This blog is from one of COBIS’ Supporting Associates.

Written by Debbie Eisenach, Director of International Marketing, Finalsite

Email marketing has come a long way since its inception in 1978, and schools are increasingly adopting automation tools that go beyond one-off emails. Email automation platforms such as HubSpot, Pardot, Mailchimp, and school-specific solutions like Finalsite have been around for years, but in the past year, more marketing and admissions teams have embraced this technology.

Whether enquiries come in after hours or on the weekend, automated email workflows, also known as drip campaigns ensure that your office stays open 24/7, providing timely and consistent communication to prospective families and other community members.

The Personalisation Dilemma

Personalisation is key to engaging prospective families, current parents, and alumni. Manually customizing emails is time-consuming but with email automation, you can automatically send targeted messages based on the user’s behaviour. 

Triggered by user actions like form submissions or expressed interest in specific programmes, workflows run in the background, sending timely emails without requiring ongoing manual input.

For example, if someone enquires about your primary school, you can set up a series of five emails over two weeks that includes:

1. Welcome and School Overview – Thank the family and introduce your school's values and mission.
2. Curriculum Overview – Highlight the primary school's curriculum and academic programmes.
3. After-School Programmes – Showcase extracurricular activities and enrichment opportunities.
4. Campus Life and Community – Highlight campus events and the international community.
5. Invitation to Visit or Open Day – Invite the family to visit or attend an upcoming open day.

While setting up workflows requires some initial effort, once established, they continue running in the background. Over time, your team can easily update content and adjust the cadence based on the analytics of each workflow. As you become more sophisticated in your processes, you can move beyond linear workflows and use branching logic. This adds complexity to your email workflows, allowing you to customise each recipient’s journey based on their actions.

Examples of Effective Email Workflows for Schools

●      Prospective Family Nurture: Guide prospective families from initial enquiry to attending an open day. These workflows introduce them to your school’s values, programmes, and events, keeping them engaged throughout the admissions process.

●      Viewbook Engagement: Create a short form to download your viewbook, then enrol the user in a workflow that brings your viewbook to life with emails that contain videos and multimedia content.

●      Open Day Reminders: Keep families informed and excited about upcoming open days, ensuring they don’t miss out.

●      New Family Onboarding: Don’t overload families with one big email that contains 10 attachments. Maintain excitement and sanity by sending key information over the summer, such as health forms, emergency contact details, and uniform guidelines. Pepper in fun things like parents evening, PTA events, etc.

●      Accepted Student Engagement: Keep newly accepted students enthusiastic by sharing updates on school life, from sports programmes to food in the cafeteria to school trips.

●      Waitlist Communication: Keep waitlisted families engaged by sending regular updates about your school and inviting them to events until a spot becomes available.

●      Alumni Engagement: Use workflows to keep alumni informed about campus events, success stories, ways to give and opportunities to reconnect.

Make 2025 the Year to Embrace Automation

As you set your goals for 2025, consider implementing email workflows or, if you already use them, take them to the next level with branching logic. Families are becoming harder to impress, competition continues to rise, and marketing and admissions teams are busier than ever. Take the time to sit down with your teams, set clear objectives, and leverage email automation—it will be time well spent.

For a comprehensive list of workflow ideas, check out this blog Grand Theft Automation: Steal These Email Workflow Examples!.