With the Fourth of July just around the corner, we're sure many of you are working hard on your email campaigns for the big day. To make things easier for you, we've created a brand new Fourth of July Design Idea for you - exclusively available in the latest version of Mail Designer 365...
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Students are a growing market for your business to explore. Whether you want to attract more customers for your business, or are targeting students for research or recruitment purposes, it's important to adapt your email strategy to suit this unique target group.
In this guide, we are sharing some useful ideas about what you can do to make your email campaigns more attractive to students and young people.
What to consider before you get started
Students are a unique target group in many ways, before you start building your campaign, it may be useful to consider the following points to help you understand your audience a little better...
- Don't stereotype: The stereotype of students spending all their free time drinking and living off pasta may be true for some, but definitely not all. Even if it seems funny, including stereotypes like this in your emails is more likely to make readers roll their eyes and look elsewhere.
- Is your product appealing enough?: Being in full time education and having to pay for rent, living costs, etc. means most students won't have a large disposable income. For this reason, they will only be wiling to splash the cash on things which they deem worth it.
- Brand image: Your brand will also play a part in whether students and young people will want to purchase. For example, despite their premium prices, Apple's strong brand image means their products are still massively popular among younger customers.
- The latest trends: Young people are usually very in tune with the latest trends. If you do your research, you should be able to capture these trends in your campaigns. For example, many companies are now experimenting with more vegan and vegetarian options, due to a huge rise in young people going vegan.
It's important to understand your target market before starting work on your campaign.
5 tips for writing emails for students
These 5 useful tips should help you create emails which are more appealing to students and young people...
Focus on good design
Young people in particular will be drawn in by a great aesthetic. One way to win them over is through an email which is visually appealing and interesting to read. Incorporating colours, images and funny GIFs (check out Giphy for this) is a great way of livening up your newsletter. You should also avoid long chunks of text, as these will quickly become boring.
Urban Outfitters is massively popular with students. Vibrant email designs like this help them maintain their cool brand image.
Keep the tone friendly
When trying to recruit students, it's generally ok to take a more laid back approach. Although it's important to always be respectful and maintain an air of professionalism, overly formal language is not really required. Try and keep the tone friendly to avoid alienating potential new recruits. This will also help students paint a picture of your company's working environment.
Provide useful information
Students are busy and, like the rest of us, won't appreciate being sent meaningless content which clogs up their inboxes. Make sure the content in your emails is actually useful for your audience. Think about how your business could help students solve some common problems they experience.
Here are some ideas you could try:
- Selling stationery or study supplies? You could try including some helpful study tips in your email. Tip: This would be especially useful during exam periods.
- A food or cookery-related business could offer some low cost meal ideas to test out.
- Banks or financial businesses could share their best advice on budgeting and saving money.
- Recruitment agencies could try giving tips on perfecting a CV and applying for graduate jobs.
Target Jobs use their email newsletters to provide students with useful careers information.
Include discounts and special offers
If anyone loves a bargain, it's students. One way of winning the hearts of students and young people is to offer them a discount on your products. Many students will appreciate this gesture and actively choose your business over competitors who don't offer a student discount.
Try using your email newsletter to remind subscribers that you offer a discount and you should notice a boost in click-throughs and sales.
Students will definitely be aware of the discounts available to them thanks to this bold email from New Look.
Concentrate on your social media presence
Maintaining an active social media presence is a good way to keep students aware of your business. It also provides you with more opportunities to directly engage with them. Together with a strong email marketing campaign, you'll be able to increase your reach.
Tip: Remember to link all of your social media profiles in your email newsletters so readers can follow you! Check out this guide for more tips.
We hope this guide will inspire you to consider students and young people as a potential new target group for your business. Remember to keep things relevant, interesting and on trend, and you're sure to be on the right track!
Until next time!
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.
Yes, you did read the title of this blog correctly! The Mail Designer 365 Workflow is now also available on Windows, iOS and Android devices; meaning you can get the whole team involved in your next big email project. Keep reading to discover your brand new productive workflow...
Collaboration is a huge part of working life, but mastering the art of collaborating effectively on projects and tasks can be a huge challenge. Not only can effective collaboration speed up your workflow, it can also promote innovation and creativity; improving the overall outcome of your project.
In email design, it can be helpful to work together to make sure emails meet the high standards you expect. For this reason, collaboration is also a key part of successful email marketing strategy.
In this quick guide, we will share some effective tips on how you can improve your collaboration skills at work; whether working together on email campaigns, or other projects.
