6 best email marketing tools for higher education businesses in 2025

Increased schooling establishments face distinctive communication challenges in 2025. Between recruiting potential college students, partaking present learners, sustaining alumni relationships, and coordinating with school, faculties and universities want strong e mail advertising and marketing options that may deal with advanced, multi-audience campaigns whereas delivering customized experiences at scale.

Electronic mail advertising and marketing stays essentially the most most popular communication channel for potential college students through the faculty software course of, with 55% preferring e mail over textual content messages (33%). The schooling trade additionally achieves a mean e mail open price of 28.5% — among the many highest throughout all sectors — making e mail advertising and marketing a vital instrument for enrollment administration and scholar engagement.

This information compares the very best e mail advertising and marketing software program for increased schooling establishments in 2025, together with detailed function breakdowns, pricing info, and proposals that will help you select the best platform to your faculty or college.

Desk of Contents

HubSpot

HubSpot is best for: Universities in search of an all-in-one CRM and advertising and marketing automation platform with superior analytics

HubSpot offers increased schooling establishments with a complete platform that unifies advertising and marketing, admissions, and scholar service processes. The platform allows faculties and universities to draw potential college students, convert inquiries into functions, and nurture relationships all through the coed lifecycle.

Key HubSpot Options:

• Free CRM integration – HubSpot provides a free CRM that permits admissions groups to trace each interplay with potential college students from preliminary inquiry by means of enrollment, making certain no lead falls by means of the cracks
• Advertising and marketing automation workflows – HubSpot automates customized e mail sequences based mostly on prospect conduct, enabling establishments to ship focused content material at optimum instances within the enrollment journey
• Superior analytics and reporting – HubSpot offers dashboards that monitor marketing campaign efficiency, lead sources, and conversion charges, permitting advertising and marketing groups to display ROI and make data-driven choices
• Touchdown web page and kind builders – HubSpot consists of instruments to create high-converting touchdown pages for program info, digital excursions, and software begins with out requiring technical experience
• Multi-channel marketing campaign administration – HubSpot coordinates e mail, social media, and paid promoting campaigns from a single platform, making certain constant messaging throughout all touchpoints

HubSpot Pricing:

Mailchimp

Greatest For: Establishments with easy e mail advertising and marketing wants and huge subscriber lists

Mailchimp delivers user-friendly e mail advertising and marketing instruments with an in depth template library and simple marketing campaign creation course of. The platform serves increased schooling establishments that prioritize ease of use and have to handle massive contact databases.

Key Mailchimp Options:

• In depth template library – Mailchimp provides tons of of pre-designed e mail templates appropriate for recruitment campaigns, scholar newsletters, and alumni communications, decreasing design time
• Viewers segmentation – Mailchimp allows establishments to phase contacts based mostly on demographics, conduct, and engagement historical past to ship focused messages to potential college students versus present college students versus alumni
• A/B testing capabilities – Mailchimp permits establishments to check topic traces, ship instances, and content material variations to optimize open charges and click-through charges
• Social media promoting integration – Mailchimp creates retargeting advertisements on Fb and Instagram based mostly on e mail marketing campaign information, extending attain to potential college students throughout a number of platforms

Mailchimp Pricing:

• Free plan: 500 contacts, 1,000 month-to-month e mail sends
• Necessities plan: Beginning at $13/month for 500 contacts (10x contact restrict for month-to-month sends)
• Normal plan: Beginning at $20/month for 500 contacts (12x contact restrict for month-to-month sends)
• Premium plan: Beginning at $350/month for 10,000 contacts (15x contact restrict for month-to-month sends)
• Nonprofit reductions: 15% off annual plans

Fixed Contact

Greatest For: Schools and universities that usually host campus occasions and wish built-in occasion administration

Fixed Contact makes a speciality of occasion advertising and marketing instruments alongside conventional e mail advertising and marketing options, making it beneficial for establishments that coordinate open homes, alumni occasions, webinars, and campus excursions.

