The problem however is coming up with back to school campaign ideas that’ll boost sales during the period. So to that end, we’ve reached out to various experts across multiple fields in digital marketing and online retail for their top campaign ideas. 

So without further ado, here’s what they came up with:

1) Don’t Skip Back to School Marketing Campaigns – Felix Süllwold

Felix Süllwold from PushOwl cautions marketers from neglecting back to school campaigns just because them seem like too much work:

For many retailers, running yet another marketing campaign seems like too much effort and many skip it. But missing out on any popular season means lost potential!

For a simple yet effective back to school campaign idea, he recommends web push notifications:

A truly simple way to run campaigns is sending push notifications, which only consist of a short title, message, picture, and link – and are sent directly to your subscriber’s screen on mobile or desktop. This makes it the perfect channel to create a quick and low-effort campaign, but also reach your potential customers with a highly visual marketing message. 

Keep it simple: Send one compelling offer that really fits the ‘back to school’ theme so you don’t miss out on this seasonal campaign

NB: PushOwl has made it easier to craft compelling campaigns with blogs like The Guide to Crafting The Perfect Web Push Notification.

Know Who You’re Targeting

The first step to creating a successful campaign is knowing who to target. And while parents are the obvious choice for the back to school season, there’s a few things to keep in mind.

2) Consider the Needs and Priorities of Parents – Shane Felle

Thinking about what parents’ value in the lead up to the new school year is the top tip from FelleMedia’s Shane Felle:

Parents have lots to do to get their kids ready for school which is applying lots of time pressure upon them. Therefore focus on convenience in your marketing. 

Say you’re selling school books and your campaign states “All you school book needs are here” or something similar. That’s not enough, you really need to hone in on the problem they face. 

Use a more engaging message such as “For when life thinks you don’t have enough to deal with already, there’s back to school! That’s where we come in. No stress, just success. Everything ticked off the list in less than 5 mins, arrives at your door in 3 days. Your chief de-stressor this back to school season”.

3) Remember Who’s Driving Purchase Decisions – Patrick Dhital

While parents are the ones with the cash, Patrick Dhital from Honey Skin highlights that it’s often children who determine where the money is spent:

Roughly 80% of parental spending during the back to school period will be directly influenced by their children’s suggestions. Most small to medium-sized ecommerce stores neglect this pot of gold.

As for his back to school campaign idea, Patrick recommends running ads that directly target these purchase influencers:

This is why you should be using your ads to target children during the back to school period.

4) College Students Also Need School Supplies – Rich Anand

Back to college sales outrank back to school sales by roughly 2-to-1. Despite this fact, many college students are cash-strapped. So Rich Anand from Evolvez Agency suggests running a campaign targeting college students:

Focus the campaign around the idea of: “College is expensive, take {a certain percent off} your final order so you don’t have to overspend on {your business product} as well.” 

Promoting a specific discount with the idea of college being expensive is something that people will be able to relate to.

5) Don’t Forget About Teachers – George Hartley

It’s not just parents and students spending big during back to school time. Teachers are also often end up having to purchase a lot of school supplies themselves. 

George Hartley from SmartrMail recommends running campaigns highlighting any bulk discounts you can offer:

A lot of the time the teachers end up having to purchase various classroom supplies for the new school year. Unlike with parents and students, these potential customers aren’t buying just individual items, but often enough to supply an entire classroom of students. 

So in addition to not forgetting about this audience, in your campaigns targeting teachers emphasize any discounts or savings for buying in bulk.

Enticing Your Customers

After identifying a target audience, an effective campaign will entice them with an offer tailored to them.  

6) Offer Something of Value for Free – Alina Adams

Alina Adams from NYC School Secrets recommends offering something of value in order to capture the email addresses of potential customers:

Give something away for free that’s connected to a child’s potential school success in order to drive parents to your site and capture email addresses. We offer a calculator to figure out the best day for kids to take IQ tests for gifted programs.

7) Offer Tips and Other Resources – Sean Dudayev

Sean Dudayev from Frootful Marketing suggests connecting your free offer to the products you’re selling: 

One of the best things you can do is launch a back to school educational content campaign for parents. A lot of parents, especially millennials, are always looking for new tips and hacks on making the process easier. 

What you want to do is be that solution for them and include your product(s) as one of the options. When you educate your customers you earn their trust, and if you can earn their trust, you’ll earn their business. 

Make It Easy for Your Customers

To boost sales as much as you can, you’ll want to be making it as simple as possible for customers to make a purchase. 

