The Impact of Students Not Reading Emails on Retention: Channels that Matter for Student Success

More than 50% - that’s the proportion of students that a 2016 survey found ignore emails from their academic department or institution. If your email communication efforts may only be reaching half of your students, how can you impact student success and retention? With key student support efforts, from financial aid, to academic support, to student engagement, often funneled through one of several email inboxes that any student might have, missing a single message could mean missing an opportunity that might be critical to keeping them on the path to graduation. On top of this, email doesn’t even rank as one of the top five apps that most students regularly use on their devices.

In this learning session, we’ll explore how the increasingly competitive market for digital experiences is demanding institutional communicators stand out to capture student attention. Explore the channels having the most impact on student success, including virtual communities and push notifications, and why any strategy for driving engagement needs to start with mobile. The presenter will focus on:

• Why virtual communities are essential for building student engagement that leads to retention
• Which digital channels are absorbing student attention most effectively, and why
• How push notifications and direct messaging amplify the impact of student communications