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Top 5 e-Newsletters to Send this Fall

1. Search/Prospect Emails
Going back to school gets high school juniors and seniors thinking about where they want to go to college. If you haven’t done so already, get your e-search pieces finalized now! The earlier you start a connection with a potential student, the longer you have to build the relationship. Email makes it easy to reach students who may have been difficult to find with traditional print materials alone.

2. Counselor Emails
Are you going to the NACAC (National Association of College Admissions Counselors) National Conference this fall? Let all those high school guidance counselors know where they can find you! Don't forget to send a reminder email the week before. Timing and a little repetition may lead to your capturing better share of mind with counselors.

Send your email early in the morning or towards the end of the school day when counselors are less likely to be meeting with students and more likely to check email. Tell counselors about scholarships, financial aid, and fast facts specific to your school. But don’t make it too long and complicated. It should be designed as a quick reference for these busy professionals.

3. Open House Invitation and Reminder Emails
Supplement a paper invitation with an email invitation to your fall open house sessions. As with search/prospect email, these are much cheaper to produce and send online and often yield a higher response rate. Students can click directly to your online sign-up form rather than sending back a postcard or calling to schedule an appointment. Provide information such as local hotels for parents, special events for the open house, and an itinerary for the day.

4. Athletic Event Invitation and Reminder Emails
Fall is always a great time for school spirit. Students just returning to campus are excited about the upcoming year and love to show support at sporting events. Do you have an annual football game that cannot be missed? Send students and alumni an invite with this event information.

5. Parent Emails
Parents love to feel connected to their children away at school. Parents Weekend invitations and newsletters are a great way to keep this very important group informed. As with Open House invitations, parents can click directly to the sign-up form on your website to register for Parents Weekend. Also, keep parents “in the know” about campus events and student life with regular newsletters.

Planning Tips for this Fall's Email Campaigns

Would you advise a student to wait until the last minute to write a term paper? Of course not. Likewise, we recommend planning your email programs in advance to ensure they yield the best results.

For example, not every day of the week is created equally.

Tuesday and Wednesday see the greatest volume of email sent because marketers know that mid-week is a productive time for busy, working audiences. Conversely, Monday is a catch up day from the previous weekend, and Thursday begins the wind-down to the next weekend.

A little advanced planning may help you launch on the most effective day (and even time of day!) to achieve the highest open and click-thru rates possible.

Planning ahead also allows you to put more thought into your message. For example, right now you might consider students’ fall schedules in choosing your email topics. Towards the beginning of the year, students are finding classrooms, starting to study, and reconnecting with friends. Freshman are finding the best places to eat, learning their school's sports cheers, and considering clubs and activities. Planning allows you to better tailor the information in your email.

Likewise, keep high school students' schedules in mind for prospect/search emails. High school students typically return home in the early afternoon, so sending big prospect emails around 1pm will put you at the top of their inboxes when they check email after school.

Finally, create a calendar. Put email alongside your print campaign calendar and see what synergies you find. Email is an additional channel that makes print even more effective (and vice versa!). Sometimes the one-two punch of a postal piece and an email communication reinforce a message and better drive a prospect to action.