Inboxes are flooded so you have about 2 seconds before a student decides to delete or engage with you. Combine their insights with tried-and-true best practices for email campaigns, and you’re on your way to open and click-through rates that sing “ROI!’

1. Subject lines matter! This is where your email is judged for its worthiness. Be concise, personal, natural, and relevant to the prospect. Keep spam filters happy by avoiding all caps, excessive punctuation, and spam flag-words and phrases (free, act now, guaranteed, be amazed, etc.).

2. Make the message personal and clear. Simple, visually interesting content will achieve high click-through rates. Generic, cut-and-pasted, and salesy content are as big a turn off as too many links and too many words. Each link is a specific call to action – so REDUCE the number of links. Focus on the prospect’s interests, speak to them by name, keep the call to action clear and tell them what’s in it for them!

3. Be efficient. These digital natives move quickly across multiple devices and media (email, websites, socials, texts, chatbots, IM) in one day. They are turned off by repetitive messaging, so make sure yours is varied. Consider a less is more approach – and be sure students aren’t receiving duplicate emails.

4. Let them unsubscribe. Offer a link to opt out of future emails and honor unsubscribe requests within 10 days – it’s a good practice that will keep you compliant with the Federal CAN-SPAM Act.

5. Test your emails to ensure deliverability. There are various tools to help you pull a report on how email providers view your IP address, and ensure deliverability. Knowing where you stand will help you focus on what needs to be improved. Quality is King!

Having the most highly qualified leads available is the foundation for creating the most compelling, and spam-proof, communications.