If you're wondering how an email performed in your marketing and/or recruitment campaign, there are four metrics you should be reviewing.
Today we are sharing the second post of our email conversion series. The first post covered Open Rates. We could have simply placed them all in a single post, but breaking them out gives us a chance to expand a little more than we typically do.
EMAIL CLICK RATES
The email click rate is the most deeply researched metric in email marketing. Retailers and other mass email marketers each spend countless hours and an enormous amount of money 
annually harnessing the power of their click rate.
I, too, spend many hours harnessing not only my own, but my clients' click rates - and here is why I do it: Email gives you a two-way communication medium that provides your prospective students the ability to engage; to take an action toward completing the enrollment process, an action you have the ability to quietly monitor and assess without being an interruption in the student's life.
If your prospect receives your email, opens your email and reads your email, but doesn't click on your email was it effective? Was it worth the time to plan, write and send that email?
There is no magic bullet that will trigger all of your prospects to respond to your emails by clicking within them, but might I suggest you can improve the click-through rates in your emails?
How do we do that? Follow these two steps:
DETERMINE YOUR PURPOSE
Before beginning your email, you need to determine its purpose. Why are you sending this email? What action is it you want the prospect to take - to RSVP for an open house; set a time for a phone call with your admissions counselor; begin an application; or maybe watch a financial aid video?
It may seem trivial, but it is a critical step you must first determine before writing the email.
MAKE YOUR PURPOSE COMPELLING
Once you determine your email's purpose, you are ready to write the content for your message.
As you write the email, keep your purpose and desired outcome in mind. Will the sentence you are writing compel your reader to read until she finds the link (Remember the 5 second rule)? Will it tell her why she NEEDS to click, or why she WANTS to click? I don't mean in a bland, "this is good enough for everyone," type of way.
I mean a message that is relevant to her as a single mother wanting to finish her degree, as a high school junior who is captain of her cheerleading squad or the 38-year old mother of a high school senior with ADHD that wants to be sure her son enrolls in a school equipped to support his needs?
The reasons each of these individuals will be interested in your email are all very different. But if making the message compelling dramatically changes the likelihood she will click, and you aren't including that reason in her message, why would she click the message?
In each of those examples, I referenced information we probably know about those prospects. The key is finding a way within your technology's capabilities to segment the audience so that you can customize your content around that information. I know that isn't easy (hello! there are professionals that can help - hint, hint), but you can introduce the process slowly (did you see our post about context in inquiry forms?).
Incorporating that level of personalization makes automation a much more engaging and enriching experience for your prospects. I've not met an admissions and enrollment leader that doesn't preach about the importance of relationships in their recruitment - yet I also haven't met more than 2 leaders that have introduced this level of engagement in their admissions process.
Did you miss it?: We offered a webinar, demonstrating techniques to better personalize your emails. Want to check it out? You can catch a recording online.
Here are 2 questions I ask new clients that hire me to improve their communication plans:
1. What is the click rate of your best performing email?
2. What is the click rate of your poorest performing email?
Less than 1/3 of them have ever been able to answer those questions. Effective leaders in today's admissions world know not only which staff are most effective, not only which advertising media convert best, but also which emails produce the most results. Diving this deep into your recruitment tactics will provide you much more insight into who your prospects are, what actions they take and which pages they view most frequently (which also tells you what questions they have).
LET'S DIG DEEPER
There are some other specifics about your email that you need to know. I've discussed many of these before (see this post, and this one too). Here are three you need to keep in mind when writing your message.
1. Keep content short - especially in emails from your admission rep's/counselors. I've read research as recent as last week that looked at general sales emails. One of the findings said that emails containing 50-120 words performed best. Now you might challenge me by suggesting our emails in higher ed aren't sales emails. But if you consider that a prospect may be receiving emails from you and five other schools, you have to acknowledge that the prospect will be receiving many messages from many institutions, all clambering for that person's attention. At some point, the prospect will tune out.
My suggestion: if you have to scroll, it's too long.
2. Whatever action you want a reader to take, be sure you get to it in the first two sentences. You have your reader's attention for only a very short time (a few seconds), so if you don't get to the point early, your reader will never get far enough into your message to find it.
3. Keep it focused. If you keep the message short, it will be difficult to offer the 5 links and 4 bullet points that many institutions include in their message. That's a very good thing.
If you know the action (note that the verb is in a singular form) you want your reader to take, write about it - and only it, in this email; don't write other topics in the same message. Those should be other emails in your communication plan.
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Overwhelmed yet? Let's pause before moving to our next message in this series. Try and identify three things from this post you can use in your emails immediately. Need help implementing them? Drop us a note and we can help.
In our next post, we will continue with email success, but move beyond the email to the page where your reader lands after clicking in your email and look at what you need to get the reader to convert.