Email is thriving, with 333.2 billion messages sent daily across the globe — a figure that will grow to 376 billion by 2025. But with inboxes more crowded than ever and major mailbox providers implementing stricter spam filters, landing in the inbox has never been more challenging.

For higher education marketers, simply increasing email volume won’t cut it. Despite how brilliant the email content may be, success hinges on smarter strategies — like segmentation, email throttling and sunsetting — to ensure messages are seen and valued.

1. Segment for Success: Personalize and Prioritize

Today’s students expect personalized communication. Whether emailing prospective students, admitted students or their parents, segmentation allows you to tailor content to specific needs.

Tip for Higher Engagement:

Increase email frequency for the most engaged subscribers. For example, students who actively open emails might appreciate weekly updates about campus events or financial aid tips. On the other hand, less engaged audiences should receive fewer but more targeted emails to avoid unsubscribes and encourage increases in engagement.

Segmentation ensures you’re providing value, not just filling inboxes.

2. Throttling to Protect Reputation

Throttling emails isn’t about reducing volume — it’s about managing the timing of sends to protect domain reputation with mailbox providers. Gmail, Yahoo and others use thresholds, such as 5,000 emails per day, to classify senders as “bulk.” Sending too many emails in one burst can flag messages as spam, lowering deliverability rates.

How to Use Throttling Effectively:

• Pace Deployments: Send emails in smaller batches over several hours or days to avoid overwhelming providers’ systems.
• Adapt Messaging: Use data from early batches to refine subject lines, calls to action or timing for subsequent sends.

Throttling ensures a smoother delivery process while decreasing the likelihood that emails land in spam folders.

3. Implement a Sunsetting Policy

Inactive subscribers can hurt email metrics, dragging down your open and click rates while increasing the risk of being flagged as spam. A sunsetting policy allows one to focus on active subscribers by automatically removing disengaged ones from a list.

Why Sunsetting Works:

• Improves deliverability by focusing on engaged recipients.
• Reduces wasted resources on uninterested subscribers.
• Maintains a clean and engaged list for future campaigns.

For example, set a rule where subscribers who haven’t engaged in 90 days are sent a re-engagement email. If they don’t respond, move them to a dormant list to phase them out of campaigns over time.

Conclusion: Strategize for the Inbox

With increasing competition for inbox attention, higher education marketers must prioritize quality over quantity. Segmentation, throttling and sunsetting are more than good practices — they’re essential for navigating today’s email landscape.

Now is the time to rethink the approach to email volume. Strategic communication includes more than just landing that noteworthy message in the inbox.