EduWeb2008: E-mail Marketing for Higher Education

Kyle James, Webmaster at Wofford College, presented on email marketing. (blog | twitter)

Quick Email Tips:

• Subject line is key
• Link back to your website for action/more information/downloads/media
• Images should not dominate your content (if images are blocked, and all your content is in the images - students can't see your content!) - use as support

Analytics

• A tracking image is included in the email - each time it is loaded your email distributer will count as an "open" (if image isn't loaded then open stat is low -- this is why they are always low, because many email readers do not display images)
• Targeted messages result in higher returns
• If you want to track video views, link to a video on  your website (don't know of a way to track video in an email -send traffic to your site instead)
• Spend one dedicated day each month to step back and look at trends in your campaigns

Key takeaways revisited

• Does your email campaign tie in with the rest of your efforts?
• Are you doing and tracing the little things?
• Landing pages - you want them on your site!

Kyle will be posting blog post with good example subject lines. Subject line "Are you ready to meet your classmates" at Butler/Bradjward to promote forums resulted in 120 new kids join out of 900 that went to it. (NOTE: this is the logic behind SkoolPool's Meet Future Classmates feature as well ... students are very interested in meeting peers who are applying at the same schools)

There is no reason why you can't split a 3,000 person list into 3 x 1,000 and vary the subject line and other variables - so that you know what works best for next time.

Make sure the From address is from your .edu - make sure that the reply to address actually goes somewhere that can handle replies.