Are you providing too much information in your K-12 education email marketing messages?
Do you remember the first time you saw the news ticker at the bottom of the TV screen when watching the news? It really became ubiquitous after September 2001. I was not a fan of having this catching my eye while I was looking at the rest of the picture. Fast forward to today and I probably read the ticker at the same time or before I wait for the newscasters to bring me up to speed with the more, in depth, coverage of a particular story. I’m probably not alone.
Information is coming to us all so quickly from every direction that we have become spectacular info carnivores, devouring content very rapidly in small bites. If you have kids this is really apparent as they flip through TikTok or YouTube TV, where they are jumping through multiple videos jammed into short briefs of time. Getting to this point was inevitable and unless you live tech-free you have embraced modern information advancements.
At this point you probably understand where this is going. Your email marketing needs to get to the point and get there quickly. Whenever I embark on a new k-12 principal email list campaign I picture myself as the recipient of the email. Am I going to read two or three paragraphs? Not a chance. I might give four connected sentences a chance but that’s even reaching. According to Litmus https://www.litmus.com/ the average read time of an email is nine seconds. This is where the a,b,c,1,2,3 comes in. I’ve mentioned this before in my K-12 email marketing blogs and I will beat it into the marketing public again.
Here are the steps I use starting from the top to the bottom:
1. Summarize the topic of the email into one or two sentences. You are trying to hook the reader. Get concise right here and let the reader know exactly what they are getting from you. If they like it they read on. If they don’t and they bail out, there is zero wrong with that. Not everyone wants what you are selling or they don’t need it “now”. Here is an example from an email campaign we just launched for our new K-12 educator and teacher jobs board, Peertopia (https://peertopia.com/):
Peertopia Connect offers a very simple and intuitive way for administrators to post open positions within their schools and districts.
2. Write down your most important points that you would like your reader to focus on. I find it easiest to list these in order and write a sentence for each point. Next, cut each sentence to the minimum number of words possible and try not to use any of the same verbs or adjectives. You might even bold key words within each line, and even link them together:
A Better K-12 Hiring Solution
3. Add in a nice graphic with an embedded hyperlink to the page/offer to make it real easy for them to dive right into where you would like them to go (the import and layout here is a little off).
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4. Add a nice footer with your contact information. It’s important to let your reader know that you are not just “Chuck Jones” (from who knows where), but also have an address and phone number. You also need to have an Opt-out button, which any ESP will provide automatically. These last two items are a canned spam law requirements.
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5. Choose a great subject line. Clear and concise again in a few words. Don’t get fancy with symbols, all CAPS, or emojis. These are cute ideas, however, your email is likely going to end up not making the inbox. Here’s the one we came up with for our campaign: “K-12 hiring with Peertopia”
Subject line trigger words include…
Guaranteed
Special
Approved
Trial
Deal/ Deals
Win/Winner/ Winning/ Won
Get/Getting
Dollar Sign ($)
Save/Savings/Saving
Sale
Limited Time Offer
Immediately
Gift/Gifts
FREE (in all caps)
Marketing
New
Exclamation/Question Marks (!/?)
Percent or %
Complimentary
Wait/Waiting
Gappy Text (R S V P or F R E E)
Invite/Invites
Sweepstakes
“Now Only”
Urgent
Hello
Online/ Internet
Professional
Boost
The SUBJECT (in all caps)
Join
Increase
Hurry
Numerals (1, 50%, etc.)
personalized subject
(https://k12-data.com/blog-details/Email-Tips-pt-2)
K12 Data is the leader in US education school and district email marketing lists. We invented the Build A List and user-driven email marketing solution. The rest are just catching up after 12yrs. Thank you for your continued business trusting K12 Data with your principal email list marketing needs as well as your college email list needs. We put our customers first and that keeps us first for education data lists.
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