school can use this type of email to share industry insights and graduate success. Flatiron School takes this approach by linking to a Jobs Reports document and highlighting the average salary that graduates have managed to earn:
Source: Flatiron School
These types of emails can inform your prospects, saving them time while providing them with highly reliable insights that might shape their future. By establishing these types of email campaigns, you can even set up your school’s credibility and encourage loyalty with your audience.
Emphasizing Your Career Services as One of Many Tips for Email Marketing
Career services can be valuable resources for students and key factors that attract prospects, addressing one of their key concerns before enrolling in one of your programs. If your school offers these services, it can be worthwhile to spotlight them in an email marketing campaign.
Tips for email marketing about your career services include exploring what your career services team does, how current students benefit from these services, or what prospects can expect from enrolling at the school and taking advantage of career service offerings. This can be a great time to incorporate a call to action (CTA) that prompts prospects to speak with a career advisor.
Example: Juno College sends its leads a well-structured email that contains a thoughtful career package for students to download along with a CTA that invites them to schedule a call with a member of the school’s Student Success Team:
Source: Juno College
2. Share Program Details and Unique Features to Attract New Students
Your school’s programs and courses are often what prospects are most invested in, so any information your school can provide about them would be of particular interest. Prospects are searching for the perfect fit, a program that meets their needs and equips them with the right skills and insight for their future career.
Once they discover your school and land on your program page, they may be more inclined to discover what your program offers. This presents you with the perfect opportunity to solidify the position of these prospects in the consideration stage, convincing them that your school is the right fit for them. To do this, you can focus on your program features, benefits, and offers. You can even use this form of email marketing for schools to share your curriculum or break down your course list in an easily digestible way. You can then add a CTA that pushes prospects to apply or sign up for an information session.
Example: Concordia Continuing Education sends an email to promote the launch of its AI Proficiency certificate program. The email encapsulates the program’s top features (first image) while also revealing the course breakdown along with a CTA to register (second image):
Source: Concordia Continuing Education
Integrating this tactic into your school’s automated email workflows can help you promote transparency with your audience, making it easier for them to understand the value they can gain by enrolling in your programs.
Encourage Prospects to Meet with an Academic Advisor
Part of a strong email marketing strategy is to highlight your school’s strengths and valuable features, which also includes your team. The availability of an academic or admissions advisor is a valuable asset for schools, which prospects can use to better understand your programs and their impact on their professional growth. You can emphasize this service by creating an email with a CTA to schedule or book an appointment, as one of many tips for email marketing.
For instance, you can draft an email with a personal note from the admissions advisor or academic coordinator and add a photo and their credentials along with the CTA offer to motivate students to connect with your school.
Another approach is to stress an upcoming application deadline in an email and create a CTA that invites hesitant prospects to speak with an advisor. This is what the Toronto Film School does in one of their emails, as shown below:
Source: Toronto Film School
3. Revealing Your School’s Approach to Learning or Teaching to Entice Prospects
Email marketing to schools is an opportunity to capture and communicate features and benefits that make your school stand out.
Consider honing in on how your teaching style and learning approach differs from your competition, convincing prospects to give your school some extra thought. You can even use email as a platform for sharing more about your classroom environment, giving prospects a better idea of what being a student at your school may be like. This can include your school’s delivery method, such as online learning, in-class participation, or a hybrid format.
Example: In this email, Bishop’s University speaks directly to its prospects and recognizes their values and expectations. The email goes on to highlight why the Williams School of Business is a great choice, revealing impressive statistics on graduate success as well as the impact of their hands-on experiential learning approach:
Source: Bishop’s University
When it comes to your school’s emails, you want to make sure you’re targeting students at every stage of the enrollment funnel. This includes the awareness stage, when they’re just discovering your school; the consideration stage, when they’re evaluating the benefits of your school; and the decision stage, when they’re finally ready to enroll.
If you’re wondering when is the best time to email prospects, then consider sending these messages between 9:00 and 12:00 pm. According to HubSpot, this time frame produces the highest engagement for marketing emails.
Considering starting your own higher education email marketing campaign? Contact our team of experts for help developing email campaigns and newsletters that stand out in a crowded inbox!
