Email Marketing Top Trends 2024
Increase your email engagement rates with the latest email marketing to education insights. Best days, times and months to send your emails - and more!
Click the arrows for the goods!
Ready to boost your email engagement rates?
EMAILS WE SENT IN 2023:
Because we love our clients, and data is pivotal to achieving those sky-high engagement rates, we’ve reviewed every … single … campaign … we sent last year on their behalf.
That’s an impressive 1,461 email campaigns. (Bravo marketing team).
Now see that whopper of a number above? That’s how many individual email marketing to education campaigns we sent in 2023. And 15 million emails means a heck of a lot of insights.
Read on to find out how to get your email campaigns in tip-top condition.
WHEN TO SEND YOUR EMAIL
Best days
Pretty much every day of the week works well. Fridays stole the show for open rates (but not by far), and Mondays were our click-to-open rate winners (that’s the number of teachers who clicked the links within emails).
Total open rate:
Click-to-open rate:
If we had to pick? Mondays. The stats show it’s a great choice for total open rates and click-to-open rates.
But just remember, what works for others might not work as well for you. There are lots of factors that can impact engagement rates. So test, test, test to see what gets the best results for you.
WHEN TO SEND YOUR EMAIL
Best times
The hottest timeslots are… the start of the school day, in between lesson times, and after school – essentially when teachers aren’t teaching!
As we’ll continue to say time and time again (enjoy the pun), test to see what works for you. Try sending your campaigns at different points in the day. And bear in mind the day-to-day schedule of your target education staff (e.g. site managers will check emails at different times to science teachers).
WHEN TO SEND YOUR EMAIL
Best months
We saw great engagement rates across all 12 months including the summer hols – yes, it’s a myth teachers don’t check their emails in August.
Top Tip: Know your education audience; the financial year starts in April for state schools, and September for academies – this means different schools kickstart their new spending plans at different points in the year.
Understanding how and when schools buy will help you to create informed marketing content. And informed content builds trust.
Stay on top of what’s coming up each month with our free Marketing to Education Calendar for the 2023-24 academic year.
YOUR EMAIL CONTENT
Subject line length
Just think short and sweet! Stick to the following word counts for optimum engagement:
Best open rates:
Best click-to-open rates:
Best overall engagement:
YOUR EMAIL CONTENT
Direct vs. General Email Addresses
The more targeted your campaigns, the better. And that applies to your mailing list. The emails we sent direct to teachers’ inboxes (e.g. sarahmurphy@stmarys.org) outperformed those sent to general school email addresses (e.g. info@stmarys.org).
Want to send direct to teachers’ inboxes?
Choose our email marketing service. You can create your own email marketing to education campaigns and have us send them, or let our creative team craft and design them for you – either way, we’ll make sure your emails land safely in your target teachers’ inboxes.
YOUR EMAIL CONTENT
Word count
Aim for between 200 and 300 words. That’s the range we found performed best.
Strive to keep your copy concise, informative and persuasive. And make sure to emphasise the benefits of what you’re offering – how will it help teachers teach? How will it support their pupils?
Some top tips from our copywriters:
YOUR EMAIL CONTENT
What should your email marketing to education campaigns look like?
of teachers said they were more likely to engage with a designed HTML email over a text-based email.
It’s time to get creative. If you need some inspo for your next email campaign, check out our portfolio. Or have our digital designers work their magic – they develop eye-catching emails day in, day out.
YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Most engaged targets
Heads were the most engaged education job roles in 2023 (e.g. Head Teachers, Deputy Heads, Heads of Year 10, Heads of Maths etc.), along with other members of the senior leadership team. We recommend including these senior members of staff in your mailing list if they’re relevant to your campaign, and if they’re relevant to what you’re offering.
Top Tip: Always revise your mailing list if your campaign focus or messaging has changed. If your email is irrelevant to your recipient, there’s a higher chance of it being deleted.
It’s not just the senior leadership team who have a big say over the school spending process, teachers and support staff are key influencers too. For help with choosing who you can target (pssst… there are over 134 job roles), check out our resource. It unpacks the different job roles so you can build a targeted email marketing to education mailing list.
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
Check out our 2024 Top Trends blog post
For a closer analysis of all the stats above, plus lots of extra tips and tricks from our team, make sure you read our 2024 Top Trends blog post.