8) Create Bundles of Back to School Supplies – Dana Roth

Dana Roth from Fortvision recommends separating all of the product that back to school shoppers might be interested in into their own bundle: 

Create pre-made bundles of items. This helps the shopper quickly find what they need. And it’s a great opportunity for you to introduce new items that people did not even know was available.

9) Consider Creating a Dedicated Landing Page – Jeremy Lawlor

Jeremy Lawlor from Active Business Growth suggests taking this a step further by creating your own back to school landing page:

Creating a dedicated back to school landing page with all of your deals, discounts, and offers is a best practice that all serious e-commerce companies should include as part of their marketing strategy. Use this page to direct traffic from social media, paid ads, and email lists to maximize sales during the back to school season.

Decide on Which Marketing Channels to Use

There’s plenty of marketing channels you can use to reach potential customers: email, social media, display ads, search engine marketing, etc. Here’s a few tips on which ones to use and how to use them.

10) Email Marketing – Syed Ali Hasan

Syed Ali Hasan from Film Jackets says that email is the best digital marketing channel for your back to school campaigns:

Email marketing is the best way to promote back to school products. It not only drives traffic but also increases conversions rate. Great email marketing apps will make it super easy to send emails and also provide options to personalize your email template according to your business niche. Just make sure to use the best subject line to get more clicks.

11) Think About Your Email Subject Line – Tom Buchok

Tom Buchok from MailCharts backs up this point about subject lines:

One of the most important things you can do is get really in-depth with your subject line. How many times do you scroll through your email and delete almost everything derived from a mailing list, because nothing “jumps out at you”?

Your subject lines need to let the user know that they will save time by opting to open the email. You can add “for less” to any subject line to also let them know that time won’t be the only thing that they’re saving.”

12) Don’t Forget About Retargeting – Tim Brown

Whatever marketing channels you’re using, you’re going to be driving people to your site who don’t make any purchases. 

Over 90% of people visiting a retailer’s site for the first time aren’t ready to make a purchase. This is why Tim Brown from Hook Agency highlights the importance of retargeting:  

If you have an e-commerce store that serves folks headed back to school – it’s important to have a remarketing campaign for each key category of products, or smart remarketing for specific products across the web during this time of year. If they leave your site with items in the cart, of course – make sure you have automated ‘Forget something? Finish your checkout now’ abandoned cart emails!

13) It’s Not All About School Sales – Raúl Galera

The end of summer isn’t just about back to school, plenty of people are also heading back to work. In addition to running sales campaigns to workers returning from summer holidays, Raúl Galera from ReferralCandy also suggests using the time to organize partnerships: 

People are usually more open to discussing partnerships or long term projects after they’ve come back from their holidays. Most of us get back to work feeling recharged, so we’re open to hearing new ideas — this is also the time of year we typically use to plan what’s next, so our calendars aren’t as packed as they are during the rest of the year.

Now here’s the hack: Following up. 

Just because you have someone’s attention and initial willingness to work together doesn’t mean the project is going to happen. Make sure that you turn your conversations into actionable items and define next steps and deadlines for whatever it is that you’re planning on achieving.

Looking for More?

These back to school campaign ideas are a great starting point for starting your own ones.

Now that you have some campaign ideas in mind, you might be looking for some more inspiration. If you are, we’ve put together a collection of some great back to school emails along with some ingenious back to school ad campaigns that are sure to inspire you. 

For your emails, we’ve also got a list of 100 back to school email subject lines that you can use yourself. 

So there’s no excuse not to ace your back to school campaign with all the ideas available to you!

The post 13 Experts Share Their Back to School Campaign Ideas appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

But as you’re reading this post, you’re probably unsure of how to design your back to school emails. Or maybe you have a few designs in mind, but are wanting to see what types of emails other retailers are sending. 

Whatever your reason, we’ve put together this list of 10 great back to school email examples to help get you inspired with your own email campaigns. 

1) Boden’s Hopscotch Back to School Email Design Highlighting School Supplies

There’s little people associate with schoolyards more than hopscotch. That’s why it’s immediately apparent that this is a back to school type of email from Boden. 

It’s also an ingenious way of organising all of the various back to school supplies Boden has on offer. The black background lets the colorful clothes stand out even more. 

If we had any suggestions for how this email could be improved, it would be to better highlight the 15% off and free shipping offer. While this is stated at the very top of the email, the bold design beneath it detracts attention from it. 

2) The ABC Email from Paperchase’s As Easy That Focuses on Essential School Supplies

If Boden’s back to school email was too dark for you, then this colorful email design from Paperchase might be more your style. 

