How would you rebuild email journeys?
We’re switching from Salesforce Pardot to Marketing Cloud at the end of the year. Our enrollment campaigns all must be rebuilt in the new platform, and I’d like to do a major refresh vs. reusing what exists. What is your advice for creating new email journeys to engage our prospects? How would you take advantage of this opportunity?
Oh this is so exciting! I would try these three things:
Build a solid welcome email.
Welcome emails are magic. They’re your one chance to make someone feel good about the action they just took. So make them smile, thank them genuinely, maybe even send something cute. Then set expectations: “Here’s what you’ll see in your inbox over the next few weeks.”
For the love of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, don’t do this:
“Thanks for requesting more information, learn more on our website.”🔄 Redundant. They just came from there.
“Thanks for requesting more information, schedule a visit!”🛑 Too quick.Give them something before asking for the next action.
Prioritize being useful.
Instead of spoon-feeding your readers information they already got on your website, think about what’s actually useful.
For high schoolers, the college search is overwhelming. The school that makes it feel easy wins big. Imagine emails that help them manage the process, like:
“This is a great week to request counselor letters.”
“Start drafting your essay now—here are tips from students who nailed it.”
For grad prospects, it’s more about value. They want to level up their career, so show them you can help even before they apply. Imagine:
A customGPT to help rewrite their resume, built from your career services team’s best tips.
A professor’s framework on writing business cases that get approved.
Let them choose the next email.
This is a little extra but I’ve always wanted to do it. Picture a flow where students choose what they get next. You have anchor emails everyone gets, but the emails in between are reader's choice.
⚓︎ Welcome email
Choice of: Program & learning mode OR Alumni and what they’re up to
⚓︎ Financials
Choice of: Hear from professors and students OR Career and networking
⚓︎ Requirements
Choice of: Whatever they skipped before
⚓︎ Time to apply
This can be achieved with simple links at the end of each email that send them down a different path in your journey. In every anchor email, give them links to what they didn’t pick so there’s no FOMO. Engagement would soar with all this choice!
Tell me with a click…Would you try this? 🤔
How to resist doing what you’ve always done.
Reimagining familiar work is hard. To avoid old patterns, ask someone less involved for ideas (like this reader did!). Their fresh perspective can spark your creativity ✨
🆕 Or (shameless plug!) be one of the first people to take our Mailed It! email course, packed with dozens of new examples to inspire you.
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