How To Grow Your EdTech Business With Powerful Email Marketing

Every Black Friday, you receive email upon email from companies you relinquished your credentials to in exchange for… 

• free shipping

• a one-off promo, or

• newsletters. 

There’s a good reason your inbox is overflowing with these offers. Email marketing is still one of the best ways to engage with your audience, even with the amount of social media platforms out there.

It’s easy to diminish the value of email marketing because people receive hundreds of emails a day. Most emails are ignored or sent to spam. Only a select few get opened and an even smaller percentage of emails get clicked on. There’s a way to position your email marketing strategy to be a part of those select few emails that do get opened and clicked.

Emails allow you to personalize your messaging while adding value for your target audience. With an ROI of 3600% ($36 for every dollar spent), it’s one of the best ways for startup EdTech companies and established companies to grow their business.

Email marketing helps EdTech companies:

• Offer personalization about the audience’s interests

• Deliver value in the form of blogs, case studies, etc.

• Drive traffic and sales with a call to action

Whether you’re unsure of how to segment your list, your list is nonexistent, or you’re just plain busy, here are the top ways EdTech companies can build a solid email marketing plan to bolster their position.

Stay Relevant And Memorable To Your Audience. Top 5 Email Best Practices.

Personalization is key

So many education companies hold the belief they must remain formal in their email copy because their audience includes superintendents with advanced degrees. Knowing your audience is important, but it doesn’t mean you must remain stiff like you’re in an interview. 

In fact, the more stiff a person is in an interview, the less likely you are to connect or even hire them. People want to interact and engage with people. You can be charming and poignant, but still respectful, in your email copy. In fact, the more you’re able to create quality and charm, the more your audience feels like they know you and trust you. When your audience feels this way, they’re more likely to buy from you.

Segment and create specific email sequences

When your target audience signs up for an ebook or a buyer’s guide, for example, they’re telling you valuable information about their interests. Once they download this content, a series of nurturing email sequences can begin to personalize information even more. For example, if someone exchanges their email address for a funding guide, that means they’re interested in knowing more about how to allocate funds to purchase. They’re almost ready to buy; they just need more time getting to know your business. Having an email sequence that includes the benefits of your product with personal testimonials and case studies will build greater trust and drive sales. If you include an email from a buyer who used funding to purchase your product-that’s even better.

Provide value to your audience

Have you ever subscribed to an online business only to get hammered with emails asking you to buy again and again? It’s a sure-fire way to lose subscribers if every email consists of asking your target audience to buy from you. Instead, let your audience know when there’s a new blog post up on your website. This will boost traffic and increase your SEO efforts while maintaining trust and credibility.

Every email needs to have a purpose

Whether the email is to create value or trust, there always needs to be an intention behind every single email. It’s important to consider what the email recipient wants to learn, discover, or understand. Objectives for email sequences need to be clear. For example, maybe you want your audience to take a specific action or you want to communicate something about your business. Clear objectives make metrics that much easier to understand.

Know your target audience

It’s important to know your target audience well in order to write compelling email copy. Knowing your audience’s pain points, their values, interests, and questions will help you craft emails that speak directly to them in a voice that sounds like their own. This continues to build the momentum in connection and credibility.

How to craft effective emails for K12 educators and administrators

Emails in the education space need to have the following:

• Strong subject line

This is your first opportunity at getting noticed and opened, and educators receive over 100 emails a day. So the subject line needs to be compelling. It’s always a good rule of thumb to avoid click-bait subjects and to ensure the subject line delivers on its promises.

• Preview text

Another chance to help get your email opened-this text helps further your prospect to act. Education has an average email open rate of 25%, so both the subject line and preview text need to drive action.

• Greeting

People love to hear or read their name, so a friendly, warm, or inviting greeting plus their name is always a great start.

• Body

This is the time to deliver on your subject line and preview text by using a variety of copywriting techniques to build trust. This is an opportunity to personalize and stand out.

• Call to action

Every email needs to have a strong call to action. You need to make sure you tell your audience what you’d like them to do; otherwise, they won’t do anything. While the average open rate for education is on the higher side in industry standards, the average clickthrough rate is 7.49%. Every component of the email is important and contributes to this statistic.

Email marketing continues to be a cost-effective, powerful tool for education companies. It not only feeds your other marketing efforts better, it also helps your audience feel like you’re delivering value. Once you set up your email sequences, you don’t need to do anything else other than measure the metrics, which saves you time and provides you with helpful data to inform future marketing campaigns. With the highest ROI for the lowest cost, email is one of the best forms of generating sales for your EdTech business.

Need support for your email campaigns? First Step Advisors specializes in strategic planning, execution, and refinement of targeted K12 campaigns. 

Contact us for a free consultation today!