Like Boden, Paperchase has come up with a clever way to showcase many of their back to school sale items with an ‘as easy as ABC’ theme. In order to save space, we cut this email off at ‘g’ but the email itself goes all the way to ‘z’. 

By going through the alphabet, Paperchase is also reminding parents of all the items they may have left off their back to school shopping list. 

However just like with Boden’s email, Paperchase’s free shipping and discount offers aren’t that visible.

3) Zara’s Head Back to School Email That Focuses on Style

Zara’s back to school email is incredibly simple yet effective. Sometimes all you need is a couple of high quality images to showcase your best products and a link to your store. 

Of course, Zara is a well known brand so they can get away with very little details in their emails. You’ll probably want to include more details such as your back to school savings offer or what types of school supplies you’re selling. That said, this email is an excellent example of keeping it simple and remaining on brand. 

4) Gaiam’s Back to School Email Announcing a Competition

Instead of focusing on what they’re selling, Gaiam’s back to school email campaign focuses on running a competition. 

This is also not your ordinary back to school competition where a student or parents wins school supplies either. Rather it’s focused on teachers. 

Teachers are often underappreciated, especially at this time of year when they’re usually expected to pay for classroom supplies themselves. By focusing on teachers and getting their subscribers to show their appreciation, customers will end up feeling good about purchasing from Gaiam.

5) Grammarly’s Back to College Email Targeting College Students

Teachers are not the only group marketers often forget about with their back to school campaigns. College students represent another incredibly lucrative group at this time of year. Especially when back to college sales outperforms back to school sales. 

Grammarly’s email, while not exclusively aimed at college students is definitely more geared towards them with a simple and clean design. There’s also a clear call-to-action button and their 55% off offer is well highlighted. 

6) Kate Spade’s Fresh Start to Back to School Campaign

Kate Spade is an elegant brand and their back to school email is well and truly on brand. 

While others will try to incorporate a back to school theme in their email design by opting for childlike designs with chalkboards, colored pencils etc. Kate Spade managed to communicate a clear back to school theme while keeping their email design incredibly elegant. 

They have also cleverly listed the products they’re promoting in a pop quiz format to further reinforce that this is a back to school sale. 

7) Toms’ Feel-good Email About Back to School Season

Toms’ back to school email is all about giving back when you go back. It’s also a well designed email with a clear call-to-action getting people to ‘shop back to school sales’. 

In case you missed it again, this email also contains a free shipping offer (located at the very top). While the email is more concerned about Toms’ charitable efforts, this could still be more visible for subscribers.

8) Clarks’ Back to Business Targeting All Younger Generations

Clarks aims to expand the scope of back to school sales by including anyone who’s heading back to school, college or work. 

As many parents will already be out buying school supplies for their kids, it makes sense to get them to buy a few items for themselves. Especially if they’re returning to work after a summer break. 

9) Simple Back to School Email to Draw Attention

Another back to school email from Kate Spade. This one however is much more simple while still being elegant and true to the Kate Spade brand. 

It goes to show that you don’t need to come up with anything too fancy for your back to school email. A simple high quality image is often enough to communicate that it’s a back to school email. 

10) Urban Outfitters Email lists Most Frequently Forgotten Items

Urban Outfitters’ back to school email is in the format of a literal shopping list.

Interestingly, all the items are not your typical back to school supplies. While people are unlikely to add all of these items to their own back to school shopping lists, chances are most will add at least one or two of them. 

Having the list on graph paper also reinforces the back to school theme. 

Over to You

Don’t let your newly found inspiration go to waste. It’s now time to start composing your own back to school emails. 

Of course, coming up with a great email design is only one part of a successful email marketing campaign. It’s completely useless if people aren’t opening the email.

That’s why a great subject line is important to make your email stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes. If you’re unsure about how to achieve this, we have a guide on writing great email subject lines along with a list of 100 back to school subject lines that’ll help you out. 

If you’re looking for more general tips, we also have a more general guide on acing your back to school email marketing campaigns. The guide moves beyond just email design to tips on when to send your back to school emails, who to target and other tactics to increase sales.

The post 10 Great Back to School Email Examples appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

Why do smart marketers spend so much time on subject lines?

Because a third of your email list will decide whether to open your email based on its subject line alone. And when it comes to your email marketing, you’ll want to make sure you’re achieving decent open rates. 

Especially with your back to school email campaigns. 

The National Retail Federation’s annual report shows that back to school spending exceeds $80 billion in the United States alone. This places the sales period in second behind the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and ahead of other sales events like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. 

Digital marketers will also be happy to hear that over half of back to school sales are expected to be made online.