Key Fixed Contact Options:

• Constructed-in occasion registration – Fixed Contact allows establishments to create occasion pages, gather RSVPs, handle attendee lists, and course of ticket funds straight throughout the platform, eliminating the necessity for third-party occasion instruments
• Automated occasion reminders – Fixed Contact sends automated e mail reminders to registered attendees earlier than occasions, decreasing no-shows for campus excursions and data classes
• Social media posting – Fixed Contact schedules and publishes social media posts throughout a number of platforms to advertise occasions, applications, and campus information alongside e mail campaigns
• Customizable e mail templates – Fixed Contact offers themed templates for numerous events together with enrollment deadlines, scholarship bulletins, and tutorial calendar reminders

Fixed Contact Pricing:

• Lite plan: $12/month for 500 contacts (primary e mail advertising and marketing and occasion administration)
• Normal plan: $35/month for 500 contacts (consists of automation, A/B testing, and segmentation)
• Premium plan: $80/month for 500 contacts (provides web optimization instruments, advertisements administration, and superior analytics)
• 30-day free trial obtainable

ActiveCampaign

Greatest For: Establishments requiring refined automation workflows and predictive analytics

ActiveCampaign offers superior advertising and marketing automation and CRM capabilities that allow increased schooling establishments to create advanced, behavior-based e mail sequences that reply to prospect actions in real-time.

Key ActiveCampaign Options:

• 900+ automation workflow templates – ActiveCampaign provides pre-built automation sequences for frequent increased schooling eventualities together with software nurture campaigns, admitted scholar engagement, and re-enrollment outreach
• Predictive analytics – ActiveCampaign makes use of machine studying to determine which prospects are almost definitely to enroll, permitting admissions groups to prioritize outreach to high-intent leads
• Conditional content material – ActiveCampaign dynamically modifications e mail content material based mostly on recipient attributes comparable to supposed main, campus location curiosity, or software standing
• Lead scoring – ActiveCampaign assigns scores to prospects based mostly on engagement behaviors like e mail opens, web site visits, and kind submissions, serving to admissions counselors determine heat leads

ActiveCampaign Pricing:

• Starter plan: $15/month for 1,000 contacts
• Plus plan: $49/month for 1,000 contacts
• Skilled plan: $79/month for 1,000 contacts
• Enterprise plan: $145/month
• 14-day free trial obtainable

Omnisend

Greatest For: Universities with on-line course gross sales and ecommerce parts

Omnisend focuses on multi-channel advertising and marketing automation with sturdy ecommerce integrations, making it appropriate for establishments that promote on-line programs, skilled improvement applications, or branded merchandise.

Key Omnisend Options:

• Multi-channel campaigns – Omnisend coordinates e mail, SMS, and push notifications in unified campaigns, enabling establishments to achieve potential college students by means of their most popular communication channels
• Ecommerce platform integrations – Omnisend integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, and different ecommerce platforms to trace on-line course purchases and set off related follow-up communications
• Deserted cart restoration – Omnisend mechanically sends reminder emails to prospects who began however did not full course registrations or merchandise purchases
• Product suggestions – Omnisend suggests associated programs or applications to enrolled college students based mostly on their buy historical past and looking conduct

Omnisend Pricing:

• Free plan to ship 500 emails/month as much as 250 contacts
• Normal plan: $11.20/month as much as 500 contacts
• Professional plan: $41.20/month for two,500 contacts (provides superior reporting and precedence help)
• Pricing scales with contact record measurement

Envoke

Greatest For: Canadian universities requiring CASL compliance and information sovereignty

Envoke makes a speciality of serving Canadian increased schooling establishments with compliance-focused e mail advertising and marketing that meets Canadian Anti-Spam Laws (CASL) necessities whereas storing information inside Canada.

