Messaging Campaign

Messaging Campaigns let staff reach out to specific student populations and encourage them to take certain actions. You can access Messaging Campaigns via the Quick Links section of the Staff Home page or by opening the Campaigns page by clicking the Campaigns icon on the blue navigation bar.

Strategic questions should be asked when creating Messaging Campaigns, such as:

  • How would you like to impact your students with campaigns? What student populations do you envision this would be used for?

  • Who should be launching campaigns? Should campaigns be part of each staff member’s personal workflow? Or should they be more centralized and launched by unit leaders?

  • What guidance do you plan to give to your staff as far as a follow-up?

Messaging Campaigns are best for seeking to encourage students to take certain campaign actions. This type of campaign has no objective, unlike Appointment Campaigns or Enrollment Campaigns, so students receive all emails in the campaign. 

Feature Overview

Open Messaging Campaigns by going to the Campaigns page and selecting the Messaging Campaigns link.

After creating a Messaging Campaign, you track student engagement through the Messaging Campaigns page.

Select your Messaging Campaign’s name to open a report with statistics about the performance of the campaign.

The following metrics are available on the Messaging Campaigns detail page.

Students in Campaign

The number of students who were sent the campaign email.

Click to Open Rate

The click-to-open rate (CTOR) compares the number of unique clicks to unique opens.

Emails Sent

The number of emails sent by the Messaging Campaign. This number may not be the same as the number of students in your original list.

Emails Opened

The number of emails sent by the campaign that were opened.

Links Clicked

The number of times the link in the campaign email was clicked.

Beneath the metrics is a table called Students in Campaign. The list may be exported as a CSV file from the Options sidebar.

Launching a Messaging Campaign

To begin, open the Campaigns page and select Add New from the Messaging Campaigns section.

Define the Campaign

The New Messaging Campaign page opens. Now you set the criteria for the Messaging Campaign. The fields that must be filled out are listed and defined below.

Campaign Name

Campaign Name is visible to the person creating the campaign and any other users who have access to view campaigns, but not visible to the student. Make sure that you adhere to your institution’s naming policy, otherwise other users will not be able to evaluate the impact of your campaigns.

Warning. Start campaign names with the most important info. Academic term is the most important!

Our formats include: Term, College or Department, Popualtion and/or Purpose, initials who created the campaign.

Examples:

  • F19 UAC Super Senior ABC

  • W22 CHHS Pre-Health Freshman 2nd Semester Hold QRS

  • S20 EOP 1st Peer Mentor Meeting XYZ

  • Su21 CDC CSM Senior Outreach LMN

Tracking URL

The URL you want students to click. This can be any URL.

Tracking URL Display Value

The text students will see in the email message encouraging them to enroll. When students click the text, they go to the Tracking URL

Add Students to Campaign

The next step is performing a search to find recipients for the campaign. Set your criteria and perform the Advanced Search. The search results page appears.

Select the students to add to the campaign and click Continue. You may also save this search if you want. Once you’ve gone to the next step, this list is static and does not update.

Review the students on the next page. If a student should not be in the campaign, select the box next to their name and choose to Remove Students from Campaign from the Actions menu.

Once finished, click Continue.

Add Nudges

Nudges allow for more communication from your school to students during an Messaging Campaign. Each nudge is an email sent to your campaign list. Nudge emails are sent the morning of the date chosen when you create the nudge. As with any email, some may be slightly delayed.

To create a nudge, define your campaign and create your list of students for the Messaging Campaign. The Nudges page opens.

Click Add Nudge to create your first nudge. You must create at least one nudge per campaign; however, you can create more. There are no limits on how many nudges you can send.

Enter a subject line and customize the message. The available Merge Tags are listed under the Message text box. You can see a preview of the message in the panel right of the composition panel. You can also attach a file to this message. Fields used in the message composition are:

Email Subject

The subject of the nudge email going to the student.

Message

The customized email message going to the student. Merge tags are available for this message and are shown beneath the message field. 

Send Date

The date the email nudge is sent. The nudge with the earliest date starts your Messaging Campaign.

After creating a nudge, click Save Nudge to continue. You may continue creating nudges after this. Your Messaging Campaign "ends" when your last message is sent. However, you can continue to add Nudges after the last message is sent if this is helpful to your Messaging Campaign.

Confirm and Send

Review your campaign details, nudges, invitees, and advisors on this page. 

Click Start Campaign when you are ready to email the invites to the selected students.

Managing a Messaging Campaign

Monitor and manage your Messaging Campaign by clicking the Messaging Campaign link on the Campaigns page. On the main tab, you see a list of Messaging Campaigns for the term along with some basic details for the campaign. If you want to see only your campaigns, check the View only my campaigns box.

Information you see on the main Messaging Campaign list includes the Creation Date of the campaign, the status (Draft, Active), the Most Recent Nudge date, the Next Nudge, and how many students are in the campaign. If the Messaging Campaign is in Draft status, you can also take action from the table.

Open a Messaging Campaign by selecting its name from the list.

Messaging Campaign Options

Edit Campaign Details

With this option, you can edit anything except Care Unit, Service, and Location about the Messaging Campaign.  This allows you to add more nudges to an existing campaign if desired.

Delete This Campaign

Use this option to delete the Messaging Campaign. This will delete all data related to the campaign.

Export Student List

Use this option to export the list of students in the campaign as a CSV file.

Updates to Email and Enrollment Campaigns

Users can remove students from campaigns. You do this by editing an active campaign, going to the recipients' page, selecting the students you want to remove, and selecting Remove Selected Students from the Actions menu.

Edit an existing campaign. At the bottom of the Verify Recipient page is an Add More Students button.

 

Clicking this button opens the Advanced Search that lets you add more students. Once you have added new students, a page to add a special nudge immediately to newly added students. Other nudges that haven't been sent will be sent to those students as well. Email metrics, if enabled, will be populated for the message that is sent to new students.

Messaging Campaign Metrics and Student List

There are two sets of Messaging Campaign metrics for the campaigns - campaign metrics and nudge metrics. The campaign metrics show how many students were sent the campaign.

The Nudge Metrics sections show the Click-to-Open-Rate for campaign nudges. Additionally, it shows how many emails were sent, how many were opened, and how many links were clicked for a campaign. Finally, the Students in Campaign table shows a list of students who sent the nudge emails and their student IDs.

Note. The click-to-open rate is tracked by a very small 1-pixel image in the email.