So to give your store the best chance of getting as many sales as possible, we’ve compiled this list of 100 A+ back to school email subject lines. Feel free to use them or as inspiration for your own to boost your open rates.

General Back to School Email Subject Lines

1. Head Back to School in Style
2. It’s That Time of Year Again: Getting Ready for School
3. Your One Stop School Shop
4. Get Ready for the Back to School Season
5. Ready for School?
6. School is Just Around the Corner!
7. Heading back to school?
8. All the Back to School Supplies You Need
9. The Latest Gadgets for Back to School
10. Not Ready for the New School Year Yet?
11. Get Ready to be Schooled
12. All the MUST HAVES for the New School Year
13. A Fresh Start to School
14. Back to School Essentials
15. School Time = Play Time
16. Be the Best in Class
17. Your Number One Back to School Shop
18. It’s Time to Rule the Playground
19. What’s on your Back to School Checklist?
20. Raise Your Hand if You’re Ready for Back to School
21. Back to School Survival Guide
22. Get The Kids Ready for the New School Year
23. Heading Back to School in 2019
24. Be Back to School Cool
25. Don’t Miss the School Bell
26. Jump Back Into School In Style
27. A Healthy Fresh Start to School Lunchboxes
28. Our Back to School Shop is Open
29. Get Ready for the New School Season
30. Time to Get Back Into School Spirit
31. Top Looks for Back to School
32. Checkout our Back to School Shop
33. Do School Old School
34. Fall Into A Fresh Start To School
35. Going Back to School This Year?
36. Back to School 101
37. Your Back to School Playlist
38. Our Top Study Tips for Back to School
39. The Perfect Stationery for School 
40. It’s Time for School

Back to College Subject Lines

Back to school campaigns tend to focus on elementary through to high school students. Despite the fact that more money is spent every year on back to college purchases than on back to school purchases. Smart digital marketers know not to ignore this prime demographic.

1. Everything a College Fresher Needs
2. Personalize Your Dorm Room
3. Moving to College?
4. Our College Survival Guide
5. Back to College Sales
6. The Best Deals on Textbooks
7. Refresher for a Fresher!
8. Must Haves for the New Semester
9. Make This Semester Yours
10. Your College Checklist

Back to School Subject Lines Mentioning Free Shipping

1. Limited Time Only: FREE SHIPPING on Back to School Items
2. Back to School Savings + Free Shipping = A+ Deals
3. Free Shipping for the Back to School Season
4. Get Your School Supplies Shipped for Free
5. Last Minute Back to School Shopping? Get Fast Free Shipping!
6. Get Psyched for School with Free Shipping!
7. Our Back to School Deals Ship for Free
8. Save Money on Back to School with Free Shipping
9. With free overnight shipping, there’s no reason to be late for class
10. Make Back to School More Tolerable with Free Shipping

Back to School Sale Subject Lines

1. Our Back to School Sales Starts Now
2. Head Back to School in Style with these Deals
3. Back to School Savings have Landed
4. Massive Savings Throughout Our Back to School Shop
5. Exclusive Back to School Deals
6. 20% off for the new school year!
7. 25% to 50% Off Storewide: Our Back to School Sales Spectacular! 
8. Be Best In Class with These Savings
9. A+ Savings on School Supplies
10. Back to School Steals! 
11. Don’t Miss the Bus on these Deals!
12. Last Chance for Back to School Savings!
13. Your Exclusive Discounts for the New School Year
14. 30% Off All School Shoes
15. Hit the Books with these Savings
16. $10 Off Your First Back-to-School Order
17. Your Back to School Savings Cheat Sheet
18. Bell’s About to Ring on these Back to School Discounts!
19. Best in Class: Our New School Year Offers
20. Save on a Fresh Start to School

Back to School Email Subject Lines with Emojis

1.  It’s Back to School Time ???
2. Pack Your School Bag with These Savings ??
3. ? It’s that Time of Year Again…
4. ?‍? Teacher Savings For The New School Season ?‍?
5. Heading To College This Year? ?
6. Your Back to School Checklist
7. ?Get Ready For Back to School
8. Don’t Miss The Bus ?
9. ??Back to School In Style ??
10. Time to Dust Off That Schoolbag ?
11. Be Back To School Cool ?
12. Back to School Time ?
13. ?= Back to School ?? 
14. Ace the New School Year ?
15. Prepare for Back to School ?

Back to School Subject Lines for Teachers

Just as you shouldn’t forget about college students, keep teachers in mind. All too often teachers end up having to pay for school supplies and equipment out of their own pocket. 

