Take Your Blue Email Notifications to the Next Level
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Email is the primary and most effective way to communicate with your students and faculty. A properly designed email can improve your response rate, increase transparency and improve faculty satisfaction. At Virginia Commonwealth University we combined our past experience of online evaluations with functionality available in Blue to craft awesome emails.
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Take Your Blue Email Notifications to the Next Level
- 1. Take Your Blue Email Notifications to the Next Level Gaurav Gupta Virginia Commonwealth University
- 2. About Virginia Commonwealth University Urban university with two campuses 13 schools and one college 31,000 students 17,500 courses per year 6% short courses
- 3. History of course evaluation at VCU Paper and pencil evaluations until 2009 Switched to Online evaluations in 2009 Switched to Blue in 2013
- 4. Course evaluation by the numbers 225,000 evaluations per year 200,000 emails per year
- 5. We have learned a lot in last 6 years
- 6. Goals of our communication strategy
- 7. Goal 1 Increase response rate
- 8. Goal 2 Get quality feedback
- 9. Goal 3 Increase transparency, reduce confusion and improve satisfaction
- 10. Goal 4 Reduce the need for troubleshooting
- 11. Lessons we have learned…
- 12. 1. We are salespeople
- 13. 2. Email is our best marketing tool
- 14. E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media – nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.” - McKinsey & Company Source: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/why_marketers_should_keep_sending_you_emails “
- 15. After trying for a few semesters we stopped using posters, postcards, Twitter, Facebook, campus TV and raffle prizes
- 16. 3. Content is king
- 17. Content we include in our emails
- 18. Emails to students include Introduction List of open evaluations and their due dates Link to evaluation forms Importance of their feedback and how it will be used Confidentiality Contact information Unsubscribe link
- 19. Emails to faculty include Introduction List of evaluations Start and end dates, report availability Link to check response rates How to improve response rate and get better feedback Contact information Unsubscribe link
- 20. A/B testing
- 21. A/B testing basics Create two versions of an email Divide email recipients into two groups Send different versions of email to each group Measure completion rate
- 22. Subject line: It’s Time to Give Feedback to Your Instructors Subject line: It’s Time to Evaluate Your Instructors A B ✓ 13% more responses
- 23. Subject line: Reminder: Please Evaluate Your Courses and Your Instructors Subject line: Need a Study Break? Take a Few Minutes to Evaluate Your Professors A B ✓30% more responses
- 25. With testimonial Without testimonial A B No significant difference
- 27. Subject line: Your Course Evaluations are Still Pending Subject line: Reminder: Your Course Evaluations are Still Pending A B ✓12% more responses
- 28. Subject line: Only 3 Days Left to Evaluate Your Professors! Subject line: Your Course Evaluations are Due in 3 Days A B No significant difference
- 29. Dear eXplorance, Can you please bring A/B testing to Blue
- 30. Tips for writing great content
- 31. Pay attention to subject line A well designed subject line can make big impact
- 32. Put yourself in their shoes If you were a student or instructor, what information would be helpful to you
- 33. Are they asking you the same questions repeatedly? Consider including this information in the email
- 34. Be conversational Keep it to-the-point Avoid being clever, using puns
- 35. Sound official, authoritative Don’t beg, make them care instead Create a sense of urgency
- 36. instead of “please complete your evaluations” say “evaluations are due in 2 days”
- 37. Divide up content into small sections Use headings
- 38. Without headings
- 39. With headings
- 40. 4. Personalize to the right extent
- 41. Two banks Two very different emails
- 44. Which email would you rather receive?
- 45. 0 200 400 600 800 1000 04/21/2011 00 04/22/2011 00 04/23/2011 00 04/24/2011 00 04/25/2011 00 04/26/2011 00 04/27/2011 00 04/28/2011 00 04/29/2011 00 04/30/2011 00 05/01/2011 00 05/02/2011 00 05/03/2011 00 05/04/2011 00 Evals Completed/Hour Generic email Personalized email Personalized email improved our response rate (Spring 2011)
- 46. Personalized data used at VCU Name List of courses Instructor names Due dates
- 49. Almost any data can be included
- 50. 5. Formatting the email
- 51. Unformatted
- 52. Formatted
- 53. Find a web designer
- 54. Tips for your web designer Use call to action buttons instead of links Minimize use of images Use inline CSS Responsive design
- 55. Resources for your web designer Responsive email tutorial http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/creating-a-simple-responsive-html-email--webdesign-12978 BeeFree https://beefree.io/ Zurb CSS Inliner http://zurb.com/ink/inliner.php
- 56. 6. Getting the timing right
- 57. Typical course evaluation cycle (14 days) Course duration ExamsEvals Reports
- 58. Typical communication cycle ExamsEvals Reports Email to students Email to instructors
- 59. We analyzed data from last four semesters
- 60. Evaluations completed/hour – Fall 2013 0 200 400 600 800 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Emails sent
- 61. Evaluations completed/hour – Spring 2014 0 200 400 600 800 1000 Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Emails sent
- 62. Evaluations completed/hour – Fall 2014 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Emails sent
- 63. Evaluations completed/hour – Spring 2015 0 200 400 600 800 1000 Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Emails sent
- 64. Best days to send emails Monday – Thursday First and last day of evals > Friday – Sunday > Thanksgiving / long weekends
- 65. Evaluations completed/hour in a single day – Spring 2015 0 150 300 450 12 AM 3 AM 6 AM 9 AM 12 PM 3 PM 6 PM 9 PM Tue Wed Mon
- 66. Best time to send emails 10am time required to send all emails (3-6 hours for us) minus
- 67. 7. Testing
- 68. Testing process Create a test project with 4-6 courses Add yourself and student and instructor to each course Compose email and send it Test after every edit, even if it is a minor one
- 70. Another feature request: Easier way to send test emails
- 71. Thanks! I would love to hear from you guptag@vcu.edu @FrshBakedPixels