Staying connected with parents and the wider school community has become more important than ever. For K-12 school administrators and marketers, email marketing offers an efficient, cost-effective, and personalized approach to keeping parents informed, engaged, and connected with the school.
In this blog, we’ll explore various effective school email marketing strategies designed to help you increase parent and community engagement. When you follow the essential tips, you’ll be better equipped to build trust, maintain transparency, and foster an active school community. Let’s explore!
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Understanding the Importance of Email Marketing for Schools
Email marketing for schools is powerful as it allows for direct communication with the people who matter most—parents, guardians, and the wider community. In an environment where parents expect real time information, personalized content, and streamlined communication, email is the go-to method that allows you to achieve all three effectively. Parents are eager to be involved in their child’s education.
By ensuring that parents are well-informed about upcoming events, school policies, and student progress, administrators can build stronger connections between the school and the families they serve.
The benefits of email marketing don’t stop there as pictured below, an effective school email marketing strategy can offer increased brand awareness, an avenue for promoting programs and content, a great way to generate new leads, a platform for guiding new prospects down the enrollment funnel, and build relationships. The key lies in using email marketing correctly, focusing on strategies that boost engagement and build lasting relationships.
Source: Higher Education Marketing
Defining Engagement-Based Email Marketing
For schools, engagement is arguably the most crucial metric of email marketing. The success of your campaign depends on your emails being opened, read, and prompting the desired action outlined in your message.
With this in mind, What is engagement-based email marketing? Engagement-based email marketing focuses on creating emails that grab attention and encourage people to interact with them, standing out from the many emails they receive daily.
Consistency is key in engagement-based email marketing. The more frequently you send relevant messages to the right people that encourage action, the more likely you are to turn them into loyal subscribers and active members of your school community over time.
Join us as we outline ten essential tactics for cultivating the engagement that your school needs to build a stronger relationship with parents, prospects, and your community.
1. Segment Your Email List for Personalized Communication
The first step in effective email marketing is creating segmented email lists. Not all parents and community members need the same information, and delivering relevant content to each group is critical for engagement.
Segmenting your email list allows you to target the right group of parents with messages specifically designed for them. This personalization ensures that the content you send out resonates more with the audience, resulting in better engagement rates.
Segmentation is central to the email marketing function of our open-source marketing automation platform, Mautic CRM. You can segment your contacts based on a multitude of criteria including admissions stage, program, and location, ensuring that each prospect receives the right message at the right time, inciting them to take the next desired action and move down the admissions funnel.
Example: Here, you can see how Mautic’s contact segmentation function allows you to track leads based on the language they speak, whether they’ve completed a registration form for any event you’re promoting, the nature of their relationship with your school, which of your school programs interests them, and more.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
2. Craft Clear and Engaging Subject Lines
The subject line is the first thing parents see when they receive your email, and it plays a significant role in determining whether or not they open it. When crafting subject lines, keep them concise, informative, and engaging.
Highlight the key point of the email so parents immediately know what to expect. Personalization also works wonders in subject lines—try including the recipient’s name or their child’s class to make the email feel more personal and targeted.
Example: Here, Randolph-Macon Academy writes a clear, direct subject line in one of their emails. Long, meandering subject lines with no clear indication of what your email is about are more likely to be ignored so, always aim for short and snappy. Using a humorous tone when possible is also quite effective for catching readers’ attention through subject lines.
Source: Randolph-Macon Academy
3. Use a Mobile-Friendly Email Design
In today’s busy world where many parents lead an ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle, many parents will likely read your emails on their smartphones. Therefore, optimizing your email for mobile devices is crucial.
This means using a responsive email template that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and keeping the content concise so parents don’t have to scroll endlessly. By making your email accessible on mobile, you’re ensuring busy parents can stay informed wherever they are.
Example: Pictured below are Mautic email templates. They are compatible with desktop and mobile devices allowing you to reach parents and community members wherever they are.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
4. Include a Call to Action (CTA) That Encourages Engagement
Every email you send should have a clear purpose, and that’s where a strong CTA comes into play. Whether it’s asking parents to RSVP for an event, complete a survey, or check out the school’s latest blog post, the CTA should be easily identifiable and action-oriented.
Effective CTAs include:
- “Sign Up for the PTA Meeting Here”
- “Take Our School Climate Survey”
- “Download Your Child’s Homework Schedule”
The CTA should also stand out visually—consider using a button with a contrasting color or a bold link to draw attention as pictured in the example below.
Source: Randolph-Macon Academy
5. Focus on Storytelling to Build Community
Emails that tell a story are much more likely to resonate with parents than those that only provide logistical information. Consider using email marketing as an opportunity to share stories about what’s happening at your school. Highlight student achievements, community events, and teacher spotlights. You can even share testimonials from parents or alumni to build trust and show the impact your school is making.