1.  Bulk Discounts on Back to School 
2. Get Your Classroom Ready with these School Supplies
3. Save On Back-to-School Supplies
4. FREE Lesson Plans for the New School Year
5. 5 Things Every Teacher Needs for Back to School

Writing Your Email Subject Lines

Now that you have plenty of inspiration and options, it’s time to go about choosing your back to school email subject lines.

If you’re still unsure about coming up with a good email subject line, check out our guide on writing the best subject lines for email marketing. 

If you have the opposite problem and you can’t choose between multiple subject options, then consider A/B testing them. We also have a handy guide to A/B testing subject lines you can have a read through.

Of course, you’ll also want to ensure the rest of the email is as great as its subject line. If you’re unsure about the how to design your email, we have a collection of 10 great back to school emails for you to check out.

The post 100 A+ Back to School Subject Lines You Can Use appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

This is no surprise given how lucrative the sales period is. When back to school sales outperform Mother’s Day, Easter and Valentine’s Day combined, it’s easy to see why retailers want a piece of the school shopping season action. 

You probably want to take advantage of this time of year too. So to get you inspired, we’ve curated this list of what we think are the five best examples of back to school ads in recent times. 

Kleenex – Someone Needs One

For many schoolchildren, heading back to school can be an emotional time. Especially if they’re moving to a new school away from their friends.

These are exactly the feelings Kleenex explored in their “Someone Needs One” back to school ad campaign. 

To give their campaign some context, Kleenex ran a survey to judge how elementary school kids felt about transitioning to middle school. 

The results found that 91% worried about being late for class, getting lost and getting poor grades. Two in three also worried about not fitting in and being judged by others. 

To combat these feelings Kleenex partnered with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to run a workshop for the students which the campaign focuses on heavily. At the end of the workshop, students exchanged packets of Kleenex with heartfelt messages. 

The ingenious aspect of this back to school campaign is how it uses emotion. Not only does it connect with its target audience on a deep emotional level, but the emotion is also intrinsically linked to the product offering. 

Later on, the campaign also used the hashtag #ShareKleenexCare on social media. This gave the brand plenty of extra publicity as people began sharing their own experiences of heading back to school. 

Staples – Spot the Difference

This clever campaign featuring a spot the difference challenge from Staples shows that you don’t need to produce expensive video content for great back to school ads. Sometimes a simple tweet can be enough to drive social media engagement. 

The cleverness of this back to school ad is in how you’re forced to closely scrutinize all the various school supplies to solve the challenge. This reminds parents of all the things to add to their back to school shopping list. 

Once it’s solved, the link in the tweet also takes you straight to a well designed landing page for Staples’ back to school shop. 

In addition to carefully leading parents on a path from school shopping list to purchase, the tweet and Facebook post are also engaging. Whether it’s people commenting that they found all the differences or sharing it with friends, generating engagement is crucial to the success of any social media ad. 

Best Buy – Student and Parent Hubs

Another great example of a retailer making it easy for students and parents to find back to school supplies is Best Buy. 

Through their dedicated Student and Parent Hubs, Best Buy makes it easy for both target audiences to find their ideal back to school products. 

By including a variety of information and guides, Best Buy is capturing plenty of parents and students in the early stages of school shopping. By bringing them in early, Best Buy is able to increase the chances that they’ll end up purchasing their school supplies from them. As opposed to doing their research elsewhere and going to another retailer. 

Crayola – #ThankATeacher

It’s easy to forget that all too often teachers are forced to pay for classroom supplies out of their own pocket. 

While this presents another golden marketing opportunity as teachers will be buying in bulk, Crayola took a different approach. 

They instead created their #ThankATeacher campaign which asked students to upload a colorful note thanking their favorite teacher. Doing so entered them into a competition to win a reward for themselves as well as for their teacher and classroom. 

By making their back to school ad campaign focus on supporting a good cause, Crayon is able to make customers feel good about purchasing from them. 

Newegg – Back to College

In addition to teachers, another key target audience to keep in mind with your back to school marketing campaigns is college students. Especially seeing as back to college sales outperforms back to school sales by a factor of nearly 2-to-1.  

It’s no surprise then that Newegg targeted this prime demographic with their #DormBattlestation campaign for the new school year. The contest had a grand prize of setting up a student’s dorm room with top of the line PC gaming equipment. 

To accompany this competition, Newegg also created a buying guide to help college students pick the right tech. They also ran a Facebook Live video about how to best set up your dorm room for college. 

By running this competition and investing in digital marketing and social media to support it, Newegg was able to grab the attention of college students.  

Your Back to School Ads

Hopefully now you have some inspiration for your own back to school ads. 

While you may not have the budget to replicate some of the bigger campaigns on this list, remember that doesn’t stop you from being successful. 

