Using Email Marketing to Recruit More Students

Email marketing delivers a 3,600% return on investment, $36 for every $1 spent, yet most universities still treat it as a broadcast channel. In Episode 24 of Higher Ed Chats, Scott Miller talks with Dayana Kibilds, VP of Strategy at Ology and co-author of the book Mailed It, about why institutional email underperforms and what it takes to turn the channel into a genuine recruitment tool.

Kibilds spent years inside higher ed at Penn State and Cornell before moving to the agency side, and that dual perspective shapes how she thinks about the gap between what universities send and what prospective students actually need. The core problem, she argues, isn't email — it's institutional thinking about email. Most enrollment communications are written about the university, not for the reader. The inbox is a one-on-one space; it rewards relevance and punishes self-promotion.

The conversation digs into what "relevant" actually means at scale. Kibilds makes a useful distinction between personalization and individualization: you don't need to know each student's name or GPA to write email that feels personal. "Personalization doesn't have to be individualization," she says. "It just has to be an acknowledgement of what else I'm experiencing during this moment that I'm receiving your email." Acknowledging exam season, the anxiety of leaving home, or the pressure of a deadline costs nothing to write but lands differently than a generic program overview.

Kibilds and Miller also discuss where AI fits into email marketing for higher education today. Her take is clear: AI is a useful simplification tool, not a generation tool. Using it to draft campaign emails tends to produce the same errors institutions already make — institutional voice, vague language, feature-first framing. Feeding it a dense paragraph and asking for plain-language rewrites? That's where it earns its keep.

The episode closes on two bigger shifts reshaping recruitment email strategy. First, email volume is rising sharply, much of it AI-generated, which means standing out now requires genuine specificity rather than polished templates. Second, Gen Alpha students are consulting parents earlier and more frequently in the decision process, a dynamic Ology's own research confirms, and most institutions still don't have parent-facing email tracks to match.

Whether you're auditing an existing email program or building one from scratch, this conversation covers the strategic questions worth asking first.

Who’s in the episode?

Dayana Kibilds is the VP of Strategy at Ologie, a renowned branding and marketing agency that's dedicated to helping educational institutions create distinctive brands and impactful campaigns. Dayana has recently co-authored an insightful book with Ashley Budd called Mailed It!: A Guide to Crafting Emails that Build Relationships and Get Results, which dives into the often overlooked power of email as a communication tool.

Scott Miller is the host of Keystone Higher Ed Chats and the Executive Director of Keystone's international division, bringing over 11 years of EdTech experience to conversations about global education.

After graduating from DePauw University, living and working in different cultures showed him that stepping outside your comfort zone doesn't just broaden your horizons; it reshapes them entirely. That belief in the transformative power of international experiences brought Scott to Keystone in 2010, where he's spent over a decade (and counting) helping higher education institutions reach students worldwide.

On Keystone Higher Ed Chats, Scott speaks with thought-leaders in the industry about what he's most passionate about: how education changes lives, how cultural experiences broaden perspectives at any age, and how Keystone's mission—connecting students with their ideal higher education institution—makes those life-changing moments possible.

Timestamps & Takeaways

Timestamps

Takeaways

Stop using email as a cold outreach tool, it's not built for that
The single biggest mistake enrollment teams make is treating email as an awareness channel, sending messages to prospects who have no prior relationship with the institution. As Dayana Kibilds explained, email is a consent-based medium. It works when you're communicating with people who already know you. Redirecting cold outreach to paid or search channels and reserving email for warmer audiences will immediately improve both deliverability and conversion.

Write about the student's life, not your institution's features
Most institutional emails are, in Dayana's words, about the institution rather than the reader. Students are stressed about leaving home, managing applications, and figuring out next steps, they're not waiting for your ranking update. Shift the content frame: what does the student need to hear right now, given where they are in their life? That reframe alone changes open rates, click-through, and replies.

Personalization doesn't require a data warehouse
Dayana's definition of personalization is worth keeping: "It doesn't have to be individualization. It just has to be an acknowledgement of what else I'm experiencing during this moment." A single email acknowledging exam season, application anxiety, or the stress of choosing between offers can reach 20,000 people and still feel personal. Contextual relevance is the mechanism. You don't need individual data fields to get there.

Subject lines should tell, not tease
The instinct to write a clever, curiosity-gap subject line usually backfires. Dayana's rule is direct: "Your subject line should have the goal of sending the message, not opening the email." If the student reads the subject and gets the core point without opening, that's a success. Enrollment emails aren't click-bait content. Clarity about what's inside builds the trust that keeps people on your list.

Use AI to cut dense copy, not to write it
AI email generation tends to produce exactly the mistakes Dayana describes: institution-centric, wordy, and generic. The smarter application is feeding AI your own draft and asking it to simplify. Institutional writers often default to long, formal language because it sounds professional. AI is a useful editor for cutting that density down to something a prospective student will actually read on their phone.

Build a parent communication track, Gen Alpha expects it
Ology's 2025 research found Gen Alpha students consult parents before making major decisions at a higher rate than previous generations, a pattern the pandemic reinforced. If your email program only speaks to the student, you're missing a decision influencer who's often more receptive to detailed institutional information. A separate parent sequence, or at minimum a parent-facing message early in the funnel, addresses the actual decision dynamic.

Vague website content is losing you AI search traffic
Dayana flagged a trend that connects email to the broader digital strategy: AI-powered search tools surface specific, content-rich pages, not generic program overviews. Institutions that produce substantive content (detailed outcomes, student stories, specific facts about programs) earn the citations. Those that rely on polished-but-thin copy don't show up. This applies to the pages your emails are sending people to, not just the emails themselves.

Higher Ed Chats

April 23, 2026

27 minutes

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Using Email Marketing to Recruit More Students

Who’s in the episode?

Dayana Kibilds

Scott Miller

Timestamps & Takeaways

Timestamps

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