Stop Doing These 4 Things In Your Emails

It’s becoming harder and harder to get prospective students to open an email, let alone read the entire message and take some kind of action.

Today I’m going to share a handful of things you may need to stop doing before you hit send in the coming days and weeks. Most of these are simple fixes, but one or two may require a shift in your mindset.

1.    Stop using subject lines that sound like a marketing message. According to my Top Tier Higher Ed survey research, 28.1% of students said that the subject line was the number one thing that got them to open any college related email. “Your future is worth exploring”, or “Jeremy, choose <College Name> and apply for scholarships now” won’t resonate with the majority of Gen Z. The most effective subject lines feel personal and summarize what’s in the email. Successful examples that I’ve recently created for Top Tier college partners include, “Your weekends in college could look like this”, “What <College Name> students like about their classes”, and “Why you will feel supported here”. Also, while using their first or preferred name is a nice touch, it’s less impactful when a student skims their Inbox and sees nothing but their first or preferred name in every single subject line. Finally, be sure to stay up on the spam words to avoid otherwise you’ll increase the chances of your message going to their junk or promotions folder.

2.    Stop sounding like a robot. Conversational, relaxed, plain language continues to win with this generation because it feels more authentic and human. Write like you talk day in and day out, even if that means you have a run-on-sentence or start a sentence with a word such as and or because. No, I did not just give you permission to use slang words like bro and bet, but you should use contractions like it’s instead of it is, you’re instead of you are, and you’ll instead of you will. Remember, you’re battling the idea that AI is writing a lot of the messaging that colleges send. This change can be a hard habit to break, but the ROI will be faster connections as well and increased engagement/action.

3.    Stop talking at the reader, talk with them. The words you type should make the conversation feel like it’s a two-way chat and not one sided. Doing that builds trust quicker and shows the other person real respect and care.

4.    Stop ending with “Reach out if you have any questions”, “Feel free to connect with me”, or something similar. I know you’re trying to be helpful, but students continue to say that language like that is way too open ended and also feels forced. Instead, ask the reader a single direct question with the goal of learning more about them or some aspect of their college search process. If you’re looking for examples of effective questions, check out these articles.

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