“Parents just don’t pay attention anymore,” complain school Heads. “We give them all the right information at the right time, but they just don’t pay attention.”
Attention has become one of the most valuable resources of the digital age. Parents are presented with an avalanche of information — not just from your school, but from every corner of their lives.
Parent’s attention, not information, is the limiting factor for effective communication.
More than ever, schools need to truly connect and communicate with parents. One of the most powerful tools you have in your communication toolbox is the humble email. But schools are frequently committing email malpractice and unwittingly training parents to ignore their emails.
Let’s use the typical school email newsletter as an example. First things first. The days of ‘batch and blast’ emails are over. Communication doesn’t happen just because someone wrote something in your newsletter. That’s just firing a shotgun in the general direction of your audience and after a while parents learn to ignore the noise you make.
How to earn attention
- Understand the purpose of your content. The most common mistake schools make in email newsletters is failing to treat transactional information differently from promotional content. Transactional information is the facts parents need to interact with your school successfully. For example, “Football training has been changed to 4:30pm on Thursday.” Promotional information is created with the intent of motivating a change in action or thinking. Examples could include an advertisement for the school drama production (selling tickets), a message from the Head (reinforcing culture settings) or recognition of student achievements (substantiating the value of an education at your school). Transactional information should be easy to find, comprehend and act upon. Promotional information can take many different and creative forms. When the two are confused, parents give up reading.
- Develop a reputation for being relevant. Another common mistake is including information that is of low or no relevance to most of your readers. If your email newsletter is sent to all parents from Kindergarten to Year 12, then information published that relates to only one year group is forcing parents of all other year groups to read it and assess its relevance to them before discarding it. Consider using headlines that readily identify the target audience (for example, “Year 2 dress-up day next Friday”) or sending that information in a separate email only to the year group concerned. The more targeted your parent groups are, the more relevant your email messages can be, tailored to the specific audience. Relevance is critical to attention and attention is critical to effectiveness.
- Assign an editor. This person will have a very clear picture of your parent segments, understand what information is relevant to them, select content based on those interests and use a consistent voice across all email newsletter content. Experience isn’t a prerequisite, but an intimate understanding of your school community and parent community is.
- Repurpose what you already have. Every day, schools distribute quality information in the form of articles, emails, presentations, research, survey results and much more. How much of what you already produce could be repurposed as valuable, attention-grabbing content for your email newsletter? For example, take that research your Counselling team circulated on effective exam preparation strategies and turn it into a ‘Top 10 tips for study success’ checklist.
- Share-ability. Make it easy for people to share your content online and so enable digital word-of-mouth. Providing your audience with a link to a story on your website gives them a call to action to share your message. Done efficiently, you can track it and monitor what is being shared and how often.
- Scan-ability. Email readers do not read your newsletter — they scan it. A useful rule of thumb is that they may spend five to eight seconds per message, even less if they can’t see its relevance to them. Maximise the communication value of these precious seconds. Things to consider include being specific, or promising and then delivering something of value in the headline. Create a compelling reason for someone to keep reading. The headline is the ad for the body copy. Create visual interest in your layout. Readers will stop reading long paragraphs and start to scan ahead. Use bulleted and numbered lists, highlight key words using bold type and indent quotes to act as visual anchors that stop readers scanning and to start them reading again.
- It’s your brand. Email newsletters are an extension of your school brand: who you are, what you promise and your ability and willingness to keep that promise. A consistent and on-brand visual style will ensure your email newsletter is easily recognisable. Keeping your design consistent builds familiarity, trust and, ultimately, readership.
Attention is not automatic. Like trust, it must be earned through relentlessly consistent application. There is little added cost to changing your communication practices, but the payback is beyond price.
insight applied
- Attention, not information, is the limiting factor.
- Transactional and promotional information require different treatment.
- Ensure relevancy.
- Attention must be earned over time.
