Back to school newsletter ideas & examples

August comes rolling around and the back-to-school (BTS) shopping begins. In 2024, around 95% of American parents—out of a total of 65.9 million—planned on purchasing school supplies for their children. In 2023, this led to $41.5 billion in back-to-school spending—the highest figure on record. 

This means if you’re an email marketer and work in an education sector-related business, you need to set up a back-to-school newsletter that informs parents about all your latest offers and shopping tips and tricks.

But how do you start a BTS newsletter that encourages click-throughs? We’ll talk about some of the best back-to-school newsletter ideas, examples, and tips in this article. Let’s get started! 

Why send back-to-school newsletters?

Aside from getting access to a multi-billion-dollar business market, there are three main reasons you should consider sending a back-to-school campaign. These are:

1. You’ll build stronger connections 

Parents are already looking to buy their children the best supplies they can during BTS. When you send them a back-to-school newsletter chock-full of information they could use, you establish yourself as a “helpful party” in their mind, which improves the relationship between your brand and your customers (parents in this case).

As a result, parents—who usually don’t have the time to spend hours on the internet—trust your word, and that can increase your email open rates and conversions. Here are some things to include in a back-to-school email campaign: Here are some things to include in a back-to-school email campaign: 

• Deals
• Online safety advice
• Tips on what to buy
• If you’re a school, your activity calendar (so parents know what they’ll need to purchase)

2. You’ll promote your unique value proposition 

BTS newsletters also help you set up a unique value proposition—something that nobody else may be doing. 

For instance, let’s say you’re an educational supplies (e.g. backpacks, folders, erasers, pencils) seller and have created pre-configured school supplies packages for elementary, middle, and high school students. 

You could advertise these packages in your newsletter to help parents short on time learn about these. You could even offer discounts only for your newsletter subscribers. 

3. You’ll gain a competitive Edge 

Not many educational industry brands are investing in BTS newsletters. Why? Because either they: 

1. Don’t want to intrude where they aren’t wanted (all advertising is like this)
2. Don’t think these newsletters could work 
3. Don’t know what they could talk about in their newsletters

You could get around all of these by creating a newsletter that provides value. For instance, if you use welcome back-to-school newsletters to inform parents about what their children will require for the school year and mention where they could get these supplies, you take a burden off their shoulders and gain a competitive—which makes it more likely for busy parents to buy from you. 

Some important statistics

Now that we’ve regaled you with why back-to-school newsletters are great for your business, let’s look at some cold hard facts to back up our arguments: 

• According to Deloitte’s 2024 Back-to-School Survey, K-12 parents were expected to spend $586 per student, which is down $11 year-over-year, in 2024. School supplies and clothes were expected to account for most of the spending. 

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• Back-to-school spending for K-12 students was expected to remain flat—around $31.3 billion in 2024, according to Deloitte. This is due to parents lowering technology product spending, which is the most expensive part of the BTS budget. 
• In 2024, parents expected to spend 66% of their budget for back-to-school supplies by the end of July compared to 59% in 2023. This means retailers need to begin promoting their products early on digital channels.  
• Parents surveyed in Delotte’s 2024 Back-to-School Survey planned on shopping across 4.7 retail formats on average—compared to 3.9 in 2023. About 67% expected to shift brands if their preferred brand was too expensive, 62% expected to shop at more affordable places, and 50% expected to shift to private labels. 
• Multichannel retailers accounted for 80% of all BTS spending in 2024, up from 73% last year.  
• Families spent $41.5 billion on K-12 back-to-school supplies in 2023—the highest number to date.  
• The average K-12 household back-to-school budget was $890.07 in 2023—a 30% increase from 2018. This included electronics and computer equipment (36.7%), classroom supplies (15.7%), shoes (18.7%), and clothing and accessories (28.9%), according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). 

• The average spending per college-aged child per household rose to an average of $1,366.95 in 2023—up from $1,199.43 in 2022. This is a 13% increase. 

• Between 2019 to 2023, back-to-school spending per child increased by 15%.

The bottom line is there is lots of money spent on BTS shopping. And a back-to-school newsletter is an excellent way to maximize your share of this spending.

Examples of high-impact back-to-school newsletters

Here are five back-to-school newsletter examples and why they work: 

1. Grammarly

Grammarly’s back-to-school email newsletter gets straight to the point with its eye-catching design and clear message. The vibrant graphic of a student and the bold “55% OFF” badge immediately grab attention, making the offer hard to miss.

The friendly copy and prominent “Upgrade Now” button also make it easy to understand and act on the deal.  

2. Atoms

Atoms’ back-to-school email reads like a friend talking about common college problems and giving the best solutions. It speaks directly to students’ needs and highlights a shoe for everything college students could experience on campus. 

The section for masks is a great slip-in because it gives students the option to round out their purchases without feeling they have to buy anything. 

3. Bose

Headphones are a fact of life if you’re a music major or just like music in general, which is true for most students. Bose tackles this need head-on at the start of the email and creates FOMO by mentioning that the sale offer will soon end. 

The company also speaks to students studying in noisy environments, targeting two personas with one email.  