Key Envoke Options:

• Automated CASL compliance – Envoke mechanically manages consent monitoring, opt-in confirmations, and unsubscribe processes to make sure compliance with Canadian anti-spam laws
• Knowledge saved in Canada – Envoke hosts all contact information on Canadian servers, addressing information sovereignty necessities for Canadian public establishments
• Multi-department administration – Envoke allows universities to create separate subaccounts for various departments whereas sustaining centralized oversight and model consistency
• Increased schooling templates – Envoke offers e mail templates designed particularly for college communications together with recruitment, scholar providers, and alumni relations

Envoke Pricing:

• Professional plan: Beginning at $69 CAD/month for two,500 contacts with limitless e mail sends
• Pay-as-you-go possibility obtainable (retailer limitless contacts, pay per e mail despatched)
• Customized pricing for bigger establishments
• Free migration providers from different platforms

Increased schooling establishments serve various audiences with various wants—potential undergraduates, graduate college students, worldwide candidates, switch college students, alumni, and fogeys every require tailor-made messaging. Electronic mail advertising and marketing platforms phase contacts based mostly on dozens of attributes and behaviors, enabling establishments to ship customized content material to 1000’s of recipients concurrently. In a 2024 EAB study, 93% of scholars mentioned that receiving a personalised message from a school would encourage them to discover a faculty additional.

Knowledge-Pushed Resolution Making

Electronic mail advertising and marketing software program offers detailed analytics on marketing campaign efficiency, together with open charges, click-through charges, and conversion metrics. Increased schooling advertising and marketing groups use this information to determine which messages resonate with potential college students, which recruitment channels generate the highest-quality leads, and the way advertising and marketing efforts straight contribute to enrollment numbers. This visibility allows establishments to allocate budgets extra successfully and display advertising and marketing ROI to management.

Improved Alumni Engagement

Electronic mail advertising and marketing platforms assist establishments preserve long-term relationships with alumni by means of focused communications about networking occasions, donation campaigns, and profession alternatives. Automated workflows allow universities to ship customized birthday messages, commencement anniversary emails, and updates about developments in alumni’s fields of examine, strengthening lifetime connections to the establishment.

Environment friendly Multi-Campus Communication

For college programs with a number of campuses or on-line applications, e mail advertising and marketing software program ensures constant branding whereas permitting customization for native audiences. Centralized platforms allow advertising and marketing groups to create templates that particular person campuses can personalize with location-specific particulars, occasions, and program info.

• Superior segmentation and focusing on: Increased schooling establishments have to phase audiences by a number of standards together with potential versus present scholar standing, tutorial program curiosity, campus location, software stage, engagement degree, and demographic elements. Sturdy segmentation allows admissions groups to ship related messages to engineering prospects versus liberal arts prospects, undergraduate candidates versus graduate faculty candidates, and engaged prospects versus those that have not opened latest emails.
• Conduct-based automation: Electronic mail automation triggered by particular actions delivers well timed, related messages that transfer prospects by means of the enrollment journey. Important automation triggers embrace kind submissions, web site web page visits, e mail engagement, occasion registrations, and software milestones. For instance, when a prospect downloads a program brochure, automation can set off a follow-up e mail sequence about monetary assist, campus life, and software deadlines.
• CRM integration and call administration: Electronic mail advertising and marketing platforms ought to combine seamlessly with scholar info programs and CRM databases to make sure correct, up-to-date contact info. This integration allows admissions employees to view full prospect histories together with e mail engagement, web site exercise, and private interactions in a single centralized location. Bidirectional information sync ensures that standing modifications within the SIS mechanically replace e mail segments.
• Cellular-optimized templates: With 90% of teachers accessing email on smartphones, cell optimization is non-negotiable. Electronic mail advertising and marketing platforms should mechanically regulate layouts, photographs, and textual content for cell gadgets whereas sustaining visible enchantment and performance. Preview options ought to present how emails seem on numerous gadgets earlier than sending.
• Sturdy analytics and reporting: Increased schooling advertising and marketing groups want detailed metrics past primary open and click on charges. Important reporting consists of lead supply attribution, conversion monitoring by means of your complete enrollment funnel, engagement scoring, A/B take a look at outcomes, and income attribution for paid applications. Dashboards ought to visualize tendencies over time and allow groups to match marketing campaign efficiency throughout totally different audiences and time durations.
• Compliance and information safety: Electronic mail advertising and marketing platforms should help information privateness laws together with FERPA, CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL. Options ought to embrace consent administration, automated unsubscribe processing, information encryption, and audit trails. For establishments topic to particular information sovereignty necessities, platforms should supply applicable information storage places.

