When potential students visit your institution’s website, an email nurture stream can keep them engaged with the programs you offer–keeping your institution top of mind for them.
Above all, the email nurture experience for prospective students should be user-friendly, personalized, and helpful in order to increase engagement and ultimately drive enrollment. Here are a few best practices for helping students take the first step to achieving their academic and career goals.
Make signing up a snap.
Your school’s landing page should prominently display the email signup call to action to users, so that when they’re ready to request more information on your programs they can do so easily.
Also, the process should be simple with a reasonable number of fields. Keep the form quick and easy to complete so users are more likely to fill it out.
This sample from Purdue works well because there are only 8 fields for prospects to complete, and the value they’ll get from submitting it–connecting with an advisor to discuss their academic success–is clear.
Let them know what happens next.
Upon submitting the email signup form, the user should be presented with a Thank You page that confirms receipt, establishes an expectation of when they’ll hear from you–ideally within 24 hours, if not sooner–and allows the user to keep exploring online content related to the school or program.
We like this simple and clear example from MassArt, which thanks the user and lets them know they’ll hear from the school shortly–and provides a compelling call to action by prompting the user to take a virtual tour.
Keep in touch.
Respect your new contacts’ time and refrain from spamming them with too many emails–but remember they are interested in your program, and follow up via email accordingly. Subsequent followups should be short and sweet, yet useful to your prospects.
Here’s a good example of a followup email from BU–they’ve laid out the value of a BU education,personalized the email by name, and invited the recipient to explore the admissions process.
Here are a few best practices to guide you in crafting email campaigns:
- Address your contacts by name–make it personal!
- Switch up the content, highlighting different aspects of the program to keep it interesting.
- Application or enrollment deadline coming up? Share these dates to urge contacts to make a move.
- If contacts are more involved–they’re browsing more on your website or have expressed interest to an admissions counselor–consider sending them special opportunities, like open houses or webinars, to help them make a decision.
- If you don’t hear back at first, keep trying. The marketing “Rule of Seven” means that prospects need to see your school’s content at least seven times before they’ll take steps toward enrolling. So, consider sending at least seven emails to your contacts after they engage in your nurture stream.
- Test and find out what works. See if prospects are more likely to click on certain subject lines, emails sent at a certain time of day, or sent with a certain amount of time between messages to optimize conversion.
If running an email nurture campaign like this sounds like a lot, Viv Higher Ed Solutions has you covered. We love to work with universities to consult on their websites and craft email campaigns to prospective students. Click here to contact us today for a no-cost, no-obligation consult and see how we can help turn your website visitors into enrolled students.