Why should your business invest in a back-to-school campaign? There are many reasons:
Back-to-school is a time of excitement and anticipation for both students and teachers. The back-to-school season is an excellent opportunity for teachers to connect with their students and share what they have been up to over the summer break. Teachers and schools can do this by sending out newsletters that may contain the following:
Here’s a back-to-school newsletter template with essential information divided into easy-to-read sections:
And this is a real back-to-school bulletin example from Warwick Elementary. It’s a lengthy newsletter with resources for a smooth start to the school year, so it has a table of contents. It also uses the school’s logo, motto, and signature red color to get the newsletter subscribers into the spirit.
Businesses of all sorts take advantage of back-to-school emails, not just traditional sectors like retailers that sell school-related supplies, books, and dorm room accessories. Electronic shops, for example, benefit from these newsletters because Generation Z requires not just a pencil, book, or notebook in a classroom, but also advanced technology or gadgets that will facilitate their learning process. Clothing retailers, furniture stores, and even SaaS companies that provide digital goods may also benefit from them.
Even if your business is not in the education sector, you should still send back-to-school emails. This big shopping event is a great chance to reconnect with your contacts and strengthen your bond with them.
Here are some great ideas to use for your back-to-school email marketing campaign:
Targeting students
How can you say no if your kid tells you that they need a new shirt or a new gadget for a new year at school? Almost impossible. The best way to attract students is to use catchy and attractive graphics, offering something that will take the burden of homework assignments off their shoulders.
In this email, Grammarly shows that their product will significantly increase the student’s productivity during school, offering a very attractive price:
Prep sportswear, on the other hand, uses a captivating design with bright colors to attract a teenage audience:
And Footshop used an ironic tone of voice, addressed students’ concerns directly (find a new backpack fast to enjoy the rest of the summer break), and added photos in a stylized classroom. An A+ back-to-school email you can use as a template!
Targeting parents
Parents spend more and more on back-to-school items every year. It is estimated that parents in the US alone are planning to spend $41.5 billion on their children this year. So take advantage of this fact and boost your sales with the help of a back-to-school email campaign. Make sure that it translates the value of your product to help parents make their kid better in school, acquire a new skill, or overall prepare their kid for school or college.
Scholastic made their offer the star of the email to motivate parents that shop for deals. Plus, there are links to shop by grade at the bottom of the email. If your business offers products for different age groups, consider adding a similar footer to your email template.
If your brand isn’t selling classroom essentials or learning materials, you can still appeal to parents. For example, here’s an email targeting college kids’ parents from a mattress and pillows manufacturer:
Another option is to forget about kids’ needs and focus on parents’ needs. And what does a parent need most during the back-to-school season? A cup of coffee, of course! That’s the idea behind this back-to-school email campaign:
Targeting teachers
Don’t forget about teachers! They prepare for a school year as well and need different resources that will help them to survive another year of tests, exams, and nights spent checking their students’ work. Give the teachers exclusive offers, like free delivery to the school or a free guide that they can download to understand how to use a device that you are selling.
If you are a clothes brand, you can add the special professor style selection, containing your latest collections with advantageous offers. Here’s an example:
Back-to-school season is all about learning, so you can explain how teachers can use your service and offer detailed instruction.
You can also address teachers’ concerns about supplies in your newsletter, as in our example below:
How can you make sure your back-to-school newsletter is effective? Here are some tips and best practices:
The timing of your back-to-school newsletters is key. You want to hit your audience right when they’re starting to think about the upcoming school year.
Ideally, you should send your newsletters out in late June or early July. That’s when parents are starting to do their research and figure out what kind of supplies they need and what kind of clothes their kids will need.
If you wait too long, chances are they’ll have already made their purchases or they’ll be so overwhelmed with everything that’s going on that they won’t even notice your newsletter. So start planning your campaign beforehand and hit your target audience right when they’re ready to buy.
When it comes to your newsletters, you want to make sure that you’re getting as many people as possible to open them up. One way to do this is to pay attention to your subject lines.
You want your back-to-school subject lines to be catchy, interesting, and relevant to your readers. And you also want to make sure that they’re not too long — people are more likely to open a shorter subject line than one that’s 50 words long. Back-to-school subject line best practice is to use no more than 7 words or 41 characters.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should always test different subject lines to see which ones get the best results. What works for a parent might not work for a teacher or a student, so it’s important to tailor your content accordingly.
Subject lines examples for students:
Subject lines examples for teachers:
Subject lines examples for parents:
It’s important to remember that you’re not writing for everyone. You need to segment your audience and target the right people with the right information.
For example, if you are targeting high school students’ parents you need to provide them with information about schedules, homework assignments, and important dates as a teacher. If you are targeting only students, send an email with information about lockers, dress codes, and after-school activities.
As a business that sells gadgets, if you are targeting parents or college students, you need to provide a newsletter that shows the visible benefits of the item that will increase their kids’ grades. If you are targeting educators, then you need to pop up features that will make their teaching process more efficient.
It can be a lot of work, but when you target the right people with the right information, you’ll see a big improvement in your response rate.
Here’s a highly targeted email from an educational website. It’s aimed specifically at a 5th grader’s parent and lists relevant resources and activities. This makes the email especially relevant and useful.
One of the best ways to make your back-to-school email campaign work is to play on the sense of urgency. Many parents are busy during the back-to-school season, and they may not have time to read every newsletter that comes their way.
So make sure your headline and opening paragraph capture their attention, and let them know that there’s information inside that they don’t want to miss. You can also highlight a specific event or deadline that’s coming up in your newsletter, and remind parents that it’s time to start thinking about school supplies, uniforms, and other items. You can see how Animal store handled appealing to urgency:
When it comes to your back-to-school newsletters, make use of different design principles to capture your audience’s attention. Here are a few tips:
A good example using all mentioned points from Krogers grocery retailer:
And here’s another example of good email design — a clean and bright campaign from BruMate:
When creating your back-to-school newsletters, be sure to keep mobile users in mind. According to the 2022 Deloitte Back-to-School Survey, 65% of consumers use their smartphones for online shopping, so you want to make sure your newsletters are easy to read on small screens.
One way to do this is to keep your text short and to the point, and use plenty of headings and subheadings so people can scan quickly for the information they need. You can also use images and infographics to break up the text and make it more visually appealing. Look how clean and concise is the letter from Rifle Paper Co:
And don’t forget to test your newsletters on different devices and browsers before you send them out.
When creating your back-to-school newsletters, be sure to avoid overcrowding them with too much content. Less is more in this case.
Your readers are likely busy people, and they don’t have time to read through a long, drawn-out newsletter. For instance, as a company that sells gadgets, stick to the basics — introduce your product briefly, tell your audience its main features, and what value it brings. You may add a CTA and a contact form so that the consumer can find you easily and make a purchase. Like in the email from the B&H store:
When it comes to layout, keep it simple, use an easy-to-read font. Also, be sure to use plenty of white space so that the newsletter doesn’t look too cramped or busy.
Let’s have a quick revision of what we talked about in this article:
This article was originally published in August 2022 and was updated in August 2023 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.
