Biasi says that e-mail marketing "is a natural for distance education," because both current and prospective online learners are accustomed to communicating electronically. He emphasizes three primary elements that college and university marketing departments must understand before jumping into e-mail promotions: strategy/execution, media sourcing and reporting/tracking.

Under the category of strategy/execution, "it’s kind of like a treasure hunt," says Biasi. "Delivering the right subject line and from line are important. If you have an engaging subject line, it will get them to open the mail."

Once opened, an engaging headline and creative copy that speaks directly to your audience and gets them to read on are absolutely necessary. Additionally, a compelling call to action must be included in your message. "Almost exclusively," Biais says, "we embed a form for data capture inside our e-mails so that we can get them to respond (similar to response cards on direct mail pieces). We want them (a qualified prospect) to be so interested that they are going to give us information. That is the treasure at the end of the day for direct marketers such as ourselves on behalf of our clients."

Under the category of media sourcing, Biasi says that many institutions typically get their e-mail lists from higher-education-related testing services. However, "the problem with that is all colleges and universities pretty much use the same lists, so these lists are pretty exhausted." Biasi says his firm manages the e-mail list-gathering process through extensive research and its network of list managers, owners, brokers and compilers, adding that every e-mail address they capture is a permission-based, opt-in address. "We stress that so it is absolutely not spam. These are executives, professionals or consumers who have mentioned at some point that they are interested in receiving third-party solicitations from companies that are relevant to their interests or profession."

Finally, under the category of reporting/tracking, Biasi says that "one of the real key benefits of e-mail marketing is that it is very accountable. At the end of the day we really know what percentage have opened the e-mail." Plus, by using embedded forms developed exclusively for academic clients, "when someone enters their content information (inside the form) it is immediately captured in a database that the college or university has access to via the Internet on a 24/7 basis."

Additionally, for institutions with more sophisticated IT departments, Biasi explains how data captured by e-mail blasts can be automatically linked into an institution’s customer relationship management (CRM) engine with the same fields they require.