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How to Drive Student Engagement Using Personalization in Email

Emily Santos
Emily Santos
Mar 15, 2023
How to Drive Student Engagement Using Personalization in Email
How to Drive Student Engagement Using Personalization in Email

If you look close enough, you'll find that most places serve you with a personalized experience. Like how Starbucks asks for your name when ordering, and Amazon recommends similar products you may like based on previous purchases. In recent years, even personalization in email has entered the marketing world with the development of dynamic email content and emojis.

Without even noticing it, personalization has become another thing we've grown accustomed to, making it harder for businesses to stand out. While digital needs have developed over time for many of us, Gen Z is different.

Gen Z spends more than eight hours a day and grew up with these "personalized experiences." They expect digital delivery in everything—education, communication, and marketing. And not just digital communications but engaging, thought-provoking, human, and well… personalized-to-them, digital communications.

So the question is, how can universities use personalization in email by leveraging what they know about them to increase student engagement?

Universities need students to be engaged. Students support universities in every stage of the recruitment process. Students are the best marketing tool. Incoming students look at factors like student retention rates, job placement, and academic achievement, all of which suffer if students become disengaged. 

The future of the university relies on engaged students. 

Understanding Personalization in Email

Today's consumers expect personalized email content, and 76% get frustrated if expectations aren't met. Consumers know that their time is valuable and that you need them more than they need you. When content is not personalized for what suits their needs or anticipates their desires, they'll probably feel disappointed or annoyed if they even open your email. The same can be said for students. 

Email personalization is essential for communicating with Gen Z and the college population because they are looking for convenience and ease above all. They want to have all the information they need at their fingertips.

Beyond that, they want to feel taken care of. It's important to students that their university provides them with precisely what they need to succeed. And, of course, because not every student is the same — this is where personalization in email comes in.More than 80% of Gen z say they're more likely to choose a brand that personalizes content. The same can be said for whether or not they engage with their university.

Here are some ways your university can benefit from increased online student engagement with personalization:

  • Improved open rates and response rates
  • Boosted enrollment
  • Streamlined online processes
  • Enhanced emotional connections with students
  • Better referrals and future giving

Knowing Your Audience for Effective Email Personalization

Segmenting an extensive email list into smaller groups is a best practice among email marketers that higher education professionals can easily apply to their marketing efforts. 

Segmentation enables you to provide a more customized message that will resonate better with each smaller group of students. 

In fact, brands that rely on email segmentation and personalization have seen revenue increase by up to 760%.

Now the question is, how can colleges collect this information?

A simple common practice is asking for it on your website's basic interest form or sending an automated survey once students accept the university. Some examples of segments could be: 

  • Areas of study: Each area of study could receive personalized emails on networking opportunities, jobs, and internships. 
  • Special interests/activities: You could share upcoming events or clubs depending on the student's interest.
  • Dorm: You wouldn't want to send information about Dorm F to Students in Dorm A. Segmenting this group ensures that all the information you share applies to each student. 
  • Year in school: This helps deliver specific information about graduation, orientation, new-student activities, etc. 

Email Personalization Inspiration

We’re big fans of showing, not telling. Here are a few ways brands use personalization to inspire your next student body email.

In this email from United, they use personalization to remind travelers about their upcoming vacation. Along with providing a clear CTA to book their next vacation. This email helps travelers keep United top of mind next time they think about a vacation. 

You can follow a similar strategy in your higher education emails to inform students about specific classes or activities a student participated in or remind them to register for next semester’s classes. This email could provide all the details, like due dates, and links to the next steps. Like United, you want students to keep this email in mind when registering for events/classes.

United Airlines using personalization in email

In this email from PetSmart, they use personalization by including information about this specific customer. For instance, the use of their email in the top right corner. Couples with the display of how many points they have until their next reward and information about their "pet family." They even take it one step further by asking for more information about the customer's pets. Perhaps to even further segment their list and therefore create more personalized emails. 

A fun way to incorporate this into your higher education emails is by reminding students of how many credits they need until graduation and personalizing information about classes they’ve taken or professors they’ve had.