4. Key Tips for Email Marketing: Spotlight Your School’s Faculty and Community
Another one of our many tips for email marketing is to showcase your community and use your platform as a way to build trust with your prospects. Authenticity and transparency are notable strategies here that can help your school more easily connect with its audience.
For instance, putting a face on marketing efforts can personalize a company and give it a human element. The same can be said about schools featuring their team, faculty, or students. In fact, it gives prospects an insider perspective, letting them know in advance who they may learn from and what type of people they’re likely to study with. It can even help them understand their potential, especially when they’re looking at stories on alumni success. Going through this effort can help you drive email marketing engagement, build brand loyalty, and increase conversions, giving your school an enrollment boost.
Example: Discovery Community College aims to capture the interest of prospects by sending an email that features a story from a graduate of their Crisis Response and Mental Health Worker program. This graduate spotlight may resonate with prospective students and push them further towards the decision stage of the enrollment journey:
Source: Discovery Community College
Schools with outstanding faculty and staff can also use this opportunity to celebrate their team’s achievements through email marketing. Doing so communicates to prospective students that your school is committed to achieving excellence and takes pride in its community.
For instance, EC English sends an email to prospective students letting them know that some of their staff has received awards and recognition. Although these staff members are not visible to students, they play a role in achieving the school’s mission, as they describe in the email. Recognizing them this way shows prospects that the school creates a positive environment where the staff strives for success.
Source: EC English
5. Highlight Your School’s Scholarships and Financial Aid Opportunities
If your school offers scholarships, bursaries, and other financial aid services, email marketing for educational institutions is a great opportunity to spread the word. Many prospects are concerned about financing their education, and this can transform hesitant or uncertain prospects into more confident or loyal prospects.
Instead of only promoting these services, consider creating an email campaign that dives into the process by summarizing key points or addressing some of the most common questions or concerns. The email could then include a CTA that prompts them to take the desired action.
Example: McMaster University has crafted an email that’s all about funding. Here, prospects can quickly access a helpful link to the top 10 frequently asked questions before being reminded about the entrance award and bursary application deadline, which is also hyperlinked:
Source: McMaster University
A similar approach is taken by the London Business School, which invites prospects to explore their funding options by clicking on a link. The email goes one step further by providing funding advice from the student recruitment team, adding extra value to attract and delight prospects:
Source: London Business School
It should be noted that both of these emails use captivating email subject lines, compelling prospects to open and read the message. Although they use different tones and language, both email subject lines generate interest and are relevant to the topic of the email:
By using best practices for email subject lines, your school can generate positive results and even avoid landing in a prospect’s spam folder.
6. Keep it Simple by Focusing on Why Prospects Should Choose Your School
At the end of the day, your email campaigns should strive to convince prospects that your school is worth the investment, moving them to the bottom of the admissions funnel. Schools looking to apply top tips for email marketing should consider reviewing their unique selling proposition and finding ways to communicate it through email.
Your unique selling proposition, also referred to as a unique selling point or unique value proposition, encapsulates how your school stands out from its competition and provides prospects with more value. Diving into these points can make it clear that your school is the right fit for your prospects. Here, you’ll want to use your student personas to hone in on the points that would appeal most to them, allowing you to personalize your emails for maximum impact.
Example: The Canadian Business College has a series of emails to capture each of its unique selling propositions. In the first email, titled “Backed by 30 years of Experience,” the focus is on the school’s accumulated years of experience and a proven track record of success. The second email is about the school’s flexibility, aptly titled “Start School when YOU want at CBC,” which also focuses on becoming job-ready in a short amount of time:
Source: Canadian Business College
These types of emails can help prospects become more familiar with your school’s benefits, driving them closer to enrolling each time a unique selling point hits home.
Pro tip: Keep in mind that using an education-driven CRM can be particularly helpful when managing numerous contacts and email campaigns. That’s because a CRM can streamline marketing automation for schools and make it easier to follow up with your leads. Consider combining your email marketing efforts with a CRM to boost your team’s productivity when using these email subject ideas in your automated campaigns.
