Why students don’t read your e-mails: A critical look at how university email communications guide or confuse students through the student experience and the COVID-19 pandemic

Jenny Mcmahon
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Jenny Mcmahon: Director of Marketing and Communications, Enrollment Management at New York University, USA

Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing, 2021, vol. 6, issue 1, 7-23

Abstract: This paper examines the perception that ‘students don’t read e-mail’ through the execution and analysis of a comprehensive e-mail audit conducted by New York University’s Enrollment Management Marketing division from May 2019 through May 2020. By looking at the volume, content and quality of e-mail received from the university, we see how institutional messaging can either support or complicate the student experience. This research includes a human-processed dataset of all incoming e-mail communications received during the audit period, quantitative and qualitative analyses of the communications and focus group testimony from undergraduate students. We examine e-mail communications through both the everyday business of being a student and through high-stakes events like the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper illustrates that while volume should not be dismissed as an area of concern among university communicators, the underlying practices that cause e-mail to be ignored are more complex and demand a more strategic approach to studentfacing communications.

Keywords: e-mail communications; communications strategy; student experience; content; brand management; organisational culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jeam00:y:2021:v:6:i:1:p:7-23

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