Stefan 
According to the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, there are more than 281 billion emails sent every day, and it’s projected to reach 333 billion by 2022.
Despite countless articles in the past decade forecasting the death of email as a marketing communication channel, email is most likely to stick and the main reason is, you have to take a manual action in order to deal with emails, either read them, delete them, or archive them. You can’t ignore them, unless you want your inbox to clog-up and forfeit its purpose. While your social media newsfeed can be ignored, you can’t apply the same strategy with email.
This is why email marketing is such an effective solution for your education agency. Email is the most effective tactic to engage with your potential and actual international students, measure the impact and save on administrative and operational overheads for your education agency. Of course, many of your subscribers will unsubscribe, but email wins every time when it comes to long-term engagement.
When working on building your email marketing plan, you’ll have to agree with yourself that you will fail and be OK with it. No matter how many best guides and practices you read, the only real way to improve your outcome of your email campaign is to try, learn, iterate, measure, and repeat.
There’s no magic algorithm that will make your education agency successful, otherwise how would marketing consultants make money?! However, if you are just getting started and you are looking for quick ways to improve your strategy, there are several mistakes you could avoid. As a general rule, always try to pay attention to detail, test everything before you shoot through, and try to look as professional as possible.
1. You do not pay enough attention to how professional your emails look
More than 65% of your education agency students are at the awareness stage. They have never heard of you in the past. The first impression always counts, and this principle applies to the way you design your emails too. Pay attention to your email layout, the images you use, your Calls-To-Action (CTAs), your brand experience, email colours consistency with your brand colours, easy-to-spot logo and link to more information.
One golden rule is: two pair of eyes are always better than one. Always try to get a fresh pair of eyes so you can ask for a critical opinion. Ask if they would really read the email or just delete it? Ask about the consistency with your brand, and if the images you used are useful or they just distract…
2. You do not offer value to your reader
3. You do not automate your repetitive tasks
Do not assign an education consultant in your team to manually send thousands of emails by hand. It’s a waste of money in wages and time this person could spend more productively doing something meaningful. There are plenty of automatic solutions that could send all your emails with a simple click of a button. Think Mailchimp, AWeber, Sendinblue, etc…
Take a break and think where you can save time in your marketing process. Time is money and if you are already short on resources, automation can help you get back your most precious resource: time.
4. You are using too many CTAs or too many images
5. You send your emails without testing
Always test your email messages before sending your email campaigns. Spelling errors are embarrassing, but there are so many things that can go wrong, from the logic of things (if you are sending a series of emails) to images not loading. Check to make sure everything works and looks professional.
Check your emails against different platforms and email clients. Some email clients might not display your emails properly and others might not display your email messages at all. There’s no other way to know what happens unless you test. By testing your emails, you will put yourself in the shoes of your readers and you should ask yourself: Would I read this if I would be the one receiving it in my inbox? If the answer is no, it’s definitely the time to make a change.
In summary, it is important to know that you are not the only one your readers hear from. If you always focus on the reader and provide them with value when you create content, you can avoid some of these common email marketing mistakes and eventually get better conversion results.