4. Care of Chan

Care of Chan’s back-to-school email is all about helping students find events they can go to during their free time near their universities. It’s a long email that goes over various events happening during BTS season, each color-coded to make it easy to read. 

The email uses vibrant visuals and engaging deadlines to make each event sound exciting, encouraging students to explore and make the most of their free time. 

5. Crocs 

This Crocs’ back-to-school email uses bold, colorful images of the company’s latest styles to grab attention and playful copy that appeals to both students and parents. 

Each section of the email—neatly divided using background colors—calls attention to different types of shoes, suggesting that Crocs has something for every child. You could use a similar back-to-school newsletter template if your brand sells various products that students would find useful.

Top tips for your back-to-school newsletter Campaigns

How do you ensure your BTS newsletter campaigns bring in the maximum revenue? Let’s walk through six tips you need to keep in mind when creating a back-to-school newsletter campaign.

1. Segment your audience

Email list segmentation ensures your back-to-school season emails deliver the right content to the right people. You’re able to send targeted promotions to parents in all age categories, from those with newly-born children to those with college-going ones. 

Here’s how to segment your email list:  

• Figure out your segmentation criteria—Are you going to use demographics to create a list? If not, do you have personas you’ll be using to segment it? What about user actions? Do you want to send different emails to existing customers and different ones to new leads?
• Use automation to segment your list—Once you’ve decided how you’re going to segment your list, you need to use your email software to create automatic workflows that automatically add a customer to a specific list when they take a certain action. 
• Create content—Create content specific to the interests for each segment. For instance, if you’ve segmented your list based on the age of children, you can send different emails to parents of elementary school kids versus those with high school teenagers.

When you send out helpful content, you experience improved open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. 

2. Use catchy subject lines

The subject line of your back-to-school newsletter decides whether or not your readers will open it. If it doesn’t catch their interest, they won’t interact with its content—which means all your effort will go to waste. How do you write a killer subject line? Here’s what to do: 

• Ensure your subject line mentions why you’re sending the email and why it matters in six to eight words. You need to give your readers a reason to explore your message further, so make your subject line catchy.
• Ask questions and use emojis to make your email stand out—and stir up emotions.  
• Make sure your subject line is less than 50 characters because it won’t show fully otherwise, which makes it less engaging. 
• Mention a persuasive piece of data, social proof, or something unique about the product/service you’re trying to promote. 
• Try to avoid using words like “help,” “reminder,” or “percent off” because case studies have shown they’re bad for open rates.   

Some examples include “Super Savings on Back-to-School Supplies,” “Last Days for the Back to School Sale!” and “Back to School Sale: $15 OFF $75!”

If you don’t know where to start, you can use an AI subject line generator to brainstorm ideas for your back-to-school newsletter campaign. Consider generating several subject lines for an email and decide which one performs the best using an A/B test. 

You can also start with back-to-school newsletter templates with pre-written subject lines and customize them to your liking. 

3. Incorporate a clean and attractive design

You can’t expect your audience, no matter how engaged, to read everything in your back-to-school season newsletter. They may not have the time, which means overloading your back-to-school newsletter with text, graphics, or images will be moot.

Here are some email design do’s and don’ts to remember: 

• Avoid walls of text because they make newsletters hard to read. Instead, break them into paragraphs no longer than three lines.  
• Use headings to create visual focal points so people who scan can quickly get through your newsletter.  

• Explain concepts using infographics, like the benefits of getting the service or product you’re promoting. 
• Use center alignment for headings and left-aligned text to improve accessibility. 
• Divide up your email logically. If your newsletter contains three separate sections, color-code them so they’re easier to tell apart. 
• Use abstract, absurd, or human graphics to point people toward the CTA button and give food for thought.  
• Add white space between text to reduce the visual weight of your newsletter. 

That’s exactly what Quay has done here: 

The email’s design is clean, with plenty of white space to make it easy on the eyes. The headline is also center-aligned and supported by a high-quality image of the product, so you know immediately what’s being offered. 

4. Keep your copy brief and impactful

With the average customer attention span of eight seconds, your email copy needs to be creative and concise to make sure your readers take the desired action. Waxing poetic about every product you offer will only make them hit that back button. But you also don’t want to be so concise that your customers don’t understand your offer. 

The trick is being crystal clear about what that single email is going to achieve. If you’re sending a back-to-school email containing product suggestions, don’t talk about their benefits. But if you’re only talking about one product, a sentence (or two) or bullet points about benefits are the way to go.

Here’s how Hari Mari does it:

The use of bullet points makes the benefits easy to skim through. This helps the busy audience—mostly students—understand at a glance why these kicks are perfect for them without having to wade through blocks of text. 

The email copy is also concise and describes the benefits without mincing words, which makes them seem more factual and thus more believable. 

5. Adopt the fear of missing out (FOMO) strategy

If you’re told something is a limited edition or has a one-time-only discount, you’ll be more likely to consider buying it. In fact, you might even buy it thinking its value will increase over time or that you won’t ever get it again. 

The point is scarcity sells and brands know it. For instance, this newsletter by Fly By Jing makes excellent use of FOMO.