Choose a platform that may scale together with your establishment’s development and adapt to evolving communication methods. HubSpot allows increased schooling establishments to centralize marketing, admissions, and student service processes in a single highly effective CRM platform. The University of Wyoming leveraged HubSpot’s versatile platform to develop from primary e mail campaigns to classy advertising and marketing automation that elevated lead quantity by 26% and conversion charges to 18% year-over-year whereas offering the data-driven insights wanted to justify advertising and marketing investments to management.

Analyze historic e mail engagement information to determine when your viewers most often opens and clicks emails. For increased schooling audiences, prospective students check email multiple times daily with 88% checking at least once per day. Contemplate sending emails throughout weekday afternoons when potential college students overview faculty info or weekend mornings once they have extra time to interact with content material.

Monitor efficiency and optimize future campaigns.

Monitor key metrics together with open charges, click-through charges, conversion charges, and unsubscribe charges. Evaluate efficiency throughout totally different viewers segments to determine which messages resonate with which teams. A/B take a look at variables like topic traces, ship instances, e mail size, and CTA placement. Use insights from every marketing campaign to refine future messaging and enhance total effectiveness.

HubSpot excels for increased schooling establishments as a result of it unifies advertising and marketing, admissions, and scholar service operations in a single built-in platform. Five graduate schools at the University of San Diego changed Salesforce with HubSpot, saving admissions groups 2-4 hours per week by means of automated workflows and streamlined processes. HubSpot‘s free CRM tier makes it accessible for smaller establishments whereas enterprise options help massive college programs. The platform’s reporting capabilities allow advertising and marketing groups to display ROI by tying promoting spend on to enrolled college students, which is important for securing continued finances help.

How a lot does e mail advertising and marketing software program for increased schooling value?

Electronic mail advertising and marketing software program pricing for increased schooling varies considerably based mostly on contact record measurement, function necessities, and ship volumes. Entry-level plans begin round $12-15 per 30 days for 500 contacts with primary options. Mid-tier plans with automation and superior segmentation vary from $35-80 per 30 days for 500 contacts. Enterprise options for big universities with tens of 1000’s of contacts can exceed $3,600 per 30 days. Many platforms together with HubSpot supply free plans with restricted options, and quite a few suppliers prolong instructional reductions to accredited establishments. Consider whole value of possession together with potential overages, add-on options, and integration prices.

What are the very best practices for e mail advertising and marketing in increased schooling?

Profitable increased schooling e mail advertising and marketing prioritizes personalization based mostly on prospect pursuits and software stage, leverages automation to ship well timed messages at essential enrollment choice factors, segments audiences to make sure relevance, optimizes for cell gadgets the place most emails are opened, consists of clear calls-to-action that information prospects towards subsequent steps, assessments topic traces and content material variations to enhance efficiency, displays compliance with information privateness laws, and measures ROI by monitoring conversions from inquiry by means of enrollment. Since 55% of potential college students favor e mail communication through the software course of, sustaining constant, beneficial e mail touchpoints all through the enrollment journey considerably influences enrollment choices.

The University of Wyoming elevated lead quantity by 26% and improved conversion charges to 18% year-over-year utilizing HubSpot‘s advertising and marketing automation and analytics. The college leveraged HubSpot’s dashboard capabilities to display to management how advertising and marketing investments translated straight into enrolled college students.

Five graduate schools at the University of San Diego changed their earlier CRM with HubSpot, saving admissions groups 2-4 hours per week by means of automated e mail sequences and streamlined occasion administration whereas gaining visibility into prospect engagement that enabled customized advising appointments.

University College Dublin Professional Academy used HubSpot to scale from zero to 8-figure income in three years, doubling their shut price from 10% to twenty% by leveraging data-driven insights and streamlined communication processes that HubSpot enabled.

Able to see how HubSpot can remodel your establishment’s e mail advertising and marketing and enrollment administration? Get started with HubSpot today and expertise the platform that helps increased schooling establishments entice extra certified prospects, convert extra candidates, and display clear advertising and marketing ROI to management.