Promote an open environment
It is important to make colleagues aware that their feedback and opinions are welcome. If team members don't feel like their ideas are wanted, they are unlikely to share them with you. This could lead to you losing out on opportunities for collaboration and missing interesting ideas which could potentially improve your project.
Here are some ways to promote a more open environment for collaboration...
Encourage your team to socialise
Whether this is during the lunch break or after work, the more your team socialise with each other, the more comfortable they will be discussing ideas and collaborating on projects.
Encourage your whole team to socialise and become comfortable sharing ideas.
Keep meetings small and informal
Meetings give your team the chance to catch up on the status of a project but, if too many people are involved, it can be hard to get the ball rolling. A quick sit down together over coffee with 2-4 people is great for productive discussions and brainstorming. A formal meeting with 4+ attendees is a productivity killer
Use informal meetings as a chance to share ideas in a laid back setting.
Improve communication in the workplace
There are many ways to improve communication in the workplace, but one quick and easy method is to create an internal newsletter. Not only does this keep your whole office up to date on what's happening within the company, it also gives other members of staff the opportunity to provide their opinions on projects they may not have been aware of.
Tip: If you are stuck for ideas on a project, try asking for feedback in your next company newsletter/office bulletin. You may be positively surprised on the suggestions you receive!
Consider all perspectives
Different people will have different experiences based on the department they work in. For this reason, it's important to consider all perspectives when collaborating on a project. Successful collaboration involves interdependence between teams and departments.
Whose input should I consider?
Assume you are creating a product release email for a small to medium business. Although the marketing team is usually responsible for sending these emails to customers, it is also important to consult with other departments:
- The product development team can provide feedback on the technical information you include about the product.
- The sales team will be able to guide you on prices and special offers.
- The branding team can instruct you on the specific visual aspects of your email as well as brand guidelines.
- The legal team will check over any disclaimers or terms & conditions, if you have included an offer or promotion.
- The management team can help determine what the main message or CTA (call to action) of the email is; as well as approving it for sending.
Finding the right collaboration tool
Using a collaboration tool can vastly improve your productivity and speed up the project completion process. It reduces the need to send emails back and forth and stops you wasting time sending new drafts around the office.
With so many different perspectives to consider, it's important to find the right tools to productively collaborate on projects. There are many tools out there for collaboration, but few can provide you with all the aspects you need to be able to successfully communicate with your colleagues.
The right collaboration tool will help you streamline your workflow and become more productive.
Here are a few things to look out for when choosing which tools to work with:
Mobile optimisation
Nowadays, everyone is on the go, and it is important to be able to keep up with work while you're outside of the office. Whether it's the daily commute or you're attending a conference or meeting, it's good to be able to check up on your projects using your smartphone.
Cross platform compatibility
With so many different devices out there, it's a good idea to choose a tool which is compatible with all platforms; as this will be more convenient for your team.
Usability
A good user interface is always a must-have with any kind of collaboration tool, as it must be comprehendible for users of all abilities. Over-complicated tools will only deter busy team members from getting involved, so it is a good idea to choose a software which is easy to use.
Affordability
There are many tools out there which cater to the needs of big businesses, but at a high price. In particular for small and medium businesses, it is important to find a tool which suits your needs; both productively and financially. As well as this, having the option to tailor plans to your own personal preference is also a plus.
Customer support
Finally, a tool which offers high quality customer support is also essential, as it is important for you to have access to support and advice, should you need it.
A collaboration tool for everyone
Mail Designer 365 is the perfect collaboration tool for email communications; offering expert design features and easy-to-use creative tools. Mail Designer has been specially designed for business teams to help streamline the workflow process for email design.
How it works
- Build up an email layout on your Mac using the Mail Designer 365 app.
- Lend your design to team members to add copy, graphics, legal disclaimers and any extras you may require.
- Share a mobile optimised, web-based preview of your design for your colleagues to add comments and feedback.
- Carry out suggested changes to your design and invite team members to decline or approve.
- After the final approval, you can export your design from the Mail Designer 365 app to send via your preferred ESP.
Check out this video to see Mail Designer 365 in action:
Why Mail Designer 365?
We hope you have found this guide useful and that it will help you improve your collaboration skills. If you're looking to optimise your email workflow, try Mail Designer 365 for free today. Already a Mail Designer 365 user? Make sure to set up your team at my.maildesigner365.com to start using the approval features!
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...
Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.