Is your inbox overflowing? No surprise here, but the average person receives 121 business emails every day. Now, over the last year, organizations have overcompensated their communication efforts with digital means in exchange for not being able to communicate in person. It has become all too common for our inboxes to be inundated with emails from the same senders, day after day. The way schools communicate with their families is no different. While families are typically reluctant to unsubscribe from school emails for fear they will miss out on something important, you should still be mindful that their inboxes and time are valuable.
Before sending that next email to your families, it’s important to establish and implement best-practice tactics.
Subject Line
Are your emails getting lost in the shuffle resulting in a low open rate? When crafting an email, pay close attention to your subject line. Subject lines should be short, concise and informative. Use your subject line to grab the attention of your reader and convince them to take the next step with your overall messaging and call-to-actions (CTAs).
Message
How you position your point within an email could be the deciding factor when it comes to your emails being received and digested. Make sure your message is clear and to the point. If you force recipients to dig for information, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Make use of pre-built templates within your student information system (SIS) as a guide to help send the message you’re trying to convey. Your SIS should help you achieve consistent and efficient messaging no matter where you are.
Pro Tip: Educate, our flagship SIS, makes it easy to:
- Leverage pre-built templates or customize your own templates to meet your school specific needs
- Utilize admin tools that allow you to track sent messages and open rates so you can better target future communications
Segmentation
Use segmentation to control who your target audience is and how often you are sending to them. Educate has a built-in Communications Center with the tools you need to segment your database by various criteria so you can rest assured that you’re emailing your target audience on an as–needed basis.
Social Media
Combining your email communication efforts with social media can help you to avoid over-communicating with your families—too much communication can lead to unsubscribes and/or distaste for your school’s brand. Work to continually increase your following by promoting your social media pages to your families via other means of communication. Keep in mind, social media is less invasive than email and reaches a broader audience.
Did you know?
Educate integrates with Facebook and Twitter to automatically send communication to your families quickly and efficiently.
In a world where social media is highly influential, encourage your students, families and staff to use their social platforms to speak up and help spread the word.
For more ideas about how you can diversify communications without tarnishing your brand, download our e-book.
To learn more about Educate and its built-in Communications Center, click here.
Related Resources
Communicating in a World of Overcommunication
Waiting to simplify student management can cost you now