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It has a heading (“Last, Last Chance”) placed front and center to induce FOMO and the copy after it only increases this emotion. Every word of the email is targeted to cause anxiety and make customers think they’ll miss this offer if they don’t act now. 

If you’re a brand working in the educational business, you should also use this strategy to prompt people to buy your products. For instance, if you sell stationary bundles in bulk and are running a sale, you could advertise this sale through your BTS newsletter in the same way Atoms is doing it here: 

Compared to Fly By Jing, this back-to-school newsletter has more relaxed language and isn’t quite so FOMO-inducing. You can adopt this same strategy for low-ticket items and consider the Fly By Jing strategy for high-ticket items that are likely to sell fas.

6. Time your campaign right

If you send your back-to-school emails at midnight expecting busy parents or students to see them first thing in the morning, this may not work—they could get buried under other emails. Similarly, if you send them in the evening thinking your readers may see them after work, school, or college, that may not work either—because most of them will relax after this time. 

This means determining the right time to send emails—so people can actually see and read them—should be at the top of your priority list. Unfortunately, there isn’t a golden hour you could send your emails and have them all magically opened. 

But there are some tricks that may work, such as: 

• Schedule your newsletter to be delivered between 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is when most people in the United States and Canada check their emails. 
• Use A/B testing to find out when your readers are most active. You can determine this by looking at the time your emails get the most clicks and experimenting with a few different schedules before settling on the one with the most consistent results. 

Aside from that, try to stick to a regular newsletter schedule. For instance, if you send an email every few days, don’t stray from that schedule. Consider using email newsletter software that helps you automate all these steps so you don’t have to spend hours configuring your campaign. 

5 Distinct content ideas that add value for BTS newsletter

Apart from the usual product recommendations and discounts, here are five content ideas you can use to ensure your BTS newsletter provides value every single time:

1. Leadership note

A leadership note is any type of message from a prominent figure within your school or business, such as the CEO, CMO, COO, or principal. It adds a personal touch to the newsletter—in the form of “the leadership up top actually cares about the customers.”

These notes also give people in leadership positions a chance to introduce new reforms, build stronger relationships with their audience, and add a personal touch to the newsletter. This back-to-school newsletter by Nevis Public School starts does exactly that:

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The newsletter helps people in leadership positions talk about all the updates they’ve made to the school building. This update can help readers feel included, which can improve relationships. 

2. Fun contests

Contests increase your audience engagement and improve your chances of getting repeat customers if you’re a business. For instance, you could include a spinning wheel graphic in your newsletter that awards school essentials bundles and single items. 

You could also create a giveaway that is limited to people in your email list and comes with a list of prizes. Just make sure to be clear about what you’re giving away so nobody is disappointed. Here is an example by Quizlet:

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If you’re a school, you could include contests like “Best Dressed for First Day” and ask students to submit their entries via social media or email. You can then announce the winners through your newsletter, which will encourage more students to interact with it. 

3. Engaging interviews

Interviews give your audience a peek into your business or school environment, help you share success stories, and provide advice or tips for the upcoming school year. They can also make going to school appear more interesting to younger children. 

For instance, a student could discuss how they gained admission into a top 10 university in the newsletter and how they’re taking initiatives to help other students. 

Similarly, teachers could share their favorite classroom moments and something they like about teaching—which is the case in this newsletter: 

Each new teacher introduces themselves, shares their experience, and discusses what makes them unique. This helps parents and students know who they are during the open house. It also makes them seem more approachable to parents and could encourage students to talk to them. 

4. School event calendar

A school newsletter won’t be complete without a school event calendar because it helps parents and students block time for future events beforehand. Try to include a list of all the fall activities happening after the school opens in August, such as open house, orientation, and cultural events.

There’s a chance some parents will miss your newsletter. If that’s the case, you could include the main events happening immediately after the school opens and post the actual calendar on your school website to keep parents informed. That’s what Nevis Public School has done in the example above. 

5. Showcase classroom activities

If your students know what they can expect from their classes, they’ll be more excited to come to school and participate in class activities. Showing school activities will also inform parents about what their children are learning—and even attract prospective students.

This is also a great way to share student success stories and the dedication of your teaching staff—both of which can improve your school’s relationships with parents and the larger community. 

To do this, you could include photos and descriptions of educational experiences children will have in their classes in your newsletter. You could also post pictures from last year’s classes to help students visualize what they’ll be taught. You can also look at editable classroom newsletter templates for inspiration.

Send your back-to-school newsletters with GetResponse

Parents spend billions every year in back-to-school season, so if you’re wondering whether or not you should start a BTS newsletter, cast your doubts aside. But make sure to create a newsletter that is actually valuable and helpful to your readers. 

You also have to make sure it looks right on desktop and mobile, is delivered at the right time and to the right email address, doesn’t get stuck in spam filters, and resonates with your audience—a tall order but not with GetResponse. 

GetResponse is an email newsletter software that helps you create ready-to-go BTS season campaigns without having to spend weeks on them.

We take care of the nitty-gritty details like email deliverability and clean list maintenance, so you have all the time you need to create back-to-school offers and newsletters that encourage action and conversions. Sign up for free today.