7 Tips for Optimizing your Email to School and Districts

Effective email testing is critical to a successful sales strategy. Email is often the first and most frequent way to engage with customers and potential new clients. It is important to understand how to best use this powerful tool.

Recently we asked the K12Prospect audience and customers to share some tips on how they run their effective email testing. Here are few of the responses.

Tip #1: Start with a send time

Test the sending time and the time the school administrator actually opens the email, as well as measuring open rate. Test different sending times and note when open rate increases. This test will give you a great overview of when different administrators open their email. You want your message to be sent at a time when the administrator is likely to see it and open it.

Tip #2: Speak in the customer’s language

Figure out the language of your best customer in the school and district administrator and create an offer based on their interests. An effective email subject line gets their attention and peaks their interest. Test subject lines to drill down and figure out what your k-12 persona want to see. This will help you craft the perfect email that prompts them to open it and learn more.

Tip #3: Don’t overlook landing pages

Testing a landing page is very important. Many people just create forms requiring a lot of information or that are difficult to navigate. A landing page test can help you from relying on a sloppy or disconnect call to action message. Conversion rates go higher when the user experience is easier and meaningful. Make sure to test language, colors, and element positioning.

Tip #4: Focus on the messaging

Not every email offer catches everyone’s attention equally. The best sales emails are tailored to the specific recipient. Test different message and different offers. Identify a few challenges for each school and district persona and see what messaging works for each. Do not target everybody with the same message–it never works.

Tip #5: Learn from testing – it’s worth the effort

Testing is the hardest part of an effective sales strategy. It requires a lot of planning and hard work but is critical to improving your engagement and open rates. Testing is hard but the information you get in return is well worth the effort.

Tip #6: Learn about your customers

Your company size, visibility of your brand or amount of leads does not matter. Testing is the most important part of your sales approach in order to maximize results. Take the time and test at least your email subject line and different messaging. A/B testing is easy and any platform will allow you to do it. You will learn so much about your customer and be surprised at what you find. Using what you learn from testing, you will most likely identify new prospects that will become buyers.

Tip #7: Always keep your lists updated

Always have an updated list of your leads. Email marketing depends on having updated contacts when you do your testing and marketing. School and district personnel change positions, transfer schools or even leave the profession entirely. You want to make sure that you are always contacting the appropriate person. It will cost you way too much in money and decreased open rates if you are spending your time and resources pursuing customers who are no longer there.

Conclusion

Looking to bring positive results and increase open and click-through rates? Test, test, test as much as you can to learn more about your customer and develop an effective email sales strategy.