Email is the primary and most effective way to communicate with your students and faculty. A properly designed email can improve your response rate, increase transparency and improve faculty satisfaction. At Virginia Commonwealth University we combined our past experience of online evaluations with functionality available in Blue to craft awesome emails.

1. Take Your Blue Email Notifications
to the Next Level
Gaurav Gupta
Virginia Commonwealth University

2. About Virginia Commonwealth University
Urban university with two campuses
13 schools and one college
31,000 students
17,500 courses per year
6% short courses

3. History of course evaluation at VCU
Paper and pencil
evaluations until 2009
Switched to Online
evaluations in 2009
Switched to Blue
in 2013

4. Course evaluation by the numbers
225,000 evaluations per year
200,000 emails per year

5. We have learned a lot
in last 6 years

6. Goals of our
communication strategy

7. Goal 1
Increase response rate

8. Goal 2
Get quality feedback

9. Goal 3
Increase transparency,
reduce confusion and
improve satisfaction

10. Goal 4
Reduce the need for
troubleshooting

11. Lessons we have learned…

12. 1. We are salespeople

13. 2. Email is our best
marketing tool

14. E-mail remains a significantly more effective way
to acquire customers than social media – nearly
40 times that of Facebook and Twitter
combined.”
- McKinsey & Company
Source: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/why_marketers_should_keep_sending_you_emails
“

15. After trying for a few semesters we stopped
using posters, postcards, Twitter, Facebook,
campus TV and raffle prizes

16. 3. Content is king

17. Content we include in our emails

18. Emails to students include
Introduction
List of open evaluations and their due dates
Link to evaluation forms
Importance of their feedback and how it will be
used
Confidentiality
Contact information
Unsubscribe link

19. Emails to faculty include
Introduction
List of evaluations
Start and end dates, report availability
Link to check response rates
How to improve response rate and get better
feedback
Contact information
Unsubscribe link

20. A/B testing

21. A/B testing basics
Create two versions of an email
Divide email recipients into two groups
Send different versions of email to each group
Measure completion rate

22. Subject line:
It’s Time to Give Feedback
to Your Instructors
Subject line:
It’s Time to Evaluate Your
Instructors
A B
✓
13% more responses

23. Subject line:
Reminder: Please
Evaluate Your Courses
and Your Instructors
Subject line:
Need a Study Break? Take
a Few Minutes to
Evaluate Your Professors
A B
✓30% more responses

24. Faculty testimonials

25. With testimonial Without testimonial
A B
No significant difference

26. A
B
✓
6% more
responses

27. Subject line:
Your Course Evaluations
are Still Pending
Subject line:
Reminder: Your Course
Evaluations are Still
Pending
A B
✓12% more responses

28. Subject line:
Only 3 Days Left to
Evaluate Your Professors!
Subject line:
Your Course Evaluations
are Due in 3 Days
A B
No significant difference

29. Dear eXplorance,
Can you please bring A/B testing to Blue

30. Tips for writing great content

31. Pay attention to subject line
A well designed subject line can make big impact

32. Put yourself in their shoes
If you were a student or instructor,
what information would be helpful to you

33. Are they asking you the
same questions repeatedly?
Consider including this information in the email

34. Be conversational
Keep it to-the-point
Avoid being clever, using puns

35. Sound official, authoritative
Don’t beg, make them care instead
Create a sense of urgency

36. instead of
“please complete your evaluations”
say
“evaluations are due in 2 days”

37. Divide up content into small sections
Use headings

38. Without headings

39. With headings

40. 4. Personalize to the right extent

41. Two banks
Two very different emails

44. Which email would you rather receive?

45. 0
200
400
600
800
1000
04/21/2011
00
04/22/2011
00
04/23/2011
00
04/24/2011
00
04/25/2011
00
04/26/2011
00
04/27/2011
00
04/28/2011
00
04/29/2011
00
04/30/2011
00
05/01/2011
00
05/02/2011
00
05/03/2011
00
05/04/2011
00
Evals
Completed/Hour
Generic
email
Personalized
email
Personalized email improved our response rate (Spring 2011)

46. Personalized data used at VCU
Name
List of courses
Instructor names
Due dates

47. Personalized subject line

49. Almost any data can be included

50. 5. Formatting the email

51. Unformatted

52. Formatted

53. Find a web designer

54. Tips for your web designer
Use call to action buttons instead of links
Minimize use of images
Use inline CSS
Responsive design

55. Resources for your web designer
Responsive email tutorial
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/creating-a-simple-responsive-html-email--webdesign-12978
BeeFree
https://beefree.io/
Zurb CSS Inliner
http://zurb.com/ink/inliner.php

56. 6. Getting the timing right

57. Typical course evaluation cycle
(14 days)
Course duration ExamsEvals Reports

58. Typical communication cycle
ExamsEvals Reports
Email to students
Email to instructors

59. We analyzed data from
last four semesters

60. Evaluations completed/hour – Fall 2013
0
200
400
600
800
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Emails
sent

61. Evaluations completed/hour – Spring 2014
0
200
400
600
800
1000
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Emails
sent

62. Evaluations completed/hour – Fall 2014
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Emails
sent

63. Evaluations completed/hour – Spring 2015
0
200
400
600
800
1000
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Emails
sent

64. Best days to send emails
Monday – Thursday
First and last day of evals
> Friday – Sunday
> Thanksgiving / long weekends

65. Evaluations completed/hour in a single day – Spring 2015
0
150
300
450
12
AM
3
AM
6
AM
9
AM
12
PM
3
PM
6
PM
9
PM
Tue
Wed
Mon

66. Best time to send emails
10am
time required to
send all emails
(3-6 hours for us)
minus

67. 7. Testing

68. Testing process
Create a test project with 4-6 courses
Add yourself and student and instructor to each
course
Compose email and send it
Test after every edit, even if it is a minor one

70. Another feature request:
Easier way to send test emails

71. Thanks!
I would love to hear from you
guptag@vcu.edu
@FrshBakedPixels