Implementing Audience Segmentation at the Fordham Career Center

When I first started at Fordham, my experience with email marketing was limited to student org projects. Managing a newsletter with over 11,000 core subscribers was a new challenge, but I was excited to grow alongside the Career Center’s efforts to enhance its email communications. After renewing my email marketing certification from HubSpot Academy, I refocused our strategy on personalization and content optimization.

Problem

• Untailored event and job lists, causing the weekly newsletter to contain an overwhelming amount of information and to feel irrelevant to all audiences
• Lack of strategy or planning in supplemental targeted emails received an outspoken negative reaction from students, citing too many emails and too few actually related to their interests
• Low open and click rates, lack of trust in email content
• Students were unable to identify Career Center staff with expertise in their desired area
• Existing technology and workflow systems did not support personalized email content and required time-consuming manual data entry

Strategy

• Identified five primary audience segments for weekly student newsletters, based on common major groupings and industry interest areas
• Curated a directory of recommended majors and industry groupings for various role types, based on potential interest alignment
• Assigned industry expert career counselors as representatives for the primary audience segments and the default email sender identity
• Redesigned newsletter format
• Tested send times and subject lines
• Migrated newsletter hosting from Mailchimp to Beehiiv, allowing for RSS integration with Handshake event and job listings, removing manual data entry

Outcomes

• 2025 Academic Year (vs 2024 Academic Year)
  • +14.6% newsletter open rate
  • +87.5% newsletter click rate
  • +32.44% targeted email click rate
• Spring 2025 (vs Spring 2024)
  • 82% newsletter open rate
  • +16.9% newsletter open rate
  • +101.76% newsletter click rate
  • +26% program attendance
• January 2025 (vs January 2024)
  • +29.6% newsletter open rate
  •  +186.67% newsletter click rate