How can we make emails better and more enjoyable to read?
That’s what Ashley Budd and Dayana Kibilds set out to accomplish with their book “Mailed It! A Guide to Crafting Emails That Build Relationships and Get Results.”
Email is a necessary evil, or at least that’s one way to look at it.
“Everybody uses it,” they wrote in the book. “For most, it’s a primary communication tool and part of our everyday personal and professional lives.”
Yet, the authors acknowledge what most of us would likely agree with: “Honestly, most email suuuuuuuucks. When you think of your email inbox, what words come to mind? We’ve asked hundreds of marketers this question, and the top responses are: overwhelming, time-suck, and ugh. The inbox is not a pleasant place to be.”
In “Mailed It!,” Budd and Kibilds share the secrets they’ve learned as email marketers at colleges and universities so that other people in higher ed and beyond can write more powerful, effective emails.
The book is particularly handy for early career professionals, delivering a one-stop-shop for building an effective email marketing program — whether it’s for alumni engagement, admissions, or fundraising.
Faculty members in marketing might also consider sharing this book with students or making it part of their course material. It covers everything from building an audience to formatting emails based on reading patterns, deciding when to send them, and the unique dynamics that occur at colleges and universities depending on whether emails are centralized or decentralized.
Budd and Kibilds even touch on the pros and cons of using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to craft your emails. (Spoiler alert: Use it with caution. If you do, expect that it will require some finessing).
While seasoned marketing professionals may already be well-versed in the concepts presented, the book may be a welcome refresher and handy reference guide to keep nearby. It’s small enough to store at your desk and best of all, it’s easy to skim! With the subheadings and the bulleted lists of key takeaways at the end of each chapter, it’s almost as if they knew people would be skimming (insert wink emoji).
Readers will likely appreciate the practical chart with definitions and purposes of various email metrics (such as bounce rate, opens, click heat maps, and more).
Budd and Kibilds also share plenty of data on industry standards to help readers benchmark their programs, but they explain that it’s important to create your own benchmarks based on which metrics you care about most.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the takeaways you may be able to implement in your email programs:
- Stop leading your emails with niceties: Do you have a habit of starting every email with some variation of “I hope you are doing well”? Acknowledging that this is a hard habit to break, Budd and Kibilds recommend that you “start every single sentence and bullet point with the action or point you are trying to communicate.” This has to do with reading patterns, particularly the F-pattern that studies have found readers’ eyes to follow when there are blocks of text to read. In other words, they read the “first horizontal line, then a second (sometimes shorter) horizontal line of text around the middle, and then they will skim the first few words down the left-hand side.” Your call-to-action and important information should be placed where the reader’s eyes will naturally go (along the F).
- Carefully consider your call-to-action: “Learn more” is one of the most common calls-to-action we see in emails, but Budd and Kibilds seem to poke fun at it. “Asking someone to read or learn more about your program will not drive someone to act,” they wrote. Choose clear, specific language that aligns with what you really need, such as “Share these findings” or “Make lives better,” they recommended.
- Start with the basics: Capturing attention starts before your subject line — with your “from name.” According to the book, this is the first thing readers look for (from names they recognize), then they’ll scan email subject lines. “In most email clients, the ‘from’ is the biggest text and the first words they see,” wrote Budd and Kibilds. If your recipient can identify your name or organization, they know it’s coming from a trusted source. If they can’t, it will likely go in the trash. They use prospective students as an example: It’s best to use the college or university’s name as the from line since that’s what they will most likely recognize. However, the book explains that the from name can evolve as your relationship changes. “Subsequent emails might come from the person they’ve been interacting with or the department they’ve applied to.”
If this book has any downfall, it might be that accomplishing all these things will be harder than simply reading about them. It will take time, effort, teamwork, and maybe even convincing of stakeholders. Every step counts, though. Even something as simple as changing your send time or cleaning up your list is progress in the right direction.