The back to school ad campaigns above achieved results because they made an emotional connection. And they didn’t just make this connection with anyone. They had a clear target audience in mind and went after them with relevant resources and offers.

If you keep what makes these campaigns successful in mind, then you’re already halfway to launching your own great back to school ads.

For more general tips, check out our guide on acing your back to school campaign strategies.

The post 5 Genius Back to School Ad Campaigns appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

The lead up to the new school year represents the second biggest retail shopping season in terms of dollars spent. 

With over $80 billion spent in the United States last year alone, back to school sales outperforms Mother’s Day, Easter and Valentine’s Day combined. Making it second only to the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. 

It’s a similar story in other countries as well. There’s no shortage of consumers looking to spend big on their back to school shopping. 

Better yet for online retailers, nearly half of these people are planning to shop online during this period. 

And don’t think that this opportunity is just for stores selling traditional school supplies like pencils, notebooks, shoes and clothes, etc. There’s virtually limitless options for what you can sell during the back to school season. 

Bed Bath & Beyond even gets in on the action with their linen. 

When you know how to execute your back to school campaign well, there’s plenty of items you can sell. 

That’s exactly what we’ll help you achieve here: boosting sales with your back to school marketing. So read on for everything you need to know to ace your back to school campaigns.

When Are Students Heading Back to School?

First things first, when should your back to school campaigns take place? 

Students head back to school at the end of summer. So this means August/September in the United States and Canada as well as much of Europe. For Australia and New Zealand where summer starts in December, students often head back in late January/early February. 

This is complicated by the fact that exact dates often depends on individual states and school districts. 

Traditionally in the United States, it was common for schools to start in the week following Labor Day. However some school districts will commence in August and even late July. 

The image below from CNN shows various starting dates across the US from a few years ago. 

So what does this mean for your back to school campaigns? 

Well there’s no one day or even week when people do their back to school shopping. Instead it often gets spread out across the entire month of August with sales ramping up later in the month as people look for last minute school savings.

So you’ll want to make sure your back to school campaigns are live by mid August. 

Who to Target (Don’t Forget About College Students!)

Now that we have an idea of when to launch your back to school sales, it’s time to think about who to target. 

A big mistake many retailers is focusing solely on schoolchildren and their parents. 

While this might make sense depending on what you’re selling, don’t forget about the millions of college students out there. Especially when back to college sales nearly outranks back to school sales 2 to 1 in terms of dollars spent. 

However don’t target students all the way from those starting their first year at elementary school to college seniors altogether. Students will have massively varying needs depending on their age and stage in schooling.

The trick to successful back to school campaigns is knowing exactly which group(s) you want to target. Once you nail this down, you can then start optimizing your messaging towards your target audience. 

If your business allows you to target multiple types of people, make sure you come up with multiple campaigns. Obviously the same marketing message will resonate with college students vastly differently than with schoolchildren.  

The Pottery Barn Kids’ messaging towards the parents of young children going back to school is never going to get older students opening their wallets.

Extra Credit Tip:

It’s not just students and their parents who are doing back to school shopping. There’s plenty of teachers who have to buy and pay for various items to keep their classroom supply topped up too. So consider offering volume discounts to people who buy in bulk.

Back to School Email Marketing Campaigns

Once you have your ideal target audience(s) in mind, it’s time to think about how to reach them. 

One of the best ways of doing this is with email. 

Unlike other channels such as social media or pay per click, you own your email list. This results in being able to reach your email subscribers much more reliably than your followers on social media for free. 

There’s also the benefit of email returning an average of $38 for every dollar spent on it. Giving it one of the highest returns of any digital channel. 

That said, with open rates averaging around 20% most of your subscribers won’t see your first back to school email campaign. 

This is why it’s important to send one than one email. With the sales period being spread out across an entire month, there’s plenty of scope to send multiple emails without spamming people’s inboxes. 

Again, make sure you’re targeting your emails to the right audience. Don’t blast an email out to your entire list, instead use segments to ensure that subscribers only receive offers that are relevant to them. 

Grammarly’s email is clearly targeted towards college students and high school seniors. Plus it’s got a great design. 

Extra Credit Tip: 

During the sales period, plenty of shoppers will be placing items in their shopping carts but never complete checkout. Automating abandoned cart emails will help you recover a decent portion of these otherwise lost sales. 

For more on how to take advantage of email marketing, check out our post outlining 5 tips to perfect back to school emails. 

Social Media Campaigns for Schools

There are very few instances where it makes sense to focus your marketing efforts on just one channel. And back to school sales is not one of them. 