In this email from PetSmart, they use personalization to remind customers their points. They use personalization by including information about this specific customer. They even take it one step further by asking for more information about the customers “pet family.” Perhaps to even further segment their list and therefore create more personalized emails. A fun way to incorporate this into your higher education emails is by reminding students of how many credits they need until graduation and personalize information about classes they’ve taken or professors they’ve had.

Crafting Personalized Subject Lines and Greetings

The subject line is the most crucial part of the email—it persuades the reader to open it, so don't forget to use personalization in the subject line when possible. Consider writing email communications as if you're writing to a close friend. This comfort level will help the recipient feel more closely connected with your school.Here are some ways to personalize a subject line to maximize email engagement:

  • Lead with their name: , we hope to see you at orientation!
  • Connect with their interests: 3 ways our rock
  • Notice their graduation date: Only days left until graduation!

Using Dynamic Content to Personalize Emails

Rely on your marketing automation platform or CRM to deliver fully personalized email experiences using dynamic content. Systems offer a variety of ways to personalize email content. With these functions, you can replace entire paragraphs of text, images, etc., based on information stored in a recipient's profile.The email example above from PetSmart featured two dog icons with the names and birthdays of the pet family. Through dynamic content and segmentation, PetSmart creates a personalized email experience for this customer.Some technology-savvy schools have taken dynamic content further, includingpersonalized videosin emails! Personalization puts the reader into the story—helping them to envision themselves at the university. Gen Z is a high consumer of video content, making them the perfect target demographic for this type of effort.

Personalizing Calls-to-Action for Increased Student Engagement

Another way to increase student engagement in communications is to personalize the call-to-action (CTA). The CTA is your invitation to the reader to take the next step, whether applying, contacting you to schedule a visit, or completing a survey.To create a compelling, personalized CTA, keep the reader in mind. How can you connect with them emotionally using the information you have collected about them? A great example if to use "I" or "My" in the copy to make the button more intuitive for the reader.Here are some examples of personalized CTAs.

  • Start now,
  • Apply for
  • I want to join!
  • Yes, I'll share my insights.

BEE Pro Email Templates for Higher Education

Connecting with the students of Gen Z requires new, engaging means of communication. Email personalization provides them with an experience tailored to their unique needs and interests and allows them to feel cared for and connected with their university.BEE Pro allows higher education professionals to design on-brand, customized emails quickly and easily. A great example of BEE Pro in action, Dwayne Rice, Senior Associate Director of CRM Engagement and Digital Marketing from USC Marshall School of Business.Rice uses BEE Pro to create personalized emails for his 11 graduate programs to communicate with potential and current students and alumni.Start from scratch or use one of our ready-to-useHigher Education templates. Either way,get started for freeand happy designing!

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Email is king when it comes to talking directly to your customers. Sure, we might send texts or share voice notes, but we all still check our emails. It’s how we keep in touch with work and the businesses we connect with. 

As an email marketer, this puts you in prime position to get your business’s brand right into the hands of your customers. The problem, however, is that you must first get past the metaphorical guard dog known as the secure email gateway (SEG). 

SEGs use sophisticated methods to identify and block spam and phishing emails from ever entering a person’s inbox. While your email newsletters should go through, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will. That’s why businesses need to know what a secure email gateway is and how it works. Know this key info, and you’ll be able to improve the chances of your emails reaching their destination. 

What are email security gateways? 

Protecting yourself from cyber threats is the basis of all cybersecurity risk assessment services. One of the biggest gaps in any security armor is phishing emails. If they get through and someone clicks a link they shouldn’t have, it’s almost impossible to stop the damage. 

The victim could be anyone. The link could lead to a ransomware virus that holds your data captive or be the start of a data breach. It could even lead to a traditional scam that has you input your credit card details so a thief can steal them. 

For all these reasons and more, email providers consistently invest in security features to help protect their customers. One such feature is an email security gateway. 

A secure email gateway uses AI and machine learning to screen incoming emails, identify spam, and stop it from entering. If there’s any doubt, the system quarantines the email in your spam box for review. 

Why are secure email gateways important?

While we are getting better at filtering out spam emails, an estimated 45.6% of emails sent in 2023 were still spam. This poses a massive security risk for consumers, businesses, and governments alike. 

