As the school year draws to a close, so does our first year as the outsourced communications department for The Bucyrus City School District. As far as we have been able to research, the partnership between Rock Solid Media LLC and The Bucyrus City Schools marks the first time a school district in Ohio has outsourced typical "in house" communication efforts.
We started with the basics, a few releases regarding new building dedications and some slideshows to run during the open houses for the buildings. What ensued over the next year was anything but routine for rural school districts in Ohio.
Let's start with Facebook. Launched in September, the district's Facebook fan page currently has over 565 fans, has received over 7,938 page views, 287 video views and 1171 picture views! But better than all those stats is that 78% of all our fans are age 25 and up! What does that mean? It means we are reaching our target audience, it means that we don't have a bunch of students who are "fans" of the district, but that we are actually reaching important district stakeholders. For districts that don't have the financial assets to build out a specific communication website, Facebook provides a free place to publicize information, pictures and videos.
After Facebook was up and running we turned our attention to creating a monthly Superintendent's video series. Using the video hosting site Vimeo, instead of Youtube, we were able to create professional looking videos specifically branded to the Bucyrus City School District. The stats weren't anything to write home about, but we did manage to get over 225 different people to watch at least one of Dr. Nichols' videos. Here is an example of one of the videos we produced.
While these videos won't win an Oscar, they allow district stakeholders to feel like their Superintendent is actually a person. It allows the audience to hear directly from the administration what important things are going on within the district.
Last but certainly not least, I want to touch on the district's deployment of email marketing. Today over 2,150 emails have been sent to over 340 different people in the district's database. Members of the database can choose 8 different categories of information they wish to receive, ranging from athletics to strategic plan updates. Across the industry email marketing typically sees a 15%-20% open rate, the average open rate for the district's email marketing campaign is 51%. Email marketing can serve as a typically low cost communication tool for school districts looking for new ways to reach a very specific target audience.
There you have it! Are our results earth shattering? Probably not. The only thing we can say for sure is that the district is taking their communication efforts places they have never been. Only time will tell whether or not the partnership between Rock Solid and Bucyrus will be mutually beneficial, but after a review of year #1, I think it is headed in the right direction!
In case you've missed it, people are sharing content like CRAZY on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Facebook recently introduced the "Like" button for websites. Since its introduction, the "Like" button has appeared on over 100,000 websites. Facebook is pushing 500 million worldwide users, and, while they don't release user statistics, Twitter growth rate is just as strong.
Many of the email software providers (Constant Contact, Exact Target, etc.) have introduced social sharing in their platforms. While it's good that they've added the feature, it could be better. Well, better is here. Add SendLabs to the list. And they've built a better mousetrap!
As a SendLabs email marketing agency partner, we're excited to have this new feature in our arsenal for current and prospective clients.
So, the question is: "What are the implications of Social Sharing for Email Marketing?" Simply stated, it gives your subscribers the ability to share your email with people in their social networks. Thus, giving your email the opportunity to be viewed by more eyeballs than just those in your database. Think about it. One of your subscribers is on Facebook and has 500 friends. This subscriber shares your email with her Facebook Friends, and you now have the opportunity for 500 more people to not only see your email, but potentially sign up to receive your emails to their inbox.
This new world in email marketing also presents new challenges. Is your content compelling enough that at least one subscriber will share it? Is your email optimized to allow those viewing the shared version to sign up? Are you using compelling calls-to-action to drive shared viewers to a landing page on your website? These are all topics we're going to cover in future blog posts.
For now, revel in the simplicity of SendLabs' new Social Sharing feature. Simple, and highly effective because it gives subscribers the ability to share it on the most widely used social media platforms.
In a previous blog post, we provided a quick review of school district email marketing practices for several large districts in Ohio. The review quickly examined four areas of the districts' email marketing efforts:
- Content
- Personalization
- Design
- Images.
Over the course of the next several weeks, we're going to take a deeper look at each of the afforementioned areas. This post is all about personalization and includes recommendations for improving personalization in school district email marketing.
More than "Dear John"
Personalization isn't just about "Dear John". Personalization also includes interest areas, geographic location and demographic information. School districts, especially larger districts, can serve a huge geographic area with a wide range of demographics. All school districts have one thing in common. They have multiple opportunities to engage stakeholders because these individuals have different interests in school district operations. Parents, and young adults (25-45), want to know what the district is doing to enhance educational opportunities for students. Grandparents, and older adults (45 and up), want information about the decisions school boards are making that may have an affect on their financial well-being. Some district residents have a strong affinity for the district's athletic programs and want information about wins and losses. And, unfortunately, there are district residents that don't want any information about the district. The challenge for school districts involves three areas.
- Identifying potential stakeholder interests
- Capturing stakeholder data
- Managing stakeholder data and expectations
What Do People Want?
This is one of the biggest challenges for any organization, especially school districts because most work within a very restrictive budget. However, there are options for uncovering stakeholder interests in your school district. If you have a subscriber database for your current email marketing efforts, you can create a survey using Survey Monkey to determine current subscribers' areas of interest. We would recommend using your current email marketing efforts to drive traffic to your survey. Use the survey to help you develop different segments for your larger subscriber database.
