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7+ of the Best Email Marketing Platforms for Private Schools

Is email marketing a key consideration for your private school? If so, you might be pondering which is the best email marketing software to use?

Choosing the appropriate email marketing service can significantly influence your school's marketing strategy and the success of your email marketing campaigns.

This article compiles a list of seven of the leading email marketing services suitable for private schools.

Why Email Marketing Service Is Here to Stay

Email marketing is one of the most budget-friendly marketing strategies for private schools. Consider these statistics as evidence:

  • There are 4 billion daily email users. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. (Source: Statista)
  • Active email accounts surpassed 5.6 billion in 2019. (Source: Statista)
  • 9 out of 10 content marketers say email engagement is the top metric they track to measure content performance. (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
  • Launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile clicks by 15%. (Source: MailChimp)
  • Mobile-friendly email is the second most-used tactic email marketers use to improve their performance. (Source: HubSpot)
  • Although people primarily check email on iPhone devices, Gmail is still the most-used email service, with more than 1.5 billion users (Source: CNBC)
  • Nearly 2 out of every 10 email campaigns are opened within the first hour of sending. (Source: GetResponse)
  • Almost 5 out of 10 internet users avoid opening emails from unknown addresses. (Source: Statista)
  • 99% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking 20 times a day. Of those people, 6 out of 10 consumers check their email first thing in the morning. (Source: OptinMonster, 2020)
  • Nearly 6 out of 10 Millennials primarily use their smartphone to check email, while almost 7 out of 10 of Generation Z scan their inbox on mobile. (Source: Bluecore)
  • 72% of Gen X think email is the most personal channel to receive communications from brands, followed by 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Gen Z. (Source: Bluecore)
  • 91 out of 100 women in the US use email, compared to 89 out of 100 men. (Source: Statista)

As evident from the statistics above, email marketing is here to stay. It's easy to manage, gives you more control, and allows you to communicate directly with parents and students.

Why Is Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service Important for a Private School?

It's crucial to understand that a significant part of your success with email marketing relies on the email marketing software you choose, as it ensures your emails are delivered.

If you're not cautious, you might pay a lot more for fewer marketing features and poor email deliverability rates, which could limit your school’s communication and engagement with parents and students.

Why Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service Is Important?

It's critical to recognize that a large part of your email marketing success depends on the email marketing software you use, as they are responsible for ensuring that your emails get sent.

If you aren't careful, you will pay significantly more for fewer marketing features and poor email deliverability rates.

What to Look for in a Good Email Marketing Tool for a Private School?

When searching for an effective email marketing tool for your school, here are a few key features to look for:

  • An email marketing service that allows you to craft engaging email newsletters with an intuitive user experience, so you can easily share updates and information about the school.
  • The email software needs to have the ability to allow you to send personalized and targeted email messages to families effortlessly.
  • It also needs to allow you to communicate relevant information to specific groups within your school community.
  • Features that make it easy to manage your contact list and categorize users into groups, such as grade levels or parent committees.
  • Tools to track the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, so you can understand what types of communication are most engaging for your school community.
  • Assurances that your email campaigns avoid landing in a user's spam folder, ensuring that parents and students see critical school communications.

What to Look for in a Good Email Marketing Tool?

When it comes to finding a good email marketing tool, here are a few things to look out for:

  • An email marketing service that allows you to create highly engaging email newsletters with an intuitive UX.
  • Easily send customized and targeted email messages without any effort.
  • Make it simple to maintain your contact list and classify users into groups or buckets.
  • Track the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
  • Guarantee that your email campaigns avoid a user’s spam folder.

Top 7 Email Marketing Services for Private Schools

Now, let's examine ten of the most popular email marketing software as a service (SaaS) platforms and how they compare. Please note that these are not listed in any particular order.

1. Constant Contact

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing email marketing services. It's also one of the most beginner-friendly services, making it suitable for private schools just starting with email marketing.

Constant Contact allows you to easily manage your contacts, email lists, templates, school event calendar, and other crucial information. Each subscription includes unlimited emails, precise tracking and reporting, a free image library, list segmentation, built-in social media sharing tools, and Facebook ads integration.

Their Email Plus accounts also has advanced tools like email automation, drip marketing, surveys & polls, subject line A/B testing, and much more. These tools allow you to send customized emails to maximize your open rate, ensuring your school community stays informed and engaged.

Furthermore, Constant Contact offers exceptional customer service, including community support, live chat, phone calls, email, and a comprehensive library of useful resources.

Pros:

  • Easy to set up and use
  • Detailed analytics reports to help you improve conversions
  • Audience segmentation to target subscribers
  • Other marketing tools for faster growth
  • Automated campaigns and drip series

Cons:

  • No free plan
  • Plans start at $20 a month for 500 email subscribers, 501-2,500 is $45

2. SendinBlue

SendinBlue

SendinBlue is a comprehensive email marketing and SMS (text messaging) platform, ideal for private schools. This user-friendly platform is packed with fantastic features for creating engaging and visually appealing emails. Their easy-to-use drag-and-drop email editor is perfect for those new to email marketing.

SendinBlue features marketing automation tools that allow you to send transactional emails, set up workflows for automatic follow-up emails, and segment users. These tools are beginner-friendly and can be very useful in managing communication within a school community. Furthermore, SendinBlue uses artificial intelligence algorithms to determine the best time to send your emails, ensuring maximum email deliverability. This means your essential school messages and updates reach your audience when they’re most likely to see them.

Pros:

  • Offers a 100% free email marketing service with an infinite number of contacts
  • You can send up to 300 emails each day, but they do include SendinBlue branding.
  • You can also add SMS to your account, but the pricing will vary depending on your messaging needs.

