Your emails: Part II

What we learned over 16 months of emails.

In our last blog post, we profiled sixteen months of emails received by one of our MoreThanGrades.com students. Most of these emails began shortly after our student took the PSAT; the other spike was shortly after the SAT exam. As far as the month with the most frequent emails, that honor goes to March with 119, followed closely by February with 100 and April with 99. In our previous post, we also revealed that the 571 emails received came from across the country. Some of the schools emailed only once, most of the colleges emailed at least three times, and many of the emails were purchased emails addresses. Here are a few more interesting facts based on the subject line or content within the email:

Out of all the emails, 44 asked our student to fill out a survey of one kind or another. Another common request was to take a virtual tour or to sign up for a tour. That request happened 90 times. Of all the requests, the most common (191 times) was to view the school’s guidebook.

As far as subject line, “last chance” and “apply now” were both quite popular. The phrase that appeared most frequently was “request….”

It is easy to see why many of these emails never get opened. Colleges, or for that matter anyone, who is emailing high school students should consider these findings when emailing. So what is a college to do?

As I mentioned in our last blog post, we also email high schools students. Fortunately, we have a very high open rate for our emails. I believe the reason for this is that we adhere to a few simple rules when we email, and we go out of our way to make our emails appealing to our students. We have studied what others do and use what works and discard what does not.

In our next blog post on emails, we will show you 13 days of actual emails to our student. During this 13-day period, 64 emails were received. The name of the sending college and student name have been removed, but the subject line and beginning of the email were left unchanged. We hope you find it educational. What do you think?

Mike, Co-Founder of MoreThanGrades.com