There are plenty of potential customers you can easily convert who aren’t on your email list. Likewise they’re plenty of people on your email list who, for one reason or another, won’t read your emails. 

After email marketing, running social media campaigns is a very popular choice. 

Unlike email, social media lets you drive more engagement with your brand by being more interactive. Take the back to school Instagram post from Staples below.

Instead of just simply putting up an image of their back to school offer, Staples has driven engagement by running a simple yet effective challenge.  

This is key when dealing with social. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, the more engagement your posts receive, the more people they’ll reach.

But it’s not just organic reach on social media you should be aiming for. If you have the budget, running paid campaigns can be hugely beneficial. Especially if you pull them off right. 

Paid Social Media Campaigns

Just as with email marketing, a critical step in paid social campaigns is ensuring that you target the right people. 

Facebook has a myriad of targeting options for you to choose from. These include: 

• Interest based targeting 
• Demographic based targeting (such as parents of schoolchildren) 
• Lookalike audiences based on past customers or people who engaged with posts
• Custom audiences 

The first two (interest and demographic based targeting) are great for reaching plenty of new people. Whereas the more refined targeting using lookalike and especially custom audiences are great if you’ve got a well established presence. 

For example, if you’ve got a new store selling sustainable lunchboxes, running ads targeting parents of elementary schoolchildren with an interest in environmentalism can be effective. 

If this isn’t your first back to school season with your online store, then a lookalike audience is worth testing. 

To do this, you can upload a csv file of the email addresses of people who made back to school purchases in previous years to create a custom audience. You can then use this audience to create a lookalike audience filled with similar prospects to target ads towards. 

Whatever type of targeting you opt for, also remember to refine who you serve ads to based on age and location. You don’t want your back to school ads showing to people in Australia during August. 

Bed Bath & Beyond has again got in on the back to school action with their popup dorm room campaign that also ran on social media.

Pace Out Your Back to School Campaigns

Unlike other shopping events like Black Friday, back to school shopping takes place over a much longer period of time.

Don’t concentrate all your campaign efforts to just the start or end of the sales period. Instead spread out messaging out and optimize it depending on how much time shoppers have left. 

For instance, in early August your messaging could be framed around convincing parents not to leave their shopping too late. By late August your messaging should shift to last minute shoppers. Creating a sense of scarcity here can have the effect of boosting sales when people don’t want to miss out on a great deal. 

Schoolchildren and college students likely don’t want to be thinking of the new school year in the middle of their summer break. So keep this in mind if you’re wanting to target them. 

Don’t Miss the Bus!

Now that you have an idea of how to structure your back to school campaigns, don’t forget to put your knowledge into practice. 

If you’re looking for more examples of back to school campaigns, we also have a collection of 5 ingenious back to school ad campaigns.

Just like how students shouldn’t leave assignments to the last minute, don’t wait until the end of summer to prepare your back to school campaigns. By planning your campaigns well in advance, you’ll set your store up with the best chance of boosting sales.

The post How to Ace Your Back to School Campaign Strategies appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

In fact, the back-to-school period is the second biggest sales event in the year after the winter holiday period. The National Retail Federation estimates that $83.6 billion will be spent as students go back to school and college. This figure is up around 10% from 2016, where there was an estimated $75.8 billion spent. This is a huge opportunity for e-commerce stores, with 44% of back-to-college shoppers and 46% of back-to-school shoppers planning to shop online during this period.

However, back-to-school email marketing is a little different than sending out your regular personalized product recommendation emails to different segments. There are some practices you can adopt to get the most out of this e-commerce event – here are 5 tips you can use to get the most of your back-to-school email marketing campaigns:

1. Know who to target

Plenty of e-commerce stores still send out bulk email newsletters as a way to market their products to their prospects. We have spoken time and time again about how email blasts are ineffective; you really should be making use of personalized email marketing instead.

Using a one-size fits all blast strategy for your back-to-school marketing is especially ineffective, simply because of how big the pool of potential customers is. And within this group are several different demographics, all with different demands and different ways you should market your products towards them.

The way you construct your marketing emails to target elementary school-aged children is different to how you should target their middle school counterparts. You also have to take into account who is actually paying for these items. Making sure your marketing emails are appealing for parents as well is important.

Likewise, there’s a big difference in how high school students respond to marketing emails compared to how college students would. Marketers also tend to forget about targeting their emails towards teachers, many of whom have to pay for teaching supplies out of their own pockets.

