Marketing Stuff: Higher Ed Edition: Email & Gen Z

Hello everybody and holiday season. This is Pat McGraw and I just want to take a few minutes because I know you’re very very busy this last few days of 2019 but I wanted to address some questions that I’d heard bouncing around online from

you can see here it’s entitled teenagers don’t use emails colleges do that’s a problem during college admissions season

There are two key points in this article just be a spoiler but they’re very important ones the first is this article points out that as in any generation out there there will be segments of the audience that you are targeting that have different communication preferences some will love email some will not love email some will prefer text some will prefer online chat some might even prefer direct mail but that’s why you should be asking when you capture these what is your preferred channel for communication and then use that information to deliver the messages as you go forward

now the other big issue here is the second part of the headline which is colleges do rely on email and some over rely on email and some misuse the the email channel and some don’t take advantage of what it can offer remember that you are going to need to look at your frequency of emails how often you send them you’re also going to have to look at your messaging and your offers now this may sound oh yeah no kidding common sense but if you have something relevant that you say to someone the frequency can be much higher it should be much higher

for example a lot of schools send up that first couple of emails and they’re jam-packed with about ten to fifteen to twenty different links if you want to learn about clubs and activities click here if you want to learn about financial aid click here to watch a video click here a lot download this click here 

we know that as humans too many options too many choices makes us step back and make no decision whatsoever

so each email that goes out should have a single focus what do you want them to do and you need to tie that with the phase of the decision making process they are in at that particular moment time in the beginning when they are gathering information to figure out do I want to go to college where do I want to

go to college but I want to stay home do I want to live on campus do I want to pick this program over that program there are different questions and different selection criteria that need

to be addressed than those that are in the middle an application process with

you so be aware of what those questions are have the right content available and then when you send out your emails make it focus on one topic and have one call to action and if they show interest in it then you know where to go from there if they don’t you should have a path that mapped out where what the follow-up communication will be from there so when it comes to email if you’re going to use it use it wisely think about your frequency think about your your messaging your offers your call to actions and measure it properly and when you see people who aren’t responding to it use a different channel to reach out and find out hey you’re not opening up the emails would you prefer getting messages from us through another channel or are you’re going in a different direction and you don’t need to be bothered by us anymore because hey if they’re going somewhere else that’s fine focus on the ones that you can enroll

so ideally happy holidays and if you’ve got any questions you’d like to bounce off me don’t hesitate call me email me it’s a small role that could help otherwise enjoy your holiday season and we’ll talk in 2020