Cons:

3. HubSpot

HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the most recognized software as a service (SaaS) platforms, and they are known for their customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing capabilities.

HubSpot Marketing Hub (which includes the email marketing service) is a comprehensive digital marketing platform that harmoniously integrates a CRM, email marketing, and campaign automation for private schools. HubSpot offers a wide array of features and customization options in a single platform.

Pros:

  • Offers a 100% free email marketing service with 2000 emails per month
  • CMS and sales integrations
  • Ability to personalize emails
  • Easy to set up and use
  • Detailed email engagement analytics
  • Built-in A/B testing and send-time optimization (available at higher tiers)
  • Email segmentation using smart rules
  • Email autoresponders

Cons:

  • Cost to remove the branding ($50 per month for Starter Packages)

4. ConvertKit

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a sophisticated email marketing tool for professional bloggers, authors, and administrators in private schools. It is both straightforward to use and remarkably effective.

Pros:

  • Ability to offer content upgrades and incentives using email registration forms
  • Simple auto-responders that allow you to send drip emails.
  • Divide your subscribers into interested prospects and families.
  • Enhance conversions by sending personalized automated emails.
  • A/B testing
  • Email templates
  • Smart workflows
  • Ability to sell recurring subscriptions

Cons:

5. Moosend

MooSend

Moosend is another well-regarded and reasonably priced email marketing service suitable for private schools. It includes all the components required to craft successful email campaigns.

You might want to kick-start your campaign using one of Moosend's professionally crafted email templates, of which there are over 70 to choose from. Alternatively, you can use the drag-and-drop editor to construct your customized email template from scratch.

Pros:

  • Detailed email analytics, including email, opens, clicks, bounces, custom event tracking, and even predicted demographic data
  • Separate mobile editor
  • A/B testing
  • Heatmaps
  • Email analytics
  • Simple list segmentation

Cons:

6. Mailchimp

MailChimp

Another one of the world's most favored email marketing service providers is Mailchimp, notable for their free email marketing service plan.

As an agency, we no longer recommend it to our private school clients for several reasons, one being they took away the ability for an agency to help schools. Now it requires us to log in with your credentials, which we would rather not be responsible for.

Nevertheless, if you are in search of a reliable email marketing solution for your private school and don't require assistance, Mailchimp might be a sound choice.

Pros:

  • Easy drag-and-drop email builder
  • Autoresponders
  • Segmenting including geolocation
  • Simple tracking analytics
  • Delivery times based on the user’s timezone
  • List management
  • Autoresponders
  • A/B testing
  • Email tracking with detailed insights

Cons:

7. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a cost-effective email marketing platform that is straightforward to use and provides various specialized features for private schools.

This platform includes a CRM system for managing prospective student inquiries and, as a result, automatically organizing admissions and outreach efforts. ActiveCampaign incorporates process automation. This offers advanced, insightful reports that inform users about what aspects of their email marketing campaigns are effective and which ones need improvement.

Pros:

  • Unlimited Email Sending
  • Drag & Drop Email Builder
  • 125+ Email Templates
  • Segmentation
  • SMS Marketing
  • Predictive Sending
  • Custom Mailserver Domain
  • Custom Domain
  • Unlimited Email Design Testing

Cons:

Flodesk

Flowdesk

Another favored email marketing platform is Flodesk. As an email marketing solution, it's important to highlight its strengths in design and ease of use, making it ideal for engaging communities with visually appealing communications. However, note that Flodesk's simpler automation and analytics might not fulfill all the complex needs of larger educational institutions. It's cost-effective for those with large mailing lists due to its flat-rate pricing. This balance between aesthetics, functionality, and cost makes Flodesk a consideration for private schools prioritizing brand presentation in their email campaigns.

Pros:

Cons:

  • Basic level of analytics and automation compared to some competitors
  • Customer support is limited to email
  • Requires Stripe for transactions, which may not suit all users

3 Bonus Tips to Improve Your Email Deliverability

All of the email newsletter services mentioned in this discussion have excellent email deliverability rates.

However, you can implement a few strategies to ensure that your private school's marketing emails are consistently delivered.

Use a Professional Email Address

Email platforms such as Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, and others employ anti-spam algorithms, which consider the sender's email address.

A private school must utilize a professional business email address (e.g., yourname@yourschoolname.org) rather than a generic Yahoo or Gmail address. This helps establish credibility and enhances the chances of your emails reaching the intended recipients’ inboxes

Send Targeted Emails Based on Interests

Personalize your emails by segmenting your subscriber list. Many email marketing software platforms mentioned earlier simplify categorizing your subscribers into different groups. By tailoring your email content based on the interests and preferences of your target audience, you can deliver more relevant and engaging messages, leading to higher open and click-through rates.

Avoid Bulk Email Marketing from Personal Email Accounts

While sending your email newsletters from your personal email account may be tempting, it's important to avoid doing so, especially when conducting email marketing for your private school. Sending bulk emails from personal accounts can result in account suspensions or email providers flagging your messages as spam. To ensure optimal deliverability and maintain a professional image, it's best to use a dedicated email marketing service that is designed for sending large volumes of emails.

Final Thoughts: Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service

While numerous email marketing services are available, the ones discussed here represent just a fraction of the options. I hope these insights have provided valuable information to help you make an informed decision for your private school's email marketing needs. If you would like further assistance or guidance on how we can support your small business with email marketing, please don't hesitate to contact me. I am here to help your private school grow and thrive!

Image of the author - Adam Bennett

Written By: Adam Bennett |  Monday, June 05, 2023

Adam is the president and founder of Cube Creative Design and specializes in private school marketing. Since starting the business in 2005, he has created individual relationships with clients in Western North Carolina and across the United States. He places great value on the needs, expectations, and goals of the client.