Trust is one of the most important emotions in the education sector, and to begin building it, you need effective communication strategies. However, it can be tricky to know what these are – and competition in this space is rife. In 2022, more than 110-million education-themed emails were sent from Everlytic’s platform. The good news? Our latest marketing report reveals there are communication strategies you can use to build trust in your emails, and we’re giving you some of the scoop here.
Why Education Email Marketing Is Essential
The education sector is a billion-rand industry in South Africa, accounting for 19.75% of the total government expenditure across all sectors.
Amid growing financial pressures, administrators are increasingly relying on marketing and sales communications to ensure a steady intake and retention of students.
Email marketing plays an important role in informing current and prospective students and parents, forming connections with them, and establishing the institution as trusted and authoritative.
In fact, effective education email marketing has been found to build trust, boost a sense of thought leadership, and – ultimately – encourage engagement. This is the outcome you want – for recipients to take action in your emails, like clicking on your calls to action.
In a bid to pinpoint effective email marketing strategies, Everlytic partnered with behavioural linguistics firm, BreadCrumbs Linguistics, to analyse the linguistic patterns common across the 20 best-performing education- and training-themed emails sent from our platform in 2022. The results were fascinating, and we’re giving you a sneak peek at what we found.
Tools to Measure How Trust Is Built in Comms
Linguistic patterns. Behavioural linguistics. And best-performing emails. You may be wondering what on earth we mean by these terms. So, before we share more on our findings, let’s break down the jargon.
- Linguistic Patterns are predictable language formations that lend meaning to words or sounds so we can understand one another, for example grammar and syntax.
- Behavioural Linguistics combines the study of behavioural science, psychology, and linguistics to question why people choose to act in the ways they do. The insights revealed by such an analysis can help marketers craft content that resonates with recipients and encourages engagement.
- Best-Performing Emails for this marketing report were ranked according to the open and click-through rates. You can read more about key email metrics in this blog post, but briefly, the open rate is the percentage of people who opened the email out of the total number of people it was sent to, while the click-through rate is the percentage of people who clicked on at least one link in the email. The best-performing emails were defined as those with the highest open rates.
Our sample of best-performing mailers was a good measure of engagement as the open rate greatly outshone the average open rate in the education and training industry as per Everlytic’s Email Marketing Benchmark Report 2022.
Find out how your email engagement compares to the averages in your industry and across the South African market by downloading our free Email Marketing Benchmark Report.
Use Language of Trust in Education Email Marketing
Our research revealed key language themes in the education email marketing dataset, which we break down in detail in the marketing report, along with examples in action.
These language themes uncovered some pertinent messaging in the comms that weren’t explicitly stated, but our analysis gives context as to how and why they were used to build trust.
One of these themes that was the “Language of Quality”, which conveyed a sense of value through the use of adjectives, like leading, world–class, and prestigious. This naturally helps recipients to trust the institution.
Learn more about the email metrics you can use to help you make data-backed decisions in this blog post.
Structure Your Content to Encourage Engagement
We also used a behavioural tool called the Feast Framework to understand how content was structured in the education emails to build trust, so the recipients felt encouraged to engage.
One way was by making the emails attractive. Colours known to convey safeguarding and trust, like blue, white, and grey, were commonly used.
There were many photos of students looking at the camera as well as photos of hands in the emails, which we believe creates a perception of confidence and connection. There were also images of institution buildings looking impressive and projecting a feeling of quality – which plays into the language theme outlined above.
In a bid to encourage engagement, the calls to action were bold to grab readers’ attention and were clear on how to take action. Some of these were hyperlinked in the copy or standalone buttons – but our analysis found the standalone buttons framed with urgent language were the most successful at driving engagement.
Our latest marketing report is the fourth in a series showcasing top tips for better email engagement. You can also download the Travel and Tourism, Retail, and Financial Services reports from our website.
Unlock Key Strategies for Effective Education Emails
Education email marketing is increasingly important for communicating with prospective and current students and parents. While it can seem daunting to know how to create effective mailers, our analysis revealed there are strategies you can use that make it easier. By mastering them, you’ll be able to build significant trust in your brand, boost a sense of authority for your institution, and encourage recipients to engage with your emails.
