Building an admissions email marketing plan: Part 2 - When, Why, What and Calls to Action

This is the second in a series of posts on creating an 

effective email marketing plan for your admissions office. 

If you missed the first, read it here.

In my last post in this series, I offered some guiding principals for setting up an admissions email marketing program. From here on out, I'm going to get into the nitty-gritty. When I first started doing email marketing many years back, I was always looking for that step-by-step "how to" guide. Of course, most colleges weren't doing serious email marketing to prospective students back then so no such guide existed. I'm really hoping this blog will be a resource for at least a few people who want to get into this type of communication with their prospectives but really don't know where to begin.

So why should I bother? Email is soooooo 2003.
I bring this section up only because there are still a startling number of schools out there that are doing little to no email marketing. If you ask people to come to your website and do something, they will. Want your prospects to apply online? Then send them an email and ask them too! Ok, maybe not everyone you send it to but on average you can expect to get a 30-40% open rate and a 3-5% click through rate for your messages. The more personal and timely you make your messages, the better your rates will be. It will never be 100% (though I've had emails as high as 80% open and 60% click through) but its certainly better than the 0% you'll get by not doing email at all!

Where do I start?
A good primer for this is a previous post I did: So you need to create a marketing plan....

I'll bring it one step further with this post. Start off with the easy, no-brainer stuff. Every time there is an event, a deadline or any other important date, there should be an email to the primary audience it impacts with some sort of call to action. This may or may not require you to create a landing page with a response mechanism (be smart about when you are creating these things so you can reuse them time and time again).

So with this basic framework, let's start to build out an email calendar. These are just sample dates/events to get the ball rolling:

Notice a pattern with the online RSVP? EVERY event should have one. Even college fairs. I put a * next to college fairs because they are a little bit different. You'll only get a handful of online RSVPs for every national event you do but say you know an applicant is going to be there - why not have you representative find out the status of their application (any missing items, if they've been accepted, etc) and update them in person at the fair? Or have a pre-made packet of information for every inquiry you know is going to be there, including a pre-printed application with all the fields you know of filled in and their fee waived. These personal little touches mean a lot to kids and cost you nothing in terms of time and resources.

Next, you have to figure out the timing of your messages. This should vary based on a few factors:

1) What type of event is it? The type of event dictates the timing. Families need time to plan to attend open houses on campus, but events in their area are an easier decision. Easier still are live chats, where all you need is the luck of them being on the Internet when they occur.

2) Is there a corresponding print mailing? Emails should ALWAYS follow up a print mailing. Directors like to do what I call a preemptive strike: They want you to send out an email BEFORE the print invitation to let students know that a print invitation is coming. Does that sound a bit bizarre to anyone? Plus they never work. It's your job to take the bullet and say "NO!"  (can you tell this is a pet peeve?) Instead, send an email that follows to the students receipt of the print piece.  Follow-ups are great because they act as a reminder in between the day the student receives your print invite and the day of the event. Inevitably, a good number of your audience will have tossed aside the invite and have forgotten to RSVP but your email will jar their memory.

With these two things in mind, we can start to assign our dates.  These are not arbitrary for examples sake.  Instead, I looked at the type of event and whether or not there was a print invitation to look for a good day for a followup.  

Now, of course these dates need to be flexible to accommodate days of the week and other email communications to the same audience. As a general rule, avoid emailing on Saturday or Sunday but other than that, its fair game. However, if you take anything out of this section, take this: There is no magic day of the week or time of the day that works in all circumstances. More important than day of the week is that the message is coordinated with other types of communication your audience is receiving.

Note: When I made these tables, I forgot to put live chats on here. Chats, in my opinion, are mostly a waste of time because they only appeal to the students you've largely won over (which is find during the summer when you're trying to prevent sugar off, but not so much during the year). However, they are what they are and if you do them you need to market for them. Send out an email half and hour before your chat is scheduled to start and it will bring in 75% of your audience. Also, if you send out an announcement earlier in the week, give the students a way to RSVP online. That way if they don't show up the night of, you can call them under the pretext of checking to see if they could log on OK to remind them to get their butts online.

Additional ideas for subject areas

Events are no-brainers. They are easily scheduled and basically write themselves. But don't rest on your laurels there. What are the subject areas that matter to your prospective students? I'll give you a hint: Quality academic programs (that are going to get them jobs after graduation) and kicking ass outside the classroom (athletics, community service organizations, greek life for those you like that sort of thing, etc).  Also, tying emails into the business goals of the organization are never a bad idea.  Here are some ideas:

-Application fee waivers: A primary call to action of any admissions office is getting your kids to apply. Offer them special codes that they can put in their online application to waive the fee in your email messages throughout the fall, culminating with a "holiday" gift if they apply before the new year.

-Regular emails talking about the cool/fun/useful/impressive things going on in your academic programs. It's near impossible to do these things on a monthly basis (because of silly things like summer vacation) but there's usually interesting things going on that prospective students want to hear about like class projects or job placements or research publications by students.

-Athletic previews (discussed further in the call to action section)

-Triggered emails: There are no better times to email your applicants than right after they've submitted their application or right after they've been accepted. Consider doing emails written by your faculty members or students in individual programs to prospects who applied or been accepted to them.

-Admissions updates: Applicants have a very specific set of needs. Regular emails updating them on key dates or aspects of the admissions process can go along way in alleviating their concerns.

When you're coming up with the content of your messages, be sure to make the mental distinction between emails meant to cultivate an audience over time and emails that are meant to push the user to take the next step in moving through the admissions funnel.  News updates are for ongoing cultivation of your prospects, some of whom inquired as early as their freshman year in high school.  It keeps the name of your school and your brand in their mind.  Pushes to apply or deposit online are next steps.  You don't do these until they are at a stage where they are mentally ready to make that decision.

So what do I write?

You've figured out when you want to send your emails and what subjects they should be about. Now what do you say?

I can't tell you specifically what to say in your emails but can say that studies show content to be 40% more effective if it speaks directly to the reader using a conversational tone rather than using a business-like, formulaic one. I don't know for sure but I would bet all the money in my pocket that this is especially true when you're trying to reach teenagers. I always thought of it as writing a blog. Speak to them simply, easily and directly and they'll respond.

I do, however, have one cardinal rule of email content:

ALWAYS have a Call To Action

I can't emphasize this point enough. If you don't have something for them to do, you should be thinking twice about hitting that send key. Even if you're doing a purely informational email, relate it back to the user and give them a call to action based on that relation. For example, at my last job I did athletic preview emails that went out to all students who had inquired to a particular sport right before the season started. They were basically just an overview of the team and what the coach expected of them during the season. The call to action at the end of the email was to go on the team's website and fill out a "prospective athlete questionnaire" to let the coach know you're interested in playing. Kids LOVED these emails. Not only did a lot of them fill out the form, but they would also reply with their various stats and clips, which we'd then forward on to the coach for them. Having a simple call to action and creating a few forms on the website allowed us to take what would traditionally just be an informational email and make it into something that students could interact with.

Key Takeaways:
1) Anything that requires a print invitation requires an email (and probably some web work)
2) Don't worry so much about what specific day of the week you're emailing. Worry about coordinating it with other mailings and communication.
3) Don't be too formal. You'll only turn people off.
4) Always give your users something to do.