Of course, this depends on what products you have on offer. The most popular and in-demand products for back-to-school shoppers are clothing, electronics, shoes, and school supplies (like stationery, backpacks, lunchboxes), in that order. However those returning to college prioritise purchasing electronics over clothes, and also have a demand for snacks and food, furnishing for dorms or apartments, and personal care items.

Before you start planning your back-to-school email marketing campaign, it’s important to first figure out which group(s) your products would best be targeted towards, then segment your list into groups before sending out a newsletter.

To personalize the products in every email you send, use a recommendation engine in your emails like we do with our Automated Product Recommendation Emails.

2. Adapt your email marketing campaigns

This leads on from my last point – once you have determined a suitable target audience for your emails, you need to cater your marketing emails towards them.

If you’re trying to target elementary and middle school children, I would recommend keeping the design of your marketing emails kid friendly, with plenty of bright colours and fun fonts to attract them. However, although 65% of back-to-school shoppers say that the majority of their purchases are a direct result of their children’s influence, it’s still important that you highlight the benefits for those who are actually paying for the items.

Make sure to include in the email copy how purchasing your products will be both beneficial for parents (for example, if they’re saving money with discounts of free shipping, or getting value for their money because your products are long lasting), as well as their children (such as, how your products will make their children happy, help them be comfortable at school, or learn more effectively). This principle also applies for targeting teachers, who will respond well to marketing emails that highlight savings and products that will assist them in educating their students.

In comparison, you should show high school students how cool your products are. Highlighting how your products will help them fit in with the in-crowd, by appealing to their desire to be cool, will be more effective than dazzling them with bright colours and exciting fonts. This can be applied to targeting college students too. However, make sure you also emphasize value for money or discounts in your marketing emails sent to this demographic. Even though back-to-college shoppers spend nearly double the amount of money when compared to back-to-school shoppers, college students are always hunting for bargains and finding ways to save money.

To target your back-to-school email marketing campaigns to these specific groups, segmentation is your best friend. Make use of the information you have on your email list, specifically the age of your subscribers. This will allow you to deliver more personalized content and relevant product recommendations to them.

To read more on email segmentation, read here: 5 Ways to Segment Your E-Commerce Store’s Email List.

3. Timing

Getting the timing of your marketing emails right is key to a successful back-to-school campaign. A survey conducted by the National Retail Federation found that 27% of back-to-school shoppers are planning to start shopping two months before the first day of school, while 21% said they would be shopping a week or two before school starts.

This also means that plenty of people will continue to shop once school begins. Not only this, but the start of the school year varies across the different states.

To remedy this problem, you should plan out a content calendar, and stagger your back-to-school emails over the last week of August and September. This should be based around the first day of school date in your area. Alternately, you can use segmentation to target the same email campaigns to people based on the location of those in your email list. This allows you to customize the timing of them, but will make them more relevant for your subscribers living in different states.

4. Generate a sense of urgency

As we get closer and closer to the first day of school, there’s plenty of buzz during this e-commerce event, as kids become excited to go back (or in some cases, dread starting the new school year), while their parents get stressed as they help their children to get organized before school begins. Use the excitement surrounding the big day to your advantage by generating a sense of urgency.

This can be done by sending out reminders to your subscribers, telling them that it’s x number of days or weeks until students have to return to school or college, or x number of days left to take advantage of your sale.

5. Abandoned Cart Emails

Chances are that most parents, college students and teachers will be browsing online, looking at a number of sites and comparing different products and prices, before making a final decision. So these back-to-school shoppers are probably going to be viewing items on your e-commerce store and maybe even adding them to their shopping carts, before continuing their research. In fact, Salecycle found this to be the biggest reason for shopping cart abandonment, with 34% of shoppers citing that they ‘were just looking’ for dumping their items. This is when you come in with abandoned cart emails.

Remind them why your products are the ones they should be purchasing, by emphasizing why they’re going to be the most useful for them. I would also recommend an additional discount to help drive a conversion, by showing that you’re being competitive with other stores’ prices. It’s also important to be timely – set your abandoned cart email to be sent within an hour of the shopper leaving your e-commerce store, before they’ve found a better deal.

Conclusion

As the second biggest e-commerce sales event of the year, you will want to be able to effectively market your products towards students from elementary school through to college, as well as to parents and teachers. Although you will need to tweak your usual email marketing practices for the back-to-school period, following these 5 tips are sure to help you successfully adapt your campaigns.

Still looking for more guidance with your campaigns? We’ve got a more comprehensive guide to your back to school campaigns as well as more email specific ones:

• Great Back to School Email Examples
• 100 Back to School Subject Lines You Can Use
• Back to School Ad Examples

The post 5 Tips to Perfect Your Back to School Email Marketing Campaigns appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.