Storytelling humanizes your school, makes the content more engaging, and fosters a deeper connection between parents and the school community.
6. Set up an Automated Welcome Series for New Parents
New parents often feel overwhelmed when joining the school community and email can be a great way to make them feel welcome and informed. Create an automated welcome email series that introduces them to the school, provides helpful resources, and invites them to important upcoming events.
The welcome series can include:
- A welcome message from the principal
- Information about school policies and resources
- Links to important documents (e.g., school calendar)
- Invitations to join parent groups or sign up for the school newsletter
This helps new parents feel engaged and informed from the start, setting the tone for a positive relationship with the school. Automation isn’t only beneficial for sending welcome messages. Mautic enables you to save time and reach the right contact by automating any type of email interaction depending on various criteria.
Example: Mautic enables you to create emails that cater to specific segments within your contact list, send messages automatically, and time them perfectly depending on the nature of the interaction. See how simple the process is in the image below.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
7. Share Important Updates and Reminders Consistently
Consistency is key when it comes to email marketing. Sending regular updates and reminders helps keep parents informed about important dates and events, such as school holidays, parent-teacher conferences, and extracurricular activities.
You don’t need to send emails every day—weekly or bi-weekly updates can suffice. Just make sure the frequency is enough to keep parents in the loop without overwhelming them. You can also create a predictable schedule so parents know when to expect updates (e.g., a weekly newsletter every Monday morning).
8. Use Analytics to Measure Engagement and Improve Content
One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is the ability to measure engagement through analytics. Most email marketing platforms provide metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Use these insights to understand what types of content resonate most with parents.
For example:
- If your open rates are low, consider experimenting with different subject lines.
- If parents aren’t clicking on your CTA, try adjusting its placement or wording.
Analyzing these metrics allows you to refine your email strategy over time, ensuring that you’re always improving engagement with parents.
Example: Use Mautic Campaign Statistics to track the engagement of each email and predict the behavior of your contacts.
Source: Higher Education Marketing| Mautic
9. Incorporate Visuals and Multimedia for a More Engaging Experience
Visual content— photos, videos, and infographics—tends to capture attention more effectively than text alone. Including multimedia in your emails can make them more engaging and visually appealing. Share pictures from recent school events, videos of students’ performances, or a short introduction from a teacher.
Multimedia doesn’t just make your emails more attractive; it also provides a way to showcase what’s happening at the school, allowing parents to feel more involved even if they can’t physically be there.
10. Foster Two-Way Communication Through Surveys and Feedback Forms
Email marketing shouldn’t just be about sending information to parents—it should also be a way to collect feedback and facilitate two-way communication. The result is a more actively engaged school community that offers a host of benefits to your school brand and the education of your students.
You may be wonderfing specifically how to increase engagement through email marketing. Try using your email campaigns to invite parents to share their thoughts and opinions on various aspects of school life. For example, include a link to a survey asking for feedback on recent events or ask parents what topics they’d like covered in future newsletters. This approach makes parents feel that their voice matters and fosters a sense of partnership between the school and the community.
Let’s Review: The Role of Email Marketing in Parent and Community Engagement
Email marketing is a powerful tool that, when used effectively, can drive meaningful engagement between schools, parents, and the wider community. At its core, email marketing is about building trust and fostering relationships.
Schools that use email to maintain transparency with parents—sharing successes and challenges—are more likely to create an environment where parents feel comfortable getting involved. When parents trust the school, they are more likely to attend events, support fundraising efforts, and engage in their child’s education.
Use your email campaigns to provide insight into what’s happening within the school, such as new initiatives, changes in policy, or upcoming projects. By sharing this information openly, you’re helping to build a sense of trust and shared responsibility with the entire community.
The key lies in crafting relevant, personalized, and engaging content that meets parents where they are—whether that’s on their phones, at their computers, or scrolling through their inbox on a busy day.
By following the ten tips we’ve discussed so far, school administrators and marketers can create email campaigns that foster a deeper connection with parents, build trust, and ultimately enhance the overall school experience for students and families alike.
Remember that email marketing is not just about disseminating information. Rather, it’s about telling the story of your school, involving parents in their child’s education, and building a community where everyone feels valued and heard.
As you refine your email marketing strategy, keep these tips in mind and focus on delivering content that adds value, fosters engagement, and builds a lasting connection between your school and the community it serves.
Our targeted email marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students.
Discover how we can enhance your recruitment strategy today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is engagement-based email marketing?
Answer: Engagement-based email marketing focuses on creating emails that grab attention and encourage people to interact with them, standing out from the many emails they receive daily.
Question: How to increase engagement through email marketing?
Answer: Try using your email campaigns to invite parents to share their thoughts and opinions on various aspects of school life.