According to IBM, businesses are hit the hardest, with the global average cost of each successful phishing attack increasing to $4.88M USD. The attacks don’t just hit businesses, either, with attacks targeting individuals and even charities.

Just as phishing and spam emails have become more sophisticated, so have the tools designed to protect against them. All providers, including big names like Gmail, use SEGs to secure communications and other features, such as Gmail’s unsubscribe feature

What do SEGs flag as spam? 

SEGs continually update their parameters. This means that what they check for is constantly in flux. What SEGs look for today, for example, could include: 

  • Strange or suspicious subject lines
  • Highly urgent capitalization or excessive exclamation points
  • Strange URLs
  • Poor grammar and/or spelling
  • Generic greetings that don’t address the recipient 
  • Suspicious email addresses
  • The volume of emails sent at once
  • Attachment types 
  • Image-heavy content 

SEGs are far more advanced than just ticking boxes, but that doesn’t mean your emails can’t get blocked or sent to spam. After all, you might put together a great email campaign, but if your email is too image-heavy, it might get quarantined or sent to spam. 

The good news is that once you know what the SEGs look for, you can work to design better emails. Beefree can help you get started, with a range of templates for responsive email designs.

How to create newsletters with secure email gateways in mind 

The good news is that you can implement and send out most, if not all, of your newsletter ideas without issue. So long as the emails are well-made and are sent at a reasonable frequency, you’ll be golden. 

Start by first improving your security methods

In general, you should always look at ramping up the security measures in your business. You can use one of the top types of risk assessment matrix to understand your business's threats and how to resolve them. Then, since you already have that information, you can use it to create better newsletters and emails. 

Make sure the personalization feature works

One of the biggest red flags for an SEG is a generic greeting. Adding Dear Sir/Madam at the start isn’t going to fly in today’s world. Even if your email gets through, it’s unlikely the recipient will open it. 

That’s why you need personalization. Linking your email marketing tools to your customer relationship management system means you can offer easy personalization, like addressing your customers by name, or even offering personalized recommendations based on their order history. 

Avoid image-only emails 

Image-only emails are tempting for an email marketer. They’re striking, they look good, and you can fine-tune what they look like in Photoshop or another image editor. 

They can also be a red flag for SEGs.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: enrich your emails. The best part about this approach is that it also improves the accessibility. Improving email accessibility will help ensure that all your customers can engage with your emails on their terms. Those emails will also load faster, look great on all devices, and be more engaging. 

Align your emails with the landing pages 

SEGs look out for suspicious links. A link might be suspicious if there’s a misspelling or if the link doesn’t sound like the content in the email. So, how do you ensure that SEGs don’t see any of your links as suspicious? 

You make them predictable. 

An easy way to do this is to create a landing page from an email. On top of aligning the landing page with the content of the newsletter, you’ll want to: 

  • Make a custom URL for every link that matches the content of the page 
  • Ensure there’s no misspelling
  • Don’t use urgent language around your link

Use 2FA to boost security

Do you need 2FA to get past SEGs? No, but it’s a great way to help protect you and your customers. 

You can protect sensitive data by adding user identity verification. For example, a customer may get an order confirmation email but wants to cancel or change the delivery details. Including a two-factor authentication step ensures only the customer can request changes. 

Building in extra security features puts your customers at ease. It also protects your endpoints and, in turn, your business. So, no, you don’t need 2FA to get past SEGs, but it’s worth looking into for you and your customers’ protection. 

Avoid urgency 

Urgency can be a flag for SEGs. So: 

  • DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS
  • Minimize the use of exclamation points

Think of the copy in your newsletter as a chance to win over your audience, not scare them into clicking the link. Doing this will improve your relationship with your customers since they’ve come to you on their terms. It’s also essential to get emails past the SEG.

Key takeaways 

Secure email gateways are a primary defense against spam and phishing attacks, but they can pose a problem for email marketers. By working to understand the security risks associated with email scams, you can then understand what your email needs to make it into inboxes. 

From there, you’ll want to make your emails more personable, accessible, and secure. Once you’ve found that sweet spot, your newsletters will be more likely to get past the secure email gateway and into your audience’s inboxes. 

Getting Started with Beefree: A Guide to Streamlined Email and Landing Page Creation

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Beefree team
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