Once you've developed these segments, send another message to your larger database asking them to update their information preferences. Use an incentive to drive subscribers to update their information. Partner with a local business to provide a product or service as the "carrot." Plan on sending multiple messages over a period of time. You should always "take the pulse" of your subscribers to make sure you're providing them the information THEY want to receive, and not the information YOU want to give them.
Now, go forth and email!
In a previous post, we reviewed school district email marketing practices for several large Ohio districts. These school districts should be applauded for deploying a solution that is a cost-effective and efficient form of communications. However, there were 4 areas where we think these districts, and others, can improve in their email marketing efforts. The next several posts will take a deeper look at each of those areas, with the first being content.
School District Email Marketing: The RIGHT Content is King
School districts, especially larger ones, have little difficulty developing great content. There are so many different aspects of a school district that provide opportunities for relevant, compelling content. Academics, athletics, administration and other areas are all relevant topics for school districts. While all of the content from a school district is important, one of the biggest challenges is deciding the right content that is going to resonate with email subscribers. One way to overcome this challenge is to let subscribers tell you what information they want to read about in your district's emails. Develop a robust signup form on your website that gives subscribers the ability to choose the types of content they want to receive in their inbox. And, don't overlook the smallest areas of your district's operations. You might be surprised by the performance of your emails that have a "micro" focus. Another way to overcome this challenge, especially if you're already deploying email marketing, is to conduct a survey of your current email subscribers. The most efficient way to do this is use an online solution, like Survey Monkey, to seek feedback from your subscribers about the content that is important to them. Some email service providers (ESPs) offer a survey application within your subscription. The content areas with the highest response rates should be where you focus your efforts.
School District Email Marketing: Send Them Home
One of the biggest benefits of email marketing is the channel's ability to drive traffic to a website. Two of three emails we reviewed used full content stories in their entire email. One of the biggest problems this presents is that your subscribers have to scroll through a ton of content to find the one piece of information they're seeking. Many school districts have spent, or will spend in the future, significant dollars to develop a top-notch, engaging website. Email should be designed as a "conduit" to more information on your website. Besides increased traffic to your website, you also present subscribers the opportunity to find more information about your district on your website.
Ultimately, using the right content in your emails and driving subscribers to your websites, you will increase the effective of your district's email marketing efforts!
Now, go forth and email!
We'll admit it. We're like everyone else that works in the world of public education. We look at what other districts are doing to see how we can enhance our clients' communications practices. Part of our research recently involved looking at other school districts' websites to get ideas for a new design for one of our clients. In the process, we found that a number of school districts, albeit larger districts, are utilizing
email marketing. Boy, were we happy to see that!
So, we signed up to receive updates from these districts and have been getting them in the inbox for a couple weeks! Three Cheers for these school districts and email marketing!
- Every district deserves a pat on the back for implementing email as a channel for communications. Studies show that email is a highly efficient and cost-effective channel for communications, which fits well for many school districts.
- These districts are infusing interactive components that drive subscribers to different areas of the district website. A-Plus! The more interaction you can provide with your emails and drive people to your website, the more likely subscribers will browse other areas of your website.
- Finally, these districts have embraced the concept that you need to communicate with people on their terms, not on yours. This is one of the most difficult concepts for public school districts to embrace because they expect everyone to come knocking at their door with questions and requests for information. In the "Internet-Era", school districts must realize that they have to meet their stakeholders where they live.
While we were excited to see districts embracing this channel of communication, we have some food for thought that we think can help improve the overall appearance and performance of their messages. Four pieces of constructive criticism, if you will.
- Content - The majority of the emails we've received have been jam-packed with information. In some cases, almost too much information. Pick the BIG headlines you want to highlight and make those the focus of your main content area. A word of caution. Even for the big headlines, don't use the whole story in the body of the email. Remember, the goal of using email as a communications channel is to drive subscribers back to your website to read the "rest of the story" (say it like Paul Harvey, it sounds better). For the "less" important stories, if there is such a thing, put those in the right or left margin as headlines linked to the stories on the website. The whole idea here is to keep the subscriber from having to scroll down the page forever.
Personalization - While this may seem like a minor detail, it's still one that should not be over looked. It all starts with data collection. If you're not asking for subscribers' first and last name, along with their email address, start immediately. Then, you can use the merge tags within your ESP's software to custom the greeting to each person that receives the email.- Design - If you're a large school district, our guess is that you've spent some cash to have a stellar website built for your district. Extend the branding of your website to your emails. While many of the ESPs offer "off-the-shelf" templates, you should have the ability to create custom designs around your current website's branding efforts. If your ESP doesn't offer this ability or it's too "bulky", find an ESP that offers simple code migration from a website to the application.
- Images - Many of the emails we've seen have been using images that expand across the width of the content. Not good. This causes subscribers to scroll even more than usual, and could lead to quick closes before reading the whole newsletter. Resize all of your content images to 150 pixels wide or 150 pixels tall. Then, right or left justify the images with your content. Then, link the images to a larger version on your Flickr page (if you have one) or use the image gallery on your website. The absolute best thing to do is link the image to the story it corresponds with on your website. Give the subscriber every possible chance to get to more content on your website.
To those school districts embracing email as a viable channel for communications, we salute you! Take the 4 points above and try to apply them to the next email you're creating!
Now, go forth and email!