Presentation on email marketing for Higher Education at #PSEWEB Halifax in 2012

2. @MMBC
#PSEWEB Conference Coordinator
Speaker & Consultant - Lunch Break Media
Ltd.
Instructor – Western University
Manager, Digital Services – Ivey Business
School
Twitter: @mmbc
Instagram: @mcheater
Email: melissa@lunchbreakmedia.com

7. SMASHING (MAGAZINE) EMAIL BP’S
Have something to say.
Sounds simple, but while your daily musings are permissible on Twitter, your
email audience will be less forgiving.
Make it digestible.
Email doesn’t limit your word count, but you’ll need to apply some editing of
your own. If it’s a long article, include an excerpt and link through to the
website for the full story. This has the added bonus of enabling you to track
the most popular items.
Be regular.
Set a schedule of emails that you know you can keep to. A monthly or
quarterly newsletter can be a good guide.
Be personal.
Tailor your tone to the audience. Most email services offer invaluable
segmentation tools. You wouldn’t speak to your spouse the way you talk to
your bank manager; neither should you address your entire audience the
same way.

8. @KARLYNMB COMMANDMENTS OF EMAIL

9. FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR:

10. TYPES OF EMAILS:
Newsletters.
Support ongoing relationships, carrying prospects through the funnel.
Catalogs.
Think Amazon & iTunes! Product-driven newsletter (regular, structured
= usable and expected). What does this look like in higher education
marketing?
Announcements/CTA & Invitations.
Ad hoc (as needed/relevant). Function best as single call to action.
Don’t forget plain text.
Personalizing is way less creepy when it’s not as obviously a mass
email.

12. PLAN TO MAKE SENSE
WITHOUT IMAGES
• Image blocking is increasing
• 52% of users don’t see images
automatically

25. LET’S TALK WIDTH

26. CAMPAIGN MONITOR
Established knowledge & implementation leader
 Google weighs in on their blog
 Constantly publishing knowledge on the latest and most compliant methods of
building email
Database of free, tested, professional templates for quick unique look &
feel
Stable: They’ve been around for a long time, and they are huge
Reputable: I’ve felt their spam penalties
 Chris Brogan says prioritize spam & deliverability when choosing a vendor
Able to push to social media, pull from RSS, integrate into websites &
Salesforce

29. OUR RESULTS:
• 16 Departments onboard in Campaign Monitor
• Additional departments using template in alternate tool
• 3 Templates: Two Column, One Column, Invitation
• Approx. 330 emails sent since September 2011
• Process in place for global template update
• Mailing list for all email editors & staff
• Training materials through help desk software
• Template revamp & best practices launch underway
“We had an open rate of 35% for Ivey Society members, 31% for
MBAs and 27% for HBAs – all incredible, and higher than we
have had in the past.”

30. TYPES OF EMAILS
• Newsletters
• Event Invitations
• Admissions Offers
• Event/Fair Follow Ups
• In the Media Digests
• Ivey Business Journal (Publication)
• Catalog (Ivey Publishing)
• Holiday Cards
• Mass Campaigns

31. OUR PROCESS
• Decentralized staff are independent for repeat pieces
• New Project Request for all new pieces
• Goals, Audiences, Budget, Content, Timeline
• Decentralized staff develops Content & Meta Info
• Digital Team executes Design, Populate & Build
• Tests & Revisions (Optional Cross-Platform & Spam Test)
• Digital Services supports list upload & send training
• Decentralized staff executes send
Help Desk & Knowledge Centre database for ongoing support
Digital Services & Marketing mailing list CC’d on all tests & sends (for
troubleshooting & FYI).

42. ATTACHMENT SIGNATURES = DOUBLE FAIL

46. THANK YOU!
Melissa Cheater
twitter.com/mmbc
linkedin.com/in/melissacheater
melissa@lunchbreakmedia.com