School email newsletters are a brilliant way to communicate with parents, share school news and success stories and move prospects further along in the journey towards enrolment. However, if they’re not executed well, email newsletters can be boring and clog up inboxes, leaving a negative impression rather than a positive one. Here is Digithrive For School’s top tips on creating a school email newsletter that parents will actually want to read.
How to create a brilliant school email newsletter
Keep it focused
Decide what your email newsletter is going to be about. For example, is it…
- School news for current parents (Sporting successes, information on inset days etc.)
- Editorial content (Interviews with members of staff, articles from the school magazine etc.)
- Attracting prospects (Promoting open days, sharing positive exam results etc.)
You can’t do all of these things in one newsletter. Keep it simple. If you have to, create multiple newsletters for different audiences. Current parents don’t want to know about upcoming open days and likewise, prospective parents don’t want to know about upcoming parent-teacher evenings.
Design is everything
As well as having great content, your newsletter should be visually appealing. Make it simple and use your school’s colours to keep it in line with your visual identity. Also bear in mind whether the majority of people will be viewing the email on a smartphone or desktop computer, and adjust your design accordingly. Don’t forget to include social media buttons so readers can easily click through to your channels.
Don’t go overboard with promotion
The majority of your newsletter should be informative and provide value to your readers. They are far more likely to click on a link that looks interesting or entertaining than a button that says ‘Click here to view our website’. Keep promotional content to around 10% of your newsletter, perhaps with a banner at the middle or end. Too much promotional content can feel like spam and be offputting.
If you would like more professional tips on marketing your schools do get in touch with the Digithrive For School’s team who are always happy to help. contact us here